Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 (19 page)

 
          
She
was so dazed with admiration that she stumbled on a stone and Cendri laughed
and helped her up. She said, "I am really very ordinary, there are
hundreds of women like me on University, Laurina. And you must call me
Cendri."

 
          
"Really?
May I?" She sounded so awed that Cendri
laughed again, trying to put her at her ease. She said, "And I will be glad
of the help of the women at the college, far more than of their admiration; but
I hope they realize that a scholar's work on an archaeological site is not all
observation and inspiration! They should be women who have no objection to hard
manual labor, for we may have to do a lot of digging and searching, through
layers of the past..." But even as she said it, she wondered; this site
seemed so perfectly preserved...

 
          
Laurina
said, "I think you will find that our young women are not afraid to get
their hands dirty in a good cause! It is only the weaker sex
which
is overly concerned with what work is suitable to its pride or its image!"
She added, "Actually, there has been a considerable amount of competition
for the honor of actually working with the Scholar Dame—"

           
"Cendri," she corrected
smiling.

 
          
"Cendri—oh!"
Laurina broke off, staring, and after
a moment Cendri saw what had attracted her stare, even before Laurina's
startled "Miranda!" After a moment of shocked staring, she turned her
eyes away, in embarrassment. In a small alcove in the courtyard, on the edge of
what Cendri recognized as a fountain, though the jets of water had been dry for
hundreds or thousands of years, sat Miranda and Rhu, close together, their
hands clasped, gazing into one another's eyes in what Cendri instantly
recognized as complete mutual absorption.

 
          
Even
if Cendri had been inclined to think it entirely innocent— and she had had no
reason to think otherwise—Laurina's shocked turning away, and the swift, guilty
way in which Rhu raised his eyes from Miranda's face, would have told her that
this was clandestine—and shocking. Miranda rose to her feet, struggling for
self-possession. Cendri wished desparately that she could do or say something
to ease that look of guilt and shame on Miranda's face.

 
          
I
don't know
what the
sexual taboos are
here. But it's
certain that
Miranda has broken them,
whatever they are!

 
          
Laurina
said calmly, "I think the Pro-Matriarch is waiting for you, Rhu." He
raised his eyes, momentarily lambent with the first real defiance Cendri had
seen on the face of any male on this world; then, with a glance at Miranda, he
dropped his eyes and went, scrambling up the steps and out of the fountain
court.

 
          
"Laurina—"
Miranda said.

 
          
"Yes;
I was visiting my great-great grandmother in the village and I made Cendri's
acquaintance when we went to see to the alarm bell," Laurina said calmly.

 
          
Cendri
asked Miranda, "Do you know Laurina, then?"

 
          
Miranda
said, "We were at school together." She was recovering her composure,
but her face was still flushed. "I was too short of breath, after coming
up into the ruins, to do anything else, and the sight of the water made me feel
sick and faint—"

 
          
"Really,
Miranda," Laurina interrupted, her voice high, not looking at her friend, "You
don't owe me any explanations, it is for your mother to say, but is it really
fair to Rhu? Oh, I admit he is pretty enough, but you know how easily such men
have their heads turned by such attentions! You know he will be blamed if
anything happens to you!" She turned and began to go back, and Cendri
said, slowly, "I suppose Vaniya will be anxious about you, Miranda. You
really should go and let her know you are safe."

 
          
"Yes,
I suppose so." Miranda pressed her hands across her back as if it hurt
her, and began slowly to cross the courtyard. She sighed and walked with her
head cast down, after a moment raising her eyes defiantly to Cendri.

 
          
"It
isn't what you think! Rhu has never touched more than my fingertips! And it was
not his choice to become a Companion—!"

 
          
"Miranda,"
said Cendri gently, "I'm not sitting in judgment on you!"

 
          
"But
Laurina is so sure I have shamed myself and my kin-mothers, and so magnanimous
about not revealing the guilt we do not have—" Miranda sputtered. "I
am not ashamed!"

 
          
"No.
Why should you be?" Cendri said, and walked slowly at her side. The sun
had set; twilight was falling over the great, dark shapes of the ruins, and she
shivered, suddenly, with cold. Miranda stumbled in the near-dark and Cendri put
an arm around her, feeling a sudden surge of affection and sympathy. She said,
"Miranda, lean on me, you mustn't fall." She noticed that Miranda's
hands were clasped protectively over the pink pearl at her throat. She said
softly, "Was it Rhu's gift, then?"

