Thendara House (7 page)

“Margali, then. And I see you speak the language of the Hellers, and are fluent in
casta;
can you speak Cahuenga as well?”

“I can,” Magda replied in that language, “though my accent is not good.”

“Your accent is no worse than any other newcomer to the City. Jaelle has told me you can read and write; is this in Standard only, or in
casta
?”

“I can read and write
casta
,” she said. “For my father was an expert in languages, and he wrote the - ” she hesitated, groping for a Darkovan way to explain a dictionary. “A compilation of your language for strangers and foreigners. And my mother was a musician, and made many transcriptions of folk songs and music of the Hellers.”

Mother Lauria pushed a pen and a scrap of paper toward her. “Let me see you copy this,” she said, and Magda looked at the scroll and began to copy the top line; she recognized the scroll as a poem her mother had set to music. She was not used to Darkovan pens, which were not as smooth as the ones she used for her own work. When she finished, Mother Lauria took the paper in her hand.

“A clumsy hand and girlish,” she said severely, “but at least you are not illiterate; many women when they come to us can only spell out their names. You have not the making of a scribe, but I have seen worse.”

Magda flushed at this harsh judgment; she felt bruised and offended; she had never been accused of clumsiness in her entire life.

“Let us see what we can do with you, then. You are no scribe. Can you sew? Embroider?”

“No, not even a little,” said Magda, remembering her attempt to botch together her trail clothes at Ardais.

“Can you cook?”

“Only for the trail, when traveling.”

“Can you weave, or do dyeing?”

“Not even a little.”

“Do you know anything of plants and gardening?”

“Even less, I fear.”

“Can you ride?”

“Oh, yes, certainly,” Magda said, glad to arrive at something which she
could
do.

“Can you saddle your own horse, care for his tack, look after his feed and care? Good; I am afraid we will have to put you to work in the stables,” said Mother Lauria. “Do you mind?”

“No, of course not,” Magda said. But she had to confess ignorance again when the woman asked if she knew anything of farriery, of metalworking and forging, of veterinary medicine, dairying, cheesemaking, animal husbandry or bootmaking, and she had to answer no to all of these things. Mother Lauria looked a little more approving when Magda said that she had been trained in both armed and unarmed combat; but she said thoughtfully “You have a good deal to learn,” and Magda guessed that Mother Lauria was as relieved as she was herself when the fair-haired, snub-nosed girl reappeared with trays and jugs.

“Ah, here is our dinner. Set it down here, Doria.”

The girl uncovered the tray; a bowl of some kind of baked grain with a sauce of vegetables, mugs of something which tasted like buttermilk, and some sliced fruit, preserved in honey or syrup. She gestured to Magda to help herself, and ate in silence for some time. Finally, as she folded her napkin, she asked, “How old are you?”

Magda assumed she meant Darkovan reckoning, and told her age; only later did she realize that Mother Lauria had been testing to see if she could reckon the difference between the relatively short Terran year and the much longer Darkovan.

“You have been married, Margali? Have you a child?”

Magda shook her head silently. That had been one of the main causes of tension between them, that she had not given Peter the son he wished for.

“Has that marriage been formally dissolved, as I gather you Terrans can do by mutual consent?”

Magda was surprised that Mother Lauria knew this much. “It has. Terran marriage is not quite like Freemate marriage, but it is nearer to that than to the Darkovan
catenas
. We agreed to separate more than a year ago.”

“That is fortunate; if you had a child under the age of fifteen, you would be required to make arrangements for its care. We do not allow women to take refuge here if they have obligations outside which have not been met. I assume you have not an aged parent who is dependent on you?”

“No; my mother and father have been dead for many years.”

“Have you another lover now?”

Silently Magda shook her head.

“Will it be a great hardship to you, to live without a lover? I suppose, since you and your husband have been separated for some time, you have grown accustomed to sleeping alone; but will it be very difficult for you? Or are you perhaps a lover of women?” She used the very polite term, and Magda was not offended - she supposed that any society composed only of women must attract a certain percentage of those who would rather die or renounce everything than marry. She found this line of questioning uncomfortably personal, but she had promised herself that she would answer everything as honestly as she could. “I do not think I shall find it unendurably painful,” and only after she had spoken did she realize how sarcastic it sounded. Mother Lauria smiled and said, “I hope not; but especially during your housebound time, this can be a problem, as anyone but a child would know. Let me think - it is hard to remember what to ask you. Have you been taught methods to prevent the conception of an unwanted child?”

Magda was really shocked now; of course such teaching was routine at puberty for any Terran, male or female, but she had been brought up in Caer Donn and absorbed the Darkovan attitude which considered such things proper only for prostitutes. She said “Yes,” but wondered what the older woman must think of her, confessing to such knowledge!

