Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19

by The Ruins of Isis (v2. 1)

  He frowned. "Look, Cendri, this is my affair; don't meddle. I know what I am doing." He glanced at the timepiece he wore, and said politely, "The Lady Miranda will be waiting for you. Go along to visit the blessing of the pearl-divers, or whatever it is, and don't worry. I can look after myself, Cendri; I was doing it a long time before I ever met you."

  "Dal—" she hesitated, frightened. "Oh, Dal, don't get into any trouble," she begged. But he only repeated, smoothly, "The Lady Miranda is waiting for you."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The village of the pearl-divers was only a little way along the shore; it seemed to lie at the very foot of the ruins, and Cendri looked up at them in frustration. How long would Vaniya continue to stall them off? If Dal, she thought, could get into them, start the work he had come to do, he would not be tempted to engage in dangerous and, certainly, illegal intrigues with the men. She thought, between dread and anger, that could get us sent away from Isis. University makes it very clear that the Scholars who go to study a culture must not entangle themselves in politics...

  "Look," Miranda said. "We are in time; there is my mother by the sea-wall—"

  Vaniya, draped in impressive folds of crimson and purple, was standing before a little group of slender, naked women, hair cropped close to their heads, formidable knives strapped to their waists. Cendri could not hear what she was saying, but she passed before the women, and one by one, they knelt and she laid her hands on their heads and then on their knives. Then they all knelt, and after a moment Cendri heard a high, chanting lament.

  Miranda murmured, "They are singing a memorial for the women killed in the last pearl-diving season. It is a very dangerous trade; in this little village alone, four women were killed last year. Would you like to go nearer?"

  "Yes, I think so—"

  Slowly, they picked their way across the shore, littered with seaweed, driftwood, rocks and shells. Cendri looked at the flimsy houses, built just above high-tide mark, at the small boats, circular, and built of wood and fiber. "Are they all pearl-divers in this village?" she asked, looking at the women and children clustered on the shore watching the ceremony.

  "Nearly all. They have been bred for generations for the diving, and from the time they are very little girls they are taught to remain under water for a longer time every day. I can swim well, but when I was a small girl I had a friend here in this village; she was in my school. Even then she could stay under water for a time that made me dizzy and my ears ring," Miranda said. "Once I nearly drowned because I would not come up before she did, and I lost consciousness; if the matron had not fished me out I would have died. It was then I learned that all the differences between women are not due entirely to education and training, but are inborn, part of the self, and competition is useless, a game for men...look, my mother is putting a blessing on their knives. That is in order that the Goddess may keep, away the, creatures of the sea, and they may not be forced to shed blood in Her holy realms..."

  "Is your Goddess a sea-Goddess, then?"

  "She is the Goddess of the whole; the World-mother," Miranda said, "When the First Mothers dwelt on Persephone, they worshipped the Goddess by that name; here She is Isis, the spirit that inhabits rocks and soil, air and winds; but we worship her especially in the sea, because it is from the Sea, so our scientists and our wise-women alike tell us, that all life comes on any world."

  No wonder they renamed this world, Cendri thought, struggling with a smile, who could worship a Goddess fay the name of Cinderella? She asked, "Is fishing forbidden, then, if blood cannot be shed...?"

  "Oh, no," Miranda said, "the Mother sends food from the Sea, and," she added, with a quick shift from religious faith to practical wisdom, "we have not enough arable land to raise all of our food as yet. But blood is shed there only in the last extremity. Most fish are taken with nets; it is less of an offense to the Goddess, or so many of our people still believe, and will not eat spear-caught fish. And when we visit the sea and the men are allowed to go spear-fishing, many women refuse to eat the fish caught by blood spilled in Her waters." She laid her hands over her pregnant belly and said, "I shall not visit the sea this season, I shall have a child at my breast—" she sighed.

  "Look, they are lowering their boats; let us go up by the sea-wall where we can see them put out. The pearl-beds are offshore, by the rocks—you will see them from there."

  They climbed the stairs together. Miranda was heavy now, and stumbled, and Cendri took her arm, steadying her on the last steps, which were slippery with spray and sea-wrack left by the tide. She asked "When will your baby be born?"

