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When The Shattered Chain was published in 1976, it resonated deeply with a generation of women wrestling with the nature of sexism and how to counteract life-long conditioning. Women-only groups held intense discussions about empowerment and identity. Over three decades later, our focus and understanding of gender roles and sexuality has evolved, forcing us to consider traditional definitions in a new light. Marion’s approach was never one-sided or simplistic, and neither is this sensitive, insightful story from Diana L. Paxson.
Diana L. Paxson counts herself among the many writers who was inspired by Marion Zimmer Bradley. In addition to the Chronicles of Westria and historical fantasies such as The White Raven and the Wodan’s Children trilogy, she continued Marion’s Avalon series, most recently with Sword of Avalon. She is also the author of 86 short stories, including contributions to most of Marion’s anthologies. This story takes place a generation after the events in “The Motherquest” and “A Season of Butterflies.”
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I had just straightened the garland of piñona above the door of the Guildhouse when a resonant clangor vibrated through walls and floor.
“Goddess! Why do new women always turn up the day after a festival?” My lover, Kiera, winced as she pushed back a lock of ginger hair from her brow.
Last night we had celebrated Midwinter, and the spice-beer had flowed freely. So many of our women had work that took them away from Thendara, this was the only time when everyone was at home, and there were always tales to tell and news to share. But Year’s End also brought women who had finally decided they could bear their lot no longer to the door of Thendara House to demand admission to the Free Amazons. Flurries of snow were splattering the octagonal window panes. To seek our door on such a night, one must be truly desperate.
Kiera frowned. “Lassandra’s on door-duty, isn’t she? She’s still pretty young. Cassi, you had better go and back her up while I fetch Mother Doria.”
Even hurrying up a flight of stairs, Kiera moved with an unconscious, elegant grace. I never knew if it came from her early training or was one of those Comyn gifts. She had come to the Renunciates rather than marry when her laran proved too undependable for work in a Tower. I rarely thought about the gulf between us, but at moments like this I remembered that she was a daughter of the Comyn, while my father had made boots in a shop in Castle Square.
The bell clanged again. I paused to check my hair and saw my face in the ancient mirror, round and snub-nosed, framed by the carved wooden draperies of the goddess Evanda that twined around it like sheltering wings. Then I hurried to the front hall, where Lassandra, who was still in her training year, stood dithering.
“In the Lady’s name, open it!” I exclaimed, hauling the heavy bar aside.
As the door swung wide, a blast of snow swirled into the hall and with it a figure swathed in a grey cloak as if she had precipitated from the storm. Lassandra wrestled the door closed with a thump that vibrated through the worn floorboards, and we saw a tall, slim girl in a sodden cloak that shed melting snow in a pool on the floor.
“It’s all right—you’re safe now. Let’s get that wet cloak off—” I reached out , but she clutched the edges of the grey wool to her chest, gazing around her with crystal-pale eyes.
She recoiled again when Mother Doria came in with Kiera and what seemed like half the Guildhouse behind her. Then she got herself under control and stood still, with only a little quiver in the folds of wool to show that she was trembling.
No wonder she’s afraid, I thought, stepping between her and this babbling wave of female energy, but perhaps she had only been shivering, for she was looking at them with hungry eyes. Women, short or tall, lithe and wiry or as round in breast and butt as me, stared back at her. The silver gaze flicked briefly to me, then back to Mother Doria, who had glared the others into silence. With the grace of tall grass in the wind, the girl bowed.
“Vai domna,” she whispered, pulling back her hood to reveal hair black as my own, but silky and straight where mine curled.
“I am Mestra Doria, and you do not need to bow to me,” said the Guild Mother soothingly. “Welcome to Thendara House. Don’t be afraid—no woman in need will be turned away. What is your name?”
“I am Adriana...n’ha Ysabet...” The lilt of the Hellers made the words musical.
“Do you seek refuge only, or is it your will to take the oath of a Renunciate here?”
Everyone had fallen silent. We had a saying that every woman who came to the Order of Renunciates had her own story, and all of them were tragedies. What pain, I wondered, had brought this maiden, with her fine-cut features and haunted eyes, to our door?
“I seek...to take the oath...”
From the others came a kind of wordless sigh, and the crowd spread out to form a circle around her. Mother Doria held out the little scissors we kept by the door. Some of us grew our hair out later, but the first act of a new Renunciate was always to cut her hair to affirm her new identity.
“You must signify your willingness to join us by yourself cutting the first strand.”
Adriana loosened a strand of hair from the silver butterfly clasp and snipped it off below her ear. Her cloak had fallen open, revealing an odd assortment of ragged garments. The layered woolen skirts were of several lengths, and the sleeves of the jacket did not quite cover her bony wrists. The outfit surprised me. That clasp did not belong to the sort of woman who got her clothes from the donations bin in the city square, but perhaps this was a disguise she had used to get away.
When she had finished she held out the scissors and the lock of hair, and Mother Doria motioned to her to give them to me.
