When Romilly delivered the message from Lyondri Hastur to Janni - "Tell her I am not the monster she thinks me, not quite," Jandria said nothing for a long time. Romilly sensed, from her stillness, (although she made a deliberate effort, her first, not to use her laran at all) that Jandria had several things she would have said; but not to Romilly. Then, at last, she said, "And he gave you the medical supplies?"
"He did; and a pack animal to carry them."
Janni went and looked them over, saying at last, tight-lipped, "He was generous. Whatever Lyondri Hastur's faults, niggardliness was never one of them. I should return the pack animal - I want no favors from Lyondri - but the sober truth is that we need it. And it is less to him than buying his son a packet of sweets in the market; I need suffer no qualms of conscience about that." She sent for three of the women to look over the medical supplies, and told Romilly she might return to her horses. As an afterthought, as Romilly was going out the door, she called her back for a moment and said, "Thank you, chiya. I sent you on a difficult and dangerous mission, where I had no right at all to send you, and you carried it off as well as any diplomatic courier could have done. Perhaps I should find work better suited to you than working with the dumb beasts."
Romilly thought; I would rather work with horses than go on diplomatic missions, any day! After a minute or two she said so, and Jandria, smiling, said, "Then I will not keep you
from the work I know you love. Go back to the bones, my dear. But you have my thanks."
Freed, Romilly went back to the paddock and led out the horse she was beginning to break to the saddle. But she had not been at the work very long when Mhari came out to her.
"Romy," she said, "saddle your own horse and two pack animals, at once, and Jandria's riding-horse. She is leaving the hostel tonight, and says you must go with her."
Romilly stared, with one hand absent-mindedly quieting the nervous horse, who did not at all like the blanket strapped to his back. "To leave tonight? Why?"
"As for that, you must ask Janni herself," said Mhari, a little sullenly, "I would be glad to go wherever she would take me, but she has chosen you instead, and she bade me make up a packet of your clothes, and four days journey-rations too."
Romilly frowned with irritation; she was just beginning to make some progress in gentling this horse, and must she interrupt the work already? She was sworn to the Sisterhood, but must that put her at the mercy of some woman's whim? Nevertheless she liked Jandria very much, and was not inclined to argue with her decisions. She shrugged, changed the long lunge-line for a short leading-rope and took the horse back into the stable.
She had finished saddling Jandria's horse, and was just putting a saddle-blanket on her own, when Jandria, cloaked and booted for riding, came into the stable. Romilly noticed, with shock, that her eyes were reddened as if she had been crying; but she only asked "Where are we going, Janni? And why?"
Jandria said, "What Lyondri said to you, Romy, was a message; he knows that I am here; no doubt he had you followed to see where the Sisterhood's hostel was located outside the walls of Hali. Simply by being here, I endanger the Sisterhood, who have taken no part in this war; but I am kin to Orain and he might somehow think to trace Orain through me, might think I know more of Orain's plans - or Carolin's - than I really do. I must leave here at once, so that if Rakhal's men under Lyondri come here to seek me, they can say truthfully, and maintain, even if they should be questioned by a leronis who can read their thoughts, that they have no knowledge of where I have gone, or where Carolin's men, or Orain, may be gathered. And I am taking you with me, for fear Lyondri might try to lay hands on you, too. These other women - he knows nothing of them and cares less; but you have come under his eyes, and I would just as soon you were out of his field of notice ... I would rather not have you at the very gates of Hali. Besides-" her smile was very faint, "Did you not know? A woman of the Sisterhood does not travel alone, but must be companioned by one, at least, of her sisters."
Romilly had not thought of that - Jandria was Orain's kin, and Lyondri Hastur could use her for hostage, too, even if he did not, as Jandria had feared, mean to put her to death. She said formally, "A ves ordres, mestra," and finished saddling her horse.
"Go into the hostel and get yourself some bread and cheese," Jandria said, "We can eat as we ride. But be quick, little sister."
Is there need for such haste as that, or is Jandria afraid without reason? But Romilly did not question her; she did as she was told, returning with a loaf of bread and a great hunk of coarse white new cheese, which she stowed in her saddlebag - she was not hungry now, Jandria's message had effectively destroyed her appetite, but she knew she would be glad of it later. She had a bag of apples, too, which the cook had given her.
She did ask, as they led out their horses to mount, "Where are we going, Janni?"
"I think it would be safer if you did not know that, not just yet," said Jandria, and Romilly saw real fear in her eyes. "Come, little sister, let us ride."
Romilly marked that they rode northward from the city, but the trail soon curved, and Jandria took a small, little-travelled road, hardly more than the track left by mountain chervines, which wound upward and upward into the hills. Before long Romilly had lost all sense of direction, but Jandria seemed never to hesitate, as if she knew precisely where she was going.
Before long they began to ride under the cover of heavy forested slopes, and Jandria seemed to relax a little; after an hour or so she asked for some of the bread and cheese, and ate it with a good appetite. Romilly, chewing on the coarse crust, began to wonder again, but did not ask.
At last Jandria said, mounting again and taking the lead-rope of the pack animal, "Even a sentry-bird cannot spy us out here. I know not if Lyondri has such birds trained to his use - they are not really all that common - but I thought it better to keep under cover till the trail was well and truly lost; all Gods forbid I should lead him straight to Carolin's armies."
"Is that where we are going?"
"The Sisterhood has a cohort of soldiers there," said Jandria, "and your skills may be needed to train horses for the army. And I doubt not that the Sisterhood with Carolin's army can make use of me, somehow or other. If Lyondri knew I was in the hostel - as he must have known or he would not have sent that message - then he might think, or Rakhal might think for him, that if he kept watch on me, I might lead him straight to Carolin's rendezvous; even if he could not tear the knowledge of that rendezvous straight from my mind without even a leronis to aid him. So I hastened to get out of there, and into the cover of the forest, so that he could not set watch on the hostel and give orders to have me followed. I may possibly have moved faster than he, for once; and it may be that we are already safe." But she glanced apprehensively down the trail where they had come, and then, even more apprehensively, at the sky, as if even now Lyondri's sentry-birds could be hovering there to spy them out And her fear made Romilly frightened too.
