| |
One of the delights of editing an anthology is discovering how stories flow one from the other, sometimes sharing a common theme, time, or characters, from very different creative perspectives. Sometimes two stories will complement each other in this way, but a third will resonate in a completely different direction. To begin one of these sequences, we journey now to the Dry Towns for a light-hearted tale of courtship strategy and the resourcefulness of young women.
Elisabeth Waters sold her first short story in 1980 to Marion Zimmer Bradley for The Keeper’s Price, the first of the Darkover anthologies. She went on to sell dozens of short stories to a variety of anthologies. Her first novel, a fantasy called Changing Fate, was awarded the 1989 Gryphon Award. She is now working on a sequel to it, in addition to her short-story writing and anthology editing. She has also worked as a supernumerary with the San Francisco Opera, where she appeared in La Gioconda, Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly, Khovanshchina, Das Rheingold, Werther, and Idomeneo.
Ann Sharp, who edited The Darkover Newsletter for ten years, is known for her articles on writing. After the DNL was no longer published, she continued to write these articles for Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine. She is also interested in genealogy and is active in the Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of Founders and Patriots, the National Society of New England Women, and the Colonial Dames of the 17th Century. She and Marion Zimmer Bradley are distantly related, being ninth cousins.
––––––––
“Sare, I have had an offer for you,” her father said. Sare looked up with interest, until he continued, “—from Varlach.” The expression on her face promptly turned to horror. Between them she and her mother had persuaded her father to turn down suitors from half the families in town—all of them more interested in Sare’s dowry and the political and business connections with her father than in Sare herself. She was pretty enough, but not a beauty. But Varlach had money and connections of his own, although apparently not enough to suit him.
“I don’t want to marry Varlach,” she protested. “He has six wives already.”
“Five,” her mother corrected, looking up from the sewing in her lap. “Another one died in childbirth last week and the babe with her. His senior wife told me that he didn’t particularly care—the babe was only a female.” She frowned. “He really should stop marrying such small girls; the babies he fathers are too large for the type of girl he fancies to give birth to safely.” She looked pointedly from her narrow-hipped daughter to her husband.
He sighed. “I’m not in favor of the match, but Sare has been putting off marriage for so long that it’s getting difficult to refuse a reasonable offer. Varlach may have a dozen wives, but he can well afford to support them.”
“Especially since seven of them are dead now,” his wife said.
“That many?” He looked worried. “Sare, is there any man that you would be willing to marry? There are other offers, but he’s the most difficult of them to refuse without offending.”
“Well,” Sare temporized, “it’s hard to find a man who can equal my father. Do you realize that Mother and I are the only women in Daillon who can stretch our arms wide enough to hug you?” She reached out to the side with both arms, demonstrating that she could extend them fully without being stopped by the chain that ran from wrist to wrist, passing through a loop on her belt. “If I married Varlach, I’d be reduced to using one arm—my other hand would be stuck at my waist.”
“I can see the value of not offending him,” her mother agreed, “but I don’t really want him as part of our family.”
“What about calling a Suitor’s Challenge?” Sare suggested. “If there are multiple offers, then there will be other families to help enforce the decision—at least until the final trial.”
“And by then there will be precedent and a loss of kihar to anyone who objects,” her mother added. “You could start with simple, crowd-pleasing contests to narrow the field: footraces and such. Once it’s down to the last candidates, then hold the Three Final Trials.”
Her husband looked at her fondly. “I suspect you can probably plan the entire event better than I can.”
“I’m certain my sewing circle will be happy to assist me,” she said demurely, but Sare saw the smile they exchanged.
That’s why I want Erald. That’s what I want in my marriage.
~o0o~
The traditional Three Final Trials tested skills useful to support a man and his family. The First Trial sent the contestants into the Dry Lands with instructions to return with provender, demonstrating the ability to survive themselves and to feed others.
Late that afternoon Sare and her mother sat behind her father as the contestants returned and he recorded the haul. Sare’s part in this trial was to cook for the men in town from the ingredients provided.
A number of young men had made no provision to drink, guaranteeing a short and unpleasant survival time. An interesting collection of plant leaves, stems, roots, buds, and flowers told her the stillroom would be well stocked with the inedible choices. She spotted what looked like an entire colony of smoked insects and a plant whose nuts would cause double vision for at least the next two days. Could I feed some of them to Varlach? I’m pretty sure he was the one who brought them. No, better not. Either he doesn’t know what they are—or he does and is counting on my being ignorant enough to take out some of his competitors.
There were also leaves which, if added to a common dish, would have the diners itching all the way from the mouth to the stomach. Varlach’s pickings also included a sand-snake, an unidentifiable plant with oozing milky sap, and two endangered species of mushroom.
Erald had returned with a small critter, tubers, and—where did he find it?—spine-puff bloom stems, and a generous pail of juice from the spine-puff’s barrel.
Sare cooked an ample meal from the ingredients provided, and everyone enjoyed Erald’s desert rodent, broiled on skewers in alternate chunks of fresh meat, browned fat, slices of parboiled tuber and green hot-berry, with slices of baked spine-puff stems, hard-cooked sandbird egg slices, accompanied by the spine-puff juice and desert tea. Varlach seemed happy to eat what his rival had provided. Of course, he doesn’t know that Erald is the one I want to marry. He probably thinks I’m thrilled beyond words by his offer and that father is just using the Trials to get more influence in the city.
