Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19

by The Ruins of Isis (v2. 1)

  Vaniya smiled, a faint contemptuous smile. "But who gave the Council, alone, the right to settle a matter which, if it must be settled this way, should be settled by agreement of every woman on Isis? For that matter, why only the women of Isis? The men are our sons, too, and we are responsible for their material and moral well-being, to say nothing of their spiritual health. If every woman on Isis, and every man, chose Mahala by acclaim, probably I would not object, although I am not sure that the women in the villages know enough about the problems facing us to know which of us is better fitted to handle them—"

  "The Council should settle it," Mahala insisted. "They represent the women of their villages—"

  "Do they indeed? Nowhere in the founding of the Council has it been agreed that the women of the villages have entrusted it to the women of the Council to choose a High Matriarch to rule over them; and if they did it would still be a mockery." She looked around the Council, and said, "I am not inflexible, nor am I power-maddened, though I am not sure you can say the same about my sister and rival. But if every woman on the Council here agrees that I am not fit, and chooses Mahala for rule, I will withdraw."

  "No, indeed," said one of the women, and Mahala said angrily, "I call for majority choice!"

  Vaniya sighed and shook her head. "This is a tyranny devised by the maleworlds, Mahala, that a larger force shall enforce their will on a smaller or weaker one. If you can persuade more people to accept your view, does that mean that it is therefore the right view, or only that you can make us pretend to accept it lest we be ill-used by the majority? Do you wish to undermine the whole ethical basis of the Matriarchate, my sister?"

  Mahala said inflexibly, "I do not feel it is right that our High Matriarch should be chosen by a superstitious ritual which no sane woman on Isis continues to accept."

  Vaniya smiled. "I think I am a sane woman. Will you come to We-were-guided with me, and test the evidence of your senses?"

  "In such a matter," Mahala said, "I do not trust my senses."

  Vaniya asked, "What do you trust?" The question was mild, interested; it was not a challenge, but it put Mahala on the defensive. "I trust the will of the women of Isis," she said angrily, and Vaniya said thoughtfully, "Even those who have not been trained to think of such things, because they have been taught that we are willing to take on ourselves this heavy burden? Had they all been trained from girlhood to assume for themselves the burden of our world's fate, then perhaps—but they have not. I will not lay it down until I am assured that they are able and willing to take it upon themselves."

  One of the women of the Council said quietly, "We could continue to argue this point for the rest of the season, and no other work would be done. How shall we resolve this? Our decisions have always been made by custom and tradition; by this method, we have no choice but to choose Vaniya as High Matriarch." She raised her hand as Mahala opened her mouth to protest, and said, "No—wait. Mahala too has justice on her side; if too many of the educated women of Isis have come to distrust our traditions, they are no longer a sound guide for judgment. A custom is no longer a custom when only a few of the old women accept it. And yet the festival is upon us, the city is filled with men, and the women are preparing to visit the sea; and this debate leaves our people motherless while we sit and debate how we shall choose a foster mother for our women, and for our men too. We cannot accept Vaniya's rule if Mahala refuses to swear loyalty, even if these tokens—" reverently, she went and picked them up, folding the robe and laying it back in the chest, "no longer serve as basis for the choice. Nor can we accept Mahala's rule, unless Vaniya can cede her claim and swear loyalty."

  Heavily, Vaniya shook her head. It seemed to Cendri that she spoke with regret. "I cannot obey a decision which violates my conscience and the ethical basis of the Matriarchate. I cannot agree until we have reached a decision which satisfies the conscience of every woman in this chamber—"she looked slowly from face to face, "and does not impose a violation of conscience, undesired, on anyone outside it."

  Mahala flickered a catlike smile. She said, "And while we await the struggle with a hundred thousand consciences, we enter the festival motherless, and the business of Isis, trade with the Unity, the disposition of a hundred small matters in the city and the country, must all await these hundreds upon thousands of individual consciences?"

