Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 (9 page)

 
          
Finally
she said, "Within the Unity, Lady, men and women do not compete for posts
of honor. We try to assign work to the person best qualified to do it,
regardless of male or female, and it would never occur to me that I should
appoint a woman for assistant, any more than a man would choose a male
assistant because—" she broke off, remembering that the male pronoun was
not used except in a sexual connotation, "because the male was male."

 
          
Vaniya
said, thoughtfully, "Yet there is a proven biological difference which
simply unfits men for certain tasks. It would seem to be kinder not to force
men to compete in spheres where they are not qualified." She glanced at
Rhu and Dal, saying, "You two must really not take this personally, but,
Scholar Dame, don't you find it tends to unfit a man for his real function,
when he is allowed to develop his mind too much?" Cendri noted the
deliberate use of
he
and his. "Men are such
magnificently physical creatures at their best, and many women feel that
allowing them to cultivate womanly talents such as art and music will make them
weak and even impotent. Of course, there are exceptions—" she looked
dotingly at Rhu. "But are the men of the Unity still—still pleasing to
women?"

 
          
Cendri
saw that Dal looked ready to explode; she looked warningly at him, but he only
smiled. "Lady Vaniya," he said, "five hundred years ago on my
homeworld of Pioneer, our men shared at least one of your
beliefs,
that
the cultivation of art, music and scholarship would indeed make men
womanly and weak. Only in the last hundred years on Pioneer have men been
allowed to cultivate serious scholarship, and my own grandfather looked with
scorn on the idea that a real man could be a Scholar, far less an artist or
musician."

 
          
"Then
your world—Pioneer—retains some traces of matriarchal rule, Dal?"
inquired Vaniya seriously, and Cendri had trouble keeping her face straight.
Dal refused to look at Cendri, but his voice was sober. "I am not enough
of a Scholar to discover any such traces, Lady."

 
          
Oh,
damn you, Dal! Cendri thought, trying not to choke on stifled laughter, nobody
alive could be enough of a Scholar to discover traces of matriarchal rule on
Pioneer, because there weren't any! If ever a culture was patrist and
woman-suppressive, it was that one! This was wicked of Dal! Making fun of the
Pro-Matriarch, right to her face!

 
          
But
thoughtfulness displaced her laughter. It wasn't just reversal of
woman-suppressive cultures, then; it was an exaggeration, of trends already
present in the Unity, on worlds such as Pioneer, which went to extremes; if all
the softer and more scholarly talents were unmanly, and men's sphere restricted
to the warlike and competitive, this too could tip the balance of stereotyping
for sex-roles...

 
          
Again
she was angrily conscious of all the questions she could not ask. Her stay here
was going to be a frustrating experience! She applied herself to the food on
her plate; it was good, though unfamiliar. In any case, Cendri's training had
conditioned her to eat virtually anything edible to humans without distaste or
disgust; people had such widely different ideas of the palatable that any
cross-cultural student had to be able to join in any kind of meal with
apparent, if not actual, enthusiasm. She noted that most of the food seemed to
be grains and seeds, with portions of fruit and greens, and wondered if there
were taboos on meat-eating.

 
          
"Scholar
Dame—"

 
          
"My Lady-?"

 
          
"Forgive
me; these formalities seem un-natural," Vaniya said, "Our society
does not use them; my daughter—" she looked indulgently at Miranda,
"studied your forms of courtesy and convinced me that I must use them, at
first, to make you welcome; and one can understand that on a world like
University where many cultures meet and mingle, a veneer of formalities would
smooth social relationships. But I am hoping you will find friends here, as well
as interesting work. Have you a personal name, Scholar Dame, and would you find
it offensive if we used it to you?"

 
          
"My
name is Cendri," she said, "and I would not object at all..."
she felt a flow of elation which had nothing to do with the question. I
was
right/1
knew these formal manners didn't
fit what
I
had
seen
of this
society—
the
clothes
without social distinctions,
the haphazard
layout
of the
city!
As when she had first used memorized textbook cliches for intersocial
structuring, and had found they were not lifeless formulas, but actually
worked, she was excited. It made her work seem real to her—her real work, not
the lifeless Builder ruins.

 
          
"Cendri—it
is a pretty sound," Vaniya said, "Has it meaning in your
language?"

 
          
"It
means—a spark, a flash of flame, a live coal," Cendri said, searching for
equivalents in Vaniya's language, and Vaniya touched her hand lightly. "As
I can see you are in truth, through the formal manners the Unity has put on
you. I felt sure you were a woman like ourselves, though my daughters were sure
that, coming from the Unity, you would be either weak, submissive, dominated by
men— or else harsh and competitive, corrupted by striving against them in daily
life."

 
          
Cendri
knew Vaniya meant a compliment, but to her it did not sound much like one. She
felt herself as competitive as any man, and as qualified to compete. But she
accepted the words in the spirit in which they were given. "My lady is
kind."

 
          
"But
if I am to call you Cendri, you must call me Vaniya; or perhaps when we know
one another better you will call me Mother, as all the women of my household
do, even those who are not the daughters of my womb."

 
          
It
was a cue for Cendri and she picked it up. "Then all these women are not
your daughters, Vaniya?"

