The Saga of the Renunciates (23 page)

"Until you fell asleep; I was afraid you would tear off your bandages. You tried."

"Was I delirious?" When Magda nodded, Jaelle said with a wry grin, "That explains it; I dreamed I was back in the Dry Towns, and Jalak-well, it was frightful nonsense, but I have rarely been so glad to wake up." She put a tentative hand to the bandages.

"You will have a dreadful scar, I am afraid."

"There are some women in the Guild-house who think their scars a good advertisement for their skill," said Jaelle, "but, then, I am not a fighter."

Magda had to smile at that. "I should say you were quite a fighter."

"I mean, not a professional fighter. I do not normally hire myself out as soldier or bodyguard," Jaelle said, and shifted her body uncomfortably. "I don't remember much after you cut off my tunic."

"I'll tell you more after I dress your wound," Magda said. Jaelle had run so high a fever that Magda feared to find infection; but there was at least no renewed bleeding though the edges of the wound looked ugly. Poisoned? Jaelle said, "I have some
karalla
powder in my saddlebags; it will keep the wound from closing too soon with rot beneath." At her directions Magda sprinkled the wound with the gray stuff before re-bandaging it. Jaelle was exhausted and pale, but coherent; she ate some of the dried-meat soup, with Magda's help, and drank more water.

"You killed both of them? That does surprise me!"

"It surprised me, too," Magda confessed.

Jaelle uneasily fingered the bandage on her face. "I am not one of those who make a fetish of displaying their scars, but I may have to pretend that I am. Better scarred than buried-or blind! Camilla told me, once, that there were some men who found knife-scars on a woman irresistible." She sank back wearily against the rolled saddlebag under her head. "It was a fool's wound, really. Gwennis, or even old Camilla, could have driven them both away without taking a scratch."

She closed her eyes and slept again. She was somnolent, or sleeping, most of that day, but the fever did not return. Magda had little to do, after the animals had been tended. She thought about burying the dead bandits, but that was a task entirely beyond her strength. She stayed near Jaelle, in case the wounded girl should need anything. The sight of the bandage on Jaelle's face troubled her deeply.
She was so beautiful! In the Terran Zone they could repair that ugly slash as good as new; here, I suppose, she will bear that terrible scar until she dies!

It occurred to her again that now, with Jaelle well on the way toward recovery, she could make her escape, leave her to recover at leisure, and not even have the other woman's death on her conscience. But by now the thought was very remote.

On the next day Jaelle was able to get up and walk about a little, moving her arm cautiously; swearing at the pain, but moving it, nevertheless. "I don't want the muscles to freeze and the arm to lose its strength," she said irritably, when Magda urged her not to risk tearing it open again. "I know what I am doing." Now that she was no longer somnolent with shock and exhaustion, she was in a good deal of pain, and it made her irritable and restless. Late in the afternoon Magda woke from a brief doze to find Jaelle staring at her as if trying to remember something.
Does she remember thinking I was going to kill her?
She remembered, with some shock, the moment when she had stood over Jaelle, not yet sure herself what she intended. Jaelle had been as still as a wounded animal awaiting the hunter's death-stroke. .

Jaelle said quietly, at last, "I did not expect you to stay with me, Margali; I knew you took our oath unwillingly. It is customary for oath-mother and daughter to exchange gifts; you have given me my life, I know."

"Don't!" Magda could not bear to start thinking again about her indecision. She got up and went out of the shelter, looking at the lowering gray sky, heavy with unfallen snow. Midwinter was only a few days distant; and on that day Peter Haldane would meet a dreadful death, suffering the penalty of Rumal di Scarp's blood feud with the Ardais clan. Magda leaned against the outside wall of the shelter and gave herself up to helpless, desperate weeping.

After a long time she felt a soft touch on her arm; Jaelle stood there, looking very pale and troubled.

"Is he so dear to you-the kinsman of your mission?"

Exhausted, struggling for self-control, Magda could only shake her head and say, "It is not only that.”

"Then tell me what it is, my sister." Jaelle took Magda's hand. She said, "Don't stand here in the cold."

