To the end of her life, the Lady Rohana Ardais never forgot that mad ride, fleeing from the walls of Shainsa; alert at any moment for some small sound behind them that would mean Jalak-or his dead body-had been found, and the hunt for them was up.
For the first hour it was very dark, and she rode blindly after the sound of hooves from the other horses, with only dim shadows ahead. Then Kyrrdis rose, a brilliant half-circle above the horizon, so bright that Rohana knew it was not more than an hour or two ahead of the sun; and by its blue-green light she could make out the forms of the other horses and their riders.
They were traveling more slowly now. Even the swift horses from the plains of- Valeron could not keep up the pace of those first hours. She wondered how Leeanne had found their road in the darkness; the Amazon's reputation as a tracker was evidently well deserved. She could see Jaelle, a huddled, dark small form, collapsed in sleep against Camilla, clinging drowsily to the saddle. What did the child think of all this?
She was reared in the Dry Towns. Perhaps, to her, all this is quite normal: murder, midnight raids, the stealing of women. What if her loyalty is to Jalak? After all, he is her father.
None of us has any idea what Jaelle is like . . .. We have thought only of Melora's wishes. ...
Melora is a telepath. She must know her child's heart . . ..
In the final hour before dawn they stopped to breathe the horses; Leeanne went to the top of a nearby hill to spy out any sign of pursuit. Rima came and put some bread and dried meat into Rohana's hand, poured wine into the cup at her saddle-horn.
"Eat and drink while you can, Lady. There won't be much time for breakfast if we are being pursued. There are a few hiding holes between here and Carthon, and Kindra knows all of 'em, but mostly our safety lies in a good long start. So you eat now."
Rohana chewed a mouthful obediently, although her mouth was dry, and the stuff tasted like stale parchment. She thrust it into a pocket of the unfamiliar Amazon trousers; maybe later she could manage to swallow it. She sipped at the wine, but it was too sour to drink, almost; she rinsed her mouth and spat it out again.
She led her horse slowly for several steps, hearing its deep, panting breaths slowly quiet to normal; rubbed its head absently, leaning against the warm, sweating body. She thought, not for the first time since she had undertaken this long journey, how fortunate it was that she was hardened to long riding, hunting with hawks in her distant mountain home. // I were the kind of woman who did little more than sit over her embroidery-frames, I would be half dead of saddle-sores. This made her think of Melora again (How weary she must be!) and she made her way through the Amazon crew: dismounting, slumped to rest, eating, talking in low tones. She noted that Jaelle had been lifted down and was sleeping heavily, curled up on someone's cloak, and covered with another. At least they seem to be looking after her well. I do not suppose any of them know much about children.
She looked around for Melora, seeing that Kindra was helping her kinswoman out of the high saddle; but before she could approach them, Nira, the crude bandage loose around her thigh, intercepted her. "Can you dress this wound by moonlight, domna? It hinders my riding more than I thought, or I would wait for the light."
Rohana felt a moment's impatience; then, remembering that Nira's wound had been incurred in their service, felt ashamed of herself. "I'll try. Come here, away from the shadows, where the light is brightest." She rummaged in her saddlebag for the few items of women's gear she had brought, found a clean, unworn shift and tore it into strips. Like everything else it was gritty with the sand of the Dry Towns, but clean.
She had to cut the bandage, and then the trouser leg, away with a knife; it was stuck to the wound with clotted blood. Nira swore under her breath, but did not flinch as Rohana washed the ugly cut with the sour wine-At least the stuff is good for something, she thought-and bandaged it tightly, pressing the hard pad of bandage against the wound. "It should be stitched; but I cannot do that by moonlight. If it begins to bleed again, I will do what I can when it is light."
Nira thanked her. "Now, if that bastard Jalak doesn't poison his weapons-one hears such things of Dry-Town men-"
"He does not," Melora said quietly beside them, and ' Rohana rose, folding what remained of the torn shift, to see her cousin standing there. Her face was dim in the moonlight, but even so it looked swollen and unhealthy. "Jalak would think that a coward's way; it would mean he did not believe his blows were strong enough to kill, and he would lose kihar-lose prestige, you would say, be shamed before, his peers, if he stooped to a poisoned blade."
