The Ages of Chaos

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  "No," Jandria said, "You certainly cannot; for all your head's stuffed with old rubbish and ugly as sin, it adorns your shoulders better than it would adorn a pike outside Lyondri's den! Yes, we'll take the lad to Thendara for you; I may even go myself. Lyondri has certainly not seen my face since we danced together at children's parties and would not remember it without long curls and bows in my hair." She chuckled as at a secret joke. "How old is young Carolin now? He must be eight or nine."

  'Twelve, I think," Orain said, "and a nice child; it's pity he got himself mixed up in this, but he saved my neck and my men's and Carolin has cause to be grateful to his godson, so guard him well, Janni."

  She nodded. "I'll take him south as soon as the passes are open, then; you can send him to me here." She chuckled and gave Orain another of her quick, offhand hugs. "And now you must go, kinsman - what of my reputation, if it is known I entertain a man here? Worse, what of yours, if it is found out you can speak civilly to a woman?"

  "Oh, come, Janni-" protested Orain, but he rose to take his leave. He looked, embarrassed, at Romilly, and stuck out his hand. "I wish you well, damisela."

  This time she did not bother to correct him. If he could not see that she was the same whether in boy's clothes or the name of a Great House, well, so much the worse for him; he did not sound like her friend Orain at all, and she could have cried again, but she did not, for Janni was staring appraisingly at her.

  After the door closed behind Orain, she said, "Well, and what happened? Did he try and lure ye' to bed, and recoil in unholy horror when he found out you were a woman?"

  "That's not quite how it happened," said Romilly, moved to defend Orain without knowing why, "It was - he had been kind to me, and I thought he knew I was a woman, and wanted me so - I am not a wanton," she defended herself, "Once I came near to killing a man who would have had me against my will." She shivered and shut her eyes; she had thought she was free of the nagging horror of Rory's attempted rape, but she was not. "But Orain was good, and I-I liked him well, and I only thought to be kind to him, if it was what he wanted so much."

  Janni smiled, and Romilly wondered, defensively, what was funny. But the older woman only said, quite kindly, "And you are a maiden still, I doubt not."

  "I am not ashamed of it," Romilly flared.

  "How prickly you are! Well, will you live by our rule?"

  "If you will tell me what it is, I will answer you," she said, and Janni smiled again.

  "Well then; will you be sister to all of us, whatever rank we may bear? For we leave rank behind us when we come into the Sisterhood; you will not be My Lady or damisela here, and no one will know or care that you were born in a Great House. You must do your share of whatever work falls to us, and never ask quarter or special consideration because you are a woman. And if you have love affairs with men, you must conduct them in decent privacy, so that no man can ever call the Sisterhood a company of camp-followers. Most of us are sworn to live celibate while we follow the armies and the sword, though we do not force it upon anyone."

  It sounded exactly like what Romilly would have wished for. She said so.

  "But will you swear it?"

  "Gladly," Romilly said.

  "You must swear, as well, that your sword will always be ready to defend any of your sisters, in peace or war, should any man lay a hand on one who does not wish for it," said Jandria.

  "I would be glad to swear to that," Romilly said, "but I do not think my sword would be any good to them; I know nothing about swordplay."

  Now Janni smiled and hugged her. She said, "We will teach you that. Come, bring your things into the inner room. Did that dolt Orain remember to give you breakfast, or was he in so much of a hurry to hustle you away from the camp that he forgot that women get hungry too?"

  Romilly, still sore with rejection and pain, did not want to join Janni in making fun of Orain, but it sounded so much like what had actually happened, that she could not help but laugh. "I am hungry, yes," she confessed, and Janni hoisted one of her bundles.

  "I have a horse in the stable of the inn," Romilly said, and Janni nodded. "I will send one of the sisters for it, in your name. Come into the kitchen - breakfast is long over, but we can always find some bread and honey - and then we will pierce your ears so that you can wear our sign and other women will know that you are one of us. Tonight you may take the oath. Only for a year at first," she warned, "and then, if you like the life, for three; and when you have lived among us for four years, you may decide if you wish to pledge for a lifetime, or if you wish to go on your own, or to return to your family and marry."

