~o0o~
The Guild House of Aderes was not a large one; only four women lived regularly in the house, although sometimes traveling Amazons like Camilla stayed there for a few days or a season. Reva, the midwife, provided most of their cash income; otherwise they lived by selling the fine kerchiefs they wove from the wool of their animals.
Marna, who had been taught to do fine embroidery, encouraged them to decorate the kerchiefs with pretty patterns. They also had an herb garden and sold medicines, and when their cows were fresh they took butter to market. It was a hard life, as Reva had said: they spent most of their days in weaving or working in their garden. For days, Marna trembled at every knock on the door, fearing Dom Ruyvil had come to drag her away, but soon she grew calm. She enjoyed her new life. Some of the things she learned were a delight; she was taught to read, and soon could write a good hand. She did not like cooking and scrubbing floors, but every woman in the house had to take turns at the heavy work, as they did with the shearing, spinning, and weaving of the wool. The old emmasca, Camilla, who had been a mercenary soldier and lived in Thendara Guild House, gave Marna a few lessons in knife-play and unarmed combat, but Marna was not very skilled at it; she was timid and clumsy, and the more Camilla yelled at her, the more helpless she felt.
When she was older, they told her, they would send her to Thendara Guild House for the regular half-year of re-training. Meanwhile she must learn their ways. Mostly they kept her in the house and garden, but one day Gwennis was sick, and they sent her to the market with butter. She had been there several times with Mother Dio or Ysabet, and knew the basic rules of Amazon behavior in public: to speak to no man except on business, not to talk to the village girls, who might be punished for associating with her. Marna thought this was foolish. The girls should know that there was a better life than slaving as drudges for their parents until some man bought them like animals! But the law was the law, and in order to exist at all, the Amazons had been forced to make compromises. One was that they might not recruit any woman who did not seek them out of her free will. Marna suspected that a little discreet recruiting was done anyway, but while she was still too young for the oath, she must obey their rules meticulously.
So she walked along, her eyes bent strictly on business; she went to the dairy-woman’s market stall and gave the woman her butter. Mother Dio had told her they needed honey; she had packets of herb dyes in her pocket, and she should try to barter for it. Marna spent a pleasant hour in the market, and finally started back to the Guild House, the crock of honey wrapped in a burlap sack; she had traded it for some madder dye.
It was beginning to grow dark. As she passed the tavern, a young man unhitching his horse from the rail so drunk that even at this distance Marna could smell the stale reek of wine, called to her, “What about it, girl want to spend the night with me? Hey—don’t be so damned unfriendly!” He turned and staggered toward her. “Aaah—one of those bitches trying to wear a sword like a man!” He caught heavily at her arm. “What you want to spend your life with those women for? Why don’t you want to be a real woman, huh?” He fumbled at her.
Marna, shaking, pulled herself free and fled, clutching at the crock of honey. The man yelled drunkenly, “Aaah, go on, who the hell wants one of you bitches anyhow!”
Her heart beating, racing, her mouth dry, Marna tried to compose herself. Was there something about her, that she looked like that kind of girl? Dom Ruyvil had accused her of leading him on, too, even when she cried and tried to stop him. What did she do that made men act that way? She put her hand on her knife hilt. If the man had really tried to hold her, could she have drawn her knife, tried to frighten him away with it? Could she have found the courage to strike? Half blinded by tears, she did not see where she was going until she ran into a tall, heavy man on the cobbled street. She murmured a well-bred apology, then felt her arm seized in a heavy grip, and heard a hated voice.
“So, little Marna! You lying slut, you’ve made a fine mess of my life—Dori came near to sending me away! Running and whining to those filthy bitches, and now you’re one of them!”
She struggled to free herself of the heavy grip.
“You! Ruyvil!”
“You will say stepfather, or dom, when you speak to me,” he snarled.
“I won’t!” she cried. “You’re not my father and I owe you nothing—not respect, not obedience, nothing!”