Nira got up awkwardly; grimacing as she put weight on her wounded leg. Her boot crunched on sand as she drew it on. She said wryly, "That is a comforting thought, Lady, but is it fact, or is it a sentiment seemly for a loving wife?"
"It is true, on the honor of my House," said Melora quietly, but her voice trembled, "and only my own Gods know how little I was a loving wife to Jalak, or anything else but a pawn to his filthy pride."
"I meant no offense," Nira said, "but I make no apology either, Lady. You dwelt in his house a full thirteen years, and you did not die. I would not have lived to shame my kinsmen so, even though my father is no great Comyn lord but a small-farmer in the Kilghard Hills."
"You have shed blood in my service, mestra; could I take offense, unless my pride were as great and evil as Jalak's own? As for my own life-can you see in the darkness?" She thrust out her wrists, took Nira's fingers in her own and guided them. Rohana, watching, touching, saw and felt the rough callouses from the metal bracelets on the chains; and above them on each darkly tanned wrist, a long, ragged, seamed scar. "I will bear them to my death," she said. "And after that, I was chained day and night-chained so tight I could not feed myself and had to be fed by the women and carried to the bath and to the latrines." Her voice shook with anger and remembered humiliation. "By the time I had healed, my child had quickened hi me, and I would not kill the unborn with my own death." She looked at the dark form of her daughter, huddled and lost in sleep, saying, "How did you get her away? Jalak had given her into the charge of his fiercest woman-guard...."
Leeanne had come back from the hilltop in time to hear this last; she said: "There is no sign of pursuit so far; not even a sand-rat seems to be stirring between here and Shainsa. As for your daughter's nurse, Lady, she sleeps past any waking; I do not like to kill women, but she came at me with a dagger. I was sorry to kill her before the child's eyes, but I had little choice."
"I will not weep for that one," said Melora with a grimace. "Indeed I think there will be small weeping for her, even in Jalak's house. She was my chief jailer before Jaelle was born, and I hated her worse than Jalak's own self. He was cruel because it was his nature and he had been reared to be so; but she was cruel because she found pleasure in the pain of others. I trust Zandru will delight in her company in hell; to be sure he will be the only one who has ever found such pleasure. Had I ever been trusted with a weapon again, even at table, I would have sunk it into her throat before turning it on myself." She turned to Rohana; for the first time there was a moment to exchange a quick, awkward embrace. "Breda ... I am still not sure this is no dream, that I will not waken in Jalak's bed."
With the touch of Melora's swollen hands in hers, Melora's wet face pressed against her own, the rapport wakened again; Melora's mind lay open to her, and more: sharp physical discomfort, pain. Rohana thought, panicked, Can she ride? Will she go into labor here and now, in the desert, jar from help, delaying us . . .?
Gently, Melora loosed Rohana's hands and the contact lessened. "It is easy to see you know little of the Dry Towns. May you never have cause to know more! I would have been expected to ride, even nearer to my time than this. Don't worry about me, breda." Her voice broke in a sob. "Oh, it is so good, just to speak to you in our own tongue. ..."
Rohana was desperately uneasy about her; she was not highly skilled in midwifery, but as mistress of Ardais she had seen many births; she knew Melora needed rest and care. But the Amazons, at Kindra's signal, were already mounting again, and indeed there seemed no choice.
Kindra came to inspect, briefly, Nira's bandaged wound. "So far there is no sign of pursuit, but with dawn someone will certainly find Jalak-or his corpse. And I would greatly prefer not to fight Jalak's men, or end my days chained in a Shainsa brothel."
Even in the dim light Melora's smile was perceptible. "It may be there will be no pursuit; most likely Jalak's heirs have found him dead and are already squabbling over his property and his wives, and the tenancy of the Great House. The last thing they would want would be to recapture a son of his with a valid claim!"
"Aldones grant it be so," said Kindra, "yet some kinsman of Jalak might seek kihar by avenging him- or some rival might want to make very sure any son with a valid claim did not survive him."
Melora gave Rohana's hands a convulsive squeeze, but her voice was calm. "I can ride as far as I must." Her eyes went to her sleeping daughter. "Can I have her with me on my own saddle?"