“Cassilde will take charge of this, my dear, until it is time to cut the rest. Now I must ask you to open your jacket and bare your breasts. It is only a symbol—” she went on as the girl flushed red. “But in the early days, when we were fighting for the right to live separate, the men sometimes tried to send in spies, and so in honor of our foremothers’ courage we keep this custom.”
“I am a woman!” Adriana breathed. From red, she had turned deathly pale.
“Of course, my child. It may seem strange at first, but living together, we see each other’s bodies every day, and all our external differences only affirm our identity. Every woman here will be as a mother or a sister—” She gestured around the circle. “There is no need for shame.”
I remembered how surprised I had been, soaking in the hot pool after a session with the armsmistress, to find that breasts came in so many configurations. This girl looked as if hers were barely grown.
Little Lassandra was nodding, and big Raelle smiled. She was our most notable cook, clearly longing to put some more flesh on Adriana’s fine bones. A wave of love filled me as I looked at wiry, mountain-bred Yllana, who had been both my best comrade and my rival during our training year, at Janetta and Gwennis, still lovers after forty years, at Stelle, our healer, a strongly-built woman who had studied medicine with the Terrans long ago, and at Irmelin, so ancient now that the only work she could do was to tend the fire. Some I had loved, some would never really like me, but at that moment we were all aware of our bond.
“Come, girl—” Mother Doria’s voice sharpened. “It will grow no easier with waiting—”
Trembling, Adriana undid the clasps of the jacket. I wondered if she had been mistreated and feared to show her scars. She would not be the only woman here whose back was a testament to male brutality. She fumbled with the drawstring of the knitted blouse. Beneath was an undertunic of pod-silk, much finer than anything else she had on. Her fingers touched the button and froze.
“Oh for goodness sake, this isn’t a Vainwal strip-tease!” exclaimed Yllana. Before anyone could stop her, she stepped up, gripped the neck of the undertunic and tore.
Adrianna swayed, trying to cover herself, but we had all seen her bare chest—not breast—for she had no more bosom than a child.
“My poor girl!” cried Gwennis, “are you emmasca, then?” Some of our most notable sisters had been desperate enough to seek the illegal operation that destroyed their female organs. But they had been born women, suffered the fate of women, and their souls were still female, whatever they looked like on the outside.
“This is no emmasca!” spat Yllana. “The work could not have been done long enough ago for the skin to have tightened, and that chest was smooth!”
I felt the hairs rise on my arms, for the atmosphere of the room had changed. This was not the hot fury of a maddened crowd that I had felt during the last riots against the Terranan, but something deadlier, compounded of hate, and disgust, and fear.
“I am—inside, I am!” Adriana wailed, but Janetta already had grasped her arms. She writhed in the older woman’s grip as Yllana wrenched the waistband of her skirt around.
“If you wish to join us, stand still!” Mother Doria said sternly. “This is our law!”
A button popped and went rolling across the floor. Adriana’s shriek split the air as Yllana pulled down skirts and underskirts and the knitted pantlets that we all wore against the cold, and we saw beneath the black hairs at the groin the seedsack and male member, undeveloped and small, but definitely there.
Yllana and Janetta let go, rubbing their hands as if the touch had fouled them, and she, no he, dropped to his knees, sobbing. Around me I heard the beginnings of a feral growl. I blinked, seeing a boy and a girl in quick confusion, and then only a human in despair.
“Will they never learn?” Mother Doria said bitterly. “Go whore for the ombrédi, Adrian, if they will have you. There is no place for you here.”
“Throw him out!” Lassandra, whose brothers had beaten her near to death when she refused to marry the man they chose for her, recoiled, and the murmur around me became a roar.
Someone hauled open the door as others laid hands on the boy. Outside the snow swirled, but it was kinder than the storm within. As Janetta thrust Adrian through the door, Yllana snatched up the fallen cloak and threw it after him. The house shook as the door slammed shut, then he was gone.
The lock of black hair was still in my hand.
~o0o~
That night, Kiera and I prepared for sleep in silence.
“Are you cold?” she spoke at last as I slid in beside her. She tucked the quilts in more closely and put her arms around me. The air was too chilly to think of love-making, but it was a comfort to feel the warmth of that strong, supple body that I had come to know as well as my own.
I shook my head and Kiera shifted so that I could lay it on her shoulder. “I can’t forget that poor boy we cast out into the snow.”
“Should I be jealous?” Kiera murmured against my hair. “Never mind, love. There’s nothing we can do for him now.” But I could tell from her voice that the memory bothered her, too.
I sighed. What I was really feeling was guilt. I had thought myself brave to leave my father’s house for the Free Amazons, but I had only exchanged one safe space for another. Adrian had nowhere to go. Presently the cocoon of warmth we had created lulled us both to sleep, but I dreamed that I was wandering in grey mists, in a body that was not my own.
~o0o~
The next morning Stelle asked for two women to escort her on a call of mercy, and Kiera and I volunteered.
“I’m sorry to bring you out on such a day,” said the healer as we trudged down the street beneath a dull gray sky. “But my patient lives in a rather rough part of town.”
