The Saga of the Renunciates Read online

  He fell with a harsh sound, air escaping from lungs already no longer breathing. Slowly, feeling sick, she pulled out the knife.

  I haven't fought anyone since combat training, ten years ago. Now I've killed one and wounded another. She looked at Jaelle, unconscious on the ground, almost under the body of the man Magda had killed. Is he dead? The thought did not bring relief, but a wrenching agony. She fought for me, last night. And I would have betrayed her...

  Jaelle stirred, and Magda knew that Jaelle's life still stood between her and her mission. She was still holding the bloody knife with which she had killed the bandit. She saw Jaelle's eyes move to the knife; she lay still, looking up at Magda without a word. Magda suddenly knew that she could not kill anyone in cold blood; above all she could not kill this woman who lay bleeding and helpless in the snow at her feet.

  What good is Peter's life if I buy it with another death? I will save him honorably if I can; not otherwise. She knelt beside Jaelle. Her face was covered with blood; more blood was soaking through her shoulder. She lifted the sticky clothes clinging to the wound.

  The bandit's knife had gone under the collarbone and sliced down toward the armpit; a bad wound, painful and dangerous but not, Magda thought, necessarily fatal. She got out her knife again and cleaned the blade, saw that one of Jaelle's eyes was open-the other was clotted shut-and that she was watching the knife. Magda said irritably, "I've got to cut these clothes off so I can, stop the bleeding." She slit Jaelle's tunic and eased it gently away from the skin; Jaelle gasped with the pain but did not cry out. She only said, wetting her lips, "Did you-kill them both?"

  "One is surely dead. I don't know about the other, but he isn't in any shape to harm us," Magda said.

  Jaelle said, her breath coming loud, "Bandages... in my saddlebags...”

  Magda got up, edging between the dead bandit and Jaelle's horse, which, smelling the blood, shifted its feet uneasily. She led the horse away and took down the saddlebags, hunting in them; she found two or three rolls, and what looked like a small, primitive first-aid kit. That cut probably needs stitches, but I can't do it. She made a pressure bandage, strapped it around Jaelle's shoulder, turned her attention to the long, hideous gash along Jaelle's face; it had laid her cheek open to the bone. Jaelle said, in a hoarse, frightened voice, "Can't see out of... this eye... "

  Magda went to the well behind the shelter, dipped up the icy water, came back and sponged the dreadful gash. The eyelashes parted; a little more sponging showed that the eye had only been stuck shut with blood from a small nick in the eyelid. Magda pushed the eyelids open; Jaelle gasped with relief.

  "Can you walk? You can't lie out here in the snow." Magda knelt, slipped an arm around the woman, managed to hoist her to her feet; Jaelle tried to walk, but collapsed against Magda. Magda managed, somehow, to get her inside the shelter and lay her on one of the stone benches. She started to build a fire, put some water to boil, thinking that some bark-tea, or some of the Amazon grain-brew, would do them both good. And if Jaelle was in shock-and she looked like it-she had better be kept warm. Not knowing how Jaelle had stowed her own blankets, Magda got out her own and wrapped Jaelle up in them; shoved one of the stone slabs into the fire, thinking she could heat it, wrap it in something and put it at the hurt woman's feet. When the water boiled she poured it on the bark for tea, and went out to put the animals away-they wouldn't be going anywhere right away. The second bandit was definitely dead. She had to drag him out of the way to get the horses and her pack beast into the stable again.

  When she came into the shelter Jaelle was conscious. She whispered, "I thought you had gone."

  Remotely, like something someone else might have thought, it occurred to Magda: she could have escaped. After doing her best for Jaelle, she could have left her here to recover, and felt no particular guilt. Now it was something she could never have done. I swore to treat every Amazon as my own mother, sister or daughter...

  She fumbled for words, saying, "We are oath-bound-sister."

  Jaelle put out her hand, a groping gesture that made Magda's heart ache, remembering how quick and skillful those hands had been. She whispered, "I told you-oath-mother and oath-daughter exchange gifts. I did not ask for such a gift as this."-

  Magda felt embarrassed. "You'd better not talk anymore. Are you cold?" She got another blanket, put the hot stone at Jaelle's feet, propped her up to sip a little of the boiling tea. Jaelle touched her sleeve. "Tend your own wound."

