Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 (30 page)

 
          
Now
I wonder, Cendri thought, as she joined Vaniya's other daughters in Vaniya's
car, does Rhu intend to spend the time with Dal, learning more about the
position of men in the Unity—or is he taking this opportunity to be with
Miranda?

 
          
On
the ride to the city they passsed still more of the groups of men, inbound from
all over the continent, and Vaniya, waving graciously as the men bowed to her
passing car, said distractedly, "It will be a scandal if we do not have a
High Matriarch and Priestess for the ceremonies this year!"

 
          
Cendri
asked
hesitatly,
"Is there any doubt of this?
Miranda told me that—that the Pro-Matriarch had found the ring and robe of—of
her predecessor—"

 
          
"So
my worthy colleague says, indeed." Vaniya curled her lip. "Yet it
would not be the first time that a Pro-Matriarch had presented a forgery. Some
women will stop at nothing. As for me—" her broad leonine face was stern,
"I have not heard the word of our Mother and Priestess, although I have
awaited the word with solemn fasting and prayer." Indeed she looked worn,
by sleeplessness and hunger. "But I would yield my place at once, rather
than win it unworthily, or without the word of my predecessor. If Mahala has
truly the ring and robe of Rezali, then I shall be the first to do homage and
swear loyalty to her."

 
          
Cendri
had seen the Residence of the High Matriarch from outside; but until now, when
she came as a member of Vaniya's
entourage,
she had
not yet entered the building. She walked with Vaniya up the long marble steps,
between the columns, noting that like many other imposing structures on
Isis
, they were mounted in what looked like
gimbals. She had to admit that it made sense, on a planet as earthquake-prone
as
Isis
, but also it took away something—at least
in Cendri's eyes—from the elegant formality of the structure.

 
          
Perhaps,
she thought, this is why so much of their society, so much of their formal
structure, seems to my eyes ill-designed and catch-as-catch-can. On a planet
like this, nothing is permanent.
Except, perhaps, the ruins
at We-were-guided.
No wonder this is a sacred place to them.

 
          
A
small crowd of children—not naked in sunhats and sandals, now, but dressed in
their best and looking, as dressed-up children always do, vaguely
uncomfortable—had gathered to watch outside the Residence, watching wide-eyed
and solemn. A great many of them, Cendri noted, had come into the great hall of
the Residence and were standing there to see what was going on, and it was
typical of Isis that nobody thought to shoo them out of the center of the great
hall. Down the very center of the hall was a long row of statues in glass
cases.
Statues?
No; they were elegant wax effigies,
elaborately robed, each glass case and effigy set into a pit protected by sand
so that it would fall over and survive undamaged and unbroken. They were
surrounded by the usual screens and their bases were also decorated with the
usual casual art, each one (Cendri could read the written language now well
enough to tell) decorated by a different children's school.

 
          
Vaniya
said, in a low voice, "Some of these effigies have come with us all the
way from our mother planets of Persephone and Labrys. Here is our first High
Matriarch, our beloved foremother Alicia." She pointed to a woman whose
hair, arranged in an elaborate triangular coiffure, was silvery white, wearing
an archaic robe. "She was born on the Unity world of Pioneer, I believe,
in the worst of the old days." Slowly they passed through the hall of
effigies, and Vaniya named, one by one, the High Matriarchs of Isis, standing
here for all time as they had appeared to their daughters in life. Each wore an
elaborately embroidered robe, of the same archaic pattern as the foremother
Alicia's, although the details of the embroidery of each robe, so Vaniya told
Cendri, were unique, and chosen by each High Matriarch to be individual to
herself; after a High Matriarch assumed her office, the duplicate of her robe
and ring were destroyed and she had one made for her own personal use, bearing
an individual motif.

 
          
"And
here stands our mother Rezali, as she appeared in life," said Vaniya,
pausing and bowing briefly before the final statue. Cendri beheld a withered,
little, elderly woman, dark-skinned and shrunken, her scant hair all white.
"She bore her ring for eighty years; in the time since we left Persephone
she has been our Mother and Priestess, the longest reign of any High Matriarch
in the history of the Matriarchate."

 
          
Passing
the statue—a macabre custom, Cendri thought—they came face to face with Mahala
and her entourage. A quick look told Cendri at once that the other
Pro-Matriarch, unlike Vaniya, had not awaited her call with sleepless prayer
and fasting; she looked calm, rested, refreshed. She went toward Vaniya and
embraced her in the formal way she had done before.

 
          
"You
seem weary and worn, my sister," she said sweetly. "This will be over
soon, and you shall go and rest, and be free of the cares you have borne since
our beloved Mother Rezali fell too ill to make her wishes known."

 
          
How
she hates
Vaniya,
Cendri thought. She has virtually told Vaniya that as
soon as she is verified High Matriarch, she will be relieved of all official
duties. I suppose politics is the same everywhere.

 
          
Vaniya
said gruffly, "I hope you have not put your household to the trouble and
expense of readying for a move from the Residence of the Pro-Matriarch yet, my
sister. No doubt you will soon be moving, but there is still some doubt as to
the destination." Her face was set and grim; and Mahala frowned. Without
answering, she turned on her heel and led the way into an inner chamber, where
a group of women, most of them middle-aged or beyond, sat in a circle on low
cushions. Vaniya turned to Cendri, and to Lialla and her partner, motioning
them to seats outside the circle, and went forward, with Mahala, to take the
two vacant cushions to either side.

