Night was lowering across the Dry Towns, hesitating as if, at this season, the great red sun was reluctant to set. Liriel and Kyrrdis, pale in the lingering daylight, swung low over the walls of Shainsa.
Inside the gates, at the outskirts of the great windswept marketplace, a little band of travelers were making camp, unsaddling their mounts and off-loading their pack animals.
There were no more than seven or eight of them, and all were garbed in the hooded cloaks and the heavy tunics and riding breeches of the mountain country, the faraway land of the Seven Domains. It was hot in the desert lands of Shainsa, at this hour when the sun still burned with some force, but the travelers still wore their hooded cloaks; and though every one of them was armed with knife and dagger, not one of the travelers carried a sword.
This was enough to alert the crowd of Dry-Town loafers, hanging around to watch the strangers pitch camp, to what they were. When one, sweating under the weight of laden saddlebags, slung back hood and cloak to reveal a small shapely head, with dark hair close-cropped as no man-or woman-of Domains or Dry Towns ever wore it, the hecklers began to collect. So little goes on, ordinarily, in Dry-Town streets, that the watchers behaved as if the arrival of the strangers were a free show arranged for their benefit, and they all felt free to comment on the performance.
"Hey, there, come have a look at this! Free Amazons, they are, from the Domains!"
"Shameless bitches, that's what they are, runnin' around like that with no man to own to 'em! I'd run the lot out of Shainsa before they corrupt our decent wives and daughters!"
"What's the matter, Hayat, you can't keep hold of your own wives? Mine, now, they wouldn't run loose for all the gold of the Domains.... If I tried to cut 'em loose they'd come back cryin', they know when they're well off___"
The Amazons heard the remarks, but they had been warned and were prepared for this; they went quietly about the business of making camp, as if their observers were invisible and unspeaking. Emboldened by this, the Dry-Town men came closer, and the jokes flew, free and ribald; and now some of them were addressed directly to the women.
"Got everything, haven't you, girls-swords, knives, horses, everything except what it takes!"
One of the women flushed and turned, opening her lips as if to reply; the leader of the group, a tall, slender, swift-moving woman, turned to her and said something, urgently, in a low voice; the woman lowered her eyes and turned back to the tent-pegs she was driving into the coarse sand.
One of the Dry-Town idlers, witnessing the little exchange, approached the leader, muttering suggestively: "Got your girls all right under your thumb, haven't you, then? Why not leave 'em alone and come along with me? I could teach you things you never dreamed about-"
The woman turned, pushing back her hood to reveal, beneath graying close-cropped hair, the gaunt, pleasant face of a woman in middle years. She said in a light, clearly audible voice, "I learned everything you could possibly teach me long before you were housebroken, animal. And as for dreams, I have nightmares like everybody else, but thanks be to the Gods, I've always waked up so far."
The bystanders guffawed. "One in the eye for you, Merach!" Now that they had turned their jokes on one another instead of on the women, the little band of Free Amazons went quickly about the business of setting camp: a booth, evidently for buying or selling, a couple of sleeping tents and a shelter to guard their mountain-bred horses against the fierce and unaccustomed sun of the Dry Towns.
One of the onlookers came forward; the women tensed against further insult, but he only asked politely enough: "May one inquire your business here, vahi domnis?" His accent was thick, and the woman addressed looked blank; but the leader understood, and answered for her: "We have come to sell leather goods from the Domains; saddles, harness and leather clothing. We will be here for trading at daylight tomorrow; you are all invited to come and do business with us."
A man in the crowd yelled, "They's only one thing I'd ever buy from women!"
"Buy it, hell! Make them pay for it!"
"Hey, lady, you going to sell them britches you're wearing so you can dress like a woman?"
The Free Amazon ignored the jeers. The man who had come to question her said, "Can we direct you to any entertainment in the city this night? Or"-he hesitated, looked appraisingly at her, and added-"entertain you ourselves?"
She said with a fault smile, "No, thank you very much," and turned away. One of the younger women said in a low, indignant voice, "I had no idea it was going to be like this! And you thanked him, Kindra! I'd have kicked his dirty teeth down his throat!"
