The Saga of the Renunciates Read online

  "I said: the Lady Rohana, is she still so very lame from that fall she took from her horse? Poor old woman, and so soon after losing her husband, too; "what a tragedy!"

  After an incredulous moment, Magda realized what was happening. Nothing to do but brazen it out boldly. She set down her plate with a good display of offended pride.

  "You have had later news than mine, or you are testing me, sister." She spoke the customary address with heavy irony. "When last I saw the Lady Rohana she was hearty and strong, and to call her old would have been grave insult; I do not think she is twenty years older than I. As for her husband"-she rummaged quickly in her mind for his name-"I have not been privileged to meet dom Gabriel, but she spoke of him as alive and well. Or is there another Lady Rohana in the Ardais Domain whom I have not been privileged to know and serve?"

  Jaelle's lovely face looked troubled now, and contrite. She said, "You must not be angry with me, Margali; the Lady Rohana is my kinswoman, and the only one of my kin who has been kind to the family disgrace. As you can guess, her honor is dear to me, and I would not hear her name bandied about without her leave. I beg you, give me pardon."

  Magda said stiffly, "You had better see the safe-conduct I carry."

  "Oh, please"-Jaelle looked very young now-"don't trouble yourself. Sherna, pour her some wine. Drink with us, Margali. Don't be angry!"

  Magda accepted the wine, sweat breaking out on her palms; she wiped them furtively on her tunic. Just my luck. But I managed that one. What else are they going to throw at me? She sipped the wine, nibbling at some sweets and the nuts Rayna was passing around; they had been pickled in something tart and highly spiced, and she noticed that Jaelle, who had refused Magda's confectionery, ate the spiced nuts with relish.

  She's young. But I'd better not underestimate her!

  A burst of noise from the men around the other fire interrupted her, and she twisted around to look at them. They were drinking hard, passing a bottle from hand to hand and laughing uproariously; loud enough to drown out the howling of the storm outside. She strained her ears to listen, thinking, if they are from Sain Scarp, they might know something of Pedro...

  Camilla's hand came down on her wrist like a vise; Magda almost cried out with the pain of it. "For shame," said the old Amazon, in a voice that cut like a knife. "Is this how Temora House teaches her daughters to behave, shameless girl, staring at drunken men like some harlot of the streets? Turn your back on them, you ill-mannered brat!"

  Magda pulled her hand free of the wiry old fingers. Her eyes filled with tears of outrage and humiliation. She said in a whisper, "I was only wondering if they are bandits...”

  "Whatever they are, they are nothing to us." The old woman spoke with firm finality. Magda rubbed her wrist, wondering if there would be a bruise.

  I'm doing everything wrong. I'd better keep my mouth shut, and go to bed as soon as I can. She lay back on her unrolled blankets, pretending sleep. The drunken laughing and singing of the bandits went on. Around the women's fire there was a little more soft-voiced conversation, some quiet laughing and joking-they were teasing Sherna about something that had happened at midsummer-feast. Magda understood none of it. The women waterproofed their low suede ankle-boots, tidied saddlebags, cleaned and put away eating utensils and began to ready themselves for bed.

  Someone said, "I wish Rafi were here with her harp; we could have a song, better than that noise!" She flicked a quick, oblique glance over her shoulder at the drunken crew at the far end, but, Magda noted, did not turn to look. Amazon etiquette?

  Camilla said, "Rafi was with me when we punished those two women in Thendara city. You are new-come to us, Rayna, Sherna, you have not heard? You, Margali, you came here from Thendara; has the tale made the rounds yet in the marketplace?"

  "What tale?" Magda did not dare to pretend sleep too deep to answer.

  "You have not heard, either? Well, it came to our ears that in the Golden Cage-you know of the Golden Cage?" she asked, waiting, and Magda nodded. The Golden Cage was a notorious brothel not too far from the Terran Zone; she knew that it was patronized by spacemen and Empire tourists sometimes.