  Cendri thought, it was the old argument between majority rule, anarchy or tyranny, the age-old struggle between efficiency and personal liberty. Most societies sacrificed something on both sides and accepted a form of participatory democracy; the tyrants sacrificed personal freedom, the anarchists sacrificed efficiency. Every form of government had its price.

  But governments changed. And this one, after a long period of changelessness, seemed to be changing, to be demanding more efficiency—or was it only Mahala and a fractional small few who were changing?

  Vaniya said, quietly, "I do not think the problems of trade and industry must all be settled overnight. The Unity has been there for centuries and will be there in another season, or another Long Year. There is no reason to make a hasty settlement which will demand to be settled again when all emotional reactions have stabilized. I suggest that for the moment my sister and I continue as Pro-Matriarchs, as we have done during all these moons of Rezali's illness."

  "But the festival! Are the men to be motherless at our highest festival?" demanded one of the women. And Vaniya said, "Since Mahala has spoken of our faith as superstition, perhaps it would not trouble her too greatly if I were to assume the burdens of officiating at the festival this year?"

  Mahala shrugged. She said, "That part of a High Matriarch's duties, indeed, I am more than willing to cede to any who believes in it. Indeed, if I am chosen High Matriarch, my first act will be to appoint a High Priestess to deal with these matters, so that I may spend my time upon important matters of state. My fellow Pro-Matriarch may indeed take upon herself these duties for the moment."

  Vaniya said with equal calm, "This attitude—that you will separate such duties—is the main reason why I cannot accept you as High Matriarch, my sister. But since I firmly believe that in the end the women of Isis will confirm my right to the High Matriarch's powers, I feel it my duty to take this part of them upon myself. Is this agreeable to all of you?"

  One after another, the women nodded in agreement, until one woman said, "It must be perfectly clear that the matter is not yet settled! There are many who will believe that Vaniya's appearance as priestess at the festival will prejudice Mahala's eventual right to make such a claim for herself!"

  Vaniya frowned slightly, but she said, "So be it; I shall officiate only as Pro-Matriarch, and not as High Matriarch. Is this sufficient?"

  Mahala laughed. She said, "Do you really think anyone here, or any of the women of the households in the city, or any of the men who are coming in their hundreds into the city to visit the sea—do you really think any of them cares about the ceremonies in the Temples, or anything else? You know as well as I do, what they care about, Vaniya, and I hope to live to a day when all of these ceremonies are stripped of the ceremony and religious custom we have woven around them, and reduced to their essential social usefulness."

  Vaniya asked gently, "As they have done in the maleworlds, Mahala?"

  Mahala's laugh was like breaking glass. She said, "I do not believe—as you apparently do, Vaniya—that the maleworlds of the Unity have a monopoly on common sense, or that the women of Isis cannot show ourselves as practical as they are."

  Vaniya rose to leave the hall. She walked gently over to Mahala and laid her hands on the other woman's shoulders. She said in a soft, kindly voice, "And when we have done so, Mahala, when we have stripped our society of everything which does not contribute to our material and social well-being, when we have the ultimate in a practical and common-sense culture—then, my dear sister, my dear colleague, how will what we have differ from the worlds we find where men rule? What then, Mahala, my sister? What then?"

&nbs
p; Mahala blinked, without answering; but Vaniya dropped her hands and walked away, leaving the other Pro-Matriarch staring after her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  All the long day of Isis the ceremonies had been going on. Cendri had gone to see the ceremonies in the great hall of the High Matriarch's Residence, where women draped the statues of the past Matriarchs with flowers in the Hall of Matriarchs, and joined the crowds where, for the first time since she had been in the city of Ariadne, men mingled with women in the crowds in the streets. All that day a suffused excitement had been growing.

  Greatly daring, Cendri had strung her voice-scriber around her neck, wishing that she could record the ceremonies with a graphics recorder, to play them back at her leisure and try to decide for herself what they meant. Again and again in the streets she saw the men exchange the greeting, "We were not born in chains," but she was aware that she was probably the only woman who had noticed. On Isis, it seemed, men were so unimportant that no woman noticed what a man did unless he was directly speaking to her, or otherwise concerned with her.

