On the steps of the inn, crowded because the unexpected guests of the storm were readying themselves for departure, and the courtyard was thick with horses and men, she suddenly heard, around the corner, a man’s voice.
“Who is the pretty young lady in the green gown and the gray cloak? I saw her last night in the common-room, and again this morning, but I do not know her by name.”
It was one of the escort who answered. “She is the lady Hilary Castamir; we are bringing her from Arilinn. I have heard she found the work there too hard and too taxing to her health, so she is going home to her family.”
Now it will come, Hilary thought, braced for the indecent jests about a Keeper who found it too difficult to keep her virginity, the rude speculations, the talk of broken vows, disgrace . . . but the first speaker only said, “I have heard that the work there is difficult indeed. It would have been a great pity for such a young woman to live all her days shut inside a Tower, and grow at last as gray and gaunt as the old sorceress of Arilinn. She is only a pretty girl now; but if I am any judge, one day she will be one of the loveliest women I have ever seen. I hope the bride my father one day chooses for me will be even half so lovely.”
Hilary listened, shocked—how dare they talk of her this way? Then, slowly, it dawned on her that they were actually complimenting her, that they meant her well. She wondered if she was really pretty. It had never occurred to her even to think about it. She knew, in a vague way, that most women cared a good deal about whether men thought them pretty. Even those women in Arilinn itself who did not live under a Keeper’s laws, the monitors and mechanics and technicians there, went to great pains to keep themselves prettily dressed and attractive when they were not working. But she, Hilary, had always known such things were not for her. She dressed for warmth and modesty, she wore the crimson robes from which all men turned away their eyes by instinct, she had been taught to give no time or thought to such matters.
The women in the Towers, those other women who need not live by Keeper’s laws, they know what it is to think of men as the men think of them . . . .
Hilary had always known that the women and men in Arilinn lay together if they would, had been aware in the vaguest of ways that the women found pleasure in such things. But she, a Keeper, a pledged virgin, had been taught, in all kinds of ingenious and demanding ways, to turn her thoughts elsewhere, never to give such a thought even a moment’s mental lease, never to know or understand what went on all around her, to numb all the reflexes of her ripening body . . . . Hilary stood paralyzed on the stairs, motionless under the impact of a thought which had just come to her, remembering the curious pain in her breasts last night as she watched the nursing child.
I have denied myself all this. Even the pleasures of warmth and food. I have taught my body to feel nothing, except pain . . . that I could not barricade away, but except for the pain I could not deny, I had refused to know that I had a body at all, thinking of it only as a mechanical contrivance for working in the relays, not flesh and blood. I leaned to feel nothing, not even hunger and thirst. And perhaps the pain was the revenge my body took for letting it feel nothing more than that . . . or allowing it no comfort, no pleasure . . . .
The leader of her escort came and bowed.
“Your horse is ready, lady. May I assist you to mount?”
She started to mount without assistance, in the old way. Then she thought, in surprise. Why, yes, you may. She said, with a smile that surprised him, and herself, “I thank you, sir.” Momentarily, and from habit, she tensed as he lifted her, then relaxed, and let him lift her into the saddle.
“Are you comfortable, my lady?”
She was still too timid to look at him, but she said softly, “Yes, I thank you. Very comfortable.”
As they rode out of the courtyard, she put back her hood, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun on her face.
I am pretty, she thought defiantly. I am pretty, and I am glad. She looked back at the inn, with a warmth akin to love, and for a moment it seemed she had learned more in the single night there than in all the years that had gone before.
I can kiss a child. I can hold a baby in my arms, and think about what it would be like to hold a baby of my own, to have my own baby at my breasts. I need not feel guilty if men look at me and think I am pretty. And tomorrow I shall see my mother, and I shall throw myself in her arms, and kiss her as I used to do when I was a very little girl.
I can do anything.