That night they camped still within the shelter of the forest, and Jandria even forbade a cooking-fire; they ate the cold bread and cheese, and tethered the animals under a great tree. They spread their blankets beneath another, doubled for warmth (although the mountain-bred Romilly found it reasonably warm) and Romilly slept quickly, tired from riding. But she woke once in the night to hear soft sounds as if Jandria was crying. She wished, wretchedly, that she could say something to comfort the other woman, but it was a trouble far beyond her comprehension. At last she slept again, but woke early to find Jandria already up and saddling the horses. Her eyes were dry and tearless, her face barricaded, but the eyelids were red and swollen.
"Do you think we can risk a fire this morning? I would like some hot food, and if we are not pursued by now, surely we must have gotten away," Romilly said, and Jandria shrugged.
"I suppose it makes no difference. If Lyondri truly wishes to find me, I am sure he would not need trackers, seeing that he read my thoughts of him so far away. It would not be Lyondri who pursued us, but Rakhal, in any case." She was silent, sighing. "Build us a fire, and I will cook some hot porridge, little sister. I have no right to make this trip harder for you with my causeless fears and dreads; you have travelled so long and hard already, Romy, and already I have you off again when you thought you had found a place of repose."
"It's all right," Romilly said, not knowing what to say. She would rather travel with Jandria than remain in the hostel with the strange women among whom she had made no friends as yet. She knelt to kindle a fire. But when they were eating hot porridge, and their horses munching at ease in the grass, Romilly asked, hesitantly, "Do you grieve for Lyondri?" What she was wondering, was this; Lyondri had been her lover, was she still bound to him? Jandria seemed to know what she meant, and sighed, with a small sad smile.
"My grief, I suppose, is for myself," she said at last. "And for the man I thought Lyondri was - the man he might have been, if Rakhal had not seduced him with the thought of power. That man, the man I loved, is dead - so long dead that even the Gods could not recall him from whatever place our dead hopes go. He still wants my good opinion - so much the message, or warning, meant - but that could be no more than vanity, which was always strong in him. I do not think he is all evil," she said, and stumbled a little over it, "The fault is Rakhal's. But by now he must know what Rakhal is, and still follows after him. So I cannot hold him guiltless of all the atrocities done in Rakhal's name."
Romilly asked, shyly, "Did you know them both - Carolin and Rakhal? How did Rakhal come to seize his throne?"
But Jandria shook her head. "I do not know. I left court when Rakhal still professed to be Carolin's most loyal follower, accepting all the favors Carolin showered on him as his dearest cousin who had been fostered with him."
"Carolin must be a good man," said Romilly at last, "to inspire such devotion in Orain. And-" she hesitated, "in you."
She said, "But surely when you were with Orain, you met with Carolin?"
Romilly shook her head. "I understood the king was at Nevarsin; but I did not meet with him."
Jandria raised her eyebrows, but all she said was, "Finish your porridge, child, and rinse the dish in the stream, and we shall ride again."
Silently, Romilly went about her work, saddling the horses, loading what was left of their food. But as they mounted, Jandria said, so long after that Romilly had almost forgotten what she asked, "Carolin is a good man. His only fault is that he trusts the honor of the Hasturs without reason; and he made the mistake of trusting Rakhal. Even Orain could not tell him what Rakhal was, nor could I; he thought Orain was only jealous. Jealous - Orain!"
"What is Rakhal like?" asked Romilly, but Jandria only shook her head.
"I cannot speak of him fairly; my hate blinds me. But where Carolin loves honor above all things, and then he loves learning, and he loves his people, Rakhal loves only the taste of power. He is like a mountain-cat that has had a taste of blood." She climbed into her saddle, and said, "Today you will take the pack-animal's leading-rope, and I will ride ahead, since I know where we are going."
When they had come out from under the cover of the forest, Romilly had again the faint far sense of being watched; that trickle of awareness in her mind that told her Preciosa was watching her; the hawk did not descend to her hand, but once or twice Romilly caught a glimpse of the bird hovering high in the sky, and knew she was not alone. The thought warmed her so deeply that she was no longer aware of fear or apprehension.
She and I are one; she has joined her life to mine. Romilly was dimly aware that this must be something like marriage, indissoluble, a tie which went deep into the other's body and spirit. She had no such tie for instance with her present horse, though he had carried her faithfully and she wished him well and thought often of his welfare.
The horse is my friend. Preciosa is something else, something like a lover.
And that made her think, shyly and almost for the first time, what it might be like to have a lover, to have a bond with someone as close to her as the hawk, tied in mind and heart and even in body, but someone with whom she could communicate, not as the MacArans did with their horses and hounds and hawks, across the vast gulf that lay between man and horse, women and hawk, child and dog, but with the close bonding of species. Dom Garris had wanted her, but his lecherous glances had roused nothing in her but revulsion; revulsion doubled when it was Rory, who would as soon have cut her throat for her horse and cloak and a few coppers, but had wished to bed her as well.
Orain had wanted her - at least while he still believed her to be a boy. And . . . deliberately facing something she had not even clearly understood at the time . . . she had wanted him. Although, when it was happening, she had not realized what her own strange feelings meant. Even so, she would rather have had Orain as a friend than a lover; she had been willing to accept him as a lover, when she thought he knew her a woman and wanted her, in order to keep him as a friend. But had she never seriously thought of any man in that way? Certainly none of the boys she had grown up knowing, her brothers' friends - she could no more envision them as lovers than as husbands, and a husband was the last thing she would have wanted.
