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Annelys was weeping; but the girl lay with a face like stone. Her very calm was more terrible thanhysteria; she had gone beyond tears, into a place where grief and satisfaction were all one, and that onewore the face of death.

Kindra said softly, “You are safe now; none will harm you. But you must not talk any more; you areweary, and weakened with loss of blood. Come, drink the rest of this wine and sleep, my girl.” Shesupported the girl’s head while she finished the wine, filled with horror. And yet, through the horror, wasadmiration. Broken, beaten, ravaged, and then rejected, this girl had won free of her captors by killingone of them; and then she had survived the further rejection of her family, to plot her revenge, and tocarry it out, as a noble might do.

And the proud Comyn rejected this woman? She has the courage of any two of their menfolk! Itis this kind of pride and folly that will one day bring the reign of the Comyn crashing down intoruin
! And she shuddered with a strange premonitory fear, seeing with her wakening telepathic gift aflashing picture of flames over the Hellers, strange sky-ships, alien men walking the streets of Thendaraclad in black leather…

The woman’s eyes closed, her hands tightening on Kindra’s. “Well, I have had my revenge,” shewhispered again, “and so I can die. And with my last breath I will bless you, that I die as a woman, andnot in this hated disguise, among men…”

“But you are not going to die,” Kindra said. “You will live, child.”

“No.” Her face was set stubbornly in lines of refusal, closed and barriered. “What does life hold for a woman friendless and without kin? I could endure to live alone and secret, among men, disguised, while I nursed the thought of my revenge to strengthen me for the—the daily pretense. But I hate men, I loathe the way they speak of women among themselves, I would rather die than go back to Brydar’s band, or live further among men.”

Annelys said softly, “But now you are revenged, now you can live as a woman again.”

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Again the nameless woman shook her head. “Live as a woman, subject to men like my father? Go backand beg shelter from my mother, who might give me bread in secret so I would not disgrace them furtherby dying across her doorstep, and keep me hidden away, to drudge among them hidden, sew or spin,when I have ridden free with a mercenary band? Or shall I live as a lone woman, at the mercy of men? Iwould rather face the mercy of the blizzard and the banshee!” Her hand closed on Kindra’s. “No,” shesaid, “I would rather die.”

Kindra drew the girl into her arms, holding her against her breast. “Hush, my poor girl, hush, you areover-wrought, you must not talk like that. When you have slept you will not feel this way,” she soothed,but she felt the depth of despair in the woman in her arms, and her rage overflowed.

The laws of her Guild forbade her to speak of the Sisterhood, to tell this girl that she could live free,protected by the Guild Charter, never again to be at the mercy of any man. The laws of the Guild, whichshe might not break, the oath she must keep. And yet on a deeper level, was it not breaking the oath towithhold from this woman, who had risked so much and who had appealed to her in the name of her Goddess, the knowledge that might give her the will to live?

Whatever I do, I am forsworn; either I break my oath by refusing this girl my help, or I break itby speaking when I am forbidden by the law to speak.

The law! The law made by men, which still hemmed her in on every side, though she had cast off theordinary laws by which men forced women to live! And she was doubly damned if she spoke of the Guild before Annelys, though Annelys had fought at her side. The just law of the Hellers would protect Annelys from this knowledge; it would make trouble for the Sisterhood if Kindra should lure away adaughter of a respectable innkeeper, whose mother needed her, and needed the help her husband wouldbring to the running of her inn!

Against her breast, the nameless girl had closed her eyes. Kindra caught the faint thread of her thoughts;she knew that the telepath caste could will themselves to die… as this girl had willed herself to live,despite everything that had happened, until she had had her cherished revenge.

Let me sleep so… and I can believe myself back in my mother’s arms, in the days when I was stillher child and this horror had not touched me… Let me sleep so and never wake…

Already she was drifting away, and for a moment, in despair, Kindra was tempted to let her die.
 
Thelaw forbids me to speak
 
. And if she should speak, then Annelys, already struck with hero-worship of Kindra, already rebelling against a woman’s lot, having tasted the pride of defending herself, Annelyswould follow her, too. Kindra knew it, with a strange, premonitory shiver.

She let the rage in her have its way and overflow. She shook the nameless woman awake, knowing thatalready she was willing herself to death.

“Listen to me! Listen! You must not die,” she said angrily. “Not when you have suffered so much! That

is a coward’s way, and you have proven again and again that you are no coward!”

“Oh, but I am a coward,” the woman said. “I am too much a coward to live in the only way a woman like me can live—through the charity of women such as my mother—or the mercy of men like my father, or like Scarface! I dreamed that when I had my revenge, I could find some other way. But there is no other way.”

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And Kindra’s rage and resolution overflowed. She looked despairing over the nameless woman’s head,into Annelys’s frightened eyes. She swallowed, knowing the seriousness of the step she was about totake.

“There—there might be another way,” she said, still temporizing. “You—I do not even know your name,

what is your name?”

“I am nameless,” the woman said, her face like stone. “I swore I would never again speak the name given me by the father and the mother who rejected me. If I had lived, I would have taken another name. Call me what pleases you.”

And with a great surge of wrath, Kindra made up her mind. She drew the girl against her.

“I will call you Camilla,” she said, “for from this day forth, I swear it, I shall be mother and sister to you, as was the blessed Cassilda to Camilla; this I swear. Camilla, you shall not die,” she said, pulling the girl upright. Then, with a deep resolute breath, clasping Camilla’s hand in one of hers, and stretching the other to Annelys, she began.

“My little sisters, let me tell you of the Sisterhood of Free Women, which men call Free Amazons. Let

me tell you of the ways of the Renunciates, the Oath-bound, the
 
Comhi-Letzii
 
…”

—«»—«»—«»—

FRIENDS OF DARKOVER

The Friends of Darkover is an organization which first came into being among close friends of Marion Zimmer Bradley, and has since expanded to include many readers of the Darkover novels, as well asother self-contained fantasy worlds.

We publish a Friends of Darkover Newsletter (which over the years has become a magazine ofsubstantial size) and function as a discussion group about fantasy worlds in general and Darkover inparticular.

For further information regarding the organization send a self-addressed stamped envelope to

FRIENDS OF DARKOVER

Box 72

Berkeley, CA 94701

Include $1.00, and a sample Newsletter will be enclosed along with the information.

—«»—«»—«»—

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