Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 (33 page)

 
          
Later
that day, Cendri, who had slept till mid-day, saw the group of Vaniya's
household servants and her daughters, returning, carrying with them a great
chest which looked, in fact, as if it had been buried for a long time inside a
cave, or somewhere equally damp, for the metal fittings were rusted and the
outside was covered with a layer of mud. But Miranda told her, exultantly, that
it had indeed proved to contain Rezali's genuine ring and her embroidered robe,
and that Vaniya had already sent to summon the women of the Council.

 
          
"I
hope this will be settled before the festival," Miranda said. They were
standing on the steps, and Cendri could see, on the road

 
that
led past the Pro-Matriarch's residence, more and
more men flocking into the city. Cendri felt a sudden inner dread.

 
          
Dal
was evidently working for the Unity, fomenting rebellion among the men! If he
were to encourage rebellion at the time of the festival, when the city was
filled with men from the delta and the great dam-building project, he would virtually
have an army at his command! Her disquiet increased that night as they sat at
their evening meal, and saw Dal and Rhu talking in quiet tones, apart from the
women. Rhu had some connection with the underground movement, which she
identified only by the password she had heard once or twice: "We were not
born in chains."

 
          
But—Rhu?
The gentle Companion, the
musician, the man wholly without violence?
He did not take part in
athletic contests; he seemed to lack the physical strength which was the most
valued sign of maleness here. Could he truly be working for a movement which
would have to succeed, if it succeeded at all, only by violence and a bloody
coup
d'etat?
And would Dal—Master Scholar of University, committed to
their ethic of self-determination for all worlds—would Dal ever lend himself to
any such thing?

 
          
In
this
world, Dal is legally my
property. I am bound to obey
the local
laws,
I
will be held
responsible for whatever he does. Isn't it my
duty to find
out ?
Yet she shrank from the scene she knew
Dal would make if she were to question him.

 
          
I
am a
fool, to be frightened of Dal, to be so
submissive. I
always
thought myself any
man's equal.
Why can
I not act
that way? Why
does
the very thought of his anger
destroy me this
way?

 
          
Toward
sunset, a messenger came from the Council of Elders; on the morrow, they would
meet with Vaniya and her entourage to determine whether the true ring and robe
of the High Matriarch had indeed been found. Grimly, Vaniya ordered her
strongest women to stand guard over the chest.

 
          
"I
would not be surprised at all if Mahala sent envoys to steal it," she
said, her mouth tight, and glanced at Miranda. "I wish you were past the
birthing time; while you are here like this, we are vulnerable—"

 
          
Miranda's
blue eyes were wide. "You do not believe Mahala would resort to violence,
surely?"

 
          
"I
do not believe she is incapable of it," Vaniya said, troubled.

 
          
But
the night passed peacefully, and in the morning, Vaniya, accompanied by her
older daughters—again, Miranda felt she should not leave the house, since the
birth seemed daily imminent— set forth. Cendri, again, was invited to accompany
them.

 
          
She
had a curious sense of repetition, as if she were replaying a tape on her
graphics-recorder equipment, as they entered the Hall of Matriarchs, to face
the women seated on cushions, while Vaniya solemnly proffered the ring and robe
for examination.

 
          
Cendri
watched Mahala while the Pro-Matriarch took the robe on her lap and unfolded
it. She had noted before that there was something feline about the younger
Pro-Matriarch; now Cendri had a curious inner picture of a cat with claws
extended and every hair on its back rising, as Mahala, her face taut, examined
the embroideries.

 
          
At
last, her eyes narrowed to slits in her triangular face, she said, "It
seems, indeed, to be the true copy of Rezali's ring and robe; although you,
Vaniya, having seen them on our late High Matriarch's effigy, could have
duplicated them—"

 
          
Vaniya
said dryly, "If after five minutes of examining them through the glass
case, I could go home and duplicate them in less than a single day, then I
should be superhuman enough that I might indeed make a better High Matriarch
than any rival claimant. But I make no claims of more than human power. As you
can see from the chest, it has been buried a long time; and this is the
authentic ring and robe. I call upon every woman here to acknowledge that I am
duly designated by the spirit of our late Mother Rezali, and to acknowledge me
as the true and only High Matriarch of the city of
Ariadne
and the government of
Isis
."

 
          
Mahala
leaped to her feet, her eyes flaming in anger.

 
          
"This
is superstitious flummery," she cried, "I protest! I call for this
matter to be settled by the Council, who must acknowledge that I am at least no
madwoman! And surely if Vaniya believes that the ghost of a dead woman has
whispered to her spirit where she shall find these things—is she fit to rule
over us with all the authority of the High Matriarch?"

 
          
Vaniya
said quietly, "If you will listen to me, my sister, you will see that I
made no such claim. I have no notion whether the spirit of Mother Rezali
survives anywhere in this world or any other. I simply state that I hold in my
hand the authentic ring and robe of the Mother Rezali, and by the custom and
tradition of the Matriarchate which we are all here to uphold, the power of the
High Matriarch descends to me. I do not really see that there is any further
room for debate."

