At high noon the marketplace of Shainsa lay sweltering under a direct sun, beating down on the dry stone, the sun-bleached stone walls of houses and buildings that turned blind faces to the light.
In spite of the insults and jeers that the loafers of the streets had flung at the Free Amazons, their booth, a light woven-wicker affair intended for transport on horseback, had been doing a flourishing business all morning; the mountain-tanned leather commanded a good price in the Dry Towns, where few animals could be husbanded and leather and textiles were scarce. Their stock was vanishing, in fact, so quickly that Kindra was beginning to fret; if any happenstance delayed Jalak's return, and their wares for sale were exhausted, their lingering in the town might cause some suspicion. Must I lay the groundwork for an accident to one of the pack animals? she wondered. Then there was a stir in the marketplace; an almost visible murmuring of rumor, and idlers, passersby and children began to drift toward the great gates. Jalak, she thought. It must be Jalak returning, nothing else could create so great a stir.
Leaving the booth in the hands of Devra and Fat Rima, she moved idly with the crowd toward the gates, Rohana at her side. She muttered, in a tone that could not be heard six inches away, "Now, if ever, you must get a message through to your kinswoman. Tell her to be alert to move at a moment's notice; we may have only a few minutes to strike and we must take it when the occasion offers. It will not be until after nightfall; thereafter, she must be ready. Also, find out precisely where she sleeps, and if she is guarded and by how many; and where her daughter sleeps, alone or with other royal daughters."
Rohana leaned against the Free Amazon's arm, feeling suddenly sick and faint with the enormous responsibility. Now it was suddenly all on her shoulders. Someone jostled them; Kindra glared, steadied Rohana on her feet and the jostler flung a jeering phrase at them that made the Comyn woman blush with indignation, more for Kindra's sake than her own. She knew the Free Amazons were often accused of being lovers of women; she supposed some of them were. Yet all Kindra's kindness to her had been entirely impersonal, almost motherly, and Rohana felt a surge of anger that Kindra should suffer such insult on her behalf. How absurd to be thinking of that now! As if I-or Kindra- could possibly care what some Dry-Town nothing thought of either of us!
There was a blare of horns, a strange, hoarse fanfare. First came a dozen of his guards, in trappings so alien to Rohana as to make little impression on her except the general one of rude splendor: sashes and baldrics, elaborately gilded tunics, high headdresses. Then cralmacs, furred and tailed humanoids with great gold-colored eyes, wearing only their own fur and elaborate jeweled sashes, riding on the great shambling oudhraki of the far deserts: a legion of them, it seemed. More guards, less elaborately and ceremonially dressed this time, but armed with the long, straight swords and daggers of the Dry-Towners. Rohana thought, Just as well that Kindra's band did not try to strike him encamped by night. And then came Jalak himself.
Rohana had to turn away before she had more than a sight of his thin, hawk-keen face, sun-bleached under thick pale hair, fierce bristling mustachios; there were times when it seemed to her that so immense a force of hatred must somehow communicate itself to his object, that he could not fail to be aware of her thoughts. Rohana, a telepath since girlhood, lived with that as reality; but Jalak seemed impervious, riding amid his guards with a set, impassive face, looking neither to left nor right.
Near him rode-she supposed--a couple of his favorites, slaves or concubines; a slim girl with lint-white ' hair, chains jeweled, her body muffled in a scant fur smock, but her long legs bare to the fierce sun; she leaned toward Jalak and murmured and cooed to him as they passed. On Jalak's other side a thin, elegant boy, a pretty minion: too curled, too jeweled and perfumed to be anything else.
Behind Jalak and his favorites rode an assembly of women, and among them, outstanding for her flame-red hair (now, streaked faintly with gray), rode Melora. Rohana felt faint. She had been prepared for this; Melora had come to her in thought. But seeing her like this, in the flesh, changed beyond recognition (And yet, Cassilda pity us, I would have known her anywhere, anywhere . . .), Rohana felt that her pain and pity would overwhelm her and she would sink down, fainting.
Kindra's hand closed painfully on Rohana's arm, the nails digging into the flesh; Rohana recalled herself. This was her part in the rescue, the thing only she could do. Deliberately, she reached out and made contact with her kinswoman's mind.
-Melora!
