Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Thendara House

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THENDARA HOUSE
Marion Zimmer Bradley
a darkover novel
ELF digital back-up edition 1.0
click for scan notes and proofing history
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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
me di catenas and I will dwell in no man’s household as a barragana.
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.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Shortly after I completed the novel The 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 that she 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 who did 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 I must 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 exactly going 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. Terrans had been
widely criticized for denying medical knowledge to native populations for just that
reason. Magda knew of the policy, and the hard necessities behind it.
“I think, when you’ve had time to go over it in your mind, you’ll know why you have to
cooperate with us, even for the sake of your own sisters in your-” she hesitated and
groped for the word, “Guild House.” She stood up and her voice was crisp.
“Good luck, Magda. While you’re on detached duty you’ll get two rises in pay, you
know.” The gesture put Magda back in the service, and she wondered dimly if she ought
to salute.
And I didn’t manage to do what I came to do, I didn’t resign. I needed, so desperately, to
be one thing or the other, not torn between them like this. The real me, the truest me, is
Darkovan. Yet too much Terran to be true Darkovan…
She had never really belonged anywhere. Perhaps, in the Guild House, she would find out
where she belonged-but only if the Terrans would let her alone.
She went out of the Intelligence office, briefly debated going to her old quarters to
retrieve a few cherished possessions. No. They would be of no use to her in the Guild
House, and would only proclaim her Terran. She hesitated again, thinking of Peter and
Jaelle, who would be married this morning as freemates- the only marriage lawful for a
Renunciate. Jaelle would want her at the wedding; and Peter, too, in token that she bore
him no grudge because he now loved and desired Jaelle. I do not want Peter. I am not
jealous of Jaelle. As she told Cholayna Ares, the marriage had been broken before she
had ever known Jaelle. And yet somehow she felt she could not endure their newlywed
happiness.
She hurried toward the gate and went through, taking off her Terran HQ identity badge
and dropping it into a trash can as she went.
Now she had burnt her bridges; she could not return without special arrangement, for she
would not be admitted as an employee. On a Closed Status planet, there was no free
access between Terran and Darkovan territory. What she had done had committed her,
irrevocably, to the Guild-House and to Darkover.
She hurried through the streets until she saw the walled building, windowless and blind to
the street, with the small sign on the door:
THENDARA HOUSE
GUILD OF RENUNCIATES.
She rang the small, concealed doorbell, and somewhere, a long way inside, she heard the
sound of a bell.
CHAPTER TWO
« ^ »
Jaelle n’ha Melora
Jaelle was dreaming…
She was riding, under a strange ominous sky, like spilt blood on the sands of the
Drylands… Strange faces surrounded her, women unchained, unbound, the kind of
women her father had mocked, yet her mother had once been one of them… her hands
were chained, but with ribbon links which broke asunder, so that she did not know where
to go, and somewhere her mother was screaming, and pain crashed through her mind…
No. It was a noise, a blaring, somehow metallic noise, and there was a glaring yellow
light cutting through her eyelids. Then she was aware that Peter was nuzzling her
shoulder as he leaned over her to cut off the blaring sound. Now she remembered; it was
a signal, a rising bell like the ones she had heard on her one visit to the Guest house at
Nevarsin monastery. But a sound so harsh and mechanical could not be compared with
the mellow, tempered monastery chime. Her head ached, and she remembered the party
last night in the Terran HQ Recreation area, meeting a few of Peter’s friends. She had
drunk more of the unaccustomed strong drinks than she intended, hoping she would be
able to relax her shyness before all the strangers. Now the whole evening was only a blur
of names she could not pronounce and faces not attached to names.
“Better hurry, sweetheart,” Peter urged, “don’t want to be late your first day on a new
job, and I can’t afford to-one bad black mark against me already.”
Peter had left the shower running. Her back ached from the strange bed; she wasn’t sure
whether it had been too hard or too soft, but it hadn’t felt right. She told herself that was
ridiculous. She had slept in all kinds of strange places, and certainly a good, icy shower
would wake her up and make her feel refreshed. To her surprise the water was warm,
lulling rather than bracing, and she could not remember how to adjust it for cold.
Anyhow, she was awake, and went to dress.
From somewhere Peter had produced an HQ uniform for her, and she struggled into it,
