Thendara House (48 page)

“Not a good hand-broken horse for a lady, no; we always have too many orders for those,”
Dom
Ann’dra said. “I could not promise you one of those for more than two years. But I can let you have a good halter-broken filly if you would like to train it yourself.”

“I will not have the time; but Doria should break her own horse anyhow,” Rafaella said. “Send it to Neskaya Guild House for Doria n’ha Rafaella.”

Dom
Ann’dra scribbled something on the papers he held. “I’ll send a man there with it within a tenday,” he said. He looked past Rafaella again at Magda curiously, and she almost heard,
What is she doing here
? Well, she thought, I certainly would like to know what
he
is doing here! No doubt he was on field assignment, had probably been so for years; if she went to the Terran Zone she might be able to look him up in Records; Cholayna or Kadarin would certainly know. She helped Rafaella stable and feed the new ponies. When she went back to the hall the porridge was cold, but Irmelin had brought fresh bread and opened a new jar of some kind of conserve, and a second nut-cake which vanished as swiftly as the first.

Ferrika was sitting at Marisela’s feet, her head in the woman’s lap.

“…so tragic… so many of the noble ladies do not really want children and cannot wait to turn them over to wet nurse and foster mother. But the Lady Ellemir is one of those who, as soon as their arms are empty, already hungers for another babe at her breast. Four years ago, when the Lady Callista could not suckle her child - though I think myself it was more that she did not wish to - Ellemir nursed Hilary along with her own Domenic.”

“Was she long in labor this time?”

“Not long, they had hardly time to summon me from the steward’s wife,” Ferrika said, “but all the more tragic because this time it was almost a matter of a few more days; if she could have carried the child even another tenday it might have lived. A girl, and born alive too, but we could not get her to breathe, her poor little lungs would not open, for all we could do. It was just a little too early. Once I really thought she would breathe and cry… a little mewing sound…” Ferrika buried her head in Marisela’s lap and the older woman patted her hair.

“Perhaps it is just as well; once or twice I have done what seemed a miracle and saved one alive when it seemed hopeless, but then they grow up crippled or partly paralyzed and cannot speak - it was the mercy of the Goddess.”

“Tell that to Lady Ellemir!” retorted Ferrika, blinking back her tears. “A girl, it was, perfectly formed, with red hair, and she had
laran
too, she had been real to them for three times forty days… I thought they would all go mad with grief. Lord Damon has not left my lady alone for a moment, day or night.”

“But think; even with
laran
, if the poor babe had grown up sickly… better an easy death and a return to the Goddess, who may send her forth again when the appointed time comes for her to live…”

“I know that, really,” Ferrika said, “but it was so hard to endure their grief. They had already named her…”

“I know,
breda
. But you are here with us, and you must stay until you are refreshed and cheerful again. You have had no holiday for a year and this has been hard on you, too, hasn’t it,
chiya
? Come, you must meet our sister Keitha, she works with me, and next year we will send her to the Arilinn College of Midwives. Also she will have Terran training, which will help her perhaps to save some of the ones who might die for no good reason. I want you two to know and love each other as sisters.”

As Ferrika embraced Keitha, behind them Camilla said, “How will you spend your holiday, Margali?”

But before she could answer, Rezi, who was on hall-duty, pushed her way quickly through to the fireside.

“Marisela, Rimal the Harp-maker is at the door, his wife is in labor - “

“Oh, no!” Magda said, “On your holiday, Marisela,” but the midwife was rising with a good-natured smile. Keitha asked “Will you need me,
breda
?”

“I think so; it is twins and her first confinement,” she said, and Keitha made a rueful face and went for her cloak. Marisela chuckled. “Like the beast-surgeon and the farmer, we have chosen a profession where we know no holidays except that the Goddess sends. Finish your breakfast, Keitha, there is no such hurry as all that! Rezi, fetch him some tea and cake in the Strangers Room and tell him we will be with him as soon as we can.” Nevertheless she was heading for the supply cabinet where she kept her midwife’s bag, and shortly afterward they heard the door shut behind her. Camilla chuckled.

“Who would be a midwife!”

“Not I,” said Magda, reflecting that this was one thing which did not change from Terran to Darkovan; no Medic could ever count on a free holiday, especially in maternity work!

“And what will you do with your holiday, since by good fortune you have not chosen to become a midwife?”

“I am still not sure. Go to the market, certainly, and buy some new boots,” Magda said, regarding the ancient and tattered sandals.

“And I,” said Mother Lauria, “will stay in the house and write up the year’s records, and enjoy an empty house with no one to trouble me! Perhaps I will go to the public dance in Thendara tonight, to listen to the musicians.”

“I will certainly go,” said Rafaella, “for they have asked me to be there to take a turn at playing for the dancers. And you, Margali?”

“I think so.” She had always wanted to attend the public Festival dances in Thendara’s main square, but she had not felt she could go alone, and Peter had never been willing to take her.

She knew they became rowdy at times, but, as a Renunciate she could take care of herself.

Rezi came in from the hall again, bearing a basket of flowers.

“For you, Rafi,” she said, and the women began to laugh and cheer.

“You have a lover so tenacious, Rafi?”

