But slowly she began to realize that there was something wrong. Normally, at this hour, the women would be going back and forth in the streets, gossiping with neighbors, marketing for the evening meal, while their children played and squabbled in the street. But tonight there was not a single woman in the street, nor a single child.
What was wrong? Frowning, she rode along the main street toward the inn. She was hungry and weary.
She had left Dalereuth many days before with a companion, bound for Neskaya Guild-house. But unknown to either of them, her companion had been pregnant; she had fallen sick of a fever, and in Thendara Guild-house she had miscarried and still lay there, very ill. Kindra had gone alone to Neskaya; but she had turned aside three days’ ride to carry a message to the sick woman’s oath-mother. She had found her in a village in the hills, working to help a group of women set up a small dairy.
Kindra was not afraid of traveling alone; she had journeyed in these hills at all seasons and in all weathers. But her provisions were beginning to run low. Fortunately, the innkeeper was an old acquaintance; she had little money with her, because her journey had been so unexpectedly prolonged, but old Jorik would feed her and her horse, give her a bed for the night, and trust her to send money to pay for it— knowing that if she did not, or could not, her Guild-house would pay, for the honor of the Guild.
The man who took her horse in the stable had known her for many years, too. He scowled as she alighted. “I don’t know where we shall stable your horse, and that’s certain, mestra, with all these strange horses here… will she share a box stall without kicking, do you suppose? Or shall I tie her loose at the end?” Kindra noticed that the stable was crammed with horses, two dozen of them and more. Instead of a lonely village inn, it looked like Neskaya on market-day!
“Did you meet with any riders on the road, mestra?”
“No, none,” Kindra said, frowning a little. “All the horses in the Kilghard Hills seem to be here in your stable—what is it, a royal visit? What is the matter with you? You keep looking over your shoulder as if you expect to find your master there with a stick to beat you—where is old Jorik, why is he not here to greet his guests?”
“Why, mestra, old Jorik’s dead,” the old man said, “and Dame Janella trying to manage the inn alone with young Annelys and Marga.”
“Dead? Gods preserve us,” Kindra said. “What happened?”
“It was those bandits, mestra, Scarface’s gang; they came here and cut Jorik down with his apron still on,” said the old groom. “Made havoc in the town, broke all the ale-pots, and when the menfolk drove ‘em off with pitchforks, they swore they’d be back and fire the town! So Dame Janella and the elders put the cap round and raised copper to hire Brydar of Fen Hills and all his men to come and defend us when they come back; and here Brydar’s men have been ever since, mestra, quarreling and drinking and casting eyes on the women until the townfolk are ready to say the remedy’s worse than the sickness! But go in, go in, mestra, Janella’s ready to welcome you.”
Plump Janella looked paler and thinner than Kindra had ever seen her. She greeted Kindra with unaccustomed warmth. Under ordinary conditions, she was cold to Kindra, as befitted a respectable wife in the presence of a member of the Amazon Guild; now, Kindra supposed, she was learning that an innkeeper could not afford to alienate a customer. Jorik, Kindra knew, had not approved of the Free Amazons either; but he had learned from experience that they were quiet guests who kept to themselves, caused no trouble, did not get drunk and break bar-stools and ale-pots, and paid their reckoning promptly. A guest’s reputation, Kindar thought wryly, does not tarnish the color of his money.
“You have heard, good mestra? Those wicked men, Scarface’s fellows, they cut my good man down, and for nothing—just because he flung an ale-pot at one of them who laid rough hands on my little girl, and Annelys not fifteen yet! Monsters!”
“And they killed him? Shocking!” Kindra murmured, but her pity was for the girl. All her life, young Annelys must remember that her father had been killed in defending her, because she could not defend herself. Like all the women of the Guild, Kindra was sworn to defend herself, to turn to no man for protection. She had been a member of the Guild for half her lifetime; it seemed shocking to her that a man should die defending a girl from advances she should have known how to ward off herself.
