Marion Zimmer Bradley - Darkover Renunciates 02

THENDARA HOUSE

Marion Zimmer Bradley

a darkover novel

Contents

PART ONE: Conflicting Oaths

|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|

PART TWO: Sundering

|1|2|3|4|5|

PART TWO: Outgrowth

|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|Epilogue|

THE OATH OF THE FREE

AMAZONS

From this day forth, I renounce the right to marry save as a freemate. No man

shall bind medicatenasand I will dwell in no man’s household as abarragana .

I swear that I am prepared to defend myself by force if I am attacked by force,

and that I shall turn to no man for protection.

From this day forth I swear I shall never again be known by the name of any

man, be he father, guardian, lover or husband, but simply and solely as the daughter

of my mother.

From this day forth I swear I will give myself to no man save in my own time and

season and of my own free will, at my own desire; I will never earn my bread as the

object of any man’s lust.

From this day forth I swear I will bear no child to any man save for my own

pleasure and at my own time and choice; I will bear no child to any man for house

or heritage, clan or inheritance, pnde or posterity; I swear that I alone will determine

rearing and fosterage of any child I bear, without regard to any man’s place,

position or pride.

From this day forth I renounce allegiance to any family, clan, household, warden

or liege lord, and take oath that I owe allegiance only to the laws of the land as a free

citizen must, to the kingdom, the crown and the Gods.

I shall appeal to no man as of right, for protection, support or Succor: but shall

owe allegiance only to my oath-mother, to my sisters in the Guild and to my

employer for the season of my employment.

And I further swear that the members of the Guild of Free Amazons shall be to

me, each and every one, as my mother, my sister or my daughter, born of one

blood with me, and that no woman sealed by oath to the Guild shall appeal to me in

vain.

From this moment, I swear to obey all the laws of the Guild of Free Amazons

and any lawful command of my oath-mother, the Guild members or my elected

leader for the season of my employment. And if I betray any secret of the Guild, or

prove false to my oath, then I shall submit myself to the Guild-mothers for such

discipline as they shall choose; and if I fail, then may every woman’s hand turn

against me, let them slay me like an animal and consign my body unburied to

corruption and my soul to the mercy of the Goddess.

MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY in DAW Books:

Darkover Landfall

The Spell Sword

The Heritage of Hastur

The Shattered Chain

The Forbidden Tower

Stormqueen!

Two to Conquer

Hawkmistress!

Hunters of the Red Moon

Sharra’s Exile

With The Friends of Darkover.

Sword of Chaos

The Keeper’s Price

With Paul Edwin Zimmer

The Survivors

DAW BOOKS, INC.

DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, PUBLISHER

1633 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

COVER ART BY HANNAH M G SHAPERO.

FIRST PRINTING, SEPTEMBER 1983

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Shortly after I completed the novelThe Shattered Chain , I began writing, for my

own amusement, the story of Magda in the Amazon Guild House. At that time

Jacqueline Lichtenberg and I were corresponding regularly and frequently, and she

suggested that I should also write the story of Jaelle among the Terrans. I said I didn

’t feel qualified just then to do so, but thatshe could, if she wished. So, for the fun

of it, we wrote about half a dozen chapters each, passing them back and forth

between us and discussing them, with an eye to eventual professional collaboration.

However, we were both busy with other projects, far from Darkover, and Jacqueline

’s career was taking off in a far different direction. Also, it turned out, we had quite

different ideas about where the story was going, and before long we discovered that

we were pulling in opposite directions, and, with suitable expressions of regret and

mutual esteem, abandoned this particular collaboration; she went back to her own

“Sime” and “Molt Brother” seria—if that is the plural of series—and I to write other

Darkover and non-Darkover novels, feeling that the botched collaboration was not

redeemable, and tossing it into my bottom file drawer with other projects on what I

believed would be permanent “hold.”

Years later, taking up this collaboration, although I have rewritten almost

everything Jacqueline did on it—for our writing styles and themes are very different

—I note that my concept of the character of Jaelle has nevertheless been broadened

and strengthened by her input on the chapters in which she had the first touch.

Although this is not a collaboration, I am still greatly indebted to Jacqueline for

allowing me to see a character of my own through her eyes. As she has graciously

acknowledged my part in what I consider her best book.Unto Zeor, Forever , so I

must acknowledge her part in this book of mine.

——MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY

Part One:CONFLICTING OATHS

CHAPTER ONE

^»

Magdalen Lorne

Light feathers of snow were falling overhead; but toward the east there was a break

in the clouds where the dull reddish light of Cottman IV—the sun of Darkover,

called the Bloody Sun by the Terran Empire—could be seen dimly through cloud,

like a great bloodshot eye.

Magdalen Lorne shivered a little as she walked slowly up the approach to the

Terran HQ. She was in Darkovan dress, so she had to show her indent cards to the

Spaceforce people at the gates; but one of them knew her by sight.

“It’s all right, Miss Lorne. You’ll have to go over to the new building, though.”

“They finally finished the new quarters for Intelligence?”

The uniformed man nodded.

“That’s right. And the new Chief came in from Alpha Centaurus the other day—

have you met her yet?”

This was news to Magda. Darkover was a Closed Planet, Class B, which meant

Terrans were—officially, at least—restricted to certain Treaty Zones and Trade

Cities. There was no official Intelligence Service, except for a small office in

Records and Communications, working directly out of the Coordinator’s office.

It’s about time they opened a branch of Intelligence here. They could do with a

Department of Alien Anthropology, too. Then Magda wondered what it would

mean to her own somewhat irregular status. She had been born on Darkover, in

Caer Donn, where the Terrans had built their first spaceport before shifting to the

new Empire Headquarters here in Thendara. She had been reared among

Darkovans, before the new policy of standardization of Spaceport buildings to

Empire-normal yellow lights—a policy making little or no provision for the red sun

of Darkover and the fierce cold of the climate. This, of course, made sense for

Empire personnel stationed on ordinary Empire planets, who seldom stayed in one

post more than a year or so and did not need to acclimatize themselves; but

conditions on Darkover were, to say the least, unusual for an Empire planet.

Magda’s parents had been linguists who had spent much of their lives in Caer

Donn; she had grown up more Darkovan than Terran, one of only three or four

people who spoke the language like a native and were capable of doing undercover

research into customs and language. She had never been away from Darkover

except for three years of schooling in the Empire’s Intelligence School on Alpha

Colony; then she had accepted a position in Communications as a matter of course.

But what had been, to her superiors, only convenient disguise, fitting her for

research and undercover work on the planet of her birth, had become to Magda her

deepest self.

And it is to that Darkovan self, Margali, not Magda, that I must now be true.

And not just Margali, but Margali n’ha Ysabet. Renunciate of the Comhi-Letzii,

what the Terrans would call Free Amazon. That is what I am now and must be

henceforth, men dia pre’zhiuro… Magda whispered to herself the first words of the

Renunciate’s Oath, and shivered. It would not be easy. But as she had sworn, so

would she do. To a Terran, an oath given under duress was not binding.Darkovan,

the Oath binds me without question, the very thought of escaping it dishonorable .

She wrenched her thoughts from that endless loop in her mind.A new section for

Intelligence , he had said,and a new Chief . Probably, Magda thought with a

resigned shrug, someone who knew considerably less about the job than she did

herself. She, and her ex-husband, Peter Haldane, had both been born here, were

naturally bilingual, knew and accepted the customs as their own. But that was not

the way the Empire did things.

The new Intelligence Office was in a tall skyscraper, still shining with newness,

high above the Port. By the Terra-normal yellow lights, too bright for Magda’s eyes,

she saw a woman standing; a woman she knew, or had once known, very well.

Cholayna Ares was taller than Magda, brown-skinned, with white hair—Magda

had never known whether it was prematurely grayed or whether it had always been

naturally silver-white, for her face was, and had always been, unusually young. She

smiled and reached out in a welcoming gesture, and Magda took her old teacher’s

hand.

“It’s hard to imagine you’d give up the Training School,” Magda said “Certainly

not to come here—”

“Oh, I didn’t exactly give it up.” Cholayna Ares laughed. “There was the usual

sort of bureaucratic hassle—each group tried to get me on their side, and I said a

plague on both their houses, and put in for transfer. So I wound up—here. Not a

popular post, so no competition for getting it. I remembered that you came from

here, and you liked it. Not many people have a chance of building the Intelligence

Service up out of nothing on a Class B planet. And with you and Peter Haldane—

didn’t I hear once that you’d married him?”

“The marriage broke up last year,” Magda said. “The usual sort of thing.” She

warded her former teacher’s look of curious sympathy away with a hard shrug.