More because she remembered that Jaelle herself must not be kept in the cold with her unhealed wound, Magda let herself be led inside. Jaelle stumbled, fell heavily against her; Magda caught her, eased her down on one of the stone benches.

"Now tell me, sister."

Magda shook her head, exhausted. "I told you all."

"But this time," Jaelle said, "the truth, will you not? I do not understand you, Margali. You were lying when you took the oath; you were not lying. You were telling the truth; you were not telling the truth. Even your name-it is your name; you have another name. Tell me."

Magda's defenses were down. "How did you know?"

Jaelle said, "I was born daughter to the Comyn; I have some
laran."
Magda did not know the word as Jaelle used it; it usually meant a gift or talent. "I have not had the training to use it properly. Lady Rohana-she is my mother's kinswoman-wished me sent to a Tower to be trained in its use; I would have none of that crew. So my gift is erratic; I cannot use it when I would, and when I would not, it thrusts itself on me, undesired. It was so when you took the oath; I could feel, within myself, that you were torn two ways, and in such fear... there was no need for such terror as
that.
And now I can read your thoughts, but only a little, Margali-if that is your name. You are oath-bound, but so am I; as you are sworn, so am I oath-bound to you, never to hurt or betray you. Tell me, my sister!"

Magda said wearily, "I was born in Caer Donn. My true name-the name my parents gave me-is Magdalen Lome, but the Darkover children with whom I played could not say that name; they called me
Margali,
and that is my name as much as the other."

"The-the
Darkovan
children?" Jaelle whispered, and her eyes were wide, almost with fear. "What
are
you, then?"

"I am... I am..." Magda struggled, the words sticking in her throat. This was basic.
You never tell any outsider who you are. Never.

Jaelle is not an outsider. She is my sworn sister.
Suddenly all conflict was gone. The lump in Magda's throat dissolved, and it seemed that she drew the first free breath she had drawn since she first entered this shelter several nights ago. She said, and her voice did not falter, "My mother and father were Terrans, subjects of the Empire; I am Darkovan, born in Caer Donn, but I am an Intelligence agent and linguistics expert for the Empire, and I work from Thendara."

Slowly, Jaelle nodded. "So that is it," she said at last. "I have heard something of the Terrans. One of ours in Thendara Guild-house-an
emmasca
who can pass herself off as a man: they all can, but many of them will not-hired herself out with the workmen among those building the spaceport, and she told us something of your people. But I did not know the Terrans were human, except in form."

Magda smiled at that way of putting it. She said, "The records of the Empire say that Darkovan and Terran are one stock from the far past."

"Does Lady Rohana know you are
Terranan?"

"Yes; she saw me first there."

"This explains why you had to appeal to her," said Jaelle; she was just thinking out loud. "Your kinsman, is he Terran, too?"

"Yes; but taken prisoner by Rumal di Scarp because of a chance likeness to Lady Rohana's son."

"He is like Kyril? That will not endear him to me," Jaelle said. "I love Rohana well; Kyril is another matter entirely. But that does not matter now. You love this man so very much? Is he your lover, then?"

Magda said slowly, "No; although for a time we were"-she hesitated, used the Darkovan word-"freemates. But it is more than that. We were children together, and he has no one else. To my superiors in Thendara, he is-expendable; so I took this duty upon myself to save him from death and torture."

Jaelle bit her lip, frowning, idly fingering the bandage on her cheek. She said, "I must think. Perhaps-you are in the employ of your service, under bond for a legitimate service? A Free Amazon is bound by law to fulfill any work she hires herself of her free will to do, and it could be legally said you must complete this pledge and honor your conditions of employment." Again, she was thinking out loud. "You say you do not love him. How
do
you feel about him, then?"

"I don't know." Magda searched her mind; surprised herself by saying, "Protective."

Jaelle looked at Magda with that intense, frowning stare which made Magda wonder if the girl was really reading her thoughts. She said, "Yes; I think no man has ever meant more to you than that, not yet. You have, I think, the true spirit of an Amazon, and if you had been born among us, I think you would have come to us in the end. This must have been what Rohana saw in you."

She was silent for some time, thinking; suddenly she laughed.