I understood. Kiera was good with weapons and often worked as a bodyguard for rich women who were traveling with the caravans. Glove-making was my trade, but everyone had spent all their coin for Midwinter gifts and I had no commissions just now. Three Renunciates, even if Stelle and I had only the basic training in self-defense they gave us all, would discourage any villain who might be about—at least by day.
I wondered if we would encounter Adrian. I could not bring myself to throw his lock of hair away. It lay now in the matrix-locked casket where I kept my jewelry, and the memory was heavier on my heart than that silky strand had been in my hand.
The boy—girl—had been so desperate for us to believe him. I found it hard to comprehend why someone born into the privilege of a male in Darkovan society, and judging by the quality of his undergarments a high class male at that, would voluntarily give up that identity. At least Adrian had known to seek the only place in Thendara where the lot of a woman without protectors might be tolerable, though I could not imagine how he had expected to maintain the disguise.
As we passed Comyn Castle, Kiera shifted position to put me between her and those pale walls, as if she thought her high-born kin might suddenly appear and drag her back inside. Her own choice was easier to understand. As a comynara she had had everything but freedom.
The house we were seeking lay nearly in the Castle’s shadow—in more senses than one, I thought, stepping wide to avoid a rotted board as I followed Stelle up the stairs. The scent of old urine hung in the air. This was indeed the shadow side of Comyn splendor, and I could not help but wonder why, if our leaders refused Terran technology, they did not use some our own matrix powers to improve the lot of the people they ruled. Out in the countryside the old bargain between Comyn lords and their folk still held, but people in cities needed something more.
A half grown girl carrying a toddler on her hip met us at the door. An infant slept in a cradle, and two older children played by the stove. The room smelled of burnt porridge and diapers. Looking at their ragged clothing, I was suddenly acutely conscious of the thick, russet and gold plaid wool of my skirt and the fur-lined over-tunic I wore. Yllana said I thought too much about clothes, but if I looked like a drudge no one would buy the gloves I made. I made a silent vow that when I returned to the Guildhouse I would ransack my clothes-press for something I could spare.
“How many children has she had?” Kiera whispered, eyes wide.
“Twelve...” replied Stelle grimly as we undid clasps and toggles and hung our cloaks on hooks by the door. “Ser Marco drives a cart and is often away with the caravans. You’d think that less opportunity to sow the seed would diminish the yield, but it seems he’s one of those men who has only to hang his breeches on the bedpost to get his wife with child.”
“Don’t these women know how to prevent it?” I asked.
“I warned Mirza it would be dangerous to have more. I gave her the herbs myself. But Ser Marco...apparently sees any form of prevention as an affront to his masculinity.”
“Is she pregnant again already?” I glanced at the baby.
“Goddess, I hope not,” Stelle answered as she picked up her basket and led us into the second room. “The message said only that she had been fevered for a week and was very ill.”
The woman seemed very small in the big bed. Mirza flinched as the healer turned back the covers and began to palpate her belly and womb. She was very thin, but I thought there was some swelling there.
“Mirza, have you tried to abort a child?”
“Nay, how could I, with Marco on the road since before little Esteban was born? There is no child! She said there will never be another child, but it hurts, Mestra. I cannot keep food down, and it hurts!”
“Who said, Mirza?” Stelle’s voice was very gentle, but I shivered, sensing anger as one can sometimes feel a distant storm.
“The woman with the starstone,” came the faint reply.
Stelle frowned. “Kiera, you have Tower training. Can you look at this woman’s channels and tell me what you see?”
I could sense Kiera’s reluctance, but she sat down on the side of the bed and closed her eyes, matching her breathing to that of the woman on the bed. She pulled out the little silk bag she always wore suspended from a cord around her neck, and I saw the glint of blue as she took out the crystal it held. She stretched out her other hand above Mirza’s womb.
“Her channels are blocked,” she exclaimed suddenly. “Avarra help us, her vital energies are backing up. She’s burning up inside!”
The woman turned restlessly. “She said I would feel no desire, feel nothing, but I did not care, if it meant he could not get me with child....”
“I was taught to monitor at Neskaya, but I never had to deal with anything that had gone this far.” Kiera stroked the air above Mirza’s womb and the woman twitched and moaned. “I think she hurts so much she is resisting any touch.”
“Get snow,” ordered Stelle. She rummaged in her basket and drew out a bottle. I was already on my way to the other room, calling to the older children to help me. Whatever else Darkover might lack, snow was abundant, especially at this time of year.
By the time we had dulled Mirza’s senses enough for Kiera to work on her, the early winter darkness was falling. When Stelle pronounced her stabilized, it was late indeed.
As the door shut behind us Stelle gripped my arm. “That ‘woman with the starstone’ must be stopped. I’ve been hearing stories about someone who promises great cures—for a great price. Some of them work. Others...go wrong. This is the worst I’ve seen.”
“Avarra only knows how much damage a renegade matrix technician could do.” Kiera’s face was pinched as I had never seen it, even when she came in from a hard day on the trail.
“I questioned the children,” I replied. “The boy said he escorted his mother to the street of the ale houses, but they would not let him come inside.”