He slapped her, hard. “No more of that! You’re coming home where you belong. Look at you—brazen as you please in boots and breeches, your hair cut off, showing your—” He used a filthy word. “Come on, you—I’ve got a horse, and I’m going to take you home to your mother, and by Zandru’s toenails, if you tell her any more tales, I’ll break every bone in your body!”
She faced him, shaking, but braced by what the women had told her; she must learn to defend herself and appeal to none for protection. “Everything I said to mother and the magistrate was true—”
“Ah, you wanted it, you dirty little slut, you can’t tell me you weren’t making eyes at every stable-boy and armsman—”
“I do tell you that!” she retorted. “You can lie all you want to my mother, but you know perfectly well what the truth is—”
“You can’t speak to me like that!” His heavy hand knocked her sprawling to the ground; she lay there in terror, watching his knife come out of its sheath . . . . With some last resource of strength she scrambled to her feet, grabbed up the miraculously unbroken honey-crock, and ran like a chervine, dodging into an alley; no skirts to hamper her this time! She pounded in panic on the door of the Guild House; but by the time Gwennis opened the door, her breathing had quieted. No, she must not tell. They had made it so clear she must learn to defend herself.
And I couldn’t defend myself, she thought in despair. I couldn’t get my knife out of its sheath at all, I never thought of it, I ran like a rabbit-horn! I should have killed Ruyvil, thrust my knife into his guts! But I was afraid . . . . Did he really think I led him on? Is there something about me that makes men think that? That other man, the drunken one at the tavern, he thought so, too . . . .
“You’re out of breath,” Gwennis said. “What’s the matter, Marna, have you been running?”
“Yes—it was late, and dark, and cold, I ran to warm myself,” Marna said, and was angry at herself for lying. But Gwennis, she knew, had been trained to defend herself. How she would despise Marna if she knew what a weakling she was!
~o0o~
Marna stayed in the house after that, as much as she could, and every time she went out of doors, it seemed to her that Dom Ruyvil must be lurking around every corner. But as time went by, she grew less afraid and at last she was willing to go to the market again. In three months, she would be fifteen and could take the oath lawfully; and then she would be safe. At this season there was a good harvest of herbs, and the women of the Guild House shared a stall with the dairy-woman who sometimes sold their butter. Marna spread out the little packets of herbs meticulously, proud of the delicate lettering she had done on the front of each packet—she wrote the clearest hand in the house, now, and designed all their embroideries. As she finished, she looked up to hear a familiar voice.
“Is your golden-flower well dried? If it is, I will have two packets—Marna!” the woman said with a gasp, and Marna stared into her mother’s face.
“Marna! So this is where you went! Oh, Marna, how could you? Oh, my little girl—where is your pretty hair? What have they done to you, those awful women! Marna, won’t you even kiss your mother in greeting?”
Marna wanted to cry. She wanted to shout, Yes, it was Dom Ruyvil who abused me, but it was you who let him do it, you who wouldn’t believe your own daughter . . . but before her mother’s weeping face she could not stand and refuse her. She hugged her mother, thinking, Now I am taller than she is, I am bigger than she is—she could never learn to defend herself.
“Oh, you look so grown up and so—so stern and awful!” Dorilys of Heathvine
said, “Have they made you swear to all kinds of evil things, my poor baby? Oh, blessed Cassilda, I will never forgive myself—”
Marna kept her voice hard. “So you believe me at last?”
“Oh, Marna—” Her mother spread out her hands. “What could I do? He said he would take his son and leave me—and I was alone in the world, your brother is in Thendara now as a cadet, I am alone with the babies—and if Ruyvil is angry with me, what shall I do? A woman has no choice but to live with her husband—and if I had made complaint to a magistrate, he would have beaten me or worse—”
“It’s all right. Mother, I understand,” said Marna, with a choking pain in her throat. She did not understand. She would never understand. If she had a daughter, if a man had treated her daughter that way, she certainly would not have continued to love the man, to share his bed! She would have called the magistrates, had Ruyvil thrown into the middle of the street! But her mother had not even had the strength or the good sense to run away.