She felt the shock/, the start and flutter. She was suddenly afraid less Melora should see her, make some sign of recognition.
-Betray nothing; do not look for me or try to see me, darling, but I am near you, among the Free Amazons.
-Rohana! Rohana, is it you?
But Rohana, from her place in the crowd, saw-and felt a sudden, fierce pride in her kinswoman-that Melora rode on without making any visible sign; her eyes fixed, apparently, on nothing; slightly slumped in her saddle; the taut, thin, careworn face beneath the graying red hair showing nothing but weariness and pain. Suddenly Rohana was struck with fear and compunction. She thought, She is so heavy, so near her time, the child weighs on her so. How can we possibly get her away in safety? She sent the concerned question.
-Can you ride, Melora, can you travel, so far in pregnancy?
The answer was almost listless. -It is easy to tell you do not know the Dry Towns; I would be expected to ride even closer to my time than this. Then the answering thoughts were fierce with hate. -I can do what 1 must! To be free I would ride through hell itself!
Painstakingly, then, bit-by-bit, Rohana relayed Kindra's message; received Melora's answer, even while the caravan passed on, passed by the marketplace. At the rear came a few more guards, who indifferently tossed small coins, copper rings, wrapped fruits and sweetmeats into the crowd, watching with dead eyes, as the beggars scrambled for them. Kindra and Rohana, not staying to watch the painful spectacle, turned back toward their booth. Once safely inside it, Rohana relayed the information she had received.
"Jalak sleeps in a room at the north side of the building, with his favorites of the moment, and Melora; not that he has any interest, at the moment, in sharing her bed, so she told me; but at the moment she is his most prized possession, bearing his son, and he will not let her out of his sight. There are no guards within the room, but there are two guards, and two cralmacs armed with knives, in the antechamber. Until this last pregnancy, Jaelle-that is her daughter-slept in her mother's room; now she has been moved to a room in the suite set apart for the other royal daughters. She complained that the noise the little ones made kept her from sleeping; Jalak is indulgent with girl-children if they are pretty ones, and allotted her a room to her own use, with a nurse there. It is at the far end of the royal children's suite, and looks out on an inner courtyard filled with blackfruit trees."
She anticipated Kindra's next question, saying, "I have the plan of the building so clear in my mind that I could draw it for you from memory."
Kindra laughed and said, "Truly, Lady, you would make a Free Amazon someday! Perhaps it is our loss that you did not choose our way, after all." She went to the women still in the booth, saying in an undertone, "Sell what you can; but what cannot be sold by nightfall, be prepared to abandon. Do not strike the booth; if we leave it standing they will expect us to be here come morning. Be sure the horses we used as pack animals are ready to be saddled for Melora and her daughter...."
That afternoon seemed endless to Rohana. The worst of it lay in that she must behave exactly as usual-or at least as near to usual as was possible for her, here in the Dry Towns, far from her accustomed ways of occupying herself. She tried not to fidget visibly, knowing it would only disturb the Amazons, who seemed quite calm, selling their wares, tending their animals, idling around the camp. And yet, as the afternoon wore on, it seemed to her that she could see small signs that they were not, after all, quite so indifferent as they seemed to the coming battle. Camilla sat cross-legged at the back of the booth, sharpening her great knife to a razor edge, whistling an odd, tuneless little melody that, after a time, began to set Rohana's teeth on edge. Kindra sat drawing patterns again and again in the sand and quickly rubbing them out again with the toe of her boot. Rohana wondered how Melora was passing the time, but resisted the temptation to follow her in thought. If Melora could take some rest before sunset, let her do so, by all means!
How will she travel? She looks not more than three days from her time-if so much!
Slowly, slowly, the great red sun declined toward the hills. It seemed to -Rohana that no day in her lifetime had worn away so wearily, with every hour stretching into lifetimes. Not even the day my second son was born, when I seemed to lie for hours stretched on a rack of pain tearing me asunder . . . even then, something could be done. Now I can only wait, and wait ... and wait. ...
Kindra said quietly, as she passed, "This day must seem longer still for your kinswoman, Lady," and Rohana tried to smile. That, 'at least, was true.
