Thendara House (24 page)

And then the world went away and did not return.

Part Two:
SUNDERING

CHAPTER ONE

It was snowing. The world outside the high HQ tower, beyond the windows of Cholayna Ares’s office, was lost in a flurry of white, and Jaelle, looking out into it, wished she were outside in the snow, not in here, in the yellow light, where no hint of natural weather ever penetrated.

Peter saw her look out wistfully into the storm, and pressed her hand. Since the night of Alessandro Li’s reception, he had been gentle, apologetic, tender with her; she could not hold on to her anger, and in the past weeks he had tried, again, to be the man she had loved at once in Sain Scarp, had clung to at Ardais. He had tried, conscientiously tried, in spite of his Terran upbringing, to remember her independence, never to take her for granted. She had begun to hope again; perhaps, perhaps, even if they had lost what first drew them together, they could grow into something stronger and better than before.
That first intense sexual glow, I should have understood, I could never expect that to last forever, but now that I am no longer a delayed adolescent in the grip of her first infatuation, perhaps Piedro and I can find something more mature, more genuine. It was not all his fault, either. I have been selfish and childish
.

He said gently, “I’d like to be out there, too, walking in the snow,” and for a moment, so great was their attunement, she wondered if perhaps he too had rudimentary
laran;
many, perhaps most, Terrans did. As they grew closer, perhaps it would develop and she could have with him the kind of understanding she craved.

Cholayna smiled at them both and said with a glimmer of irony, “If you two lovebirds can spare me a moment - ” and Peter let go of Jaelle’s hand and she saw the self-conscious color creeping up his face. Cholayna said, “Oh, don’t apologize. I wish I could give you both a year’s leave so you could go off for a proper honeymoon, but conditions really don’t allow it. By now, Magda should have had plenty of time to decide if there are any women in the Thendara Guild House who would be suitable for Medic technicians, and perhaps others we could use here in different employment. What’s the possibility that she could come here to talk about it, Jaelle?”

“Absolutely zero,” Jaelle replied promptly. “I told you; she is in her housebound half-year for training, and during that time she cannot leave the house except at the direct command of a Guild Mother.”

Cholayna frowned a little and said, “I understood you were her superior; can’t you send for her and order it?”

“I suppose I could,” Jaelle said slowly, “but I would not do that to her. It would set her apart from the others and she could never recover, if she is really to be one of them.”

“I think you’re being overconscientious,” Peter said. “The decision to use Free Amazons - excuse me, Renunciates - in Terran employment is an important one for both our worlds and it should be implemented as soon as humanly possible, before we lose the momentum of that decision.”

“Just the same, we don’t want to disturb Magda’s cover,” said Cholayna, “If she has gone among them as one of them we don’t want to single her out in any way. Jaelle, could you go there and talk privately to her?”

Jaelle was suddenly overcome with a flood of homesickness. To visit the Guild House, to be one with her sisters again! “I’d be glad to do that, and I can talk to Mother Lauria about it, too.”

“The only thing wrong with that,” Peter said wryly, “is that I can’t come with you, can I?”

“Not to the Guild House, I’m afraid,” she said, but smiled, thinking that one day before long they would surely walk in the snow together, through the city she loved. He loved it too, he had spent years living as a Darkovan in her world. Why had she begun to think of him as a Terran and alien? Somehow she must help him, as well as herself, to recapture the Darkovan Piedro she had loved.

“I want to talk a little about the kind of woman we need here,” said Cholayna. “Above all, they must be flexible, capable of learning new ways of thinking, doing, capable of adjusting to alien conditions. In fact - ” she smiled at Jaelle and it was like a warm touch of the woman’s hand, “like you, Jaelle; capable of surviving culture shock.”

“Ah,” Peter said, “but there aren’t any more like Jaelle. When they made her, they broke the mold.”

“I don’t think I’m as unique as all that,” she said, smiling, but already her mind was running over the women she knew in the Guild House. There might be others she did not know as well, suited to training among the Terrans. Rafaella would never make a Medic technician, but she might be useful as a mountain guide, would certainly be valuable to the Terrans for her knowledge of travel in the hills and the Hellers. Marisela - Jaelle frowned for a moment, thinking of the midwife’s skill and the adaptability which allowed her to work in the city with women who despised the ordinary Free Amazon. Marisela, certainly, would benefit by this kind of training, but could they spare her in the Guild House? She shrugged it off, deciding that she would talk it over with Mother Lauria, and raised her eyes to meet Cholayna’s smile.

“Where were you?” she asked, smiling, and Jaelle laughed and apologized. “Thinking over the women in the Guild House.”

Cholayna laughed and dismissed her. “Well, go and talk it over with your Guild Mothers. Some day, perhaps - would it be possible for me to visit a Guild House?”

“I don’t know why not,” Jaelle said, responding again to the woman’s spontaneous friendliness. “I think Mother Lauria would like you very much. I wish you could have known my oath-mother, Kindra.” They were, she decided as she went down to her quarters, very much alike in many ways. Although Cholayna had grown up in a world where no one had made it difficult for her to learn and grow, and she had come to her strength, not by revolt and renunciation, as an Amazon must do, but simply by choosing this work…

And then Jaelle was shocked at herself. Was she criticizing her own world, in favor of the
Terranan
? Had a few tendays here corrupted her so much?