“Marna—oh, my little girl, won’t you come home? I promise you—you can have one of the maids to sleep in your chamber—he will never bother you again, I promise you! I miss you so, there is no one I can talk to, no one I care about—”
“No, mother,” said Marna gently, but without pity. “I will never live under your roof again. I will come and see you sometimes when Dom Ruyvil is away from home, if you will send me word; or you can come and visit me at the Guild House.”
“The Guild House? What could I possibly—Ruyvil would be very angry with me if I spoke to such women!”
“Oh, Mother,” Marna said impatiently, “they are women just like you, except that they do not let men beat and abuse them! They are honest women who live by weaving and selling herbs!”
“Hmmph! What evil things have they taught you? What man will marry you now?”
“None, I hope!” Marna said crossly. “Believe what you like, Mother, I would not change my life for yours! And if you think I live an evil life in the Guild House, why, get up the courage of a goose and come and visit us and see for yourself how I spend my days!”
When her mother had gone weeping away, Marna ran after her—she had forgotten the packets of golden-flower; yes, she must take it, she looked pale. No, forget the money, she had picked and dried it herself, it was a gift . . . and as she began packing up the wares in the booth, for the sun was going down, she felt better. Yes, in spite of her anger, she loved her mother, was glad to see that she was alive and well.
Unless that bastard Dom Ruyvil kills her someday, beating her, or keeping her bearing children until she dies of it!
Well, there was nothing she could do. She said, “Where is Ysabet with the pack animal, Gwennis? We should load it, to be home before dark. There is not much to load, we have sold all the embroideries and all the kerchiefs but three.”
“The embroidered ones sell better,” Gwennis said. “You were right, Marna. Who was that woman you were talking to?”
“My mother,” said Marna, and said no more.
Gwennis, full of questions, stopped at the look on Marna’s face; she said only, “Here, help me untie this bridle-rope, we will have everything ready for Ysabet when she comes—Zandru spit fire!” she swore, as the rope twisted on the edge of the booth, something caught, and the packets of herbs and the kerchiefs came cascading down, with crocks of butter. The girls scrambled to pick them up, but one crock of butter had split and slimed the kerchiefs and the cobbles in front of the stall.
“Well, I will go and borrow a mop, and clean it,” said Gwennis heavily, looking around the half-deserted market; most of the stalls were empty now and the shadows were falling, red and thick, across the marketplace.
“Rinda at the tavern will lend me a mop. I bandaged her ankle when she sprained it.”
“Don’t leave me alone,” Marna begged, “it’s so dark, wait till Ysabet comes with the horse!”
“But someone could slip and fall and break their neck!” said Gwennis, shocked. “Don’t be such a coward, Marna! You must learn to be alone.”
Gwennis went, and Marna, shivering, packed up the herbs. Then a rough hand seized her, and a voice she feared and hated growled, “So here’s where you’ve been hiding, eh? Filthy slut, I’ll teach you to talk like that to your mother. She told me she’d seen you here. You’re coming home with me now, and no nonsense about it! Feel this?” Marna felt a knife-edge at her throat. Ruyvil pressed hard; she felt the skin break, and blood trickle down.
“Now will you behave?”
In deadly fear, Marna nodded and the knife moved away from her throat. Ruyvil’s hands were rough on her. He said, “Now you come on, without any more fuss. Make a laughing-stock of me, will you, telling tales so your mother can’t get decent maids to stay, and complaining to a magistrate about me? I tell you, Marna, I’ll teach you a lesson if it’s the last thing I do! You’re coming home where you belong, and people are going to see that I can rule my family and my womenfolk and no damned magistrates butting in! Fine thing, when a man can’t handle his own affairs without the government on his back! It’s not as if you were any real kin to me, as if I’d done you any harm!” He gave her wrist a vicious twist. “Give me your hands!” She saw a length of rope in them: he would tie her, drag her home—
She wrenched away, screaming. He jerked at her, flung her down. “Marna, I’ll kill you for that!” he rasped. She grabbed at her knife, clumsily, in deadly terror. Oh, he would kill her, with that knife—but better that than be dragged home knowing he could do his worst—but suddenly he had her knife, too, and she cursed her clumsiness.