  "It came to us that there were two entertainers"-she spoke the polite term with irony-"who had cut their hair short and were nightly presenting an exhibition of a particularly indecent sort-I am sure that every one of you can imagine the details-which the old freak running the place announced as 'Love Secrets of the Free Amazons.' So Rafaella and I-"

  "Dear aunt,", said Jaelle, yawning, "I have known since my fourteenth year, and so have we all, that there are lovers of women in this world, and that there are pretended lovers of women, and that some men have nothing better to do with their manhood than indulge in naughty fantasies about them. Do you think we are so bored that you must entertain us with dirty stories, Camilla dear?"

  "Then you haven't heard how we punished those bitches for pretending to be Amazons, and bringing scandal and disgrace to our name? Can you guess, Margali?"

  Magda said "No," not trusting herself to say any more. This is being told for my benefit. Somehow I've given myself away. That old emmasca has eyes like a gimlet.

  Camilla said, savoring the words, her eyes lingering on Magda, "Why, Rafi and I went there by night when their leering audience had gone, we dragged those shameless wenches out into the main square, we stripped them naked and shaved their heads bald as an egg, and their private parts, too, and smeared them in pitch, and rolled them in wood shavings."

  "I should have been there," said Jaelle, her eyes glistening with savage relish. "I would have put a torch to them and watched them sizzle!"

  "Oh, well, we left them there in that state to be found by the guard; somehow I do not think, after being so shamed, that they will pretend to be Amazons for their filthy charades. What do you think, Margali?"

  Magda tried to make her voice steady, but there was a lump in her throat, and she knew what caused it: stark fear. She said, "Probably not; but I have always heard that a grezalis follows her trade because she is too stupid to learn any other, so it may have been a lesson wasted."

  "You were too hard on them," said Sherna. "It is the foul old pervert who runs the place that I would have treated so. He staged that filthy show; it was not the women's fault."

  "On the contrary, I think you were too, easy on them," Jaelle said. "Shaming such women is useless; if they were not dead to shame, they would never have been in such a place."

  "All women are not made harlots of their free will," Sherna argued; "they must earn their bread somehow!"

  Camilla's voice was harsh, rasping like a file. "There is always an alternative," she said, in a voice that effectively shut off comment.

  Magda, watching the grim old face, wondered again, What kind of awful experience could make a woman hate herself so much that even neutering seems preferable to retaining any trace of female function? The neutering operation had been illegal on Darkover for centuries; not even the strictest enforcement of the laws had managed to stamp it out.

  Jaelle yawned again, asking Rayna, who was the tallest, to put out the lantern. Another woman banked the fire so it would keep a few coals through the night. Magda pillowed her head on her saddlebags as she saw the others doing, laid the knife from her boots beside her head.

  Now that the danger seemed over, and the acute fear of discovery had subsided, she found herself elated. She had learned more about Free Amazons in one evening than twelve years on the Darkovan side had taught all the agents. She knew that because before leaving her post she had read through everything actually known about them, including folklore, rumors and dirty jokes, and it all fitted on a printout she could hold in one palm. If I carry this off, I'll have something to brag about for the rest of my life; that I could spend the night with them and get away undetected.

  One after another, the Amazons dropped off to sleep. . Old Camilla snored very softly. Sherna and Gwennis, who lay side by side, talked for a few minutes in whispers, then slept. Magda, in s
pite of the long day's hard riding, was too tired and tense to sleep.

  The noise around the other fire did not subside, but grew louder; Magda wondered if it was deliberate, a way of expressing hostility the men dared not show. There was loud talk, drunken singing, some of the songs of such a bawdy nature Magda knew they would never have been sung directly before any woman with the slightest pretense to respectability.

  For a time she listened, then grew bored and irritable. Were there no laws of polite use for the shelters, to determine how late one party might continue to carouse when sharing a shelter with another group of travelers? Damn them, were they going to keep up that racket all night? It was surprising the Amazons put up with it, but then, their code evidently forbade them to take notice of the band of men.

  The songs came to an end; there was a brief lull, a minor fight broke out and was settled, and in another lull Magda heard one of the men say loudly “... held at Sain Scarp...”

  Magda went tense, straining herself to hear even one more word, but the loud drunken talk started up again. They do know something about Peter! If I could only hear!

