The Blue Star

by Fletcher Pratt

II

Rodvard had no meal at noon (lacking money), his eyeballs ached from toiling under lamplight, and the others had finished their eating when he reached the Gualdis’ shop. The dame’s voice was not very pleasant (the Blue Star told him she hoped he was not going to be as much trouble as—something he could not make out). But Leece and Vyana, the oldest daughter, reheated for him some of the stew in a casserole, and made to entertain him by asking him about his work. (When he told them it was casting accounts for the Myonessae, there was something behind Vyana’s eyes that came to him as a shapeless whirl of fear and desire, but he could neither draw her thought more clear, nor cause the subject to be pursued.)

Now the talk turned to Dossola, and especially to Count Cleudi, for the whole family became much excited when they learned Rodvard had actually seen that famous person in the flesh and even worked for him. It took him several moments to realize that here in Mancherei he need not withhold his tongue, for these people thought the Count as great a villain as did the Sons of the New Day. Rodvard related the trick Cleudi had played on Aiella of Arjen (keeping his own name out of it for a reason he did not quite know), whereupon Leece asked innocently what a “mistress” might be, and the elders laughed.

His own room was very small, with the window right over the bed and only space for a garderobe, a cabinet and one chair. The next morning the girl brought his breakfast very early, and it needed no Blue Star to see that she wanted to talk, so he made her sit on the chair and took the tray across his knees, as he asked why Vyana had been so strange about the Myonessae the night before.

“Her sweetheart is a learner who has now become diaconal and wishes to join the sisterhood. But father and mother want her to marry in the usual way.” She leaned close and in a voice that was little above a whisper said; “You won’t tell, will you? . . . But we are afraid he’ll bring an Initiate to persuade them, and then he’ll find out that father and mother really believe in the old religion, and he’ll send both of them away for instruction, and all three of us will have to go into the Myonessae, and I don’t want to.”

(So many questions whirled in Rodvard’s head that he could not find words fast enough; and all his senses were tingling with the sudden nearness of Leece’s red lips, the swelling breasts and the message that darted from her eyes, saying she was pleased with this same nearness, but not as Damaris the maid, she held herself high and. . . .) He said, rather stupidly, not thinking of his words; “And why not? I would think—”

She leaned back again; (the eyes went dead) the thick brows came together. “Ah, but you do not think like a woman. We—we—want—”

“What, charming Leece?”

She flashed a smile which accepted his tiny apology and announced they two would play the game so set in motion. “We want to be loved for ourselves, here in this world. There! I have said it. Now, when you make your fourth-day report before the stylarion, you have only to complain that I am out of the law of Love, and they’ll send me somewhere for instruction, and you won’t have to be bothered with my questions about Dossola.”

“Defend the day! But tell me, Leece, is it contrary to the law not to be Amorosian?”

“Oh, no, you don’t understand. It isn’t that hard, really. Only the Initiates have to see that people don’t do wrong things, and doing something wrong always begins with thinking, so they send people away for instruction when they begin to think the wrong way.”

She rattled this off like a lesson learned. Rodvard said;

“But who decides whether the Initiates themselves are right?”

“Why, they have to be! They learn everything through the God of love, and one of them couldn’t be wrong without the others finding it out. That was how they found out that the Prophet was falling under the power of the god of Evil, when he tried to change everything and had to leave us.”

Rodvard picked at the bedcover for a moment (deciding it was as well to change the subject). “But tell me—why can’t your Myonessae be loved for themselves? I am only two days here, and know so little about your customs.”

“By the diaconals who choose them, you mean? Ah, no. All the Myonessae know they are only second choice. The diaconals have already chosen the service of the God of love first.”

“Then the Myonessae are jealous of the church—or of your God of love?”

“Oh, no. Women think more spiritually than men. You must go to a service with me and then you’ll understand.” The corner of her mouth twitched slightly; she reached over to touch his hand. “I must go,” she said, and was gone.

This was the beginning of a custom, by which she came to him each morning to be his instructor in all that concerned Mancherei. Once or twice fat Dame Gualdis wheezed up the stair and smiled through the door at the two, wishing them good morning as she went past on some errand, real or pretended; she seemed to find it decorous that the girl often sat on the edge of Rodvard’s bed. Their conversation never seemed to fail, and they took delight in minor contacts, as when he showed Leece the fashion of sitting wrestle he had learned as a lad, with each opponent gripping the other’s right elbow and only that arm engaged. Leece was so nearly as strong as himself as to make the contest a true one (and she was as greedy as he of the almost-meeting of bodies, as the Blue Star told him. She would go a long way with him, it said, perhaps all the way if pressed, but felt a little fearful of her own desires, and would want him as a husband in permanence. When she left, he would think of Damaris the maid as he dressed, and how she also had sat on his bed, and the end of that meeting, sweet and terrifying, how she had killed his Blue Star, and how he would surely have been trapped into some regular connection with her, had not circumstance ordered his flight from Sedad Vix. At this it seemed to him, walking the street to his daily toil, that there was nothing in the world so precious as that jewel and the use to which it must be put, and he must reach Dossola again, and by no means do the thing that would rob the Blue Star of its virtue; and then he thought of the penalty Lalette had promised, which lay at the back of his mind like a dark cloud of dread. But as he took his place on his stool, the thought came that he had already earned whatever penalty there was. It was not credible that the accident of having the Star’s power restored by the old woman in the hut would disannul what he had to bear; nor was it likely that the restoration would hide his action from one possessed of the witch-powers of the far-away girl to whom he was bound. But why was he bound to Lalette? Now the sweetness of the touch of Leece and the desire of her body ran through him like a liquid fire, and he felt as though he were running across a bridge no wider than a knife-blade over a yawning chasm, toward a goal hidden in mist, and all his inner organs were wrung.)