“Ah, you don’t know what it’s like, mestra, being alone without the goodman. Living alone as you do, you can’t imagine!”
“Well, you have daughters to help you,” Kindra said, and Janella shook her head and mourned. “But they can’t come out among all those rough men, they are only little girls!”
“It will do them good to learn something of the world and its ways,” Kindra said, but the woman sighed. “I wouldn’t like them to learn too much of that.”
“Then, I suppose, you must get you another husband,” Kindra said, knowing that there was simply no way she and Janella could communicate. “But indeed I am sorry for your grief. Jorik was a good man.”
“You can’t imagine how good, mestra,” Janella said plaintively. “You women of the Guild, you call yourselves free women, only it seems to me I have always been free, until now, when I must watch myself night and day, lest someone get the wrong idea about a woman alone. Only the other day, one of Brydar’s men said to me—and that’s another thing, these men of Brydar’s. Eating us out of house and home, and just look, mestra, no room in the stable for the horses of our paying customers, with half the village keeping their horses here against bandits, and those hired swords drinking up my good old man’s beer day after day—” Abruptly she recalled her duties as landlord. “But come into the common-room, mestra, warm yourself, and I’ll bring you some supper; we have a roast haunch of chervine. Or would you fancy something lighter, rabbithorn stewed with mushrooms, perhaps? We’re crowded, yes, but there’s the little room at the head of the stairs, you can have that to yourself, a room fit for a fine lady, indeed Lady Hastur slept here in that very bed, a few years gone. Lilla! Lilla! Where’s that simpleminded wench gone? When I took her in, her mother told me she was lack-witted, but she has wits enough to hang about talking to that young hired sword, Zandru scratch them all! Lilla! Hurry now, show the good woman her room, fetch her wash-water, see to her saddlebags!”
Later, Kindra went down to the common-room. Like all Guild-women, she had learned to be discreet when traveling alone; a solitary woman was prey to questions, at least, so they usually journeyed in pairs. This subjected them to raised eyebrows and occasional dirty speculations, but warded off the less palatable approaches to which a lone woman traveling on Darkover was subject. Of course, any woman of the Guild could protect herself if it went past rude words, but that could cause trouble for all the Guild. It was better to conduct oneself in a way that minimized the possibility of trouble. So Kindra sat alone in a tiny corner near the fireplace, kept her hood drawn around her face—she was neither young nor particularly pretty—sipped her wine and warmed her feet, and did nothing to attract anyone’s attention. It occurred to her that at this moment she, who called herself a Free Amazon, was considerably less constrained than Janella’s young daughters, going back and forth, protected by their family’s roof and their mother’s presence.
She finished her meal—she had chosen the stewed rabbithorn—and called for a second glass of wine, too weary to climb the stairs to her chamber and too tired to sleep if she did.
Some of Brydar’s hired swords were sitting around a long table at the other end end of the room, drinking and playing dice. They were a mixed crew; Kindra knew none of them, but she had met Brydar himself a few times, and had even hired out with him, once, to guard a merchant caravan across the desert to the Dry Towns. She nodded courteously to him, and he saluted her, but paid her no further attention; he knew her well enough to know that she would not welcome even polite conversation when she was in a roomful of strangers.
One of the younger mercenaries, a young man, tall
, beardless and weedy, ginger hair cut close to his head, rose and came toward her. Kindra braced herself for the inevitable. If she had been with two or three other Guild-women, she would have welcomed harmless companionship, a drink together and talk about the chances of the road, but a lone Amazon simply did NOT drink with men in public taverns, and, damn it, Brydar knew it as well as she did.
One of the older mercenaries must have been having some fun with the green boy, needling him to prove his manhood by approaching the Amazon, amusing themselves by enjoying the rebuff he’d inevitably get.