"Pray to your Goddess that the Lady Melora does not go into labor this day," Kindra said. "That would be the end of hope. We might still rescue her daughter, but if the Great House was ablaze with lights, mid-wives running here and there to attend to her ... even that would be made more difficult than we could manage."
Rohana drew a deep breath of apprehension. And she is so near to her time. ..."
She tried to form, in her heart, a prayer to the Blessed Cassilda, Mother of the Seven Domains; but her prayer seemed to hang on the dead air, waiting, like everything else....
And yet, as all things mortal must, even the day wore to an end. The Dry-Town women, veiled and chained, came to buy water at the well, and again they lingered, fascinated even through their scorn, to watch the Amazons moving about, tending their horses, cooking their meal. Rohana offered what help she could; it was easier if her hands were busy. She watched the Dry-Town" women come and go in the marketplace, thinking of Melora, her hands weighted by the jeweled chains, her body weighted with Jalak's hated child. She had been so light and quick, as a girl, so frolicsome and laughing. ...
They finished their meal, and Kindra signaled to Rafaella to take her harp, strike a few chords. She said in an undertone, "Come in close, and listen; act as if you were only listening to the music."
Rohana asked in a low voice, "Can you play 'The Ballad of Hastur and Cassilda'?"
"I think so, Lady."
"I will sing it. It is very long, and my voice," she added, with a self-deprecating smile, "is not so strong that anyone passing by would think it odd if you kept very quiet to listen to me-but not so soft that Kindra cannot talk more softly still, and be heard."
Kindra nodded, pleased at Rohana's quick comprehension of her plan. Rafaella played a short introduction, and Rohana began, hearing her own voice wavering:
"The stars were mirrored on the shore, Dark was the dim enchanted moor; Silent were field and tree and 'stone...."
The other women clustered in close, as if to listen to the ancient ballad; Rohana heard her own voice falter, fought to steady it. She must somehow collect herself to remember all the seemingly endless verses, string it out while Kindra gave soft, detailed instructions to every one of the Amazons. Get hold of yourself, she ordered and commanded herself: This is something you can do, while they do the real work ... the dangerous work, the fighting . . ..
Yet they are women. I learned to think fighting was for men; I could never carry a knife, strike, see blood flow, perhaps suffer wounding, die…
Sing, damn you, Rohana! Stop thinking, sing….
"He lay thrown up along the shore, The sands were jeweled evermore, And to the shore Cassilda came And called him by a mortal name...."
Struggling to remember the next lines, she heard Kindra, in a low, tense voice, detailing the information she had been given, pointing to the pattern she had scratched in the sand by firelight.
"Jalak sleeps here, with his favorites and Melora; there are no guards in the room, but just outside...”
"Cassilda wept and paled and fled, Camilla knelt and raised his head, He left his high immortal fire, For mortal man's entranced desire; White bread and wine and cherries red...
"-No, damn it, I skipped a verse," she said, breaking off in vexation, then realized it did not matter; no one was listening anyway.
"Brought by her doves through morning bright,
Camilla came, and bowed her head, He ate and drank by mortal light;
And as his brilliance paled away
Into a dimmer earthly day
Cassilda left her shining loom:
A starflower in his hand she laid;
Then on him fell a mortal doom…."
"Are the windows accessible by ladders?" asked Gwennis, and Kindra snapped, "They might be, if we had ladders. Next question, but no more stupid ones, please! We have time to kill, but not that much time!"
"Into the heart of Alar fell, A splinter from the Darkest Hell, And madness raging on him came, He cried again on Zandru's name, And at the darkened forge he made A darkly shining magic blade; An evil spell upon it cast...."
"Devra and Rima, you will stay here, and the moment we come in sight, get moving! Be sure that the guards at the gate make no outcry-----" Kindra looked meaningfully at Rima.
The fat woman laid a hand on her knife, with a grim nod. Kindra said, "Camilla, you ride lighter than any of us; you will carry the child on your saddle. Lady Rohana-no, go on singing! You must be ready to ride close to Melora, to be alert for anything she needs; we shall all be busy enough evading pursuit and dealing with anyone who might come after us."
Rohana felt a shudder take her, seize her body and shake it like a rabbithorn in the grip of a wolf. Her voice faltered; she tried to cover it with a cough, and doggedly went on, knowing she was garbling the words horribly:
"He could not see the-something-plan That gave a God to mortal wife, That earthly love with mortal man- Should bring to man a-something-life, Camilla fell without a cry-"
Damn, damn, I've skipped two whole verses again....
