Sister Regina smoothed a scowl of her own with what was obviously an effort of will.

“We live by the Rule of St. Benedict here,” she said, pointedly looking at the worn, sweat-stained hilt of Ritva’s borrowed saber. “We insist on peacefulness. There is no room for quarrels here.”

“I’m peaceful as all get-out, sister, as long as others are peaceful around me. I don’t belong to your Church, though.”

“That makes no difference; you belong to God, as do we all.”

She pointed up the graveled dirt track. “You’re welcome to stable your horses there, and your gear will be safe—you can deposit any money or valuables with the Bursar for safekeeping. We’re crowded, but there will be a place to sleep, and food for you and your beasts.”

“I can pay a little, sister.”

The nun smiled. “We ask nothing, not even many questions. Our houses are the Inns of God, the last refuge of the weak. Help in whatever way you wish or can, when you can. God bless you.”

Ritva pushed on; the place had a hospital, and a big school—apparently one for girls, who all wore an odd archaic pinaforelike uniform. On top of that, it looked to be taking care of a lot of displaced people, cripples and the sick and just plain desperate, the detritus and backwash of war and of a government harsh in its demands and merciless with any sign of dissent.

It took a while to get the attention of the harried sisters in charge without being obtrusive, and all of them looked too junior to trust with her message to the Mother Superior. For that matter, many of the nuns and all of the gray-robed postulants looked younger than her own early twenties.

Supper was served in a long refectory that had been hastily converted from some sort of storehouse, clean but very plain and very crowded indeed, mostly with people who looked as if they had stories worse than the one she was using for cover. It was dim, as well, lit only by pine-splints clamped in metal holders to the walls; that probably meant they were economizing on the fats usually used for lamps, keeping it to cook with or make soap instead.

The food was dark bread, butter and cheese and chipped plastic bowls ladled full of a thick soup of barley and potatoes and other vegetables that tasted as if it had some passing acquaintance with meat-bones on the stock side of its ancestry. There was enough if no more, but the meal would have been more appetizing if it hadn’t been clear that the bathing facilities were being worked in shifts too, and if there had been fewer unhappy children, some of whom needed changing.

When her group was finished eating she helped load bowls and plates and carry them to the kitchens, and volunteered to help wash. That ended up meaning mostly carrying wood to feed the hot-water boiler. There were many hands, but she was taller and stronger than most here. Patience finally got her close to the middle-aged Sister supervising the whole process.