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Hilary’s Homecoming
Marion Zimmer Bradley
At Syrtis they turned off the Great North Road and took the road which curved away eastward into the foothills of the Kilghard Hills. Hilary Castamir had never believed she could be so weary of riding. At the very best of times she was not much more than an indifferent horsewoman, and this was hardly the best of times. She had been in the saddle for almost three days now; the road from Arilinn was long and rough to her horse’s feet.
She was eager to reach home and to see her mother and father, not to mention her brother and the little sisters, one of whom had been born since she left home for the Tower, where she had gone when she was only ten years old. She was now seventeen, though she looked younger—a slender sickly-looking girl, painfully thin. She might have been pretty had she looked a bit more healthy.
But now everything, even the anticipated sight of her parents, had slipped away in her weariness. She dearly wished to be out of the saddle and to rest somewhere; but in this company, of course, it would be unseemly to show signs of weariness or fatigue. A Keeper, she reminded herself, must always be the perfect model of the decorum of the Arilinn Tower. Then, painfully, she reminded herself: but I am a Keeper no more. She had been sent away like a parcel of unwanted goods, disgraced—
No, she told herself firmly; not in disgrace. Leonie had written to her parents last month and made it very clear.
Hilary had dwelt in the Arilinn Tower for over seven years and Leonie, who had chosen her for Keeper, had no fault to find with her. It was only that her health had failed, and she had had to be dismissed, at last, to avoid a complete breakdown. For this reason Leonie had not arranged a marriage for her, as was usually done on the infrequent occasions when a maiden was dismissed from the Tower. Her parents might choose to do so when she had recovered her health.
As they turned off the Great North Road on to the smaller branch road which led more deeply into the Kilghard Hills, a rider on a fine black horse, a green cadet cloak about his shoulders, broke loose from where he was posted at the crossroads and came riding toward them. As he came near, Hilary realized it was her older brother Despard.
He must be quite nineteen now. She had not set eyes on him for many years. He looked very much as Hilary would have looked if she were older and in robust health; his cheeks were round and as red as the dwarf crab-apples on the trees in the fencerows, glowing with cold and excitement.
He bowed in his saddle and said with unexpected formality, “My lady—?”
“Just Hilary, Des,” she said. “You don’t have to be formal with me any more; didn’t Mother tell you? That’s all over now; I’m home for good.”
His eyes clouded. “They didn’t tell me anything,” he said. “What happened, sister? Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“You can ask me anything you like,” she said, “and I’ll tell you everything. But Leonie wrote to tell Mother and Father; I thought for sure they would have told you.”
“No, as I said, they told me only that you were coming home. I thought at first it must be for a visit, but the way Mama looked, I didn’t dare ask for details. What happened?”
Hilary smiled. Knowing her mother, she should have been prepared for this.
“Nothing’s really wrong,” she said. “It’s just that I was sick so often I disrupted the life of the Tower. So they felt I shouldn’t stay there any longer.” She felt a strange disquiet; had Leonie’s letter gone astray? But she put that thought away.
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“Have you been very long on the road?” Despard asked.
She smiled wearily; it made her look older and desperately emaciated; she could read that in her brother’s dismayed reaction.
“You really don’t look well, Hilary; we should hurry and get you home.”
“Thank you. I’d really be glad to be inside—and rest.”
“Well, let’s be off, then,” Despard said, and spurred his horse to ride alongside the guards who escorted her. Hilary pulled herself upright, thinking, just a little farther now.
A wooden rail fence lined the road here, and after a little way she saw plots of kitchen gardens and a few fruit trees and berry bushes. Finally she saw the familiar tidy yard, at the end of which was the stairway to the imposing front door of paneled dark wood. At the top of the stairs stood a young girl Hilary did not know. She saw the Guards and Hilary and yelled, “Mama, she’s come!”
A tall woman came from inside the door; for a moment, Hilary did not recognize her mother. Domna Yllana Castamir was tall and slender. In adolescence she must have looked very much the way Hilary did now; but unlike Hilary, she had never been pale and gaunt.