"And Hastur, shielded by her heart, Knew he could die as mortals die...."
"Lori, you handle the cralmacs; I understand you know how they fight. Those long blades . . . anything else? Leeanne?"
"Remember that sometimes the Dry-Towners poison their swords. Don't neglect even a scratch. I've got some ointment that is supposed to neutralize their worst poisons...."
"Then Hastur son of Light had known, (For so had ruled the Shining Sire When first he left the Realm of Fire) Once more his star must burn alone ... For on the earth he might not reign If he should cause one mortal pain, Or in that hour he must return To the far realms that were his own...."
"We'll never be readier than now," Kindra said softly. "Finish the damn song, Rafaella, and get your dagger."
Gratefully Rohana began the last verse:
"And ever more the cloud waves break, Along the fringes of the lake, And tears and songs still whisper there, Upon the still and misty air...."
It was an unnerving experience, knowing they were all listening now, but impatient of every note, eager for her to finish. Damn it, no more eager than I!
"They built a city in the wild, Fit for his rule, the kingly child, And singing of Camilla's doom, They wrought for her an opal tomb."
She skipped the little postlude and rose impatiently, letting Rafaella put her harp away. Earlier in the afternoon she had packed the few possessions she had brought on this journey into a small bundle. Inside the tent the Amazons moved quickly and efficiently by the light of a single shaded candle, stowing food and necessary belongings in their saddlebags. Rohana watched, keeping out of their way. Devra and Fat Rima moved away toward the city gates, and Rohana felt another shudder take her; their business was to assure that those gates would be unguarded when they came back this way in a hurry, fleeing....
Don't be squeamish! The guards there are Dry-Towners; they've probably deserved death a dozen times over....
But they have no quarrel with any of us! There must be some good men among them, who have done nothing more than live as their forefathers have lived for centuries....
Angry at herself, Rohana stifled the thought. I hired Kindra's band to get Melora and her child away. Did I really believe it could be done without bloodshed? You cannot take hawks without climbing cliffs!
Kindra beckoned the red-haired woman to her side. She said in an undertone, "I had thought to leave you here with these; but we shall need you, in case your kinswoman must have help-or reassurance. Come with us, Lady, but look to yourself if there is fighting; none of us will have time or thought to protect you, and Jalak's men may think you one of us and attack. Have you any kind of weapon?"
"I have this," Rohana said, showing the small dagger she carried, like all Comyn women, for personal protection. Kindra looked at it, trying to conceal her scorn. "It would be small service in a fight, I fear. But if we fail-I do not think we will fail, but nothing in this world is absolutely certain but death and next winter's snow-if we fail, at least it will keep you from falling alive into Jalak's hands. Are you prepared for that, vai domna?"
Rohana nodded, hoping the Amazon could not see that she was trembling. And again it flickered fleetingly through her mind, as had happened more than once during the twenty days she had been in their company, that perhaps Kindra had some small spark of psi power, that she followed Rohana's thoughts a little more than might happen by chance, for the Amazon's hard-boned hand descended briefly on her shoulder; only for a moment, a light touch, and hesitant, lest the noblewoman angrily refuse her sympathy. "My Lady, do you think none of us is afraid? We have not learned not to fear; only to go on in the face of fear, as women are seldom taught to do on our world." She turned away, her voice brusque again in the darkness. "Come along. Nira: to the front, you know the way step by step, we know it only from my Lady's drawings and maps."
Thrust to the rear of the small group of women, Rohana followed, hearing her pounding heart, so strongly it seemed to her that the thumping must almost be audible in the dusty, deserted streets. They moved like ghosts, or shadows, keeping in the lee of buildings, stealing along on noiseless feet. Rohana wondered where they had learned to move so silently, found she was afraid to speculate. For a panic-stricken moment she wished she had never begun this, that she were safe at home in Castle Ardais, on the borders of the Hellers. She wondered how her children fared without her, how the cousin who had managed her estates after her husband's death a few years ago was dealing with the business, what was happening far away in the mountain country. This was never any place for me. Why did I ever come here? War, revenge, rescue, these are matters for men!
