Thendara House (27 page)

“Oh, Margali? You weren’t in your room. I hoped you would be here,” she said. “Will you take hall-duty? Byrna is nursing the baby.”

Magda shrugged. “Certainly,” she said, and started for the hall, but Irmelin held her back, the chubby woman’s face alive with curiosity.

“Are you not Jaelle n’ha Melora’s oath-daughter?”

“Yes, I am,” Magda said, and Irmelin nodded. “I thought so; she is here to see Mother Lauria, and they have been closeted in her office for hours - ” Her eyes widened, and she added, “I suppose Mother Lauria sent for her to discuss what they’re going to do about you! I hope they let you stay, Margali! I think Camilla was too hard on you - we can’t all know the honor code of mercenary soldiers, and I don’t know why we should!”

With her very kindness she had managed, again, to destroy Magda’s peace of mind. Was it so serious that they would send for Jaelle from the Terran Zone? But Irmelin added fussily, “Go, now, sit in the hall to let people in, I have to knead down the bread and get it into the pans for tonight’s dinner, and if Shaya will be here I want to make some spicebread.”

Magda sat in the hall, listlessly plaiting the belt, and remembering against her will the last time she had worked on it. When the doorbell rang again she was braced for trouble, and when she found a man, in the green and black uniform of a Guardsman, on the doorstep, she set her chin aggressively.

“What do you want?”

“Is Byrna within?”

“You can see her in the Stranger’s Room, if you wish,” Magda said.

“Oh, I am glad she is up again,” the young man said.

“May I tell her who is asking for her?”

“My name is Errol,” he said, “and I am the father of her son.” He was a very large, very young man, his cheeks still downy with the first shadow of beard. “My sister has just had a baby and she has offered to nurse this one with her own, so I came to take him away.”

So soon. He is only a tenday old. Oh, poor Byrna
. Her distressed look must have reached the very young man, for he said uncertainly “Well, she
told
me she didn’t want to keep him, so I thought the sooner I took him off her hands, the better it would be for her.”

“I will go and tell her.” She showed the young man into the Stranger’s Room, and hesitated, wondering what to do now; but the doorbell rang again and fortunately, Marisela stood on the steps.

“What shall I do, Marisela? The father of Byrna’s baby is in there - ” she pointed, “and wants to take him away - “

Marisela sighed; but she only said, “Better now than later. I will tell her, Margali; go back to the hall, child.”

Magda obeyed; and after a considerable time she saw Errol coming from the Stranger’s Room, carrying a thickly wrapped bundle in his arms, with the clumsiness of a man not accustomed to handling babies. Marisela, at his side, was talking attentively to him, and she left Marisela to let him out; it struck her that probably, at this moment, Byrna was in need of some sympathetic company. If anyone came to the door, they could just knock until Irmelin, in the kitchen, heard them and could leave her bread-rolls long enough to let them in!

She found Byrna in her room, flung across her bed, crying bitterly. Magda didn’t speak; she only sat down beside Byrna and took her hand. Byrna raised her tear-blurred face, and flung herself, sobbing, into Magda’s arms. Magda hugged her, not trying to talk. She had had half a dozen things ready to say; but none of them seemed worth the trouble.

They shouldn’t have let him take the baby. It’s too soon. Everything we know tells us that at this stage, Byrna needs her baby as much as he needs her! It’s cruel, it’s not right
… and through the woman’s trembling in her arms, it seemed that somehow she could
feel
the vast pain and despair. She said nothing, just held Byrna and let her cry herself into exhaustion, then laid her gently down on her pillow.

“He’s too little,” Byrna sobbed, “he needs me, he really needs me - but I promised, I didn’t know when I promised how much it would hurt - “

There was nothing Magda could say; she was relieved when the door opened and Marisela came in, Felicia at her side. “I hoped someone would come to stay with her. Merciful Avarra, how I wish Ferrika had come back!” She bent over Byrna, said gently, “I have something to make you sleep,
breda
.”

Byrna could not speak. Her eyes were swollen nearly shut with crying, her face blotched and crimson. Marisela held her head as she sipped the cup at her lips, laid her down. “You will sleep after a little.”

Felicia knelt at Byrna’s side, took her hands and said, “Sister, I know. I really do, remember?”

Byrna said, her voice hoarse and ghastly, “But you had your little boy for five years, five whole years, and mine is still so little, only a baby - “

“And it was that much harder for me,” Felicia said gently. Her big gray eyes filled with tears as she said, “You did right, Byrna, and I only wish I had had the courage to do the same, to give him up at once to the woman he will call mother. I kept him here for my own comfort, and then when he was five years old, he had to go among strangers, where everything is different and they will expect him already to know how to be what they call a little man - ” she swallowed hard. “I took him to my brother’s house - he cried so, and I had to tear his hands away and leave him, and they had to hold him, and I could hear him all the way down the street, screaming ‘Mother, Mother - ‘ ” Her voice held endless pain. “It is so much better - to let him go now, when all he will know is love and kindness and a warm breast - and if his foster mother has nursed him herself she will love him so much more and be gentler with him.”

“Yes, yes, but I want him, I want him - ” Byrna sobbed, and clung to Felicia; Felicia was crying now, too, and Marisela drew Magda gently out of the room.

“Felicia can help her now more than anyone else.”