 
          
One
of the women seated on the cushions said solemnly, "The Pro-Matriarch
Mahala has claimed that our late Mother, Rezali of blessed memory, has
communicated with her from beyond the great barrier of death and designated her
successor by revealing to Mahala the location of her ring and her robe. Produce
them, Mother."

 
          
Mahala
gestured to a member of her entourage, and Cendri saw, in surprise, that it was
a fat, blobby, sexless person, neither male nor female ... an Inquirer, a
neutered man?

 
          
Mahala
said, "My Inquirer, Karay, holds them for your judgment."

 
          
One
by one, the women examined the objects. Cendri could see only that they were a
heavy ring, deeply engraved, and a robe of stiff material, heavily embroidered
with metallic threads.

 
          
At
last they came to Vaniya. She bent over them, solemnly, giving them her full
attention. At last she raised her head, and her eyes were lambent with anger.

 
          
"These
are forgeries," she said, "and clumsy forgeries at that! The ring is
a good forgery; but a forgery none the less. The ring of our revered Matriarch,
as you may see from the effigy in the Hall of Matriarchs, bore a snake with
three eyes; this serpent has two. The embroidery is done with copper-colored
threads; the embroidered robe of our Matriarch, again I call the Hall of
Matriarchs to witness, is done with a twisted thread of two strands, one copper
and one burnt orange color. I do not even speak of the patterns, which any
little child could see for clumsy imitations of the real thing, no doubt
hurriedly done by Mahala's own sewing women, or if she does not trust them that
much, by her daughters and foster-daughters. Councilwomen of Ariadne, I ask
that these be rejected for the clumsy imitations they are! Mahala—" she
turned her eyes on her rival, "how dare you bring this stupid imposture
here!"

 
          
Mahala
said calmly, "I will await the judgment of the Council, my sister and
rival."

 
          
One
woman said, "They are obvious forgeries! How can Mahala insult our
intelligence this way?"

 
          
"Oh,
come," another one interrupted, "is it not possible that the Mother
Rezali might have passed these imitations because of her own failing eyesight
and memory? I suggest we accept Mahala's word that these are what they claim to
be, and hail her as our new Pro-Matriarch!"

 
          
Will
it depend, Cendri thought, only on the will of the Council, and not on the
objective fact? It is certain that Vaniya believes; she has prayed and fasted
and awaited word. Is Mahala more realistic, or simply more cynical?

 
          
Vaniya
said, with an obvious effort to steady her voice and speak calmly through her
tremendous wrath, "The will of the Council makes no difference. The law
clearly states that every member of the Council must be satisfied that what the
candidate presents is the authentic ring and robe of the former
Pro-Matriarch."

 
          
"Then,"
said Mahala, turning directly to the Council, "I beg each of you to be
satisfied, Mothers. The high festival is upon us, already the men have come
into the city to visit the sea; if there is no government, no High Matriarch,
and the city is in a state of anarchy, we may have a rebellion on our
hands."

 
          
One
of the Council mothers said, "This is sacrilege you speak, Mahala!"

 
          
"Sacrilege?
Nonsense," Mahala said contemptuously.
"We are making fools of ourselves before the Scholar Dame from the
civilized worlds. Is there really any woman here who truly believes that the
spirit of the dead will speak to an Inquirer, or to anyone else? In an age when
starships can come and go between the Galaxies, will any woman stand up here
and tell me she truly believes this superstitious rubbish? It is for the
Council to accept me, or reject, and I beg of you not to ask for further
ghost-stories!"

 
          
Vaniya
stood up, her eyes blazing at Mahala. She said, "I will not sit and listen
to this! You, the council of Elders of Ariadne, have been twice insulted by
this woman, first by imposture and then by blasphemy! I call upon you, my
sisters, to name me their true High Matriarch, on the grounds that Mahala has
proven, by coming before us with a forged ring and
robe, that
she knows the Mother Rezali will not speak to her spirit!"

 
          
"I
notice," Mahala said calmly, "that even you, Vaniya, have not had the
hardihood to claim that she has spoken to yours. You are not a madwoman
either—not yet, although if you go on awaiting a ghostly voice to appoint you
High Matriarch, you will be so soon."

 
          
"Peace,
both of you," said one of the Elders, sternly, "the High Matriarch
has been chosen like this since we founded the High Matriarchate!"

 
          
"I
remind you," Mahala said, the honey in her voice now a little sour,
"that Rezali's reign has been so long that no woman in this room had yet
grown her breasts when Rezali was chosen to rule over us; we were still on the
mother-world of Persephone then. We know only that this is how the Council
said
a High Matriarch was chosen. It is quite possible that it has always been
what I say it is now, a pious fraud to baffle outsiders!"

 
          
"This
is heresy," said one of the women, and another simply stared in shock, her
mouth falling open.

 
          
Another
said slowly, "Perhaps there is some truth in what Mahala says. In living
memory, no woman has been appointed by any such method—"

 
          
The
debate dissolved in general clamor. Vaniya finally made herself heard.

 
          
"I
have been summoned here upon a false pretense," she said, "and there
are affairs which demand my presence elsewhere. I hold myself in readiness to
meet when I am justly summoned; meanwhile, I bid you farewell." She
gestured to the women in her party; Cendri rose along with them and followed
Vaniya out of the Council Hall. The children gathered in the Hall of Matriarchs
stood in small staring groups, watching wide-eyed. As they got into Vaniya's
car, they saw Mahala and her party leaving by another door, and Vaniya audibly
sighed with relief.