 
          
"Daughters
of my household, but not of my body," Vaniya said, and seemed not ill
pleased to expand on this theme. "You have met Miranda, who is the
youngest daughter of my body, and who is bearing my heir," she said.
"I have three other daughters of the body, although one has gone to live
in the household of her life-partner, with her children, and one is away
tonight in the city. And this—" she indicated one of the other women at
the table with them, "is my eldest daughter Lialla, and her life-partner
Zamila."

 
          
The
two women she indicated smiled shyly at Cendri. Cendri noted that they were
seated very close together, and they were taking turns feeding a very small
child with a spoon.
Life-partner.
So the women do pair
off, then. Where do they get all these children?
Artificial
insemination?
Where in this world are all the men?

 
          
If
the
men
are kept away from the
women as
carefully as this,
maybe
it is no wonder they are regarded as dangerous animals____ but that train of
thought embarrassed her and she turned her thoughts to analysing all the names
she was told. Most of them were three-syllabled and euphonious, like all the
female names Cendri had heard there.

 
          
"Also
within my house are two foster-daughters and their grown children and
life-partners—" she told Cendri their names, but Cendri was losing track,
and found it hard to assimilate so many names and complex relationships,
"...and my foster-sisters, and the grown daughters of the life-partner of
my mother, and three or four women of our remote kin, who have come to live
with us so that we may share companionship and work in fields and household,
and visit the sea in company. My youngest male child, Lar, went to the Men's
House nearly fifteen turns of the sun ago, so that no males now live under this
roof except my dear Companion—" again, the doting smile at Rhu—"and
three grandsons not yet a decade in age. I should also mention our household
Inquirer, Maret—" she indicated a grossly fat, fair-haired person at a
nearby table, who was rocking a small sleepy child in an ample lap. "Maret
is a woman-by-courtesy; it was born Mar, my foster-sister's eldest male child,
but many years ago it was given the privilege of wearing woman's
garments—" (Cendri wondered how anyone ever told the difference, since all
garments appeared unisex, but maybe the differences were too subtle for an
outsider to see) "—and of performing sacrifices at the shrines of the
Goddess, to be called
Maret,
and to live here among us as a
sister."

 
          
And
now that Cendri looked carefully she could see that the grossly fat person was
breastless and that there was a faint shadow, carefully shaven, along the jowly
jaws.
An effeminate?
Or a eunuch?
Was the transformation from male to
woman-by-courtesy
surgical or merely
psychological? And what kind of functionary was a household Inquirer? She
concealed the sense of revulsion which rose, uncontrollably, in her at the
sight of this gross ugly man who had renounced his gender to live among woman.
Apparently this society rewarded feminine behavior even in men, and she should
have expected it.

 
          
What's
the matter with me? I'm an anthropologist,
I'm not supposed to make
Judgments iike this.
It must be fatigue.
She listened to Vaniya saying,
"But enough of me and mine, you will learn as you live among us."

 
          
She
sought for a neutral topic. "Miranda told me that your High Matriarch lies
very ill. Is a stranger allowed by custom to inquire about her health?"

 
          
Vaniya
sighed. "Our beloved Mother and Priestess
has
fallen into a coma. She is neither recovered nor dead; it is uncertain whether
she will even recover consciousness to designate whether I myself, or my
colleague and fellow Pro-Matriarch Mahala will assume her ring and robe. This
is a doleful state for one who has served the Goddess for more than eighty years;
yet I cannot bring myself to regret it, Cendri, for it has brought us the one
thing we must have; time."

 
          
"I
do not understand—"

 
          
"Our
beloved Mother's last conscious words were to bid me make you welcome to the
ruins at We-were-guided, and lodge you with me," Vaniya said, "and
even Mahala dares not disobey that command, while our Mother and Priestess
still breathes. But when she breathes her last, then—then we cannot know who
will assume her ring, and if it is Mahala—if it is Mahala, her plans for We-were-guided
do not bear thinking about!" Vaniya frowned, then, with an effort, smiled
at Cendri and said, "So you must make haste, my dear Cendri, to explore
the ruins and verify that they are, indeed, the ruins of the Builders—which we
know, but once this is confirmed by an independent outside scientific
study—"

 
          
Cendri
asked, trying to make her voice level and courteous, "Is the Pro-Matriarch
Mahala opposed to the study of the Ruins?"

 
          
"You
must not trouble yourself with our politics," Vaniya said, and though she
smiled, the words were a warning; a
keep-off sign,
Cendri thought,
despite their cordiality.

 
          
She
said, "Surely you understand, Vaniya, that such an archaeological
exploration is a long piece of work; there is no way we could possibly do this
in a few days, or months!" Dal had spoken in terms of years!
"Archaeology is the most deliberate of sciences; ruins which have stood
for millions of years cannot be evaluated in a little while! And if your High
Matriarch is likely to die at any time— how long is she likely to live?"

 
          
"Our
surgeons will not even hazard a guess, although Lohara said she might linger
for a season or more; and of course it is possible she will recover her
consciousness and speak me her successor, in which case—" she smiled, rather
grimly. "I have one of my own household stationed near her bedside, so
that if she does so, Mahala could not conceal it!"

 
          
Rhu
said, "And no doubt the Lady Mahala has likewise stationed one of her
Inquirers for a similar purpose?"

 
          
"No
doubt, sacrilegious bitch," Vaniya said, then, with an effort, added,
"But you must not trouble yourself about politics either, Rhu, this is no
proper welcome for our honored guests. Miranda, will you sing for us, my
child?"