The Saga of the Renunciates Read online

  "I thought so myself at first," Kindra said, "but the Lady Melora must be warned, and ready to leave with us at a moment's notice; the slightest delay could ruin us all. The Lady Rohana can reach her mind, without warning Jalak, or rousing his suspicions as even the most cautious message could do." Kindra grinned wryly in the darkness of the tent. "Besides, which of you wants the task of caring for a pregnant woman on the journey back? None of us have much taste for it-nor any skill should she need nursing. Or do you want to try?"

  Nira laughed ruefully. "Avarra and Evanda forbid it! I stand reproved!" she said, and went to join the other women around the fire. After a moment Kindra went to join them, taking the plateful of food they had saved her (it was cold by now, but she ate without noticing), listening to the women talking softly as they cleared away the dishes, set a watch. Mentally, she checked them over.

  She had handpicked this group from volunteers, and with all of them except the young girl Gwennis, she had worked before. Nira, who could pass as a man when she must, and had even, only the Blessed Cassilda knew how, learned to use a sword. Against Dry-Towners we may need it. By the Charter of the Guild of Free Amazons, it was not lawful for any Amazon to bear a sword. Too threatening to the men of the Domains, for women to play with their precious toys! Yet that law was not always honored; Kindra felt no guilt that she had allowed Nira to teach the others what she could of handling a sword. Then there was Leeanne, who had been neutered at fourteen and looked like a slim boy: breastless, hard-bodied and spare. Another who had known the neutering operation-which was illegal, but still turned up sometimes as a fait accompli-was Camilla, born of a good family in the Kilghard Hills; she did not use her family name Lindir, for they had long disowned and disinherited her. Camilla was nearing middle age, and like Kindra, had spent most of her life as a mercenary fighter; she was scarred with multiple knife-scars. Also Kindra had chosen Lori, who had been born in the Hellers and fought with two knives, mountain style; and Rafaella, Kindra's own kinswoman. Not all the Free Amazons were fighters, of course, but for this mission Kindra had chosen, mostly, the best fighting women she knew. Then there was Devra, who was not a great fighter, but skilled beyond anyone Kindra had ever known at reading the trackless lands of mountain or desert, so that Kindra had chosen her, warning her to keep out of any close-quarters fighting. And Fat Rima, who was altogether feminine in appearance and manner, and so heavy she could ride only the biggest horses; but Kindra knew she was skilled at making and managing a campsite, and their comfort was valuable, too, on a trip like this; and like all Amazons, Rima was completely able to defend herself. And she has other skills that may be needed before we reach Thendara! Kindra reflected. Then there was the girl Gwennis, and Lady Rohana.

  Anyone who knew the Free Amazons, Kindra thought, could tell at once that the Lady was not one of them: her walk, her speech, her riding. But there was no one here, the Goddess be praised, who knew that much about them!

  They had finished putting away the supper gear; Kindra surrendered her empty bowl, to be scrubbed with sand by Fat Rima. Rafaella brought out her small rryl and laid it across her knees, striking a preliminary chord or two. "Kindra, will you sing for us?"

  "Not tonight, Rafi," she said, smiling to soften the refusal. "I have plans to make; I'll listen to the rest of you."

  Devra began a song, and Kindra sat with her head in her hands, her mind not on the music. She knew she could trust every one of these women with her life. Lady Rohana was an unknown, but she had more reasons than the others to work at Kindra's command. The others had all volunteered; partly, at least, because like every Free Amazon from Dalereuth to the Hellers, they hated the Dry-Towners with a deadly hatred. The Domains themselves had made an uneasy peace with the Dry Towns, and kept it; there was no love lost between Domains and Dry Towns, but there was a bitter memory of the long wars they had fought, without any conclusive victory on either side. The Domains might accept the present state of truce out of political expediency; and their women with them. The Domains live under men's laws. They accept the enslavement of the Dry-Town women because it pleases them to think how benevolent, by contrast, they are to their own women. They say all men must choose their own lifestyles.

  But no woman who had ever cut her hair and sworn the oath of a Free Amazon would ever accept that compromise!