 
          
"Yes.
He came by it honestly," she added at once. "It was given him by the
Elder of the Weaver's Guild, who is very rich, for a song he wrote for her
daughters—he is not only a singer, he is a maker of songs as well! And he gave
it to me—it was not a sea-gift," she added, defensively.

 
          
"You
love him," Cendri said gently, after a moment.

 
          
Miranda
nodded. In the darkness, Cendri could not see her expresssion, but her voice
was filled with pain.

 
          
"I
do not understand it myself; they say this kind of love is for a woman to give
her child, her sisters, her kin-mothers. This is why I had hoped you could
understand
this,
you seem to think it is not strange
to love a man—"

 
          
"No,
Miranda," said Cendri gently, "it doesn't seem strange to me."

 
          
But
on Miranda's world, Cendri thought, romantic love served none of the social
functions of family formation and child-nurture which it served elsewhere.
Here, the major bonds of social cohesion were family bonds between women, and
sexuality had little or no part in them. A woman who found herself irresistibly
drawn, emotionally, sexually, personally to a man, might well believe that this
was a strange and unlikely perversion; might find herself at a loss to
understand, or even express, her own desires and hungers.

 
          
She
asked softly, "Is Rhu the father of your child?"

 
          
Even
in the darkness, Cendri could sense Miranda's shock and horror. "What do
you think me? What woman could possibly know a thing like that?"

 
          
And
now Cendri really did not know what to think or say. She turned to Miranda in
the darkness. "Come, they will be worrying about you. Let me help you on
the steps, they are a little irregular." Miranda clung to her, trustfully,
and Cendri felt a strange flooding emotion; protective, tender; an emotion new
to her, and disturbing. She wondered if this was how these women felt about one
another. Or is this how I would feel about a
daughter
if
I had
one?
Unwilling to explore the emotion, she turned to thinking of Dal. How troubled
he would be when he discovered that she had been into the ruins! He is going to
want to know everything, she thought, and I won't have much to tell him, I
won't be able to tell him nearly enough!

 
          
And
suddenly she did not really care. The ruins could wait. They had waited a long time—not,
perhaps, the two million years of Builder ruins, but still, they had waited a
long, long time! They could wait a little longer. She, Cendri, had an
opportunity which might never come again to a woman of the Unity, and she
intended to make the most of it!

 
          
Dal
could wait. But he wouldn't wait much longer; circumstances had forced
Vaniya's hand, and now there could be no excuse for further delay.

 
          
Just
inside the wall of the ruined city, where Vaniya had gathered with the women
from the destroyed pearl-divers village, they had lighted torches and fires.
Laurina came out of the darkness to join Cendri; and Vaniya beckoned Miranda to
her side.

 
          
She
said, "We must go and speak to
Them
, give them
thanks for the shelter they have given us from the great wave. Later we can all
go down—for the time being, the homeless can be housed on the grounds of the
Residence. But this comes first. Cendri—" by torchlight her eyes gleamed,
"You are here to learn about
Them
, so you must
have a place among us now; and it is fitting, since you have risked yourself
for our people." She took Cendri's hand in hers. "Come and join us
when we speak to
Them
." With a little frisson of
excitement, Cendri realized that Vaniya was speaking of the Builders.

 
          
Can
she really believe this?
That a civilization
a million years dead can
hear? For a moment the scientist in Cendri struggled with scorn—Vaniya,
Pro-Matriarch, capable administrator, states-woman— and she could be so
superstitious? Then Cendri admonished herself to wait and see. Religious faith
gave life and emotional force to a culture; and Vaniya might well be speaking symbolically
of a form of observance, without any superstitious or irrational component at
all...except insofar, Cendri reminded herself, as any religious observance is
irrational.

 
          
She
let herself be drawn into a place—
of
honor?—at the head of the
procession, between Miranda and Vaniya. Laurina walked close beside Cendri.
Rhu, she realized, had withdrawn into the shadows and walked alone, separated
from the women—but equally separate from the men of the pearl-divers village,
who followed at a distance, barefoot, shabby, rude and uncouth.

