“He seemed genuinely anxious about you,” Magda protested, and Jaelle laughed a little. “Oh, anything belonging to Rohana he will treat kindly-pet dogs, Free Amazons, even Terrans, I suppose.” She felt the smile stab ferocious pain through her bandaged face. “Does he know?”
“Rohana told him only that we were friends of yours,” Magda replied. “She warned me afterward that the house was full of midwinter guests, and we must be careful. Of course, when dom Kyril met Peter, he was tremendously curious. He asked who Peter was, and Peter told him his usual tale-that he was born in Caer Donn, that he did not know his father’s name. Dom Kyril said after that, ‘Having seen you, I think I could put a name to your father’s clan, at least.’ And, like you, he looked at once at his hands.”
Jaelle lay back, astonished at herself. So weary, after sitting up only a few minutes? Her shoulder throbbed as if it were afire. “Where is-where is he?”
“Asleep in the next room,” Magda said, pointing to the connecting door. “Lady Rohana apologized that she could give us only these rooms; I told her that in any case you should not be left alone at night. You slept all of yesterday; you did not wake even when domna Alida came to dress your wounds.”
“So I have lost a day,” Jaelle said. Now she remembered, fuzzily, how they had come here. Rumal di Scarp would be expecting them to head at once for Ardais; would find it suspicious if they turned hi any other direction. In any case, Scaravel was blocked behind them by the snow. Magda had felt that since Lady Rohana had arranged this mission, she had a right to know of its success.
Jaelle remembered, too, how Peter had ridden at her side, had helped her whenever they stopped to rest the horses. Much of that time, she had been in a daze of pain and weariness, but she remembered how when they stopped, he had coaxed her to eat, and how, when she could no longer sit in her saddle without falling, he had taken her again before him on his saddle and held her against him. All else was blurred, but she could remember, with a sharp tactile memory, the feel of his arms around her. She had been ashamed of her weakness and secretly a little glad of it, for it let her lean against him, rest her head on his shoulder through the swaying dizziness of pain and fever . . ..
She thought, with a sharp sting of guilt, Appeal to no man for protection . . . and closed her eyes, feeling tears of weakness sliding down her cheeks. She felt Magda’s gentle hand on her wrist. “I will let Lady Rohana know you are awake,” she said.
Rohana came before long, small and queenly in a fur-trimmed gown; she bent and kissed Jaelle on the cheek not covered with the bandage. “How are you feeling, my child? And how came you by this dreadful wound? Margali has told me very little, only that you fought for her.”
“I suppose she did not tell you that she saved my life,” Jaelle said, “nor that she is oath-bound to the Guild, and my sister.”
Rohana asked very seriously, “Is this allowed, my child, that a Terranan should be accepted by oath into the Guild?”
“The Guild-mothers must give the final decision on that,” Jaelle said, “but the Guild Charter excludes no woman; it is the oath, not the parentage, which makes an Amazon under the Charter. And my sister chose to honor her oath; to stay and fight for me, and to care for me afterward, when she could easily have abandoned me to die.”
Rohana said gently, “Then she is kinswoman here, too, my darling.” Relieved, Jaelle slipped back into exhausted sleep-or stupor-again, and over her head Rohana’s eyes met the Terran woman’s. “Someday you must tell me how this came about.”
“I am not sure myself,” Magda said with a troubled smile, “but I will honor my oath, whatever comes.”
“For her sake? Only for friendship?”
“No. Not entirely. Perhaps-” Magda hesitated, searching for words. “Perhaps because I have two worlds to serve, and I think I can best honor both loyalties this way.”