The Saga of the Renunciates Read Free Page A

unbound hands, breeches and low sandals. The Amazons, conscious of their stares, returned the gaze with equal curiosity, not unmingled with pity. The woman called Rohana finally could bear no more; leaving her almost-untouched plate, she got to her feet and went into the tent she shared with Kindra. After a moment the Amazon leader followed her inside, saying in surprise, "But you have eaten nothing, my Lady. May I serve you, then?"
    "I am not hungry," said Rohana, stifled. She put back her hood, revealing, in the dim light, hair of the flame-red color that marked her a member of the telepath caste of the Comyn: the caste that had ruled the Seven Domains from time unknown and unknowable. It had been cropped short, indeed, but nothing could conceal its color, and Kindra frowned as the Comyn woman went on:
    "The sight of those women has destroyed my appetite; I feel too sick to swallow. How can you endure to watch it, Kindra, you who make so much of freedom for women?"
    Kindra said with a slight shrug, "I feel no very great sympathy for them. Any single one of them could be free if she chose. If they wish to suffer chains rather than lose the attentions of their men, or be different from their mothers and sisters, I shall not waste my pity on them, far less lose sleep or appetite. They endure their captivity as you of the Domains, Lady, endure yours; and, truth to tell I see no very great difference between you. They are, perhaps, more honest, for they admit to their chains and make no pretense of freedom; while yours are invisible-but they are as great a weight upon you."
    Rohana's pale face flushed with anger. She said, "Then I wonder you ever agreed to this mission! Was it only to earn your pay?"
    "There was that, of course," Kindra said, unruffled. "I am a mercenary soldier; within reason, I go where I am hired to go, and do what I am best paid to do. But there is more," she added in a gentler tone. "The Lady Melora, your kinswoman, did not connive at her own captivity, nor choose her form of servitude. As I understand what you told me, Jalak of Shainsa-may his manhood wither!-fell upon her escort, slew her guards, and carried her away by force; wishing, for revenge or sheer lust of cruelty, to keep a leronis of the Comyn enslaved and captive as his wife-or his concubine, I am not certain."
    "In the Dry Towns there seems no great difference," said the Lady Rohana bitterly, and Kindra nodded. "I see no very great difference anywhere, vai domna, but I do not expect you to agree with me. Be that as it may, Lady Melora was carried away into a slavery she had not chosen, and her surviving kinsmen could not, or did not, choose to avenge her."
    "There were those who tried," Rohana said, her voice shaking. Her face was almost invisible in the darkened tent, but there were tears in her roughened voice. "They vanished without trace, until the third; he was my father's youngest son, my half-brother; and had been Melora's foster-brother, reared as her playmate."
    "That tale I have heard; Jalak sent back the ring he wore still on his fingers," Kindra said, "and boasted he would do so, and more, to any other who came to avenge her. But that was ten years ago, Lady, and if I were in the Lady Melora's slippers, I would not have lived to endanger any more of my kinfolk. If she has dwelled for twelve years in Jalak's household, surely she cannot be in any great need, by now, of rescue. By this time, one would imagine she must be resigned to her fate."
    Rohana's pale face stained with color. "So in truth we believed," she said. "Cassilda pity me, I, too, reproached her in thought, wishing her dead rather than living on in Jalak's house as a shame to us all."
    "Yet you are here now," Kindra said, and although it was not a question, Lady Rohana answered. "You know what I am: leronis, Tower-trained; a telepath.
    Melora and I dwelt together, as young girls, in the Dalereuth Tower. Neither of us chose to remain life-long, but before I left the