She entered the cool domed area and stood facing the statue of the goddess in her aspect as mother. There were no seats, so she was still standing half an hour later when a priestess came in and found her brooding over the resemblance between Freya and this mother-goddess.
The priestess approached with a keen gaze. Apparently deciding that Alea was praying, she stood at a discreet distance and waited until Alea turned with a little frown, then stared at the woman.
“Do you come only to pray,” the priestess asked gently, “or do you need to talk with me?”
“I wish to become a priestess,” Alea answered, “or at least, to learn if I have the gift of piety.”
The woman gazed at her, a careful, brooding look, then smiled and said, “There is more to it than piety, but you may have the gift for it indeed. Come, let us talk to the High Priestess.”
That evening, when Alea sat down and relaxed into meditation, she was able to tell Gar, I am a novice priestess now.
She wasn’t prepared for the panic and horror behind his thoughts as he protested. Dazed, she leaned into the fury of the blast and, as it began to slacken, caught beneath it the fear that she would be trapped on this benighted planet and that, moreover, he would be denied her company. Touched, she smiled and thought, Don’t worry, companion. I’m not serious about it—only hoping to learn anything they may know about the Scarlet Company.
Oh. Well, that’s reassuring. Gar calmed considerably. No one has mentioned anything yet, I take it?
No, but I have learned that they have a library. They shouldn’t mind an illiterate peasant leafing through the books to look at the pictures.
Now Gar’s tone was amused. If they’re careless enough to let you in, they deserve what they get. Let me know if the plot’s any good.
The next day, Alea went to the priestess who had inducted her into the temple and asked, with some anxiety, “Lady, you said that there was more needed of me than piety.”
The priestess nodded gravely. “A great deal more.”
“May I ask what?”
“Fortitude, and the willingness to sacrifice comforts and luxuries.”
“I am truly willing! As to fortitude, try me!”
“So we shall,” the priestess murmured. “So we do. Have you the patience to wait until we tell you that you have passed the test?”
Alea bowed her head, abashed. “I have never had overly much patience.”
“That we shall try sorely,” the priestess promised. “However, we of the goddess may be devoted to her above all, but we express that devotion in our care of the people. Have you compassion and the desire to heal and nurture?”
“I-I think I have,” Alea said hesitantly, “but older women have told me you never know until you have someone to care for.”
The priestess positively beamed, pleased with Alea’s humility—or realism. “It is so. Be sure that you will have ample opportunity to test those qualities.”
“Are we … are we to protect as the Scarlet Company does?” Alea ventured.
The priestess frowned, disturbed by the question. “The Scarlet Company has nothing to do with the temples, child—or if it does, we have no knowledge of it!”
Alea sighed with relief—to cover her disappointment.
“Why would you think we did?” the priestess pressed.
“Because I thought … I had heard … Well, the priests and priestesses remind us time and again that we must treat each other with respect and kindness and be careful not to become bullies in any way!”
“Ah. Yes, that much we do.” The priestess’s face smoothed. “But that is not doing the Scarlet Company’s work, child—it is simply giving it that much less to do.”
After that interview, Alea decided that she might learn a great deal from the priestesses, but none of it would be what she wished to know at the moment. Nonetheless, she didn’t resist at all when her mentor called her to assist as she made her rounds.
Her rounds, it seemed, were in one of the poorest parts of the town. The woman strolled down the streets with a basket of food and medicines on her arm, stopping to chat with everyone who wished, going in wherever she was asked to visit someone who was ill. Most were previous patients; she only had to make sure they were still mending or, if they were not, to give the patient a new medicine. Some were new, and here she was careful to explain to Alea every step of her diagnosis and treatment. Alea listened, clinging to every word; most of it she knew already, but the one or two ideas or remedies that were new to her were well worth the time.
As they went back to the temple, she frowned, lost in thought. Finally the priestess asked gently, “What troubles you, my child?”
“I see that I have a very great deal to learn, Reverend Lady,” Alea answered. “May I look in the books in the library? Can I learn faster that way?”
Again the priestess virtually beamed. “Surely you can, once you learn to read—but you may go there this evening and at least look at the books.”
Alea caught the thought that the woman didn’t say—that if the novice really had the interest in learning that a priestess needed, turning pages to look at undecipherable scratchings and glorious pictures would turn her interest into a ravenous hunger.
So after dinner that night, she went down to the library and walked along the shelves, taking in the kind and amount of knowledge stored there. She stopped at the history section, took out a huge volume entitled History of the World, and took it to a reading stand, hoping the world in question would be this one. She turned the pages, realized they were of parchment and that every single character had been drawn by hand, and was staggered by the thought of the number of hours of work this library represented.
Then she turned a page and lost all thought of copyists working by candlelight as she discovered the ancestors’ own view of how and why they had colonized this planet.
16
You persuaded them to let you go into the library already? Gar thought, amazed.
Oh, they’re all in favor of people learning to read, Alea told him. They just didn’t know that I already could, thanks to Herkimer and his teaching program.
They use our alphabet, then?
Our alphabet, and our language, Alea confirmed. In fact, the writings are Terran Standard, much closer to your speech than to their descendants’.
At least they left a record, Gar thought. What were they trying to do here, anyway?
Abolish war and exploitation, Alea told him. They wanted to give their children and grandchildren a world of peace and prosperity in which everyone respected everyone else’s rights and liberties.
Utopia, Gar interpreted. Well, they weren’t the first to try to set up an ideal society. How did they go about it?
By setting up a matriarchy, Alea explained. They thought that patriarchal cultures were much more warlike and oppressive than matriarchal cultures, so that if you never let the male-governed cultures start, the world would be peaceful.
Very idealistic, Gar said slowly. How well did it work? As you’ve seen, Alea replied with a mental shrug. The men have taken an equal place in the villages here, but they haven’t become dictators, and they don’t treat their wives as belongings.