Exile's Song (5 page)

Margaret was rather surprised at herself, realizing she had unconsciously assumed that young people went to school during the day, even though she knew that on many planets, this was not the case. She had become a scholar, and while she and Ivor had done a great deal of field work in the past decade, she still thought of things as a person from University, not a girl from Thetis or Darkover. And somehow she had imagined that the world of her birth would be more like University or Thetis. It was a profoundly disturbing realization, and she knew she was going to have to spend some time rethinking things.

Something was nagging at her mind, and she paused to try to figure out what it was. It took a moment for Margaret to realize that it was the persistent honorific the lad used;
domna.
She had learned
mestra
which was the equivalent of Ms. or Mistress. But the term Geremy had used meant something like “Noble Lady.” Why was he calling her that? And why did it bring up such a peculiar feeling, as if she could almost remember someone else who was called by that title. Her brain was too weary to puzzle it out.

“I need to purchase some garments—warm ones, for myself and for my teacher. Do you know where I can get some?”

Now he grinned. “To be sure. We are both from Threadneedle Street, and we know about cloth.” He sighed. “Our fathers are in the business. And I will take you to MacEwan’s; he is the best tailor in Threadneedle Street. He will be proud to have your custom,
domna.
”

“He is also our uncle,” the other boy muttered, so softly Margaret almost missed the words.

“A good merchant always keeps business in the family where he can,” she said peaceably. She couldn’t quite figure out the darker lad, who seemed intensely curious and antagonistic at the same time. Geremy seemed to be a friendly fellow, and his cousin—if they were both nephews to this MacEwan, cousin seemed the right relationship—quite another thing. She was just too tired to think straight. She could almost sense his emotions, like the wind stinging her skin, but she could not guess at its reason. His foxy features, the sharp nose and penetrating eyes, were wary and hopeful at the same time. Perhaps some woman in his family had been seduced or dishonored by a Terran. That was a scenario repeated all too often on human worlds. The Terrans were famous for their disrespect of local customs. Unwanted or unfathered babies were all too common all over the Empire’s old territory . . . wherever Terrans could interbreed, they did. And low-tech worlds weren’t noted for birth control.

“Geremy is a boot-licker,” the foxy boy grumbled.

“And Ethan likes to argue. He’ll probably end up as a judge.”

“Oh, no,” Ethan protested. “I’m going to be . . .” he stopped, Margaret saw the expression in his eyes, the look of hunger and longing. She had often seen it during her stint of student teaching. It concerned an ambition so precious that even to speak of it to an outsider was painful.

“Ethan is apprenticed to the cloth-dyers guild, but he really wants to be a spaceman.” Geremy got a wild punch on the shoulder for this disclosure.

Margaret did not laugh. It was obvious from Ethan’s face that he had expected her to. They were nice boys, she thought, the sort of brothers she might have had if the Old Man and Dio had ever had other children. Although she had never wished to travel between the stars, she understood that the young man wanted something different than following family tradition. She had never imagined as a girl that she would end up collecting music on worlds she had never even heard of, yet she knew she had not wished to become a mother or a wife.

Margaret knew, too, that when she had been what she guessed Ethan’s age to be, she would have died rather than admit her secret ambition to become a dancer or a famous actress. She could laugh at her younger self, but she would never laugh at this solemn boy.

“It is very difficult to become a spaceman,” she said gravely. “The first thing you must do is get a good education, with special attention to mathematics.” Ethan studied her cautiously, measuring her as she had measured him shortly before. He seemed to decide she was taking him seriously and stood up rather taller. A moon was rising, and it cast dark shadows beneath his eyes. The moon looked like an amethyst against the darkened sky, and she tried to remember its name. Her weary brain refused to cooperate.

Geremy studied her thoughtfully. “Are you Terranan?”

“Don’t be silly,” Ethan said, “Anyone can tell she is not Terranan.”

“No, I come from a world called Thetis,” she told them. “A lovely world full of waterfalls and great oceans. We live on islands where the winds blow warm and smell of salt and flowers.” Margaret had a sharp wave of homesickness for the warmth of Thetis. It surprised her by its intensity. She found herself thinking of her father, staring out at the rolling surf with a goblet clutched in his single hand. In her mind, he turned his dark eyes away from the sea and looked at her, almost as if he felt her presence across the light-years which lay between them. She shook herself back into the present. Born on Darkover, yes, but the home of her heart was still Thetis.

“I don’t even know which star it is in this sky. I have visited many worlds, though. I am a musician.”

“You have been on lots of planets? Please, let me carry your bag. Would you—could you—tell me everything?” Ethan grinned up at her, and was transformed, his face aglow with interest.

Margaret surrendered her grips, forgetting her earlier fears in her exhaustion. She knew this wanderlust; sometimes it seemed to be some universal drive among the children of Terra. She had a touch of it herself, despite her loathing of the travel itself. At first she spoke haltingly, groping for the right words. Then she had a sudden leap of mind, as if she had discovered an unexpected cache of language lurking in the recesses of her mind, as if some barrier were breached. It was amazing, because she was using words which were not in the limited vocabulary she had learned from the disks. It was not the words which startled her as much as the rhythm of them which seemed to come so easily to her lips now.

After a few minutes, Margaret realized that she had more of a vocabulary than could be explained by living on Darkover for her first five years. This was not a child’s lexicon, but that of an adult. At last, she understood that she must have heard Dio and the Old Man talking in the night—the walls of Thetis homes are thin and light, to let the breezes rush through them—while she slept, and learned the sweet rhythm of the language. It seemed likely that if she had had occasion to use it before, she would have been chattering like a magpie. Magpie. That was one of Ivor’s names for her, a way he teased her out of her solemnity when she was in the dumps.