  "Never!" Romilly said fervently.

  "Well, we will fly that hawk when her pinions are grown," said Janni, "but for now you may take the sword with us, and if you have some skill with hawks and horses, we will welcome you all the more; our old horse-trainer, Mhari, died of the lung-fever this winter, and the women who worked with her are all away with the armies to the south. None of the girls in the hostel now are even much good at riding, let alone for breaking them to the saddle - can you do that? We have four colts ready to be saddle-broken, and more at our big hostel near Thendara."

  "I was raised to it at Falconsward," Romilly said, but Janni raised a hand in caution.

  "None of us have any family or past beyond our names; I warned you, you are not my lady or Mistress MacAran among us," she said, and, rebuked, Romilly was silent.

  Yet, whatever I call myself, I am Romilly MacAran of Falconsward. I was not boasting of my lineage, only telling her how I came to be so trained - I would hardly have learned it at some croft in the hills! But if she chooses to think I was boasting, nothing I would say can change it, and she must think what she likes. Romilly felt as if she were old and cynical and worldly-wise, having arrived at this much wisdom. She followed Janni silently along the corridor, andthrough the large double doors at the end of the hall.

  Her lineage too must be good, for all her refusal to speak of it, since she spoke of dancing with Lyondri Hastur at children's parties. Maybe she too has been warned against speaking of her past.

  It was a long and busy day. She ate bread and cheese and honey in the kitchen, was sent to practice some form of unarmed combat among a group of young girls, all of whom were more adept than she - she did not understand a single movement of the ones they were trying to teach her, and felt clumsy and foolish - and later in the day, a hard-faced woman in her sixties gave her a wooden sword like the ones she and Ruyven had played with when they were children, and tried to teach her the basic defensive moves, but she felt completely hopeless at that too. There were so many women - or it seemed like many, though she found out at dinner - time that there were only nineteen women in the hostel-that she could not even remember their names. Later she was allowed to make friends with the horses in the stable, where her own was brought - she found it easier to remember their names - and there were a few chervines too. Then Janni pierced her ears and put small gold rings into them. "Only while they are healing," she said, "Later you shall have the ensign of the Sisterhood, but for now you must keep twisting the rings so that the holes will heal cleanly, and bathe them three times a day in hot water and thornleaf." Then, in front of the assembled women, only a blur of faces to Romilly's tired eyes, she prompted her through the oath to the Sisterhood, and it was done. Until spring-thaw of the next year, Romilly was oath-bound to the Sisterhood of the Sword. That finished, they crowded around and asked her questions, which she was hesitant to answer in the face of Janni's prohibition that she must not speak of her past life, and then they found her a much-patched, much-worn nightgown, and sent her to sleep in a long room lined with half-a-dozen beds, tenanted by girls her own age or younger. It seemed that she had hardly fallen asleep before she was wakened by the sound of a bell, and she was washing her face and dressing in a room full of half a dozen young women, all running around half-dressed and squabbling over the washbasins.

  For the first few days it seemed to Romilly th
at she was always gasping behind a group of girls who were running somewhere just ahead of her and she must somehow keep up. The lessons in unarmed combat frightened and confused her - and the woman who taught them was so harsh and angry of voice. Although, one afternoon, when she had been sent to help in the kitchens, where she felt more at home, the woman, whose name was Merinna, came in and asked her for some tea, and when Romilly brought it, chatted with her so amiably that Romilly began to suspect that her harshness in class was assumed to force them all to pay strict attention to what they were doing. The lessons in swordplay were easier, for she had sometimes been allowed to watch Ruyven's lessons, and had sometimes practiced with him - when she had been eight or nine, her father had been amused by her handling of a sword, though later, when she was older, he forbade her even to watch, or to touch even a toy sword. Gradually those early lessons came back to her, and she began to feel fairly confident at least with the wooden batons which served in practice.