“The only problem it created was that they didn’t send us out in the field together

any more.”

“If there was no Intelligence Service here, what were you doing in the field?”

“We worked out of Communications,” Magda said. “Language research; at one

time they had me recording jokes and idioms from the marketplace, just a way of

keeping up with language and current slang, so people whodid have to go into the

field wouldn’t make stupid mistakes.”

“And so, my first day on the job, you come up to greet me and make me feel

welcome?” Cholayna asked. “Sit down—tell me all about this place. It’s kind of

you, Magda. I always knew you’d make a good career in Intelligence.”

Magda lowered her eyes. “That wasn’t the idea—I hadn’t been told you were

here.” She decided the only way to get it said was to say it. “I came here to resign.”

Cholayna’s dark eyes showed the dismay she felt.

“Magda! You and I both know what the Service is like! Certainly they should

have offered you this job, but I always thought we were friends, and that you’d be

willing to stay on for a while, at least!”

Magda had never thought of that. But of course it was the impression Cholayna

would get. She wished the new Head had been a complete stranger, or at least

someone she disliked, not a woman she had always liked and respected.

“Oh, no, Cholayna! I give you my word, it has nothing to do with you! I didn’t

even know you were here, I was in the field till last night—‘’ She found she was

stammering in her eagerness to convince Cholayna of the truth. Cholayna frowned

and gestured her to sit down.

“I think you’d better tell me all about it, Magda.”

Uneasily, Magda sat down. “‘You weren’t at the Council this morning. You didn’

t know. While I was in the field—I took the Oath of a Renunciate.” At the

bewildered look on her colleague’s face she elaborated. “In the files they’re called

Free Amazons; they don’t like the name. I am bound to spend half a year in the

Guild House in Thendara for training, and after that—after that, I’m not sure what I

intend to do, but I don’t think it will be Intelligence.

“But what a wonderful opportunity, Magda,” Cholayna said. “I wouldn’t think of

accepting your resignation! I’ll put you on inactive status, if you like, for the half

year, but think of the thesis you can get out of this! Your work is already regarded

as the standard of excellence, you know—I did hear that much from the Legate,”

she added. “You probably know more about Darkovan customs than anyone

working here. I also heard that the Medic division has agreed to train a group of

Free Amazons— she saw Magda’s slight wince and amended—”What was it you

called them—Renunciates? Sounds like an order of nuns, what do they renounce?

Sounds like a strange place for you.“

Magda smiled at the comparison. “I could quote the Oath for you. Mostly what

they—we—renounce are the protections for women in the society, in exchange for

certain freedoms.” Even to her, it sounded like a woefully inadequate explanation,

but how could she explain? “But I’m not doing this to write a thesis, you know, or

to provide more information for Terran Intelligence. That’s why I came to turn in

my resignation.”

“And that’s why I’ll refuse to accept it,” said Cholayna.

“Do you think I am going to spy on my friends in the Guild House? Never!”

“I’m sorry you see it that way, Magda, I don’t. The more we know about the

different groups on any planet, the easier it is for us—and the easier it is for the

planet we’re on, because there’s less chance of misunderstandings and trouble

between the Empire and the locals—”

“Yes, yes, I learned all that in the Intelligence School,” Magda said impatiently.

“Standard party line, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.” There was something like carefully controlled anger

in the older woman’s voice.

“But I would, and I’m beginning to see how it can be misused,” Magda said, and

now she too was angry. “If you won’t accept my resignation, Cholayna, I’ll have to

leave without it. Darkover is my home. And if the price of becoming a Renunciate is

to give up my Empire citizenship, why, then—

“Wait just a minute, Magda—please?” Cholayna held up her hand to interrupt the

angry torrent of words. “And sit down again, won’t you?” Magda realized that she

had started to her feet; slowly she sank down again in the chair. Cholayna went to

the console on the office wall and dialled herself a cup of coffee; brought another to

Magda, balancing the hot cups in her palm, and sank down to a chair beside her.

“Magda, forget for a minute that I’m your superior officer won’t you? I always

thought we were friends. I didn’t expect you’d walk away without any explanation

at all.”