I think I could have married one like Alderic. He spoke to me as a human being, not only as his friend Darren's silly little sister. Nor was he the kind of man who would feel he must control me every moment, fearing I would fly away like an untamed hawk if he let go of the jesses for a moment.
Not that I wanted him as a husband, so much. But perhaps I could make up my mind to marry if the husband had first been my friend.
All during that day and the next, whenever she took her eyes from the trail, she could see, at the furthest range of her vision, that Preciosa still hovered there, and feel the precarious thread of communication from the hawk, strange divided sight, seeing the trail under her feet, aware of her own body in the saddle, and yet some indefinable part of her flying free with the hawk, far above the land and hillside slopes. Jandria had told her that they were travelling now in what was called he Kilghard Hills.
They were not like her home mountains - bleak and hare with great rock cliffs and poor soil of which every arable scrap must be carefully reclaimed and put under cultivation for food; and even less were they like the broad and fertile Plains of Valeron which they had crossed enroute to Hali. These were hills, high and steep and with great deserted tracts of wild country set with virgin forest and sometimes overgrown in thick brush-tangles so that they must cut their way through or, sometimes, retrace their steps tediously and go round. But there was no lack of hunting. Sometimes, before sunset, drowsing in her saddle, Romilly would feel something of her fly free with the hawk, stoop down and feel, sharing with Preciosa, the startle of the victim, the quick killing stroke and the burst of fresh blood in her own veins. . . . Yet every time it came freshly to her as a new experience, uniquely satisfying.
Once, she thought it was the sixth day of their journey, she was flying in mind with the hawk when her horse stepped into a mudrabbit-burrow and stumbled, fell; lay thrashing and screaming, and Romilly, thrown clear of the stirrups, lay gasping, bruised and jarred to the bone. By the time she was conscious enough to sit up, Jandria had dismounted and was helping her to rise.
In the name of Zandru's frozen hells, where was your mind, you who are so good a horseman, not to see that burrow?" she demanded crossly. Romilly, shocked by the horse's screams, went to kneel by his side. His eyes were red, his mouth flecked with the foam of agony, and, quickly sliding into rapport with him, she felt the tearing pain in her own leg, and saw the bare, white, shattered bone protruding through the skin. There was nothing to be done; weeping with horror and grief, she fumbled at her belt for her knife and swiftly found where the great artery was under the flesh; she thrust with one fast, deep stroke. A final, convulsive struggle, a moment of deathly pain and fear - then it was quiet, all around her stunned and quiet, and the horse, with his fear, was simply gone, gone from her, leaving her empty and cold.
Stunned, fumbling, Romilly wiped her knife on a clump of. grass and put it again into its sheath. She could not look up and meet Jandria's eyes. Her damned laran had cost the horse his life, for had she been attending to her riding, she would surely have seen the burrow....
Jandria said, at last, "Was it necessary?"
"Yes." Romilly did not elaborate. Jandria did not have laran enough to understand, and there was no reason to burden her with all Romilly's own feelings of guilt, the rage at her own Gift which had tempted her to forget the horse beneath her in straining for the hawk above. Swallowing hard against the tears still rising and making a lump in her throat, she cursed the Gift. "I am sorry, Janni. I - I should have been more careful-"
Jandria sighed. "I was not reproaching you, chiya; it is ill fortune, that is all. For here we are shy of a horse in the deepest part of the hills, and I had hoped we could reach Serrais by tomorrow's nightfall."
"Is that where we are going? And why?"
"I did not tell you, in case we were followed; what you did not know, you could not tell-"
So Jandria does not trust me. Well enough; it seems I am not trustworthy . . . certainly my poor horse did not find me so.... yet she protested. "I would not betray you-"
Gently, Jandria said, "I never thought of that, love. I meant only what you did not know could not be wrung from you by torture, or ravished from your mind by a leronis armed with one of their starstones. They could find out quickly that you knew nothing. But now you would know in a day or two, anyhow."
She knelt beside Romilly and began to tug at the saddle straps. "You can ride one of the pack chervines; they cannot travel at the speed of your horse, but we can put both the packs on the back of the other. We will travel less swiftly by chervine-pace than we would with two good horses, but it can't be helped."
She began to off-load the nearer of the chervines, saw Romilly standing stone-still and snapped, "Come and help me with this."
Romilly was staring at the dead horse. Insects were already beginning to move in the clotted blood around the smashed leg. "Can't we bury him?"
Jandria shook her head. "No time, no tools. Leave him to feed the wild things." At Romilly's look of shock she said gently, "Dear child, I know what your horse meant to you-"
No you don't, Romilly thought fiercely, you never could.
"Do you think it matters even a little to him whether his body is left to feed the other wild things, or whether he has a funeral fit for a Hastur-lord? He is not in his body any more."
Romilly swallowed hard. "I know it makes sense when you say it like that, but-" she broke off, gulping. Jandria laid a gentle hand on her arm.
"There are beasts in this forest who depend on the bodies of the dead things for their food. Must they go hungry, Romy? This is only sentiment You feel no pain when your hawk kills for her food."
To Romilly's sore senses it seemed that Jandria was taunting her with her inattention, that she was away somewhere sharing the kill with her hawk and thus leading her horse to its death. She wrenched her arm free of Jandria's and said bitterly, "I don't have any choice, do I? A ves ordres, mestra," and began wrenching at the pack-loads of the other chervine. In her mind, aching, accusing, was the memory of the sentry-birds for whom she had spied out carrion. Now her horse would fall prey to the kyorebni, and perhaps that was as it should be, but she felt she could not bear to see it, knowing her own carelessness had cost the faithful creature his life.
As if for comfort she looked into the sky, but Preciosa was nowhere in sight.
Perhaps she too has left me...