  "With the next Full Moon, or so the Inquirers have told me," Miranda said. "I will be glad when she is here, I am weary of dragging around like this."

  Cendri wanted to know who the father was, but was not yet sure enough of herself to do so; men were never mentioned, and it was all too easy to forget their existence! She noted, however, that Miranda spoke of her coming child as "she"; would she be disappointed if her child were a male? Well, she would certainly find out when it was born, she might even find out something of the customs surrounding birth.

  "Look, the boats are away, that is the closing hymn," Miranda said. "When it is over, Mother and Rhu will come down to us. Cendri, why did your Companion not come down with us today?"

  "Dal—Dal gets headaches in the sun," Cendri improvised uneasily.

  "Still, most men are glad of an opportunity to come to the seashore when they are forbidden otherwise," Miranda said, shading her eyes to watch the small boats sculling toward the distant rocks which marked the pearl-beds. "One of our legends says that pearls are the tears of the Mother at what men have done to her beautiful worlds...I know that is only a fairytale," she said defensively. "I learned at school how it is that the small sea creatures make pearls and their lovely shells of nacre. But it is a pretty story—" She smiled shyly at Cendri and drew out a narrow chain from the folds of silk at her breast. Delicately encased in a small filigree case of silver wire, a large rose-colored pearl shimmered like some sea creature itself. "This is my loveliest treasure—"

  "It is beautiful," Cendri said, thinking she had never seen quite so large and beautiful a pearl.

  "Tell me, Cendri, is it true that in the worlds ruled by men, pearls and jewels are given to women by men, to—to reward them for their sexual functions?"

  Cendri blinked, startled by the phrasing of the question. At last she said, carefully, "I cannot say that this has never been a practice among men. But I think, most of the time, when men give pearls—or any jewels—to women, they give them because they love them, because they want to see them even more beautiful, because they want to give pleasure to—to the women they love."

  Miranda smiled and cradled the pink pearl in her hand, tenderly. "I am—I am very glad to hear it," she said, her fingertips lingering on it as a cherished thing. Cendri thought; I wonder what man gave it to her? A gift from the father of her child, perhaps? Again she felt the sense of frustration; in the study of any society, one of the first things an anthropologist had to know was something about their mating customs, and so far, it seemed, children sprang into being by spontaneous generation! And even with Miranda, friendly as the Pro-Matriarch's daughter had been, Cendri did not feel secure enough to break the taboo.

  Vaniya, resplendent in her brilliant robes, slowly came along the pier toward them. She said to Cendri, "So my daughter has been guiding you and showing you our rites—do you like our pearl-divers?"

  "They are certainly brave," Cendri said with a shiver.

  "They are born to this work, and trained from infancy for it," Vaniya said, "and they are well-rewarded; there is no work in our society more highly regarded than to descend into the bosom of Isis and bring up her tears for all women everywhere to admire, and to the ends of your Unity, our pearls are considered the finest. In fact, our divers are so well-rewarded and so admired that it is all we can do to persuade them to take off a year, now and then, to bear daughters t
o inherit their craft! Some day, perhaps, our scientists will find a way to avoid wasteful bearing of sons in crafts where the blood lines are so important. We can create parthenogenetic females for this craft, of course, and that would give us more divers for a short time, but the daughters so born would be sterile. And many of our fisherwomen are ignorant, and feel that such conceptions are an offense against Nature. I can understand why no woman wishes to take a season off from her work, even though we pay them well for their resting time, only to discover she has not borne a daughter to inherit her craft but only a useless male. Some have even been know to kill their male children. I am forced to judge such women and punish them, but it goes hard!"

  Miranda said, "In the worlds of the Unity it is possible to insure the conception of male and female at will—is this not so, Cendri?"

  "Yes, certainly."

