There was a moment of silence, then Jaelle whispered as if to herself, “In my own time and season,” and smiled, tightening her arms around Magda; and Magda knew that somehow, by instinct, she had hit on’ precisely the right thing to say. She felt Jaelle’s lips against her cheek for a moment; then, without a word, Jaelle pressed her hand, and went, on noiseless feet, to the connecting door, which closed a moment later behind her. She did not return.
Chapter FOURTEEN
Day after day the snow fell, pouring from gray skies as if it had forgotten how to stop. Then, ten days after midwinter, Magda was awakened by Jaelle, sitting on her bed.
“Wake up, sister, the sun is shining!”
Magda ran to the window. The sky was filled with thick, low, puffy clouds through which erratic sunshine spilled; in the courtyard below, pathways were being cleared by bundled men with long shovels; and horses, their breath streaming in the cold, were being brought around for departing guests.
Magda dressed hastily in her traveling garments, not at all sorry to resume them. Every day their stay was prolonged meant another chance of revealing who they were.
Jaelle began slowly to dress. Since midwinter, she had spent her nights at Peter’s side, although she had been careful not to be found there in the morning by dom Gabriel’s servants. When Magda teased her gently about what seemed like hypocrisy, she had said, “I do not care a sekal’s worth what dom Gabriel thinks of me; he is not my guardian and I owe no man any account of my acts. I care still less what his servants think of me. The servants know, of course; they always know such things. But if no one of them sees me there, then there will be no one whose business it is to inform dom Gabriel. And although he probably knows, too–he is not a fool, and he has seen us looking at one another-if his servants told him in so many words, he would feel compelled to ask Rohana to reprimand me for putting the women of the Comyn to shame by sharing a commoner’s bed. And for his peace of mind Rohana would feel she had to come and scold me, even though she and I agreed together when I was sixteen that she was not my guardian and no longer the keeper of my conscience. And she would try not to offend me because she knows that I am a grown woman and by law the mistress of my own acts, and I would try not to be rude to her because I love her. And when we had all forced ourselves to say all these things, I would still go on sleeping with Peter whenever I chose; so it seems to me wiser not to start all that in motion.” ”
That reasoning seemed complicated to Magda, but she had to admit that it probably saved trouble for all -of them. It was even possible that dom Gabriel, if it were brought directly to his notice, might feel compelled to call Peter personally to account. By the Amazon oath, Jaelle had declared her independence of his guardianship, but Magda had heard from Jaelle that some men still refused to recognize the Amazon Charter.
Peter joined them in the hallway; he took Jaelle’s hand in his as they • went down the corridor, and Magda, watching, thought that the trip back to Thendara, with just the three of them, was likely to be awkward in more ways than one. She did not grudge Jaelle a single moment of her happiness-and that they were happy, no one who slaw them together could possibly doubt-but it was going to be awkward, and she, Magda, would bear most of the awkwardness!
The immediate family of Ardais, with a bare handful of the house-party guests, and estate officials, usually had their meals in a small breakfast room away from the Great Hall. As they came in they heard a burst of laughter. Dom Kyril was telling a funny story, which was one of the commonest midwinter pastimes, at this season when all outdoor work came to a dead stop.