The Warrior Challenged

2

“How is one to take the word of a seetar?” Cinnan demanded, so upset that all he could do was pace back and forth across the room. “How is a seetar to know what occurs in the world of men?”

“The ability of seetarr was discovered by us when we searched for Terril among the Hamarda,” Tammad said for the third time, trying to convince Cinnan with calm and patience. “With Lenham’s aid, we found that my own seetar was able to follow Terril across the sand, and thence to Aesnil’s palace in Grelana. Do you doubt that we were able to find Terril?”

“No, certainly not,” Cinnan denied with a gesture of dismissal, but the gesture referred only to finding, not to believing. “I continue to find difficulty in understanding not how a seetar may follow, but how it may speak of what occurs about it. How is such a thing possible?”

“I know not,” Tammad admitted with a sigh, then his eyes came to me where I sat. “The woman has great facility with seetarr, and perhaps her own words will aid our understanding. ”

All the eyes in the room came to me then, most of them questioning. Tammad, Cinnan, and I were in Rellis’s entertaining room, and the Chamd and his son Dallan were there with us. We all sat relaxing against cushions in the gold, red and marble room, goblets in our hands, all, that is, except for Cinnan. He carried his goblet of drishnak around with him, the same drink all the men had. I was the only one drinking a gentle golden wine, something I wasn’t quite as happy about as I’d once been.

“The seetar whose mind I touched was yours, Cinnan,” I explained, privately wondering how much good the explanation would do. “His concern for Aesnil is yours, as it is from your mind that he took it. He felt surprise at her appearance in the stabling cavern without you, displeasure that the sweets he had had from the two of you in the past days were not forthcoming, then curiosity as to what she was about. He was indignant that she chose another mount rather than taking her place behind you upon his own back, then saddened that she rode away without once having greeted him. That he felt no worry concerning her well-being indicated that she was accompanied, an indication confirmed by the disappearance of two further seetarr. The-discussion I held with your seetar was a good deal less clear than the manner in which I present it to you, yet am I certain of the interpretation I have made. The word you have is mine, not that of a seetar. ”

“She would not have ridden from me in such a way,” Cinnan said, also repeating himself for the third or fourth time, his face and eyes stubborn. “The love we found together could not have been put aside so easily by her, as though it were naught. The seetar is clearly mistaken.”

“There is no mistake,” I said as if it were a memorized speech, feeling the annoyance and frustration rising higher and higher in me. Cinnan was so frantic with worry that he was all but broadcasting, forcing me to keep my shield tightly closed, which may have been a good thing. He was barely making a token effort to acknowledge my presence among all those important l’lendaa as it was, and had just about called me a liar. Tammad wasn’t likely to get insulted on my behalf, not with the sympathy and compassion fairly oozing out of him for Cinnan’s loss, but my own reactions were another story. It was that damned concept of honor, that habit-forming drug that was coming at me from yet another slant. Cinnan wouldn’t have spoken to me like that if I’d been a man, but what did he have to worry about with a mere wenda?

“Cinnan, three seetarr have indeed been taken,” Rellis told him gently, rising to his feet to console the younger man. “Also are two serving wendaa gone from the house, none knowing to where. Had my niece remained behind, we would surely by now have found her. It is a virtual certainty that Aesnil departed in company with the two missing wendaa.”

“Where might three wendaa have gone to alone?” Cinnan demanded, finding nothing but further wildness in the truth he could no longer deny. “Who will there be to protect them upon such a journey, to hunt for them, to guide them? How did they dare to depart alone, and where have they gone?”

“They have gone to where Aesnil meant to go when we fled Grelana,” I said suddenly without knowing I was going to say it. “They have gone to Vediaster.”

The news was greeted with staring silence by everyone in the room, most especially by me. I could feel their eyes on me as a physical weight, but I was too busy closing a fist in the carpet fur and watching my hand holding the goblet tremble, to have attention to waste on stares. I wasn’t guessing about where Aesnil had gone, I knew, just as surely as if she had told me about it before leaving. The knowledge was a compulsion, like the compulsion about learning how to use a sword, and I had no more idea where the second conviction had come from than I had about the first.

“What leads you to believe such a thing, wenda?” Tammad asked in the deep silence, his voice calm and gentle. “Was it gotten from the seetar along with the rest?”

