Thendara House (57 page)

“All around us, all men and women do honor to the loves of the Gods - “

No. This was too much. Already this Festival had brought her more than she wanted of such matters, and she would not, she simply would not give herself to him here in the open air as some of the women were doing, scarcely troubling to shelter themselves from the eyes of passersby as they took the license of this night. She hardly knew this man. “No,” she said, pushing him away again. “No, I am honored, thank you, but no, really no - “

“But you must,” he muttered, trying to nuzzle her bare neck; if she had known how drunk he was she would not have danced with him at all! His hands were hot and urgent on her bare neck and he was trying to fumble into her breast. She wished she were wearing her Amazon tunic instead of the Festival gown. She knew how to defend herself, but this man was a childhood friend and she really did not want to hurt him. She shoved him roughly away, but as his hands clung she followed it with a ringing slap which made him blink and stare at her stupidly.

“You aroused me and now you refuse me - “

She said in exasperation “I danced with you; you roused yourself! Don’t talk like a fool, Darrell! Are you honestly trying to claim I deliberately roused you? Why, if that were so, every woman in Thendara must go veiled like a Dry-Towner!”

He hung his head, with a shamefaced grin.

“Ah, well - no harm in asking.”

She was glad to return his smile. “None. Provided you only ask and do not try to snatch unwilling!”

“You cannot blame me for that,” he said good-naturedly and bent to kiss her bare shoulder, but she moved out of reach; she was not trying to flirt with him! Damn it, after all those months of isolation and celibacy, suddenly men, handsome and eligible men at that, were literally crawling out of the trees! First Monty, now this perfectly nice young Guardsman - if it had not been for Camilla would she have agreed to go with him this night? She would never know. Camilla was there.

She could see against the shadow of one of the buildings, a woman in Amazon clothing - Rafaella, surely - standing in a man’s arms, so violently embraced that it was almost a struggle; both were fully clothed but from their movements it was reasonably obvious what was happening. She turned away, embarrassed, and went back to the bench where the last of the women lingered.

Camilla yawned, covering her mouth with a narrow hand. “We must be away to the Guild House,” she said. “The moons are setting, and you and Keitha, child, must be indoors by dawn.”

She chuckled. “I could stay out as late as I wished - but by now my only desire is for my comfortable bed.”

The owners of the wineshop were now unobtrusively removing every bench as soon as it was vacant, stacking them, eager to call it a night. The Guardsmen who had been dancing, finding their seats gone, wandered away down the street. The group of women were still sharing a final pitcher of wine. Rafaella came back to where Magda sat with Camilla and Keitha - Marisela was exchanging a final word with a young man, and ended by kissing him in a motherly way on the cheek, so Magda supposed he must be a nephew or something of that kind. Rafaella’s face was flushed, her hair mussed, the laces of her tunic undone; she bent over Camilla and whispered to her, and Camilla reached up and patted her cheek.

“Enjoy yourself,
breda
. But take care.”

Rafaella smiled - she was a little drunk too, Magda realized - and went away, arms enlaced with the man who had been holding her. Keitha’s eyes were as wide as saucers. Janetta leaned over from the next bench and said, “Bold creature! Such indecent ways cast shame on all Renunciates; they will come to think us no better than harlots! I wish we were still in the ancient days when no Renunciate might lie with a man, or her sisters would cast her out!”

“Oh, hush,” said Marisela, coming back to the table. “Then we were denounced as lovers of women, seducers of decent wives and daughters, luring their children astray because we had none of our own! All women cannot live as you do, Janetta, and no one has appointed you keeper of Rafi’s conscience.”

“At least she could do such things in decent privacy, not before half the city of Thendara,” Janetta complained, and Marisela laughed, glancing around the all-but-deserted square.

“I think they are trying to get us to leave. But we have paid for the wine, and I for one will sit here and finish it.” She raised her glass. “It is easy for you to talk, Janetta, you have never been tempted in that way, and for the love of Evanda spare me your next speech, the one about the woman who lies with a man being a traitor to her sisters, I have heard it all too often, and I believe it no more than I did when first I heard it. I care not whether you, or anyone else, lies down with men, women, or consenting
cralmacs
, so that I need not hear them argue about it when I am trying to sleep - or finish my drink!” She raised her glass and drank.

But I agree with Janetta now more than I ever did
, Magda thought.
Yet here I sit beside a woman who has been my lover, and for whose sake I refused a man this night
. For that matter, Camilla had laughed and blessed Rafaella, and why not? She picked up her own glass, then heard a voice say, “Margali - ” and looked up into the eyes of Peter Haldane.

He was wearing Darkovan clothing; no one but herself, surely, would have known him for the young Terran among the delegation at Festival ball in Comyn Castle this night.

Camilla said to Magda, “Finish your drink, child, I shall be back at once,” and with Marisela and Mother Lauria, wandered away to the latrines at the back of the wineshop garden. Peter sank down across from Magda. She had never seen him so drunk.

She said in the language of Caer Donn, “Piedro, is this wise?”

“Wise be damned,” he said. “I’ve been fighting for my life. Montray was so damned determined I’d be on that ship pulling out just about now for the Alpha Colony, up for discipline before Head Center Intelligence. I finally went over his head, got Alessandro Li to pull rank on him, and Cholayna - where the hell were you, Mag? It was your problem, too. And what were you up to with Monty?”

She said, “I’m sorry you were having trouble, Peter.” She was not, definitely not going to discuss her relationship with Monty here, nor with him. “But it is all right, then?”

