Can he ever know, Jaelle thought with desolation, that it is the very mainspring of my being? It was only a moment, then her love began to make excuses for him; soon, soon he would understand. She smiled gaily -at Peter and said to Magda, “We shall have to teach him better than that, will we not, sister?”
Rohana interrupted, sensing the strain: “The best way is for you, all three of you, to be my guests at Comyn Castle tonight. There is room in the Ardais suite for a dozen or more; and you, Piedro, can send word to your Terran supervisor that tomorrow we will all meet with Lorill Hastur. Both of them will be eager to know how this affair has ended.”
They agreed to that compromise, and an hour later were all settled in comfortable quarters in the Ardais suite. Magda was tired from the long journey, and lay down for a nap, but she knew that sleep was simply another way of avoiding, for a time, the unendurable conflicts. Tomorrow, at whatever cost, they must be faced.
Peter stood for a few moments at the door of the room the women shared. He said, hurt, “Jaelle, you are avoiding me again!”
“No, my love. In a day or two we shall declare ourselves as freemates, before witnesses,” she promised, standing on tiptoe to kiss him with a passion that swept away his doubts. “But just now I am Rohana’s guest in Comyn Castle and for her good name I must abide, under this roof, by her laws and rules of conduct rather than my own. But I love you. Never doubt it, promise me, Piedro, promise.”
“I promise,” he assured her, then, in surprise, bent to wipe the tears from her eyes. “My love, my darling, why are you crying?”
“I-I don’t know,” she stammered, and although he knew she was evading him, there was nothing he could say. “Even though I am a Free Amazon, Piedro, you must sometimes just let me be a woman, and not always reasonable. …”
When he had gone away, and Magda had fallen into an exhausted sleep, Jaelle wandered, restlessly, around the Ardais suite. At this time of year it was deserted; Rohana and her guests seemed to rattle around the empty rooms and corridors like a few pods on a tree stripped by a storm. At last Rohana sought her out.
“Come and sit with me for a little while, Jaelle. It may be a long time before we can spend time together like this; at Council season I have little leisure to enjoy your company, and it may be many years before you can pay me another visit at Ardais.”
They sat before the fire that had been kindled in Rohana’s room. For a time they said little, but at last Jaelle got out of her chair and came and sat on the hearth-rug beside her kinswoman. She laid her head for a moment on Rohana’s knee; hesitantly, Rohana stroked the soft hair. As a girl Jaelle had never permitted caresses and Rohana had quickly learned not to offer them, but for once she seemed to invite them.
At last Jaelle said, “I did not tell you this, but you probably have guessed. Piedro has asked me to remain in Thendara as his freemate; and I have consented.”
Rohana looked down at Jaelle with a distant sadness. She loves him so much; and I know I cannot really understand. Rohana herself had been given in marriage very young, had obediently married the man chosen by her family, without question, and had never been touched by this kind of passion. At last she asked, with a hesitant tenderness, “Have you ever regretted your oath, Jaelle?”
“Never before this, never for a moment,” Jaelle said. Then, forcing the words out, “Just the same, I think you were right, years ago, when you said I was too young for such a choice.”
That struck to Rohana’s heart, almost with physical pain. Merciful Goddess, I gave her freedom, the freedom that had been denied to me. Was I so wrong? For a moment time slipped out of focus, past and present blending together, and it seemed to Rohana that it was again the last day of Jaelle’s long visit to Castle Ardais, in her fifteenth year. Rohana had known Jaelle was not happy there: she detested Kyril and had no great liking for Rohana’s younger son and daughter; she thought Gabriel a petty tyrant; she had chafed at the need to wear skirts even for riding; and on the last day of her visit she had come to Rohana like this and told her, defiantly, that she would take the Amazon oath on the very day she was legally free to do so.