“They’ll let me!” said Stelle, her white coif a pale blur in the gloom. “I’ll go tomorrow.” Kiera and I nodded, knowing this was our fight, too.
~o0o~
The address the boy had given lay just at the edge of the Trade City—a borderland where a woman alone was equally in danger from drunken Terranan who had wandered out of their sector in search of excitement and the Darkovan low-lifes who preyed on them. I wondered once more at the courage—or desperation—it must have taken for the carter’s wife to go there.
“Mestra Raimonda, Matrix Mechanic” said the sign above the door, with an image of a blue star. Her staircase was cleaner than Mirza’s, but I found myself oddly reluctant to touch the rail.
The big man who opened the door tried to stare us down, but we were too well-trained to give him the female deference he was expecting. His mistress was another matter. Thin, dressed in a grey woolen skirt and tunic that managed to suggest Terran attire without challenging Darkovan modesty, she greeted us with a smile in which there was neither warmth nor welcome. From a chain around her neck hung a blue jewel the size of an egg. One glimpse of Kiera’s starstone had made my head swim, but I realized that I could look at this one with no discomfort. Whatever matrix Mestra Raimonda was using to play her tricks was elsewhere, but no doubt a woman like Mirza would be impressed by this piece of glass.
“Free Amazons! It is not often I see your kind. What may I do for you?”
“Stop harming my patients!” Stelle said fiercely. “They see your sign and think you are a leronis. Play your tricks on the Terranan, if you must—they deserve no better—but leave our people alone!”
“Why, what a feisty little rabbit-horn it is!” Mestra Raimonda shook her head. “You yourself are allowed to practice only because no one cares what happens to the poor. Who will question me? The City Guard are too busy trying to keep peace between our folk and the Terrans. The Comyn are too busy fighting each other. The Telepath Council is still arguing about the proper use of power. Go home to your Guildhouse. If you trouble me again, you will find my protectors are more than a match for a few girls who think they are warriors because they carry knives!”
I felt my face flush as I released the pommel of my dagger. Kiera was still gripping the hilt of the blade, its length an inch shy of a man’s sword, that hung at her side. For a moment I thought Stelle was going to explode. Then her eyes went cold.
“I am neither warrior nor leronis,” she said softly. “But I warn you that the goddess I serve will give you the justice you deserve one day.”
I shivered, but Mestra Raimonda had begun to laugh. We could still hear her as we made our way down the stairs. Still shaken, I bumped into someone who was coming up. Kiera and Stelle stumbled to a halt behind me, blocking the way.
“Your pardon, mestras. Please to be letting me pass—” the murmured apology had the accent of the Hellers. The shawl fell away and I glimpsed a silver clasp and a tangle of black hair.
“Adrian!” I exclaimed. “You can’t go in there!”
“By what right would you be stopping me? You threw me out into the snow!”
“But that woman—” I heard the door above opening, and blocked the way. “Before you do anything drastic, at least hear what we have to say!” Despite his height, Adrian weighed less than I. As Mestra Raimonda’s guard appeared, the three of us hustled the boy back down the stairs and out the door.
“There’s a decent wine shop two streets down where we can talk,” said Stelle. Kiera and I dragged Adrian after her.
~o0o~
The atmosphere of the tavern was heavy with the scent of wood smoke and spilled liquor, startling after the brisk air outside. We settled ourselves at a table near the fire and ordered a pitcher of hot spiced wine.
Stelle pushed back her white coif and stared at the boy until he met her eye. “Now, Adrian, what were you doing at Mestra Raimonda’s?”
“What business would it be of yours?” he muttered. “And I’d ask that you will be calling me Adriana if you insist on talking to me!” He stared from one of us to another as if we were a mirror in which he could see himself as he wished to be, and as I looked back I saw in him the maiden once more.
“I am a healer—” Stelle said more gently. “It is my business to save lives and ease pain. Mestra Raimonda’s meddling nearly killed one of my patients. What did you think she could do for you?”
“They said...she knows how to make a woman emmasca. I was hoping that she might be able to do the same for me.”
The healer sat back, eyes wide. “I never heard of such a thing. Why would a man—”
“Were your family pressuring you to sire an heir?” asked Kiera. “Surely no one would care if you found a bredu and lived with him once you had done your duty to your kin.”
Adriana straightened, pale eyes flashing. “I do not desire a man! I do not want to be a man! I do not belong in this body—the gods made some mistake when I was born. Of all women in the world, you Renunciates should be the ones to understand. Didn’t each and every one among you have to break the chains of law and love for the right to choose your own way?”
For me it had been easy. My father would have married me off to someone in his guild, but he had four other daughters to dower. When I told him I was a lover of women, he gave in and even escorted me to the Guildhouse door. But I still had to learn how to be free.
“Mestra Raimonda has not even the skill to block a woman’s fertility, whatever she may say. Death is the only transformation you would find if you put yourself in her hands,” Stelle said flatly. I had to look away from the suffering I saw in Adriana’s eyes.
“Do you think I care?”
“Perhaps not. But there are those who do,” responded the healer. “This woman is preying on our people. If you care so little for your life, help us stop her.”
