Stormqueen!

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

“I do not see what choice you had,” Allart said soberly. “She must learn to fear her own impulses. There is more than one kind of fear.” This discussion intensified many of his own old anxieties, roused by contact with Cassandra, by the long flight with Donal, the surroundings of the Tower at Tramontana. “My own battle was fought with fear, the kind of fear that paralyzed me and kept me from action. I find little that is good in that kind of fear. Until I mastered it, I could do nothing. But it seems to me that she knows too little of caution, and fear may have to serve her until she learns rational caution.”

  Renata repeated what she had thought during the battle of wills. “If there were only some way to harness all that strength, what a woman she could be!”

  “Well,” said Allart, “that is, after all, why you are here. Don’t be discouraged, Renata. She is very young and you have time.”

  “But not enough time,” Renata said. “I fear puberty will come on her before the winter’s end, and I do not know if that is enough time to teach her what she must learn, before that dreadful stress is placed on her.”

  “You can do no more than your best,” Allart said, wondering if the images in his mind—a child’s face circled by lightning, Renata’s weeping in the vaulted room, her body swollen in pregnancy—were true images or fear alone. How could he distinguish between what would happen, what must happen, what might never happen?

  Time is my enemy … For everyone else it runs one way only, but for me it straggles and bends upon itself and wanders into a land where never is as real as now…

  But he banished self-pity and preoccupation again, looking into Renata’s troubled eyes. She seemed so young to him, no more than a girl herself, and burdened with such dreadful responsibility! Searching for something to lighten her dread, he told her, “I spoke through the relays to Hali; I bear greetings and love for you from Arielle.”

  “Dear Arielle,” Renata said. “I miss her, too. What news from Hali, cousin?”

  “My brother has a son, born to his wife and therefore legitimate,” Allart said. “And our king lies gravely ill and Prince Felix has summoned the Council. I know little more than that. Hali was attacked by incendiaries.”

  Renata shivered. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “No, I think not. Cassandra would surely have told me if there had been any serious injuries. But they are all overwearied, working night and day,” Allart said. Then he came out with what had been on his mind since he had spoken with his wife in the relays. “It weighs on me that I am here in safety when she must face such dangers! I should care for her and protect her, and I cannot.”

  “You face your own dangers,” Renata said gravely. “Do not grudge her the strength to face her own. So she is full monitor now? I knew she had the talent, if she could endure the training.”

  “Still, she is a woman, and I am better fitted to endure danger and hardship.”

  “What troubles you, kinsman? Do you fear that if she is no longer dependent on you, she will not turn to you with love?”

  Is it only that? Am I truly as selfish as that, that I want her weak and childlike, so that she will turn to me for strength and protection? He had picked up many things from Cassandra’s mind in their long, intense rapport that she had not consciously told him, and which he was only now beginning to bring into awareness. The timid childlike girl, swayed by impulse, wholly dependent on his love and care, had become a strong Tower-trained monitor, a woman, a skilled leronis. She still loved him, deeply, passionately—their communion had left him no doubt of that—but he was no longer the only thing in her world. Love had taken its place among many forces now motivating her, and was not the only one she would act upon.

  It was painful for him to realize this; more painful to realize how unhappy the thought made him.

  Would I truly have wanted to keep her like that, timid, virginal, frightened, belonging to me alone, seeing the world only through my eyes, knowing only what I wanted her to know, being only what I desired in a wife? Custom, the traditions of his caste and his pride of family, cried out, Yes, yes! But the larger world he had begun to see prompted him to be ashamed of that

  Allart smiled ruefully, thinking this was not the first time Renata had interceded for his wife’s own good. Now there were other roads for Cassandra besides the solitary one he had seen at the end of their love, that she must inevitably die in bearing his child. How could he resent anything which removed that continuing terror from his mind?

