The Saga of the Renunciates Read online

  "She is helping Kindra to water the horses," Rohana said. "Believe me, she's quite safe and well, and seems not over-wearied by the ride." Rohana lowered herself to the shade beside her cousin. "I wish I had even a little of her energy."

  Melora stretched out her thin fingers, clasping Rohana's hand in hers as if hungry for the reassurance of the touch. "I can see how you have wearied yourself for me, too, cousin... How came you into the company of these-these women? You have not deserted husband and children as they do...?" The question was evident without words, and Rohana smiled in reassurance. "No, love. My marriage-as I knew it would be-is well enough: Gabriel and I are as happy as any other couple."

  "Then how – "

  "It is a long story," Rohana said, "and not easy in the telling. It seemed to me that everyone had forgotten you; I had all but forgotten myself, thinking you dead or-or resigned to your life." She added, half defensively, "It had been so long."

  "Yes, a lifetime," said Melora with a sigh.

  "When you came to me, at first I thought it a dream. I made the journey to Thendara and spoke to some of the Council; but they said they could do nothing, the time was not right for war with the Dry Towns, and they would send no others to die. I had all but resigned myself to thinking that nothing could be done, when by chance-or who knows, by the work of some Goddess-a little band of Free Amazons met with me on the road. They were hunters and traders, and had a mercenary soldier or two to protect them; and in talk with them, I learned that while their band did not venture into the Dry-Towns, they knew of one who would. So I went to their Guild-house and spoke with Kindra; and she agreed to attempt the rescue. And so – "

  "So here you are," said Melora, almost with wonder, "and here I am. It was true. I had resigned myself, and when I knew I bore Jalak's child again, and that child a son-I was ready to die." Her eyes went to her daughter; Jaelle had finished walking the horse, and was standing beside him as he drank from the waterhole. "She is past twelve; at thirteen she would have been chained. I think if you had not come I would have killed her, somehow, and then myself – "

  Rohana saw the deep shudder that ran through her cousin's body. She put out her hand quickly to clasp Melora's. "It is past, love. All past. Now you can begin to forget."

  Forget? While I bear Jalak's son? Melora did not speak the words aloud, but Rohana heard them anyway. She said very gently, "Well, for now-you can rest, and you are free, and safe for the moment. Try to sleep, dearest."

  "Sleep." Melora's smile was wry. "I cannot remember when I really slept last. And it seems a pity to sleep now, when I am with you again, and safe... and I am happy... Tell me all the news of our kinfolk, Rohana. Does Marius Elhalyn still rule in Thendara? What of our people, our friends-tell me everything," she said yearningly, and Rohana had not the heart to silence her.

  "That is a long story and would take many days and hours in the telling. Dom Marius died the year after you were taken; Aran Elhalyn keeps the throne warm from year to year, and as usual the Lord of Hastur is the true ruler; not old Istvan, he is senile, but Lorill Hastur, who was his heir. You recall that Lorill and his sister Leonie were with us at the Dalereuth Tower, when we were girls; I thought perhaps Lorill would move against Jalak for your sake – "

  Melora sighed. She said, "Even I knew better than that; the Hasturs must think of more important things than the cause of kin, or how are they better than the Dry-Towners with all their feuds and little wars? There is peace otherwise?"

  "Peace, yes... Lorill has brought the Terrans from Aldaran to Thendara; they are building a spaceport there, and he has defended his move before the Council; some of them fought it all the way, but Lorill prevailed, as the Hasturs usually do."

  "The Terrans," said Melora, slowly. "Yes, I had heard; men like us from another world, come on great ships from the stars. Jalak told such tales only to laugh at them; in the Dry Towns they do not know that the stars are suns like ours, lighting worlds not unlike our own, and Jalak loved to scoff at such tales and say these so-called off-worlders must be clever rogues indeed to fool the Seven Domains, but that no sensible man from the Drylands would be caught so... " She shut her eyes, and Rohana thought, for a moment, that she slept; and was grateful. Knowing that she, too, should try to rest, she closed her eyes, but a shadow fell across her face, and she opened them to see Jaelle standing there, looking down at them. She said in a whisper, "It is you who are my-our kinswoman, Lady Rohana?"