Hilary reined in her horse thankfully. For the moment, all she could think of was the cessation of motion. She said, a little faintly, “Mother—”
“Well, Hilary, how are you? You’re thinner, but I can’t say it’s becoming to you. Well, I suppose you must be tired from riding. Come in; our guests are here, and you’ll be expected at dinner.”
“Come, come, Yllana, let the girl get her riding-cloak off before you start ordering her about,” interrupted the small, slight, withered man who appeared at her side. Hilary recognized her father, Dom Arnad Castamir. In her childhood he had seemed enormous, imposing and powerful; now she could see he was an old man, quite overshadowed by his more aggressive wife. He came down the stairs to Hilary, held out his arms, and helped her from the saddle, leaning forward to embrace her. He had the familiar smell she remembered from her childhood—horse, sweat, and the brew of medicinal herbs and cinnamon that he took for his cough. He hugged her hard and said, “You’re too thin, my girl; haven’t they been feeding you in that Tower?”
“Oh, yes, they were all very good to me,” Hilary said. “But that’s why I’m here, of course; my health was breaking down. Didn’t Leonie write to you?”
“Oh, yes, the Lady Leonie wrote,” her mother said. “But so vaguely that we were worried.” She led Hilary into the hall and took off her gray cloak.
“Make haste, child; you will soon be expected at dinner in the hall. We invited our neighbors, so that they can see for themselves that you have nothing to hide. As you surely know, when a Keeper is dismissed so suddenly, there is certain to be gossip.”
“Of course I have nothing to hide,” said Hilary in exasperation. “I thought Leonie had told you; I have almost lived in her pocket for seven years, and anyone who could commit the slightest indiscretion under Leonie’s eyes—”
“Oh, but she would have to say that for her own protection,” said her mother. “After all, you have been in her care for all these years, and you know as well as I that no Keeper is ever dismissed at such short notice if she has behaved herself properly. Is there nothing you want to tell me, Hilary?”
Now it dawned on Hilary just what her mother must be thinking. In shock and horror, she said, “Mother! I heard it said once that there was nothing so evil as the mind of a virtuous woman! Can you dare to think I have misbehaved myself? It would take a stronger will than mine to—misbehave, or worse, under the Lady Leonie’s eye. Nor have I ever been tempted to—to misbehave in that way.” She spoke firmly and with conviction; her mother still looked skeptical.
“Oh, come, daughter, you forget I was a girl myself.”
“Well, I can only think you must have been a different kind of girl!” Hilary snapped. How dare her mother say such things of Leonie? It was bad enough that she neither trusted nor believed her own daughter, but to slander the Lady of Arilinn?
Lady Yllana said angrily, “How dare you speak to me that way?”
Hilary’s voice thickened with unexpected tears. “Mother, I did not mean to be rude, but really, Leonie told no more than the truth . . . . And—” she flared, suddenly angry again, “if you do not believe me, send for the midwife at Castamir and let her testify for herself.”
“Hmph! The lady’s no more than human,” began Lady Yllana.
But Dom Arnad interrupted, “Come, now, Yllana, you mustn’t speak that way about the Lady Leonie. Let the girl sit down and rest. She looks frightfully tired.”
“I am. Thank you. Papa,” Hilary murmured and sank down on one of the old blackened-oak settles in the hall.
“Yes, rest a bit, my dear; you’ll want to comb your hair and arrange it before dinner in the Hall,” said her mother. “Oh, don’t get that ridiculous look, child; you can’t hide yourself away behind Tower walls as you’ve been doing for these last years. You’re a part of this family now; and, like it or not, you might as well get used to the fact that you have duties to it. Don’t look at me like that; it’s just the family of your brother’s wife. You do remember Cassilda? Soon after we sent you to the Tower—”
Hilary knew that in return for sending a daughter to the Tower, her brother’s marriage to a lesser Hastur family’s daughter had been arranged.
“I know Cassilda Di Asturien, yes,” she said wearily. “I met her on one of my visits here a few years ago; she was pregnant then. I did not hear if her child was a girl or a boy.” It must now, she thought, be three or nearer four years old.
