struck. She had witnessed her lover’s bloody death and then had been made the
victim of the bandits’ lust in the aftermath of their victory. None of the
brigands had noticed Cythen: slight, wiry Cythen, dressed in a youth’s clothes.
The younger sister had escaped from the carnage into the darkness. Waiting until
the efforts of drinking, killing, and raping had overcome each outlaw and she
could bundle her senseless sister away to the relative safety of the brush.
Under Cythen’s protection, Bekin’s bruises had healed, but her mind was lost.
She lived in her own world, believing that the bulge in her belly was the
legitimate child of her betrothed, oblivious to their squalor and misery. The
birthing, coming on an early spring night, much like this, with only the
moonlight for a midwife, had been a long and terrifying process for both of
them. Though Cythen had seen midwives start a baby’s life with a spanking, she
held this one still, watching Bekin’s exhausted sleep, until there was no chance
it would live. Remembering only the half-naked outlaws in the firelight, she
laid the little corpse on the rocks for scavengers to find.
Again Bekin recovered her strength, but not her wits. She never learned the
cruel lessons that hardened Cythen and never lost the delusion that each strange
man was actually her betrothed returning to her. At first Cythen fought with
Bekin’s desires and agonized with guilt whenever she failed. But she could find
no work to get them food, while the men often left Bekin a trinket or two that