"Lady, you are heavy; your horse should not carry such a doubled weight," Kindra said. "Those of us who ride lightest will take turns to carry her, so that she can sleep a little longer. Can she ride? We have a spare horse for her, if she can sit alone on a saddle."
"She could ride almost as" soon as she could walk, mestra."
"That will do for when she wakes, then; for now, she can sleep," said Kindra, and lifted Jaelle, still sleeping, to her own saddle; she clambered up beside her, while Rohana assisted her cousin to mount. She was fearfully clumsy, and seemed unsteady in the' saddle, but Rohana said nothing. There was nothing to say; Kindra was right and they both knew it. She gathered up her own reins, took the reins of Melora's horse to lead it onward across the desert.
Melora was gazing wistfully toward the sunrise. "At this hour, I always long for-oh, I don't know-some snow, or rain, anything but the eternal sand and hot dry wind."
Rohana said softly, "If the Gods will, breda, within a tenday you will be back again in our hills and see the snow at every sunrise." Melora smiled, but shook her head. "I can ride now, and guide my own horse, if you think it better."
"Let me lead it, for now at least," Rohana said, and Melora nodded and leaned back in her saddle, bracing herself as best she could against the motion of the beast.
The sun rose, and Rohana saw, as the miles went by under the feet of their horses that the character of the land had changed. Flat, barren sand-desert had given way to low, rolling hills as far as the eye could see, and a low scruffy ground cover of thorn-trees and gray feathery spicebush. At first the smell was pleasant, but after a few hours of riding through it, Rohana felt that if she ever again ate spice bread at Midwinter Festival it would choke her. Her throat was dry; she almost regretted the wine she had not been able to drink. Hour by hour Melora seemed more unsteady in her saddle, but she made no word of complaint. Indeed, she did not speak at all, riding head down, her face stony-gray with effort and patience.
As the sun climbed the light grew fiercer, and the heat. Some of the Amazons drew loose folds of their shifts or tunics over their heads; Rohana did likewise, finding the heat preferable to the direct glare. She was beginning to wonder how long Melora could continue to ride-and she herself was weary and saddle-worn almost to the point of dropping from her saddle-when Leeanne, riding ahead, turned back, held up her hand and called to Kindra, who rode quickly ahead to join her, while the others came to a gradual halt.
After a moment Kindra came riding back. "In the next ravine there is a water hole; and some rocks for shelter from the sun. We can lie there during the heat of the day." As they followed her along the path Leeanne indicated, Kindra dropped back to ride beside Rohana and Melora.
"How is it with you, Lady?"
Melora's attempt at a smile only stretched her mouth a little. "As well as I can hope for, mestra. But I don't deny I shall be glad to rest a little."
"So shall we all. I wish I could spare you this. But-" She sounded apologetic, and Melora gestured her to silence. She said, "I know perfectly well that you and yours have put your heads hi jeopardy for me, and more. God forbid I should complain about whatever you must do for your safety and ours."
Something about the words made Rohana's breath catch in her throat. Melora had sounded, for a moment, almost precisely her old self: gracious, gentle, with the winning courtesy she had shown to her peers and inferiors alike. She spoke as she would have spoken when we were girls together in Dalereuth. Merciful Evanda, is there really any hope that one day she will be herself again, live out her life happy and free?
The water hole was a dull, glimmering sheet of water, less than twenty feet across; it looked pallid and unhealthy, but Kindra said the water was good. Behind it was a cluster of blackish-red, forbidding rocks, casting purple shadows on the sand, turning the omnipresent fluff of spicebush to a lavender shadow on the barren space. Even the shadow of the rocks made Rohana think more of snakes and scorpions than cool, inviting rest, but it was better than the burning glare of the Dryland sun at midday.
Rohana helped Melora to dismount, steadying her uneven steps. She guided her to a seat in the shadow of the rocks and went to lead her horse to the water, but Kindra stopped her. "Care for your kinswoman, Lady," she said, taking the bridles of their horses, and, lowering her voice, "How does she, really?"
Rohana shook her head. "So far, she is managing. There is really no more I can say." She knew perfectly well that anyone skilled in such matters would say that Melora should not ride at all. But Kindra knew that, too, and there was simply nothing to be done.
She said, "Are there any signs of pursuit?"