Even the fact that Erald was chosen as winner of the First Trial by popular acclaim didn’t seem to disturb Varlach. He has something planned for tomorrow. I’m sure of it.
~o0o~
The Second Trial, which Sare was not expected to watch, tested fighting skills. Sare had planned to watch through the lattice-work covering the windows on the upper floors. Her mother, inexplicably, had decided that Sare should be progressing on her sewing and made certain that she did, using the patch design of her half-finished coverlet to illustrate the progress of a contest where contestants were steadily eliminated. Only after her stint was completed and she had threaded all the sturdiest needles, normally used for leather, onto a hank of heavy thread, could Sare slip away to where she could overlook her father in a crowd of other men. At first it seemed just a confusing mass, but then she could tell that the men were in several groups. She saw Varlach, Erald, and several others, each apparently surrounded by friends or backers. She noticed with interest that one of Erald’s backers was the brother of Varlach’s late sixth wife. Sare didn’t understand the rules, but she did observe that Varlach, wider and heavier than most of the others, probably should not have assumed that age and experience would necessarily prevail. Continuing on to treachery did not improve matters for him, and only confirmed what Sare had expected. He did know what that plant was, and he expected fewer men to be able to fight today.
Voices bellowed, “Foul!” loudly enough that she could hear them. Her father and two of her uncles joined Varlach’s group, listened to excited talk, and then conferred. Then three of the men—Erald, Varlach, and a third she couldn’t recognize from her vantage point—were led to a side table and presented with drinks. Everyone else followed and conversation clearly became general.
When her father came in for supper, Sare asked about the results of the Second Trial. His lips tightened, and he said only, “I hope young Erald wins tomorrow.”
“So does Sare,” her mother remarked.
Her father raised his eyebrows. “I approve your taste, Daughter, but could you not have told me you favored him earlier? Last year, perhaps?”
~o0o~
The Third Trial demonstrated the ability of the suitor to provide shelter for his bride. It also demonstrated the antiquity of the Trials, for the requirement was tent-making. Each of the three remaining candidates was given several pieces of leather to be sewn into a tent. As the pieces—and the finished tent—were the same size, the Trial was judged on speed and workmanship. Sare sat on a leather cushion in the middle of the group, all of them surrounded by what seemed like the entire population of Daillon.
This is it. At least there are plenty of witnesses, so Varlach will have trouble cheating. She pulled the first needle from the hank of thread she had prepared yesterday, picked up the spool from which all of the thread used in this Trial would come, looked up at Varlach, fluttered her eyelashes, and asked “Would you like a long piece of thread, or a short one?”
As she had expected—and rather counted on—he asked for a piece of thread the length of her arm, adding that she would see soon enough something else that was long. Under cover of a lot of ribald comments from the men around him, she turned to the next contestant. He smiled and murmured quietly, “About half that length.”
She gave it to him and turned to Erald, who leaned in so she could hear him through the jokes and said softly, “Minx! Give me the best length for this job. I’m not stupid enough to think the length of thread I use says anything about my virility. Besides, I’ve watched my mother sew. Just keep a new needle threaded and ready when I need it.”
Sare handed him a needle with the shortest thread of the three and prepared a second one the same length, sticking it into her cushion where he could reach it easily. As she prepared additional threads for the other two men, she looked around her. The men were still joking about items of various lengths, but every woman in the crowd was either watching the contestants—some with looks of horrified fascination—or staring firmly at the ground with a carefully expressionless face.
Erald was on his fifth thread, quickly stitching neat seams along the leather, and Sare was about to hand a second thread to the man she was now fairly certain had never been one of her suitors. She was looking around the crowd again—anywhere but at Varlach!—when she noticed a girl watching the third man while speaking into the ear of a man who was obviously her father. She handed over the thread and said softly, “It’s not my father you’re trying to impress, is it?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not. But I’m not the one you want to impress him.”
“No. I’ll make your next thread a little shorter if you like; it’s easier to sew with a shorter thread.”
“Thank you.” He cast a glance at Erald’s quick movements and bent over his work again.
He’s doing nice work, and he listens. I hope she gets him—or he gets her.
Varlach growled, and Sare looked over to see if he was ready for another long piece of thread. Her eyes widened, and she hastily lowered her gaze to her lap. Not only had his thread knotted, as she—and every other woman in town—could have told him would happen, but he had caught the end of his sleeve in one of the knots.
Someone in the crowd, perhaps one of the brothers of Varlach’s late wife, remarked that some long tools were obviously not as useful as their wielders believed. That was greeted with chuckles from the men that turned to full-blown laughter as Varlach stubbornly carried on a losing battle with his thread.
“Don’t you laugh,” Sare’s mother whispered grimly as she came to give her another spool of thread. “You still have to live in the same town with him.”
“Yes, Mother. I’ll leave him with what kihar remains to him.”
~o0o~
Sare didn’t laugh. Erald finished his tent, and it was inspected. After he was proclaimed the winner and her father placed her hand in his, she did permit herself a smile.
It wasn’t until she and her parents were safely indoors, having supper with Erald, that she finally broke. “I asked him how long he wanted the thread to be,” she protested, “and I gave him exactly what he asked for!”
The whole table broke into gales of laughter. “You certainly did,” her father said, “and plenty of people heard your question and his answer. I believe that Varlach will be taking a trading caravan out very soon.”
“So his senior wife tells me,” Sare’s mother said. “He was going to wait, but now that he’s not getting married right away....”
“I wish him a long and prosperous journey,” Sare said sincerely.