Toward nightfall the land changed; the green fields gave way to sandy plateaus, and the roads were hard-baked clay. The chervines were forest and hill creatures, and walked laggingly, little rivulets of sweat tracing vertical lines down their thick coats. Romilly wiped her forehead with her sleeve and took off her thick cloak and tied it in a bundle on her saddle. The sun was stronger here, it seemed, and blazed with cloudless intensity from a clear, pale sky. Twilight was beginning to fall when Jandria pointed.
"There lies Serrais," she said, "and the hostel of the Sisterhood where we shall sleep tonight, and perhaps for a span of tendays. I shall be glad to sleep in a proper bed again - won't you?"
Romilly agreed, but secretly she was sorry that the long journey was coming to an end. She had grown fond of Jandria, and the thought of living in a houseful of strange women really frightened her. Furthermore, she supposed, now she was in a regular dwelling-place of the Sisterhood, she would be required to go back to the frightening lessons in swordplay and unarmed combat, and she dreaded it.
Well, she had chosen to swear to the Sisterhood, she must do her best in that place in life to which she had been guided by providence. Bearer of Burdens, help me to bear mine then as you bear the world's weight! And then she felt surprised at herself. She could not remember, before this, thinking much about prayer, and now it seemed that she was forever turning to such little prayers. I wonder, is this what the Book of Burdens calls Dhe shaya, a grace of God, or is it only a kind of weakness, a sense born of loneliness, that I have nowhere else to turn? Jandria was her friend, she thought, but she would not share her fears, Janni enjoyed the life of the Sisterhood and was not terrified at the very thought of wars and battles; such things as the village blighted with bonewater-dust enraged and horrified her, but they did not fill her with that kind of terror; Janni seemed quite free of that kind of personal fear!
They rode into the city when dusk had already fallen, and made their way through the strange wide street, the old houses of bleached stone that shone with pallid luminescence in the moonlight. Romilly was almost asleep in her saddle, trusting the path to the steady plodding pace of her chervine. She roused up a little when Jandria stopped before a great arched gate with a rope and bell hanging from it, and pulled on it. Far away inside, she heard the sound, and after a time a drowsy voice inquired, "Who is it?"
"Two women of the Sisterhood come from Hali," Janni called, "Jandria, Swordswoman, and Romilly, apprentice Swordswoman, oathbound and seeking shelter here."
The door creaked open, and a woman peered out into the street
"Come in, Sisters," she said. "Lead the beasts into the stable there, you can throw them some fodder if you wish. We are all at supper." She pointed to a stable inside the enclosure, and they dismounted, leading the tired animals into the barn. Romilly blinked when she saw the place by the faint lanternlight; it was not large, but in a couple of loose-boxes at the back she saw crowded horses, some of the finest horses she had ever seen. What was this place, and why did they crowd so many horses into so small a stable? She felt full of questions, but was too shy to speak any of them. She put her chervine into one of the smaller stalls, led Jandria's horse into another, then shouldered her pack and followed the strange woman into the house.
There was a good smell of fresh-baked bread, and the spicy, unfamiliar smells of some kind of cooking food. In a long room just off the hall where they left their packs, at a couple of long tables, what looked like four or five dozen women were crowded together, eating soup out of wooden bowls, and there was such a noise of rattling bowls and crockery, so much shouting conversation from one table to another and from one end to the other of the dining tables that Romilly involuntarily flinched - after the silence of the trails through forest and desert, the noise was almost deafening.
"There are a couple of seats down there," said the woman who had admitted them. "I am Tina; after supper I will take you to the housemother and she can find you beds somewhere, but we are a little crowded, as you can see; they have quartered half the Sisterhood upon us here, it seems, though I must say they're good about sending army rations here to feed them. Otherwise we'd all be living on last year's nuts! You can go and sit down and eat - you must be wanting it after that long ride."
It did not seem that there was any room at all at the table she indicated, but Jandria managed to find a place where the crowding was a little less intense, and by dint of some good-natured pushing and squeezing, they managed to wriggle into seats on the benches, and a woman, making the rounds of the tables with a jug and ladle, poured some soup into their bowls and indicated a couple of cut loaves of bread. Romilly pulled her knife from her belt and sawed off a couple of hunks, and the girl squeezed in next to her - a good-natured smiling woman with freckles and dark hair tied back at her waist -shoved a pot of fruit spread at her. "Butter's short just now, but this goes pretty good on your bread. Leave the spoon in the jar."
The spread tasted like spiced apples, boiled down to a paste. The soup was filled with unidentifiable chunks of meat and strange vegetables, but Romilly was hungry and ate without really caring what it was made of.
As she finished her soup, the woman next to her said, "My name is Ysabet; most people call me Betta. I came here from the Tendara hostel. And you?"
"We were in Hali, and before that, in Caer Donn," Romilly said, and Betta's eyes widened. "Where the king fled? Did you see his army there?"
Romilly nodded, remembering Orain and a banner in a strange street.
"I heard Carolin was camped north of Serrais," Betta said, "and that they will march, before snow falls, on Hali again. The camp is full of rumors, but this one is stronger than most. What is your skill?"
Romilly shook her head. "Nothing special. I train horses and sometimes hawks, and I have handled sentry-birds."
Betta said, "They told us that an expert in horse-training was to come from Hali! Why, you must be the one, then, unless it is your friend there - what is her name?"
"She is Jandria," Romilly said, and Betta's eyes widened.
"Lady Jandria! Why, I have heard of her, if it is the same one, they said she is cousin to Carolin himself - I know we are not supposed to think of rank, but yes, I see she has red hair and a look of the Hasturs - well, they said they would send a Swordswoman from Hali, and a woman adept at horse-training. We will need it - did you see all the horses in the stable? And there are as many more in the paddock, and they were taken as a levy from the Alton country in the Kilghard Hills . . . and now they are to be broken for Carolin's armies, so that the Sisterhood will ride to battle for Carolin, our true king . . ." Then she looked at Romilly suspiciously. "You are for Carolin, are you not?"