Rezi said, “The lad who brought them is not fifteen, and he asked for his mother,” and Rafaella, laughing, hurried out to the hall, snatching up a piece of the festival cake.

“Boys that age are always hungry! Just like girls,” she added over her shoulder, laughing.

Magda found herself remembering Midsummer, a year ago. She and Peter had still been married then. She had already known that the marriage was ending, but he had sent her the customary basket of fruit and flowers. It had been the final reconciliation before the quarrel that had smashed the marriage beyond repair. She wondered if he had sent Jaelle flowers this morning. She missed Peter. She was so tired of spending all her time with women!

“And what will you do today?” Camilla asked.

“I think I shall simply walk in the city and enjoy the knowledge that I am free to go wherever I wish,” she said, realizing suddenly that she really had no place she wished to go. “But I will certainly buy new boots. And you?”

Camilla shrugged. “There is a Festival supper in the House for everyone who has no place else to dine; I have promised to help cook it, since Irmelin wishes to spend the day with her mother - she is old and blind now and Irmi fears every time she sees her may be the last. But you young ones always want to go out; enjoy yourself,
breda
. And there is a women’s dance tonight; I may go to that, for I love to dance and I do not like dancing with men.”

Magda thought she might return to the Terran zone for a visit. But she really had no friends there now. No doubt Peter and Jaelle had plans for this holiday already.

She was coming down with her jacket and the remnants of the burnt boots - it might shorten the wait for a new pair - when Camilla called.

“Margali, a man came asking for you; I sent him into the Stranger’s Room. He has a strange accent - perhaps he is one of your kin from beyond the Hellers?”

A slight, dark man, faintly familiar, rose from a chair as she entered. He spoke her Darkovan name with a good accent, though it was not the accent of Thendara. The Terran. Montray’s son - what was his name -

“Monty,” he said, reminding her. She looked at him appraisingly.

“Where did you get those clothes?”

“Not right?”

“They’ll pass in a crowd. But the boots are too well made for a tunic as cheap as that one; anyone who could afford boots as good as that could afford to have had his tunic embroidered, not just trimmed with colored threads. And the undertunic is too coarse.”

“Haldane okayed them,” Monty said. “I wore them on the fire lines; and he didn’t do with me what he did with Li - he ordered Li to pretend to be deaf and dumb, so I thought I’d pass…”

“Why have you come here?” she asked sharply.

“Jaelle happened to let it drop that you’re free to go out today. May I escort you - I see you’re dressed to go out - for a little way, have a few minutes conversation with you?”

Well, if this man was in Intelligence there was no reason to offend him because she thought his father a fool.

“You can show me where you bought those boots; they’re good and I need a pair made,” she said, “and we can talk on the way to the market. Don’t talk in front of the women in the hall, they might spot your accent as wrong.”

He bowed. It was not really a bad imitation of the proper bow of a Darkovan servant facing a woman of high rank; he wasn’t stupid, or unobservant, he simply hadn’t had the training she and Peter had had. Or - presumably he was a graduate of the same Intelligence school on Alpha - he hadn’t had the experience. She guessed he was four or five years younger than herself. He followed her at the proper one step behind, through the hallway, and not until they were out of sight of the Guild House did he come up to walk beside her.

“The Karazin market?”

“I think so,” he said, “and if I’m going to walk with you I ought to carry that package, hadn’t I?”

She handed him the rolled bundle, but it burst open, and he stared in consternation at the charred soles, and scorched uppers.

“How the devil did you do that?”

“I was caught in one of the break-throughs, where the fire jumped a break.”

“I heard there were Renunciates there. Were you hurt?”

“Superficial burns on my feet, they’re healed now.”

“That explains Jaelle - “

“Jaelle? Did she go into the fire lines? Oh, I wish I’d seen her - “

“She didn’t go; Peter told me she’s pregnant,” Monty said. “She couldn’t have gotten Medical clearance, though she wanted to come and even made noises about it.”

Magda said a proper “How nice,” but inside she felt a curious sinking cold. So Jaelle would give Peter the son he wanted so much.

“We can go down here and get your feet measured for boots,” he said, “and then we can sit and talk awhile - it’s not forbidden to sit and talk to me in a public place, is it?”

Magda shrugged. “Not at Festival, certainly. It’s not commonplace, but at Festival we do as we please.” And if they saw her sitting in a public place with a man,, they could hardly think… She cut that thought off in the middle, defiant; let them think what they wished. Again in the person of a mute servant, he handed her package while she arranged with a cobbler to have the soles replaced and bargained for a new pair - he had none to fit her, but if she could return in three hours he would have the soles patched on the old ones and they would serve till the new were ready.

Magda paid for the work, grateful for the money she had earned helping Rafaella; even after paying her tithes to the house, she had enough for the mended boots and for the new pair. Anyway, she had some back pay in the Terran Zone, banked there, and she should arrange to convert some of it to Darkovan money; she had not needed much in the Guild House but that was more good luck than good management. Food and clothing were available in return for the help she gave in maintaining the House, and now that Rafaella had accepted her in Jaelle’s place and given her work she could do there - sorting loads, packaging travel-food into separate day rations - she had begun to pay her share. When she had finished at the bootstall she walked down the street and Monty caught up again with her.