I thought we were friends, too, Magda thought, sipping at the coffee.But I know

now I have never had any woman friends at all; I didn’t know what friendship

was. I was always trying so hard to be one of the boys that I never paid any

attention to what other women did, or didn’t do. Until I met Jaelle, and knew

what it was to have a friend I’d fight for and die for if I must. Cholayna isn’t my

friend either, she’s my superior and she’s using friendship to make me do what

she wants. Maybe she thinks that is being my friend, it’s a Terran way of

thinking. I’m just not one of them anymore. If I ever was .

“Why don’t you you tell me the whole thing, Magda?” The kindly look in

Cholayna’s eyes Magda was confused again.Maybe she really thinks of herself as

my friend .

She began at the beginning, telling Cholayna how Peter Haldane, her friend and

partner, and for a time her husband, had been kidnapped by bandits who had

mistaken him for Kyril Ardais, son of the Lady Rohana Ardais. Fearing to travel

alone as a woman, Magda had been persuaded by Lady Rohana to disguise herself

as a Free Amazon. When she had later encountered a band of genuine Renunciates,

led by Jaelle n’ha Melora, the deception had been discovered.

“The penalty for a man who invaded them in women’s clothes would have been

death or castration,” Magda explained. “For a woman, the penalty is only that the lie

must become truth; a woman may not enjoy the freedoms of the Oath without first

renouncing the safety and protection of the laws specially protecting women.”

“An oath taken under duress—” Cholayna began but Magda shook her head.

“No. I was given free choice. They offered to escort me to a Guild House where

one of the Elders would decide the special circumstances—whether I could simply

be sworn to secrecy and released.” She sighed, wearily wondering if it had been

worth it. “That would have lost too much time; Peter was to be executed at

Midwinter if not ransomed. I chose, quite freely, to take the Oath; but I took it with

a lot of—of mental reservations. I felt just as you do now. Only between then and

now I—I changed my mind.”

She knew that sounded ridiculously inadequate. She went on, telling only a little

of the cruel conflict in her mind, when she had intended to escape, leave her Oath,

even if she must kill Jaelle, or leave her to be slaughtered by bandits; and how she

had found herself fighting at the woman’s side, saving her life…

Cholayna listened to the story in silence, rising once to refill the coffee cups.

Finally she said, “I can understand, to some extent, why you feel obligated.”

“It’s not only that,” Magda said. “The Oath has become very real to me. I feel

myself a Renunciate at heart—I think I would always have been one, had I known

such a choice existed. Now—” How could she explain it? She drained the cold

coffee from the cup and concluded helplessly, “It is something Imust do.”

Cholayna nodded. “I can see that. I don’t know if there is a precedent. I’ve

heard of men going over the wall, going native, on some of the Empire planets. I don

’t think I’ve ever heard of a woman doing that, though.”

“I’m not exactlygoing over the wall ,” Magda pointed out.“If I were, would I be

here in your office, formally turning in my resignation?”

“Which I do not intend to accept,” Cholayna said. “No, listen to me—I listened

to you, didn’t I? There’s no precedent for this; I don’t think there’s any way to give

up Empire citizenship for a sworn-in civil servant, and you made that choice when

you accepted three years training in the Intelligence School—”

“I’ve done enough work to repay the Empire—”

Cholayna silenced her with a gesture. “Nobody questions that, Magda. I am

perfectly willing to put you on inactive status, if you must have your six months—

half year—how long is the Darkovan year anyhow? But something has come up

which ties in very well with what you have told me.”

She turned to her desk and took up a file of printouts.

“As it happens, I have a transcript of that Council here,” she said, and Magda

glanced at the printouts—the Council where Lord Hastur had been forced to accept

the validity of a Terran’s Oath and where the Guild Mothers had arranged that the

Terrans should engage the services of the Renunciate Jaelle n’ha Melora to work in

Magda’s place in the Terran Headquarters, prior to the employment of a dozen Free

Amazons. “—Oh, very well, Renunciates,” Cholayna amended quickly, “to be

trained in medical technology by our Medic Department, and possibly in other

sciences and skills. With Jaelle working among us, and you in the Guild House, it

seems to me that during this half year you will be especially qualified to determine

personnel practices for Darkovan employees in the Empire, especially among

women. We are prepared to put you on detached duty. Living among Darkovan

women, you can find out which women could handle the culture shock of living

among Terrans, as well as letting us know how we ought to treat them for the best

communication between Terrans and Darkovans. You are the only person who is

qualified to do this, actually living in a Guild House.”