"I have ridden from before daylight till after dark, today and for the last seven days," Romilly said, "By now I hardly know my own name, let alone that of the king." It seemed very hot in the room, and she could hardly keep her eyes open. But then, remembering that they had fled from the possibility of being followed by Lyondri Hastur, she added, "Yes; we are for Carolin."
"As I said, half the Sisterhood seems to be quartered on us here," Betta said, "and there are so many rumors in this place. Two nights ago we had women sleeping on the tables in here, and even under them, even though we who live here in the hostel slept two to a bed and gave up the emptied beds to the newcomers."
"I have slept on the ground often enough;" Romilly said, "I can sleep somewhere on the floor." At least this was out of the rain, and under a roof.
"Oh, I am sure that for the Lady Jandria they can find a bed somewhere," Betta said. "Are you her lover?"
Romilly was too tired and confused even to know for certain what Betta meant. "No, no, certainly not." Although, she supposed, the question was reasonable. Why would a woman seek the life of a Swordswoman, when she could just as well marry? There had been a time or two, since she had come among the Sisterhood, when she had begun to wonder if her constant rejection of the idea of marriage meant that at heart she was a lover of women. She felt no particular revulsion at the thought, but no particular attraction to it either. Fond as she had grown of Jandria during these days, it would never have occurred to her to seek her out as she had sought Orain. But now her attention had been forcibly drawn to the subject, she wondered again. Is this why I have never really wanted it man, and even with Orain, it was a matter of liking and kindness, not any real desire?
I am too tired to think clearly about anything, let alone anything as important as that! But she knew she must consider it some day, especially if her life was to be spent among the Sisterhood.
One by one, or in little groups of three and four, the women of the Sisterhood were leaving the table and going to seek their various beds. Blanket rolls stowed in a corner of the big room were unrolled on the floor, with some good-natured bickering for places near the log-fire; Tina came and found them and led them to a room with three beds, two of which were already occupied.
"You can sleep there," she told them, "And the Housemother wants to see you, Lady Jandria."
Janni said to Romilly, "Go to bed and sleep; I will be along later." Romilly was so tired that, although she told herself it would be difficult to sleep in a room with four other women, some of whom were certain to snore, she was fast asleep even before her head hit the pillow, and did not remember, afterward, at what hour Jandria had come in.
But the next morning, when they were dressing, she said to Jandria, "They seemed to know who you were, and to be expecting us. How could you send a message that would come faster than we did ourselves?"
Jandria looked up, a stocking in her hand. She said, "There is a leronis of my acquaintance with Carolin's army; this is why I dared not fall into the hands of Lyondri. I know too much. I sent word, and asked that news be sent to the hostel of the Sisterhood; so that they were ready to admit us. Do you really think they would open their doors after dark in a city full of soldiers, and readying for war?"
It seemed to Romilly that every day she learned something new about Jandria. So she had laran too? Laran of that curious kind which could link to send messages over the trackless miles? She felt shy and confused again - could Janni read what she was thinking, know all her rebellion, her fears? She kept her mind away from the implications of that.
"If I am to break horses here," she said, "I suppose I should go at once to the stables and begin."
Jandria laughed. "I think there will be time to have breakfast first," she said, "The Housemother told me to sleep as long as I could after the long ride; and I think we have slept long enough that we can find someplace to eat in the dining-room without kicking the sleepers off tables. That was the only reason I did not want to sleep on the floor there - I knew the cooks and servers for this tenday would come in and rouse us at daybreak so they could get to their breakfast kettles!"
And indeed by the time they were dressed, the dining-room was empty, with only a few old women lingering over cups of hot milk and bread soaked in them. They helped themselves to porridge from the kettle and ate, after which Betta came in search of them.
"You are to go to the Housemother, Lady Jandria," she said, "And Mistress Romilly to the stables."
Jandria chuckled good-naturedly and said, "Just Jandria or Janni. Have you forgotten the rule of the Sisterhood?"
"Janni, then," Betta replied, but she still spoke with residual deference. "Practice in unarmed combat is at noon in the grass-court; swordplay at the fourth hour after. I will see you there."
In the stables and paddock, Romilly found a number of horses; black horses from the Kilghard Hills, the finest she had ever seen. It would be, she thought, a pleasure and a privilege to train these to the saddle.
"They are needed by the Army, in as much haste as possible," said Tina, who had brought her here, "And they must be trained to the saddle, to a steady pace, and to stand against loud noises. I can get you as many helpers as you need, but we have no expert, and Lady Jandria told us that you have the MacAran Gift. So you will be in charge of the work of training them."
Romilly looked at the horses; there were a good two dozen of them. She asked, "Have any of them been trained to pacing on a lunge-line?"
"About a dozen," Tina said, and Romilly nodded.
"Good; then find a dozen women who can try their paces, and take them out in the paddock," she said, "and I will begin getting to know the others."
When the women came she noticed that Betta was among them, and greeted her with a nod and smile. She sent them out to work for a few minutes at running the horses in circles on the lunge-lines, steadying their paces, and went into the stable to choose the horse which she would herself work with.
She decided to give each horse into the charge of the woman who had exercised it today; it was easier if they formed a close tie with the horse.
"For then the animal will trust you," she told them, "and will do things to please you. But it cannot be a one-way connection," she warned, "Even as the horse loves and trusts you, you must love him - or, if it is a mare, love her - and be completely trustworthy, so that the horse can read in your mind that you love; you cannot pretend, for he will read a lie in moments. You must be open to the horse's feelings, too. Another thing-" she gestured to the short training-whips which were in their hands, "You can snap the whips if you like, to get their attention. But if you hit any horse enough to mark it, you are no trainer; if I see a whip in serious use, you can go and practice your swordplay instead!"