Adriana stared. Mired in his own pain, it had never occurred to him to notice the suffering of others. And why should it? I, with far less excuse, had been the same.
“You are Comyn, aren’t you?” Kiera said suddenly.
“How did you know?” His pale eyes widened. I blinked, seeing suddenly the stamp of their caste in those fine-boned faces, and further, inexcusable for a glove-maker to have missed before, the fact that the boy had six fingers on each hand.
“My father was Edric Ridenow,” Kiera said wryly. “We are brought up to recognize our kin. You are from the Hellers, by your speech. I would guess Storn, or perhaps Ardais?”
“They say that my father’s grandfather was a son of Dom Gabriel Ardais. Nedestro, to be sure, for two generations back.”
Kiera nodded. “The Ardais blood has grown thin. No wonder if they were scouring the hills for lost heirs.”
“What they found was me...” Adriana said bitterly. “They were wanting to put me in the City Guard. But I couldn’t bear it!” He shuddered fastidiously. “So I ran away.”
“How old are you?”
“Last autumn I turned nineteen.”
“Were you tested for laran?”
Adriana’s gaze dropped. “There was nothing worth training,” he replied. He looked younger, but I supposed that if he had any of the Comyn gifts, they would have shown themselves by now.
Stelle raised an eyebrow. “How have you been living, child?”
“As I can—” The thin shoulders hunched. “I had a brother who did the outside work, until he died. Since I would not act the part of a boy, my mother taught me the skills of a girl. Even in the city, there are floors to be swept, clothes to be washed, animals to be fed. I work for a place to sleep and a little bread. So you see,” Adriana went on, “even if I would, I could be no help to you.”
Stelle frowned, then signaled to the tavern keeper to bring some of the stew that was simmering over the fire, along with another pitcher of wine.
“There is neither wisdom nor courage in an empty belly,” she said as the steaming bowls were set down. “Eat, my children, and perhaps we will find some better counsel.”
The floor of the wine shop was none too clean, but their stew was excellent. The morning’s excitement had given all of us an appetite, and Adriana ate like a starved banshee. It gave me an odd pleasure to see some color in those thin cheeks, and once more I could see him as a girl.
“I would go to the Terrans, but everyone I knew in their Medical Section was transferred long ago. In any case, it is the duty of this new Telepath Council that Dom Regis has put together to prevent misuse of their powers,” Stelle said thoughtfully as the bowls were cleared away. “But Mestra Raimonda was right when she said they only listen to their own.” Kiera flinched as the healer turned to her. “Can’t you try to contact them, dear?”
“If my half-brother Donal had not been sent off-world to study, there might be a way. But now that my father is dead, my oldest brother, Lorenz, rules. It was his best friend that I refused to marry. When I joined the Free Amazons he declared me dead. He will not speak to me.”
I reached out to squeeze her hand. I knew she was still wounded by the breach with her kin. Adriana was watching us with haunted eyes, and my heart ached, knowing there was no Guild to replace the family he had lost. I wanted to hug him, but there was something defensive in the set of those thin shoulders that said he would push me away.
“That leaves you—” Stelle turned to Adriana, who shook his head with a bitter laugh. “I will make you an offer,” she went on. “We will find you a room and give you enough to live on. In return, we ask you to put on men’s clothing once more and go to Dom Danilo. He is the head of your family, and he has Dom Regis’s ear. Tell him what is going on.”
How could she ask this, I wondered, after what he had told us? But I suppose that as a healer, she often had to cause pain in order to cure.
“We cannot bring you into the Guildhouse, but we will honor you as a sister,” I added quickly. I was rewarded by a look of wonder. Then a flash of bitter humor lit those clear eyes.
“Very well...” he fingered the shorn end of the lock he had severed in the Guildhouse. “For you, I will cut off the rest of my hair and pretend to be a man.”
~o0o~
“I know that many of you find our Training Sessions a burden,” Mother Doria leaned forward, her hawk-fierce gaze moving from one woman to another until everyone was still. “But what happened a few days ago proves they are needful.”
I shivered, the image of Adriana standing half-naked in the entry hall overlaid by a memory of how he had looked in the male clothing we had found for him. He had not seemed a girl, but he was not quite like a boy, either. Something that was neither or perhaps both, I thought, but however strange his guise, he had been beautiful.
Kiera put her arm around me. I relaxed against her, acutely aware of the whipcord strength hidden in those limbs. Knowing Adriana had made me more aware of bodies—his, Kiera’s, my own.
“We need to understand not only what our rules are, but why they were made. Lassandra, remind us why we require that every woman who seeks refuge here strip naked before us all.”
Lassandra colored up to her hairline. As the only Renunciate now in her house-bound year, she got more than her share of such questions. She cleared her throat self-consciously, then closed her eyes, as if the better to remember what she had read in our Book of Years.
“They say that in the time of Varzil the Good, when the Sisterhood of the Sword and the priestesses of Avarra had just joined together and were seeking a charter for the Comhi-Letzii, a spy was sent by the men who feared and hated the idea that women might live free. He was a gre’zalis, and had been an entertainer of the kind who mimic to the point of parody everything they think is female. But his heart was given entirely to his male lover, and he told him all our secrets, and opened the doors of the Guildhouse to our enemies.”