  Among the horses in the stable, she felt completely at home. This work she had done since she was old enough to rub soapweed on a saddle and polish it with oil.

  She was hard at work polishing saddle-tack one day when she heard a noise in the street outside, and one of the youngest girls in the house ran in to call her.

  "Oh, Romy, come - the king's army is passing by at the end of the street, and Merinna has given us leave to run out and see! Carolin will march southward as soon as the passes are open-"

  Romilly dropped the oily rag and ran out into the street with Lillia and Marga. They crowded into an angle of the doors and watched; the street was filled with horses and men, and people were lining the streets and cheering for Carolin.

  "Look, look, there he goes under the fir-tree banner, blue and silver - Carolin, the king," called someone, and Romilly craned her neck to see, but she could catch only a glimpse of a tall man, with a strong ascetic profile not unlike Carlo's, in the instant before his cloak blew up and she could see only his russet hair flying.

  "Who is the tall skinny man riding behind him?" someone asked, and Romilly, who would have known him even in darkness with his face hidden, said, "His name is Orain, and I have heard he is one of Carolin's foster-brothers."

  "I know him," said one of the girls, "he came to visit Jandria, someone told me that he was one of her kin, though I don't know whether to believe it or not."

  Romilly watched the horses, men, banners moving by, with detachment and regret. She might still have been riding with them, had she gone to her own bed in the stable that night, still at Orain's side, still treated as his friend and equal. But it was too late for that. She turned about sharply and said, "Let's go inside and finish our work - I have seen horses enough before this and a king is a man like other men, Hastur or no."

  The armies, she heard, were being moved to a great plain outside Caer Donn. A few days later, she was summoned to Janni, and when she went out into the main room where she had met Janni first, she saw Orain again, with Caryl at his side.

  Orain greeted her with some constraint, but Caryl rushed at once into her arms.

  "Oh, Romilly, I have missed you! Why, you are dressed like a woman, that is good, now I will not have to remember to speak to you as if you were a boy," he said.

  "Dom Carolin," Janni said formally, and he turned his attention respectfully to her.

  "I listen, mestra," he said, using the politest of terms for a female inferior in rank.

  "The Lord Orain has commissioned me to escort you to Hali and return you, under safe-conduct, to your father," she said, "and there are two choices before you; I am prepared to treat you as a man of honor, and to ask your preference, instead of making the decision for you. Are you old enough to listen to me seriously, and to answer sensibly and keep your word?"

  His small face was as serious as when he had sung in the chapel at Nevarsin. "I am, mestra Jandria."

  "Well, then, it is simple. Shall I treat you as a prisoner and have you guarded - and, make no mistake, we are women, but we shall not be careless with you and allow you to escape."

  "I know that mestra," he said politely, "I had a governess once who was much harsher with me than any of the masters and brothers in the monastery."

  "Well, then," said Janni, "Will you be our prisoner, or will you give us your parole, not to attempt to escape our hands, so that you may ride beside us and take such pleasure in the trip as you can? It will not be an easy journey, and it will be simpler if we can allow you to ride without watching you every moment of the night and day, nor have you tied up at night. I will have no hesitation in taking the word of a Hastur, if you give me your parole of honor."

  He did not answer at once. He asked, "Are you my father's enemies?"

  "Not particularly," said Janni, "Of your father, my lad, I know only what I have been told; but I am Rakhal's enemy, and your father is his friend, so I trust him not. But then, I have not asked for his word of honor, either. I am dealing with you, Dom Carolin, not with him."

  He said, "Is Romilly coming with us?"

  "I thought to put you in her charge, since she has travelled with you before, if that is agreeable to you, young sir."

  He smiled then, and said, "I would like to travel with Romilly. And I will gladly give you my word of honor not to try and escape. I could not travel through the Hellers alone, whatever happened. I promise you, then, mestra, to be at your orders until I am returned to my father's hands."

  "Very well," Janni said, "I accept your word, as you may accept mine, that I will treat you as I would one of my own sisters, and offer you no indignity. Will you give me your hand on it, Dom Carolin?"