She sent them to work and listened for a moment to the chattering as they went out.
"Not to use our whips? What are they for, then?"
"I don't understand this woman. Where is she from, the far mountains? Her speech is so strange. ..."
Romilly would have thought it was their speech which was strange, slow and thoughtful, as if they chewed every word a dozen times before speaking; while it seemed to her that she talked naturally. Still, after she had heard a dozen women say they they could not understand her, she tried to slow her own speech and speak with what seemed to her an affected, unnatural slowness.
If they were at Falconsward, everyone would think their speech silly, foreign, affected. I suppose it is a matter of what they are used to.
She turned to the horses with definite relief. At least, with them, she could be herself and they, at any rate, would not be critical of her speech or manners.
The horses, at least, speak my language, she thought with pleasure.
There were so many of them, and of all kinds, from sturdy shaggy mountain ponies like the one she had killed on the way here, to sleek blacks such as her own father bred. She went into the loose-box among them (to the distinct horror of Betta, who seemed as troubled as if she had gone into a cage full of carnivorous mountain-cats) and moved through them, trying to find the right horse to begin with. She must do a splendid job of training, because she knew that there was some grumbling - she looked so young, they said, and they would be quick to spot any mistakes.
I am not so young, and I have been working among horses since I was nine years old. But they do not know that.
As she moved through the box, one horse backed up against the wooden rails and began kicking; Romilly noticed the wide rolling eyes, the lips drawn back over the teeth.
"Come out and away from that one, Romilly, he's a killer - we are thinking of returning him to the Army, who can turn him out to pasture for stud; no one will be able to ride that one - he's too old for breaking to saddle!" Tina called it anxiously, but Romilly, lost and intent, shook her head.
He is frightened almost to death, no more. But he won't hurt me.
"Bring me a lead-rope and bridle, Tina. No, you needn't come into the box if you are afraid, just hand it to me across the rails," she said. Tina handed it through, her face pale with apprehension, but Romilly, rope in hand, had her eyes only on the black horse.
Well, you beauty, you, do you think we can make friends, then?
The horse backed nervously, but he had stopped kicking. What fool put him into this crowded box, anyhow? Softly, softly, Blackie, 1 won't hurt you; do you want to go out in the sunshine? She formed a clear image of what she meant to do, and the horse, snorting uneasily, let him pull her head down and slip bridle and lead-rope over it. She heard Tina catch her breath, amazed, but she was so deeply entwined now with the horse that she had no thought to spare for the woman.
"Open the gate," she said abstractedly, keeping close contact with the mind of the stallion. "That's wide enough. Come along now, you beautiful black thing. . . . See, if you handle them right, no horse is vicious; they are only afraid, and don't know what's expected of them."
"But you have laran," said one of the watchers, grudgingly, "We don't; how can we do what you do?"
"Laran or no," Romilly said, "if your whole body and every thought in it is stiff with fear, do you expect the horse not to know it, to smell it on you, even? Act as if you trusted the animal, talk to him, make a clear picture in your mind of what you want to do - who knows, they may have some land of laran of their own. And above all, let him know absolutely that you won't hurt him. He will see and feel it in every movement you make, every breath, if you are afraid of him or if you wish him ill." She turned her attention back to the horse. "So, now, lovely fellow, we're going into the sunshine in the paddock . . . come along, now . . . no, not that way, silly, you don't want to go back in the stable," she said half aloud, with a little tug on the ropes. In the paddock half a dozen women were running horses in circles on the long lunge-lines, calling to them, and in general keeping the pace smooth. Romilly made a quick check of what was going on - none of them were doing really badly, but then no doubt they had chosen the more docile animals for training first - and found a relatively isolated place of paddock; one or more of the mares might be in season and she did not want him distracted. She backed away on the lunge-line and clucked to him.
He was strong, a big, heavy horse, and for a moment Romilly was almost jerked off her feet as he began to lope, found the line confining him, then explored its limits and began to run in a circle at its limit. She pulled hard and he slowed to a steady walk, around and around. After a little, when she was sure he had the idea, she began to let him move a little faster.
His paces are beautiful; a horse fit for Carolin's self. Oh, you glorious thing, you!
She let him run for almost an hour, accustoming him to the feeling of the bridle, then called for a bit. He fought it a little, in surprise - Romilly half sympathized with him; she did not much blame him, she did not think she would care to have a cold metal thing forced into her mouth, either.
But that's the way it is, beauty, you'll get used to it, and then you can ride with your master. .. .
At noon she led him back, suggesting to one of the women they put her more docile horse into the loose-box and leave her own small stall for the black stallion. Already, it seemed, she could see the nebulous figure of King Carolin riding into Hali on this splendid horse.
From this work, which she found easy - well, not exactly easy, but familiar and pleasant - she was sent to practice unarmed combat. She did not especially mind having to learn to fall without hurting herself - she had, after all, fallen from a horse more times than she could remember while she was learning to ride, and she supposed the skill was similar - but the series of holds, thrusts, jabs and throws seemed endlessly complex, and it seemed that every woman there, including the beginners with whom she was set to practice basic movements, knew more of it than she did. One of the older women, watching her for a moment, finally motioned her away, signalled to the others to go on, and said, "How long have you been pledged to the Sisterhood, my girl?"
Romilly tried to remember. Things had been happening so swiftly in the last few moons that she really had no notion. She shrugged helplessly. "I am not sure. Some tendays-"
"And you do not see much cause for this kind of training, do you?"
She said, carefully trying to be tactful, "I am sure there must be some reason for it, if it is taught in every hostel of the Sisterhood."
"Where were you brought up - what's your name?"
"Romilly. Or I'm called Romy sometimes. And I was brought up in the foothills of the Hellers, near Falconsward."
The woman nodded. "I would have guessed that much from your speech; but you grew up in outland country, then, not near to a big city, where you never met a stranger?"
