Thendara House (72 page)

Yet she was equally sure Aleki was alive. “He’s trapped in one of these caves, just like us,” she insisted, and as she spoke Magda had a flash of him there, lying alone and filthy, unable to move.
He’s hurt. And we’ve got to get him back to Thendara. If he dies, out here, it’s going to cause a full-fledged diplomatic incident
.

“And it’s my responsibility,” Jaelle said quietly. “I made myself personally responsible for him.”

“And I have made myself
personally responsible
for your obligations,” Magda said, touching her hand lightly. “I am better fitted now than you to honor that pledge. That is what Oath-sisters are for.”

“I feel a little guilty,” said Jaelle after a long silence, “I wanted this mission to fail. And now it has, for we can take him back to Thendara - I didn’t want him to get out to Armida and question that man Carr, or
Dom
Ann’dra, or whatever he calls himself - “

Magda smiled faintly. “From what I saw of him,
that man Carr
can take perfectly good care of himself. Between the two of them, I’d bet on Carr.”

“I am not so sure. When Li is on the trail of Comyn, he is tenacious, Magda. You don’t know how stubborn he is. I - I am Comyn, though I never fully realized it before. Comyn, but I am free of it through the Rununciate’s Oath so I can see Darkover from both sides. Comyn and commoner. And I have seen the worlds of the Empire through their little screens. I don’t want my world to be like that. And that’s what Li - Aleki wants.”

“And he will do it, if anyone can,” said Magda. “That’s what Agents are made of.”

“And you are one of them - ” Jaelle said hesitantly. “Do you - do you want to help him on his mission? Or will you stand by Darkover?”

Magda took her hands gently. “It’s not as simple as that darling. There’s no way to say, Darkover against Terra. Neither of them is all good or all bad. Let’s be sure he’s alive before we start worrying about his mission.”

Jaelle should be getting better, if it’s only a cold or a chill or some mutant strain of influenza. But she isn’t
. She did not want Jaelle to know how much she was worried about her.

She herself had recovered after the fatigue of travel and fear.
If this is
laran,
I am one of the fortunate ones. I have escaped threshold sickness
, she thought, not realizing how much she had picked up from Jaelle’s mind. She was eager to be on their way. Perhaps it would be better for Jaelle to try to travel, even when she was sick. If they had been in the Terran Zone she would unhesitatingly have put Jaelle into a hospital.
She’s really sick, and she’s not getting better. So it’s up to me. But tomorrow morning if she can travel at all we’ve got to get out of here
.

Toward morning, as cold crept into the cave from the snow outside, they began to dream.

Red sun rising over jagged rocks, blood spreading out on the sand. It was worth it, Jaelle. You are free. You are free. And then her mother was gone, was nowhere, like Peter, gone, dead…

No, my darling. I am here. And I am free, too
. She was standing on the red sand, tall and beautiful, her red hair not braided in the loops of a Dry-Town woman but in a heavy coil caught by a copper butterfly-clasp.

Mother! Mother! Come back, mother
… But she had faded away, had gone to her own freedom.
And I am free too
. The crimson stain of blood on the red sands was gone, but she could still feel all her mother’s pain, as the world dissolved around her. And she was a little girl, lying shivering in the bedroll of the strange old
emmasca
, who was holding her, touching her as she had never wanted to be touched by any woman… no, she was Magda, lying in Camilla’s arms… it was not I. I never thought of Camilla that way. Of course not. Camilla was my mother, one of the ones who mothered me when I had lost my own mother, when I could not remember her at all. And I was the nearest to a child of her own that Camilla had never had. But Magda was not Camilla’s child, she could be Camilla’s lover…

But the little girl was still there, a little girl who wanted so much to live…
No
, Jaelle said,
it’s not possible, chiya, you will have to go back. To choose another mother
.

But you have chosen me and I have chosen you
, said the little girl. Why could she not see the child clearly, only hear her voice? She was in so much pain. Her mother had felt like this and Jaelle could not barricade away her pain. It was too much. Too much, she was breaking apart, they were torturing her, she was screaming as she had heard screams from Jalak’s torture chamber…

Don’t cry, mother. I’ll wait for you. I’ll come back again, when you want me
. Such a trusting voice, a child. The little girl, in a blue dress, her golden hair curling like the golden pollen on the bell of the
kireseth
flower. Jaelle could see her walk away, into a gray world, gray silence, and it seemed to her that the little girl who could have been her daughter walked away into gray cloud like the Lake of Mali, farther and farther, and only when she could not see the little girl any more, but only the pale blue shimmer of her gown, did it strike her that this was a true parting.
Another death
.

“No! No! Come back,” she cried over and over, but it was too late. The little girl was gone, and she was crying, crying because she hurt so much, so much… like the first time she had discovered herself bleeding and was afraid to tell…

“Jaelle!” Magda, very pale, was bending over her. “You were crying in your sleep… what’s the matter… ?”

“Oh, Magda, she’s gone, she’s dead, I couldn’t call her back, I told her I didn’t want her and she just went away - “

“Who, Jaelle? You had another nightmare, love. Tell me.”