 
          
I
feel
sorry for Rhu.
No place
among the women—but even Jess among
the
life of what they call the
Men's House.
Of
course.
He has what they consider a privilege, and
they envy him
—to Jive among
women. But this privilege makes him an outcast among those who would otherwise
be his peers. Paint a monkey green, and the others will
tear it to bits.

 
          
They
walked by torchlight into the very center of the ruins, through black shadows
and empty echoing spaces, along a path that felt strangely smooth under their
feet. It was very quiet; no one spoke, not even a whisper, and to Cendri the silence
was strangely full. She told herself not to be superstitious, but she found
herself thinking it was easy to understand how primitive emotion had peopled
all ancient things with ghosts. It was as if the ancient Builders were watching
them, as if the darkness beyond the torchlight were peopled with the ghosts of
those ancient people, ringed about with invisible eyes that watched the women
winding their way through the city which had once been theirs, wondering and
waiting.

 
          
At
the very center of the ruins lay an open space, vast enough to have been a
spaceport. And there, by the shadowed torchlight, Cendri saw what she had seen
by moonlight from the upper window of the Residence; gleaming faintly by
reflected light, the structure of the antique-fashioned ship. Was this, indeed,
the ship which had brought the foremothers of the
Isis
colony here? If so, it was no wonder they
held it in reverence. The pilot of the shuttlecraft had said it; they were
guided there...what folly had prompted the colonists to set their ship down at
the very center of a ruined city? Cendri knew almost nothing of the art of
piloting ships, small or large, but she did know that on a world with no
established spaceport, you found the largest uninhabited tract of wild country
you could find, and put it down there!

 
          
She
felt Vaniya's hands on her elbow, guiding her forward toward the old ship. The
hands forced her gently to her knees. She was half annoyed, half in a curious
state of suspended belief
..
.an anthropologist must be
ready
to join the people of her research at
prayers__

 
          
She
blinked; it seemed that a dim light had begun to glow and shimmer around the
structures of the ancient ship. Natural phosphorescence; reflected moonlight,
she told herself firmly.

 
          
And
with
the glow came the
warmth, the light,
the
suffusing
tenderness. She felt a
flood of love
poured out on
her, and
poured
it out
lavishly in return. Some fragment of wonder in
her cried out,
"Oh! Who are
you?" and the answer came, a steady pulsing glow; I
am;
that is
enough. Love
me,
love me as I love
you___

 
          
It
was cold. The torches had died to a glimmer, and Cendri blinked herself awake,
shivers of ice running down her spine. What had happened? She was walking
slowly away from the dead city, outside the walls, moving as if in a dream.
Next to her Miranda moved, her
face
by moonlight dazed
and enraptured. Laurina, too, looked irradiated. Vaniya turned her eyes to
Cendri, and smiled, with so much tenderness that Cendri felt a lump in her
throat; she wanted to throw herself into Vaniya's arms, and sob out
"Mother; Mother, I love you—"

 
          
"What
is the matter with me?"
Cendri thought, dazed.
What's
happened to us? Whatever it was, it happened to all of
us, not just
me!
Look at them!

 
          
Some
form of hypnotic experience? Some mass hallucination? Or had anything happened
at all? Had she, suggestible and lonely, isolated from all her normal sources
of emotional satisfaction, gone into some kind of religious daze with these
women? Firmly, she struggled against the need to let go, sink
herself
into this hypnotic flood of joyous love.

 
          
Nonsense,
absurdity....

 
          
She
forced herself to look around, firmly calculating what could have happened. Of
course it was some kind of illusion; and equally of course, this was what
Miranda had meant when she spoke of the love and concern of the Builders. But
whatever had happened, if anything had happened, it was certainly not the
spirits of the Builders, from two or three million years ago, sitting there
around the old spaceship and pouring out floods of hypnotic love and emotion on
the women who came there!

 
          
Most
of the women shared the dazed look of excitement and delight which was on
Miranda's, Vaniya's face—Cendri supposed that she looked much the same. Most of
the girl children over eight or nine had some trace of it; they looked sleepy
and joyous. The smaller children were restless and crying, and their mothers
were leading them along or carrying them. The men____

 
          
It
was all too obvious that whatever the experience had been, none of the men had
shared it; one or two of them looked awed, but most of them, stumbling along in
the semi-dark after the women, looked cross, tired and bored with the waiting.

