Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 (10 page)

 
          
Obediently,
Miranda took a small stringed instrument from a case near the window, sat down
with it in her lap, and began to sing. Her voice was very pure and clear,
evidently well-trained, though not, Cendri judged, of performing quality for
public display. She sang several songs, all short, all mournful, in a strange
melancholy minor scale. To Cendri's questions, she explained, in a soft,
diffident voice, that they were mostly rhythmic songs of work-women; songs of
the looms, of the herdwomen, songs of the sea and the nets, songs for weaving
cloth and spinning it. She added, to Vaniya, "Will you not have Rhu sing
for our guests?"

 
          
Rhu
protested to Vaniya in an undertone, but she said briskly, "Don't be
shy!"

 
          
"I
would prefer to listen to the Lady's singing," he said, not looking at
Miranda.

 
          
"Miranda
should not tire herself now."

 
          
"My
lyrik
is in my room—"

 
          
"Use
mine," Miranda said, timidly, and Rhu glanced at Vaniya for permission,
then took it, protesting faintly, "If I re-set the strings for my voice,
the Lady will have the trouble of re-tuning them afterward for herself—"

 
          
"I
don't mind," Miranda said, not looking at him, "Please sing,
Rhu."

 
          
"As
the Lady and the honored guests wish." With courteous resignation, Rhu
began to tune the instrument he had called a
lyrik,
bending his head
close to the strings. Cendri watched him beneath lowered eyelids—she suspected
that staring at him was at least a social error and perhaps more. Rhu was, she
suspected, four or five years younger than herself and Dal; thin and dark, his
hair elaborately curled and waved. He wore a tunic of metallic blue fiber which
left his tanned shoulders bare; a tight belt of silver plates circled his
narrow waist, and his long slim legs were bare, except for silvered sandals
ornamented with pearls. He had a narrow, curly beard and small moustaches, and
his thin face looked sad. He asked Vaniya, "What shall I sing?"

 
          
"Whatever
you like, my dear," she said indulgently, "A hunting song, please,
men always like them."

 
          
Nodding,
he began a long ballad which, as nearly as Cendri could make out, celebrated
the pleasures of the chase, of the spear, of carrying the slain beasts home in
triumph. Cendri had no interest in the subject, though she tucked away the
random knowledge that while these women lived in cities, much of their life
still entered upon the agricultural cycles of the year.

 
          
In
spite of the boring recital of the pleasures of the hunt, she had to delight in
the
voice,
a superbly trained baritone which Cendri
judged would have won him fame as a concert singer on virtually any civilized
world. Rich, full and golden, it swelled to fill the room without being loud,
or died to a whisper which was, nevertheless, audible to the furthest corner;
women stopped talking to listen, and when one of the children prattled
something, its mother quickly hushed it.

 
          
A
voice like
this, tucked
away on
Isis
?

 
          
When
the song ended, she spoke a few words of compliment to Rhu, who smiled with shy
pleasure. "The Scholar Dame is kind, but I wish she could have heard my
voice before it was spoilt by changing; as a child I had truly a fine
soprano."

 
          
Vaniya
said regretfully, "Yes, Rhu has splendid technique, but of course it is
wasted on a man's roughened voice."

 
          
Dal
said directly to the Companion, "If you ever get tired of living on this
world, a voice like that would make your fortune anywhere inside the Unity.
Believe me."

 
          
He
blushed like a boy. "The honored guest is kind; how may I thank him?"

 
          
"Sing
something else," Dal said, and Rhu glanced at Vaniya for permission, then
bent his head close to the harp, and sang, in a low voice;

 
          
I
am only a man

 
          
And
I have no part in
Paradise
;

 
          
Twice
have I tasted
bliss

 
          
And
twice have I been driven forth;

 
          
Once
when I left my mother's womb

 
          
And
again when I was driven forth

 
          
From my mother's house.

           
The golden baritone dropped to a
mournful croon, his hands swept the strings with an anguished cadence;

 
          
When
I am done with life

 
          
Will
the Goddess take me,
perhaps,

 
          
To
her loving breasts?

 
          
Cendri
discovered that she was blinking away tears; not only at the beauty of the
voice, but at the agonized sadness of the song. Dal, too, looked visibly
shaken.

 
          
"Men's
songs are so sentimental," said Vaniya lightly, "but that one always
comes near to making me cry. Men enjoy self-pity so much, don't they?" As
Rhu put the harp in the case and returned it to Miranda, she filled a cup with
wine and held it indulgently to Rhu's lips. "Here, my dear. Rhu has given
us so much
pleasure,
I think he deserves a treat."

 
          
Suddenly
Cendri was filled with an overwhelming revulsion. In spite of Vaniya's
kindness, despite the pleasant atmosphere and the excellence of food and wine,
she found it hard to conceal her sense of disgust and shock. She had read about
this phenomenon in her textbook, one of the manifestations of culture shock;
she supposed it was due to fatigue.

