The Saga of the Renunciates (33 page)

Jaelle tensed, clenching her fists with mingled rage and distress. She felt Magda's hand close gently over hers, and sensed the mingling of fright and dread in her friend, as dom Gabriel's flushed face, red with rage, turned toward Jaelle. His eyes were squinted close, his mouth contorted.

He shouted, "Is this true? Jaelle, what have you to say for yourself, my girl?"

She opened her mouth angrily. "Uncle, I am not your ward-" she began, and Rohana said in a low voice, almost agonized, "Jaelle,
please
-"

The desperate dread in Rohana's voice somehow got through to Jaelle; she said, more gently than she had intended, "All I can say to you is that I am very sorry to give you offense, sir. I would not willingly have done it." She bit her lip and looked down at the plate in front of her, her hands shaking as she buttered her bread, struggling not to say any more. Rohana's quick, grateful look was reward enough, but it could not calm dom Gabriel now.

He bellowed, "Is this true? Have you made a scandal here in my house, with your love affairs?"

She swallowed hard and raised her eyes to meet his. She said clearly, "There will be no scandal, Uncle, unless you make it!"

Gabriel swung on Rohana, rising from his seat, turning angrily between Jaelle and Rohana. "What of this, my Lady? Did you know of this and say nothing? Did you permit your shameless ward to play the whore while she is under your care? What have you to say to this, Lady? Answer me! Answer me, Rohana," he bellowed.

Rohana had turned dead white. She said in a low voice, "Gabriel, Jaelle is not a child She has taken the oath of the Free Amazons, and in law neither you nor I have any responsibility for anything she may do, under this roof or any other. I beg of you to calm yourself, to sit down and finish your breakfast."

"Don't you quote that filthy law to me," the man shouted incoherently, and his face was so dark and congested with fury that Magda wondered if he were about to suffer a stroke. "Jaelle is a woman of the Comyn! I forbade you to allow her to join these female scandals, and now do you see what you have done? A woman of our clan, seduced and betrayed-" He actually raised his arm as if to strike Rohana.

Jaelle, in horror, rose to her feet. "Uncle! Rohana is not to blame for anything I may have done! If you are going to shout and carry on like a madman, at least shout at me!" she said angrily. "I am a grown woman, and competent in law to manage my own affairs."

"Law, law, don't you talk to me about the law," Gabriel shouted, beside himself. "No woman alive is fit to manage her own affairs, and it doesn't matter what you-law-" He struggled to speak, as if his rage had swollen his throat completely shut, got out a few words of gibberish, then clenched his fists, swayed and came crashing down on the table, shattering crockery and chinaware, overturning a copper pot filled with some scalding hot drink that flooded the table, drenching the cloth. He struck his head hard, seemed to jerk violently on the rebound, and fell heavily to the floor, where he lay with his body arching backward, his heels drumming the floor in repeated, convulsive spasms.

Kyril, motionless with shock, suddenly leaned half across the table, running to lift him, but Rohana was already there, cradling the unconscious man's head against her knee.

"Let him lie till it is over," she said in a low, angry voice. "You have done enough for one morning. Go and call his man to help him to bed. Are you content, Kyril? Do you know now why I begged you not to provoke or trouble him? Do you honestly think"-she raised gray eyes, literally blazing with anger, to her son's-"that anything-
anything
goes on under this roof which I do not know, or permit?"

Jaelle felt a lump in her throat, obstructing speech. She had seen epileptic seizures before, but she had never before seen dom Gabriel in the grip of one. Now, looking at Rohana, kneeling and holding her husband's head, she realized exactly why Rohana spent so much of her life-foolishly, slavishly, she had often thought-in keeping dom Gabriel quiet and content, in averting his rage and calming his anger. Rohana's burden was far heavier than she thought.

Could I myself do so much for any man, however I loved him? And Rohana was given to him by her family, hardly knowing his name. Yet all these years she has managed it so that few outside the household even know his disability! She must have seen the warning signs, and tried to avoid any trouble...

"Mother, I am sorry," Kyril begged. "I truly thought he should know of this."