Kindra smiled and patted the other's arm soothingly. "Why, hard words break no bones, Devra. He made an offer with such politeness as was in him, and I answered him the same. Next to these"-she swept the crowd of loafers with an ironic gray glance-"he was the soul of courtesy."
"Kindra, are we really going to trade with these gre'zuin?"
Kindra frowned faintly at the obscenity. "Why, yes, of course. We must have some reason for staying here, and Jalak may not return for days. If we have no apparent business here, we will be prime objects for suspicion. Not trade? What are you wearing for a head, today? Think, child!"
She moved on to a woman who was piling saddlebags within the shelter, asking in an undertone, "No sign yet of Nira?"
"None so far." The woman addressed glanced uneasily around, as if fearful of being overheard. She spoke pure casta, the language of the aristocrats from Thendara and the plains of Valeron. "No doubt she'll seek us out after nightfall. She would have small liking for running the gauntlet of these folk; and for anyone dressed as a man to enter our camp openly and unchallenged-"
"True," Kindra said, looking at their watchers. "And she is no stranger to the Dry Towns. Yet I cannot help being a little fearful. It goes against the grain to send any of my women in man's dress, yet it was her only safety here."
"In man's dress..." The woman repeated the words as if she felt she must have misunderstood the other's language. "Why, do you not all wear man's dress, Kindra?"
Kindra said, "Here you betray only your ignorance of our customs, Lady Rohana; I beg you to keep your voice low when we might be overheard. Do you truly believe I wear man's dress?" She sounded affronted, and the Lady Rohana said quickly, "I meant no offense, believe me, Kindra. But your dress is certainly not that of a woman-not, at least, a woman of the Domains."
Deference and annoyance mingled in the Free Amazon's voice as she said, "I have no leisure now to explain to you all the customs and rules of our Guild, Lady Rohana. For now, it is enough-" She broke off at another outbreak of guffaws from the bystanders. Devra and another of the Free Amazons were leading their saddle horses toward the common well at the center of the marketplace. One of them paid the watering fee in the copper rings that passed as currency anywhere east of Carthon, while the other led the animals to the trough. As she returned to help Devra with the watering, one of the idlers in the crowd laid hands on her waist, pulling her roughly against him.
"Hey, pretty, why don't you leave these bitches and come along with me? I've got plenty to show you, and I'll bet you never-eeyah!" His words broke off in a howl of rage and pain; the woman had whipped a dagger from its sheath, slashing swiftly upward, laying open his filthy and tattered clothing to expose bare, unhealthy flesh, a line of red creeping upward along the quarter-inch-deep slash from lower belly to collarbone. He stumbled back, staggering, falling into the dust; the woman gave him a contemptuous kick with one sandaled foot, saying hi a low, fierce voice, "Take yourself off, bre'sui! Or next time I'll spill your guts, and your cuyones with 'em! Now get the hell out of here, you filthy bastards, or you won't be fit for anything but selling for he-whores in the Ardcarran bordellos!"
The man's friends dragged him away, still moaning more with shock than pain. Kindra strode toward the woman, who was wiping her knife. She raised her eyes, grinning with innocent pride at how well she had defended herself. Kindra slapped the knife out of her hand.
"Damn you, Gwennis! Now you've made us all conspicuous! Your pride in knife-play could cost us our mission! When I asked for volunteers on this trip, I wanted women, not spoiled children!"
Gwennis' eyes filled with tears. She was no more than a girl, fifteen or sixteen. She said, her voice shaking, "I am sorry, Kindra. What should I have done? Should I have let the filthy gre'zu paw me?"
"Do you really think you were in danger, here in daylight and before so many? You could have freed yourself without bloodshed and made him look ridiculous, without ever drawing your knife. Your skills were taught you to guard against real danger of rape or wounding, Gwennis, not to protect your pride. It is only men who must play games of kihar, my daughter; it is beneath the dignity of a Free Amazon." She picked up the knife where it had fallen in the dust, wiping the remnant of blood from the blade. "If I return it to you, can you keep it where it belongs until it is needed?"
Gwennis lowered her head and muttered, "I swear it."
Kindra handed it to her, saying gently, "It will be needed soon enough, breda." She laid an arm around the girl's shoulders for an instant, adding, "I know it is difficult, Gwennis. But remember that our mission is more important than these stupid annoyances."