  “I am sorry, Renata! You came to me for comfort, and as usual, you have ended by comforting and reassuring me! Indeed, I wish I knew more of Dorilys’s laran, so I could advise you, but I agree with you that it will be a catastrophe if we cannot teach her in time. I saw Donal’s in action today, and it is most impressive—more even than when he read which way the fire would move. Now that the fire season is starting,” Allart suggested tentatively, “perhaps you could take her to the fire station, high on the peaks, and let Donal try to teach her a little of how to use this. He knows more of it than either you or I.”

  “I think perhaps I must do that,” Renata agreed. “Donal, too, has survived the threshold, and it may give her confidence that she can do the same. I am glad that she does not read my thoughts; I do not want her to be terrified of what may come upon her with her womanhood, but she must be prepared to face that, too… She wants more than anything else to learn to fly, as the boys in the castle do before they are anywhere near her age. Margali says it is unseemly for a girl, but since her laran has to do with the elements, she should learn to face them close at hand.” Renata laughed and admitted, “I, too, would like to learn. Are you going to go all stiff and monkish on me and say it is unsuitable for a woman as for a young girl?”

  Allart laughed, signaling with the gesture of a fencer who acknowledges a hit. “Are my years in Nevarsin still so plainly visible, cousin?”

  “Dorilys will be so happy when I tell her,” Renata said, laughing, and Allart realized again, suddenly, how very young she was. She had the self-imposed dignity and sober manners of the monitor, she had assumed formal manners and self-discipline to teach Dorilys, but she was really only a young girl herself who should be as lighthearted and carefree as Dorilys.

  “Then, Donal shall teach you both to fly,” he said. “I will speak with him, while you teach her to master a matrix and the art of levitating with it.”

  Renata said, “I think she is old enough to learn to use a matrix. Now she will learn quickly, and not waste her energies upon testing me.”

  “It will make it easier to go to the fire station,” Allart told her, “since the ride is difficult, and many of the men who work there, watching for fires, find it simpler to fly to the peaks.” He glanced self-consciously at the night beyond the windows. “Cousin, I must go; it is very late.”

  He rose, their hands touching with the fingertip-touch of telepaths, somehow more intimate than a handclasp. They were lightly in rapport, still, and as he looked down into her lifted face, he saw it aglow, warmed with passion. He was aware of her all over again as he had taught himself not to be; the close contact with Cassandra, barriers down, had broken the facade of monklike austerity, of indifference to women, which he kept so firmly in place. She blurred into a dozen women in that momentary touch, his laran showing him the possible and the likely, the known and the impossible; and almost without volition, before he was fully aware of what he was doing, he had drawn her into his arms, was crushing her to him, breathless.

  “Renata, Renata—”

  She met his eyes, with a troubled smile. They were in such close contact that it was impossible to conceal his sudden awareness and hunger for her, and her immediate and unashamed response to it.

  “Cousin,” she said gently. “What is it that you want? If I have roused you without meaning it, I am sorry. I would not knowing have done so, simply to show my power over you. Or is it only that you are very much alone and longing for anyone who can give you comfort, and sympathy?”

  He drew awa
y from her, dazed, but struck by her calm, her complete lack of shame or confusion. He wished that he himself were as calm.

  “I am sorry, Renata. Forgive me.”

  “For what?” she asked, her smile glinting deep in her eyes. “Is it an offense to find me desirable? If so, I hope I shall be offended that way many times.” Her small hand closed on his. “It is not so serious a thing as that, cousin. I only wanted to know how seriously you intended it; that is all.”

  Allart muttered miserably, “I don’t know.” Confusion, loyalty to Cassandra, the memory of shame and disgust because he had been unable to resist the temptation of the riyachiya his father had pushed into his arms, overwhelmed him. Was it this which had led him to embrace Renata? The knowledge that she actually shared this upsurge of need and emotion confused him all over again.

  A woman he could love without fear, one who was not wholly dependent on him… Then came a shaming thought: Or am I doing this because Cassandra is no longer wholly mine?