Finally Magda said, “If you already know all this, Cholayna, why did you have

me tell it to you?”

“I only knew what you had said,” Cholayna replied, “and what the Guild Mothers

had said about you. I did not know how you felt about it. Because the student was

the right kind of girl when I knew her, doesn’t mean the woman who had become a

trained Agent was the kind we could trust.”

Somehow the words softened Magda’s anger, as Cholayna went on. “Can’t you

see? This is for the good of your Renunciates, as well as for the Empire—to

cushion them against the worst of culture shock when they come here? Even, if

necessary, to know which Terrans we can trust to deal fairly with them? You know,

and I knew before I had been here a tenday, that Russ Montray is no more fit to be

Legate, when they get a Legation here, than I am to pilot a starship! He doesn’t like

the planet, and he doesn’t understand the people worth a damn. And I can tell, from

the way you speak, that you do.”

Is she trying to flatter me, to get me to do what she wants? Or does she mean it?

Magda knew, of course, that Montray was considerably less fit than she was

herself. Yet on a planet like Darkover, with its strictured traditional roles for men

and women, Magda knew she could never be a Legate, or hold any comparable

post, because the Darkovans would never accept a woman in such a position.

Cholayna herself could hold her post in Intelligence only because she would never

come into direct contact with Darkovans, but only with her field Agents.

“Magda, I can tell from the way you’re looking at me, that something about this

bothers you—”

“I do not want to seem to spy on my sisters in the Guild House—”

“I never thought of asking that,” Cholayna replied, “only that you create, for us,

a set of rules for Terrans who must come into close contact with Darkovan women

in general, particularly with Renunciates in the service or employ of the Empire. This

will benefit us, certainly—but I would think it would benefit your—your Guild

Sisters even more.”

There seemed no way to refuse that. She would indeed be doing just the kind of

service for Darkover, and the Guild House, which the Guild Mothers had said, at

that Council, that they would welcome. She remembered what the Guild Mother

Lauria had said:

“We have come here today to offer you our lawful services in fields suitable for

better communication between our two worlds. As mapmakers, translators,

guides, or any work for which the Terrans require workers and experts. And in

return, knowing that you of the Empire have much to teach us, we ask that a

group of our young women be placed as apprentices among your medical

services, and taught those, and other scientific skills…”

And this had been a real breakthrough. Before this day, the men of the Empire

had been able to judge the culture of Darkover only by the women they met in the

Spaceport bars and the marketplace. When she had heard Mother Lauria say this,

she had realized that she would be one of the first to come and go, building bridges

between her new world and her old one. She bent her head in capitulation. She was

still an Intelligence Agent, no matter how she might resent it.

“As for your resignation—forget it. That isn’t the kind of thing you could do

without a lot more thought than you’ve given it. Leave the doors open. Both ways.”

Cholayna reached out and patted Magda’s hand, an unexpected gesture, and

somehow it softened Magda’s hostility.

“We need to know how we should treat these Renunciates when they are

employed by the Terrans. What are their criteria for good behavior? What would

offend or upset them? And while you are in the Guild House, we may ask you to

make the final choice of which women we can accept, which women are qualified

for Medic apprentices, women with open minds, flexible toward changing customs

—

Magda said patiently, “Do you really believe that most of them are unenlightened

savages, Cholayna? May I remind you that for all its Closed B status, Darkover has

a very complex and sophisticated culture—”

“With a pre-space, pre-industrial technological level,” Cholayna said dryly. “I’m

not doubting they have great poets and a fine musical tradition, or whatever else it

takes to make you Communications people call a culture sophisticated. The

Malgamins of Beta Hydri have a highly sophisticated culture too, but they embody

ritual cannibalism and human sacrifice. If we are going to give these people our own

highly sophisticated technology, we must have some notion of what they’re going to

do with it. I suppose you are familiar with Malthusian theories, and what happens to

a culture when you start—for instance—saving the lives of children, in a culture

where population control cannot proceed, for religious or other reasons, at an equal

level? Remember the rabbits in Australia, or don’t they teach that classic example of

Anthropology 1-A any more?”

She had only the vaguest memory of the classic example, but knew what the

theory involved. The expansion of population, taking the brakes off predators or

increasing survival at birth, created exponential expansion and resultant chaos.

Marion Zimmer Bradley - Darkover Renunciates 02 - Thendara

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