She left the women to finish the watering, noticing with a grim smile that the crowd of idle watchers had evaporated as if by magic. Gwennis deserved every harsh word I gave her. But 1 am still glad she rid us of those creatures!
The sun sank behind the low hills, and the small moons began to climb the sky. The square was deserted for a while, then some of the Dry-Town women, wrapped in their cumbersome skirts and veils, began to drift into the marketplace to buy water from the common well, moving, each of them, with the small metallic clash of chains. By Dry-Town custom, each woman's hands were fettered with a metal bracelet on each wrist; the bracelets were connected with a long chain, passed through a metal loop on her belt, so that if the woman moved either hand, the other was drawn up tight against the loop at her waist.
The Free Amazon camp was filled with a smell of cooking from their small fires; some of the Dry-Town women came close and stared at the strange women with curiosity and contempt: their cropped hair, their rough mannish garb, their unbound hands, breeches and low sandals. The Amazons, conscious of their stares, returned the gaze with equal curiosity, not un-mingled with pity. The woman called Rohana finally could bear no more; leaving her almost-untouched plate, she got to her feet and went into 'the tent she shared with Kindra. After a moment the Amazon leader followed her inside, saying in surprise, "But you have eaten nothing, my Lady. May I serve you, then?"
"I am not hungry," said Rohana, stifled. She put back her hood, revealing, in the dim light, hair of the flame-red color that marked her a member of the telepath caste of the Comyn: the caste that had ruled the Seven Domains from time unknown and unknowable. It had been cropped short, indeed, but nothing could conceal its color, and Kindra frowned as the Comyn woman went on:
"The sight of those women has destroyed my appetite; I feel too sick to swallow. How can you endure to watch it, Kindra, you who make so much of freedom for women?"
Kindra said with a slight shrug, "I feel no very great sympathy for them. Any single one of them could be free if she chose. If they wish to suffer chains rather than lose the attentions of their men, or be different from their mothers and sisters, I shall not waste my pity on them, far less lose sleep or appetite. They endure their captivity as you of the Domains, Lady, endure yours; and, truth to tell I see no very great difference between you. They are, perhaps, more honest, for they admit to their chains and make no pretense of freedom; while yours are invisible-but they are as great a weight upon you."
Rohana's pale face flushed with anger. She said, "Then I wonder you ever agreed to this mission! Was it only to earn your pay?"
"There was that, of course," Kindra said, unruffled. "I am a mercenary soldier; within reason, I go where I am hired to go, and do what I am best paid to do. But there is more," she added in a gentler tone. "The Lady Melora, your kinswoman, did not connive at her own captivity, nor choose her form of servitude. As I understand what you told me, Jalak of Shainsa-may his manhood wither! - fell upon her escort, slew her guards, and carried her away by force; wishing, for revenge or sheer lust of cruelty, to keep a leronis of the Comyn enslaved and captive as his wife-or his concubine, I am not certain."
"In the Dry Towns there seems no great difference," said the Lady Rohana bitterly, and Kindra nodded. "I see no very great difference anywhere, vai domna, but I do not expect you to agree with me. Be that as it may, Lady Melora was carried away into a slavery she had not chosen, and her surviving kinsmen could not, or did not, choose to avenge her."
"There were those who tried," Rohana said, her voice shaking. Her face was almost invisible in the darkened tent, but there were tears in her roughened voice. "They vanished without trace, until the third; he was my father's youngest son, my half-brother; and had been Melora's foster-brother, reared as her playmate."
"That tale I have heard; Jalak sent back the ring he wore still on his fingers," Kindra said, "and boasted he would do so, and more, to any other who came to avenge her. But that was ten years ago, Lady, and if I were in the Lady Melora's slippers, I would not have lived to endanger any more of my kinfolk. If she has dwelled for twelve years in Jalak's household, surely she cannot be in any great need, by now, of rescue. By this time, one would imagine she must be resigned to her fate."
Rohana's pale face stained with color. "So in truth we believed," she said. "Cassilda pity me, I, too, reproached her in thought, wishing her dead rather than living on in Jalak's house as a shame to us all."
"Yet you are here now," Kindra said, and although it was not a question, Lady Rohana answered. "You know what I am: leronis, Tower-trained; a telepath.
