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    Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover: Darkover Anthology, #11
    Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover: Darkover Anthology, #11
    Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover: Darkover Anthology, #11
    Ebook428 pages7 hoursDarkover Anthology

    Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover: Darkover Anthology, #11

    By Marion Zimmer Bradley

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    ...an incredible blending of fantasy and science fiction.

    Eventually the Terrans rediscover their long-lost -- and now alien -- colony: Darkover.

    Things are different there.

    While adolescent male homosexuality is generally tolerated on Darkover, men are expected to outgrow it. When Dyan Ardais takes lovers young enough to be his sons, he risks not just his reputation, but his life.

    Life in a Tower as a Keeper, the chaste virgin who holds a circle together, is grueling. Few succeed in the long, painful years of training. The ones who do have power greater than any queen, but what happens to the ones who don't?

    Darkovan technology is based on matrix stones that amplify psychic gifts, and people with those gifts work in the Tower circles. But duty to family outweighs everything else, and anyone can be called home from the Tower to marry as her family dictates. A Comyn lady can have lands, wealth, family...everything but freedom.

    Women can become Free Amazons, but that life has its own set of challenges. Before a candidate's trial period ends, she must decide if she is truly meant to cope with everything being a Free Amazon entails.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMarion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust
    Release dateJul 24, 2018
    ISBN9781386762614
    Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover: Darkover Anthology, #11
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    Author

    Marion Zimmer Bradley

    MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY was the New York Times bestselling author of The Mists of Avalon and other Avalon titles, the Darkover science fiction series, and many other novels. She won the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Before her death in 2000, Bradley had lived for several decades in Berkeley, CA.

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      Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover - Marion Zimmer Bradley

      INTRODUCTION

      One of the strangest things in my life as a writer has been the success of the Darkover Books—not simply as books, but the way in which the self-contained universe of Darkover has become not only self-sustaining, but has encouraged other writers to write their own stories, first about Darkover, and then, increasingly, in their own self-created universes. I was the very first, although since then, many writers, especially women—I need only name Mercedes Lackey and Jacqueline Lichtenberg—have encouraged others to write in their own universes. I think there are many reasons for this; some more feminist than others.

      Women are not and were not encouraged to create universes of their own; especially in the days when I entered fandom. In other writings I have spoken of those days in the forties and fifties when women were not only not encouraged to write, but were not encouraged even to read very much—and then nothing but Nancy Drew, Sue Barton, and various saccharine romances, meant to convey the idea that a woman’s only duty and pleasure was to secure a man—by fair means or foul didn’t much matter; she’d be accused of the foul ones anyhow. No one born in these post-Star Trek days can imagine quite how segregated all writing and, indeed, all mental activity was. And by and large, girls cooperated in this segregation, insisting that educators were right; the only degree worth having was Mrs., and a girl who wanted to work should obviously be prepared to neglect her God-given responsibilities to home and children—and to accept all kinds of abuse for so doing.

      Yet there have obviously been women in science fiction and fantasy from the beginning. The very field of science fiction was created by a woman, Mary Shelley, author of FRANKENSTEIN. The Gothic novels which preceded today’s fantasy were created by one Mrs. Radcliffe and her imitators. The difference was simple; a woman had to be, as I was, and as most of my better known predecessors from Charlotte Bronte on were, obsessed, prepared to ignore the brainwashing given in schools to all females. One woman at a mid-seventies’ woman’s meeting I attended said that no woman could possibly escape her brainwashing. I stood up and called her a liar to her face; I was living proof, and so was everybody else in the room, that some of us had managed to escape it—or none of us would have been there.

      But, in a sense, she was right. The vast majority of girls in my school seemed brainwashed to me—and I have heard similar stories from everybody else, from Leigh Brackett and Catherine L. Moore to Joanna Russ and Diana L. Paxson. The many woman who wrote, from Ms. Bronte to me, from Leigh Brackett to C.L. Moore, were obsessed. They were prepared to ignore anything and everything, from their stern Victorian fathers to their brainwashed mothers, in order to write.

      Everyone familiar with women writers knows the famous answer of William Wordsworth to Charlotte Bronte when that lady sought his support for her writing; but anyone who, like so many of today’s teenagers, thinks the past Irrelevant should remember that Wordsworth told Charlotte to finish the dishes first. This, unfortunately, is an answer which we have heard ad nauseam, all of us, starting with Andre Norton and ending with the little girls who write for my anthologies, one of whom is about thirteen.