  Kindra had early freed herself from a life that now seemed to her as enslaved, as weighted with invisible chains, as that of any Dry-Town woman who walked in her ornamental bracelets and fetters of possession; she felt that any woman who truly chose, and would pay the price, could do as much. Yes, even the women of the Dry Towns. Yet, for all her lack of sympathy for any woman who bowed her head to a man's yoke, she felt a surge of hatred and loathing for the men who perpetuated this kind of slavery.

  Should I tell them my plans now? She raised her hand and listened. Lady Rohana, who had a sweet, small, untrained voice, and Gwennis, who had a very light, true soprano, were singing a riddle-song from the Domains. Kindra decided not to disturb them. Let them have a night's undisturbed sleep first. "Set good watch around the camp," she said. "Some of these Dry-Towners may have ideas about how Free Amazons might like to spend their nights, and I doubt we'd care for their notions."

  Chapter Two

  At high noon the marketplace of Shainsa lay sweltering under a direct sun, beating down on the dry stone, the sun-bleached stone walls of houses and buildings that turned blind faces to the light.

  In spite of the insults and jeers that the loafers of the streets had flung at the Free Amazons, their booth, a light woven-wicker affair intended for transport on horseback, had been doing a flourishing business all morning; the mountain-tanned leather commanded a good price in the Dry Towns, where few animals could be husbanded and leather and textiles were scarce. Their stock was vanishing, in fact, so quickly that Kindra was beginning to fret; if any happenstance delayed Jalak's return, and their wares for sale were exhausted, their lingering in the town might cause some suspicion. Must I lay the groundwork for an accident to one of the pack animals? she wondered. Then there was a stir in the marketplace; an almost visible murmuring of rumor, and idlers, passersby and children began to drift toward the great gates. Jalak, she thought. It must be Jalak returning, nothing else could create so great a stir.

  Leaving the booth in the hands of Devra and Fat Rima, she moved idly with the crowd toward the gates, Rohana at her side. She muttered, in a tone that could not be heard six inches away, "Now, if ever, you must get a message through to your kinswoman. Tell her to be alert to move at a moment's notice; we may have only a few minutes to strike and we must take it when the occasion offers. It will not be until after nightfall; thereafter, she must be ready. Also, find out precisely where she sleeps, and if she is guarded and by how many; and where her daughter sleeps, alone or with other royal daughters."

  Rohana leaned against the Free Amazon's arm, feeling suddenly sick and faint with the enormous responsibility. Now it was suddenly all on her shoulders. Someone jostled them; Kindra glared, steadied Rohana on her feet and the jostler flung a jeering phrase at them that made the Comyn woman blush with indignation, more for Kindra's sake than her own. She knew the Free Amazons were often accused of being lovers of women; she supposed some of them were. Yet all Kindra's kindness to her had been entirely impersonal, almost motherly, and Rohana felt a surge of anger that Kindra should suffer such insult on her behalf. How absurd to be thinking of that now! As if I-or Kindra-could possibly care what some Dry-Town nothing thought of either of us!

  There was a blare of horns, a strange, hoarse fanfare. First came a dozen of his guards, in trappings so alien to Rohana as to make little impression on her except the general one of rude splendor: sashes and baldrics, elaborately gilded tunics, high headdresses. Then cralmacs, furred and tailed humanoids with great gold-colored eyes, wearing only their own fur and elaborate jeweled sashes, riding on the great shambling oudhraki of the far deserts: a legion of them, it seemed. More guards, le
ss elaborately and ceremonially dressed this time, but armed with the long, straight swords and daggers of the Dry-Towners. Rohana thought, Just as well that Kindra's band did not try to strike him encamped by night. And then came Jalak himself.

  Rohana had to turn away before she had more than a sight of his thin, hawk-keen face, sun-bleached under thick pale hair, fierce bristling mustachios; there were times when it seemed to her that so immense a force of hatred must somehow communicate itself to his object, that he could not fail to be aware of her thoughts. Rohana, a telepath since girlhood, lived with that as reality; but Jalak seemed impervious, riding amid his guards with a set, impassive face, looking neither to left nor right.