 
          
She
was almost too tired to think straight. There was no way she could evaluate it
now. Was this why the Matriarchy regarded this as a holy place, a sacred
precinct? She wished she could discuss it at leisure with Laurina, who was a
scientist and historian and might have some sort of objective attitude, but
this was neither the time nor the place.

 
          
Now
that the ecstasy had subsided a little—or the hypnotic illusion—she realized
that her feet, torn on the rocks and imperfectly protected by Laurina's
too-large sandals, were very sore. She was limping painfully by the time they
came into the grounds of the Residence, and her eyes felt sore and ached in the
lights streaming from every window. Servants came flocking out with cries of
welcome and Vaniya's older daughter, running to welcome them, cried out with
relief.

 
          
"We
were so frightened, Mother—we knew you had gone to the pearl-divers village and
afterward, when we saw the wreck the great wave had left, we feared you had
been hurt or drowned—"

 
          
Vaniya
seemed to have returned entirely to herself. She gave orders that tents should
be set up on the grounds of the Residence, that the men should be housed in the
Men's
House, that
the sick, the pregnant and the
elderly should be taken into guest-rooms within the residence itself. She
commanded food to be served for all, and while they were waiting for it, one of
the women whose task it was to assist Miranda in the running of the household,
came up to Vaniya and said, "Respect, Mother, we have had trouble here; an
intruder, a male belonging to the Pro-Matriarch Mahala, broke into the house,
and managed to gain entry to the quarters assigned to the Scholar Dame from
University, and to her Companion."

 
          
Cendri
blinked, the last vestiges of her daze vanishing. So much had happened since
this morning that she had forgotten the intruder, the branded man called Bak,
who had come to talk to Dal and given him that peculiar password. Vaniya looked
displeased, but said, "I might have expected that of my colleague; I am
only curious to know why she did not think of it sooner. Did you question
it?"

 
          
"No,
we held it for you to deal with, Mother."

 
          
Vaniya
shrugged. She indicated the refugees clustered on the lawn of the Residence and
said, "As you can see, I am very much occupied with these homeless people.
But I suppose you must bring the intruder to me."

 
          
The
woman summoned the fierce-looking guards who had burst into Cendri's rooms and
taken Bak away over Dai's protest; but they came back quickly.

 
          
"Respect,
Mother—the prisoner has escaped!"

 
          
"So?"
Vaniya said, almost without interest. "I suppose it has run home to the
bitch
who
loosed it upon us in the first place, but
there will never be any way to prove it. But how did it escape? Was the cage
damaged by the quake? Who saw to the fastenings?"

 
          
"I
did, Mother," said the main guard, "Respect, but I saw to the hasps
myself and they were all in good order. Some human hands let it out of that
cage, and that's a fact." She glared at Cendri, her face grim. "The
Scholar Dame's Companion tried to interfere when we took it away. I'd like to
know where that one was when the prisoner got loose!"

 
          
Vaniya
said, "Go and fetch the Companion."

 
          
Cendri
said, "Vaniya—"

 
          
"Hush,
my dear, if your Companion is innocent he won't be hurt. I might have suspected
Rhu, but he was with me all day." She sighed, told her oldest daughter to
continue arranging for the housing of the refugees from the pearl-divers'
village, and went into the house, with Cendri and Miranda.

 
          
Dal,
brought before Vaniya, firmly denied any knowledge of the prisoner.

 
          
"I
have been working in the room allotted to us, all day," he said. "I
have not seen anyone since the guards took the prisoner away." And to all
of Vaniya's questions he repeated the same thing.

 
          
One
of the Guards said, "I have the means to make it talk." She flicked
the rope at her waist suggestively.

 
          
Vaniya
frowned a little. She said, "I am not fond of such business, but I suppose
I really have no choice." She glanced at Cendri and said, "As a
matter of form, since it legally belongs to you—I suppose you have no objection
to having it interrogated by force?"

 
          
Cendri
looked, appalled, at the barbed whip in the woman-guard's hand. She said,
"Indeed I do have an objection!"

 
          
One
of the guards snickered. There was a little nervous giggling. Vaniya said
gently, "Come, come, my dear, you must not be squeamish. It is the only
way to get the truth from one of them. I am sure Mallida will not hurt it any
more than strictly necessary!"