It wasn’t, of course, total cooperation. There weren’t that many Free Amazons, and they were rarely in positions of such power as domna Fiona. (It was also the first she had heard of the Courts of Arbitration. What a lot I have to learn, she thought, and what fun I’m going to have learning it!)
And afterward she would work again for the Terrans, and be one of the first to come and go between the two worlds, helping them to find a way to one another. Two worlds: and she would belong to both! She looked across at Lady Rohana, and the lady smiled. Again Magda had the image of a great door swinging wide, both ways, an opened door between locked-away worlds….
Jaelle was watching Lorill Hastur. He seemed not very pleased, but he capitulated with such good grace as he could. The fact is, the Free Amazons just aren’t important enough-or so Hastur thinks-that he can, with dignity, take any notice of what we do. But where we go, others will follow, for their own reasons. She caught Peter’s eyes across the room, and smiled; and it seemed that her heart stopped at his returning smile.
I have found an honorable way we can be together in his world!
Montray was answering Hastur’s gracious words with a little speech about friendship and brotherhood, carefully using all the wrong inflections while his son Wade carefully straightened them out and made them into the proper ones.
How will Montray get along without me to write his speeches? Magda realized, lightheartedly, that she didn’t give a damn. She had more interesting things to do.
When it had all been settled, and Hastur and Lady Rohana and Montray-his son at his elbow to keep him from any too offensive mistakes-were exchanging amenities, Peter and Jaelle and Magda met for a moment in the doorway of the Council chamber. Peter knew the custom of the Domains too well to touch Jaelle in public, but his quick glance at her was like an embrace. But he spoke to Magda, with raillery: “So you’ve had your own way, Mag, and made us all look like fools-doing what no man could manage to do! Have you really such contempt for us all, then?”
“Contempt? Not really,” Magda said, but she could not help flicking a quick look at Montray, which Peter caught. “But he, at least, hasn’t done so well with Darkover so far.”
Peter said, “Everyone knew you were doing the real ‘ work of the coordinator’s office, Magda. It’s just the way the breaks run, that you couldn’t have the title, too. Maybe someday you can have the job.”
She smiled without bitterness and said, “No, thanks. Why don’t you try for it, Peter?” She felt the strange little prickles of the hunch running up and down her spine as she spoke. “You’ll make a good coordinator-or the first Legate, someday. I have something better to do.”
“You’ve already done miracles,” he said, clasping her hands warmly, and she shook her head.
“It wasn’t I. It was Jaelle-and the Guild-mothers.” He said under his breath to Jaelle, “You are wonderful! I never believed you could do it!”
Jaelle said quietly, “I think you do not believe that women can do many things, Piedro, in spite of what Margali has done for us both. But perhaps you will learn, someday. I believed, for a time, that women among your people were more free than mine. Now I know that there is really not so much difference between Terra and Darkover. My foster-mother told me, once, that it was better to wear chains than to believe you are free, and weight yourself with invisible chains.” Then she smiled at him, a luminous smile. “But there is always hope, and I am committed to a day when we are part of the Empire from the stars, and when we are not all strangers and aliens, but all people are-are-” She hesitated, stumbled for a word, and Peter said, “Where all men are brothers?”
She smiled, caught Magda’s eyes and said, “And sisters.”
He said, “Well, politics can wait; you and I have other things to think of today! Magda, will you come with us when we declare ourselves before witnesses?”