"So far, none," said Leeanne, and Jaelle, who had slid down from her horse, came up to them, and stopped, shyly, at a little distance. She said, "How do you know we are not pursued, mestra?" She spoke the language of the mountain country with a faint accent, but understandably; and Kindra smiled at the child.
"I hear no sound of hooves with my ear to the ground; and there is no cloud of sand rising where men ride, within the distance my eyes can see."
"Why, you are as good as Jalak's best trackers, then," said the little girl in wonder. "I did not know that women could be trackers."
"Living in Shainsa, little lady, there is much you do not know about women."
Jaelle said eagerly, "Will you tell me, then?"
"Perhaps when I have time; just for now, do you know enough about horses to know that these must be watered, and cooled?"
"Oh, I am sorry-am I delaying you? Can I help, then?"
Kindra handed the small girl the reins of the horse Melofa had ridden. "Walk him slowly back and forth, then, till his breathing quiets and the sweat is almost dry around his saddle. Then lead him to the water and let him drink what he will. Can you do that, do you think?"
1 "Oh, yes," said Jaelle, and walked off, holding the horse's reins. Kindra followed with Rohana's horse, and Rohana stood, looking after Jaelle. She seemed tall for her age, lightly built, with delicate bones, her hair flaming red, hanging halfway down her narrow back; she wore the nightgown in which she had been wakened-fine-spun Dryland linen, smoothly loomed and embroidered-although one of the Amazons had put a short jacket, much too big for her, around her shoulders. Her feet were bare, but she walked on the hot sand without apparent discomfort. Rohana could not see that the child resembled Melora, except for her flaming hair; but there was no discernible resemblance to Jalak, either.
She returned to Melora, who had stretched out her clumsy body on her riding cape, and closed her eyes. Rohana looked at her with disquiet, then composed her face hurriedly as Melora opened her eyes. "Where is Jaelle?"
"She is helping Kindra to water the horses," Rohana said. "Believe me, she's quite safe and well, and seems not over-wearied by the ride." Rohana lowered herself to the shade beside her cousin. "I wish I had even a little of her energy."
Melora stretched out her thin fingers, clasping Rohana's hand in hers as if hungry for the reassurance of the touch. "I can see how you have wearied yourself for me, too, cousin . . .. How came you into the company of these-these women? You have not deserted husband and children as they do...?" The question was evident without words, and Rohana smiled in reassurance. "No, love. My marriage-as I knew it would be-is well enough: Gabriel and I are as happy as any other couple."
"Then how-"
"It is a long story," Rohana said, "and not easy hi the telling. It seemed to me that everyone had forgotten you; I had all but forgotten myself, thinking you dead or-or resigned to your life." She added, half defensively, "It had been so long."
"Yes, a lifetime," said Melora with a sigh.
"When you came to me, at first I thought it a dream. I made the journey to Thendara and spoke to some of the Council; but they said they could do nothing, the time was not right for war with the Dry Towns, and they would send no others to die. I had all but resigned myself to thinking that nothing could be done, when by chance-or who knows, by the work of some Goddess-a little band of Free Amazons met with me on the road. They were hunters and traders, and had a mercenary soldier or two to protect them; and in talk with them, I learned that while their band did not venture into the Dry-Towns, they knew of one who would. So I went to their Guild-house and spoke with Kindra; and she agreed to attempt the rescue. And so-"
"So here you are," said Melora, almost with wonder, "and here I am. It was true. I had resigned myself, and when I knew I bore Jalak's child again, and that child a son-I was ready to die." Her eyes went to her daughter; Jaelle had finished walking the horse, and was standing beside him as he drank from the waterhole. "She is past twelve; at thirteen she would have been chained. I think if you had not come I would have killed her, somehow, and then myself-----"
Rohana saw the deep shudder that ran through her cousin's body. She put out her hand quickly to clasp Melora's. "It is past, love. All past. Now you can begin to forget."
Forget? While I bear Jalak's son? Melora did not speak the words aloud, but Rohana heard them anyway. She said very gently, "Well, for now-you can rest, and you are free, and safe for the moment. Try to sleep, dearest."
