Magda had never realized until this moment quite how much her curious, between-worlds childhood had robbed her of the ability to mingle with people her own age. Childhood in Caer Donn had prepared her, emotionally and socially, for adolescence and maturity in the same world; instead, before adolescence, she had been torn away and isolated in the Terran Zone with children whose background was only that of the Empire; and at sixteen she had been sent off-world for training. She had felt isolated and completely at a loss with girls or boys her own age in the Empire. Later, when she could mingle with Darkovans in the course of her work, there were many inhibitions against allowing any purely personal contacts; and in any, case Darkovan women met men only in their homes and under the proper sponsorship of their families.
But now, as Rohana’s guest, she could join in freely. // I had been exposed to a little of this when I was twenty I would never have married Peter. The thought troubled her for some reason, and she was glad to turn to a young man of dom Gabriel’s household who came up to her, asking for a dance. After a time he said, “Is your name-Margali?”
“Yes, that is what they call me.”
“I thought so! You had another name, but none of us could pronounce it, so we called you by that one. You are Toroku Lome’s daughter, are you not?” The title was the equivalent of “learned” man” or “professor,” and had been given her father by the local children. “I knew you when we were children; you used to have dancing lessons with my sisters, Tara and Renata. I am Darrill, son of Darnak.”
Now she remembered Darrill, and his sisters. She had once spent midwinter-night with Renata when she was quite small; she had played with them, visited in their home, and brought them to her own home in the HQ. Darrill had been an older boy, out of their orbit.
He said, “I thought all of you Terrans had gone to Thendara and would not return to the Hellers. What are you doing here?”
“I am Lady Rohana’s midwinter guest-or rather, the guest of her kinswoman Jaelle.”
Darrill” demanded, “Do they know who you really are? I am dom Gabriel’s sworn man, and if you are here under false pretenses, Lord Ardais should know!”
Magda said, trying to control her inner trembling, “My true name and my purposes are known to Lady Rohana; you may ask her if you wish. And I suppose, since she knows, that dom Gabriel knows as well.”
He said with a faint grin, “I suppose so; but if the lady knows, it does not really matter whether dom Gabriel knows or not, since it is well known from here to the Kadarin that the lady rules the estate, with dom Gabriel’s assistance when he feels so inclined.”
She asked after his sisters; he told her the names of their husbands, and how they fared. She wondered if it was really safe to spend time with anyone who knew who and what she really was. But it might be worse to make a point of avoiding him; that would be suspicious conduct indeed. His fear that she was a spy once overcome, he seemed to accept it as quite normal that she be here.
It ought to be normal! Darkovans and Terrans should have a chance to be together, then they will not have a chance to build barriers of ignorance and distrust! Lorill Hastur is wrong, wrong, wrong!
When he had left her-it seemed, with reluctance- she found herself standing next to Jaelle, who had paused, breathless, after a fast, romping dance.
“I think Camilla was right,” she said, laughing. “There are men who find scars irresistible on a woman! I have never been so popular!”
“I had half expected to find that Amazons were not allowed to take any notice of men-after Camilla warned me so sternly not even to look at them!” Magda could laugh about this memory now.
“Oh, this is only when there is work to be done, or the men are such as might consider a glance some sort of-of invitation,” and Jaelle. “There have been times when I worked with men and they took no more notice of me than of another workman. We learn not to cause trouble-you will learn it, in the Guild-house-so that an Amazon can travel alone in a band of a dozen men, and will be accepted as one of them. But I also know how to behave when I want them to accept me as a woman-at Midwinter Festival, for instance! Or midsummer, when the dances-in Thendara, for instance-go on all night, and extend into the gardens! And you know the old proverb: ‘What is done under the four moons need not be remembered when they have set.’ Although for my part I have never had any taste for waiting forty days after, to see if I would bear a child in the spring-” She broke off, saying gently, “I am sorry-it is like talking with Rohana; I forget sometimes that she has been trained to the politenesses of women’s speech. I did not mean to shock you, sister!”