      I was the very first writer to encourage other writers to write in my universe. Not everybody approved; Lester Del Rey told me that he, for one, would never consent to read one single word of Darkover fiction written by anyone else. All I can say to that is that it is a free country and he is entitled to his opinion. It’s his loss. Most of the Darkover stories were about as good as any slush anywhere, which means not very good, at least at first; but after reading a lot of it, I came to the conclusion that a lot of it—being written by women who were obsessed with writing—was readable. If there were the kind of conspiracy in science fiction that the louder and more obnoxious feminists kept insisting, Don Wollheim—about whose masculinity no one ever had any question—would never have agreed to let me publish an anthology of fan writings.

      But he did; and here we are. For the anniversary of the tenth of these anthologies I have decided—for the benefit of Mr. Del Rey and his ilk—to publish my own shorter Darkover stories all in one place. Here they are.

      —Marion Zimmer Bradley

      FREE AMAZONS

      Nothing in a fairly long and eventful career as a writer has ever surprised me as much—except perhaps the success of MISTS OF AVALON, which I never liked that much, thinking THE INHERITOR a much better book—as the success of the Free Amazons; both as a concept and as individual books. I suppose I must have created an archetype or something.

      It all started while I was writing the first published—not the first written but the first published—of the commercial Darkover books; which I called PROJECT JASON, and which the original editor called THE PLANET SAVERS, a title I did not and do not like. While writing this book I cannibalized a file drawer full of my early and unsuccessful Darkover stories; and while I was plotting the story, with the aid of an ancient textbook on writing by, I think, the late John D. McDonald—I had a dream.

      This was one of the few dreams I can remember clearly from an entire lifetime of fairly lucid dreams. In it, a group of adolescents—not unlike the ones I went to school with—were engaged, as so many of the young people were then, in 1956 or thereabouts—in playing complex war games; in the dream I was a member of a girls’ band of soldiers. I was captured by a gang of boys and I was asked who we were. I made the answer that many girls liked to be a boy with the boys, but that most of us—and I have no idea where this came from; it didn’t describe me, at any rate—preferred to be a girl with the boys. Half asleep, chewing over the dream, I came up with the phrase I’m not neutered, though some of us are, a phrase I was later to apply in the words of Kyla, the first Free Amazon, who wasn’t; and later to apply to Camilla n’ha Kyria, one of my later free Amazons, who WAS.

      Here is my own favorite of the early Free Amazon stories; To Keep the Oath. Amazon Fragment, [later re-titled Bonds of Sisterhood] which follows, was the first appearance of Camilla, a fragment intended to be part of the first Free Amazon novel, which was meant to center on Camilla and for which Kindra was invented. The next story, House Rules, arises from a controversy arising from a somewhat stupid and not very well-thought-out idea I had based on a local household of feminists which had the policy—which I stupidly adopted for my Amazon households—that no male over five could live in an Amazon household. And lastly one of my best short stories—I am not a very good short story writer—Knives, which I think was the first to embody the idea that something which seems at the time to destroy one’s own life can be a blessing in disguise. I often say that I never know what my stories are about till years after I write them; Knives was the first of my stories for which I figured out the underlying message within 20 years.

      To Keep the Oath

      by Marion Zimmer Bradley

      ––––––––

      The red light lingered on the hills; two of the four small moons were in the sky, green Idriel near to setting, and the tiny crescent of Mormallor, ivory pale, near the zenith. The night would be dark. Kindra n’ha Mhari did not, at first, see anything strange about the little town. She was too grateful to have reached it before sunset—shelter against the rainswept chill of a Darkovan night, a bed to sleep in after four days of traveling, a cup of wine before she slept.

      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 is 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, quarrelling and drinking and casting eyes on the women until the townsfolk 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, Kindra 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 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 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-Letzii—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 woman 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."

      ~o0o~

      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 fantasize, 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 tolerated 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 rearguard 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—

      Janella was huddled beneath the overhanging roof of an outbuilding, her daughters and serving women like roosting hens around her. Will you leave us all here unguarded, when we have housed you all for seven days and never a penny in pay? Scarface and his men are sure to strike here for the horses, and we are unprotected, at their mercy—

      Brydar gestured to the boy Marco. You. Stay and guard horses and women—

      The boy snarled, No! I joined your crew on the pledge that I should face Scarface, steel in hand! It is an affair of honor—do you think I need your dirty coppers?

      Beyond the wall all was shrieking confusion. I have no time to bandy words, Brydar said quickly. Kindra—this is no quarrel of yours, but you know me a man of my word; stay here and guard the horses and these women, and I will make it worth your while!

      At the mercy of a woman? A woman to guard us? Why not set a mouse to guard a lion! Janella’s shrewish cry cut him off. The boy Marco urged, eyes blazing, "Whatever I have been promised for this foray is yours, mestra, if you free me to meet my sworn foe!"

