One of the onlookers came forward; the women tensed against further insult, but he only asked politely enough: “May one inquire your business here, vahi domnis?” His accent was thick, and the woman addressed looked blank; but the leader understood, and answered for her: “We have come to sell leather goods from the Domains; saddles, harness and leather clothing. We will be here for trading at daylight tomorrow; you are all invited to come and do business with us.”
A man in the crowd yelled, “They’s only one thing I’d ever buy from women!”
“Buy it, hell! Make them pay for it!”
“Hey, lady, you going to sell them britches you’re wearing so you can dress like a woman?”
The Free Amazon ignored the jeers. The man who had come to question her said, “Can we direct you to any entertainment in the city this night? Or”-he hesitated, looked appraisingly at her, and added-“entertain you ourselves?”
She said with a fault smile, “No, thank you very much,” and turned away. One of the younger women said in a low, indignant voice, “I had no idea it was going to be like this! And you thanked him, Kindra! I’d have kicked his dirty teeth down his throat!”
Kindra smiled and patted the other’s arm soothingly. “Why, hard words break no bones, Devra. He made an offer with such politeness as was in him, and I answered him the same. Next to these”-she swept the crowd of loafers with an ironic gray glance-“he was the soul of courtesy.”
“Kindra, are we really going to trade with these gre’zuin?”
Kindra frowned faintly at the obscenity. “Why, yes, of course. We must have some reason for staying here, and Jalak may not return for days. If we have no apparent business here, we will be prime objects for suspicion. Not trade? What are you wearing for a head, today? Think, child!”
She moved on to a woman who was piling saddlebags within the shelter, asking in an undertone, “No sign yet of Nira?”
“None so far.” The woman addressed glanced uneasily around, as if fearful of being overheard. She spoke pure casta, the language of the aristocrats from Thendara and the plains of Valeron. “No doubt she’ll seek us out after nightfall. She would have small liking for running the gauntlet of these folk; and for anyone dressed as a man to enter our camp openly and unchallenged-”
“True,” Kindra said, looking at their watchers. “And she is no stranger to the Dry Towns. Yet I cannot help being a little fearful. It goes against the grain to send any of my women in man’s dress, yet it was her only safety here.”
“In man’s dress…” The woman repeated the words as if she felt she must have misunderstood the other’s language. “Why, do you not all wear man’s dress, Kindra?”
Kindra said, “Here you betray only your ignorance of our customs, Lady Rohana; I beg you to keep your voice low when we might be overheard. Do you truly believe I wear man’s dress?” She sounded affronted, and the Lady Rohana said quickly, “I meant no offense, believe me, Kindra. But your dress is certainly not that of a woman-not, at least, a woman of the Domains.”
Deference and annoyance mingled in the Free Amazon’s voice as she said, “I have no leisure now to explain to you all the customs and rules of our Guild, Lady Rohana. For now, it is enough-” She broke off at another outbreak of guffaws from the bystanders. Devra and another of the Free Amazons were leading their saddle horses toward the common well at the center of the marketplace. One of them paid the watering fee in the copper rings that passed as currency anywhere east of Carthon, while the other led the animals to the trough. As she returned to help Devra with the watering, one of the idlers in the crowd laid hands on her waist, pulling her roughly against him.
“Hey, pretty, why don’t you leave these bitches and come along with me? I’ve got plenty to show you, and I’ll bet you never-eeyah!” His words broke off in a howl of rage and pain; the woman had whipped a dagger from its sheath, slashing swiftly upward, laying open his filthy and tattered clothing to expose bare, unhealthy flesh, a line of red creeping upward along the quarter-inch-deep slash from lower belly to collarbone. He stumbled back, staggering, falling into the dust; the woman gave him a contemptuous kick with one sandaled foot, saying hi a low, fierce voice, “Take yourself off, bre’sui! Or next time I’ll spill your guts, and your cuyones with ’em! Now get the hell out of here, you filthy bastards, or you won’t be fit for anything but selling for he-whores in the Ardcarran bordellos!”