Thendara House (59 page)

“Have your people such a saying?” Mother Lauria asked. “Some women in this house make a point of eating only grains and fruits; yet their sage wrote that everything which shares this world with us has life, even to the rocks; and all things prey and feed upon one another and come at last to feed the lowest life of all. So that we should eat reverently of whatever comes to us, bearing in mind that some life was sacrificed that we might live and that one day we will feed life in our turn. Ah, well, another philosopher has written that the morning after Festival makes every drunkard a philosopher!”

She laughed and passed a jar of fruit conserve to Magda, who spread some on her bread, wishing she could explain her feelings in terms of a simple hangover!

“Well, we must decide,” said Lauria briskly, finishing the tea in her mug. “I feel that Marisela should be the first.”

“I agree, and I doubt not she will teach the Terrans as much as she learns from them,“said Cholayna, “but can she be spared here?”

“Probably not, but she must have this chance all the same,” said Mother Lauria. “Keitha can do her work, and later have her turn. I would like to send Janetta - Margali, are you as sleepy as that? Should I send you back to bed?”

“Oh, no,” Magda said quickly. It had seemed to her for a moment that Marisela was standing in a corner of the office listening to their deliberations and at the same time she knew Marisela was upstairs in her bed, still half asleep, wondering how long she could enjoy this delicious sleep before someone came in search of a midwife and roused her. She was not alone in bed, and Magda recoiled, not wanting to know this about Marisela either. She said hastily, “Janetta is too rigid, she could not, I think, accept Terran ways.”

“She is more intelligent than you think her,” Mother Lauria said. “There is little here to challenge her mind; I had hoped to send her to Arilinn, but she would never make a midwife, she’s not sympathetic enough to women. She herself has decided she wishes for no children, having a certain distaste for the preliminaries. Yet there is no other training available to her; Nevarsin will not train female healer-priests. She is extremely clever, too clever for most of the things ordinary women, even Amazons, are able to do. She has no interest in soldiering, nor has she the physical strength for it. I think she would be very valuable to you; and what she learns would be priceless to us as well.”

Magda still felt skeptical, and Mother Lauria continued “You do not know Janni’s story. She came from a village where her mother was left widowed with seven children, and had no other skills to keep them, so she became a harlot. She tried to train Janetta to her trade before the girl was twelve. For a year or two Janni was too young and timid to resist; then she ran away to us.”

Camilla had said it once; every Renunciate has her own story and every story is a tragedy.
How have I earned my place among them
?

“There is a young woman called Gwennis,” Mother Lauria said. “She is at Nevarsin now, working with some scrolls in the keeping of the brothers - you do not know her, Margali - “

“I do not know her well enough to recommend her for this,” Magda said, “but she is my oath-sister, after all - she was in the band led by Jaelle.”

“I think she would be a good choice,” Mother Lauria said. “The very fact that she volunteered for that work would perhaps make her good at this. And perhaps Byrna; she has an inquiring mind - not to mention that she is still pining tor her child and this would be a blessing, give her something new to think about. Cholayna - ” she used the Terran woman’s name hesitantly, “have you any particular ideas about what age these women should be?”

“I do not think it matters,” Cholayna said. “They should, perhaps, not be too young. Your people, I have heard, are trusted with responsibility at an earlier age than ours; but if the Empire people thought them mere children, they might not take them seriously enough, as independent adults. Not younger than twenty, I should think.”

“So old?” Mother Lauria asked. Magda was remembering that Irmelin was one of the most bookish women in the House, spending most of her leisure hours in reading or sometimes in writing for Mother Lauria in her office, and suggested her name.

“I think she is too lazy, perhaps, too content with things as they are,” Mother Lauria said. “Three years ago, perhaps, but not now. Though if she wishes it, once it is made clear to her how much work it is, she might be given a chance. Certainly she is intelligent enough, and does not shrink from hard work.”

“What I would like,” Cholayna said, “would be a chance to administer one of the specific intelligence tests to all of your women… we have some very good ones which are not culturally biased, measuring only the ability to think abstractly and to learn.”

“That might be valuable to us as well,” said Mother Lauria. “Certainly there are stupid women, just as there stupid men, but the most intelligent of women can be taught as a girl that seeming stupid is her most useful skill when she is among men, and most of them are clever enough to learn to do
that
! The ones who cannot learn that, or will not learn it, are often the ones who come to us. But sometimes we have women who are even afraid to try to learn to read, because they have been taught so well that it is beyond their skills! How, in Evanda’s name, anyone can think that a woman who spins and weaves and grows food in her own greenhouse and supervises her servants, teaches her children, and manages all of a family’s resources, can be called stupid, I will never know! It is as if we should call a farmer, who can manage crops and animals at all seasons of the year, stupid because he knows nothing of the philosophy of the ancient sages! Women come here thinking themselves stupid, and I do not know how to convince them otherwise. But perhaps, if your tests were presented as games, and I could convince them that there are different kinds of learning…”

“Well, certainly we have enough tests, and people to administer them,” said Cholayna. “I am thinking of one of the technicians in the Psych department. She might be a good one to send here, not only for your sake but for her own - I think she could learn much from you. She is - ” Cholayna hesitated; “I am not sure of your word - Magda, help me? One who has no sexual interest in men - “

“
Menhiédris
,” said Magda, using the politest of many words; ruder ones were used every day in the Guild House but she was feeling sensitive on that subject just now.