Mother Lauria nodded calmly. “Good. We have the women in the Towers to thank for that; women who work in the matrixes must not risk interrupting their term by an undesired pregnancy, yet it is not possible to require that they remain celibate, sometimes for many years. There is an ancient bond between the women of Neskaya Tower and the Guild of Renunciates, which goes back to the history of the Guild; we were formed, as you may know, in the days of Varzil the Good, from two separate houses of women; the Priestesses of Avarra, who were an order of Healer-priestesses trained in
laran
, and the Sisterhood of the Sword, who were, during the time of the Hundred Kingdoms and the Hastur Wars, a guild of woman soldiers and mercenaries. Some day you shall read this history, of course. The Priestesses of Avarra taught us many things which could be done by any women, including those who had no
laran
, though of course it is easier for those who do. Among the Renunciates, it is criminal to bear a child who is not wanted by mother and father, and for whom no happy home is waiting, so we require this instruction for all our women.” She took pity on Magda’s embarrassment and said, “Oh, my dear, I am sure you feel foolish, but I must deal with blushes, outraged modesty and outright refusal from women who swear they would rather forswear men entirely. But it is our law; every woman, even those who have never lain down with a man and never intend to do so, must know these things. They need never use them, but they may not remain ignorant. Twice in a tenday, at our house meetings, one of our midwives talks to the younger women. Are you strong and healthy? Can you do a good day’s work without tiring?”

“I’ve never done a great deal of manual work,” Magda said, relieved at the change of subject, “but when I was traveling I could spend all day in the saddle when I must.”

“Good; many women who live indoors, doing only women’s work, grow sickly for lack of exercise, and we have not so much sunshine here that we can afford to be without it. You may laugh to see grown women playing games and skipping rope like children, but it is not only little girls who need to run about and exercise. I hope you are not too modest to swim when the weather permits?”

“No, I like to swim,” Magda said, but wondered when, on frozen Darkover, the weather permitted!

“Are your monthly cycles regular? Do they give you much trouble?”

“Only when I was living offworld,” Magda said; she had found them troublesome in the Empire Training School, adjusting to different gravity and light and circadian rhythms; she had been in and out of the Medic office all the time, while she was on the Alpha planet, and had been given hormone shots and various kinds of treatment. Back on Darkover, she had reverted to her usual good health. She explained that, and added, “Before I was sent on this mission - the one to Ardais - I was given treatment by Terran medics to suppress ovulation and menstruation; it is fairly routine for women in the field. At Ardais Jaelle asked me about this - she thought I was pregnant.”

“That treatment is something we would find priceless,” said Mother Lauria. “I hope your Terrans will help us learn it; when women must work alongside men, or travel for a long time in bad weather, it would be a great convenience. Some women have been desperate enough to consider the neutering operation, which is very dangerous. We do have a few drugs which destroy fertility for a period of half a year or more, but they are too strong and dangerous: I do not recommend that any woman use them. But women who have a great deal of trouble with their cycles, or women who have no talent for celibacy and great ease in getting pregnant - well, we elders cannot forbid them that choice. Now there is a very important decision to be made, and you must make it, Margali.”

Magda looked at her empty plate. “I will do what I can.”

“You saw the little girl who brought in your dinner? Her name is Doria, and she is fifteen; she will take the oath at Midsummer. She has lived among us since she was born, but the law forbids us to instruct girls below legal age in our ways. So that you, and she, will be in training together. You are not of our world, Margali. Yes, I know you were born here, but your people are so different from ours that some things may be strange and hard to endure.I know so little of the Terrans that I cannot even guess what those things may be, but Jaelle came here at twelve from the Dry-Towns and she had many difficulties; and a few years ago we had a woman here from the rain forests far beyond the Hellers. She had courage toward us, and good will, but she was really ill with the shock of finding so many things new and strange. And most of these were little things which we all accepted as ordinary to life; we had never guessed how hard she would find it. We do not want you to suffer in that way, so there are two courses we can take, Margali.”

The old woman looked sharply at Magda.

“We can tell all of your sisters here that you are Terran born, and all of us can be alert to help you in small things and make allowances for you. But like all choices, this one would have its price; there would be a barrier between you and your sisters from the beginning, and they might never wholly accept you as one of us. The alternative is to tell them only that you were born in Caer Donn, and let you struggle as best you can with the strangenesses. What do you want to do, Margali?”

I never realized what a snob I was
, Magda thought. She had not expected them to understand culture shock, and here Mother Lauria was explaining it to her as if she were not very intelligent. “I will do what you command, my lady.”

She had used the very formal
casta
word,
domna
, and Mother Lauria looked displeased.

“First of all, I am not
my lady
,” she said. “We do not free ourselves from the tyranny of titles imposed by men, only to set up another tyranny among ourselves. Call me Lauria, or Mother if you think I deserve it and you wish to. Give me such respect as you would have given your own mother after you were grown out of her command. And I cannot command you in this; it is you who must live by your decision. I cannot even counsel you properly; I know too little of your people and their ways. I am sure that some day, all of us will have to know you are Terran; do you think you can overcome that strangeness? You need not carry that handicap unless you choose; but they might make more allowances for you…”

Magda felt doubtful. Jaelle had known she was Terran, and it had certainly helped ease them through some difficulties. Yet, though she and Jaelle had come to love each other, there had been strangeness between them. She said hesitantly, “I will - I will defer to your advice, Lauria, but I think - at first - I would rather be one of you. I suppose all women have strange things to face when they come here.”

Lauria nodded. “I think you have chosen rightly,” she said. “It might have been easier the other way; but this very ease might have left unresolved some strangenesses you would never settle. And I suppose you do truly want to be one of us - that you are not merely studying us for your Terran records.” She smiled as she said it, but Magda detected a faint lift, almost of question in her voice, as if even Mother Lauria doubted her sincerity. Well, she would simply have to prove herself.