While it was not considered proper for a Tarkheena to join the men on the field of battle, she was expected to be able to defend the city and the house of her husband should the battlefield come to her, instead. She had thought Queen Susan a weak and frail woman and Queen Lucy a child, until Susan had drawn and let fly an arrow that stopped a man in full charge and Lucy had cut a man down from his horse without impeding the horse. The words of the poet Zahrah were as true in Narnia or Archenland as they were in Calormen:

A woman with a weapon is the greatest foe you will ever meet, for she has no reason to live and you have every reason to die.