“Bergelin!” said the protostylarion. “You will remember that this work is given to you as a charity, which it will profit you not to abuse.”

20
INEVITABLE

Another girl was already before the mirror in the dress-room, running a comb through fair hair; taller than Lalette. She looked over her shoulder at the newcomer with an expression not unlike that of a satisfied cat and went on with her task, humming a little tune; Lalette felt that she was being asked to speak first. “Your pardon,” she said, “but I have just come. Can you tell me where the soap is kept?”

The tall girl surveyed her. “We use our own,” she said, “but if you have not brought any, you may take some of mine tonight. In the black-dressing-box, there on the table—that is, if you do not mind violet scent.”

“Oh, thank you. I didn’t mean . . . My name is Lalette” (again the hesitation, a momentary question whether to say “Bergelin” here, but that was all dead and gone, she would never see him again) “Asterhax.”

“My name is Nanhilde. We don’t use second names in the Myonessae unless we have been married. Have you, ever?”

“I—”

“Oh, you must get rid of old-fashioned prejudices in a place like this. I used to think that being married was something I wanted so much; but it isn’t really. It only chains you to some man, and next thing you know, you’re sewing jackets and raising brats for him. You wait till you’re chosen; he’ll want to marry you and give up being an Initiate. They always do, and if you say yes, you’re lost, not your own mistress any more, and he’ll always blame you.”

Lalette had been washing her face. Now she lifted it from the towel in time to catch the middle term of the series. “But are you—are we of the Myonessae prevented from having children, then?”

“You are a greenie, aren’t you? Of course, not; only we don’t have to snivel around any man for their upkeep. There’s a couvertine for that. I have one there now; the diaconal who fathered him on me had his miniature painted and I’ll show it to you. Hurry with your dress and we’ll go down together. Old quince-face doesn’t like anybody to be late.”

She took Lalette’s arm and guided her along a hall already powder-grey with dusk, to the stairwell, where the racking note of a violin floated in a funnel of light. Below, it was all so different than Lalette had seen it in the morning, or even at noon, when she had eaten a rather gloomy meal of pulse and one apple, while the others around her chattered in a subdued manner under the eye of Dame Quasso. The whole place was now gay with lamps and someone had hung spring branches among them, under which girls were gathered in excited little groups, some of them talking to young men, the ruffles of their dresses vibrating, as though they too had caught the mood of animation. Among the moving heads Lalette could see how the double doors of the eating-hall were flung wide; at its entry the mattern stood, talking with a white-headed man dressed in grey, whose expression never changed. Dame Quasso beckoned; as Lalette worked her way in that direction, a voice floated past, “. . . I told her he already said he would choose me, and I don’t care if I do lose my place, I’m going to ask for an Initiate’s trial. . . .”

The eyes looked down into hers from a height. “This is our newest member, called Lalette,” said the mattern. “She is from Dossola, where she was accused of witchery, and she is somewhat troubled in mind.”

A long gaze. The grey man said; “It is because she feels compelled and has not learned the wonderful freedom of the service of the God of love. My child, witches find it harder than anyone else to forget the material self, but once they do so, attain the most surely to perfection.”

(Perfection? Lalette wanted to cry that it was no desire of hers.) She said; “The material self? I don’t really care what I eat—or where I sleep.”

The grey man said; “Do not think in mere terms of nourishment, which is a means of maintaining the material body we despise. In love, we serve the soul.”

(Lalette felt her inner gorge rising toward forbidden anger.) “I am not sure I understand.”

“Do not be troubled. Many fail to understand in the beginning, and to many, perfection comes after a long struggle in self-denial.”

The rebecks and flutes broke out, all in tune. Dame Quasso offered her arm to the grey man and Lalette looked around to see other pairings, two and two, moving into the eating-hall. She herself was suddenly left unattended, to go in with the blonde Nanhilde. The taller girl leaned close and said; “Nobody.”

“What do you mean?” said Lalette.

“Nobody. Not an obula tonight,” replied Nanhilde.