"There is only one man living whom I love less than Rumal di Scarp," she said. "I would love to cheat Rumal of his prey! And you are oath-bound to obey all lawful commands of your employer. And there is a life between us; and it is required of me that I give my oath-daughter a gift. I will come with you, Margali, to Sain Scarp!"

Magda said, again with that sense of conflicting loyalties, "Jaelle, I can never thank you for this,
but
first you should know: it will cause much trouble for you in Thendara. Lorill Hastur has forbidden anyone in the Domains to take part in this affair."

"You do not listen very well," Jaelle said. "I do my own thinking, not the blind will of Hastur. Like all people, I must obey the laws of the land; but the whims of Hastur are not yet the laws of Thendara, and Lorill Hastur has no right to forbid any Free Amazon, under the Charter, to accept any lawful work. Lorill Hastur is my kinsman-though the only time he saw and spoke with me he seemed not very eager to accept the relationship-but he is not the keeper of my conscience! The Free Amazons owe no allegiance to any liege lord, even if he calls himself the son of Hastur. And it seems to me that if the Terrans could give you, a woman, and born in Caer Donn, the strength and spirit to venture alone into the Hellers, and the-" She hesitated, looking away. "And at the same time, the integrity to honor an oath, even under such conditions of strain, then it seems to me that these
Terranan
might have something to teach even a Hastur, and that the Free Amazons should be their friends and allies. So I will give you leave, and I will help you, to rescue your friend."

Magda said hastily, "It must not be known that Peter is a Terran!"

"No, indeed! Rumal would take delight in hanging him from his castle wall that same day!" She held out her hands to Magda and said, "I think I can ride tomorrow; we will ride, then, for Sain Scarp."

Before leaving the shelter, next morning, Jaelle insisted on stripping the bodies of the dead bandits; an unpleasant task,-as they had frozen hard in the bitter cold. They dragged them away from the path. "The
kyorebni
and the scavenger wolves will do the rest," Jaelle said cheerfully. "We could never have buried them with the ground frozen hard, so they can do our work for us."

The day was overcast and grim as they set forth, and Magda was anxious about Jaelle; exposure to cold, with an unhealed wound, could be dangerous. Yet once the pass of Scaravel was closed, no amount of haste could bring them to Sain Scarp before midwinter-night.

They made good time for the first three days; but on the fourth day it began to snow in earnest, and Jaelle looked troubled as they began to ride upward along the road to the pass.

"If we get through before dark, there is nothing to fear; Sain Scarp is a two-day ride beyond it, and there is nothing eke so high as Scaravel. But if we are delayed today, or if we have to pass Scaravel in the darkness..." She was silent, frowning, obviously worried.

Near midday they came to a little village on the mountainside, where they bought some hot soup at a food-stall, and bargained for fodder for their animals. They were about to ride on when the lashings on Magda's pack animal suddenly gave way, and the pack slipped; the beast snorted and neighed, frightened by the bumping of the heavy pack hanging under its belly. Magda slid down and ran to free it from the swaying, bumping burden, but the frightened animal kicked and reared, and it was half an hour before, even with Jaelle's help, Magda could quiet the creature enough to get the remaining strap unbuckled and the pack off. Then they had to find a harness-maker who could mend the strap or make a new one; and when Jaelle came back after talking at length with the harness-maker (his dialect was so thick Magda could not understand him), she looked grave. "Lady Rohana, with her escort, crossed Scaravel three days ago, on her way to Ardais," she said, "and the pass was open then; since then, no traveler has climbed toward the pass. We may find it blocked already; if not, this storm will surely close it till spring-thaw. Come what may, we must cross Scaravel tonight, or we cannot reach Sain Scarp in time. Let us find some more of that woman's good bean soup before we take the road; we'll get little warm food tonight."

Less than half a mile out of the village, Magda looked back down the trail and saw that the thickening snow had already blotted out the lights behind them. Jaelle wrapped a fold of her scarf across her bandaged cheek; her voice sounded muffled through it. "If these folk were not all living in the very shadow of Sain Scarp-and probably in their pay, or at least in fear of them-I think I would have left the horses here and tried the pass on foot. But I would not put such a strain on their honesty. There is a saying in the hills: 'Don't trust your bone to another man's dog.' "