  Rohana sat up and held out her arms; Jaelle gave her a quick, shy embrace. "How does my mother, kinswoman? Is she asleep?"

  "Asleep; and very weary," said Rohana, rising quickly to her feet. She drew the child away so the sound of their voices would not disturb Melora.

  "I will not waken her, but I wanted to see-" and her voice trembled. Rohana looked down at the small serious face, the wide green eyes.

  Comyn, she thought; she does not look like Melora, but her Comyn blood is unmistakable. It would have been wrong, entirely wrong, to leave her in Jalak's hands... not only inhuman but wrong!

  Jaelle said, almost in a whisper, "She should not ride now; the baby will be born so soon... "

  "I know that, dear. But we are not safe here, except for a little rest. When we reach Carthon, we will be back in Domain country; and out of Jalak's reach forever," Rohana said quietly.

  "But-what will it do to her? The riding, the weariness-" Jaelle began hesitantly, then dropped her eyes and looked away. Rohana thought, Has she laran? Even in the telepath caste of the Comyn, the Gift did not begin to show itself much before adolescence; a trained leronis could make educated guesses about a child Jaelle's age, but it had been so long since Rohana had used her telepath training that she could not even guess about Jaelle. Now, when I need to know, the Gift deserts me... Why must women have to choose between the use of laran and all the other things of a woman's life?

  She looked down at Melora, wiped out in exhausted sleep, and thought of the time when they had been young girls together, in the Tower at Dalereuth, learning the use of the matrix jewels that transformed energies; working as psi monitors, in the relay nets that kept communications alive in the vast spaces of Darkover, learning the technology of the Seven Domains.

  There had been three of them, all the same age: Rohana, and Melora, and Leonie Hastur, sister to that Lorill Hastur who ruled now behind the throne at Thendara. Rohana's family had insisted that she marry, and she had left her work in the Tower-not without regrets-and gone to marry the heir to the Ardais Domain, to supervise the great estate there, to bear sons and a daughter to that clan. Leonie had been selected Keeper; a telepath of surpassing skill, she was now in charge of the Tower at Arilinn, controlling all the working telepaths on Darkover. But Leonie had paid the Keeper's price; she had been forced to renounce love and marriage, living in seclusion as a virgin all her life...

  Melora had been given no choice. Jalak's armed men had seized her and carried her away to imprisonment and chains... rape and slavery and long suffering.

  Rohana's weariness was giving her strange thoughts. Did Jalak really change her life so much? Do any of us have choice, really? At our clan's demand, to share a stranger's bed and rule his house and bear his children... or to live isolated from life, in loneliness and seclusion, controlling tremendous forces, but with no power to reach out our hand to any other human being, alone, virgin, worshiped but pitied...

  Jaelle's small hand touched hers lightly, and the little girl said, "Kinswoman... you are so white... "

  Rohana quickly returned to reality. She said matter-of-factly, "I have eaten nothing. And in a little while I must wake your mother and see that she eats something, too." She went with Jaelle to where the Amazons were sharing out food and drink; this time she diluted the wine with water from the well and found it sour but drinkable. Kindra went to look at the sleeping Melora and came back, saying, "She needs rest more than food, Lady; she can eat when she wakes," and looked at Jaelle, saying, "You will be sunburned and saddle-sore if you try to
ride in that nightgown, chiya. Gwennis, Leeanne, Devra, you are smallest, can you find the little one some clothes?"

  Rohana was surprised and warmed to see how immediate the response was; all but the tallest of the women went at once to their saddlebags, searching, sharing out what they had, an under vest here, a tunic there, a pair of trousers (Leeanne's, and even these had to be rolled up almost to the knees). Camilla, whose feet were slender, brought out a pair of suede ankle boots, saying, "They will be too big, but laced tightly, they will protect her while she is riding and keep her feet from the sand and thorn bushes." They were embroidered and dyed, evidently her own holiday gear, and Rohana was more surprised than ever; a neuter, she would have thought, could hardly have maternal feelings.

  Jaelle let Rohana undress her and clothe her in the strange garments, looking around hesitantly toward her mother but forbearing to disturb her. She did say shakily, as Rohana belted in the bulky long trousers, and began to lace up the pretty, dyed-leather boots, "I have always been told it is not seemly for a woman to wear breeches, and-and, I am almost old enough to be called a woman."

