She wept for a long time over his fair body, and knew to her shame that she had wanted him to conquer. Then she took him out and buried him beneath the grass. His grave was the first one, and behind it later she erected the wooden plaque bearing the words of the Constitution of Pamplin.

Others had tried, and their graves were here, with Poll's. And the years had passed, and no man had overrun the defenses of Lauria's house.

The frost of autumn was in her veins now as she looked at the graves of twelve young men, who had been young and eager in the years when she had been young. Slowly she turned away, went out the barred front gate of her property and waited for the crowd of merrymakers she would accompany to the party in town.

The music reverberated gaily amid the rafters of the huge community hall. At one end a fire blazed merrily in a big fireplace. Young couples, and their elders, danced variations of the steps that had been brought from Earth generations ago.

No one wore weapons here, although every person in the hall had worn or carried a gun on the way here. The guns were checked at the entrance, and the doors were barred against any lawless raider.

Here, as in the market daily, people congregated. Here they were people and not individuals.

Outside, between here and their homes, they were individuals again, but still friendly, if wary. They carried their arms, they were careful of their language, they watched the people around them for signs of aggression. Outside was a code of conduct that was different from the sociable code inside, a code that condoned a duel over an insult, that recognized robbery, rape and even death if one were caught unarmed and alone.

And in their homes ... well, there was Cholli Rikkard. He was one-armed because of a wound he had suffered conquering Fanni in her home. Cholli had been a gay fellow who had stormed house after house of pretty women before, but after that he settled down with Fanni and they now had five children. They shared their privacy, but half a dozen times Cholli had stayed up all night fighting off those who would invade it.

The strange thing was that one or more of those who had sought to invade Cholli's home and take his wife and house from him might be dancing here tonight, perhaps chatting amiably with Cholli. Cholli might even know them for the attackers. Here they were all friends, suspending their cherished privacy for weekly 

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