The Ages of Chaos
Page 18
“You lend us grace, siarbainn,” he said, giving it the special inflection which made the archaic word for stranger mean, friend-still-unknown. “How may I serve you?”
The strange youth rose and bowed.
“I am Donal Delleray, foster-son and paxman to Mikhail, Lord Aldaran. I bring his words, not my own, to the vai leroni of Hali Tower.”
“I am Allart Hastur of Elhalyn; this, my kinsman and cousin, Coryn, tenerezu of Hali. Speak freely.”
He thought, Surely this is more than coincidence, that Aldaran should send a messenger just as my brother devises his plan. Or did he devise his plan to fit the messenger’s coming? The gods strengthen me—I see plots and counterplots everywhere!
Donal said, “First, vai domyn, I am to bear you Lord Aldaran’s apologies for sending me in his place. He would not hesitate to come as suppliant and petitioner, but he is old, and hardly fitted to bear the long road from Aldaran. Also, I can ride more quickly than he. Indeed, I had thought to be here within eight days’ ride, but I seem to have lost a day on the road.”
Damon-Rafael and his damned mind-probing, Allart thought, but he said nothing, waiting for Donal to make his request.
Coryn said, “It is our pleasure to do courtesy to Lord Aldaran; what does he ask?”
“Lord Aldaran bids me say that his daughter, his only living child and heir, is cursed with laran such as he has never known before. The aged leronis who has cared for her since her birth no longer knows what to do with her. The child is of an age when my father fears lest threshold sickness destroy her. He comes, then, as suppliant, to ask of the vai leroni if they know of one who will come to care for her during these crucial seasons.”
This was not unknown, that a Tower-trained leronis might go to guide and care for some young heir during the troubled years of adolescence, when threshold sickness took such toll of the sons and daughters of their caste. A laranzu from Arilinn Tower had first counseled Allart to seek sanctuary at Nevarsin. And, Allart thought, if Aldaran was beholden to Hali for such a service, Aldaran would be all the more ready to refrain from angering Elhalyn by coming into this war.
Allart said, “The Hasturs of Elhalyn, and those who serve them in Hali Tower, will be pleased to serve Lord Aldaran in this matter.” He asked Coryn in their own language, “Who shall we send?”
“I thought you would go,” Coryn said. “You are none too eager to remain and become entangled in this war.”
“I shall go, indeed, at my brother’s bidding and on his mission,” Allart said, “but it is not seemly that a laranzu shall have the training of a maiden. Surely she needs a woman to guide her.”
“Yet there is none to spare,” said Coryn. “Now that I am to lose Renata, I shall need Mira for monitoring. And, of course, Cassandra is not even well enough trained for monitoring, far less for work of this sort, teaching a young girl to control her gift.”
Allart said, “Could not Renata fulfill this mission? It seems to me that this would remove her from the combat zone, as much as returning to Neskaya.”
“Yes, Renata is the obvious choice,” Coryn said, “but she is not to go to Neskaya. Did you not hear? No,” he answered his own question. “While Cassandra has been ill, you have stayed with her and you did not hear the word from the relays. Dom Erlend Leynier has sent word that she is not to go to Neskaya Towers but to go home to her wedding. It has twice been delayed already. I do not think she would wish to delay it again to go to some godforgotten corner of the Hellers, to teach some barefoot mountain girl how to handle her laran!”
Allart looked apprehensively at young Donal. Had he heard the offensive remark? But Donal, like a proper messenger, was staring straight before him, appearing neither to hear or see anything but what concerned him directly. If he did know enough of the Lowland tongue to understand Coryn’s words, or had enough laran to read their thoughts, neither Coryn nor Allart would ever know.
“I do not think Renata is in such a great hurry to be married,” Allart demurred.
Coryn chuckled. “I think you mean you are in no hurry for Renata to be married, cousin.” Then, at the glare of rage in Allan’s eyes, he said hastily, “I was but jesting, cousin. Tell young Delleray that we will ask the damisela Renata Leynier if she will undertake the journey northward.”