  "That would have a certain limited social usefulness," Vaniya said, "it might well be encouraged among such as the pearl-divers. But it could have dangers too—would any woman be content to bear a male if she could win status and recognition with a daughter? And then where would we be? You are not old enough to remember, Miranda, but when the Grey Plague killed only males, many women were frenzied with fear they would be doomed to live childless. Fortunately the Goddess was merciful, and twice as many males were born in the next three seasons, but we have had a frightening scare. Men, too, have their place in the balance of nature.and you must never forget it, Miranda."

  "Oh, Mother," said Miranda impatiently, "You older women are always so afraid that any new way of doing things will be an offense to the Goddess! If She had not intended women to use their minds, she would have made us all stupid! I think if you had your way, we would all bear our babies squatting in the reeds like our foremothers!"

  "You might do worse," said Vaniya, smiling serenely. "But I have no wish to live in reed huts, and if I were the reactionary you think me I would not have brought Cendri here. And I know it is true that in the Unity children can be conceived male or female at will. But I do not know if it is so great a blessing. Is it usually a matter of choice on your world, Cendri?"

  "Not entirely," Cendri said. "It has been prohibited on some worlds and strictly regulated on others, because of the desire of men or women for one sex, or the other, has indeed disturbed the balance of nature. Now it is used rarely, and by special permission; if a family has had two children of one sex and wish for another. Although on a few worlds it is taken for granted that every woman will bear one son and one daughter."

  "I suppose that is fair," Vaniya said, "though it seems dull and regimented to me. And of course men are useful to the world, also," she added, with a carefully polite glance at Rhu, hovering, as usual, in the background. "I myself find as much pleasure in Rhu's company and conversation as that of another woman, but of course Rhu is quite unusual; and I am growing old and can afford to ignore convention a little."

  Rhu said, in his slow, hesitating voice, "Have you forgotten that it was Gar, of the household of Gracila, who designed a way to deal with fluoride effluents in the plastics industry, so they would not pollute the waterway of the Goddess?"

  "I have just finished saying that there are extraordinary men in the world, my dear," Vaniya said, patting him carelessly on the cheek. "The Goddess knew what she was doing when She created humankind both male and female." She turned her attention to Miranda again. "My child, where did you get that exquisite pearl?" She touched the rose-colored gem with an admiring finger.

  Miranda widened her eyes, saying innocently, "Didn't you give it to me, Mother?"

  "You know perfectly well I did not, child, I have never seen it before."

  "I think it must have been a gift from one of my kin-mothers," Miranda said, quickly slipping the chain inside the neck of her frock, "but I have forgotten which one, I think I have had it a long time. Are you growing forgetful, Mother?"

  "Don't be impudent, child," Vaniya reproved, but she smiled. "If it was a sea-gift you could have said so, Miranda, we are all grown women here! A man, of course, would not have known its value." She slipped her hand through her daughter's arm, as they turned to go. "Hold firmly to my arm, the stairs are slippery here, and I would not like to see my granddaughter endangered by carelessness. You should not have come up here now, dearest."

  "1 wanted to show Cendri the boats—"

  "Yes, it was a kind thought, but still—to endanger yourself so," Vaniya fretted.

  Cendri heard a gentle voice at her elbow. "May I offer my arm to the Scholar Dame? It is indeed slippery here; and while it is right and natural that the Pro-Matriarch should offer her support to the one who bears her heir, I am sure that she would be most unwilling to see the distinguished guest suffer a fall."

  Cendri took his arm, without hesitation; Rhu, from everything she had seen, was the soul of propriety, and would never make such an offer if it was nat suitable. She took his arm, steadying herself against the slipperiness of the seaweed under foot. "The sea-view is beautiful; I am grateful to Miranda for bringing me here, even if it was unwise to risk herself on the steps."

  "The Lady Miranda is always most kind," Rhu murmured, and looked away. Suddenly, with sharp perceptions, Cendri remembered the morning, and the sunrise on Miranda's face as she talked to Rhu, and thought; he loves her.

  And yet, on a world where love is not much regarded as part of the social structure, it must be difficult to love.. .On Cendri's world, and on many of the worlds of the Unity, love between man and woman served a useful social bond, social cohesion, establishing mating bonds and making social arrangements for the care and nurture of children. Serving this purpose, love was respected and admired, and on many worlds indissolubly bound up with sexuality. But here, where social bonds and sexuality seemed not to be allied, could love, as such, exist at all? Even in the Unity, there were some who considered romantic love a myth...