  She said, laughing up at him, “Why do you refuse for yourself a freedom you have given to her?”

  He almost stammered, “I do not want to—to use you for my own need, as if you were no more than a riyachiya.”

  “Ah, no, Allart,” she said in a small voice, clinging to him. “I, too, am alone and in need of comfort, kinsman. Only I have learned that it is nothing shameful to say so and acknowledge it, and you have not, that is all…”

  What Allart saw in her face shocked him with its openness.

  He held her close to him, realizing suddenly that for all her strength, for all her invulnerable skill and wisdom, she was a girl, and frightened, and like himself facing troubles far beyond her ability to solve.

  What have the men and women of the Domains done to one another, so that everything between us must be shrouded in fear or guilt for what has been or what may be. It is so rare that there can be simple kindliness or friendship between us, like this.

  Holding Renata close in his arms, bending to kiss her very tenderly, he said almost in a whisper, “Let us comfort one another, then, cousin,” and led her into the inner room.

  * * *

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  « ^ »

  Dorilys was wildly excited, chattering like a child half her age, but a little abashed when Margali dressed her in clothing borrowed from one of the young pages. Margali, too, was skeptical.

  “Was this necessary, Lady Renata? She is hoyden enough already, without tearing about in boys’ clothes!” She looked with frowning disapproval at Renata, who had borrowed a pair of breeches from the hall-steward’s fifteen-year-old son.

  Renata said, “She must learn to work with her laran, and to do that, she must confront the elements where they are, not where we might like them to be. She has worked very hard to master the matrix, so that I promised she might fly with Donal when she had done so.”

  “But is it really needful for her to wear those unseemly breeches? It seems not modest to me.”

  Renata laughed. “For flying? How modest would it be, do you think, if her gown should fill with the wind like a great sail and fly up about her ears? Those unseemly breeches seem to me the most modest garment she could possibly wear for flying!”

  “I had not thought of that,” the old leronis confessed, laughing. “I, too, longed to fly when I was a young girl. I wish I were coming with you!”

  “Come along, then,” Renata invited. “Surely you have skill enough to learn to control the levitators!”

  Margali shook her head. “No, my bones are too old. There is a time to learn such things, and when that time is past, it is too late. It’s too late for me. But go, Renata. Enjoy it—and you, too, darling,” she added, kissing Dorilys’s cheek. “Is your tunic fastened? Have you a warm scarf? It is sure to be cold on the heights.”

  Despite her brave words, Renata felt uneasy. Not since she was five years old had she showed the shape of her limbs in any public place. When they joined Allart and Donal in the courtyard, they, too, seemed abashed and did not look at her.

  Renata thought, I hoped Allart had more sense! I have shared his bed, and yet he looks everywhere but at me, as if it came as a great surprise to him that I had legs like everyone else! How ridiculous is custom!

  But Dorilys was quite without self-consciousness, strutting in her breeches, demanding to be noticed and admired.

  “See, Donal! Now I will be able to fly as well as any boy!”

  “And has Renata taught you to practice with the matrix, raising and lowering other objects before you tried it with yourself?”

  “Yes, and I am good at it. Didn’t you say I was good at it, Renata?”

  Renata smiled. “Yes, I think she has a talent for it, which a little practice will sharpen into skill.”

  While Donal showed his sister the mechanism of the glider-toys, Allart came to help Renata with her straps. They stood side by side, watching Dorilys and her brother. The night they had spent together had cemented and strengthened their friendship; it had not really changed its nature. Renata smiled up at Allart, acknowledging his help, realizing with pleasure that she thought of him as she always did, as a friend, not a lover.

  I do not know what love is. I do not think I really want to know…

  She was fond of Allart. She had liked giving him pleasure. But both had been content to leave it there, a single shared impulse of loneliness, and not to build it into anything it was not. Their needs were basically too different for that.

