“Let her go,” said a low, level voice; Magda saw Jaelle’s face above the torch. The man who held her backed away; Magda pushed the other man aside, pulled herself free and scrambled to her feet, clutching her torn tunic around her. The mustachioed man yelled something obscene, rushed forward, grabbing up his sword; there was a blur of blades, a clash, a howl, and the man fell, clutching at a slash across his thighs. Magda saw blood on Jaelle’s knife. One of the women helped Magda to gather her torn clothing around her, while the men clustered together, muttering.
“Look out,” Gwennis said sharply; the women fell back, braced, knives like a wall in front of them. Magda, thrust unregarded to one side, watched the slow, grim advance of the bandits, the unflinching barricade of the women’s knives. Everything seemed sharply focused as she stood there waiting for the clash: the rough, menacing faces of the men, the equally unyielding faces of the women; the torchlight, the dark shadowed beams, even the patterns of the stone-flagged floor, seemed etched forever on her memory. Later she never knew how long that taut, sharply focused waiting lasted-it felt like hours, days-for the inevitable rush, clash of swords, tension drawn tighter, tighter. She felt like shrieking, Oh, don’t, don’t, I didn’t mean … and physically raised her hands to cover her mouth so that’ she would not cry out.
Then one of the men swore roughly, dropped the point of his sword. “The hell with all this. Not worth it. Put your knives down, girls. Truce?”
None of the women moved, but the bandit leader- the big, black-bearded man who had held Magda down-gestured to his men, and one by one they lowered their swords. When the last one was down, the women slowly relaxed, letting the points of their knives drop toward the stone floor.
Jaelle said, “You have broken shelter-truce by laying hands on one of ours. If I reported this at a patrol 4 station you could all be outlawed, with any hand free’ to kill you for three years.” The strange beauty of her face in the torchlight, copper hair haloed around her pale features, made a strange contrast to her hard words. The leader said drunkenly, “You wouldn’t do that, would you, mestra? We weren’t hurting her none.”
“We could all see how much pleasure she took in your advances,” Jaelle said dryly.
The mustachioed man said thickly, “Aft; hell, she came to us; how’d we know she wasn’t looking for a bit of fun?” The wound across his thighs still oozed blood, but Magda could see now that it was no more than half an inch deep: painful perhaps, and humiliating, but not disabling or dangerous. Jaelle wasn’t even trying to kill him.
Jaelle swung around to Magda; her eyes glinted like green fire by torchlight, and Magda felt sick with shame and dread. I am responsible for all this.
“Did you come to them of your free will? Were you looking, as he says, for a bit of fun?”
Magda whispered, “No. No, I didn’t.” She could hardly hear herself speak.
“Then”-the Amazon leader’s voice was a whiplash that cut-“what were you doing that they could think so?”
Magda opened her mouth to say, “I wanted to hear what they were talking about,” but stopped before a single word could get out. Camilla had warned her: spying on men was not proper behavior for an Amazon. She could not disgrace these women, who had protected her without any obligation to do so, by bringing shame or contempt on them. They had welcomed her to their meal and fireside; dressed as an Amazon, she had violated one of their strictest codes of behavior. Now she knew she must lie, quickly and well, a lie that would not involve the Amazons in her misbehavior. She said shakily, “I-I had a cramp, and I turned the wrong way in the darkness, looking for the privy. When I saw I was wrong I tried to get away before they saw me, and I slipped and fell.”
“You see?” said Jaelle to the men. Her eyes flicked Magda’s face like the blow of a whip.