      Go; I’ll look after them, Kindra said. It was unlikely Scarface would get this far, but it was really no affair of hers; normally she fought beside the men, and would have been angry at being left in a post of safety. But Janella’s cry had put her on her mettle. Marco caught up his sword and hurried to the gate, Brydar following him. Kindra watched them go, her mind on her own early battles. Some turn of gesture, of phrase, had alerted her. The boy Marco is noble, she thought. Perhaps even Comyn, some bastard of a great lord, perhaps even a Hastur. I don’t know what he’s doing with Brydar’s men, but he’s no ordinary hired sword!

      Janella’s wailing brought her back to her duty. Oh! Oh! Horrible, she howled. Left here with only a woman to look after us...

      Kindra said tersely, Come on! She gestured. Help me close that gate!

      I don’t take orders from one of you shameless women in breeches—

      Let the damned gate stay open, then, Kindra said, right out of patience. Let Scarface walk in without any trouble. Do you want me to go and invite him, or shall we send one of your daughters?

      Mother! remonstrated a girl of fifteen, breaking away from Janella’s hand. "That is no way to speak—Lilla, Marga, help the good mestra shove this gate shut!" She came and joined Kindra, helping to thrust the heavy wooden gate tightly into place, pull down the heavy crossbeam. The women were wailing in dismay; Kindra singled out one of them, a young girl about six or seven moons along in pregnancy, who was huddled in a blanket over her nightgear.

      You, she said, take all the babies and the little children upstairs into the strongest chamber, bolt the doors and don’t open them unless you hear my voice or Janella’s. The woman did not move, still sobbing, and Kindra said sharply, "Hurry! Don’t stand there like a rabbithorn frozen in the snow! Damn you, move, or I’ll slap you senseless!" She made a menacing gesture and the woman started, then began to hurry the children up the stairs; she picked up one of the littlest ones, hurried the others along with frightened, clucking noises.

      Kindra surveyed the rest of the frightened women. Janella was hopeless. She was fat and short of breath, and she was staring resentfully at Kindra, furious that she had been left in charge of their defense. Furthermore, she was trembling on the edge of a panic that would infect everyone; but if she had something to do, she might calm down.

      Janella, go into the kitchen and make up some hot wine punch, she said. The men will want it when they come back, and they’ll deserve it, too. Then start hunting out some linen for bandages, in case anyone’s hurt. Don’t worry, she added, they won’t get to you while we’re here. And take that one with you, she added, pointing to the terrified simpleton Lilla, who was clinging to Janella’s skirt, round-eyed with terror, whimpering. She’ll only be in our way.

      When Janella had gone, grumbling, the lackwit at her heels, Kindra looked around at the sturdy young women who remained.

      Come, all of you, into the stables, and pile heavy bales of hay around the horses, so they can’t drive the horses over them or stampede them out. No, leave the lantern there; if Scarface and his men break through, we’ll set a couple of bales afire; that will frighten the horses and they might well kick a bandit or two to death. Even so, the women can escape while they round up the horses; contrary to what you may have heard, most bandits look first for horses and rich plunder, and women are not the first item on their list. And none of you have jewels or rich garments they would seek to strip from you.

      Kindra herself knew that any man who laid his hand on her, intending rape, would quickly regret it; and if she was overpowered by numbers, she had been taught ways in which she could survive the experience undestroyed; but these women had had no such teaching. It was not right to blame them for their fears.

      I could teach them this. But the laws of our charter prevent me and I am bound by oath to obey those laws; laws made, not by our own Guild-mothers, but by men who fear what we might have to say to their women!

      Well, perhaps at least they will find it a matter for pride that they can defend their home against invaders! Kindra went to lend her own wiry strength to the task of piling up the heavy bales around the horses; the women worked, forgetting their fears in hard effort. But one grumbled, just loud enough for Kindra to hear, "It’s all very well for her! She was trained as a warrior and she’s used to this kind of work! I’m not!"

      It was no time to debate Guild-house ethics; Kindra only asked mildly, Are you proud of the fact that you have not been taught to defend yourself, child? But the girl did not answer, sullenly hauling at her heavy hay-bale.

      It was not difficult for Kindra to follow her thought; if it had not been for Brydar, each man of the town could have protected each one his own women! Kindra thought, in utter disgust, that this was the sort of thinking that laid villages in flames, year after year, because no man owed loyalty to another or would protect any household but his own! It had taken a threat like Scarface to get these village men organized enough to buy the services of a few hired swords, and now their women were grumbling because their men could not stand, each at his own door, protecting his own woman and hearth!

      Once the horses had been barricaded, the women clustered together nervously in the courtyard. Even Janella

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