  Blurred by the conversation she seemed to hear the word Ardais-she was never sure-and her resolve stiffened. She must hear! The Amazons were all sleeping now. She would slip very quietly along the dark wall-She had partially undressed; she sat up and drew on trousers and under tunic in the dark; slid quietly from her blankets and went barefoot along the wall, clinging to the shadows. She could see Jaelle sleeping on her stomach like a child, her face on her bent arm. Magda tiptoed toward the far end of the room, holding her breath; was rewarded by hearing one of the men say “... Ardais cub." and “... send him back at midwinter...”

  "And what answer did the lady...”

  "You think he tells me all that? All I can..." It was drowned out in a burst of drunken laughter, then one of the men stiffened.

  "What's that?"

  "Mouse or rat, probably. Pass me the jug, you – "

  Magda froze, but the first speaker got up, suddenly strode straight toward where Magda huddled in the shadow; she turned to slip away, missed her footing and fell full length. Above her she heard a great shout of laughter. The next minute hard hands came down on her and she was picked up bodily and carried into the center of the circle of men.

  The man holding her set her on her feet, guff awing loudly.

  "Some mouse or rat, Jerral!"

  Magda saw that her captor was the big burly mustachioed man whose eyes had frightened her when she first came into the shelter. He bent toward her, taking her chin in his ham-sized hand.

  "Tired of sleeping alone, chiya?" He used the word for "little girl," which in family intimacy is affectionate; elsewhere, contemptuous. "Which one of us you got the hots for, hey? Bet it's me; saw you looking at me before."

  -Magda was wildly trying to get her breath, to think. She would not; she could not struggle and plead with these men!

  "Yeah, we've all heard about the Free Amazons," said a big, black-bearded man, digging Magda's captor in the ribs with a wicked leer. "Let's wake up the rest of the girls and get them to join the party! What about it, little rabbit, did you come to ask if there was a drink for you here?"

  Oh, God, what have I done? I've been responsible, for breaking the shelter-truce, if I've involved the other women in this, made these men think... Furtively she felt for her knife; realized, in horror, that she had left it lying by her saddlebag.

  "What's wrong, chiya? Not a word to say? Well, we'll loosen up your tongue, soon enough," said the big man who had grabbed her, and she felt his fetid, drunken breath hot on her face, the evil, bristling mustachios brush her cheek. He jerked her under tunic down around her shoulders. "Hey, a pretty one, too. Stop shoving, Rannar, you'll have your turn soon enough-I caught this one. You want a girl, go wake up one for yourself!" He ran his hands down her bared body. Magda jerked away, caught him by the arm, tried to wrench him in a judo throw; he sidestepped, with a leering shout. "Hey, pretty, I know a trick worth two of that! So you're a fighter, too? We can really have some fun with this one," he said, leering. Magda's arms felt numb.

  What's the matter with me? She felt him take her shoulder, twisting it cruelly; she could not keep back a cry of pain.

  "Now let's not have any more nonsense, precious. Just be a good little girl and we won't hurt you, no, we won't hurt you at all," he muttered, running his hot hands down across her breasts. She backhanded him, hard, across the mouth; rearing back in drunken rage, he struck her a blow that flung her, half stunned, to the floor. "Damn it, you bitch, none of that! Hold her, Rannar – "

  She fought and struggled, gasping, silent, afraid if she opened her mouth that some word of Terran Standard would escape her. The men clustered around, shouting encouragement to the men who held her. Magda had been trained in unarmed combat since her sixteenth year; she tried to catch her breath, to find the strength to strike effectively, but she found herself held too hard.

  Why can't I defend myself? How did I get this far? Suddenly, as a drowning man's whole life is said to flash before his eyes, Magda knew the answer. I've psyched myself, for years, into behaving like a normal Darkovan girl. And they're too timid to fight-they expect men to protect them. I'm conditioned to that, and it canceled out my Terran agent's training...

  She hardly knew it when she started to scream...

  Chapter Nine

  Suddenly a light flared in Magda's eyes; a torch came down, blinding the man who held her. He reared back, yelling. Then there were half a dozen knives, it seemed, bared and leveled at Magda's captors.