Melora and I dwelt together, as young girls, in the Dalereuth Tower. Neither of us chose to remain life-long, but before I left the Tower to marry, our minds were joined; we learned to reach one another's thoughts. Then came her tragedy. In the years between, I had indeed all but forgotten; learned to think of Melora as dead, or at least gone far beyond my reach, far, far beyond my touch or my thoughts. Then-it was not more than forty days ago-Melora came to me across the distances; came to me in thought, as we had learned to do when we were little maidens in the Tower at Dalereuth. ..."
Her voice was distant, strange; Kindra knew that the red-haired woman was no longer speaking to her, but to a memory; a commitment. "I hardly knew her," Rohana said," she had changed so greatly. Resigned to her place as Jalak's consort and captive? No; simply unwilling to cause"-Rohana's voice faltered-"more death and torment; I learned then that my brother, her foster-brother, had been tortured to death before her eyes, as a warning lest she seek rescue...."
Kindra grimaced with horror and revulsion. Rohana went on, steadying her voice with a fearful effort. "Melora told me that at last, after so many years, she bore a son to Jalak; that she would die before giving him an heir of Comyn blood. She did not ask rescue for herself, even then. I think-I think she wants to die. But she will not leave her other child in Jalak's hands."
"Another child?"
"A daughter," Rohana said quietly, "born a few months after she was taken. Twelve years old. Old enough"-her voice shook-"old enough to be chained." She sobbed, turning her face away. "For herself she asked nothing. Only she begged me to get her daughter away; away, out of Jalak's hands. Only so- only so could she die in peace."
Kindra's face was grim. Before I bore a daughter to live in the Dry Towns, captive, chained, she thought, I would lay hands on myself and the life within me, or strangle the babe as she came forth from my womb! But the women of the Domains are soft, cowards all! None of this showed in her voice, however, as she laid a hand on Rohana's shoulder, saying quietly, "I thank you for telling me this, Lady. I did not understand. So our mission is not so much to rescue your kinswoman as to free her daughter; that is what she asked. Although, if Melora can be freed...”
"Well, my band and I are pledged to do all we can," Kindra said, "and I think any of us would risk our lives to save a young girl from living chained. But for now, Lady, you will soon need all your strength, and there is neither courage nor wisdom in an empty belly; it is not fitting that I should lay commands on a Comynara, but will you not join my women now and finish your meal?"
Rohana's smile wavered a little. Why, beyond her harsh words, she's kind! She said aloud, "Before I joined you, mestra, I pledged myself to conduct myself in all ways as one of your band, and so I am bound to obey you."
She went out of the tent, and Kindra, standing in the doorway, watched her take a place by the fire, and accept a plateful of the stewed meat and beans.
Kindra did not follow at once, but stood thinking of what lay ahead. If it came to Jalak's ears that anyone of the Domains was in his city, he might be already on guard. Or would he so despise the Free Amazons that he would not trouble to guard against them? She should have insisted that the Lady Rohana dye her hair. If any spy of Jalak's should see a redheaded Comyn woman ... / never thought she would be witting to cut it.
Maybe courage is relative; for her, maybe it took as much courage to cut her hair as for me to draw knife on a foeman …
It is worth risk, to take a young maiden from Jalak's hands, from chains to freedom.
... Or such freedom as any woman can have in the Domains.
Kindra raised her hand, in an automatic gesture, to her cropped, graying hair. She had not been born into the Guild of Free Amazons; she had come to it through a choice so painful that the memory still had power to make her lips tighten and her eyes grow grim and faraway. She looked at Rohana, sitting in the ring of Amazons around the fire, eating, and listening to the women talk. I was once very like her: soft, submissive to the only life I knew. I chose to free myself. Rohana chose otherwise. I do not pity her, either.
But Melora was given no choice...Nor her daughter.
She thought, dispassionately, that it was probably too late for Melora. There could not, after ten years in the Dry Towns, be much left for her. But there was evidently enough left, of what she had been, to spur her to an enormous effort to get freedom for her daughter. Kindra knew only a little of the telepathic powers of the Comyn; but she knew that for Melora to reach Lady Rohana, over such distance, after so long a separation, must have taken enormous and agonizing effort. For the first time, Kindra felt a moment of genuine sympathy for Melora. She had accepted captivity for herself rather than allow any more of her kinsmen to risk death by torture. But she would risk anything, to give her daughter a choice; so that her daughter would not live and die knowing nothing but the chained world, the slave world, of the Dry-Town women.