“My mother. No, it was my baby. And she just went away…” Jaelle sobbed. “I wanted to name her for you, Margali… oh, I hurt all over, I hurt so - “

Magda held and soothed her, believing that she had only had a nightmare, but as she held Jaelle in her arms, she realized that it was more than this. She could feel the pain knifing through the younger woman, and in a clutching terror, she realized what was happening.

I was afraid of this. She has been so sick, and under so much strain. She is miscarrying. And it is so much too early, not more than four months. Not even with the Terrans and their birth-support machines could this one live
. And she, Magda, did not have the slightest idea what to do; alone, without even hot water or simple sanitation, in a filthy cave, marooned by flood-water -

Jaelle was twisting and crying out again in pain, and Magda took her hands. “Darling,” she said. “Jaelle, darling, you have got to be brave, you have got to stop crying and do what you can to get hold of yourself.”

I don’t want you to die. And this is no place to have a miscarriage. And I don’t know what to do for her. Oh, Goddess, I need help. I need Marisela or someone like that. And I am all alone with her. And I can’t even let her know how frightened I am. She is frightened enough already
.

Well, she would simply have to do the best she could. Jaelle’s sobs had subsided to a soft whimpering.
I’ll try to be brave. Like the time I fell and dislocated my shoulder riding, and Kindra was proud of me because I was so brave. I can be brave for Magda too. Poor Magda, she’s been so good to me
.

My poor baby. My poor little girl. I wonder if it hurt her to die
.

Magda tried to block out as much awareness of Jaelle as she could. It wouldn’t help Jaelle a bit for her to suffer too. She dragged together all the dry wood they had left, and built up the fire as much as she dared. Then she put water to boil - Jaelle would need hot drinks and afterward she would need some strengthening food. She rummaged in her saddlebags and found, among the trail clothing, a couple of clean flannel nightgowns. She did not even remember packing them, but she would put one of them on Jaelle afterward. She laid the other one on top of the cleanest side of the blanket. At least it was clean. Women had been having babies, and miscarrying them, under primitive conditions without Terran-style sanitation, for centuries, she reminded herself.

Yes, and dying of it, too
. She told that thought to go away and be quiet, and braced herself to reassure Jaelle, even though she was not quite sure what to do. She was sure there would be a lot of blood. She had picked that up from too many nightmares Jaelle had been having.

“The first thing you have to do,” she said, kneeling down to get Jaelle’s dirty and blood-soaked travel clothing off her, “is to relax and try to breathe deeply. Come on, Jaelle, you’ve heard more midwives’ lectures than I have.
One
of us ought to remember enough of them so that I don’t botch this up too badly.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Most of the firewood was gone. Magda, dead weary, dragged herself to the mouth of the cave and looked down into the valley. The water had receded still farther during the day. We could have gotten out today, she thought, if Jaelle had been able to travel.
If she had held off one more day
…

It wasn’t Jaelle’s fault. She looked over her shoulder, tenderly, at the dark hump of bedclothes that was Jaelle. At least she was asleep now and it was over… at least she thought it was over. She had done her best, but she wasn’t a Medic or even a midwife, and her best probably wasn’t good enough.

And now she did not know how long it would be before Jaelle was able to travel. That was one extremely sick girl there.
I did the best I could, but there was no way to make sure everything was properly sterilized
. She needed proper food, and a warm bed, and good nursing. Magda put her head in her hands and cried.

And even as she wept she was conscious of rationalizing it to herself.
I’m just overtired, the strain of all this, knowing that Jaelle could still die. I love her, I’d do anything to take care of her, and I may have killed her. This whole thing is my fault. I introduced her to Peter in the first place. If I hadn’t been such a rotten person back then, if I’d been able to give Peter a child, if I hadn’t been so arrogant and competitive with him… now he is dead and Jaelle may die
… she cried and cried, unable to stop herself, and even while the sobs continued to rack her, she remembered Marisela saying that one day she too would be able to weep…

This is supposed to be good for me? Who’s crazy?

It’s a good thing I learned more than
that
from Marisela, isn’t it? After the night past, she could have giggled; and she wiped her nose on her sleeve - there wasn’t even a clean rag! and drew a deep breath, trying to assess their situation without hysteria.

Jaelle was sleeping; but she was very weak. Magda thought she had lost altogether too much blood. She needed medical attention, to be sure Magda had not botched handling the miscarriage and everything was clean. At a very minimum she needed dry clean clothes, nourishing food, and warmth. Magda could provide that, foraging for resin-branches which would burn when wet, provided she got them
now
before the fire was dead out.

Otherwise, she realized soberly, they could both die here.

If Jaelie’s fever went down within the next few hours, perhaps she should simply bundle the girl on her horse, even if she had to tie her in her saddle, and pack her out to civilization, where she could organize search parties for Aleki, and Jaelle could get nursing. On the other hand, suppose they encountered some isolated farm where the woman of the place reacted like the woman who had cursed Magda on the fire-lines? That one might have been capable of turning them out to die.

If they stayed here, there was nothing ahead but starvation and cold, but she was still strong. Could she possibly leave Jaelle alone and go for help? Behind her in the cave she heard Jaelle whimper in her sleep, as if the very thought terrified her.

Jaelle, who was so strong.
Yet I have always protected her. My child. My love
.