"That's true."
"Well, then. Suppose you are walking down a city street, one of the more crowded and dirty sections." She beckoned and the girl who had sat next to Romilly at supper last night, Betta, came and joined them.
"You are walking along a duty street where thieves cluster and men think all women like the doxies of the taverns," the older woman said. Betta shrugged, began to walk along the wall and the older woman suddenly leaped at her with a strangling grip. Romilly gasped as Betta twisted her upper body, jerked the woman forward and flung her to her knees, her arm immobilized behind her back.
"Ow! Betta, you are a little rough, but I think Romy sees what is meant. Now, come at me with a knife."
Betta took up a small wooden stick, about the size of a clasp-knife, and came at the woman with 'knife' lowered to stab. So rapidly that Romilly could not see what happened, the 'knife' was in the other woman's hands and Betta lying on her back on the floor, where the older woman pretended to kick her.
"Careful, Clea," Betta warned, laughing and moving out of the way, then suddenly jerked at the woman's foot and pulled her down.
Laughing in her turn, Clea scrambled up. She said to Romilly, "Now do you see what good this might be to you? Particularly in a city like this, where we are at the edge of the Drylands, and there are likely to be men who think of women as possessions to be chained and imprisoned? But even in a civilized city like Thendara, you are likely to meet with those who will have neither respect nor courtesy for man or woman. Every women taken into the Sisterhood must learn to protect herself, and-" her laughing face suddenly turned deadly serious, "When you are life-pledged to the Sisterhood, like myself, you will wear this." She laid her hand on the dagger at her throat "I am pledged to kill rather than let myself be taken by force; to kill the man if I can, myself if I cannot."
A shiver ran down Romilly's back. She did not know whether she would be able to do that or not. She had been prepared to injure Rory seriously, if she must. But to kill him? Would that not make her as bad as he was?
I shall face that if, and when, I am sworn for life to the Sisterhood, should that day ever come. By then, maybe, I will know what I can do and what I cannot.
Clea saw her troubled look and patted her shoulder. "Never mind, you will learn. Now get over there and practice. Betta, take her and show her the first practice moves so she won't be so confused; time enough later to throw her into a group of beginners."
Now that somebody had bothered to inform Romilly what they were doing and why, it went better. She began to realize, then and in the days that followed, that when she faced another woman in these sessions, she could read, by following tiny body and eye movements, precisely what the other was going to do, and take advantage of it. But knowing was not enough; she also had to learn the precise movements and holds, jabs and thrusts and throws, the right force to use without actually damaging anyone.
And yet, in men's clothing, I travelled all through the Hellers. I would rather live in such a way that I need not be prey to any man.
Yet there was pride, too, in knowing that she could defend herself and need never ask for mercy from anyone. Later the lessons in swordplay seemed easier to her, but they brought another fear to the surface of her mind.
It was all very well to practice with wooden batons where the only penalty for a missed stroke was a bad bruise. But could she face sharp weapons without terror, could she actually bring herself to strike with a sharp weapon at anyone? The thought of slicing through human flesh made her feel sick.
I am not a Swordswoman, no matter what they call me. I am a horse trainer, a bird handler . . . fighting is not my business.
The days passed, filled with lessons and hard work. When she had been there for forty days, she realized that Midsummer was approaching. Soon she would have been absent from her home for a whole year. No doubt her father and stepmother thought her long dead, and Darren was being forced to take his place as Heir to Falconsward. Poor Darren, how he would hate that! She hoped for her father's sake that little Rael was able to take her place, to learn some of the MacAran gifts,- if Rael was what her father would have called "true MacAran", perhaps Darren would be allowed to return to the monastery. Or perhaps he would go as she had done, without leave.
A year ago her father had betrothed her to Dom Garris. What changes there had been in a year! Romilly knew she had grown taller - she had had to put all the clothes she had worn when she came here, into the box of castoffs, and find others which came nearer to fitting her. Her shoulders were broader, and because of the continuous practice at swordplay and her work with the horses, her muscles in upper arms and legs were hard and bulging. How Mallina would jeer at her, how her stepmother would deplore it - You do not look like a lady, Romilly. Well, Romilly silently answered her stepmother's imagined voice, I am not a lady but a Swordswoman.
But all her troubles disappeared every day when she was working with the horses, and especially for the hour every day when she worked with the black stallion. No hand but hers ever touched him; she knew that one day, this would be a mount fit for the king himself. Day followed day, and moon followed moon, and season followed season; winter closed in, and there were days when she could not work even with the black stallion, let alone the other horses. Nevertheless, she directed their care. Time and familiarity had changed the strange faces in the hostel to friends. Midwinter came, with spicebread, and gifts exchanged in the hostel among the Sisterhood. A few women had families and went home to visit them; but when Romilly was asked if she wished for leave to visit her home, she said steadily that she had no kin. It was simpler that way. But she wondered; how would her father receive her, if she came home for a visit, asking nothing, a professional Swordswoman in her tunic of crimson, and the ensign of the Sisterhood in her pierced ear? Would he drive her forth, say that she was no daughter of his, that no daughter of his could be one of those unsexed women of the Sisterhood? Or would he welcome her with pride, smile with welcome and even approve of her independence and the strength she had shown hi making a life for herself away from Falconsward?
She did not know. She could not even guess. Perhaps one day, years from now, she would risk trying to find out. But in any case she could not travel into the depths of the Hellers at the midwinter-season; most of the women who took leave for family visits lived no further away than Thendara or Hali, which was, perhaps, seven days ride.
In this desert country there were few signs of spring. One day it was cold, icy winds blowing and rain sweeping across the plains, and the next day, it seemed, the sun shone hot and Romilly knew that far away in the Hellers the roads were flooding with the spring-thaw. When she could work the horses, she took off her cloak and worked in a shabby, patched tunic and breeches.