Lady Rohana did well to come to me. After so many years, no doubt, her Comyn kin wished Melora dead, wished to forget she dwelt in slavery, a reproach to them.
But that is why the Free Amazons exist, in the final analysis. So that every woman may, at least, know there is a choice for them ... that if they accept the restrictions laid upon women, on Darkover, they may do so from choice and not because they cannot imagine anything else....
Kindra was about to leave the tent, to return to the fireside and have her own meal, when she heard a small, strange sound: the whistle of a rain-bird; such a bird as never cried here, in the Dry Towns. Quickly she turned, nervously alert, seeing the small, slight form that wriggled under the back flap of the tent. It was very dark, but she knew who it must be. She said in a whisper, "Nira?"
"Unless you think some rain-bird has gone mad and flown here to die," said Nira, rising to her feet.
Kindra said, "Here, get out of those clothes; another woman around our fire will never be noticed, but in men's clothes you would collect another crowd here. We had quite enough of that while we were off-loading."
"I heard," Nira said wryly, slipping out of her boots, unbuckling the short sword she wore-contrary to Domain law-and concealing it in the clutter of the tent. Kindra flung the younger woman a shirt and loose Amazon trousers, saw that she was very faintly silhouetted by firelight, and turned the tiny lamp lower still until they were in darkness. Nira was folding up her disguise; as she stepped into her clothes, Kindra came and asked in a whisper, "Was there any trouble? What news, child?"
"No trouble; I passed for any trader's lad from the mountains, any apprentice; they thought me a beardless boy with his voice still unbroken. For news I have only gossip of the marketplace, and some from the servants at Jalak's door. The Voice of Jalak, who keeps his Great House when the Lord is away, has received a message that Jalak, and his wives and concubines and all his household, will return before noon tomorrow; and one of the slave-girls told me that they would have returned tonight, except that his Lady is heavy with child, and could not ride so far this day. Jalak has sent word for the midwives to be in readiness at any time after his return, and his servants are making bets about whether this will be the son he wants ... it seems he has begotten nothing but girls, whether by wife, concubine or slave-girl, and that he has promised that the first of his women to bear him a son shall have rubies from Ardcarran and pearls brought from the sea-towns at Temora. Some old midwife says that she can tell by the way Lady Melora carries her child, low and broad, that it is a son; and Jalak will do nothing to endanger her while he has this hope...."
Kindra's face twisted in distaste. She said: "So Jalak is camped in the desert? How far away?"
Nira shrugged. "No more than a few miles, I gathered. Maybe we should have arranged to attack his tents. ..."
Kindra shook her head. "Madness. Have you forgotten? The Dry-Towners are paranoid; they live by feud and combat. On the road, take my word, Jalak will be guarded so that three cadres of City Guardsmen could not come at him. In his own house he may be a little more relaxed. In any case, we cannot stand against open attack. A quick strike, a guard or two killed, and ride like hell; that's the only kind of chance we have."
"True." Nira had dressed in her own clothes again; they were about to leave the tent when Nira laid her hand on Kindra's arm, detaining her. "Why must we have the Lady Rohana with us? She rides but poorly; she will be no use at all in a fight-she hardly knows which end to take hold of a knife-and if she is recognized we are all dead women. Why did you not demand that she wait for us at Carthon? Or is she like those men who hire a watchdog and do their own barking?"
"I thought so myself at first," Kindra said, "but the Lady Melora must be warned, and ready to leave with us at a moment's notice; the slightest delay could ruin us all. The Lady Rohana can reach her mind, without warning Jalak, or rousing his suspicions as even the most cautious message could do." Kindra grinned wryly in the darkness of the tent. "Besides, which of you wants the task of caring for a pregnant woman on the journey back? None of us have much taste for it-nor any skill should she need nursing. Or do you want to try?"
Nira laughed ruefully. "Avarra and Evanda forbid it! I stand reproved!" she said, and went to join the other women around the fire. After a moment Kindra went to join them, taking the plateful of food they had saved her (it was cold by now, but she ate without noticing), listening to the women talking softly as they cleared away the dishes, set a watch. Mentally, she checked them over.