Allart repeated the formal phrases to Donal, who bowed and replied, “Say to the vai domna that Mikhail, Lord Aldaran, would not have her make this tremendous service unremunerated. In gratitude, she will be dowered as if she were his younger daughter, when the time comes for her to marry.”
“That is generous,” Allart said, as indeed it was. The use of laran could not be bought or sold like ordinary service; tradition stated it should be used only in service to caste or clan and was not for hire. This was the usual compromise. The Leyniers were wealthy, but they had no such wealth as the Aldarans, and this would give Renata the dower of a princess.
After a few more courtesies, they had young Donal conducted to a chamber to await the final arrangements. Coryn said regretfully, as he and Allart went through the force-field into the main part of the Tower, “Perhaps I should have arranged this journey for Arielle. She is a Di Asturien, but she is nedestro and has no dower to speak of. Even if my brother would give me leave to marry, which is not likely, he would not allow me to wed with a poor girl.” He laughed bitterly. “But it matters not… even if she were dowered with all the jewels of Carthon, a Hastur of Carcosa could not wed with a nedestro of Di Asturien; and if Arielle had such a dowry, her father would surely offer her to another, and I should lose her.”
“You are long unmarried,” Allart said, and Coryn shrugged.
“My brother is not eager for me to have an heir. I have laran enough, and I have fathered half a dozen sons for their accursed breeding program, on this girl and that, but I have not bothered to see the babes, though they say they all have laran. It is better not to get too fond of them, since I understand that every attempt to breed the Hastur gift to Aillard or Ardais has meant they die in threshold sickness, poor little brats. It is hard on their mothers, but I have no intention of letting myself be heart-wrung, too.”
“How can you take it so casually?”
For a moment the mask of indifference broke and Coryn looked out at him in real distress.
“What else can I do, Allart? No son of Hastur has a life he can call his own, while the leroni of this damned stud-service they call our caste make all our marriages and even arrange the fathering of our bastards. But we are not all like you, able to tolerate living the life of a monk!” Then he was stony-faced, impassive again. “Well, it is not an unpleasant duty to my clan, after all. While I dwell here as Keeper, there are plenty of times when I am no use to any woman, which is almost as good as being a monk… Arielle and I are willing to take what we can have when occasion permits. I am not like you, a romantic seeking a great love,” he added defensively, and turned away. “Will you ask Renata if she will go, or shall I?”
“You ask her,” Allart said. He knew already what she would say, knew they would ride northward together. He had seen it again and again; it could not be avoided.
Was it unavoidable, then, that he would love Renata, forgetting his love and his honor and his pledge to Cassandra?
I should never have left Nevarsin, he thought. Would that I had flung myself from the highest crag before I let them force me away!
Chapter Fourteen
Renata hesitated at the door of the room, then, knowing that Cassandra was aware of her presence, went in without knocking. Cassandra was out of bed, although she still looked pale and exhausted. She had some needlework in her hands, and was setting small precise stitches in the petal of an embroidered flower, but as Renata’s eyes fell on it Cassandra colored and put it aside.
“I am ashamed to waste time on so foolish and womanly a pastime.”
Renata said, “Why? I, too, was taught never to let my hands sit idle, lest my mind find nothing to occupy itself but too much brooding o
n my own problems and miseries. Although my stitches were never so fine as yours. Are you feeling better now?”
Cassandra sighed. “Yes, I am well again. I suppose I can take my place among you. I suppose—” Renata, the empath, knew that Cassandra’s throat closed, unable to speak the words. I suppose they all know what I tried to do; they all despise me…
“There is not one of us feels anything for you save sympathy, sorrow that you could have been so unhappy among us, and none of us spoke or tried to ease your suffering,” Renata said gently.
“Yet I hear whispers around me; I cannot read what is happening. What are you concealing from me, Renata? What are you all hiding?”