“She would welcome knowing that there was a place in this culture which would not despise her,” Cholayna said. “A good many of our cultures are - shall we say far from perfect? It would interest her to know how your society structures such things. She might feel at home among you, more than some others, if you think they could accept anyone from another world. As, perhaps, you have accepted Magda - Margali?”

Mother Lauria said rather stiffly, “I am glad you think there is something where we can teach as well as learn from you,” and Cholayna smiled at her with disarming friendliness.

“Oh, you must not judge us by our worst and narrowest, Lauria. It is unfortunate that our Coordinator is a narrow-minded man, the worst rather than the best, a political appointee who has never wished to be here at all. But we have those among us who truly love the worlds where we are assigned, and wish to share them. Magda, for instance - “

Mother Lauria’s face softened.

“Margali has been truly one of us,” she said, “and if there are others of your people who are like her - or like yourself, Cholayna - we would welcome them as friends. And to be just, there are enough of our people who are narrow-minded, who judge your people by the men in the spaceport bars, not your scientists and your wiser men. There are even some who still think your people sky-devils… For their sake, I think, Margali, it is time to reveal the truth; who you are and where you came from, so that when they speak disparagingly of Terrans, those who know better may say to them, ‘but look, Margali is one of them, and she has lived as a sister to us in this house for a whole year,’ and show them that their prejudices are foolish… what do you say to that, Margali?”

Magda felt dismayed; surely not yet, surely she could not yet face the sudden shock and hostility with which at least a few would greet her… and even as the thought crossed her mind it seemed she could almost see the hostile faces, the rejection where there had been friendship, the awkwardness when they knew she had won friendship under false pretenses…

Again Cholayna was taking it for granted that she would again agree to put herself on the line between the two cultures, that again she would choose to be in the vulnerable spot of liaison of her two worlds. How they would despise her when they knew! And Camilla, Camilla would surely hate her…

I never allowed myself to be vulnerable to any man as I have been to Camilla; always before I have been guarded, trying always to be strong and in perfect possession of myself. With Camilla it is different, and I cannot bear that she should judge me harshly, it would be worse than when I lost Peter. One of the reasons he left me
, she thought,
was because I was too independent and could not surrender myself and my judgment, and now
…

“Margali?” And suddenly Magda knew that she had lost track of the conversation, that both Mother Lauria and Cholayna were looking at her. She said at random, “What was that you said about Camilla? I am sorry, my mind was wandering,” and then she was frightened. How had she known they were speaking about Camilla?

“Are you ill, Margali? You are as white as a shroud,” Mother Lauria said, and Cholayna asked, smiling, if she had danced too late last night.

“No one is good for anything on the day after Festival,” Lauria said “This was the wrong time for this visit, perhaps, but you could not know that. All we said, Margali, was that Camilla is in the house and she probably knows the women better than I; when you have trained a girl in swordplay and self-defense, you know all her weaknesses. The same is true of Rafaella, but she slept out last night, Camilla said. Would you run upstairs and ask her to come down to us? Your legs are younger than mine.”

Magda was glad to get out of the room, and on the stairs she stopped, gasping, holding herself together by sheer force of will. It was happening again, once again it seemed as if she were like a spider at the center of the web, twitching everywhere and feeling the threads move, upstairs to where Marisela was awake and singing as she splashed her face with the icy water… someone is on the steps seeking a midwife, but how had Marisela known that? The same way that I know it? Lady Rohana called it
laran
… but she also said I had learned to barrier it, what has happened to my control? She could feel Irmelin downstairs in the kitchen, she could hear Rezi and two other women cursing as they struggled with barn-shovels; the very dairy-animals sensed the disturbances of midsummer, or was it only that after dancing till very late the inflexible routine of caring for the animals did not fit well with a hangover?
Keitha… Keitha is more prejudiced even than I about lovers of women, I was not the only women to succumb to someone I loved at Midsummer…

“In Evanda’s name, why are you blocking the staircase?” demanded a cross voice behind her, and Magda, shaking, drew herself upright to face Rafaella. She was still wearing her holiday gown, which looked strange in the morning glare, and her hair was mussed, her eyes reddened. It was obvious even to Magda how she had spent the night…
or am I reading minds again
?

She moved to one side, with a murmur of apology, but Rafaella stopped and looked at her, taking her brusquely by the arm.

“What in hell ails you? You look as if you were going into labor or something like that!”

“No, no, I’m quite well - Mother Lauria sent me on an errand - “

“Then go and do it,” Rafaella said, not unkindly, “but you look as if you, not I, were the one who had spent a sleepless night and drunk too much. Well, I don’t suppose we are the only ones; when you have done your errand, you had better spend the rest of the day in bed - preferably alone!” She laughed and went on up the stairs, and Magda, feeling her face flush with heat, managed to recover herself and go on up to Camilla’s room. The older woman was awake and half dressed; she heard Rafaella on the stairs and put her head out into the hall.

“So you woke the dawn-birds, Rafi love - was it worth it?”

Rafaella rolled her eyes expressively, then chuckled. “How would you know if I told you? But oh, yes - for once in the year! Now I shall go and sleep!” She disappeared into her room, and Camilla chuckled softly as she turned to Magda.

“Did you come to find me? I supposed that Mother Lauria and the Terran woman would send for me sooner or later…”