  Donal was now showing Dorilys how to read the air currents carefully, how she could use the focus of her matrix to amplify them and make them more perceptible to her senses. Renata listened carefully; if lads in the Hellers mastered these tricks before they were ten years old, surely a trained matrix worker could do it, too!

  Donal made them all practice a while on the flat windswept area behind the castle, running with the winds and letting themselves rise on the currents, soaring high and circling, swooping down. Finally he declared himself satisfied and pointed to the peak far above them, where the fire station commanded a view of the whole valley beyond Caer Donn. “Do you think you can fly so far, little sister?”

  “Oh, yes!” Dorilys was flushed and breathless, little tendrils of fine copper hair escaping from the long braid at her back, her cheeks whipped to crimson with the wind. “I love it. I would like to fly forever!”

  “Come, then. But stay close to me. Don’t be afraid; you can’t fall, not as long as you keep your awareness of the air currents. Now, lift your wings, like this—”

  He watched her step off and soar upward on a long rising current, rising and rising over a long gulf of sky. Renata followed, feeling the draft take her and toss her high, seeing Allart rising behind her. Dorilys caught a downdraft and was circling, hovering like a hawk, but Donal gestured her onward.

  Higher and higher they flew, rising through a damp white cloud, emerging above it; now hovering and turning, soaring down until they came to rest on the peak. The fire watch station was an ancient structure of cobblestone and timbers; the ranger, a middle-aged man, long and lean, with pale gray eyes and the weathered look of one who spends much of his time peering into unfathomable distances, came to greet them, in surprise and pleasure.

  “Master Donal! Has Dom Mikhail sent you with a message for me?”

  “No, Kyril; it is only that we wished my sister to see how the fire station is managed. This is Lord Allart Hastur, and the lady Renata Leynier, leronis of Hali.”

  “You are welcome,” the man said, courteously, but without undue servility; as a skilled professional, he owed deference to no one. “Have you ever been up to the peak before, little lady?”

  “No. Father thought it too far for me to ride; also, he said you were too busy here during the fire season for guests.”

  “Well, he was right,” Kyril said, “but I will be glad to show you what I can as I have leisure. Come inside, my dear.”

  Inside the station were relief maps of the entire valley, a r
eplica in miniature of the tremendous full-circle panorama seen from the windows of the building on every side. He pointed out to her the cloud-cover over parts of the valley, the areas marked on his map which had been burned over in recent seasons, the sensitive areas of resin-trees which had to be watched closely for any stray spark.

  “What is that light flashing, Master Kyril?”

  “Ah, you have sharp eyes, little one. It is a signal to me, which I must answer.” He took a mirrored-glass device with a small mechanical cover which could be opened and closed swiftly, and stepping to the opened window, began to flash a patterned signal into the valley. After a moment the flashing in the valley resumed. Dorilys started to ask a question, but he motioned her to be quiet, then bent over his map, marked it with chalk, and turned back to her.

  “Now I can explain to you. That man signaled to me that he was building a cookfire there, while the herdmen take their count of his cattle. It is a precaution so that I will not think a forest fire has begun and call men together to fight it. Also, if the smoke remains more than a reasonable time for a herdman’s cookfire, I will know it is out of control and can dispatch someone to help with it before it spreads too far. You see”—he gestured in a circle all around the fire-tower— “I must know at every moment where every wisp of smoke is, in all this country, and what causes it.”

  “You have the chemicals from Tramontana?” Donal asked.

  “The first lot reached me just in time to stop a serious outbreak in the creek-bed there,” he said, indicating it on the map. “Yesterday a consignment was brought here, and others stored at the foot of the peak. It is a dry year, and there is some danger, but we have had only one bad burn, over by Dead Man’s Peak.”

  “Why is it called Deak Man’s Peak?” Dorilys asked.

  “Why, I do not know, little lady; it was so called in my father’s time and my grandfather’s. Perhaps at some time, someone found a dead man there.”

  “But why would anyone go there to die?” Dorilys asked, looking up at the far crags. “To me it looks more like a hawk’s nest.”