  It was late in the afternoon when they returned to the Pro-Matriarch's Residence. Miranda made a few minutes to speak to Cendri.

  "You are to join in the festival? I thought you would. Think of me while the men are spear-fishing.. .1 feel guilty that I am keeping our house midwife from the festival. She says I may give birth tonight, but she has said that every night for the last moon, and I still drag around like this," Miranda said, sighing. "I long for it to be over, I was sure that by now I would have my child at my breast."

  "Will you be alone here, then, Miranda, with only the midwife? I will stay and keep you company, if you really want me to—"

  "No, no, my friend," Miranda said, laughing. "There will be a good dinner, a festival meal, served here tonight for little children, girls and boys too young for festival, for women-by-courtesy like Maret, and for Companions.. .and for women like myself, too pregnant to spend the night on the shore! We will simply join in the children's festival and make the night a merry one for them while the other women are away." She smiled, hesitated and said, "Rhu has promised he will stay near me, so I will not be lonely—Cendri, I could not say that to anyone else, I am so glad there is someone who does not think it a kind of madness____ "

  Cendri pressed her friend's hand without speaking. Miranda's predicament seemed perfectly normal to her; but in Miranda's own society, it was indeed considered a kind of insanity; that she might prefer the company of a man to the company of women. But tonight, then, she would see what were the normal relationships between the sexes, which began with the curious ritual they called "visiting the sea." She had heard this morning something like a sermon, which reminded the women, flocked into the square before the Residence, that all life came from the sea and that they must return there to pay homage to the source.

  All of the women of the household, in readiness for the festival, had put on long robes, embroidered with patterns of fish and flowers. Miranda had lent Cendri one of her festival dresses, and as she put it on, Cendri speculated about what she would see. She wondered if the men accompanied the women home at sunrise; this might explain why Companions were not expected to join in the festival, while all other men, and women, visited the sea at this time. It would have seemed more rational, if it was a form of visitational marriage—there were any number of such societies—for all the men to join in this form of blessing their mating rituals—but then, the society of Isis was not rational.

  She said aloud to Dal, "I wish I could dare to take along a graphics recorder. If Laurina didn't know what it was, I just might, but she does."

  Dal came and hugged her. He said, "I know this means a lot to you, Cendri, to be invited to go along and watch their top-level festival. I don't know anything much about anthropology and I don’t really care that much, but I hope you find out all you want to know."

  She hugged him hard in return. It was so rare now that they could communicate like this, without jangling or quarreling. This world, she thought, is having a bad effect on us. Is it just culture shock, or is it the strain on him of living where he's a woman's property? She said, "I'm sorry the festival kept you away from your work, Dal!"

  He smiled and patted her. He said, "Oh, I have days and days of work just correlating what I have done already, don't worry about it. When things settle down after the festival, we'll get back out in the ruins. Did you notice how the men today came up to stare? Some of them looked at me the way Laurina looks at you—hero worship! I suppose it's because I'm that legendary thing, a free male. I've been talking to Rhu a lot. He feels inferior, poor kid, just because he's not the athletic type. With his talents, damn it, he feels guilty because he couldn't join in that damned athletic contest and win Vaniya a prize and let her cheer for him!"

  "He looks strong enough," Cendri commented. "Obviously he wouldn't make a wrestler, or a boxer, but I'd think he'd make a good runner or hurdler!"

  Dal shook his head. "He tells me he was ill as a child and has been a weakling ever since; that is why he was allowed to cultivate his musical talents. Sounds like a form of rheumatic fever to me, a weakened heart. Shocking, not to repair that sort of thing, but I gather it's not part of their social ethic. Pioneer used to be like that, lots of emphasis on survival of the fittest; and my own grandfather never could adapt to the fact that I wanted to be a scholar; if I'd taken up music or painting he never would have survived the shock! Our family were all space engineers, that was his idea of a man's job. I can understand it on Pioneer, but it's funny to find it here."

