Thendara House (60 page)

Is she doing it too
? Magda felt brittle, raw-edged as if she would fly into pieces; one part of her was seized by Rafaella’s much too clear surface memories of the night just past, he must have been quite a man, a memory of excitement, pleasant athletic competence, and she was furious with herself because the shared memory sent a flood of sexual heat through her own body, and now Camilla was reading her message before she delivered it. Did they all do it? It had never happened before, Camilla was red-haired, it was not impossible she had some Comyn blood; faded now, gingery sand-colored, but when she was a young girl she must have been bright redhead,
Tallo
, they said here, like Jaelle, but as she looked at Camilla it seemed that the gaunt scarred face slid off and what she saw was a lovely child, fourteen or fifteen, shining dark-red curls, a delicate arrogance, a sheltered child treated like a princess…

…
a lovely child, yes. small good it did me
, then a flood of confused memories tumbling one over the other,
a delicate child suddenly torn away from home into the hands of bandits, the roughest of men, repeated brutal violation, a plaything for the cruellest of them, from hand to hand like a whore, no, worse than a whore, not even a human being, beaten like an animal when I tried to escape… lashes ripping flesh from the bones
… Magda had seen the scars on face and body…
I cannot be reading all this
, but her own body was racked with the same, horror, pain… and then a flood of denial, dread…

“No,” she managed to gasp, “Camilla, don’t - ” and again shame washed over her, how could she refuse even to remember when her friend had had to endure all this, when the memory alone was enough to make Magda retch…

“Margali!
Bredhiya
…” Camilla caught her as she swayed, and the touch brought another flood of the unendurable, intolerable memories…

Then, abruptly like a slamming door, they were cut off, and it was only the familiar Camilla again, saying gently, “I am sorry, I did not know you were - vulnerable to that.”

“I think - I am going mad - ” Magda choked. “I am - I keep reading people’s minds - “

Camilla sighed. “I suppose - Jaelle has the Ardais Gift, a little; she is a catalyst telepath, and you are so close, she has perhaps awakened your own
laran
. And of course she does not know how strong it is; she has managed to barricade herself so well, she hardly knows she has
laran
at all. And of course I learned long ago to remain barriered, for months at a time I never even think of it; living among the head-blind, one does learn to keep barriers up. I promise you, my dear, I have never tried to read you, never - violated your privacy. A long time ago I made the decision to set all that aside. I have never turned back. This does not happen twice in five years. Forgive me, sister.”

“I think - perhaps you should forgive me,” Magda managed to murmur. The world was slowly coming back into normal focus, but it seemed that only the thinnest of veils guarded her from that unendurable wide-openness to everybody and everything.

“You have had no training,” the older woman said, “and I when I was a girl - after - ” she moved her hand, unwilling to speak, and Magda knew what she meant, after the ordeal of which Camilla had spoken only once, after what she had read…
how can she live with such memories
?

“My family could never manage to forget,” Camilla said quietly. “I had to learn, or die. But enough of that, love - now we must go down to Mother Lauria. Margali, are you all right?”

Magda managed to nod. Once again she felt a desperate wish to lean on the strength of the older woman. She could not endure what was happening to her, and despite Camilla’s words she was not ready to admit that it was, in fact, happening.

She could hear excited voices at the door as she came downstairs, and Marisela’s gentle voice soothing the tumult.

“Yes, yes, I understand, my little ones - no, truly, your Mammy isn’t going to die, she is going to birth your little brother or sister, that is all. Yes, yes, I will hurry. Irmelin, take our little friends here into the kitchen and give them some bread and honey - things were too confused at home for breakfast this morning, were they not, girls? And you can look into the Guild House kitchen and see what it is like, you would like to have a look, wouldn’t you?” She made a laughing gesture at the women on the staircase, then her eyes met Magda’s and her face changed as abruptly as if she had been slapped.

“Ah, Goddess, I did not know - Margali, I know I must speak with you, and yet - ” she pressed her hands, distracted, to her head. “I must hurry; in spite of what I said to the little girls, this is the woman’s fifth child and there is not much time to spend.” She came quickly to Magda and put her hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes. Magda thought,
she knows what is happening to me. But that is not possible
.

“Promise me, little sister, that you will not do anything rash before you and I can sit down together like sisters and have a good talk, such as we have never had - I am at fault, I should have known better, but promise me, Margali - now I must go and get my bag. But wait, do you really need me as much as that? My duty to a sister comes first; shall I send Keitha to take care of this confinement and stay with you,
breda
?”

But already the overload of sensation and confusion was fading.
I am imagining things
, Magda thought, overtired,
I drank too much last night, and you can believe anything when you have a hangover
. “Of course not, Marisela, go along; look, the children are waiting for you.” The little girls had appeared at the door to the kitchen, their faces and pinafores smeared with honey. Marisela still looked uncertain.

“Look after her, Camilla, just while I go up and arouse Keitha - “

“Pah!” Camilla wrinkled her nose with contempt. “You
leroni
, you think you have the answers to everything, don’t you? I’ll look after her. You attend to birthing babies, which is what you do best!” She laid an arm around Magda’s shoulders, and Marisela sighed and turned to the little girls, grabbing up the black canvas sack in which she kept the tools of the midwife’s trade.

“Come along, let us get back to your Mammy, my dears.”