And the men were content to let Melora pine away and die, captive! She hardened her resolve and stole along at the rear of the little column, trying to pick up her feet and put them down as silently as the Amazons, not to stumble against a chance stone.
The city was a labyrinth. And yet it was not very long before the women in front of her stopped, drew close together in a knot, seeing across an open, windswept square the loom of the Great House where Jalak of Shainsa ruled. The house was a great squared building of pale bleached stone, glimmering faintly by the light of a single small gibbous moon: a blind window-less barrack, a fortress, the two doors guarded by tall guards in Jalak's barbarous livery. Silently the Amazons turned, slipping through the shadows and along the side of the building. Rohana had heard Kindra's plan, and it seemed to her a good one. Every outside door into a Dry-Town house was guarded; against direct attack at the doors a couple of guards could hold it indefinitely. But if they could somehow get through the small side gateway into the courtyard, make their way through the garden-hopefully deserted, at this hour-and get into the house through the unguarded inside doorways, they might get into Jalak's chamber.
She had heard Kindra say, through her singing, "Our best hope is that there has been peace in the Dry-Towns for many moons. The guards may be bored, not as alert as usual."
She could see the guard at the side gate now. Evanda be praised, no more than one. He lounged against the wall; Rohana could not see his face, but she was a telepath, and even unsought, his thoughts were clear enough: boredom, dullness, the sense that he would welcome anything, even armed attack, to relieve the monotony of this watch.
"Gwennis." Kindra murmured. "Your move."
(When this plan had been put forward, Gwennis had protested, sullenly. "Does it have to be me?" and Kindra had said, "You're the prettiest.") Now there was no protest, the band's discipline held. As Gwennis deliberately scuffed a stone loose against the wall, Rohana felt the Amazon leader thinking, This is the worst moment of risk....
The guard straightened, alert to the noise.
He's alert, we can't take him unawares; so we have to get him away from the gate, get him out into the center of the square, Kindra thought.
Gwennis had swiftly divested herself of knife and dagger, torn her tunic slightly down the front. She sauntered out into the moonlit square, and the guard was instantly alert, then relaxed, seeing a woman alone.
We are taking advantage of him, yes. Of the centuries-old Dry-Town contempt for women as helpless, harmless chattels. Victims, Kindra reflected bitterly.
The guard did not hesitate more than half a minute before stepping away from his post at the door, moving purposefully toward the young girl. "Hey, pretty thing-are you lonely? One of the Amazons, huh? Have you got tired of them and come looking for some better company?"
Gwennis did not raise her eyes. Rohana had heard the argument about that, too. ("I won't seduce him to his death. If he minds his own business he is safe. I won't use a feminine trick.") But the guard had already left his post, and Gwennis' silent indifference to him had provoked his curiosity; he came swiftly toward her, saying, "Ha-caught you without that knife you wear all the time, huh? Now you'll see what it's like really to be a woman. Who knows, you might even like it better. Here, come here and let me show you a thing or two . . .." He reached for the girl, roughly pulled her against him, spun her around, one hand covering her mouth to stifle a cry ... his words broke off in a strangled gasp. Lori's long knife, thrown with deadly accuracy, went straight into his throat. A moment later Lori herself bent over him, delivering a swift, fatal death-stroke to the great vein below his ear. Kindra and Camilla dragged him into the shadow of the wall, out of sight of any chance passerby; Gwennis scrambled up, fastidiously wiping her mouth as if she could wipe away the guard's rude touch. Kindra rummaged at the dead man's belt, found his keys and began to try them one by one in the heavy lock. Locked on the outside, not within. Less against invaders than against the escape of one of his women . . . ' The lock was stiff; it seemed to Rohana, quaking^ in the quiet street, that it creaked loudly enough to alarm the whole town, but after a moment it gave and the door swung noiselessly inward. The band of Amazons crowded inside, shrinking against the inner wall, pushing the door closed.
They stood in a quiet and deserted garden. Here in the Drylands little grew unless it was planted, except thornbush; but Jalak, tyrant of Shainsa, had spared no expense to create an oasis for himself and his pampered women and favorites. A multitude of fountains splashed, tall trees towered overhead, and flowers grew in lush profusion, with a sweet, damp, rank smell. On silent feet, guided by the sketch Rohana had made after the rapport with Melora, the women threaded their way along the bricked pathway, and paused in the shadow of a grove of blackfruit trees.