  Cendri said, "The first High Matriarch was a woman of Pioneer, hundreds of years ago."

  "Is that a fact?" He smiled, his eyebrows raised. "I've read about the position of women on Pioneer in those days; I'm not surprised that the revolt of the women started there, or that their society embodies the feeling that if men once get the upper hand, women wind up in trouble. But they don't realize that men's societies have changed, too." He glanced at the window. "Love, there are a lot of women gathering on the lawn, you'd better go and enjoy your festival."

  She hesitated a minute, holding him, reluctant to interrupt this rare moment of togetherness and content. "You really don't mind being alone?"

  He laughed. "Not at all, when you're in a group of women like that! Laurina may have a lot of hero worship for you, but she's probably too much in awe of you to make any—any proposals, and I doubt if you have any yen for little girls like that! Run along and enjoy yourself, sweetheart. I gather the kids in the house have a festival of their own, and maybe Rhu, or Miranda, will sing for us. Or," he grinned, "maybe they'll be holding their own festival somewhere!"

  Miranda's secret was not hers to share. She said, "Maybe," and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. "Good night, Dal. I may be very late."

  On the lawns before the Residence she found the women gathering, all wearing the festival costumes embroidered with fish, flowers, queer sea-creatures. Laurina rushed up to her and caught her hand.

  "Your festival gown is lovely—oh, it is Miranda's? Come, the sun is dropping close to the horizon, we must be there before moonrise, and I want to watch the spear-fishing."

  The sun touched the horizon. As they went down to the shoreline, below them they could see great fires built all along the beach, and dark figures clustered at the edge of the sea, where a full high tide lapped high up along the tidewater-mark. As Cendri came closer she saw that they were all men, bare arms and bare legs glinting in the moonlight, wet with the surf; a few wore breechclouts or loincloths, but most were completely naked, except for heavy plastic sandals that protected their feet from the sharp rocks. As she watched, one of the men—she was almost sure she had seen him a few days ago in the arena, strutting and preening himself after the wrestling—picked up a long spear. The light from the fires gleamed along the point of a barbed metal tip. He pulled a mask down over his face, ran out splashing into the waves, and when they were breast-high, plunged face-down into the water. Othe
rs ran after him, until the water was filled with the splashing naked forms and their spears.

  Laurina guided her to the fire where the women sat in a group, silent, watching the men. Cendri recalled Miranda in the pearl-divers' village, talking of the spear-fishing—blood must not be shed in Her holy waters...but for this season evidently taboos were broken. Were required to be broken.

  A long time the dark forms plunged and waded and splashed in and out of the surf, flung silvery fish on the shore where their scales gleamed brilliantly silver-blue and slowly dulled. A group of women were cleaning and scraping the fish, wrapping them in scented leaves, burying them in the coals as the fire died down. After a long time the smell of cooking fish and the strong fragrance of the fish-flavoring herbs began to mingle with the scent of the smoke.

  The larger moon floated, huge and golden, high above the water, making a bright pathway across the waves. The tide went out and the wet sands lay glistening; high at the zenith the smaller moon floated, a gilt dish with soft shadows across its face.

  The women watched the men coming up from the water, moonlight striking sparks on the metal tips of their spears. The women struck up a song; it sounded to Cendri like a hymn, but it was full of archaic words in a dialect she did not understand completely and she could only make out the refrain.

  "Wounding is the nature of love...."

  Someone put a plate of fish into Cendri's hands. She ate, like the others, with her fingers. The men did not join them at the fire. A moonlight picnic.. .strange, for a ritual of mating, or fertility ritual. Or perhaps not so strange; the fires, the lapping waves, the dark solemn faces of the men gleaming and wet by the moonlight. The fires died down, and the women drew closer together around the coals. Cendri felt sleepy, but even so she could sense the hush of expectancy around the circle of women. What now? The moons were high in the sky, drawing closer and closer.