Corrupted? Is it corruption, then, to love Peter or to appreciate his world
? She slammed the door of her quarters and tore off her uniform with shaking hands. It was, indeed, time to revisit her home!

She got into her embroidered linen undertunic, heavy drawers and the thick woollen breeches and overtunic; sat down to lace her boots. Swearing, she ran her hand through her long thick hair. Time, and more than time, to have it cut. No, damnation, why should she? She was living as Peter’s freemate -
which the terms of her Oath permitted her to do
, she reminded herself severely. Yet the thought persisted; what would Rafaella say, or Camilla, when she appeared in the Guild House with long hair instead of the distinctive Renunciate cut which proclaimed her independence of any man? Oh, damn them all! She fingered a pair of scissors, looked reflectively in the mirror, remembering Peter’s hands caressing her hair. She actually set the scissors to her neckline, then swore again, angrily, and flung them down. It was her own hair and her own life, and if she wished to please her beloved freemate that too was her privilege. Yet the sting of guilt remained.

If it was snowing outside, she should have creams to protect her face against the wind and chill. She rummaged in the drawer, appreciating the soft perfumed Terran cosmetics; the perfume was a little stronger, the texture somewhat smoother, than those she could have bought in the market or the ones that some of the women made in the Guild House when funds were short for a time. As she was smoothing the stuff on her face, she encountered the small calculating device of beads which she used to keep track of her women’s cycles by the movement of the moons; the beads colored like the four moons, violet, peacock-blue, pale green and white. She slid down a violet bead, for she had noted that Uriel’s disc was full, and stopped, staring at the beads. She should have pulled down a red bead for bleeding, at least a tenday ago. She had been so disrupted by the dreadful fight with Peter, and the distress accompanying it, and after it, her exacting work with Cholayna and Aleki, that she had simply pulled down the beads mechanically every day without noticing.

Was it simply the disruption of the cycles which, she had been warned, might come with living by artificial yellow light? Or was it possible that she might have become pregnant, that Peter, in the ecstatic reunion which had followed their quarrel, had managed to make her pregnant?

She could not help a deep-based flicker of pleasure at the thought, immediately followed by doubt and dread. Did she really want this? Did she want to be at the mercy of some small parasite within her body, sickness, distortion, the appalling ordeal of birth which had killed her own mother? For a second her mind flickered the terror of a nightmare…
red spilling into the parched sand of a waterhole, sunrise and blood
… and a sharp stab of pain in her hands told her that without knowing it she had clenched her fist so tightly that her nails dug into the palm. Nonsense, what was she thinking, this mixture of old nightmares?

Peter would be so pleased when she told him
! For a moment she anticipated the delight that would spread over his face, the tenderness and pride that would light his eyes.

Pride
. The words of the oath reverberated in her mind,
Bear a child only in my own time and season; bear no child for any man’s heritage or position
… Oh, nonsense, she told herself. Peter was not Comyn, even though he looked so much like Kyril, he had none of the particular pride in heritage which was so much a part of Comyn life. The sneaking thought remained,
Rohana too will be pleased, that I have chosen to bear a child for the Aillard Domain
, and she slammed that thought shut, too. Not for Aillard. Not for Peter. For myself, because we love each other and this is the surest confirmation of our love!
For myself, damn it
!

But she slammed the drawer shut on the beads, almost with guilt, when she heard Peter’s step.

“Jaelle? Love, I thought you were going to the Guild House - “

“I am just going,” she said, and tried not to look guiltily at the drawer.
If he were telepathic like Kyril, he would know without being told, without even seeing the beads
. She had once explained the device to him, but he had never paid much attention to it, though he admitted he had seen them for sale in the market and wondered if they were a kind of abacus. He had shown her how an abacus worked, telling her it was the most ancient Terran variety of calculator.

“Surely you won’t go in this blizzard, Jaelle - “

“You’ve been in the Terran Zone too long, if you call this little flurry of snow a blizzard,” she said gaily. She wanted to get out into the bracing cold of the weather, not skulk here in the debilitating artificial heat of the HQ buildings.

“Let me go with you,” he said, pulling on his outdoor boots and jacket. She hesitated.

“Love, in Amazon clothing I should not walk through the streets of the city with you this way, and it will expose you, too, to comment and gossip - ” and at his blank look she elaborated, “You are still in uniform.”

“Oh. That. I can change,” he offered, but she shook her head.

“I would rather not. Do you really mind, Peter? I’d rather be alone now. If I come to the Guild House in the company of a Terran - or of any man - there will be talk which will make my mission harder.”

He sighed. “As you wish,” he said, pulling her close and kissing her. The kiss lingered suggestively.

“Wouldn’t you rather stay here where it’s nice and warm?”

The thought was tempting. Had she fallen into the Terran way of making love by the clock, with no room for emotional spontaneity? But, firmly, she disengaged herself from his arms.

“I’m working, darling. I really do have to go. As you’re fond of reminding me about Montray, Cholayna’s my boss.”

He let her go almost too promptly. “You’ll be back before dark?”

“I might spend the night in the Guild House,” she said. “It’s not the sort of thing I can do in an hour or so.” She laughed at his crestfallen look.

“Piedro, love, it’s not the end of the world, to sleep apart for a single night!”

“I suppose not,” he grumbled, “but I’ll miss you.”

She softened. “I’ll miss you too,” she whispered into his neck, hugging him close again, “but there are going to be times when you’re out in the field, and I’ll have to stay alone. We might as well get used to it now.”