Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 (34 page)

 
          
Heavily,
Vaniya shook her head. It seemed to Cendri that she spoke with regret. "I
cannot obey a decision which violates my conscience and the ethical basis of
the Matriarchate. I cannot agree until we have reached a decision which
satisfies the conscience of every woman in this chamber—"she looked slowly
from face to face, "and does not impose a violation of conscience,
undesired, on anyone outside it."

 
          
Mahala
flickered
a catlike smile. She said, "And while
we await the struggle with a hundred thousand consciences, we enter the
festival motherless, and the business of Isis, trade with the Unity, the
disposition of a hundred small matters in the city and the country, must all
await these hundreds upon thousands of individual consciences?"

 
          
Cendri
thought, it was the old argument between majority rule, anarchy or tyranny, the
age-old struggle between efficiency and personal liberty. Most societies
sacrificed something on both sides and accepted a form of participatory
democracy; the tyrants sacrificed personal freedom, the anarchists sacrificed
efficiency. Every form of government had its price.

 
          
But
governments changed. And this one, after a long period of changelessness,
seemed to be changing, to be demanding more efficiency—or was it only Mahala
and a fractional small few
who
were changing?

 
          
Vaniya
said, quietly, "I do not think the problems of trade and industry must all
be settled overnight. The Unity has been there for centuries and will be there
in another season, or another Long Year. There is no reason to make a hasty
settlement which will demand to be settled again when all emotional reactions
have stabilized. I suggest that for the moment my sister and I continue as
Pro-Matriarchs, as we have done during all these moons of Rezali's
illness."

 
          
"But the festival!
Are the men to be motherless at our
highest festival?" demanded one of the women. And Vaniya said, "Since
Mahala has spoken of our faith as superstition, perhaps it would not trouble
her too greatly if I were to assume the burdens of officiating at the festival
this year?"

 
          
Mahala
shrugged. She said, "That part of a High Matriarch's duties, indeed, I am
more than willing to cede to any who believes in it. Indeed, if I am chosen
High Matriarch, my first act will be to appoint a High Priestess to deal with
these matters, so that I may spend my time upon important matters of state. My
fellow Pro-Matriarch may indeed take upon
herself
these duties for the moment."

 
          
Vaniya
said with equal calm, "This attitude—that you will separate such duties—is
the main reason why I cannot accept you as High Matriarch, my sister. But since
I firmly believe that in the end the women of
Isis
will confirm my right to the High
Matriarch's powers, I feel it my duty to take this part of them upon myself. Is
this agreeable to all of you?"

 
          
One
after another, the women nodded in agreement, until one woman said, "It
must be perfectly clear that the matter is not yet settled! There are many who
will believe that Vaniya's appearance as priestess at the festival will
prejudice Mahala's eventual right to make such a claim for
herself
!"

           
Vaniya frowned slightly, but she
said, "So be it; I shall officiate only as Pro-Matriarch, and not as High
Matriarch. Is this sufficient?"

 
          
Mahala
laughed. She said, "Do you really think anyone here, or any of the women
of the households in the city, or any of the men who are coming in their
hundreds into the city to visit the sea—do you really think any of them cares
about the ceremonies in the
Temples
, or anything else? You know as well as I do, what they care about,
Vaniya, and I hope to live to a day when all of these ceremonies are stripped
of the ceremony and religious custom we have woven around them, and reduced to
their essential social usefulness."

 
          
Vaniya
asked gently, "As they have done in the maleworlds, Mahala?"

 
          
Mahala's
laugh was like breaking glass. She said, "I do not believe—as you
apparently do, Vaniya—that the maleworlds of the Unity have a monopoly on
common sense, or that the women of
Isis
cannot
show
ourselves
as practical as they are."

 
          
Vaniya
rose to leave the hall. She walked gently over to Mahala and laid her hands on
the other woman's shoulders. She said in a soft, kindly voice, "And when
we have done so, Mahala, when we have stripped our society of everything which
does not contribute to our material and social well-being, when we have the
ultimate in a practical and common-sense culture—then, my dear sister, my dear
colleague, how will what we have differ from the worlds we find where men rule?
What then, Mahala, my sister? What then?"

 
          
Mahala
blinked, without answering; but Vaniya dropped her hands and walked away,
leaving the other Pro-Matriarch staring after her.

 
          
All the long day of
Isis
the ceremonies had been
going on.
Cendri had
gone to see the ceremonies in the great hall of the High Matriarch's Residence,
where women draped the statues of the past Matriarchs with flowers in the Hall
of Matriarchs, and joined the crowds where, for the first time since she had been
in the city of
Ariadne
, men mingled with women in the crowds in the streets. All that day a
suffused excitement had been growing.

 
          
Greatly
daring, Cendri had strung her voice-scriber around her neck, wishing that she
could record the ceremonies with a graphics recorder, to play them back at her
leisure and try to decide for
herself
what they meant.
Again and again in the streets she saw the men exchange the greeting, "We
were not born in chains," but she was aware that she was probably the only
woman who had noticed. On
Isis
, it
seemed, men were so unimportant that no woman noticed what a man did unless he
was directly speaking to her, or otherwise concerned with her.