  "The Scholar Dame is silent," Rhu ventured, "I had hoped your Companion would accompany you; I feel remiss, that I have not sufficiently bestirred myself to entertain him. Perhaps I could arrange a hunt, or some form of expedition to divert him..." he broke off, turning his head toward the sea.

  "The tide!" He leaned forward, touched Vaniya's shoulder, and said, urgently, "Look at the tide!"

  "What's this? What's this?" demanded Vaniya, turning around in irritation at his unaccustomed urgency; then she saw what he had seen, and gasped, "Goddess protect us all!"

  The tide had gone far out—far, far out, sinking and sinking as if it were draining into some bottomless pit over the horizon. Stranded fish were gasping and dying, squirming ropy sea-things laid bare, and Cendri could see, at the foot of the rocks near the grounded boats of the pearl-divers, the long, ridgy rows of shelled creatures, thrusting up through an inch or less of sea-water.

  After a moment of shock, Vaniya quickly mastered herself.

  "Miranda," she ordered, "Get back up the beach—inside We-were-guided, if you must; but go, go quickly!" She turned to Rhu and said, "Get her to safety, at once!"

  Miranda pulled away from her mother's hand. She said, "Send your Companion to safety if you must, Mother, but I have a responsibility—these are my people, too!"

  Vaniya touched the younger woman's swollen body. She said, "Your responsibility, Miranda, is to her!" She added quickly, to Cendri, "Go with them, at once! There is great danger here, it is no place for men or pregnant women! Within We-were-guided you will be on high ground."

  Cendri stared, confused. "Danger? In low tide—"

  "It is not only low tide," said Vaniya, breathless. "It is the tide-drop; far out at sea the earth shakes, and before long a great wall of water will smash the shore here! Go, quickly! See—" she pointed, "they have seen, they are hurrying to the shore! I must stay here at least until I am sure they are on their way to safety!"

  Miranda insisted "Mother, my place is at your side—"

  Suddenly Cendri knew what was happening. She had read it somewhere—that the extra-low tide
, sucking and draining back and back, was the warning—usually the only warning, and it was a matter of minutes—of the dreaded tsunami or tidal wave! She looked uncertainly at Vaniya, understanding Miranda's qualms; despite her strong presence, Vaniya was not young! Making up her mind quickly, she took Vaniya's arm, saying urgently, "Take your child to safety, Miranda! I will stay beside your mother and make sure she gets to high ground before the water strikes!"

  Miranda smiled, gratefully; quickly pressed Cendri's hands and hurried away with Rhu. Vaniya spared only seconds to follow them with her eyes; Miranda leaning heavily on Rhu's arm as he guided her across the slippery beach and up toward the hillside at the top of which lay the ruins of We-were-guided. She turned back to Cendri, accepting her presence without question, and Cendri thought, yes, of course; I am a young, able-bodied, unencumbered woman; my place, on this world, is at the center of any danger! She felt frightened, but determined to remain and prove herself worthy of being a woman in this culture.

  "What can I do, Vaniya?"

  Vaniya pointed to a tower built above the cliffs. "Your legs are younger and faster than mine; run, Cendri, and make sure they have seen—find out why they have not rung the alarm! Then come back and we will make sure that everyone seeks higher ground—we will guide them up into the ruins, no wave has ever come into We-were-guided!"

  Cendri ran down toward the tower; her feet slipped on seaweed and her thin sandals were cut to ribbons by the sharp rocks; she ran on, limping and stumbling, and knew her feet were bleeding. On the steps of the tower she hestitated, seeing the door swinging open; was anyone inside at all? She could see the bell inside the tower, but no one seemed near it.

  "I wonder what has happened to the watch?" said a worried voice behind her, and Cendri turned to see a young woman with closecut curly red hair, in a dark pajama suit. "If she were there and alive she would have rung the bell already—come, quickly! If she is in no state to ring it, we must somehow manage to do it ourselves..."