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“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 ofbreath, 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 hadsomething 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 outsome linen for bandages, in case anyone’s hurt. Don’t worry,” she added, “they won’t get to you whilewe’re here. And take that one with you,” she added, pointing to the terrified simpleton Lilla, who wasclinging 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 youngwomen 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 obeythose laws; laws made, not by our own Guild-mothers, but by men who fear what we might haveto say to their women!

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Well, perhaps at least they will find it a matter for pride that they can defend their home againstinvaders
 
! Kindra went to lend her own wiry strength to the task of piling up the heavy bales around thehorses; the women worked, forgetting their fears in hard effort. But one grumbled, just loud enough to Kindra to hear, “It’s all very well for
her
 
! She was trained as a warrior and she’s used to this kind ofwork! I’m not!”

It was no time to debate Guild-house ethics; Kindra only asked mildly, “Are you proud of the fact thatyou have not been taught to defend yourself, child?” But the girl did not answer, sullenly hauling at herheavy hay-bale.

It was not difficult for Kindra to follow her thought; if it had not been for Brydar, each man of the towncould have protected each one his own women! Kindra thought, in utter disguest, that this was the sort ofthinking that laid villages in flames, year after year, because no man owed loyalty to another or wouldprotect any household but his own! It had taken a threat like Scarface to get these village men organizedenough to buy the services of a few hired swords, and now their women were grumbling because theirmen 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 itsscabbard. The other girls and women stood under the roof of the kitchen, but one young girl, the samewho had helped Kindra to shut the gate, bent and tucked her skirt resolutely up to her knees, then wentand brought back a big wood-chopping hatchet and stood with it in her hand, taking up a place at thegate 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 gethis hands on me, or on my little sister, without facing cold steel. It’s not a sword, but I think even in agirl’s hands, this blade would change his mind in a hurry!” She glanced defiantely at Kindra and said, “Iam ashamed for all of you, that you would let one lone woman protect us! Even a rabbithorn doeprotects her kits!”

Kindra gave the girl a companionable grin. “If you have half as much skill with that thing as you haveguts, little sister, I would rather have you at my back than any man. Hold the axe with your hands closetogether, 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 andoccasional sobs and tears as they heard the clash of swords, cries and shouts. Only Annelys stood grimlybeside 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 youcan 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 fightingwomen 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 babes alive when the village healer-women fail. She would have taught me

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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…”

“I think I would too,” said Annelys, and Kindra thought:
 
Now, if I were not bound by the laws of the

Guild, I could tell her what we are. And this one would be a credit to the Sisterhood
 
…

But her oath held her silent. She sighed and looked at Annelys, frustrated.

She was beginning to think the precautions had been useless, that Scarface’s men would never comehere at all, when there was a shriek from one of the women, and Kindra saw the tassel of a coarseknitted cap come up over the wall; then two men appeared on top of the wall, knives gripped in theirteeth to free their hands for climbing.

“So here’s where they’ve hidden it all, women, horses, all of it— ” growled one. “You go for the horses, I’ll take care of—oh, you would,” he shouted as Kindra ran at him with her knife drawn. He was taller than Kindra; as they fought, she could only defend herself, backing step by step toward the stables. Where were the men? Why had the bandits been able to get this far? Were they the last defense of the town? Behind her, out of the corner of her eye she saw the other bandit coming up with his sword; she circled, backing carefully so she could face them both.

Then there was a shriek from Annelys, the axe flashed once, and the second bandit fell, howling, his legspouting blood. Kindra’s opponent faltered at the sound; Kindra brought up her knife and ran himthrough the shoulder, snatching up his knife as it fell from his limp hand. He fell backward, and she leapedon top of him.

“Annelys!” she shouted. “You women! Bring thongs, rope, anything to tie him up—there may be

others—”

Janella came with a clothesline and stood by as Kindra tied the man, then, stepping back, looked at thebandit, lying in a pool of his own blood. His leg was nearly severed at the knee. He was still breathing,but he was too far gone even to moan and while the women stood and looked at him, he died. Janellastared at Annelys in horror, as if her young daughter had suddenly sprouted another head.

“You killed him,” she breathed. “You chopped his leg off!”