"Sleep." Melora's smile was wry. "I cannot remember when I really slept last. And it seems a pity to sleep now, when I am with you again, and safe ... and I am happy.... Tell me all the news of our kinfolk, Rohana. Does Marius Elhalyn still rule in Thendara? What of our people, our friends-tell me everything," she said yearningly, and Rohana had not the heart to silence her.
"That is a long story and would take many days and hours in the telling. Dom Marius died the year after you were taken; Aran Elhalyn keeps the throne warm from year to year, and as usual the Lord of Hastur is the true ruler; not old Istvan, he is senile, but Lorill Hastur, who was his heir. You recall that Lorill and his sister Leonie were with us at the Dalereuth Tower, when we were girls; I thought perhaps Lorill would move against Jalak for your sake-"
Melora sighed. She said, "Even I knew better than that; the Hasturs must think of more important things than the cause of kin, or how are they better than the Dry-Towners with all their feuds and little wars? There is peace otherwise?"
"Peace, yes . . . Lorill has brought the Terrans from Aldaran to Thendara; they are building a spaceport there, and he has defended his move before the Council; some of them fought it all the way, but Lorill prevailed, as the Hasturs usually do."
"The Terrans," said Melora, slowly. "Yes, I had heard; men like us from another world, come on great ships from the stars. Jalak told such tales only to laugh at them; in the Dry Towns they do not know that the stars are suns like ours, lighting worlds not unlike our own, and Jalak loved to scoff at such tales and say these so-called off-worlders must be clever rogues indeed to fool the Seven Domains, but that no sensible man from the Drylands would be caught so...." She shut her eyes, and Rohana thought, for a moment, that she slept; and was grateful. Knowing that she, too, should try to rest, she closed her eyes, but a shadow fell across her face, and she opened them to see Jaelle standing there, looking down at them. She said in a whisper, "It is you who are my-our kinswoman, Lady Rohana?"
Rohana sat up and held out her arms; Jaelle gave her a quick, shy embrace. "How does my mother, kinswoman? Is she asleep?"
"Asleep; and very weary," said Rohana, rising quickly to her feet. She drew the child away so the sound of their voices would not disturb Melora.
"I will not waken her, but I wanted to see-" and her voice trembled. Rohana looked down at the small serious face, the wide green eyes.
Comyn, she thought; she does not look like Melora, but her Comyn blood is unmistakable. It would have been wrong, entirely wrong, to leave her in Jalak's hands... not only inhuman but wrong!
Jaelle said, almost in a whisper, "She should not ride now; the baby will be born so soon...."
"I know that, dear. But we are not safe here, except for a little rest. When we reach Carthon, we will be back in Domain country; and out of Jalak's reach forever," Rohana said quietly.
"But-what will it do to her? The riding, the weariness-" Jaelle began hesitantly, then dropped her eyes and looked away. Rohana thought, Has she laran? Even in the telepath caste of the Comyn, the Gift did not begin to show itself much before adolescence; a trained leronis could make educated guesses about a child Jaelle's age, but it had been so long since Rohana had used her telepath training that she could not even guess about Jaelle. Now, when I need to know, the Gift deserts me.... Why must women have to choose between the use of laran and all the other things of a woman's life?
She looked down at Melora, wiped out in exhausted sleep, and thought of the time when they had been young girls together, in the Tower at Dalereuth, learning the use of the matrix jewels that transformed energies; working as psi monitors, in the relay nets that kept communications alive in the vast spaces of Darkover, learning the technology of the Seven Domains.
There had been three of them, all the same age: Rohana, and Melora, and Leonie Hastur, sister to that Lorill Hastur who ruled now behind the throne at Thendara. Rohana's family had insisted that she marry, and she had left her work in the Tower-not without regrets-and gone to marry the heir to the Ardais Domain, to supervise the great estate there, to bear sons and a daughter to that clan. Leonie had been selected Keeper; a telepath of surpassing skill, she was now in charge of the Tower at Arilinn, controlling all the working telepaths on Darkover. But Leonie had paid the Keeper's price; she had been forced to renounce love and marriage, living in seclusion as a virgin all her life....
Melora had been given no- choice. Jalak's armed men had seized her and carried her away to imprisonment and chains ... rape and slavery and long suffering.