 
          
It
was late in the afternoon when they returned to the Pro-Matriarch's Residence.
Miranda made a few minutes to speak to Cendri.

 
          
"You
are to join in the festival? I thought you would. Think of me while the men are
spear-fishing
..
.1
feel
guilty
that I am keeping our house midwife from the festival. She says I may give
birth tonight, but she has said that every night for the last
moon,
and I still drag around like this," Miranda said,
sighing. "I long for it to be over, I was sure that by now I would have my
child at my breast."

 
          
"Will
you be alone here, then, Miranda, with only the midwife? I will stay and keep
you company, if you really want me to—"

 
          
"No,
no, my friend," Miranda said, laughing. "There will be a good dinner,
a festival meal, served here tonight for little children, girls and boys too
young for festival, for women-by-courtesy like Maret, and for Companions
.. .and
for women like myself, too pregnant to spend the
night on the shore! We will simply join in the children's festival and make the
night a merry one for them while the other women are away." She smiled,
hesitated and said, "Rhu has promised he will stay near me, so I will not
be lonely—Cendri, I could not say that to anyone else, I am so glad there is
someone who does not think it a kind of madness___
_ "

 
          
Cendri
pressed her friend's hand without speaking. Miranda's predicament seemed
perfectly normal to her; but in Miranda's own society, it was indeed considered
a kind of insanity; that she might prefer the company of a man to the company
of women. But tonight, then, she would see what were the normal relationships
between the sexes, which began with the curious ritual they called
"visiting the sea." She had heard this morning something like a
sermon, which reminded the women, flocked into the square before the Residence,
that all life came from the sea and that they must return there to pay homage
to the source.

 
          
All
of the women of the household, in readiness for the festival, had put on long
robes, embroidered with patterns of fish and flowers. Miranda had lent Cendri
one of her festival dresses, and as she put it on, Cendri speculated about what
she would see. She wondered if the men accompanied the women home at sunrise;
this might explain why Companions were not expected to join in the festival,
while all other men, and women, visited the sea at this time. It would have
seemed more rational, if it was a form of visitational marriage—there were any
number of such societies—for all the men to join in this form of blessing their
mating rituals—but then, the society of Isis was not rational.

 
          
She
said aloud to Dal, "I wish I could dare to take along a graphics recorder.
If Laurina didn't know what it was, I just might, but she does."

 
          
Dal
came and hugged her. He said, "I know this means a lot to you, Cendri, to
be invited to go along and watch their top-level festival. I don't know
anything much about anthropology and I don’t really care that much, but I hope
you find out all you want to know."

 
          
She
hugged him hard in return. It was so rare now that they could communicate like
this, without jangling or quarreling. This world, she thought, is having a bad
effect on us. Is it just culture shock, or is it the strain on him of living
where he's a woman's property? She said, "I'm sorry the festival kept you
away from your work, Dal!"

 
          
He
smiled and patted her. He said, "Oh, I have days and days of work just
correlating what I have done already, don't worry about it. When things settle
down after the festival, we'll get back out in the ruins. Did you notice how
the men today came up to stare? Some of them looked at me the way Laurina looks
at you—hero worship! I suppose it's because I'm that legendary thing, a free
male. I've been talking to Rhu a lot. He feels inferior, poor kid, just because
he's not the athletic type. With his talents, damn it, he feels guilty because
he couldn't join in that damned athletic contest and win Vaniya a prize and let
her cheer for him!"

 
          
"He
looks strong enough," Cendri commented. "Obviously he wouldn't make a
wrestler, or a boxer, but I'd think he'd make a good runner or hurdler!"

 
          
Dal
shook his head. "He tells me he was ill as a child and has been a weakling
ever since; that is why he was allowed to cultivate his musical talents. Sounds
like a form of rheumatic fever to me, a weakened heart. Shocking, not to repair
that sort of thing, but I gather it's not part of their social ethic. Pioneer
used to be like that, lots of emphasis on survival of the fittest; and my own
grandfather never could adapt to the fact that I wanted to be a scholar; if I'd
taken up music or painting he never would have survived the shock! Our
family were
all space engineers, that was his idea of a
man's job. I can understand it on Pioneer, but it's funny to find it
here."

 
          
Cendri
said, "The first High Matriarch was a woman of Pioneer, hundreds of years
ago."

 
          
"Is
that a fact?" He smiled, his eyebrows raised. "I've read about the
position of women on Pioneer in those days; I'm not surprised that the revolt
of the women started
there,
or that their society
embodies the feeling that if men once get the upper hand, women wind up in
trouble. But they don't realize that men's societies have changed, too."
He glanced at the window. "Love, there are a lot of women gathering on the
lawn, you'd better go and enjoy your festival."