"Leeanne," Kindra whispered.
As the slender, sexless figure moved away toward, Rohana knew, the chamber where Melora's twelve-year-old daughter slept with her nurse, Rohana found herself wondering incongruously how a neutered Amazon thought of herself. Not as a woman, surely. A man? Some indefinable third thing? She dismissed the thought impatiently. What nonsense to be thinking about now!
They moved toward the unguarded garden door; a moment later they were actually inside. Rohana, moving now from memory of her rapport with Melora, began to move directly toward the guarded room where Jalak slept.
Was Melora awake, alert for them, expecting them? All this afternoon she had resisted the temptation to reach out for telepathic contact with her cousin, but now she yielded; reached for rapport, more easily as the long-neglected skill came back.
-Melora, Melora! And suddenly, in a half-forgotten sensation of blending and merging, she was Melora, she...
... She lay silent, facing the wall, every muscle tense and alert, willing herself to relax, be patient, wait. ... In her body the heavy child kicked sharply, and she thought, with weary patience, You are so strong and lusty, little son, and, Avarra pity me, 1 have not even the heart to wish you more like to die It is not your fault but your ill fortune that you are Jalak's son....
Will it truly be tonight? And the guards . . . how, how? The memory that had been with her, night and day, for ten years now of her foster-brother Valentine, broken, writhing, his fingers cut from his living body, covered in blood, after atrocities too many and too dreadful to think about.... Oh, Evanda and Avarra, Aldones, Lord of Light, not Rohana, too…
No! I must not remember that now! I must be strong....
Painstakingly, muscle-by-muscle, she forced herself to relax.
Jalak slept now, deeply: the first, sated sleep of the night. Beyond him she saw, by the dim moonlight from the courtyard window, the pale forms of the two favorites who shared his bed. They, too, slept: Danette- pale, nude, her long scattered hair enfolding her; Garris snoring a little, lying on his back, folded against Jalak's long body. At first this had infuriated and humiliated her to silent tears and passionate rebellion; after ten years she was only wearily relieved that she need no longer share his bed. During these months while she carried his son, Jalak, proud, and as near to kindness as he ever came, had yielded good-naturedly to her plea and allowed her to have a bed of her own, that she might sleep in peace and rest well. For years now she had been freed at night, like other Dry-Town women, from the chains she wore by day; only while she was still a rebellious prisoner had she been forced to wear them night and day. More than once, in that first faraway year, she had flown at his throat ... ceasing only when she knew her furious resistance excited, amused, stimulated him....
Poor Danette, how she hates me, how she gloated when she took my place in Jalak's bed, never guessing how willingly 1 would have resigned it years ago-and she hates my child worse than she hates me, she knows she is barren. If only I were.... 7 wish Garris no ill, His parents sold him in the brothels of Ardcarran when he was no older than Jaelle ... he loves Jalak no more than 7 ... perhaps less. Cruelly as the Dry-Towners treat their women, there are at least laws and customs to protect women to some degree, and not even such laws protect such as Garris. Poor little wretch…he still cries.... How slowly this night seems to pass....
She stiffened, every nerve in her body alert. What sound was that? The next moment the door came crashing inward and it seemed all at once that the room was full of ... of women? Jalak woke with a bellow, snatching up his sword where it lay ready, night and day, to his hand; he yelled for the guards ... a yell that went unanswered. Already on his feet, he yelled again, naked, leaping at the first who came against him; they crowded him against the wall, and Rohana, seeing through her own eyes now-although she shared Melora's thought, Where are the guards? - saw the Amazons force him against the wall, saw him disappear behind what looked like a wall of women, slashing, darting in with their knives; saw the long ripping cut with which Kindra darted in, slashed, the tendons at the back of his knee. He fell, howling, struggling. Danette, wide-eyed, kneeling upright on the bed, shrieked.
"Garris! Garris! Get his sword! They're only women...."
"Silence that bitch," said Kindra, and Camilla's rough hands muffled Danette's shrieks with a pillow. Garris sat upright, looking down at the writhing, howling Jalak with an unholy joy. . Rohana caught up a furred cloak from the foot of the bed, wrapped it over Melora's scanty nightgown. "Come-quickly!"