  Near him rode-she supposed-a couple of his favorites, slaves or concubines; a slim girl with lint-white hair, chains jeweled, her body muffled in a scant fur smock, but her long legs bare to the fierce sun; she leaned toward Jalak and murmured and cooed to him as they passed. On Jalak's other side a thin, elegant boy, a pretty minion: too curled, too jeweled and perfumed to be anything else.

  Behind Jalak and his favorites rode an assembly of women, and among them, outstanding for her flame-red hair (now, streaked faintly with gray), rode Melora. Rohana felt faint. She had been prepared for this; Melora had come to her in thought. But seeing her like this, in the flesh, changed beyond recognition (And yet, Cassilda pity us, I would have known her anywhere, anywhere...), Rohana felt that her pain and pity would overwhelm her and she would sink down, fainting.

  Kindra's hand closed painfully on Rohana's arm, the nails digging into the flesh; Rohana recalled herself. This was her part in the rescue, the thing only she could do. Deliberately, she reached out and made contact with her kinswoman's mind.

  -Melora!

  She felt the shock, the start and flutter. She was suddenly afraid less Melora should see her, make some sign of recognition.

  -Betray nothing; do not look for me or try to see me, darling, but I am near you, among the Free Amazons.

  -Rohana! Rohana, is it you?

  But Rohana, from her place in the crowd, saw-and felt a sudden, fierce pride in her kinswoman-that Melora rode on without making any visible sign; her eyes fixed, apparently, on nothing; slightly slumped in her saddle; the taut, thin, careworn face beneath the graying red hair showing nothing but weariness and pain. Suddenly Rohana was struck with fear and compunction. She thought, She is so heavy, so near her time, the child weighs on her so. How can we possibly get her away in safety? She sent the concerned question.

  -Can you ride, Melora, can you travel, so far in pregnancy?

  The answer was almost listless.-It is easy to tell you do not know the Dry Towns; I would be expected to ride even closer to my time than this. Then the answering thoughts were fierce with hate.-I can do what I must! To be free I would ride through hell itself!

  Painstakingly, then, bit-by-bit, Rohana relayed Kindra's message; received Melora's answer, even while the caravan passed on, passed by the marketplace. At the rear came a few more guards, who indifferently tossed small coins, copper rings, wrapped fruits and sweetmeats into the crowd, watching with dead eyes, as the beggars scrambled for them. Kindra and Rohana, not staying to watch the painful spectacle, turned back toward their booth. Once safely inside it, Rohana relayed the information she had received.

  "Jalak sleeps in a room at the north side of the building, with his favorites of the moment, and Melora; not that he has any interest, at the moment, in sharing her bed, so she told me; but at the moment she is his most prized possession, bearing his son, and he will not let her out of his sight. There are no guards within the room, but there are two guards, and two cralmacs armed with knives, in the antechamber. Until this last pregnancy, Jaelle-that is her daughter-slept in her mother's room; now she has been moved to a room in the suite set apart for the other royal daughters. She complained that the noise the little ones made kept her from sleeping; Jalak is indulgent with girl-children if they are pretty ones, and allotted her a room to her own use, with a nurse there. It is at the far end of the royal children's suite, and looks out on an inner courtyard filled with blackfruit trees."

  She anticipated Kindra's next question, saying, "I have the plan of the building so clear in my mind that I could draw it for you from memory."

  Kindra laughed and said, "Truly, Lady, you would make a Free Amazon someday! Perhaps it is our loss that you did not choose our way, after all." She went to the women still in the booth, saying in an undertone, "Sell what you can; but what cannot be sold by nightfall, be prepared to abandon. Do not strike the booth; if we leave it standing they will expect us to be here come morning. Be sure the horses we used as pack animals are ready to be saddled for Melora and her daughter... "