  "Better breeched than bare Jaelle," Rohana said, adding more gently, "I know how you feel. Before I came on this journey, I believed nothing could force me to wear breeches and boots, but necessity is stronger than custom; and, as for seemliness-well, you cannot ride in that tattered nightgown with your bare haunches in the wind."

  Camilla came and checked the fit of the boots. "If they are too loose and make blisters, child, tell me and I will find an extra pair of thick stockings. How do women manage to ride in the Dry Towns, little lady?"

  "The saddle is made like this"-Jaelle demonstrated-"so that a woman can sit sidewise and her skirts are not disordered."

  "And will slip and fall if her horse stumbles," said Gwennis, "while I can ride as fast and far as any man, and I have never had a fall. But in the Domains, little one, you can wear those clumsy riding-skirts your kinswoman prefers to wear."

  "Clumsy they may look," Rohana retorted, "yet I ride well enough in them that I can hunt with hawks in the mountains; in a bad season, when the men cannot spare time for the hunt, the little children or sick people have never had to go without birds or small game for their table, riding-skirts or no; I ride as well in them as in these." And I wish I were wearing them now, she thought, but knew the Amazons would have had small sympathy for that.

  Gwennis ran her hand along Jaelle's long tangled hair. "It is a pity it should snarl so."

  Jaelle's eyes filled with tears; she looked up at Rohana's cropped head and said, "Do you have to cut it?"

  Rohana said firmly, "No indeed. But let me comb and braid it tight, so it will not tangle while you ride." She made Jaelle sit down and began to comb the waist-length, fire-red hair. She felt again a pang at the thought of her own hair, which had been her pride, her one claim to beauty. Gabriel will be angry when he sees my hair, hacked short like an Amazon's. She thought defensively, as if answering her husband, I had no choice, it was for Melora's sake. But Jaelle's should not be sacrificed.

  Kindra came and looked at Jaelle, dressed in the too-large odds and ends of Amazon garb, but she made no comment. She drew Rohana aside for a moment and said, "Do not tell the child, and do not disturb your kinswoman, but there is a small cloud of dust at the horizon. It probably has nothing to do with us-it is not in the direction of Shainsa, from which pursuit would come; but I must warn my women, and you, Lady, should be wary."

  "Should we be ready to ride again?"

  Kindra shook her head. "No. In the heat of the day we dare not; we would die of heat prostration as painfully as on a Dry-Towner's sword. We will hide ourselves among the rocks and hope that this dust has nothing to do with us, or with Jalak and his men; sleep if you can, Lady, but stay near to Melora and the little one, and caution her, if she wakes, to stay hidden in the shadow of the rocks." She signaled to Devra and Rima, saying, "I shall set you two on watch; Leeanne and I have been leading and tracking all the night, and Nira has lost enough blood that she needs rest. But call me at once if that dust seems to turn in our direction. Lady, go now and try to sleep. And you too, domnina," she added to Jaelle.

  "May I bring my bread and finish it before I sleep?" Jaelle asked, and Kindra said, "Of course," as she went away to rest. Gwennis, reaching into her pocket, smiled at Jaelle and said, "Are you hungry, chiya? Here is a sweet for you; suck it before you sleep, and it will keep your mouth from getting too dry in this heat."

  Jaelle accepted the candy with a small, shy inclination of her head. She looked around at the Amazons with curiosity-though Rohana could see that she was trying hard to repress it and, in politeness, ask nothing. At last she said to Gwennis, "Some of you look-almost like men. Why is that?"

  Gwennis glanced at Rohana; then said, "Yes; Leeanne and Camilla. They have been neutered; their bodies are not actually those of women. There are some women who feel that womanhood itself is too great a burden to be borne, and choose this way, even though the laws forbid it."

  "But you are not like that," Jaelle said, and Gwennis smiled.

  "No, chiya. It is troublesome to be a woman, from time to time-I imagine you are old enough to know so much-but all in all, I think I would rather be a woman than not, even if it were easy or simple to find anyone, in these days, who will risk the laws against that sort of mutilation. All in all I find it more pleasure than trouble."