One of the men looked up and made a remark Kindra didn’t hear. The boy snarled something, a hand to his dagger. “Watch yourself, you—!” He spoke a foulness. Then he came to Kindra’s table and said, in a soft, husky voice, “A good evening to you, honorable mistress.”
Startled at the courteous phrase, but still wary, Kindra said, “And to you, young sir.”
“May I offer you a tankard of wine?”
“I have had enough to drink,” Kindra said, “but I thank you for the kind offer.” Something faintly out of key, almost effeminate, in the youth’s bearing, alerted her; his proposition, then, would not be the usual thing. Most people knew that Free Amazons took lovers if and when they chose, and all too many men interpreted that to mean that any Amazon could be had, at any time. Kindra was an expert at turning covert advances aside without ever letting it come to question or refusal; with ruder approaches, she managed with scant courtesy. But that wasn’t what this youngster wanted; she knew when a man was looking at her with desire, whether he put it into words or not, and although there was certainly interest in this young man’s face, it wasn’t sexual interest! What did he want with her, then?
“May I—may I sit here and talk to you for a moment, honorable dame?”
Rudeness she could have managed. This excessive courtesy was a puzzle. Were they simply making game of a woman-hater, wagering he would not have the courage to talk to her? She said neutrally, “This is a public room; the chairs are not mine. Sit where you like.”
Ill at ease, the boy took a seat. He was young indeed. He was still beardless, but his hands were callused and hard, and there was a long-healed scar on one cheek; he was not as young as she thought.
“You are a Free Amazon, mestra?” He used the common, and rather offensive, term; but she did not hold it against him. Many men knew no other name.
“I am,” she said, “but we would rather say: I am of the oath-bound—” The word she used was Comhi-Letzis— “A Renunciate of the Sisterhood of Freed Women.”
“May I ask—without giving offense—why the name Renunciate, mestra?”
Actually, Kindra welcomed a chance to explain. “Because, sir, in return for our freedom as women of the Guild, we swear an oath renouncing those privileges that we might have by choosing to belong to some man. If we renounce the disabilities of being property and chattel, we must renounce, also, whatever benefits there may be; so that no man can accuse us of trying to have the best of both choices.”
He said gravely, “That seems to me an honorable choice. I have never yet met a—a—a Renunciate. Tell me, mestra— ” His voice suddenly cracked high. “I suppose you know the slanders that are spoken of you—tell me, how does any woman have the courage to join the Guild, knowing what will be said of her?”
“I suppose,” Kindra said quietly, “for some women, a time comes when they think that there are worse things than being the subject of public slanders. It was so with me.”
He thought that over for a moment, frowning. “I have never seen a Free—er—a Renunciate traveling alone before. Do you not usually travel in pairs, honorable dame?”
“True. But need knows no mistress,” Kindra said, and explained that her companion had fallen sick in Thendara.
“And you came so far to bear a message? Is she your bredhis?” the boy asked, using the polite word for a woman’s freemate or female lover; and because it was the polite word he used, not the gutter one, Kindra did not take offense. “No, only a comrade.”
“I—I would not have dared speak if there had been two of you—”
Kindra laughed. “Why not? Even in twos or threes, we are not dogs to bite strangers.”
The boy stared at his boots. “I have cause to fear —women—” he said, almost inaudibly. “But you seemed kind. And I suppose, mestra, that whenever you come into these hills, where life is so hard for women, you are always seeking out wives and daughters who are discontented at home, to recruit them for your Guild?”
Would that we might! Kindra thought, with all the old bitterness; but she shook her head. “Our charter forbids it,” she said. “It is the law that a women must seek us out herself, and formally petition to be allowed to join us. I am not even allowed to tell women of the advantages of the Guild, when they ask. I may only tell them of the things they must renounce, by oath.” She tightened her lips and added, “If we were to do as you say, to seek out discontented wives and daughters and lure them away to the Guild, the men would not let any Guild-house stand in the Domains, but would burn our houses about our ears.” It was the old injustice; the women of Darkover had won this concession, the charter of the Guild, but so hedged about with restrictions that many women never saw or spoke with a Guild-sister.