Rohana's weariness was giving her strange thoughts. Did Jalak really change her life so much? Do any of us have choice, really? At our clan's demand, to share a stranger's bed and rule his house and bear his children ... or to live isolated from life, in loneliness and seclusion, controlling tremendous forces, but with no power to reach out our hand to any other human being, alone, virgin, worshiped but 'pitied....
Jaelle's small hand touched hers lightly, and the little girl said, "Kinswoman ... you are so white...."
Rohana quickly returned to reality. She said matter-of-factly, "I have eaten nothing. And in a little while I must wake your mother and see that she eats something, too." She went with Jaelle to where the Amazons were sharing out food and drink; this time she diluted the wine with water from the well and found it sour but drinkable. Kindra went to look at the sleeping Melora and came back, saying, "She needs rest more than food, Lady; she can eat when she wakes," and looked at Jaelle, saying, "You will be sunburned and saddle-sore if you try to ride in that nightgown, chiya. Gwennis, Leeanne, Devra, you are smallest, can you find the little one some clothes?"
Rohana was surprised and warmed to see how immediate the response was; all but the tallest of the women went at once to their saddlebags, searching, sharing out what they had, an under vest here, a tunic there, a pair of trousers (Leeanne's, and even these had to be rolled up almost to the knees). Camilla, whose feet were slender, brought out a pair of suede ankle boots, saying, "They will be too big, but laced tightly, they will protect her while she is riding and keep her feet from the sand and thorn bushes." They were embroidered and dyed, evidently her own holiday gear, and Rohana was more surprised than ever; a neuter, she would have thought, could hardly have maternal feelings.
Jaelle let Rohana undress her and clothe her in the strange garments, looking around hesitantly toward her mother but forbearing to disturb her. She did say shakily, as Rohana belted in the bulky long trousers, and began to lace up the pretty, dyed-leather boots, "I have always been told it is not seemly for a woman to wear breeches, and-and, I am almost old enough to be called a woman."
"Better breeched than bare Jaelle," Rohana said, adding more gently, "I know how you feel. Before I came on this journey, I believed nothing could force me to wear breeches and boots, but necessity is stronger than custom; and, as for seemliness-well, you cannot ride in that tattered nightgown with your bare haunches in the wind."
Camilla came and checked the fit of the boots. "If they are too loose and make blisters, child, tell me and I will find an extra pair of thick stockings. How do women manage to ride in the Dry Towns, little lady?"
"The saddle is made like this"-Jaelle demonstrated-"so that a woman can sit sidewise and her skirts are not disordered."
"And will slip and fall if her horse stumbles," said Gwennis, "while I can ride as fast and far as any man, and I have never had a fall. But in the Domains, little one, you can wear those clumsy riding-skirts your kinswoman prefers to wear."
"Clumsy they may look," Rohana retorted, "yet I ride well enough in them that I can hunt with hawks in the mountains; in a bad season, when the men cannot spare time for the hunt, the little children or sick people have never had to go without birds or small game for their table, riding-skirts or no; I ride as well in them as in these." And I wish I were wearing them now, she thought, but knew the Amazons would have had small sympathy for that.
Gwennis ran her hand along Jaelle's long tangled hair. "It is a pity it should snarl so."
Jaelle's eyes filled with tears; she looked up at Rohana's cropped head and said, "Do you have to cut it?"
Rohana said firmly, "No indeed. But let me comb and braid it tight, so it will not tangle while you ride." She made Jaelle sit down and began to comb the waist-length, fire-red hair. She felt again a pang at the thought of her own hair, which had been her pride, her one claim to beauty. Gabriel will be angry when he sees my hair, hacked short like an Amazon's. She thought defensively, as if answering her husband, / had no choice, it was for Melora's sake. But Jaelle's should not be sacrificed.
THE SHATTERED CHAIN
61
Kindra came and looked at Jaelle, dressed in the too-large odds and ends of Amazon garb, but she made no comment. She drew Rohana aside for a moment and said, "Do not tell the child, and do not disturb your kinswoman, but there is a small cloud of dust at the horizon. It probably has nothing to do with us-it is not in the direction of Shainsa, from which pursuit would come; but I must warn my women, and you, Lady, should be wary."
"Should we be ready to ride again?"
