Free Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 by The Ruins of Isis (v2.1) Page A

dear Scholar Dame. Please sit here beside me." She indicated a large,
soft blue cushion. Awkwardly, Cendri lowered herself. There were societies with
chairs, and there were societies without chairs, and she was glad of her young
and athletic knees. The Pro-Matriarch turned her piercing eyes on Dal, who
raised his hands in the Unity gesture of greeting; after a moment the
Pro-Matriarch returned the gesture and Cendri relaxed.
                 "May
I know the name of your Companion, Scholar Dame?"
                 Cendri
said firmly "He is the Master Scholar Dallard Malocq."
                 Vaniya
raised her shaggy eyebrows. Her complexion was tawny, roughened somewhat with
age. "Dear me, all that? What do you call it, my
dear?"
                 Cendri
colored with annoyance and dismay. " Dallard, or
Dal."
                 "Dal." Her smile was charming and hospitable.
"Rhu, you must entertain Dal for me while I talk seriously with the
Scholar Dame," she said, turning to the young man on the cushion beside
her.
                 Women
were moving around the room, setting bowls of fruit and platters of undefinable
substances on the tables, taking their own places. There seemed to be no
servants, or if there were, they sat at table with their betters and were not
distinguished by dress or manner. Lady Miranda took a seat beside Cendri,
saying courteously, "Allow me to serve you, Scholar Dame," and began
to fill her plate with food.
                 "I
trust the rooms prepared for you are comfortable, my dear Scholar Dame,"
Vaniya said.
                 "Very comfortable indeed; very luxurious."
                 "I
hoped you would find them so," Vaniya said. "They are the rooms which
I myself inhabited with my Companion when I was somewhat younger, but such
luxuries, of course, are more suitable for younger women, and I felt it proper
to allot them to the honored guest of the Matriarchate. And,
to her Companion. Your Companion is charming and attractive," she
added, "but I find it surprising that you brought no assistant for your
work among us, Scholar Dame."
                 Cendri,
feeling Dai's eyes upon her said firmly, "I thought it had been made
clear, my Lady, that my Companion is—" she stumbled over the lie,
"—is my assistant, and that I shall require his company and assistance at
all times in the Ruins."
                 "A man, for assistant? But how
surprising!"
                "Dal is a Scholar in his own
right," Cendri said. Vaniya's smile was a little uncertain. "One
understands, certainly, that there are male Scholars on University, which is
why we requested the Scholar Dame di Velo for work here. But it did not occur
to us that a woman Scholar would choose a male for assistant at her serious
business!" Now Cendri identified her expression; Vaniya was scandalized.
"Don't you find it—" she actually blushed, "distracting."
                 Cendri
thought, helplessly, Oh , damn, this is
ridiculous.' The one thing she must not do was blush, now, or she admitted her
vulnerability to this idiotic cultural and sexual taboo! She bit her lip, hard,
and the pain dispelled the blush she felt rising to her cheeks. Her voice was
level. "Not at all distracting, my Lady; our work is kept apart
from—" she fumbled for a moment; the language of Isis had no word for marriage. "From companionship."
                 Miranda
lowered her eyes; Vaniya frowned slightly in puzzlement. "I am not
narrow-minded, I hope; I am not one of those who believes that learning makes a
male somehow unmanly, and on some subjects I can converse with Rhu—" her
eyes dwelt on him, fondly, "almost as with an intelligent woman. But that
is not what I meant, not entirely. You come from a society dominated by men,
Scholar Dame—at least one where the academic prizes are mostly reserved for
men. So it would seem you might well have chosen a