“Till he starts in on me again. God, I’d give ten years of my life to get that man shipped off Darkover; I swear, if I live, I’ll do it. Even his own son knows - ” he broke off. “But what are you doing here, Mag? In
this
place?” His horrified eyes fell on the last remaining table except for theirs, where a couple of the men were still drunkenly pawing one another and the effeminate who had danced with Marisela was asleep with his head on the table. Magda noted, with sadness and some pity, that he wore a woman’s butterfly-clasp in his long hair.

“Maggie, don’t you know what this place is?”

She shook her head. He told her. His outrage seemed misplaced.

“At least no one will trouble women alone here. And anyhow,
you’re
here.”

“Looking for you,” he said. “They told me some women from the Guild House were still here drinking, dancing - wanted to talk to you,” he said with drunken earnestness. He saw Camilla’s drink on the table and absentmindedly picked it up and drank it. It seemed to thicken his speech immediately. “Need you,” he said “Need you to talk to Jaelle. You’re her friend. My friend too. Good friends. Both need you, both of us. Need you to talk to her, tell her what it means. Be a good Terran wife. Back us up. She’s having a baby.” he informed Magda with drunken seriousness. “My baby, got to get her straightened out so she can help me instead of fighting me all the time. Got to get in good with all the higher-ups so we can bring up our baby here. My son. Only she won’t help me the right way. She doesn’t know how to handle Terran bureaucrats. You always handled old Montray just fine. Maggie, you talk to her, you tell her - “

She stared at him, not believing what she had heard him say.

“You,” she said, “have got to be right out of your mind. Peter! You want me -
me
! - to talk to Jaelle, and tell her how you want her to act as your wife? I never heard such a thing in my life!”

“But you know the kind of trap I’m in, how I need it - “

“Handle it the way I did,” she said sharply. “Tell them all to go to hell. If you want to let them push you around, don’t come crying to me!”

He grabbed her hand, held it, staring into her eyes with drunken intensity.

“Never should have let you go,” he said thickly. “Mistake of a lifetime Nobody like you, Maggie. You - you got to be the best there is. Only now there’s Jaelle. I love her, if only she’d settle down and put her weight behind me, do what she ought to do. And now there’s our kid. My kid. F’the sake of that kid, I got to stick to her. Can’t quit. Can’t bring the kid up like some damned native, out in the outback of nowhere - wish
you’d
had our kid, Maggie, you’d have done it right… you got to help us, Mag. My friend. Jaelle’s friend. Talk to her, Maggie.”

“Peter,” she said helplessly, “you’re drunk; you don’t know how outrageous that sounds. Go home, Peter, and sober up. Things will look different when you’re sober, when you’ve had some sleep - “

“But you’ve got to
listen
to me!” He grabbed her, pulled her close to him. “I got to make you understand just what a bind I’m in - “

“
Bredhiya
,” said Camilla’s gentle voice behind her, “is this man annoying you?”

Camilla, tall and somehow formidable, was towering over the slightly built Peter, who was swaying on his feet. Of course Camilla had spoken in the intimate mode which gave the words only one possible meaning. Camilla, too, was more than a little drunk. Peter looked at them both with horror and sudden dismay.

“Damn,” he said, “now I understand. Never saw it before. No wonder you wouldn’t stay with me, no wonder… and I thought you’d come here because you didn’t understand. Of course you wouldn’t be the one to talk to Jaelle. What the hell would you know about it?” He made a gesture of disgust and revulsion. “So
that
was why you left me, went into the Guild House. Of course you couldn’t be a decent wife to me, to any man - “

She said angrily, “How dare you speak to me that way?”

“How dare
you
speak to any decent person? You?” He wrinkled his nose in wrath. “If I catch you anywhere near Jaelle,” he said in drunken wrath, “I’ll - I’ll break your neck. You stay away from my wife, hear me, I don’t want you corrupting her!”

Camilla, of course, had not understood a word of all this, but she could tell perfectly well that he was being offensive. She said, not knowing that Peter could understand - he had, after all, been speaking the last few sentences in Terran Standard - “
Bredhiya
, shall I get rid of him for you?”

“You - ” Peter snarled. It was a gutter insult, and Camilla’s hand closed on her knife-hilt. It flashed.

“No!” Magda cried out. “He’s drunk - he doesn’t know - “

One of the men at the other table lurched over, closing his hand on Peter’s shoulder He said with thick earnestness, “No, no, no sense picking a fight here at Festival, brother, no sense talking to the likes of them.” He gestured at Camilla and added, “I’m the one you came down here to find, brother. Come on over here with us, we’re all friends over here.” He put his arms around Peter, breathing heavy camaraderie, wine-laden, into his face. “C’mon, brother, it’s late and I’m still all alone, come on, leave all them bitches out of it. Let them go off by themselves if they want to, who needs
them
?” he shoved his own tankard in Peter’s face. “Drink up, little brother, drink up.”

Peter could not push the man’s hand away; he swallowed, coughed on the strong liquor, sank down at the other table, staring up in bewilderment at the man.

“Look, I didn’ come down here lookin’ for you - ” he muttered.

“Aw, come on,” said the man, staring down intensely into Peter’s flushed face, “what else you come down here for? I know you Terrans, you can’t find what you’re lookin” for on
your
side of the wall, can you? None of our brothers over there, got to come down here in the city, we get a lot of you fellows… I know all about it, here, have another drink - “