  That afternoon seemed endless to Rohana. The worst of it lay in that she must behave exactly as usual-or at least as near to usual as was possible for her, here in the Dry Towns, far from her accustomed ways of occupying herself. She tried not to fidget visibly, knowing it would only disturb the Amazons, who seemed quite calm, selling their wares, tending their animals, idling around the camp. And yet, as the afternoon wore on, it seemed to her that she could see small signs that they were not, after all, quite so indifferent as they seemed to the coming battle. Camilla sat cross-legged at the back of the booth, sharpening her great knife to a razor edge, whistling an odd, tuneless little melody that, after a time, began to set Rohana's teeth on edge. Kindra sat drawing patterns again and again in the sand and quickly rubbing them out again with the toe of her boot. Rohana wondered how Melora was passing the time, but resisted the temptation to follow her in thought. If Melora could take some rest before sunset, let her do so, by all means!

  How will she travel? She looks not more than three days from her time-if so much!

  Slowly, slowly, the great red sun declined toward the hills. It seemed to Rohana that no day in her lifetime had worn away so wearily, with every hour stretching into lifetimes. Not even the day my second son was born, when I seemed to lie for hours stretched on a rack of pain tearing me asunder... even then, something could be done. Now I can only wait, and wait... and wait...

  Kindra said quietly, as she passed, "This day must seem longer still for your kinswoman, Lady," and Rohana tried to smile. That, at least, was true.

  "Pray to your Goddess that the Lady Melora does not go into labor this day," Kindra said. "That would be the end of hope. We might still rescue her daughter, but if the Great House was ablaze with lights, mid-wives running here and there to attend to her... even that would be made more difficult than we could manage."

  Rohana drew a deep breath of apprehension. And she is so near to her time...

  She tried to form, in her heart, a prayer to the Blessed Cassilda, Mother of the Seven Domains; but her prayer seemed to hang on the dead air, waiting, like everything else...

  And yet, as all things mortal must, even the day wore to an end. The Dry-Town women, veiled and chained, came to buy water at the well, and again they lingered, fascinated even through their scorn, to watch the Amazons moving about, tending their horses, cooking their meal. Rohana offered what help she could; it was easier if her hands were busy. She watched the Dry-Town women come and go in the marketplace, thinking of Melora, her hands weighted by the jeweled chains, her body weighted with Jalak's hated child. She had been so light and quick, as a girl, so frolicsome and laughing...

  They finished their meal, and Kindra signaled to Rafaella to take her harp, strike a few chords. She said in an undertone, "Come in close, and listen; act as if you were only listening to the music."

  Rohana asked in a low voice, "Can you play 'The Ballad of Hastur and Cassilda'?"

  "I think so, Lady."

  "I will sing it. It is very long, and my voice," she added, with a self-deprecating smile, "is not so strong that anyone passing by would think it odd if you kept very quiet to listen to me-but not so soft that Kindra cannot talk more softly still, and be heard."

  Kindra nodded, pleased at Rohana's quick com
prehension of her plan. Rafaella played a short introduction, and Rohana began, hearing her own voice wavering:

  "The stars were mirrored on the shore, Dark was the dim enchanted moor;

  Silent were field and tree and stone... "

  The other women clustered in close, as if to listen to the ancient ballad; Rohana heard her own voice falter, fought to steady it. She must somehow collect herself to remember all the seemingly endless verses, string it out while Kindra gave soft, detailed instructions to every one of the Amazons. Get hold of yourself, she ordered and commanded herself: This is something you can do, while they do the real work... the dangerous work, the fighting...

  Yet they are women. I learned to think fighting was for men; I could never carry a knife, strike, see blood flow, perhaps suffer wounding, die...

  Sing, damn you, Rohana! Stop thinking, sing...

  "He lay thrown up along the shore, The sands were jeweled evermore, And to the shore Cassilda came And called him by a mortal name..."

  Struggling to remember the next lines, she heard Kindra, in a low, tense voice, detailing the information she had been given, pointing to the pattern she had scratched in the sand by firelight.

  "Jalak sleeps here, with his favorites and Melora; there are no guards in the room, but just outside...”

  "Cassilda wept and paled and fled, Camilla knelt and raised his head, He left his high immortal fire, For mortal man's entranced desire;

  White bread and wine and cherries red...