“You know that the war has broken out afresh,” Renata began.
“Allart is to go to war!” It was a cry of anguish. “And he did not tell me.”
“If he has hesitated to say this, chiya, surely it is only that he fears you might be overcome again by despair, and act rashly.”
Cassandra lowered her eyes; gently as the words were spoken, they were a reproof, and well-deserved. “No, that will not happen again. Not now.”
“Allart is not to go to war,” Renata said. “Instead, he is being sent outside the combat area. A messenger has come from Caer Donn, and Allart is being sent to escort him, under a truce-flag. Lord Elhalyn has sent him on some mission to the mountain people there.”
“Am I to go with him?” Cassandra caught her breath, a flush of such pure joy spreading over her face that Renata was reluctant to speak and banish it.
At last she said gently, “No, cousin. That is not your destiny now. You must stay here. You have great need of the training we can give, to master your laran, so that you will never again be overcome like that. And since I am to leave the Tower, you will be needed as a monitor here. Mira will begin at once to teach you.”
“I? A monitor? Truly?”
“Yes. You have worked long enough in the circle so that your laran and your talents are known to us. Coryn has said that you will make a monitor of great skill. And you will be needed soon. With Allart’s and my departure, there will hardly be enough trained workers here to form two circles, and not enough trained to monitor.”
“So.” Cassandra was silent a moment. “In any case, I have an easier lot than other women of my clan, who have nothing to do but watch their husbands ride forth to battle and perhaps death. I have useful work to do here, and Allart need have no fear that he leaves me with child.” To answer Renata’s questioning look, she said, “I am ashamed, Renata. Probably you do not know… Allart and I made one another a pledge, that our marriage would remain unconsummated. I—I tempted him to break that vow.”
“Cassandra, Allart is not a child or an untried boy. He is a grown man, and fully capable of making such a decision for himself.” Renata smothered an impulse to laugh. “I doubt he would be complimented by the thought that you ravished him against his will.”
Cassandra colored. “Still, if I had been stronger, if I had been able to master my unhappiness—”
“Cassandra, it’s done and past mending; all the smiths in Zandru’s forges can’t mend a broken egg. You are not the keeper of Allart’s conscience. Now you can only look ahead. Perhaps it is just as well that Allart must leave you for a time. It will give you both the opportunity to decide what you wish to do in the future.”
Cassandra shook her head. “How can I alone make a decision that concerns us both? It is for Allart to say what shall come afterward. He is my husband and my lord!”
Suddenly Renata was exasperated. “It is that attitude which has led women to where they are now in the Domains! In the name of the Blessed Cassilda, child, are you still thinking of yourself only in terms of a breeder of sons and a toy of lust? Wake up, girl! Do you think it is only for that Allart desires you?”
Cassandra blinked, startled. “What else am I? What else can any woman be?”
“You are not a woman!” Renata said angrily. “You are only a child! Every word you say makes it evident! Listen to me, Cassandra. First, you are a human being, a child of the gods, a daughter of your clan, bearing laran. Do you think you have it only that you may pass it on to your sons? You are a matrix worker; soon you will be a monitor. Do you honestly think you are no good to Allart for anything but to share his bed and to give him children? Gods above, girl, that he could have from a concubine, or a riyachiya…”
Cassandra’s cheeks flushed an angry red. “It is not seemly to talk about such things!”
“But only to do them?” Renata retorted, at white heat. “The gods created us thinking creatures; do you suppose they meant woman to be brood animals alone? If so, why do we have brains and laran, and tongues to speak our thoughts, instead of being given only fair faces and sex organs and bellies to bear our children and breasts to nourish them? Do you believe the gods did not know what they were doing?”
“I do not believe there are any gods at all,” Cassandra retorted, and the bitterness in her voice was so great that Renata’s anger vanished. She, too, had known that kind of bitterness; she was not yet free of it.