  He held out his hand and took hers. Then he said, "You need not call me Dom Carolin, mestra. That is the name of the former king, who is my father's enemy, though he is not really mine. I am called Caryl."

  "Then you shall call me Janni, Caryl," she said, smiling at last, "and you shall be our guest, not our prisoner. Romy, take him to the guest-room and make him comfortable. Orain-" she raised her eyes to her cousin, "we shall set out tomorrow, if the weather allows."

  "I thank you, cousin. And you," he added, turning to Romilly, bending ceremoniously - like a courtier, she thought - over her hand. She thought, heart-sore, that a few days before, he would have taken leave of her with a rough hug. She hoped, suddenly and passionately, that she and Orain would never meet again.

  They rode out of Caer Donn very early in the morning, and had been more than an hour on the road before the red sun rose, huge and dripping with mist. Caryl rode on the pony Jandria had found for him, side by side with Romilly's horse; behind them were six women of the Sisterhood, leading, on long pack-reins, a dozen good horses which, they said, were for the armies in the South. They did not say which armies, and Romilly carefully did not ask.

  It was good to be riding free again in the sunlight, without the cold and storms of her earlier journey through the Hellers. They stopped at noon to feed the horses and rest them for a little, then rode on. In late afternoon they made camp, and at Jandria's command, one of the pack-horses was offloaded, and as two women sat about making fire, Janni called to Romilly.

  "Come here and help me, Romy, with this tent."

  Romilly had no notion of how to set up a tent, but she obediently hauled ropes and drove in pegs where Janni ordered, and within a minute or two a large and roomy shelter of waterproof canvas was ready for them. Blanket-rolls were spread out within it, and under its hanging flap the evening drizzle could not dampen their fire or their supper. Very soon porridge was cooked, hot and savory with sliced onions frizzled in the fat of a roast fowl, and the women sat cross-legged on their bed-rolls, eating their food out of wooden bowls which had come out of the same pack.

  "This is nice," said Caryl admiringly, "Men never make a camp as comfortable as this."

  Janni chuckled. "There is no reason they should not," she said, "They are as good at cookery and hunting as we women are, and they would tell you so if you asked them; but maybe th
ey think it unmanly to seek for comfort in the fields, and enjoy hard living because it makes them feel tough and strong. As for me, I have no love for sleeping in the rain, and I am not ashamed to admit I like to be comfortable."

  "So do I," said Caryl, gnawing on the ends of his bone, This is good, Janni. Thank you."

  One of the women, not one that Romilly knew well, whose name was Lauria, took a small hand-harp from her pack and began to play a tune. They sat around the fire, singing mountain ballards, for half an hour or so. Caryl listened, bright-eyed, but after a time he fell back, drowsily, half asleep.

  Janni signed to Romilly, and said, 'Take off his boots, will you, and get him into his sleeping-roll?"

  "Of course," Romilly said, and began to pull off Caryl's boots. He sat up and protested sleepily. Lauria said, grumbling, "Let the boy wait on himself, Romy! Janni, why should one of our sisters wait on this young man, who is our prisoner? We're no subjects or servants to the Hastur-kind!"

  "He's only a boy," Janni said, placatingly, "and we're being well-paid to care for him."

  "Still, the Sisterhood are no slaves to one of these men," grumbled Lauria, "I wonder at you, Janni, that for money you'd take a commission to escort some boy-child through the mountains."

  "Boy child or girl, the boy cannot travel alone," said Janni, "and needs not be drawn into the quarrels of his elders! And Romilly is willing to care for him."

  "I doubt not," said one of the strange women with a sneer, "One of those women who still think her duty in life is to wait on some man, hand and foot -she would disgrace her earring-"

  "I look after him because he is sleepy, too sleepy to wait on himself," Romilly flared, "and because he is about the age of my own little brothers! Didn't you look after your own little brother if you had one, or did you think yourself too good to look after anyone but yourself? If the Holy Bearer of Burdens could carry the World-child on his shoulders across the River of Life, shall I not care for any child who comes into my hands?"