“You let her alone!” came a scream behind them, and Gwennis swung the heavy mop-handle; Ruyvil’s mouth burst open with blood. Swearing, he ran at Gwennis with his sword, and Marna, grabbing up her blade, hardly knowing what she did, thrust herself between them; her Amazon knife, not quite a sword, was braced right against Ruyvil’s belly.
“Make one move,” she said, astonished at how loud and firm her voice sounded in the deserted market, “and I’ll run this right through you, stepfather!”
He howled in rage. “Put that thing down! What the hell—?”
Gwennis had scrambled to her feet, recovered her own knife. She came and took Ruyvil’s sword, saying, “I ought to cut his throat. But we have trouble enough here. I’ll tie his hands and he can get loose later—who’s to say if the magistrate would believe us? Here, Marna, you tie him, you can make a better knot than I can. He won’t get that loose before we’re safe in the Guild House. And if he wants to tell how two girls under fifteen bested him, well, let him talk and be a laughingstock!”
Ysabet came with the pack-animal and looked at the furious, cursing Ruyvil, his hands tied behind him. She said, “Listen to me, Dom Ruyvil, your stepdaughter, whom you have abused, is being sent to Neskaya Guild House; do you want a public examination by leronis so that everyone in the countryside knows she told the truth?”
He calmed at last and said sheepishly, “No. I will swear—”
“Your oath is not worth a piece of fresh horse dung,” said Ysabet, “but if you do not molest us further we will leave you alone, though I would willingly make you incapable of molesting any woman again.” She gestured with the knife and Ruyvil flinched and howled, begging, pleading, weeping. Marna wondered why she had ever been afraid of him.
As they went homeward in the dusk, Gwennis said—Ysabet had walked a little ahead with the horse—”If your stepfather was following you, lying in wait for you, why didn’t you tell us?”
“I was ashamed,” Marna muttered. “So much was said about learning to defend myself, not asking any other for protection—”
“Yet you must protect your sisters, and they must protect you,” Gwennis chided gently, an arm around Marna’s waist. “That is what the oath is all about, that we swear to care for one another—would you not have protected your mother? You found courage to draw your knife when he menaced me—”
Marna began to weep. She could not
protect her mother from Ruyvil; her mother did not want protection, would not appeal even to her sisters. Worse, her mother had thought so much of Ruyvil that she would not protect her own daughter. For the first time since she had come to the Amazon house she wept and wept, sobbing even after they were inside the Guild House. Gwennis was alarmed at her crying and sent for Reva, who gave her wine, and finally slapped her.
“I can live with what Ruyvil did to me,” Marna said, hiccoughing, tears still streaming from her eyes, “and I can defend myself against any man now. But what I cannot bear, is that my mother would not protect me, that she would even let her daughter be misused, rather than lose the man she loved . . . that she did not love me enough to quarrel with him . . . .” She cried and cried, clinging to Reva, while the older woman, kinder now, held and comforted her.
“But that is what the Amazon oath is all about,” Gwennis repeated. “Any of us will protect you, as your mother should have done; as women must always protect each other. I can’t make your mother care for you as she should have done—what’s done is done and there’s no mending it. But you have an oath-mother now, and many sisters. And you were strong to defend me, if not yourself!”
“You didn’t deserve it,” Marna sniffed. “I mean, you hadn’t done anything. I couldn’t let him hurt you!”
Gwennis’ arms were around her. “But you hadn’t done anything either, and you didn’t deserve it, either,” she said fiercely, “and if that wicked man made you think you did, then that’s worse than what he did to you in the first place!” She kissed Marna on the cheek. “I’ll miss you, sister, if they send you to Thendara for training,” she said, “but you’ll come back, when you’ve learned how to defend yourself and how to live with everything you have to live with, breda.” Shyly, she took her knife from its sheath. She said, “You defended me when you wouldn’t defend yourself. Will you exchange knives with me, Marna?”
After a wide-eyed moment. Marna drew her own knife, and solemnly, they put their knives, each into the other’s sheath, then embraced. Marna said, almost crying again, “I do not want to go away! I love you all, and you have been so good to me—”