  "Let her go," said a low, level voice; Magda saw Jaelle's face above the torch. The man who held her backed away; Magda pushed the other man aside, pulled herself free and scrambled to her feet, clutching her torn tunic around her. The mustachioed man yelled something obscene, rushed forward, grabbing up his sword; there was a blur of blades, a clash, a howl, and the man fell, clutching at a slash across his thighs. Magda saw blood on Jaelle's knife. One of the women helped Magda to gather her torn clothing around her, while the men clustered together, muttering.

  "Look out," Gwennis said sharply; the women fell back, braced, knives like a wall in front of them. Magda, thrust unregarded to one side, watched the slow, grim advance of the bandits, the unflinching barricade of the women's knives. Everything seemed sharply focused as she stood there waiting for the clash: the rough, menacing faces of the men, the equally unyielding faces of the women; the torchlight, the dark shadowed beams, even the patterns of the stone-flagged floor, seemed etched forever on her memory. Later she never knew how long that taut, sharply focused waiting lasted-it felt like hours, days-for the inevitable rush, clash of swords, tension drawn tighter, tighter. She felt like shrieking, Oh, don't, don't, I didn't mean... and physically raised her hands to cover her mouth so that' she would not cry out.

  Then one of the men swore roughly, dropped the point of his sword. "The hell with all this. Not worth it. Put your knives down, girls. Truce?"

  None of the women moved, but the bandit leader-the big, black-bearded man who had held Magda down-gestured to his men, and one by one they lowered their swords. When the last one was down, the women slowly relaxed, letting the points of their knives drop toward the stone floor.

  Jaelle said, "You have broken shelter-truce by laying hands on one of ours. If I reported this at a patrol station you could all be outlawed, with any hand free to kill you for three years." The strange beauty of her face in the torchlight, copper hair haloed around her pale features, made a strange contrast to her hard words. The leader said drunkenly, "You wouldn't do that, would you, mestra? We weren’t hurting her none."

  "We could all see how much pleasure she took in your advances," Jaelle said dryly.

  The mustachioed man said thickly, "Aft; hell, she came to us; how'd we know she wasn't looking for a bit of fun?" The wound across his thighs still oozed blood, but Magda could see now that it was no more than half an inch deep: painful perhaps
, and humiliating, but not disabling or dangerous. Jaelle wasn't even trying to kill him.

  Jaelle swung around to Magda; her eyes glinted like green fire by torchlight, and Magda felt sick with shame and dread. I am responsible for all this.

  "Did you come to them of your free will? Were you looking, as he says, for a bit of fun?"

  Magda whispered, "No. No, I didn't." She could hardly hear herself speak.

  "Then"-the Amazon leader's voice was a whiplash that cut-"what were you doing that they could think so?"

  Magda opened her mouth to say, "I wanted to hear what they were talking about," but stopped before a single word could get out. Camilla had warned her: spying on men was not proper behavior for an Amazon. She could not disgrace these women, who had protected her without any obligation to do so, by bringing shame or contempt on them. They had welcomed her to their meal and fireside; dressed as an Amazon, she had violated one of their strictest codes of behavior. Now she knew she must lie, quickly and well, a lie that would not involve the Amazons in her misbehavior. She said shakily, "I-I had a cramp, and I turned the wrong way in the darkness, looking for the privy. When I saw I was wrong I tried to get away before they saw me, and I slipped and fell."

  "You see?" said Jaelle to the men. Her eyes flicked Magda's face like the blow of a whip.

  She knows I'm lying, of course. But she knows why. It was all the amends she could make.

  Jaelle said, "You have broken shelter-truce, for which the penalty is three years' outlawry. And you have attempted to rape a woman here, for which our penalty is castration. Think yourselves lucky that your man did not succeed. And now gather up all that is yours, and be gone. By law we need not share shelter with outlaws and rapists."

  Blackbeard said, and the drunken dismay in his voice was actually comical, "In this storm, mestra?"

  "You should have listened to the voice of the storm before you broke shelter-truce," Jaelle said, and her face was like stone. "Outside, like the dirty animals you are! And if one of you sets foot over the threshold while we are still here, I swear, I will cut out his cuyones and roast them over the fire there!" She gestured with her knife. "Out! No more talk now! Out!"