She put her arms around the other girl, and said tenderly, “Cousin, you and I have no reason to quarrel. You are young and untaught; as you learn, here, to use your laran, perhaps you will come to think differently about what you are, within yourself—not only as Allart’s wife. Someday you may be the keeper of your own will and conscience, and not rely on Allart to make the decisions for both of you, nor lay on him the burden of your sorrows as well as his own.”
“I never thought of that,” said Cassandra, hiding her face against Renata’s shoulder. “If I had been stronger, I would not have laid this burden upon him. I have put upon him the guilt for my own unhappiness which drove me into the lake. Yet he was only doing what he felt he must do. Will they teach me here to be strong, Renata? As strong as you?”
“Stronger, I hope, chiya,” Renata said, kissing the other girl on the forehead, yet her own thoughts were grim. I am full of good advice for her, yet I cannot handle my own life. For the third time, now, I run away from marriage, into this unknown mission at Aldaran, for a girl I do not know and for whom I care nothing. I should stay here and defy my father, not run away to Aldaran to teach some unknown girl how to use the laran that her foolish forefathers bred into her mind and body! What is this girl to me, that I should neglect my own life to help her gain command of hers?
Yet she knew it had all been determined by what she was—a leronis, born with the talent, and fortunate enough to have been given Tower training to master it. Thus in honor bound to do whatever she could to help others less fortunate master their own unasked for, undesired laran.
Cassandra was calm now. She said, “Allart will not go without bidding me farewell… ?”
“No, no, of course not, my child. Coryn has already given him leave to withdraw from the circle, so this last night you spend under one roof, you may spend together to say your farewells.” She did not tell Cassandra that she herself was to accompany Allart on his ride northward; that would be for Allart to tell her, in his own time and in his own way. She only said, “In any case, as things are between you now, one of you should go. You know that when serious work begins in the circle, you must remain apart and chaste.”
“I do not understand that,” Cassandra said. “Coryn and Arielle—”
“—have worked together for more than a year in the circle; they know the limits of what is allowed and what is dangerous,” Renata said. “A day will come when you will know it, too, but as you are now, it would be difficult to recall or keep to those limits. This is your time to learn, with no distractions, and Allart would be”—she smiled at the other girl, mischievously—“a distraction. Oh, these men, that we can neither live at peace with them—nor without them!”
Cassandra’s laughter was momentary. Then her face convulsed again with weeping. “I know that all you say is true, and yet I cannot bear to have Allart leave me. Have you never been in love, Renata?”
“What can I do, Renata? What can I do?”
Renata shook her head, staring bleakly into space. Will I ever know what it is to love that way? Do I want to know, or is such love as this only a trap into which women walk of their own free will, so that they have no more strength to rule their own lives? Is this how the women of the Comyn have become no more than breeders of sons and toys of lust? But Cassandra’s pain was very real to her. At last she said, hesitating, shy before the depths of the other woman’s emotion, “You could make it impossible for him to leave you, if you grieve like this, cousin. He would be too fearful for you, too guilty at the thought of leaving you to such despair.”
Cassandra struggled to control her sobs. Finally she said, “You are right. I must not add to Allart’s guilt and grief with my own. I am not the first, nor the last wife of a Hastur who must see him ride away from her, with no knowledge of when, or ever, he will return; but his honor and the success of his mission are in my hands, then. I must not hold that lightly. Somehow”—she set her small chin stubbornly—“I will find the strength to send him away from me; if not gladly, at least I will try to make sure that he goes without fear for me to add to his own.”
It was a small party that rode north from Hali the next day. Donal, as a suppliant, had ridden alone; Allart himself had only the banner-bearer to which, as heir to Elhalyn, he was entitled, and the messenger with a truce-flag; not so much as a single body-servant. Renata, too, had dispensed with lady companions, saying that in time of war such niceties need not be observed; she had brought only her nurse Lucetta, who had served her since childhood, and would have dispensed even with this attendance, save that an unmarried woman of the Domains could not travel without any female attendance.