 
          
She
hesitated a minute, holding him, reluctant to interrupt this rare moment of
togetherness and content. "You really don't mind being alone?"

 
          
He
laughed. "Not at all, when you're in a group of women like that! Laurina
may have a lot of hero worship for you, but she's probably too much in awe of
you to make any—any
proposals,
and I doubt if you have
any yen for little girls like that! Run along and enjoy yourself, sweetheart. I
gather the kids in the house have a festival of their own, and maybe Rhu, or
Miranda, will sing for us. Or," he grinned, "
maybe
they'll be holding their own festival somewhere!"

 
          
Miranda's
secret was not hers to share. She said, "Maybe," and stood on tiptoe
to kiss him. "Good night, Dal. I may be very late."

 
          
On
the lawns before the Residence she found the women gathering, all wearing the
festival costumes embroidered with fish, flowers, queer sea-creatures. Laurina
rushed up to her and caught her hand.

 
          
"Your
festival gown is lovely—oh, it is Miranda's? Come, the sun is dropping close to
the horizon, we must be there before moonrise, and I want to watch the
spear-fishing."

 
          
The
sun touched the horizon. As they went down to the shoreline, below them they
could see great fires built all along the
beach,
and
dark figures clustered at the edge of the sea, where a full high tide lapped
high up along the tidewater-mark. As Cendri came closer she saw that they were
all men, bare arms and bare legs glinting in the moonlight, wet with the surf;
a few wore breechclouts or loincloths, but most were completely naked, except
for heavy plastic sandals that protected their feet from the sharp rocks. As
she watched, one of the men—she was almost sure she had seen him a few days ago
in the arena, strutting and preening himself after the wrestling—picked up a
long spear. The light from the fires gleamed along the point of a barbed metal
tip. He pulled a mask down over his face, ran out splashing into the waves, and
when they were breast-high, plunged face-down into the water. Others ran after
him, until the water was filled with the splashing naked forms and their
spears.

 
          
Laurina
guided her to the fire where the women sat in a group, silent, watching the men.
Cendri recalled Miranda in the pearl-divers' village, talking of the
spear-fishing—
blood must not be shed
in
Her
holy
waters...but for this season evidently taboos were broken.
Were required to be broken.

 
          
A
long time the dark forms plunged and waded and splashed in and out of the surf,
flung silvery fish on the shore where their scales gleamed brilliantly
silver-blue and slowly dulled. A group of women were cleaning and scraping the
fish, wrapping them in scented leaves, burying them in the coals as the fire
died down.
After a long time the smell of cooking fish and
the strong fragrance of the fish-flavoring herbs began to mingle with the scent
of the smoke.

           
The larger moon floated, huge and
golden, high above the water, making a bright pathway across the waves. The
tide went out and the wet sands lay glistening; high at the zenith the smaller
moon
floated,
a gilt dish with soft shadows across its
face.

 
          
The
women watched the men coming up from the water, moonlight striking sparks on
the metal tips of their spears. The women struck up a song; it sounded to
Cendri like a hymn, but it was full of archaic words in a dialect she did not
understand completely and she could only make out the refrain.

 
          
"Wounding
is the nature of love...."

 
          
Someone
put a plate of fish into Cendri's hands. She ate, like the others, with her
fingers. The men did not join them at the fire. A moonlight picnic
..
.strange, for a ritual of mating, or
fertility ritual.
Or perhaps not so strange; the fires, the lapping
waves, the dark solemn faces of the men gleaming and wet by the moonlight. The
fires died down, and the women drew closer together around the coals. Cendri
felt sleepy, but even so she could sense the hush of expectancy around the
circle of women. What now? The moons were high in the sky, drawing closer and
closer.

 
          
Then
she saw them coming, a long solemn line, up from the shore. Cendri heard some
woman—a very young one by the sound— giggling nervously, and someone near her
reproved her in a whisper. At her side Cendri felt Laurina's fingers clutch at
her arm, with a deep, convulsive gasp. And suddenly Cendri understood.

 
          
So
this is how men and women come together. Solemnly, by moonlight, in ritual:
"visiting the sea." She should have known.
Miranda's
jokes about fish dinners.
And now she was here, a part of it. Something
in Cendri panicked, cried out to her wildly to get away, she had no part in
this, she could not
..
.yet some other part of her was
excited and exhilarated, wanting to see it through, knowing that anyway there
was no way she could remove herself now from the women of Isis, clustered here
and awaiting their seasonal ritual of mating. An errant thought touched her
mind, I am an anthropologist, I
wanted to
study
their
customs,
and then, with secret hilarity, it's called participant observation.

 
          
Suddenly
the male forms were looming over them. Cendri
 
braced herself, telling herself firmly
not to panic, she could endure
 
the experience; an anthropologist studying
planetary cultures got
 
into stranger things than this, her own
Mentor had studied among
 
the Koridorni and had found himself
joining in their ritual
 
cannibalism___