I wonder if Peter feels that way too? We never talked about it. We never talked much about anything, outside of bed. That was half our trouble….
She still felt irritable as she took off the Darkovan outfit she wore for her work outside the HQ gates. She wore the ordinary dress of a woman of Thendara: a long, full skirt of heavy cloth, woven in a tartan pattern, a high-necked and long-sleeved tunic, embroidered at the neck, and ankle-high sandals of thin leather. Her hair was long and dark, coiled low on her neck and fastened with the butterfly-shaped clasp that every woman wore in the Domains. Magda’s was made of silver, a noblewoman would have worn copper, a poor woman’s clasp would have been carved of wood or even leather; but no chaste woman exposed her bare neck in public.
She hung the Darkovan clothes away, first rubbing their folds with an aromatic mixture of spices; it was as important to smell right as to look right, in the Old Town. She showered and got into Terran clothes, thin crimson tights and a tunic with the Empire emblem on the sleeve. They felt chilly, and she thought it made no sense to wear thin synthetics here and heat the buildings to a temperature that made them practical. It just made the Terrans unfit for the climate.
It’s like the yellow Earth-normal lights everywhere in the HQ; it just keeps everyone from adapting to the red sun. I know, it’s Empire policy everywhere; and when spaceport personnel are likely to be transferred all across the Galaxy at a few days’ notice, of course maintaining a stable set of standard conditions makes sense.
But it’s hard on those of us who really live here….
She was trying to decide whether to have food sent to her room, or to go to the HQ cafeteria and eat in company, when the communicator summoned her again.
“Lome here,” she said, in no pleasant temper. “I’m off duty, you know.”
“I know-Montray here. Magda, you’re an expert on the Darkovan languages, aren’t you? Isn’t there a special inflection for speaking to the nobility, and a feminine mode of address?”
“Both. Do you want a capsule lecture, or a library reference? My father compiled the standard text, and I’m working on a revision.”
“Neither; I want you to translate,” the coordinator said, “You’re our only resident female expert; and I’m mortally afraid of offending the lady by some improper form of speech. I’ve heard about the various gender taboos, but I don’t know half enough about them, and that’s a fact.”
“The lady?” Magda’s curiosity was piqued; noblewomen were rarely seen even on the streets of Thendara.
“A lady of the Comyn.”
“Good God,” Magda said. She had rarely set eyes on a single member of this royal and aloof caste; even the men of the Comyn, if they felt the need to speak with one of the representatives of the Empire-which didn’t happen often-did not hesitate to summon them into Thendara instead. “One of the women of the Comyn has summoned you?”
“Summoned, nothing! The lady’s in my office right now,” said Montray, and Magda blinked.
She said, “I’ll be there in three minutes.” Her normal duties did not include working as a translator, but she could understand why Montray was unwilling to use the regular staff.
This was completely unprecedented; a -woman of the Comyn, in Montray’s office…
Magda put on her outdoor clothing. She had removed her butterfly-clasp; she started to coil up her long hair on top of her head. The Darkovans certainly knew that Terrans went, in Darkovan clothing, into the Old Town, just as the Terrans knew that a considerable number of the Darkovans who worked at construction jobs on the spaceport were paid to pass along information about the off-worlders to the Darkovan authorities. But neither side took official notice of it. It was important for Magda to look like any other Terran translator. But her bare neck prickled at the exposure.
I ought to act as if I didn’t even know about the proper degree of exposure for a Darkovan woman. But she felt bare and immodest; she took the braid down and let it hang loose down her back.