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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 end of the room,drinking and playing dice. They were a mixed crew; Kindra knew none of them, but she had met Brydarhimself a few times, and had even hired out with him, once, to guard a merchant caravan across thedesert to the Dry Towns. She nodded courteously to him, and he saluted her, but paid her no furtherattention; he knew her well enough to know that she would not welcome even polite conversation whenshe was in a roomful of strangers.

One of the younger mercenaries, a young man, tall, beardless and weedy, ginger hair cut close to hishead, rose and came toward her. Kindra braced herself for the inevitable. If she had been with two orthree other Guild-women, she would have welcomed harmless companionship, a drink together and talkabout 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 provehis 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 tohis dagger. “Watch yourself, you—!” He spoke a foulness. Then he came to Kindra’s table and said, in asoft, 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?

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“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 makinggame of a woman-hater, wagering he would not have the courage to talk to her? She said neutrally, “Thisis 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 werecallused 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 men 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-Letzis
 
— “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 ofthe Guild, we swear an oath renouncing those privileges that we might have by choosing to belong tosome 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 travelingalone 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 youseemed kind. And I suppose,
 
mestra
 
, that whenever you come into these hills, where life is so hard forwomen, you are always seeking out wives and daughters who are discontented at home, to recruit themfor your Guild?”

Would that we might
! Kindra thought, with all the old bitterness; but she shook her head. “Our charter

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forbids it,” she said. “It is the law that a women 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 ratherdie than marry; and even with all the restrictions and renunciations of the oath, it seems a preferablealternative. But I assure you we are not all so. We are free women—free to be thus or otherwise, at ourown will.” After a moment’s thought she added carefully, “And if you have a sister you may tell her sofrom me.”

The young man started, and Kindra bit her lip; again she had let her guard down, picking up hunches soclearly formed that sometimes her companions accused her of having a little of the telepathic gift of thehigher castes;
 
laran
 
. Kindra, who was, as far as she knew, all commoner and without either noble bloodor telepathic gift, usually kept herself barricaded; but she had picked up a random thought, a bitterthought 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 almostescaped 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.”

Kindra left the common-room early, but she could not sleep for a long time. Something in the youngman’s voice, his words, had plucked a resonating string in her own mind and memory. Why had hequestioned 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 roleordained by society for her sex and he could not? Did he fantasy, perhaps, some such escape from thedemands made upon men? Surely not; there were simpler lives for men than that of a hired sword! Andmen had a choice of what lives they would live— more choice, anyhow, than most women. Kindra hadchosen to become a Renunciate, making herself an outcaste among most people in the Domains. Even

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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 torecruit 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, theyhad met with summary justice, but it had happened and might happen again. At that, she thought, hemight be convincing enough in women’s clothes; but not with the scar on his face, or those callusedhands. Then she laughed in the dark, feeling the calluses on her own fingers. Well, if he was fool enoughto 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. Somewherewomen were shrieking. Kindra flung on her outer clothes and ran downstairs. Brydar was standing in thecourtyard, 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 rear-guard 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 womenlike roosting hens around her. “Will you leave us all here unguarded, when we have housed you all forseven days and never a penny in pay? Scarface and his men are sure to strike here for the horses, andwe 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 isan 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 thehorses 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

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no ordinary hired sword
 
!

Janella’s wailing brought her back to her duty. “Oh! Oh! Horrible,” she howled. “Left here with only awoman 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.