 
          
Mahala
said, her narrow face flushing, "How came Vaniya by these tokens?"

 
          
Vaniya
said, "I am not required by custom or tradition to explain this, only to
satisfy the Council that they are authentic."

 
          
"No,"
said Mahala angrily, "I question this whole matter. Why should possession
of the tokens of the High Matriarch prove that Vaniya would make a better High
Matriarch than I? I submit that the Council should settle this matter without
reference to this trash!" Angrily she flung the ring across the room,
tried to throw the robe after it; it came unfolded and flopped awkwardly into
the center of the room, where it lay in a crumpled heap.

 
          
Vaniya
said quietly, "We have chosen our High Matriarch in this manner for a long
time, Mahala, and I for one do not propose to change it. If you had found the
true tokens I would willingly have accepted your rule."

 
          
"That,"
said Mahala, harshly, "is because you are a superstitious fool. Why do
you think I tried to counterfeit the ridiculous trash? Because it would have
saved trouble and given you all—"She flashed a quick look all round the
circle of elders, "a chance to accept me because you believed me superior.
I demand now that the Council
choose
which one of us
is best fitted to rule over
Isis
in the place of Mother Rezali, and let us hear no more of spirits and
clairvoyants and ghostly counsel!"

 
          
Vaniya
smiled,
a faint contemptuous smile. "But who gave
the Council, alone, the right to settle a matter which, if it must be settled
this way, should be settled by agreement of every woman on
Isis
? For that matter, why only the women of
Isis
? The men are our sons, too, and we are
responsible for their material and moral well-being, to say nothing of their
spiritual health. If every woman on Isis, and every man, chose Mahala by
acclaim, probably I would not object, although I am not sure that the women in
the villages know enough about the problems facing us to know which of us is
better fitted to handle them—"

 
          
"The
Council should settle it," Mahala insisted. "They represent the women
of their villages—"

 
          
"Do
they indeed? Nowhere in the founding of the Council has it been agreed that the
women of the villages have entrusted it to the women of the Council to choose a
High Matriarch to rule over them; and if they did it would still be a
mockery." She looked around the Council, and said, "I am not
inflexible, nor am I power-
maddened,
though I am not
sure you can say the same about my sister and rival. But if every woman on the
Council here agrees that I am not fit, and chooses Mahala for rule, I will
withdraw."

 
          
"No,
indeed," said one of the women, and Mahala said angrily, "I call for
majority choice!"

 
          
Vaniya
sighed and shook her head. "This is a tyranny devised by the maleworlds,
Mahala, that a larger force shall enforce their will on a smaller or weaker
one. If you can persuade more people to accept your view, does that mean that
it is therefore the right
view,
or only that you can
make us pretend to accept it lest we be ill-used by the majority? Do you wish
to undermine the whole ethical basis of the Matriarchate, my sister?"

 
          
Mahala
said inflexibly, "I do not feel it is right that our High Matriarch should
be chosen by a superstitious ritual which no sane woman on
Isis
continues to accept."

 
          
Vaniya
smiled. "I think I am a sane woman. Will you come to We-were-guided with
me, and test the evidence of your senses?"

 
          
"In
such a matter," Mahala said, "I do not trust my senses."

 
          
Vaniya
asked, "What do you trust?" The question was mild, interested; it was
not a challenge, but it put Mahala on the defensive. "I trust the will of
the women of
Isis
," she said angrily, and Vaniya said
thoughtfully, "Even those who have not been trained to think of such
things, because they have been taught that we are willing to take on ourselves
this heavy burden? Had they all been trained from girlhood to assume for
themselves the burden of our world's fate, then perhaps—but they have not. I
will not lay it down until I am assured that they are able and willing to take
it upon themselves."

 
          
One
of the women of the Council said quietly, "We could continue to argue this
point for the rest of the season, and no other work would be done. How shall we
resolve this? Our decisions have always been made by custom and tradition; by
this method, we have no choice but to choose Vaniya as High Matriarch."
She raised her hand as Mahala opened her mouth to protest, and said,
"No—wait. Mahala too has justice on her side; if too many of the educated
women of
Isis
have come to distrust our traditions, they
are no longer a sound guide for judgment. A custom is no longer a custom when
only a few of the old women accept it. And yet the festival is upon us, the
city is filled with men, and the women are preparing to visit the sea; and this
debate leaves our people motherless while we sit and debate how we shall choose
a foster mother for our
women,
and for our men too. We
cannot accept Vaniya's rule if Mahala refuses to swear loyalty, even if these
tokens—" reverently, she went and picked them up, folding the robe and
laying it back in the chest, "no longer serve as basis for the choice. Nor
can we accept Mahala's rule, unless Vaniya can cede her claim and swear
loyalty."