All these thoughts dashed across her mind as she spoke of Thetis, of the University world of Coronis, where she had gone to school, of Rigel Nine, and the Congress of the Confederation, where her father helped make the laws governing the Terran Federation. She told them about Relegan, the last planet she and Ivor had visited, and about anything else that rose in her tired brain.

The boy was so serious Margaret was not even tempted to “yarn” him. He fired questions at her concerning metals and mechanics, and she was glad for the first time that “Basic Technology of the Big Ships” was a required first-year course everywhere. Enlightened self-interest, of course. The entire Federation staffed its ships by feeding the curiosity of children like Ethan. She did not tell him that he could never leave his world without the tools of reading and writing which the simple signs outside shops led her to suspect would never be available to him.

The streets seemed a little wider here, the structures made of roughcut stone. Wooden doors were painted brightly, and there was a smell of damp stone and animal droppings and garbage. They passed an eating house, and the smell of the food was tantalizing. Margaret realized that she was now very hungry. The smell was familiar, too. She could almost name the dish, though she had not eaten it since she was tiny. Oh, well, they said the mid-brain—and the sense of smell was a very primitive part of that—never forgot anything. Perhaps it was true.

She ignored her hunger and her tiredness and forced herself to go on amusing, or instructing, the boy. Professor Davidson stumbled along beside her, listening mutely. Geremy had somehow managed to get him to surrender his precious guitar, and now also lent him his arm.

“Margaret, are we going much farther? I seem to be a bit short of breath.”

“I don’t know. Ethan, how close are we to Music Street?”

“Only one more street,
vai domna.
” This was a new honorific. She vaguely knew it meant something like “Highly Honored Lady” and was the same one that would be used to a Princess or a Keeper.
What the devil is a Keeper?
She felt as if the answer were just on the edge of her consciousness, something vitally important which she could not seize in her near exhaustion.

“Just a little farther, Ivor.” She spoke in Standard for the professor’s benefit, then turned back to Geremy and spoke in her much improved Darkovan. “It will be good to be out of the cold and rain,” she added, for an icy drizzle had begun in the last few minutes. “We just spent the last year on a very warm world, and it is hard for him, you see.”
This place seems colder than Zandru’s hells . . . He has whips or something, doesn’t he?

The half memories were maddening now. Margaret could no longer tell what she was remembering and what she had picked up from the language and culture disk. She gave it up and wished her mind would let go until she had had some good food and sleep. “It seems very late. Will your parents be worried?” The lads looked young to her, and the dark shadows of the streets seemed alive with potential dangers.

“Oh, no. Cloth Street, where we live, is only a few minutes away. It’s not yet even an hour after sundown, when we have to be indoors.”

“And you, Ethan?”

“I live next door to Geremy; our fathers are brothers. Hoy, we all know each other’s name. Except you,
domna.
”

“True. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Margaret Alton.” She spoke her last name almost as if it was spelled Elton, in the way it was pronounced on the vid or at University, the way she had become used to saying it for years.

“Alton. That’s a good old name.” He spoke the name the way her father had, and Margaret felt a kind of thrill at hearing it said correctly. Ethan also seemed to be very impressed with it, and she wondered if he knew her father was the Senator from Darkover. It seemed likely. She was just too tired to fuss over it.

I knew she was
comynara—
I just knew it!

The words whipped into her mind like a needle, startling her. That sort of thing had happened a few times before, especially when she was tired, but never with such clarity and distinction. Margaret looked at both boys, but she could not tell which one had thought the words, and she supposed it didn’t matter. “Is it much farther?”

“No,” Ethan said. “Here we are.” They turned the corner into a narrow street, where signs with pictures of various musical instruments hung outside nearly every house.

“The Street of Musicians,” he announced, making a little bow, and waving his hand like a magician. He was so pleased with himself that, in spite of her exhaustion, Margaret laughed, and the lad laughed with her.

T
here were houses on either side of the street, and the doors of most were painted with pictures of a bewildering variety of musical instruments. Margaret identified a kind of harp, an assortment of wooden flutes, and something vaguely like a violin. Its shape was different, more elongated, enough to be sure the tone would be subtly different than anything she knew. The street was poorly lit by flickering torches and the moon, but she could see wood shavings and small pieces of stuff scattered around on the rough cobbles. In a less damp climate, it would have been a terrible fire hazard, but she doubted the debris ever dried out enough to be dangerous.

It smelled good. The woods gave off pleasant fragrances, the mist which dampened the air was clean, and food was cooking behind the brightly painted doors. These were such homey scents, after days in the confines of the ship, that she felt ready to weep from the pleasure of it. Margaret could not remember ever reacting so strongly on any previous planetfall, and it was a little unnerving. Not unpleasant, precisely, but disquieting, as if there were memories hovering just out of mind, wisps she could not quite grasp.

From behind one door, or perhaps from the big shuttered window beside it, came the sound of a group rehearsing with stringed instruments. Someone hit a very sour note; Margaret winced. As if in answer, a huge bass voice roared angrily.

“That’s Master Rodrigo,” Geremy informed her, his earlier formality forgotten. “He’s a terrible bully, but they say he’ll be craft master after Master Everard, because he’s a better musician than Everard’s son Erald. He really
is
good; I heard him sing last Midwinter, and it made goose bumps all over my arms. He’s almost the best singer in Thendara except for Ellynyn Ardais—and Ellynyn is
comyn
and an
emmasca,
so of course he has a wonderful voice.”