  Magda had forgotten it. "It's only a scratch."

  "Just the same. Some mountain bandits... poison their blades," Jaelle said with difficulty. "Do as I say."

  By the time Magda had finished Jaelle was asleep of unconscious again. And asleep or unconscious she remained all that day. Magda made herself some soup from dried meat, late in the day, and tried to rouse Jaelle to eat, but Jaelle only moaned and muttered and pulled away from her hands; Magda knew that she was feverish. Once she woke and asked quite clearly for a drink of water, but when Magda-brought it she was stuporous again and would not swallow.

  Are there injuries I did not see? Or were the wounds poisoned after all? Magda found that she was fighting terror and dread. I don't want her to die! I don't!

  By nightfall Jaelle's skin was blistering hot, and Magda could not rouse her even for a moment. Jaelle muttered and flung herself around; once she began with her free hand to tear at the bandage on her face. Magda pulled her hand away, but a few minutes later Jaelle was clawing at the bandage again. Magda, thinking that if she got the bandage loose she might hurt herself, make the scar worse, took a roll of the bandage and tied Jaelle's hands at her sides. She was not prepared to hear Jaelle begin to scream: wild screams of panic and terror.

  "Oh, no, no, no, no... don't chain my hands, don't-Mother, mother... don't let them... oh, don't... oh, no, no!" and the thin tearing screams again. Magda had never heard such terror. She could not bear it. Quickly she cut the bandage, lifted Jaelle's hands one after another to show that they were free. Somehow that penetrated Jaelle's delirium; she stopped shrieking and lay back quietly. About an hour later she began restlessly to tear at the bandage on her face again, but Magda had no notion of repeating whatever had terrified her so; instead she took the unconscious woman's hands firmly between her own and held them tight. She said quietly and firmly, "You must not do that; lie still, you will hurt yourself. I will not tie your hands, but you must be still." She repeated this over and over, several times, with variations.

  Jaelle opened her eyes, but Magda knew she did not see her. She muttered, "Kindra," and later, "Mother," but let her hands rest in Magda's without struggling. Once she said, to no one present, "It hurt. But I didn't cry."

  Most of that night Magda sat beside Jaelle, listening to her delirious mutterings, holding her hands tight whenever she tried to tear at the bandages or, as she started to do later, to climb out of bed, under some agitated impression-Magda gathered from her raving-that she was needed somewhere else, at once. Magda had nothing to give her for the fever; there were some medicines in Jaelle's saddlebags, but Magda did not know how to use them or what they were. She sponged her several tunes with the icy water from the well, and tried to make her drink, but Jaelle pulled away and would not swallow. Toward morning she sank into quiet; Magda did not know whether she was asleep or had lapsed into a coma and was dying. In either case there was nothing she could do. She lay down at the unconscious woman's side and closed her eyes for a moment's rest; suddenly the shelter was full of gray light and Jaelle was lying with her eyes open, looking at her.

  "How do you feel, Jaelle?"

  "Like hell," Jaelle said. "Is there some water, or tea, or something? My mouth has not been this dry since I left Shainsa."

  Magda brought her a drink; Jaelle gulped it thirstily and asked for more. "Did you stay by me all night?"

  "Until you fell asleep; I was afraid you would tear off your bandages. You tried."

  "Was I delirious?" When Magda nodded, Jaelle said w
ith a wry grin, "That explains it; I dreamed I was back in the Dry Towns, and Jalak-well, it was frightful nonsense, but I have rarely been so glad to wake up." She put a tentative hand to the bandages.

  "You will have a dreadful scar, I am afraid."

  "There are some women in the Guild-house who think their scars a good advertisement for their skill," said Jaelle, "but, then, I am not a fighter."

  Magda had to smile at that. "I should say you were quite a fighter."

  "I mean, not a professional fighter. I do not normally hire myself out as soldier or bodyguard," Jaelle said, and shifted her body uncomfortably. "I don't remember much after you cut off my tunic."

  "I'll tell you more after I dress your wound," Magda said. Jaelle had run so high a fever that Magda feared to find infection; but there was at least no renewed bleeding though the edges of the wound looked ugly. Poisoned? Jaelle said, "I have some karalla powder in my saddlebags; it will keep the wound from closing too soon with rot beneath." At her directions Magda sprinkled the wound with the gray stuff before re-bandaging it. Jaelle was exhausted and pale, but coherent; she ate some of the dried-meat soup, with Magda's help, and drank more water.

