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, I 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 I 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. … I 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 I … 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 in 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.
Chapter
THREE
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. If 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 calluses 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 in 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 s
aid: “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.”