Mother Doria sighed. “Some of our own sisters love men—does that mean they are traitors, too? Mhari—what do you say?”
This time it was Mhari, who was heavy with the child she had conceived at Midsummer, who flushed angrily.
“I can hardly deny that I like lying with men.” She patted her belly. “The very difference between us makes me more aware of being a woman, not less.”
I did not know whether or not to envy her. Once or twice I had let a man paw me at the Midsummer festival. It had not been unpleasant, but I had felt no spark of desire.
“I wish men and women could live together as equals,” she went on, “but the world goes as it will, not as I would have it. I have given my oath to my sisters, and I will not betray them.”
Janetta shook her grey head. “Mhari, I know I must not call you a traitor, but I have never understood how you can bear the touch of a man. I feel most completely what it is to be a woman when I look into my breda’s eyes.”
I noted the glance she exchanged with Gwennis, and sighed. Their devotion was one of the great love stories of Thendara House, like that of Kiera’s oath-mother Caitrin and Stelle. I felt Kiera’s hand on mine and leaned against her, wondering whether the girls would tell such tales about us when we were that old.
“The spy betrayed us because he loved men, but what if he had loved women?” Mother Doria asked then. “If he cut off his male parts, would he qualify?”
“The minute we all got into the hot pool for a soak the difference would be clear....” someone laughed.
“Even if he went to the Terrans? I am told they can change a man’s face or make an ugly girl into a beauty. Why not alter his sexual parts as well?”
“It wouldn’t matter!” Janetta shook her head violently. “He wasn’t born a woman.”
“He could never feel the changes our bodies put us through!” added Mhari.
“The sacred mystery of blood—” said little Cora, who had just had her womanhood ceremony.
“He didn’t face the scorn we see in men’s eyes when we claim the right to be equal human beings in this world!” Yllana cried.
“What makes the difference is what is inside,” added Gwennis. “No one who has not grown up as a woman can ever really understand.”
And yet in these sessions we were learning to change the way we had been taught to think in the days before our breasts were grown. Couldn’t the same training change someone raised as a male? The image of Adrian as I had last seen him came to mind, his willowy grace blurred by the male clothes.
I was still wrestling with the question when the woman who had been left on door duty came in with a message for Stelle. I saw her face darken, then she whispered to Mother Doria and motioned to Kiera and me.
“Another one of your pregnant mothers?” Kiera grinned as we crept out of the meeting. “Why do babies always choose the middle of the night to arrive?”
Stelle shook her head. “Adrian was attacked on his way back from the Castle. I don’t know how badly he was beaten, but I delivered his landlady’s last child, and she had the wit to send to me.”
As I bundled up in my warmest clothes, I felt sick with guilt. If we had not persuaded Adriana to carry our message, he would not have been in the streets. I knew all about the risks to lone women; it had never occurred to me that a young man out at night might be in danger as well.
The lodging we had found for Adriana was a cabin behind a family’s home. As Kiera and Stelle carried the battered body to the bed, I built up the fire.
“Cuts and bruises...” muttered the healer as she pulled the torn clothes away. At least, I thought grimly, he would never have to wear those hated garments again. “A cracked rib, here—” she said as he moaned. “Cassi, fill a kettle and set it to boiling.”
“Dom Danilo—says they will send someone...” came a whisper from the puffy lips. He whimpered as the healer teased apart the blood-clotted locks and began to probe his skull.
“What did this? A club?”
“The man from Mestra Raimonda. Waiting he was, outside the Castle gate.... He said...we might accuse, but we’ll not live...to testify. But a leronis...will question Mestra Raimonda. She’ll know....” His lips twisted in a painful grin.
“He wanted you to carry the message, then—” the healer said wryly. “I wondered why he left you alive.”
“The bitch must have a spy in Comyn Castle,” Stelle peered out the small window. “If I mention your name, I might get in to warn Dom Danilo.”
“No!” Adriana struggled upright, sobbing. “If they know who you are they’ll be after you, too!”
“Hush, child!” Kiera sounded oddly protective. “You may not know how to fight, but if that bully tackles us, he will be in for a surprise.”
Stelle finished binding the cracked ribs and cleaning the boy’s wounds. Adriana grew calmer, and drank down a potion that the healer said would help with the pain. “And it will help you sleep. Rest is what you need now.”
“Mustn’t sleep—” He tried to sit up again. One eye was swollen shut, but the other fixed me desperately. I cast a quick glance at Kiera and saw her nod.
“We’ll stay with you, Adriana.” I clasped that thin, six-fingered hand. “Tell them at the Guildhouse, Stelle. We’ll call you if there is need.”