the long shaped tights that made her feel uncomfortably as if her legs were bare, the
ridiculously low and thin shoes, the short black tunic piped with blue. His own tunic was
like it, only piped with red. He had told her what the different colors meant, but she had
forgotten. The tunic was so tight she could not pull it over her head, and it took her some
time to figure why they had put the long fastener in the back where she had trouble
reaching it, instead of in the front where it would have been sensible. Why would anyone
want a dress that tight, anyhow? Cut looser, and with the press-together seam in the front,
it would have been an admirable dress for a woman if she was breast-feeding a child, but
this way it seemed a waste of materials-cut a few inches looser, it would have slipped
over her head without needing the fastening at all. It felt rough against her skin, since no
under-tunic was provided, but at least it had warm knitted neck-folds and tight sleeves.
She was frowning at herself in the mirror when he came up behind her, already dressed,
and took her shoulders, looking at her in the mirror and then hugging her hard.
“You look marvelous in uniform,” he said, “Once they see you, every man in the HQ will
be envying me.”
Jaelle cringed; this was exactly what she had been taught to avoid. The dress was cut
immodestly close to the curve of her breast and her narrow waist. She felt troubled, but
when he turned her around and held her close, she buried her face against him, and in his
arms, all the tension seemed to flow out of her. She sighed and murmured, “I wish you
didn’t have to go-”
“Mmmmmm, I do too,” he murmured, caressing her, burying his lips in her bare neck-
then, abruptly, raised his eyes and stared at the chronometer on the wall.
“Ouch! Look at the time! I told you I didn’t dare be late back, this first day,” he said, and
made for the door. She felt icy cold, in spite of the hot shower, as he mumbled, “Sorry,
love, I’m late, but you can find the way down alone, can’t you? I’ll see you tonight.” The
door closed, and Jaelle stood alone. Still roused from his touch and his kiss, she realized
that he had not even waited for the answer to his own question. She wasn’t at all sure she
could get down to the office where she had been told to report this morning, in the
bewildering labyrinth of the HQ.
She stared blindly at the chronometer, trying to translate Terran time into the familiar
hours of the day. It was, as nearly as she could reckon, not yet three hours after sunrise.
She remembered a flippant comment of Magda’s:
I don’t think you’ll like it much in the Terran Zone, the other woman had said. Sometimes
they even make love by the clock.
But she, too, had duties this morning. She could not stand here, staring uneasily at her
image in the mirror. Nor could she imagine going among strange men, Terrans, in this
immodestly tight dress. Not even a prostitute would go out in such attire! With shaking
hands, she unfastened it and got into her ordinary clothes. The uniform was not warm
enough, either, for the late-spring weather outside; inside the buildings, heated to almost
suffocating warmth, the uniform might be sufficient, but she had to go outdoors-she
stared at the little map of the HQ Peter had left her, trying to puzzle out the confusing
markings.
She found her way, shivering in the morning drizzle, to the main building and showed the
pass Peter had given her. The Security man said, “Mrs. Haldane? You should have gone
through the underground tunnel, in this weather,” and she looked around, seeing, indeed,
no one on the elaborate walks and ramps.
She managed to puzzle out the signs-Peter had given her a crash course in reading the
most common signs, and she had been taught a little Standard, which was not really so
very different from casta-she had been told once that they had descended from a common
language group before Darkover was settled, that casta was similar to the most common
Terran language. She felt reluctant to ask directions from any of the men and women
moving around in the rabbit-warren buildings; they all seemed to look alike, in tights,
tunics of varying colors and trim, low, thin sandals. She rode up and down a time or two
in the elevator until she figured out how it worked. It was not complicated, once you
could understand why anyone would bother. Did the Terrans suffer from a racial
paralysis of the legs, or something, that they could not walk up and down stairs? She
supposed it made sense when there were twenty or thirty floors to a building, but why
build it so high? They had been given enough room on the spaceport HQ to build
rationally!
There was nothing wrong with Peter’s legs, at least, she thought smiling; perhaps Terrans
were just trained to be lazy.
摘要：

THENDARAHOUSEMarionZimmerBradleyadarkovernovelELFdigitalback-upedition1.0clickforscannotesandproofinghistoryvalidXHTML1.0strictContentsPARTONE:ConflictingOaths|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|PARTTWO:Sundering|1|2|3|4|5|PARTTWO:Outgrowth|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|Epilogue|THEOATHOFTHEFREEAMAZONSFromthisdayforth,Irenouncetherig...

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