  Rohana, too, had been curious about this; like all women reared in the protective, pampered world of the Domains, she had always thought-when she had thought about the Amazons at all, which was seldom-that they were mannish women, or plain girls such as would burden their families to find any sort of husband. But, except for the two neutered women, and the mountain tomboy with the two knives, none of them were anything like that. Kindra was gentle and almost motherly, as was Fat Rima; and the others seemed none too different, clothing and cropped hair apart, from her own waiting-women. As for Gwennis, she seemed almost like a little girl herself, not much older than Jaelle, or Rohana's own daughter.

  Jaelle smiled at Gwennis and said, "You would be beautiful if you let your hair grow long."

  It was Rohana's own thought. Gwennis said with a kindly smile, "Why, perhaps so, little sister, but why should I want to be beautiful? I am not a dancer, or an actress, or a lyric performer, that I should need so much beauty!"

  "But if you were beautiful, you could make a good marriage," Jaelle said, "and you would not need to be a soldier or a hunter to earn a living."

  "But, little one," said Gwennis, laughing, "I do not want to make a marriage, not even a good one."

  "Oh?" Jaelle pondered this for a moment; it was easy to see that this was a new idea to her. "Why not?"

  "For many reasons. Among others," she said deliberately, "lest I should find that my husband sought to keep me in chains."

  Rohana felt it like a blow; Jaelle put her hand to her mouth and bit at the knuckle. Her face went white, then a desperate, agonized crimson. She made a small, strangled sound, turned away and ran to her mother's side, flinging herself down on the blanket beside her and burying her head in her arms.

  Gwennis looked almost as dismayed as the child. She said, "My Lady, I am sorry, I should not have said that."

  Silently, Rohana shook her head. She said at last, "She had to know."

  Suddenly Jaelle has realized what this is all about. Before this it has been an adventure, safe because her mother is here; but she has not truly understood. And now-now she knows.

  And a shock like this, to a girl just on the threshold of womanhood... a girl with extraordinary telepath potential... Rohana was not sure just how she knew this, but she was sure of it. What will it do to her? Slowly, Rohana went and laid herself down in the shade beside Melora and Jaelle. Melora slept heavily. Jaelle's face was buried in the blanket, her thin shoulders trembling violently. Rohana reached out to draw her close, comfort her, as she would have done with one of her own children; but Jaelle resisted her stiffl
y, and after a moment Rohana let her be. I am almost a stranger to her, she thought in despair. I can do nothing for her. Not yet.

  Chapter Four

  Three days and nights had passed, and Rohana had given up expecting pursuit or capture. If there had been pursuit at all, it had taken the wrong direction or been left hopelessly behind. Or else Melora was right, and Jalak's heirs, finding him dead or wholly disabled, were busily dividing up his remaining wives and his property.

  Gradually the character of the land had changed: the first days had seen dry, burning, gritty sand, broken only by scruffy thorn bushes and feathery spicebush; now there were endless, trackless leagues of low, rolling dunes, covered by grayish Dryland bracken, with now and again a sharp black outcrop of rock. As if, Rohana thought, recalling the old tale, when Zandru made the Drylands, even the very rocks rebelled and broke through their cover, thrusting up in rebellion... the very bones of the world refusing to be covered in these barren leagues of desert and sand...

  It was nearing twilight; the fierceness of the sun was tempered by the lengthening angle of the shadow. All that day they had seen no living thing, and Kindra had cautioned them to drink sparingly from their water-skins. "Should anything delay us," she had warned, with a sharp glance at Melora, "we might not reach the next water hole this night... and we cannot carry too much in reserve."

  Melora rode just ahead of her, head down, braced stiffly in her saddle. She had not spoken since they left the site of their noonday rest, and when Rohana would have felt her forehead for fever, she had turned away, refusing the touch, refusing even to meet Rohana's searching eyes. Rohana was desperately worried about her. This trip was far too long, far too arduous for any pregnant woman. Melora had not complained; Rohana had the chilling sense that she had ceased to care. She seemed to have expended all the effort of which she was capable in making the original contact with Rohana that had resulted in her rescue; that accomplished, it seemed to Rohana that Melora no longer cared. She had not even asked any further questions about her home, about their kin, about what lay ahead when they should leave the Dryland country and return to the Domains.