Magda said, “I should think she would make it worse - isn’t it cruel for them both?”

Marisela put her arm round Magda and said gently, “No,
chiya
, it is what they both need; grief unspoken turns to poison. Byrna must mourn for her child, even though it is like death. And she can help Felicia, too; Felicia has not been able to cry for her son, and now they can weep together and be eased by knowing the other truly understands. Otherwise they will both sicken with the first sickness that comes near them, and Byrna, at least, could die. Give the Goddess her due, child, even when her due is grief. You have never borne a child, or you would know.” She kissed Magda’s cheek and said gently, “Some day you too will be able to weep and be healed of your grief.”

Magda watched Marisela go down the stairs, staring after her in amazement. She supposed Marisela was right - she had come to respect the woman, she knew as much as most Medics, in her own way, and she supposed she had a good grip of the psychology of the matter; everyone knew that stress could cause psychosomatic illness, though she was surprised that Marisela would think of it. But certainly Marisela was wrong about
her
, she had no particular sorrows, she had nothing to cry about! Anger, yes, enough to burst with it. Especially lately. Resentment. But grief? She had nothing to cry about, she had not cried more than three times in her adult life. Oh, yes, she had cried when she had been hurt and Marisela had stitched up her leg without anesthetic, but that was different. The idea that she might have some unknown and hidden grief for which she should be healed, struck her as the most fantastic thing she had ever heard.

There was the sound of a mellow chime; the bell warning women who had come in from working in the city that dinner would be served in an hour and that they should finish bathing, changing their garments. Magda went upstairs, still frowning. She passed Byrna’s closed door, hoping that the woman was sleeping.

I was sad, but not enough to cry about it, when I realized that Peter had not managed to make me pregnant; and then, when we separated, I was glad not to be burdened with a child. And especially now
-
what would I do here with a child? I could now be in Byrna’s predicament. The idea is ridiculous. Marisela could use some sensible Terran training, both in medicine and psychology
.

As she stripped off her clothes to change for dinner, she sighed at the thought of confronting Rafaella again at the meal, or meeting the unspoken resentment of the others. But there was nothing she could do about it, and she would not hide in her room and let them know that it bothered her. She was a Terran; and even more than that, she was a Renunciate, and she would somehow manage enough strength to get through this time.

CHAPTER TWO

Inside Mother Lauria’s office the women heard the chime, and Mother Lauria sighed. “I must go, Jaelle; it has been good to have this talk with you. You will spend the night in the House, won’t you? It does not matter which women you and I think are qualified, I cannot require of any woman that she leave her sisters and take employment among the Terrans. She herself must wish to go.”

“But we cannot let any woman go who wishes,” Jaelle insisted, “They must be the right ones - we do not wish them to fail and the Terrans think us silly women, think the women of Darkover are all fools and children who hide behind the safety of home. And they should not be lovers of women, for that is a thing the Terrans despise. I would like to consult with Magda about it - “

“The very last one. She is new to us - “

“She has been among you three moons; as long as I have been among the Terrans.”

“But the women in the House do not know she is Terran; they would wonder why I consulted with a newcomer, instead of a veteran who has been among us for years. I might as well ask Doria!”

“You could do worse; children’s eyes see clearly,” Jaelle said. “I am sure Doria knows our faults and weaknesses as well as I do myself. But before we make any decisions I would like to speak privately, at least, with Magda. I can see that you would not want to call her out from the rest and consult with her - ” Jaelle felt troubled; she had not known Magda had chosen to be anonymous here. But Mother Lauria had risen, firmly, and the interview was over.

Jaelle went and washed her hands in the downstairs scullery. Her home, she realized, and for the first time since she was eleven, she had no designated place here! She went into the dining hall, and after a moment, there was a cry of “Jaelle!” and she was caught enthusiastically in Rafaella’s arms.

Jaelle returned the hug and laughed gaily at her partner’s surprise.

“You didn’t expect to see me, did you? How is the business?”

“As well as can be expected, when you have been away so long,” Rafaella returned, half teasing, but with a note of real resentment. “To work among the
Terranan
! How could you?”

“I am not the first, and shall not be the last,” Jaelle said quietly. “You will hear about that in House meeting. And you have left the House to live with a freemate, more than once, have you not?”

“But with a
Terranan
!” Rafaella’s vivacious face grimaced in fastidious distaste. “I would as soon couple with a cralmac!”

Jaelle laughed. “I have never lain down with a
cralmac
,” she said, “and know nothing about their bed manners, though in the mountains I once knew a woman who said she slept every night between her two female
cralmacs
for warmth, so they cannot be as disgusting as all that! But, seriously, Rafi, the Terrans are men like other men, no more different from us than hillmen from lowlanders; differing from us only in language and customs, no more. They are far more like to us than the
chieri
, and there is the blood of the Ancient Folk in all the Hastur kin. I had not thought to hear you, of all people, repeating superstitious nonsense about the Terrans, as if they had horns and tails!”

Perhaps, she thought, it is no miracle that Magda chose to be anonymous here, if this nonsense about the Terrans is common to the women here! I thought the sisters of my own Guild House had better sense! But she let it pass - she had no wish to quarrel with her friend and partner.

“But tell me about the work and how it goes, Rafi. You could take someone else into partnership for a time, you know, while I am away, or even permanently - there is enough work for three, most years. And how is my baby, Doria?”