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Perhaps it was indecent, allowing Orlando to sleep in her room.
Jara slept in the other, on Bradamante’s bed.
But who was to say anymore what Jara should and shouldn’t do?
Every time she touched her bandaged cheek, she burned with shame.
She should have killed him. She should have fought him. What would Bradamante say to her now?
“Use your weapons, Jara. Your weapons! How could you let Lord Ganelon hurt you like that?”
Jara shrank back into her old frightened ways. She lost every vestige of being a warrior.
She felt like a child again. A girl cowering in her father’s house.
People did whatever they wanted to her, and she let them.
She washed and bandaged her raw, open wound. It bled continuously while she cleaned it.
And she cried as she did. Both from the pain and from the
