Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  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, feeli
ng 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 came to the kitchen door to watch. Kindra went to the barred gate, her knife loose in its scabbard. The other girls and women stood under the roof of the kitchen, but one young girl, the same who had helped Kindra to shut the gate, bent and tucked her skirt resolutely up to her knees, then went and brought back a big wood-chopping hatchet and stood with it in her hand, taking up a place at the gate beside Kindra.

  “Annelys!” Janella called. “Come back here! By me!”

  The girl cast a look of contempt at her mother and said, “If any bandit climbs these walls, he will not get his hands on me, or on my little sister, without facing cold steel. It’s not a sword, but I think even in a girl’s hands, this blade would change his mind in a hurry!” She glanced defiantly at Kindra and said, “I am ashamed for all of you, that you would let o
ne lone woman protect us! Even a rabbithorn doe protects her kits!”

  Kindra gave the girl a companionable grin. “If you have half as much skill with that thing as you have guts, little sister, I would rather have you at my back than any man. Hold the axe with your hands close together, if the time comes to use it, and don’t try anything fancy, just take a good hard chop at his legs, just like you were cutting down a tree. The thing is, he won’t be expecting it, see?”

  The night dragged on. The women huddled on hay bales and boxes, listening with apprehension and occasional sobs and tears as they heard the clash of swords, cries and shouts. Only Annelys stood grimly beside Kindra, clutching her axe. After an hour or so, Kindra said, settling herself down on a hay-bale, “You needn’t clutch it like that, you’ll only weary yourself for an attack. Lean it against the bale, so you can snatch it up when the need comes.”

  Annelys asked in an undertone, “How did you know so well what to do? Are all the Free Amazons—you call them something else, don’t you—how do the Guild-women learn? Are they all fighting women and hired swords?”

  “No, no, not even many of us,” Kindra said. “It is only that I have not many other talents; I cannot weave or embroider very well, and my skill at gardening is only good in the summertime. My own oath mother is a midwife, that is our most respected trade; even those who despise the Renunciates confess that we can often save babies alive when the village healer women fail. She would have taught me her profession; but I had no talent for that, either, and I am squeamish about the sight of blood—” She looked down suddenly at her long knife, remembering her many battles, and laughed; and Annelys laughed with her, a strange sound against the frightened moaning of the other women.

  “You are afraid of the sight of blood?”

  “It’s different,” Kindra said. “I can’t stand suffering when I can’t do anything about it, and if a babe is born easily they seldom send for the midwife; we come only when matters are desperate. I would rather fight with men, or beasts, than for the life of a helpless woman or baby . . .”