Kindra shook her head. "No. In the heat of the day we dare not; we would die of heat prostration as painfully as on a Dry-Towner's sword. We will hide ourselves among the rocks and hope that this dust has nothing to do with us, or with Jalak and his men; sleep if you can, Lady, but stay near to Melora and the little one, and caution her, if she wakes, to stay hidden in the shadow of the rocks." She signaled to Devra and Rima, saying, "I shall set you two on watch; Leeanne and I have been leading and tracking all the night, and Nira has lost enough blood that she needs rest. But call me at once if that dust seems to turn in our direction. Lady, go now and try to sleep. And you too, domnina," she added to Jaelle.
"May I bring my bread and finish it before I sleep?" Jaelle asked, and Kindra said, "Of course," as she went away to rest. Gwennis, reaching into her pocket, smiled at Jaelle and said, "Are you hungry, chiya? Here is a sweet for you; suck it before you sleep, and it will keep your mouth from getting too dry in this heat."
Jaelle accepted the candy with a small, shy inclination of her head. She looked around at the Amazons with curiosity-though Rohana could see that she was trying hard to repress it and, in politeness, ask nothing. At last she said to Gwennis, "Some of you look-almost like men. Why is that?"
Gwennis glanced at Rohana; then said, "Yes; Leeanne and Camilla. They have been neutered; their bodies are not actually those of women. There are some women who feel that womanhood itself is too great a burden to be borne, and choose this way, even though the laws forbid it."
"But you are not like that," Jaelle said, and Gwennis smiled.
"No, chiya. It is troublesome to be a woman, from time to time-I imagine you are old enough to know so much-but all in all, I think I would rather be a woman than not, even if it were easy or simple to find anyone, in these days, who will risk the laws against that sort of mutilation. All in all I find it more pleasure than trouble."
Rohana, too, had been curious about this; like all women reared in the protective, pampered world of the Domains, she had always thought-when she had thought about the Amazons at all, which was seldom- that they were mannish women, or plain girls such as would burden their families to find any sort of husband. But, except for the two neutered women, and the mountain tomboy with the two knives, none of them were anything like that. Kindra was gentle and almost motherly, as was Fat Rima; and the others seemed none too different, clothing and cropped hair apart, from her own waiting-women. As for Gwennis, she seemed almost like a little girl herself, not much older than Jaelle, or Rohana's own daughter.
Jaelle smiled at Gwennis and said, "You would be beautiful if you let your hair grow long."
It was Rohana's own thought. Gwennis said with a kindly smile, "Why, perhaps so, little sister, but why should I want to be beautiful? I am not a dancer, or an actress, or a lyric performer, that I should need so much beauty!" __
"But if you were beautiful, you could make a good marriage," Jaelle said, "and you would not need to be a soldier or a hunter to earn a living."
"But, little one," said Gwennis, laughing, "I do not want to make a marriage, not even a good one."
"Oh?" Jaelle pondered this for a moment; it was easy to see that this was a new idea to her. "Why not?"
"For many reasons. Among others," she said deliberately, "lest I should find that my husband sought to keep me in chains."
Rohana felt it like a blow; Jaelle put her hand to her mouth and bit at the knuckle. Her face went white, then a desperate, agonized crimson. She made a small, strangled sound, turned away and ran to her mother's side, flinging herself down on the blanket beside her and burying her head in her arms.
Gwennis looked almost as dismayed as the child. She said, "My Lady, I am sorry, I should not have said that."
Silently, Rohana shook her head. She said at last, "She had to know."
Suddenly Jaelle has realized what this is all about. Before this it has been an adventure, safe because her mother is here; but she has not truly understood. And now-now she knows.
And a shock like this, to a girl just on the threshold of womanhood ... a girl with extraordinary telepath potential ... Rohana was not sure just how she knew this, but she was sure of it. What will it do to her? Slowly, Rohana went and laid herself down in the shade beside Melora and Jaelle. Melora slept heavily. Jaelle's face was buried in the blanket, her thin shoulders trembling violently. Rohana reached out to draw her close, comfort her, as she would have done with one of her own children; but Jaelle resisted her stiffly, and after a moment Rohana let her be. I am almost a stranger to her, she thought in despair. / can do nothing for her. Not yet.