~o0o~
The next few days brought a blizzard that blocked streets and turned the steep roofs of the houses to a range of snowy peaks. The world lay locked in Avarra’s cold embrace. In such weather, it was impossible to imagine that Evanda would ever return, bearing the warmth of spring. Kiera and I scarcely noticed what was going on outside, for by morning Adriana was burning with fever. Scraps of speech told us of a father who beat this useless child who could have made the family’s fortune if he would only be a proper son, a mother who tried to shelter the only one of her children who had survived, boys who had teased and tormented and girls who had welcomed, until their menfolk taught them to scorn. But if the words were fragmentary, the images blossomed in my mind with brutal clarity, until I wilted beneath those insults and cringed from those blows.
We took turns cradling Adriana’s slight form, and in the cold dark hours just before dawn huddled together beneath the quilts. On the third day, I woke just at daybreak to feel an icy breath of air on my face. Kiera lay snoring lightly at my side, but the door was open and Adriana was gone. I scrambled from the bed, jammed my feet into my low boots, and snatched up a shawl as I hurried to the door.
It had stopped snowing. The red sun rose in a sky whose purple was lightening swiftly into lavender. Violet-shadowed footprints led to Adriana, who stood clad only in a shift, barefoot in the snow. In the rosy light, the pale features beneath the shock of dark hair seemed to glow.
“My dear, what are you doing out there?” My breath puffed as I called.
“Going away...” came the reply. “It is so pure...so still... Already my feet are gone. Soon I will feel nothing at all....”
“Come back, silly child. You’ll freeze—” I spoke softly, as if I feared to startle some wild thing.
“Yes...I will.... Go back to bed, Cassilde, and let me be. You have been very kind, but I have no place in this world. It is better this way.”
“Kind!” My shriek brought Kiera stumbling from the bed, knife in hand. “You idiot, do you think we have nursed you for three days from kindness?” I leaped down into the snow and floundered toward him.
Adriana had stood still too long to run. By the time we had chafed life back into cold feet, our patient had fallen so deeply asleep we feared we had lost the battle, but perhaps that hour in the snow had been what was needed to rout the fever, for the next day Adriana woke with eyes clear and a cool brow.
Throughout the long hours when we watched, I had replayed that moment when I ran out into the snow. If not from kindness, why had I cared for Adriana so devotedly? In the Guildhouse, my love for Kiera was accepted and admired. What could I call the fascination Adriana stirred in me? What place could it have in the world?
From that day on, the cold began to ease. Deep hollows formed in the snow. If I found it hard to meet Adriana’s clear gaze, I smiled often to see vigor coming back into the long limbs. Stelle brought more clothes—the bulky quilted pants and fur-lined Free Amazon tunics that even my vanity found practical at this time of year. I knew it was time for us to leave, but Kiera said nothing, and I did not ask her why for fear she would put the same question to me.
~o0o~
A tenday had passed when Mestra Raimonda’s men came. Stelle had sent word that the Telepath Council was arresting the unlicensed matrix mechanics. Our testimony was hardly needed when the Council had people who could read their very souls, so I suppose that the bullies were out for revenge.
At the first knock, Adriana snatched up the big carving knife from the cutting board. For a moment, Kiera and I simply stared. Then we were on our feet, hearts pumping with the same alarm, drawing knife and dagger from the sheaths that hung from our chairs.
“Come out, you bitches, and pay the price for your meddling ways!” Another knock shook the timbers of the door.
“Stand back, bre’suin!” Kiera cried gaily. “If you’re tired of diddling yourself, get away from the door and we’ll come play with you!”
I had scarcely a moment to wonder if I would remember my training before she had thrust the door open, and the three of us came out in perfect step, forming a fighting wedge as neatly if we had rehearsed it.
There were five of them, armed with clubs and swords. We came in fast, under their guard. The first man was down before the others could react, blood spraying crimson across the snow. That taught caution to the others, but Kiera’s attacks were deadly, and as we guarded her flanks, Adriana mirrored my every move.
By the time men in the green uniforms of the City Guard pushed through the crowd, only one of our attackers was standing, crimson-faced as he listened to their jeers.
“By Aldones, you Amazons fight well!” the fair-haired commander exclaimed.
Kiera grinned and hugged me, and I reached out to Adriana.
“Congratulations! You’ve certainly proved yourself a hero!”
Adriana went deathly pale. “A hero? Not a heroine? He thought I was one of you! Cannot you even now bring yourself to think of me as a girl?”
He—no—she—fixed me with an icy glare. I stared back. If I speak to you as a woman, I thought then, I will have to admit that what I feel for you is love. I had not said those words aloud, but somehow, Adriana knew. Her face grew radiant. I cast a quick glance at Kiera and saw her smile.
Breda—did I hear her with my ears or my mind? Don’t you know that I have come to love Adriana, too?
“I’ll buy you a drink if you’ll honor me with your company!” Oblivious to the turmoil of emotions around him, the young commander gestured toward the wine shop down the road.
He wants to boast to his mates about how he drank with the three fierce Amazons! Was that thought Kiera’s, or my own? Though we were already drunk on the exhilaration of having survived and hardly needed wine, arm in arm, Kiera, Adriana, and I followed him.
~o0o~
It was very late when we reeled back to the cabin. I shed my cloak and the woolen tunic and stood shivering in my shirt, waiting for the fire to warm the room.