“Would you rather he had chopped off mine, mother?” Annelys asked, and bent to look at the other

bandit. “He is only stabbed through the shoulder, he’ll live to be hanged!”

Breathing hard, Kindra straightened, giving the clothesline a final tug. She looked at Annelys and said,

“You saved my life, little sister.”

The girl smiled up at her, excited, her hair coming down and tumbling into her eyes. There was a coldsleet beginning to fall in the court; their faces were wet. Annelys suddenly flung her arms around Kindra,and the older woman hugged her, disregarding the mother’s troubled face.

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“One of our own could not have done better. My thanks, little one!” Damn it, the girl had
 
earned
her thanks and approval, and if Janella stared at them as if Kindra were a wicked seducer of young women, then so much the worse for Janella! She let the girl’s arm stay around her shoulders as she said, “Listen; I think that is the men coming back.”

And in a minute they heard Brydar’s hail, and they struggled to raise the great crossbeam of the gate. Hismen drove before them more than a dozen good horses, and Brydar laughed, saying, “Scarface’s menwill have no more use for them; so we’re well paid! I see you women got the last of them?” He lookeddown at the bandit lying in his gore, at the other, tied with Janella’s clothesline. “Good work,
 
mestra
 
, I’llsee you have a share in the booty!”

“The girl helped,” Kindra said. “I’d have been dead without her.”

“One of them killed my father,” the girl said fiercely, “so I have paid my just debt, that is all!” She turned

to Janella and ordered, “Mother, bring our defenders some of that wine punch, at once!”

Brydar’s men sat all over the common-room, drinking the hot wine gratefully. Brydar set down thetankard and rubbed his hands over his eyes with a tired “Whoosh!” He said, “Some of my men are hurt,dame Janella; have any of your women skill with leech-craft? We will need bandages, and perhaps somesalves and herbs. I—” He broke off as one of the men beckoned him urgently from the door, and hewent at a run.

Annelys brought Kindra a tankard and put it shyly into her hand. Kindra sipped; it was not thewine-punch Janella had made, but a clear, fine, golden wine from the mountains. Kindra sipped it slowly,knowing the girl had been telling her something. She sat across from Kindra, taking a sip now and then ofthe hot wine in her own tankard. They were both reluctant to part.

Damn that fool law that says I cannot tell her of the Sisterhood! She is too good for this place andfor that fool mother of hers; the idiot Lilla is more what her mother needs to help run the inn, and I suppose Janella will marry her off to some yokel at once, just to have help in running this place
! Honor demanded she keep silent. Yet, watching Annelys, thinking of the life the girl would lead here, shewondered, troubled, what kind of honor it was, to require that she leave a girl like this in a place like this.

Yet she supposed it was a wise law; anyway, it had been made by wiser heads than hers. Shesupposed, otherwise, young girls, glamored for the moment with the thought of a life of excitement andadventure, might follow the Sisterhood without being fully aware of the hardships and the renunciationsthat awaited them. The name Renunciate was not lightly given; it was not an easy life. And considering theway Annelys was looking at her, Annelys might follow her simply out of hero-worship. That wouldn’t do. She sighed, and said, “Well, the excitement is over for tonight, I suppose. I must be away to my bed; Ihave a long way to ride tomorrow. Listen to that racket! I didn’t know any of Brydar’s men wereseriously hurt—”

“It sounds more like a quarrel than men in pain,” Annelys said, listening to the shouts and protests. “Are

they quarreling over the spoils?”

Abruptly the door thrust open and Brydar of Fen Hills came into the room. “
 
Mestra
, forgive me, youare wearied—”

“Enough,” she said, “but after all this hullabaloo I am not like to sleep much; what can I do for you?”

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“I beg you—will you come? It is the boy—young Marco; he is hurt, badly hurt, but he will not let us tend his wounds until he has spoken with you. He says he has an urgent message, very urgent, which he must give before he dies…”

“Avarra’s mercy,” Kindra said, shocked. “Is he dying, then?”

“I cannot tell, he will not let us near enough to dress his wound. If he would be reasonable and let us care for him—but he is bleeding like a slaughtered
 
chervine
 
, and he has threatened to slit the throat of any man who touches him. We tried to hold him down and tend him willy-nilly, but it made his wounds bleed so sore as he struggled that we dared not wait—will you come,
 
mestra
 
?”