Rohana swept him with a look of utter contempt. "Did you truly, my son? You cannot bear to think of any woman who does not obey you as if you were a God! And now you thought you had her at your mercy! How petty you are, Kyril! So to salve your wounded pride, and to revenge yourself against Jaelle, you have goaded your father into a fit; and he will be ill for days." She brushed aside his excuses without listening. "Go and call his body-servant, and help carry him to his bed, and no more talk. You have insulted our guests, and I will not forgive you soon for this!"

He went, glowering, and Jaelle came to Rohana's side. "Rohana, I am sorry-I did not realize"

Rohana sighed and smiled at her. "Certainly not, child; you thought you were dealing with a rational man. You spoke more gently than I would have expected, and you said nothing that was not true. And I know that Kyril provoked you."

Her eyes rested for a moment on Jaelle's arms as if she could see the painful bruises there, and Jaelle thought,
Does she truly read my mind?

When Kyril had helped to carry the unconscious man away, Rohana rose to her feet. She looked weary and worn.

"I know that you three"-her glance took in Peter and Magda, too-"were planning to leave today. Can you delay one more day? Today I must remain and make certain Gabriel is recovering as he should; tomorrow I can be ready to ride to Thendara with you."

"To come with us? Why?" Jaelle asked.

Rohana looked at Magda and said, "Because I have made a very important discovery; I must talk at once with Lorill Hastur. He is under a misconception which, if it is not corrected at once, can have the gravest consequences for both our worlds. So, if you will have my company on the road to Thendara, tomorrow morning I will be ready to ride with you."

It was raining when they reached the travel-shelter at sunset, and as the party began to dismount, Rohana said, "I had hoped to reach Thendara today, but I have no great liking for riding half the night. It will be tomorrow for certain."

"I shall be glad to get there," Magda said, but then she began to wonder. Just what awaited her in Thendara? Even this one night's respite was welcome.

As she was unsaddling her horse, Darrill, son of Darnak, came up behind her, lifting the heavy saddle from her hands. She smiled and relinquished it, and stood beside him as he began giving their horses fodder. He waited until most of Rohana's guardsmen had withdrawn-Lady Rohana, as wife of the Lord of Ardais, could not travel without a considerable escort-then asked in a low voice, "Will you be glad to get back to your own world, Margali?"

She said, troubled, "I am not sure it is my world anymore, Darrill. I am sworn to the Free Amazons."

"But surely... Piedro told me that was but a disguise, a way of allowing you to travel in safety."

"Piedro does not know anything about it," Magda said, with unexpected sharpness.

"I don't think I understand."

"I am not sure that I understand it myself," she said. "It is true that I took the oath as a means to an end; not really aware of what it meant. But later I chose, of my free will, to honor it, and I will do so, whatever happens."

Slowly, he nodded. "I can understand that. But what will the Terrans say?"

That,
she thought,
is the question. Will I spend the rest of my life as a fugitive from the Empire's justice?
"I will try to get a leave of absence to honor my obligation to the Guild-house," she said. "And after that I think I could work more effectively for the Empire. It would allow me to do many things that an ordinary woman could not do here, otherwise."

He said, very low, "Margali, when I first met with you on midwinter-night, I was very impressed with your courage and spirit. It seemed to me that no woman of our people could have so much, and I thought it must be only that you were a stranger, a Terran. Now there are times when it seems to me that you are even more like a woman of our own people. You are not like anyone I have ever known before." He raised his eyes, and looked directly into hers, and for a moment Magda thought he would kiss her. Then he swallowed hard, recalled himself, and turned a little away. He said, "Forgive me; I must finish with the horses."

As he went about his work, Magda found herself thinking,
If I
am not careful, he will be falling in love with me. And that is a complication I cannot allow now. I must be very careful.
The thought made her a little regretful.
I discovered at midwinter that I must find new ways of relating to my world; but before I complicate my life with another man, I must find out more about myself!