 
          
Vaniya
looked sharply at her.

 
          
"You
are weary, Cendri. The journey must have been long and fatiguing."

 
          
"Yes,"
Cendri admitted.

 
          
"Then
you must go and rest—"

 
          
"But
before we leave you, Vaniya, may we ask if we may begin our work at once in the
Ruins—?"

 
          
Vaniya
sighed regretfully, and said, "Alas, I still have much to do with the
disasters which the earthquake left behind; I shall have no leisure for some
time to take you there; perhaps in a few days I can arrange to take you, and
then, when you have been properly introduced to this—which is a very sacred
place to us—you will be free to work there as you choose."

 
          
Cendri,
listening carefully to the words of the Pro-Matriarch, realized; in spite of
their solicitous courtesy, she had just been warned not to try and go there on
her own. Why not? She told herself that it was natural enough, the ruins which
Vaniya called We-were-guided were one of their greatest shrines or sacred
places; but the argument did not quite convince her.

 
          
Maybe
it
isn't the
Pro-Matriarch Mahala who
is opposed
to the
exploration of the
Ruins. Maybe it's Vaniya
herself!
Twice, now,
they've side-stepped a direct answer on
that!

           
She made, resignedly, the only
possible answer, that they awaited a time of the Pro-Matriarch's convenience.
As they climbed to their room, she was anticipating without enthusiasm Dai's
probable comments on
that,
and on the society as they
had seen it tonight; but Dal was silent and thoughtful. Finally he
said,
when they were safely shut into their room, "Did
you ever hear a voice like Rhu's?"

 
          
"Not
since the Orpheus Musicians visited University; they had a baritone almost as
good."

 
          
"And
Vaniya keeps him for a pet and snubs him—a talent like that! I'd like to kidnap
him and smuggle him off to University!
Might cause a
diplomatic crisis, though.
There must be some kind of penalty for
alienating the affections of the Pro-Matriarch's Companion. And speaking of
Companions—" he put his arm around Cendri's waist.

 
          
"If
you're
very
nice, I may let you sleep in the Amusement Corner with
me."

 
          
Cendri
laughed, putting her arms up around his neck. "Don't you be arrogant with
me, love, on this world I could have you put out at night like a puppy
dog!" But she let him scoop her up in his arms and carry her to the padded
alcove. It was considerably more comfortable than that high, narrow bed!

 
          
"This
seems to be my only proper function on this world," Dal murmured against
her lips, "I might as well take advantage of it!"

 
          
"Don't
be ridiculous, darling," she whispered, drawing him down to her,
"We'll call it a second honeymoon."

 
          
Dal
had made a joke of it. And yet there was a trace of bitterness behind the words
which told Cendri that in Dai's heart it was very far from being a joke.

 
          
Late
in the night, Cendri rose and went to the window. She
 
looked down on the ruins of the ancient
site which the Pro-
 
Matriarch had called We-were-guided. Dal
slept, satiated and, she
 
hoped, a little comforted and pacified.
How would she keep him
 
from going mad with frustration here?
When she herself would be
 
doing his proper work, and he must pose
as her assistant and
 
subordinate___ she had been foolish ever
to accept this deception!

 
          
Dal
had insisted. He had said it was enough for any Scholar simply to have the
privilege of working on the Builder ruins, and in any case he would have the
credit for the work when they were back on University. Yet she quailed at the
thought of seeing his pride wounded, day after day, in a society like this
where he was reduced to the status of a housepet like Rhu, a boy kept for a
woman's pleasure! She marvelled at Vaniya—the woman was many times a grandmother,
and her Companion young enough to be her grandson! Well, in the Unity it was
not unknown for some rich woman to dote on a handsome and talented youth, and
to keep him as a sort of pet. But there it was always done with a little more
respect for the young man's pride, and the woman usually felt some shame about
it. Cendri told herself that her revulsion was just a cultural prejudice. She
turned her eyes to the moon-flooded landscape, which covered the low slopes
behind the city with such brilliance that shapes and outlines were clearly
perceptible. At the center of the ruins of We-were-guided, surrounded by them,
and at their very center—enshrined, the thought came without volition—lay a
familiar outline, dwarfed by distance; one of the old models of starship.

 
          
Was
this the very ship in which the women of Isis/Cinderella had come to their
world?

 
          
The
original Matriarchate—Cendri remembered—had been founded a few hundred years
before, by a group of historians who held a mad theory that the original human
stock had come from a world with a primitive matriarchal culture, and that
decay in human cultures had set in when the worship of a Mother Goddess, a
planetary Earth-mother, had been overthrown and superseded by climatic changes
which convinced the primitive society that the worship of sun and rain gods,
regulating the weather, was more important than the Goddess cults.

 
          
So
the Matriarchate
is founded, then, in religious fanaticism and
it
will
never be understood except
by
understanding its religious
beginnings....