The expected diversion was successful. In thinking of her grandchild, her mother forgot her daughter.
“The child is a boy,” she said fondly. “I thought I had written to you of that. He’s about the same age as my own youngest; but I forgot. You have not yet seen your youngest sister.”
“You did write me about that,” Hilary said, grateful for the new turn the conversation had taken. “Maellen, is it not? It is not a family name; I am not familiar with it.”
“Maellen,” her mother replied. “There was a Hastur princess by that name, or so I am told; your father wished to name her Cassilda, but there is a Cassilda behind every tree in this Domain.”
“And Maellen is now what—five?”
“You will see her at dinner,” her mother answered. “Yes, she is five—a little older than my grandson, who is another Rafael, as if there were not enough Rafaels in the Domains.” Her tone made it obvious that this was not her choice of name. “The boy should have been named for Despard’s father—or for her father. Well, come along to dinner. You are much too thin; you are not really ill, are you?”
Hilary wondered frantically what her mother thought they had been talking about. But her training was still strong; in compliance she rose, fumbling in the purse at her waist and taking out a little bone comb, with which she made a few hasty passes through her hair. Although earlier she had been hungry, having eaten nothing since they set forth that morning, she now felt the very smell of food would sicken her. She only wanted to lie down; but she knew her mother would not be dissuaded, and so she thought that the second best would be to sit quietly in a corner of the dining room.
“You’re making rather a mess of that,” her mother remarked, taking the comb from Hilary’s shaking hands and tugging it briskly through the wind-tangled curls. “There, now you look a bit more civilized. Well, come along, my dear.” She took Hilary’s arm firmly in hers and, followed by Despard and her father, went into the hall.
“It looks just the same,” she remarked. Her mother seized on the comment, and said in an aggrieved voice, “There, Arnad, I told you we should have the carpets or at least the curtains replaced; it’s just as it was when Hilary and Despard were little children.” Hilary wanted to say she had meant the phrase for compliment, but she knew her mother would not hear. She so seldom did.
At the end of the table, the place for honored guests, a woman was sea
ted—a woman Hilary hardly recognized. It was Domna Ginevra, the mother of Despard’s wife.
“Domna Ginevra,” Yllana said, “I wish to present my daughter Hilary; she is on leave from Arilinn Tower where she is in training to become a Keeper.”
Hilary wondered why her mother had spoken in the present tense. Perhaps it was natural that her parents—her mother, anyway—would not wish to confess to having a failed Keeper in the family.
Well, sooner or later the woman would have to know; but perhaps she would not be here long enough. Lady Ginevra inquired politely about the health of Lady Leonie, to which Hilary replied that Leonie was well, but suffering from overwork at the moment. She felt the surge of Ginevra’s unspoken criticism: Why, then, are you here instead of being at her side? Ginevra, of course, was too polite to speak it aloud. Hilary sat, unspeaking, letting Ginevra Hastur’s disapproval flood over her.
Someone passed her a platter of roast rabbit-horn and boiled whiteroot and she took a small portion on her plate without bothering to see what it was. For all she knew, it could have been roast heart of banshee. She had grown unaccustomed to eating meat in Arilinn, where most of the Keepers were vegetarian by custom. She struggled to chew a bite but felt it would not go down. Her mother was talking quietly with Cassilda about some clever doings of their grandson. Hilary struggled to chew and swallow, knowing she dared not be sick here—nor would her mother be likely to excuse her so soon. With a fierce effort she managed to swallow. Her meals at Arilinn were usually taken alone, in peace. Crowded family affairs like this were rare, almost nonexistent. It was hard for her to eat at all, let alone remember proper table manners and protocol.
She tried to concentrate on what Despard was saying to her, and on the little girl who had come into the room. This, she guessed, was the little sister she had never met. Maellen had fine feathery red curls, and Hilary found herself wondering if the younger girl was enough of a telepath that she would be chosen for the Tower in some unknown future. It was, of course, far too early even to make an intelligent guess.