“Come along, love,” Camilla said. “Mother Lauria is waiting,” and Magda, pulling herself together, followed her into the office; but it seemed still that she could see the troubled blue eyes of the midwife resting on her back.

Yet inside the office it was as if a button had been pushed and her mind clicked over into another gear, all the way back to normal. Camilla was perfectly barriered…
she will not do that incredible thing to me, not as Marisela has done, she is so tightly barriered from years of habit. I do not think Camilla has even read me enough to know I am Terran. But perhaps I should have asked Marisela to stay, perhaps she can help me learn to shut all this out
…

But no. It had never happened, Magda decided, looking from Cholayna’s wise brown eyes to Camilla’s level gray ones. She was simply imagining things. Camilla was listening to Cholayna’s description of what they wanted, giving serious attention to it.

“Gwennis,” Camilla said, “Margali, she was among your oath-sisters that night we witnessed your oath, but perhaps you would not remember her - it is a crime not to know your own oath-sisters. She would be good for this, the very fact that she was willing to go and learn at Nevarsin - “

“If she is Margali’s oath-sister,” Mother Lauria said, “I would not like to separate them again as soon as Gwennis has come back, by sending Gwennis to the Terran Zone, unless Margali is to go too,” and Magda realized, and again it struck her with the difference. Mother Lauria really meant it just like that; her priorities were so different it was still impossible, even after half a year in the House, for Magda really to understand how her mind worked. She really thought it was more important that Magda and Gwennis should remain together, just because of the accident that they had both happened to run into one another that night in the travel-shelter where Magda had taken the Oath, than that Gwennis should have an opportunity to study under the Terrans! Suddenly Magda felt alienation again,
She was so different, here among these strangers
, and fought furiously to shut it out again. It was just a matter of making up her mind not to surrender to it. Camilla was looking at her expectantly, and she said, pulling herself together, “But I really know nothing about Gwennis; I met her only that one night.” She knew Camilla, and Mother Lauria too, would be shocked if she confessed that of the women who had been there when she took her oath, she could remember only Jaelle and Camilla, and she could not even remember which had been Gwennis, and which the other women - Sherna, was it? Devra? She was not even sure of their names. Yet she was sworn to them.

They spent hours working in Mother’s Lauria’s little office, but the afternoon sun had begun to grow dim in the room when Mother Lauria stretched and yawned.

“Well, I think we have the proper group - if only the women we have chosen are pleased; if they all refuse then we will have to start again - “

“But they will not all refuse, certainly,” said Camilla. “One or two of them might, which is why we have chosen ten instead of five or six. And you, of course, will want to talk to them - Cholayna,” she added, rather shyly. Magda was pleased to see that they liked one another.
But still Cholayna has not mentioned that I am Terran. How will Camilla feel when she knows that? Will she hate me? I love her. I do not want to leave her
, and then Magda realized she must be tireder than she thought; she was seeing pictures again, herself riding away from Camilla, the older woman’s sad face… when would they meet again, if ever? This was nonsense; she would not leave Camilla, not now. Not for a long time, she hoped, though she was still not sure there would be any kind of permanent commitment.

At one moment, during the long love-play before they slept this morning, Camilla had stopped for a moment, looked at her with heartbreaking intensity. “Margali, I would swear an oath with you; you know that?” and Magda had laughed and kissed her, but inside she thought;
No. I am not yet ready for this. Not yet, if ever
. Something inside had warned her not to say anything rash.

Just like a Terran. Keep control all the time, never just let anything happen…

“I think we are all too tired to go on much longer,” Mother Lauria said, “and we have done as much as we can before we bring it up in House meeting, which will be in four days. You can come then and talk to us, Cholayna, and meet these women face to face, and ask them for their own opinions. So - ” she rose, briskly, though Magda could see the lines of weariness in the old woman’s face. “Cholayna, will you stay and eat dinner in the House? Our women may as well begin to get used to you as our friend.”

“It would please me,” Cholayna temporized, “but perhaps we should go a bit more slowly, until they know who I am and why I am here. Once I have been introduced in your House Meeting, and they have a chance to decide for themselves whether they wish to make friends - “

“You are right,” Mother Lauria said, “then I shall expect you on the evening of that night; you will dine in the House with us before the meeting?”

“I should be honored,” she said. It seemed to Magda that she was a little fearful.

“Remember, Mother Lauria, that Cholayna does not eat meat, or any food which has once had life.”

“That can be arranged, easily enough,” Mother Lauria said, and Cholayna smiled with relief as she went into the hallway to find her outer coat, a thick fur thing covering her uniform, which was more adapted to the heated corridors of the Headquarters.

Janetta was on Hall-duty; Mother Lauria introduced her to the Terran woman. Janetta’s face lighted - she had been suggested, Magda remembered, for this kind of learning, and evidently Mother Lauria had mentioned it to her.

“Janetta will escort you back through the city,” Mother Lauria said. “No, really, Cholayna, it is growing late, and if you lost yourself - there are some quarters where a Terran would not be safe, and some where a woman would have trouble, and you are both. I am sure that you, like Margali, can protect yourself, perfectly well, but it would be easier if you had no need to do so; I am sure she has told you that one of the first laws of a Renunciate is that it is better to avoid a situation causing trouble than to get out of it once it has happened.”