Kiera put her arms around me from behind. She had started to strip down, too. I leaned into the warmth of her breast and belly with a sigh, then gasped as she brought her hands up to cup my breasts and I felt the first pulse of response. My laughter died as I caught sight of Adriana’s stricken gaze.
How could we make love when she was here? I started to push Kiera away, but my beautiful, generous lover was already reaching out, catching Adriana’s arm and pulling her into my embrace. My arms closed reflexively around the slim form. During her illness I had not allowed myself to know how much I wanted to touch that long, delicate body, to run my fingers through the shining black hair.
A shock ran through me; I could feel its reflection in Kiera’s stronger frame. Adriana’s crystal eyes were alight. I drew her head down, and it was a woman’s kiss. Kiera nuzzled my neck, and I felt Adriana quiver in reply.
The world was whirling around us. Another step brought us all to the bed in a tangle of limbs. Lip met lip, hands caressed. Breast nestled against breast like nesting doves, and legs twined in a melting sweetness until I did not know where my own body ended and those of the others began. Images flickered through my awareness—the long smooth line of Kiera’s back and thigh—but that could not be my vision, because I was kissing her lips. Through the eyes of the others I saw my round arms, the sweet curve of my thigh, and realized that I was beautiful.
This is what it is to be a woman...and this.... Which of us had spoken? I did not know, but firelight glimmered on Kiera’s pointed breasts, on my own generous bosom, and on Adriana’s glowing body, a swelling softness, barely budded, but manifestly there.
And this... The male member that had caused so much trouble had become a mere nub. All that had been pendant was retreating into smooth folds, that which was outer becoming inner, Adriana’s entire body transforming beneath my reverent hands. Kiera’s hands traced glowing lines above Adriana’s body, and I knew without being taught that they were those of a woman, the energies flowing free and clear. Ancient tales of the chieri who lay sometimes with mortals and left their beauty as a legacy teased at my memory.
Beautiful One, you lend us grace... Was this thought mine? I see the Goddess in you.
I gaze at you, came her thought as she looked from me to Kiera, and you become my mirror.
Seeking the heart of desire, we merged, confirming, affirming identity once more in a single cry.
~o0o~
We awoke, still entwined. A rosy light filtered through the melting frost-flowers on the window, kissing Kiera’s high brow and elegant cheekbones with color. Adriana’s translucent skin seemed lit from within. The brief thaw that we called the Breath of Evanda must have come. We often had a few such days at this time of year. It would not last, but it was a promise that someday spring would return to the world.
“Anyone hungry?” my lover asked.
“I have feasted,” I answered, and we both laughed as a blush intensified Adriana’s glow. She was staring around her as if she had awakened to a new world, and it was true.
Kiera scrambled out of bed, pulled on a shirt, and went to wake up the fire. I gave Adriana a kiss and followed, scarcely feeling the chill in the air.
“You’re Ardais...” Kiera said to Adriana as we sat down to a steaming porridge of nuts and grain. “That’s why we were picking up each other’s thoughts. Your family’s Gift awakens telepathy in others. When your true nature was suppressed, you must have blocked your laran. You’ve certainly strengthened mine, and discovered untapped depths in Cassi as well—” she grinned and I blushed, remembering how her touch had penetrated my soul. “That’s why we fought so well.”
“That’s why we loved so well—” Adriana replied with a shy smile.
“Will you come with us to the Guildhouse?” I asked. “You would pass even Janetta’s inspection now.”
Adriana shook her head, the light dying out of those clear eyes. “I know that you must go back, but I cannot. I have a woman’s body now, but in their minds there will always be that image of how I was before.”
“You can’t live here alone,” I objected. Boy or girl, it was clear Adriana did not have the skills to live on her own. “I’ll stay with you.” I cast a quick look at my breda, willing her to understand.
“But you are Kiera’s lover—” Tears glistened as Adriana looked from her to me.
“So I will stay, too.” Kiera shrugged. “Is there a law that says we can love only one? When I was at Neskaya, we were all open to each other. My great-uncle Damon was a Keeper, though he was male, the first since the time of Varzil the Good. They called his circle the Forbidden Tower, and they say he loved all the others, male and female, life-long.”
“You would leave the Guildhouse?”
“Those who marry as freemates often do,” I said thoughtfully. “Our oath does not require Renunciates to live together. It is easier, that is all.” I stifled a pang as I realized how much I would miss even the things about my sisters that had exasperated me the most. Would they feel we had rejected them? Would Kiera’s oath-mother understand when she returned from visiting her son Donal off-world? I could not allow fear of their reaction to rule me. Adriana was my sister now.
“And if someone came to you, someone like me but without the chieri blood to make her body a match for her soul?” Adriana’s face was grave. The clarity of communication we had shared was fading, but the intensity of her emotion throbbed in the air. I looked at Kiera, and felt her agree.
“We would look into her soul, and find the woman hidden there...”
“We could call ourselves the Forbidden Guildhouse.” My lover grinned. “Renunciates have always challenged the boundaries. We’re pushing them a little farther, that’s all.”
I reached out and saw, refracting from mind to mind, the image of the Goddess reflected in my lovers’ eyes.