“I suppose,” she said, “that they have found out that we are not whores, so they insist that we are all lovers of women, intent on stealing out their wives and daughters. We must be, it seems, one evil thing or the other.”
“Are there no lovers of women among you, then?”
Kindra shrugged. “Certainly,” she said. “You must know that there are some women who would rather die than marry; and even with all the restrictions and renunciations of the oath, it seems a preferable alternative. But I assure you we are not all so. We are free women—free to be thus or otherwise, at our own will.” After a moment’s thought she added carefully, “And if you have a sister you may tell her so from me.”
The young man started, and Kindra bit her lip; again she had let her guard down, picking up hunches so clearly formed that sometimes her companions accused her of having a little of the telepathic gift of the higher castes; laran. Kindra, who was, as far as she knew, all commoner and without either noble blood or telepathic gift, usually kept herself barricaded; but she had picked up a random thought, a bitter thought from somewhere, My sister would not believe … a thought quickly vanished, so quickly that Kindra wondered if she had imagined the whole thing.
The young face across the table twisted into bitter lines.
“There is none, now, I may call my sister.”
“I am sorry,” Kindra said, puzzled. “To be alone, that is a sorrowful thing. May I ask your name?”
The boy hesitated again, and Kindra knew, with that odd intuition, that the real name had almost escaped the taut lips; but he bit it back.
“Brydar’s men call me Marco. Don’t ask my lineage; there is none who will claim kin to me now— thanks to those foul bandits under Scarface.” He twisted his mouth and spat. “Why do you think I am in this company? For the few coppers these village folk can pay? No, mestra. I too am oath-bound. To revenge.”
Kindra left the common-room early, but she could not sleep for a long time. Something in the young man’s voice, his words, had plucked a resonating string in her own mind and memory. Why had he questioned her so insistently? Had he a sister or kinswoman, perhaps, who had spoken of becoming a Renunciate? Or was he, an obvious effeminate, jealous of her because she could escape the role ordained by society for her sex and he could not? Did he fantasy, perhaps, some such escape from the demands made upon men? Surely not; there were simpler lives for men than that of a hired sword! And men had a choice of what lives they would live— more choice, anyhow, than most women. Kindra had chosen to become a Renunciate, making herself an outcaste among most people in the Domains. Even the innkeeper only tolerated her, because she was a regular customer and paid well, but he would have equally tolera
ted a prostitute or a traveling juggler, and would have had fewer prejudices against either.
Was the youth, she wondered, one of the rumored spies sent out by cortes, the governing body in Thendara, to trap Renunciates who broke the terms of their charter by proselytizing and attempting to recruit women into the Guild? If so, at least she had resisted the temptation. She had not even said, though tempted, that if Janella were a Renunciate she would have felt competent to run the inn by herself, with the help of her daughters.
A few times, in the history of the Guild, men had even tried to infiltrate them in disguise. Unmasked, they had met with summary justice, but it had happened and might happen again. At that, she thought, he might be convincing enough in women’s clothes; but not with the scar on his face, or those callused hands. Then she laughed in the dark, feeling the calluses on her own fingers. Well, if he was fool enough to try it, so much the worse for him. Laughing, she fell asleep.
Hours later she woke to the sound of hoofbeats, the clash of steel, yells and cries outside. Somewhere women were shrieking. Kindra flung on her outer clothes and ran downstairs. Brydar was standing in the courtyard, bellowing orders. Over the wall of the courtyard she could see a sky reddened with flames. Scarface and his bandit crew were loose in the town, it seemed.
“Go, Renwal,” Brydar ordered. “Slip behind their rear-guard and set their horses loose, stampede them, so they must stand to fight, not strike and flee again! And since all the good horses are stabled here, one of you must stay and guard them lest they strike here for ours… the rest of you come with me, and have your swords at the ready—”