Guided between her kinswoman and the Amazon leader, Melora stumbled into the hall; her foot slipped in the blood of the guards who had been killed there. Are they all dead? All? Even Jalak's howls had stopped. Dead, or unconscious from loss of blood?
She saw through the still-open door that Garris had caught up Jalak's sword; Nira whirled, her own sword at the ready, but Garris rushed past them, not even looking at her, disappearing down the hallway, with- evidently-no thought in mind but his own escape.
Rohana hurried Melora along, out into the silent garden. It was so silent that it took her breath away; fountains splashed, trees rustled undisturbed in the wind, no sound or light to show that somewhere inside there in the Great House, eight or ten of Jalak's fighting men and perhaps Jalak himself lay dead.
None but Jalak himself had had opportunity to strike a single return stroke; but that single slash had gone to Nira's thigh and she limped, leaning heavily on Camilla's arm. Lori came and bent beside her, roughly wadding the wound with her kerchief, wrapping it hastily with the belt of her tunic. Leeanne came out of the darkness, carrying in her arms a small form in a long nightgown, barefoot. She set the little girl on her feet, and in the dim light Rohana caught a glimpse of a small, surprised, sleepy face.
"Mother?"
"It's all right, my darling, they are my kinswomen and our friends," Melora said in a singing voice; she stumbled, and Kindra put a hand under her elbow.
"Can you walk, Lady? If not, we can carry you somehow-"
"I can walk." But Melora stumbled again and put out her hand to clutch at Rohana's arm, thinking, For the first time in a dozen years I am outside that wall with unbound hands. Walk? I could run… I could fly. Hurrying along between them, stumbling, she lost track of where her steps were taking her. Anywhere. Anywhere away from here. Like Garris…Poor little creature, I hope they do not hunt him down for Jalak's murder....
She felt the knives of pain in her side and back, felt the weight of her unborn child dragging at her, not caring. Free. I am free. I could die now, happy. But I must not die and delay them....
The deserved marketplace was a silent wilderness of empty stalls, deserted booths. Rima and Devra came out of the dark, near where the horses waited. "The gates are clear," Rima said, with a suggestive gesture-a finger drawn across her throat.
"Come, then. Leave everything but your own saddlebags and food for travel," Kindra said, leading Melora to a horse with a lady's saddle. "Before you mount, domna, get into these clothes; they may not fit well, but they will be better for riding than that nightgown."
Melora felt Rohana slip her gown over her head, under cover of the darkness; help her into the long, loose trousers, tie them around her waist; slip a fur-lined tunic over her head. The faint smell in their folds made her want to weep with recognition and thankfulness: the spices and incense used to sweeten the air in every home hi the Domains. She caught back a sob, letting
Rohana help her to her saddle, slip suede boots-far too big on her feet.
She looked around anxiously for Jaelle; saw that one of the Amazons had wrapped her in a cloak and lifted her to a saddle behind her, where she sat alert, amazed, her long straight hair streaming down her back, too excited and astonished even to ask questions.
Kindra took the reins of Melora's horse, saying, "Sit your horse as best you can, Lady; I will guide her." Melora clung to the saddle-horn (unfamiliar, after so many years, to ride astride again!) and watched, tensed against the pain of moving, as Kindra moved to the front of the little column of riders. She said in a low, tense voice, "Now ride like hell, all of you. We may have as many as five hours before the sun comes up and somebody finds Jalak in his blood; but we won't have more than that no matter how lucky we are, and from this day on for the next three dozen years, no Free Amazon's hide will be worth a sekal anywhere in the Dry Towns. Let's go!"
And they were off. Melora, clinging to her saddle, bracing herself as best she might against the jolting of her horse's gait (though she realized that Kindra had indeed provided a horse with an easy gait, the best available for- a pregnant woman), looked back for an instant at the black loom of the walls of Shainsa.
It's over, she thought, the nightmare is over. Thirteen years of it. Jalak lies crippled for life, hamstrung, perhaps dying.
I hope he does not die. Worse, oh, worse for him to live and know that a pack of women has done this to him!
I am avenged, and Valentine! And Jaelle will live free!
They rode into the night, unpursued.