  "You killed both of them? That does surprise me!"

  "It surprised me, too," Magda confessed.

  Jaelle uneasily fingered the bandage on her face. "I am not one of those who make a fetish of displaying their scars, but I may have to pretend that I am. Better scarred than buried-or blind! Camilla told me, once, that there were some men who found knife-scars on a woman irresistible." She sank back wearily against the rolled saddlebag under her head. "It was a fool's wound, really. Gwennis, or even old Camilla, could have driven them both away without taking a scratch."

  She closed her eyes and slept again. She was somnolent, or sleeping, most of that day, but the fever did not return. Magda had little to do, after the animals had been tended. She thought about burying the dead bandits, but that was a task entirely beyond her strength. She stayed near Jaelle, in case the wounded girl should need anything. The sight of the bandage on Jaelle's face troubled her deeply. She was so beautiful! In the Terran Zone they could repair that ugly slash as good as new; here, I suppose, she will bear that terrible scar until she dies!

  It occurred to her again that now, with Jaelle well on the way toward recovery, she could make her escape, leave her to recover at leisure, and not even have the other woman's death on her conscience. But by now the thought was very remote.

  On the next day Jaelle was able to get up and walk about a little, moving her arm cautiously; swearing at the pain, but moving it, nevertheless. "I don't want the muscles to freeze and the arm to lose its strength," she said irritably, when Magda urged her not to risk tearing it open again. "I know what I am doing." Now that she was no longer somnolent with shock and exhaustion, she was in a good deal of pain, and it made her irritable and restless. Late in the afternoon Magda woke from a brief doze to find Jaelle staring at her as if trying to remember something. Does she remember thinking I was going to kill her? She remembered, with some shock, the moment when she had stood over Jaelle, not yet sure herself what she intended. Jaelle had been as still as a wounded animal awaiting the hunter's death-stroke. .

  Jaelle said quietly, at last, "I did not expect you to stay with me, Margali; I knew you took our oath unwillingly. It is customary for oath-mother and daughter to exchange gifts; you have given me my life, I know."

  "Don't!" Magda could not bear to start thinking again about her indecision. She got up and went out of the shelter, looking at the lowering gray sky, heavy with unfallen snow. Midwinter was only a few days distant; and on that day Peter Haldane would meet a dreadful death, suffering the penalty of Rumal di Scarp's blood feud with the Ardais clan. Magda leaned against the outside wall of the shelter and gave herself up to helpless, desperate weeping.

  After a long time she felt a soft touch on her arm; Jaelle stood there, looking very pale and troubled.

  "Is he so dear to you-the kinsman of your mission?"

  Exhausted, struggling for self-control, Magda could only shake her head and say, "It is not only that.”

  "Then tell me what it is, my sister." Jaelle took Magda's hand. She said, "Don't stand here in the cold."

  More because she remembered that Jaelle herself must not be kept in the cold with her unhealed wound, Magda let herself be led inside. Jaelle stumbled, fell heavily against her; Magda caught her, eased her down on one of the stone benches.

  "Now tell me, sister."

  Magda shook her head, exhausted. "I told you all."

  "But this time," Jaelle said, "the truth, will you not? I do not understand you, Margali. You were lying when you took the oath; you were not lying. You were telling the truth; you were not telling the truth. Even your name-it is your name; you have another name. Tell me."

  Magda's defenses were down. "How did you know?"

  Jaelle said, "I was born daughter to the Comyn; I have some laran." Magda did not know the word as Jaelle used it; it usually meant a gift or talent. "I have not had the training to use it properly. Lady Rohana-she is my mother's kinswoman-wished me sent to a Tower to be trained in its use; I would have none of that crew. So my gift is erratic; I cannot use it when I would, and when I would not, it thrusts itself on me, undesired. It was so when you took the oath; I could feel, within myself, that you were torn two ways, and in such fear... there was no need for such terror as that. And now I can read your thoughts, but only a little, Margali-if that is your name. You are oath-bound, but so am I; as you are sworn, so am I oath-bound to you, never to hurt or betray you. Tell me, my sister!"

