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Beyond him she saw, by the dim moonlight from the courtyard window, the pale forms of the two favorites who shared his bed. They, too, slept: Danette—pale, nude, her long scattered hair enfolding her; Garris snoring a little, lying on his back, folded against Jalak’s long body. At first this had infuriated and humiliated her to silent tears and passionate rebellion; after ten years she was only wearily relieved that she need no longer share his bed. During these months while she carried his son, Jalak, proud, and as near to kindness as he ever came, had yielded good-naturedly to her plea and allowed her to have a bed of her own, that she might sleep in peace and rest well. For years now she had been freed at night, like other Dry-Town women, from the chains she wore by day; only while she was still a rebellious prisoner had she been forced to wear them night and day. More than once, in that first faraway year, she had flown at his throat … ceasing only when she knew her furious resistance excited, amused, stimulated him. …
    Poor Danette, how she hates me, how she gloated when she took my place in Jalak’s bed, never guessing how willingly I would have resigned it years ago — and she hates my child worse than she hates me, she knows she is barren. If only I were. … I wish Garris no ill, His parents sold him in the brothels of Ardcarran when he was no older than Jaelle … he loves Jalak no more than I … perhaps less. Cruelly as the Dry-Towners treat their women, there are at least laws and customs to protect women to some degree, and not even such laws protect such as Garris. Poor little wretch…he still cries. … How slowly this night seems to pass. …
    She stiffened, every nerve in her body alert. What sound was that? The next moment the door came crashing inward and it seemed all at once that the room was full of … of women? Jalak woke with a bellow, snatching up his sword where it lay ready, night and day, to his hand; he yelled for the guards … a yell that went unanswered. Already on his feet, he yelled again, naked, leaping at the first who came against him; they crowded him against the wall, and Rohana, seeing through her own eyes now—although she shared Melora’s thought, Where are the guards? —saw the Amazons force him against the wall, saw him disappear behind what looked like a wall of women, slashing, darting in with their knives; saw the long ripping cut with which Kindra darted in, slashed, the tendons at the back of his knee. He fell, howling, struggling. Danette, wide-eyed, kneeling upright on the bed, shrieked.
    “Garris! Garris! Get his sword! They’re only women. … ”
    “Silence that bitch,” said Kindra, and Camilla’s rough hands muffled Danette’s shrieks with a pillow. Garris sat upright, looking down at the writhing, howling Jalak with an unholy joy. . Rohana caught up a furred cloak from the foot of the bed, wrapped it over Melora’s scanty nightgown. “Come—quickly!”
    Guided between her kinswoman and the Amazon leader, Melora stumbled into the hall; her foot slipped in the blood of the guards who had been killed there. Are they all dead? All? Even Jalak’s howls had stopped. Dead, or unconscious from loss of blood?
    She saw through the still-open door that Garris had caught up Jalak’s sword; Nira whirled, her own sword at the ready, but Garris rushed past them, not even looking at her, disappearing down the hallway, with evidently no thought in mind but his own escape.
    Rohana hurried Melora along, out into the silent garden. It was so silent that it took her breath away; fountains splashed, trees rustled undisturbed in the wind, no sound or light to show that somewhere inside there in the Great House, eight or ten of Jalak’s fighting men and perhaps Jalak himself lay dead.
    None but Jalak himself had had opportunity to strike a single return stroke; but that single slash had gone to Nira’s thigh and she limped, leaning heavily on Camilla’s arm. Lori