She had handpicked this group from volunteers, and with all of them except the young girl Gwennis, she had worked before. Nira, who could pass as a man when she must, and had even, only the Blessed Cassilda knew how, learned to use a sword. Against Dry-Towners we may need it. By the Charter of the Guild of Free Amazons, it was not lawful for any Amazon to bear a sword. Too threatening to the men of the Domains, for women to play with their precious toys! Yet that law was not always honored; Kindra felt no guilt that she had allowed Nira to teach the others what she could of handling a sword. Then there was Leeanne, who had been neutered at fourteen and looked like a slim boy: breastless, hard-bodied and spare. Another who had known the neutering operation-which was illegal, but still turned up sometimes as a fait accompli-was Camilla, born of a good family in the Kilghard Hills; she did not use her family name Lindir, for they had long disowned and disinherited her. Camilla was nearing middle age, and like Kindra, had spent most of her life as a mercenary fighter; she was scarred with multiple knife-scars. Also Kindra had chosen Lori, who had been born in the Hellers and fought with two knives, mountain style; and Rafaella, Kindra's own kinswoman. Not all the Free Amazons were fighters, of course, but for this mission Kindra had chosen, mostly, the best fighting women she knew. Then there was Devra, who was not a great fighter, but skilled beyond anyone Kindra had ever known at reading the trackless lands of mountain or desert, so that Kindra had chosen her, warning her to keep out of any close-quarters fighting. And Fat Rima, who was altogether feminine in appearance and manner, and so heavy she could ride only the biggest horses; but Kindra knew she was skilled at making and managing a campsite, and their comfort was valuable, too, on a trip like this; and like all Amazons, Rima was completely able to defend herself. And she has other skills that may be needed before we reach Thendara! Kindra reflected. Then there was the girl Gwennis, and Lady Rohana.
Anyone who knew the Free Amazons, Kindra thought, could tell at once that the Lady was not one of them: her walk, her speech, her riding. But there was no one here, the Goddess be praised, who knew that much about them!
They had finished putting away the supper gear; Kindra surrendered her empty bowl, to be scrubbed with sand by Fat Rima. Rafaella brought out her small rryl and laid it across her knees, striking a preliminary chord or two. "Kindra, will you sing for us?"
"Not tonight, Rafi," she said, smiling to soften the refusal. "I have plans to make; I'll listen to the rest of you."
Devra began a song, and Kindra sat with her head hi her hands, her mind not on the music. She knew she could trust every one of these women with her life. Lady Rohana' was an unknown, but she had more reasons than the others to work at Kindra's command. The others had all volunteered; partly, at least, because like every Free Amazon from Dalereuth to the Hellers, they hated the Dry-Towners with a deadly hatred. The Domains themselves had made an uneasy peace with the Dry Towns, and kept it; there was no love lost between Domains and Dry Towns, but there was a bitter memory of the long wars they had fought, without any conclusive victory on either side. The Domains might accept the present state of truce out of political expediency; and their women with them. The Domains live under men's laws. They accept the enslavement of the Dry-Town women because it pleases them to think how benevolent, by contrast, they are to their own women. They say all men must choose their own lifestyles.
But no woman who had ever cut her hair and sworn the oath of a Free Amazon would ever accept that compromise!
Kindra had early freed herself from a life that now seemed to her as enslaved, as weighted with invisible chains, as that of any Dry-Town woman who walked in her ornamental bracelets and fetters of possession; she felt that any woman who truly chose, and would pay the price, could do as much. Yes, even the women of the Dry Towns. Yet, for all her lack of sympathy for any woman who bowed her head to a man's yoke, she felt a surge of hatred and loathing for the men who perpetuated this kind of slavery.
Should I tell them my plans now? She raised her hand and listened. Lady Rohana, who had a sweet, small, untrained voice, and Gwennis, who had a very light, true soprano, were singing a riddle-song from the Domains. Kindra decided not to disturb them. Let them have a night's undisturbed sleep first. "Set good watch around the camp," she said. "Some of these Dry-Towners may have ideas about how Free Amazons might like to spend their nights, and I doubt we'd care for their notions."