She woke again to see complete spotted sunlight bright across the wall,
wondering for the first sleepy seconds where she was. It was a footstep
that had roused her; she turned her head and saw Gaidu Pyax looking
down, with spots on his costume.
“The greeting of the morning,” he said. “It is spring.”
“Oh,” was all Lalette could say, pulling the covers close around her
neck, and then; “Well, I greet you.”
The smile she had once thought rather pleasant became fixed. “I have
come to keep the spring with you.” He laid his hand on the edge of the
covers. “You are my partner.”
“No. Not this time. No.”
“It is festival morning. You must.”
“No. What would Rodvard say?”
His laugh had an edge of nastiness. “His head will be on another pillow
now. I know him. Why should you not do it as well as he?”
He reached down and began to paw at the bedclothes against her
resistance, the scream she tried to give was only a squeak in that
heavy-hung and distant room, and then he flung himself on her, catching
her wrist to twist it around, crying; “Witch, witch, I will tame you or
break all your bones.” She bit at the hand that touched her face, and
with her own arm swung a sweeping blow that took him where head and neck
join. He was suddenly standing beside the bed again, and she was saying
low and furious, through tears:
“If you force me, I will kill myself and you, too. I swear it by the
Service.”
Gaidu Pyax’ lips pouted out like a little boy’s, he sank slowly to one
knee beside the bed, reaching a hand out gropingly. “Ah, I knew it
couldn’t be true,” he said, and lifted toward her a face of wordless
misery.
For a long minute she looked at him, all her fierceness and resolution
melting in the face of that unhappy desire. (She felt no spark for this
boy, only thought: and what if I do, they do not want me, it was all a
deceit put upon me, and I can at least heal this one’s hurt); and was
just reaching from under the covers to draw him to her and comfort him—
When a flash of lightning wrote in letters of fire across the inside of
her mind the words _Will you go with me now?_ and though there was no
meaning in what they said, she understood that it told the
unfaithfulness of her lover.
The hand that had extended to take that of Pyax patted it instead. “I am
sorry,” she said. “Perhaps it was my fault. I should have told
you. . . . When others do it, I never could. But I thank you for the
good festival.”
13
FAREWELL AND GREETING
Back again to the place of masks through streets littered with the sour
debris of festival, among which languid sweepers toiled. After what had
happened, Lalette did not ask to say farewell to the elder Pyax or Aunt
Zanzanna. There was a twitch at the corner of the doorman’s mouth as he
let them out; she would not let Gaidu accompany her farther than the
market square (for morning had brought back all the anxiety of the price
still on her apprehension). He remarked somewhat spitefully that he
could understand how she would not wish to have her people see a
Zigraner bringing her home.
Laduis answered her knock; he seemed truly happy to see her. The widow
was at the cookshop; Lalette changed the mask of Sunimaa for her worn
clothes, finishing just as the woman returned. They ate, talking but
little, and that much in light terms. Dame Domijaiek sent the boy out,
and as his footsteps went down the stair:
“Did you find him?” she asked.
“He is at Sedad Vix.” Her mouth worked a little, and with the calm eyes
fixed upon her, she could keep it back no more. “He has been unfaithful
to me.”
“I do not understand.”
“In the witch-families we cannot help—”
“Ah. Then it is a knowledge gained through falsity and witchcraft, not
through the God of love, and so will lead to no good end.”
“I am unhappy,” was all Lalette could whisper, (not understanding what
the woman was trying to say).
“It is because you look on this man as personal to you. Love must share
with all.”
(There was something passionately wrong with this, Lalette felt, but rue
and the after-lash of last night’s wine and this morning’s experience
had left her too low to seek out the flaws.) She began to weep softly.
After a few minutes, the widow said: “Let us reason. If you owe him not
less than all love, so he owes as much to you; and by destroying your
joy, he has failed his obligation. Do you still love him, not as we must
love all, but to yourself, as of the material world?”
(It seemed to Lalette as though there were something big and dark and
heavy in her breast where her heart ought to be, and she had no clear
thoughts at all any more.) “I did not—ah, I do not know, he is all I
have.”
“You have a mother, child.”
“A mother who tried to sell me! And still would, if she could find me.”
“Because she wishes to save you from distresses she herself has felt.
That also is done in love, I think.”
“Then I’ll have no love!” cried Lalette, looking up furiously,
tear-drops sparkling on her lashes. “I’ll hate and hate and hate.”
A tiny red spot appeared on each of Dame Domijaiek’s cheeks. “I do not
think you had better say that again in this house,” she said. “I have an
arrangement to make, and will return before evening. Tell Laduis.”
She went out, leaving a Lalette who could hardly bear herself, nor find
anything to do, in her mind going over and over the dreadful ground of
Rodvard’s treachery and the fact that he was one of the Sons of the New
Day. Even if he came to her now, she would not have him, that book was
closed by his own hand; and the boy Laduis coming in, she allowed him to
draw her out of her megrims, so that when the widow returned, they were
almost gay together. But it was almost dawn before sleep touched her.