"What is this, Meg!" cried the Mother. "Have you turned Warrior as well as Priestess? Where did you capture this hairless Man-thing?"
Now was the moment Meg had been at once dreading and looking forward to. She placed her hand proudly within Daiv's, and her voice was the clarion call of trumpets.
"It is no Man-thing, Mother. It is a Man; a real Man such as were the Gods! Not a scrimping parody like our breeders, nor a foul brute like the Wild Ones—but a Man. He is Daiv, my mate!"
"Mate!" The word leaped not only from the mouth of the Mother; it was rasped by the Workers and the Warriors, it was piped in the shrill, frightened quaver of the breeding-mothers. The Mother's eyes clouded.
"Mate, Meg? What madness is this? Surely you know a priestess who would be a Mother may not mate with a Man!"
Daiv said humbly, yet at the same time pridefully, "So Meg believed, O Mother, until I taught her differently—and until she learned the Great Secret at the feet of the Gods. I am Daiv, known as 'He-who-would-learn'; I come from the place of the Escape. My people live by the Laws of the Ancient Ones. In our land Man and Woman are equal; we give and take love in the sacred customs of marriage."
Meg wished desperately that Daiv had said nothing. Given time to lead up to these revelations, she felt she might have presented the argument more convincingly. But in Daiv's deep voice these truths—which she now recognized to be truths—sounded like rankest heresies.
And they drew from the assembled listeners the response Meg had feared. There was the snicking of metal upon metal as the Warriors half-drew their swords from their scabbards; a low rumble of dissent growled from the throats of the Workers. The breeding-mothers squealed like stricken animals, fled with hands covering their ears lest the Gods destroy them for having heard this impious outburst.
Lora, Chieftain of the Warriors, stepped forward, her lean jaw grim. "Blasphemy, O Mother! By Tedhi, She-who-laughs, this Man-thing befouls us with his lies. Shall I strike him down?"