  Magda said wearily, "I was born in Caer Donn. My true name-the name my parents gave me-is Magdalen Lome, but the Darkover children with whom I played could not say that name; they called me Margali, and that is my name as much as the other."

  "The-the Darkovan children?" Jaelle whispered, and her eyes were wide, almost with fear. "What are you, then?"

  "I am... I am..." Magda struggled, the words sticking in her throat. This was basic. You never tell any outsider who you are. Never.

  Jaelle is not an outsider. She is my sworn sister. Suddenly all conflict was gone. The lump in Magda's throat dissolved, and it seemed that she drew the first free breath she had drawn since she first entered this shelter several nights ago. She said, and her voice did not falter, "My mother and father were Terrans, subjects of the Empire; I am Darkovan, born in Caer Donn, but I am an Intelligence agent and linguistics expert for the Empire, and I work from Thendara."

  Slowly, Jaelle nodded. "So that is it," she said at last. "I have heard something of the Terrans. One of ours in Thendara Guild-house-an emmasca who can pass herself off as a man: they all can, but many of them will not-hired herself out with the workmen among those building the spaceport, and she told us something of your people. But I did not know the Terrans were human, except in form."

  Magda smiled at that way of putting it. She said, "The records of the Empire say that Darkovan and Terran are one stock from the far past."

  "Does Lady Rohana know you are Terranan?"

  "Yes; she saw me first there."

  "This explains why you had to appeal to her," said Jaelle; she was just thinking out loud. "Your kinsman, is he Terran, too?"

  "Yes; but taken prisoner by Rumal di Scarp because of a chance likeness to Lady Rohana's son."

  "He is like Kyril? That will not endear him to me," Jaelle said. "I love Rohana well; Kyril is another matter entirely. But that does not matter now. You love this man so very much? Is he your lover, then?"

  Magda said slowly, "No; although for a time we were"-she hesitated, used the Darkovan word-"freemates. But it is more than that. We were children together, and he has no one else. To my superiors in Thendara, he is-expendable; so I took this duty upon myself to save him from death and torture."

  Jaelle bit her lip, frowning, idly fingering the bandage on her cheek. She said, "I must think. Perhaps-you are in the employ of your servi
ce, under bond for a legitimate service? A Free Amazon is bound by law to fulfill any work she hires herself of her free will to do, and it could be legally said you must complete this pledge and honor your conditions of employment." Again, she was thinking out loud. "You say you do not love him. How do you feel about him, then?"

  "I don't know." Magda searched her mind; surprised herself by saying, "Protective."

  Jaelle looked at Magda with that intense, frowning stare which made Magda wonder if the girl was really reading her thoughts. She said, "Yes; I think no man has ever meant more to you than that, not yet. You have, I think, the true spirit of an Amazon, and if you had been born among us, I think you would have come to us in the end. This must have been what Rohana saw in you."

  She was silent for some time, thinking; suddenly she laughed.

  "There is only one man living whom I love less than Rumal di Scarp," she said. "I would love to cheat Rumal of his prey! And you are oath-bound to obey all lawful commands of your employer. And there is a life between us; and it is required of me that I give my oath-daughter a gift. I will come with you, Margali, to Sain Scarp!"

  Magda said, again with that sense of conflicting loyalties, "Jaelle, I can never thank you for this, but first you should know: it will cause much trouble for you in Thendara. Lorill Hastur has forbidden anyone in the Domains to take part in this affair."

  "You do not listen very well," Jaelle said. "I do my own thinking, not the blind will of Hastur. Like all people, I must obey the laws of the land; but the whims of Hastur are not yet the laws of Thendara, and Lorill Hastur has no right to forbid any Free Amazon, under the Charter, to accept any lawful work. Lorill Hastur is my kinsman-though the only time he saw and spoke with me he seemed not very eager to accept the relationship-but he is not the keeper of my conscience! The Free Amazons owe no allegiance to any liege lord, even if he calls himself the son of Hastur. And it seems to me that if the Terrans could give you, a woman, and born in Caer Donn, the strength and spirit to venture alone into the Hellers, and the-" She hesitated, looking away. "And at the same time, the integrity to honor an oath, even under such conditions of strain, then it seems to me that these Terranan might have something to teach even a Hastur, and that the Free Amazons should be their friends and allies. So I will give you leave, and I will help you, to rescue your friend."