It might be flattering to have young Darrill in love with her; but it would be a cruel thing to test her new awareness of men by capturing his interest and perhaps his heart, when she was not free, could not make any permanent or serious commitment to anyone. Jaelle had defended her flirting on the grounds that she had never left any man wounded or heart-scalded by her teasing.
I
must be very careful to avoid that, too,
Magda thought.

Inside the travel-shelter, which was one of the largest, the guardsmen, and Peter among them, had made their fire at one end; Rohana with her ladies, and Magda and Jaelle, at the other. As usual, Rohana sent word that Peter should come and join them at their meal. When they had finished, she looked at Peter and Jaelle, close together, their hands linked in the shadows, and said to Magda, "In common humanity, I think we should leave them alone for a few minutes." She raised her voice slightly. "Come, my ladies, I think the time has come to visit the guardsmen at the other fire and see if they are content with their rations and their comfort."

Rohana's maid, a fat and sentimental old woman, looked back with an encouraging smile at Jaelle, as they went toward the other fire, and Jaelle felt herself blushing. Then she forgot the woman, as Peter drew her into his arms for a long, passionate kiss. She sank gratefully into his arms, blessing Rohana for even this moment or two alone with her lover; it would not be more than a few minutes, but while it lasted she could reassure herself...

Finally he loosed her. "I am dizzy with wanting you! At least it will not be long; we reach Thendara tomorrow. Do you still love me, Jaelle?"

She looked up, laughing, into his face. "Can you doubt it?"

"But you avoid me."

"Avoid you? Of course not, love," she said, with a little flicker of laughter. "You certainly do not think I could lie with you in the presence of a half dozen guardsmen and all of Rohana's maids!"

He looked away, uneasy at her directness. "That is not what I meant," he protested, "but we could be together more often on the road; you could ride at my side, spend more time in my company! All during this trip you have treated me like someone you might have met at a public dancing-class, not like your lover!" He used the word in the inflection that made its nearest meaning "promised husband," and she smiled, pressing his hand.

"You are my beloved," she said in a whisper, "and soon we shall be together as much as you wish. But I am an Amazon, Piedro. I have not told you much about our laws and customs, but one of the things we are taught is that there is only one way in which women can travel among men without causing trouble and dissension. And that is by behaving as human beings; not as sexual creatures, women whose major business in life is to attract men to protect and care for them."

"Oh, come, surely Lady Rohana and her companions – "

"Rohana is the wife of their lord, a sacred trust they must safeguard with their lives. And her ladies are covered by her-her special charisma. But I am an Amazon and I have renounced my protected status as
Comynara.
And I am working among them; I organized this journey. So I must not come among them as a woman who is-is free to be desired. Can't you understand?" she begged. "If I spend much time with you, show myself as your lover"-she, too, used the word in the inflection meaning "promised wife," and he pressed her hand-"then I show myself to them as a woman. And they begin to think of me as a woman, and before long they begin to compete in small ways for my favor and attention, and to show themselves before me as men, and soon there is dissension among them all, and ill feeling. So I must be just another worker, one of themselves. They must feel at ease with me, not temper their speech to a woman's ears, or feel compelled to give me their lightest work."

She did not shade her words with the faintest reproof, but Peter recalled that a few days ago she had frowned at him for helping her, unasked, with a heavy load.

He said, "Are you trying to tell me that there is no work which is beyond your strength?"

"No, no indeed!"

"I should think not," said Peter indignantly, looking at the slender girl. "And what do you do, proud Amazon, when you find something beyond your strength?"

She smiled and said, "Precisely what you do among men, when you find something too heavy to lift, or a task needing four hands to accomplish it. You are not a tremendously strong man, I imagine; when a task demands more strength than you have in your arms, I suppose you simply say to one of the other men, 'Come here and help me lift this before I strain my guts!' Well, that is exactly what I do. If I have made it obvious that I do not shirk any work within my strength, then they will help me as they would help another man with a task too heavy for him, and not with any thought of a woman who must be sheltered!"

"I hope you do not always intend to treat me that way!" he said, and she laughed and raised her hand to touch his cheek lovingly.