With the spring came rumors of armies on the road, of a battle far away between Carolin's forces and the armies of Lyondri Hastur. Later they heard that Carolin had made peace with the Great House of Serrais, and that his armies were gathering again on the plains. Romilly paid little heed. All her days were taken up with the new group of horses brought in to them early in the spring - they had put up a shelter for them and rented a new paddock outside the walls of the hostel, where Romilly went with the women she was training, every afternoon. Her world had shrunk to stables and paddock, and to the plain outside the city where they went, two or three days in every ten, to work and exercise the horses. One afternoon when they left the city and went out through the gates, leading the horses, Romilly saw tents and men and horses, a bewildering crowd.
"What is it?" she asked, and one of the women, who went out every morning to shop for fresh milk and fresh fruits, told her, "It is the advance guard of Carolin's army; they will establish their camp here, and from here they will move down again across the Plains of Valeron, to give battle to King Rakhal," her face twisted with dislike, and she spat.
"You are a partisan of Carolin, then?" Romilly asked.
"A partisan of Carolin? I am," the woman said vehemently, "Rakhal drove my father from his small holding in the Venza Hills and gave his lands to a paxman of that greedy devil Lyondri Hastur! Mother died soon after we left our lands, and Father is with Carolin's army - I shall ride out tomorrow, if Clea will give me leave, and try to find my father, and ask if he has word of my brothers, who fled when we were driven from our lands. I am here with the Sisterhood because my brothers were with the armies and could no longer make a home for me; they would have found a man for me to marry, but the man they chose was one Lyondri and his master Rakhal had left in peace, and I would not many any man who sat snug in his home while my father was exiled!"
"No one could blame you, Marelie," said Romilly. She thought of her travels in the Hellers with Orain and Carlo and the other exiled men; Alaric, who had suffered even more from Lyondri Hastur than Marelie's family. "I too am a follower of Carolin, even though I know nothing about him, except that men whose judgment I trust, call him a good man and a good king."
She wondered if Orain and Dom Carlo were in the camp. She might go with Merelie, when she went to seek her father in the camp. Orain had been her friend, even though she was a woman, and she hoped he had come safe through the winter of war.
"Look," said Clea, pointing, "There is the Hastur banner in blue with the silver fir-tree. King Carolin is in the camp - the king himself."
And where Orain is, Carolin is not far away, Romilly remembered. That night in the tavern, when he had wanted her to make a diversion - had that shadowy figure to whom he spoke, been Carolin himself?
Would he welcome a visit from her? Or would he only find it an embarrassment? She decided that when next Jandria visited the hostel - she had been coming and going all year, on courier duty between Serrais and the cities to the south, Dalereuth and Temora - she would ask what Jandria thought.
She should have remembered that when a telepath's mind was drawn unexpectedly to someone she had not seen for a time, it was not likely to be coincidence. It was the next day, when she had finished working with the black stallion, and finally led him back into the stable - after a year of work, he was perfectly trained, and docile as a child, and she had spoken to the housemother of the hostel about, perhaps, presenting him to the king's own self - she saw Jandria at the door of his stall.
"Romy! I was sure I would find you here! He has come a long way from that first day when I saw you bridle him, and we were all sure he would kill you!"
Jandria was dressed as if she had just come from a long journey; dusty boots, dust-mask such as the Drylanders used for travel hanging unfastened at the side of her face. Romilly ran to embrace her.
"Janni! I didn't know you were back?"
"I have not been here long, little sister," Jandria said, returning her hug with enthusiasm. Romilly smoothed back her flying hair with grubby hands, and said, "Let me unsaddle him, and then we will have some time to talk before supper. Isn't he wonderful? I have named him Sunstar - that is how he thinks of himself, he told me."
Jandria said, "He is beautiful indeed. But you should not give the horses such elaborate names, nor treat them with such care - they are to go to soldiers and they should have simple names, easy to remember. And above all you should not grow so fond of them, since they are to be taken from you very soon - they are for the army, though some of them will be ridden by the women of the Sisterhood if they go with Carolin's men when they break camp. You have seen the camp? You know the time is at hand when all these horses are to go to the army. You should not involve yourself so deeply with them."
"I can't help growing fond of them," Romilly said, "It is how I train them; I win their love and trust and they do my will."
Jandria sighed. "We must have that laran of yours, and yet I hate to use you like this, child," she said, stroking Romilly's soft hair. "Orain told me, when first he brought you to us, that you have knowledge of sentry-birds. I am to take you to Carolin's camp, so you can show a new handler how to treat them. Go and dress yourself for riding, my dear."
"Dress for riding? What do you think I have been doing all morning?" Romilly demanded.
"But not outside the hostel," Jandria said severely, and suddenly Romilly saw herself through Janni's eyes, her hair tangled and with bits of straw in it, her loose tunic unfastened because it was hot and sweaty, showing the curve of her breasts. She had put on a patched and too-tight pair of old breeches she had found in the box of castoffs which the Sisterhood kept for working about the house. She flushed and giggled.
"Let me go and change, then, I'll only be a minute or so."
She washed herself quickly at the pump, ran into the room she shared now with Clea and Betta, and combed her tousled hair. Then she got swiftly into her own breeches and a clean under-tunic. Over her head she slipped the crimson tunic of the Sisterhood and belted it with her dagger. Now she looked, she knew, not like a woman in men's clothes, nor yet like a boy, or a street urchin, but like a member of the Sisterhood; a professional Swordswoman, a soldier for Carolin's armies. She could not quite believe it was herself in that formal costume. Yet this was what she was.
Jandria smiled with approval when she came back; Janni too wore the formal Swordswoman tunic of crimson, a sword in her belt, a dagger at her throat, her small ensign gleaming in her left ear. Side by side, the two swordswomen left the gates of the hostel and rode toward the city wall of Serrais.