“No,” I said, still not up to looking around, not with the way I could feel those stares. “No, this is a thing I know in-another manner, yet am I just as certain. Aesnil has gone to Vediaster. ”

“To a land ruled and run by wendaa,” Cinnan said, distaste strong in his voice. “To a place where females dare to take to themselves the calling of warrior. I shall not allow Aesnil to remain among ones such as they, for she is not of their sort. I will ride after her and find her, else shall I not return. ”

“You shall not have to ride alone, Cinnan,” Dallan told him, rising to his feet as his father had done a few minutes earlier. “I will ride with you, and we will find my cousin together. ”

“Your presence will be most welcome, drin Dallan,” Cinnan answered with warm gratitude, moving across the carpet fur to clap Dallan on the shoulder. “As will be the presence of your blade.”

“I believe I, too, will accompany you,” Tammad said slowly, thoughtfully. “I must continue with the task I have undertaken to protect our people, yet are the directions many in which the task has already taken me. The road to Vediaster may be looked upon as no more than another direction.”

“Tammad, my friend, you, too, are most welcome,” Cinnan said, watching with a relieved smile as the big barbarian also rose to join everyone else. “Should we somehow lose the trail, your wenda may be of some aid in rediscovering it. Should you mean for her to accompany us.”

“You are correct in assuming I mean exactly that,” Tammad reassured the other big man, his hand going to his shoulder. “I have given my word that she shall not again be allowed to leave my side, and she may indeed prove to be of some assistance. As the day is nearly gone, let us depart with the new light.”

“No,” I said as Cinnan and Dallan agreed with Tammad, Rellis also nodding in approval, but none of them heard me. I was about as important in that gathering as a piece of furniture, the sort of furniture you put something down on without even looking, knowing it will be right where you expect it to be. I raised my voice and repeated, “No!” and the second time it got through to them.

“It would be foolish to depart sooner, Terril,” Dallan said with partial attention, speaking for them all. “When the new day begins, we shall begin as well.”

“That is not what I was referring to,” I said at once, before they could go back to their terribly important planning, getting to my feet to make it unanimous. “My disagreement referred to my presence, which will be absent from your distinguished company. I have no desire to join you, therefore shall I remain behind. My loss will be devastating, I know, yet are you l’lendaa and surely able to bear up beneath so terrible a load. You have my good wishes for your endeavor, though I scarcely believe you will find them necessary. Success, as always, will certainly be yours.”

I put my goblet of golden wine down on one of the small tables the room held, not bothering to drain it first, ignoring the thick silence I moved through. I knew I was being stared at for a third time, but I really didn’t care; they’d made it abundantly clear that I wasn’t one of them, that I wasn’t good enough to be one of them, so I’d made my answer just as clear. I was a Prime Xenomediator of the Centran Amalgamation, and I was damned if I’d be treated like a piece of furniture. I then walked to the door, opened it, and simply left.

When I got back to the apartment I shared with Tammad, a servant was there lighting the candles against the approaching darkness. She carried an enclosed candle that supplied the flame she passed around, and also had a bag over her shoulder that contained fresh candles to replace any that had burned all the way down. The bedroom had already been taken care of before my arrival, and the bathing room was quickly finished up. The girl smiled to me on her way out and I started to return the smile mechanically, but even that feeble gesture was lost to me when her opening of the door to the hall showed I’d been followed from Rellis’s entertaining room. The expression on Tammad’s face reflected his usual calm, but his mind was back to whirling behind that calm. I turned away from him and walked to the center of the room, and didn’t turn back even when I heard the door close.

“How long a trip do you think it will be?” I asked, looking at one candle flame that was destined to grow brighter as soon as it got darker. “You’ll probably find it hard to believe, but I’ll miss you.”

“I truly have no doubt of that, wenda,” he said with a sign, slowly moving across the carpet fur toward me. “And it has come to me that we have not as yet completed the discussion earlier begun between us. Clearly is it necessary that the matter be seen to. ”

“There’s very little that needs seeing to,” I said with a shrug, uncomfortably aware of how close he stood behind me. “I’ll be careful with my experimenting while you’re gone, and probably won’t even leave these rooms very often. How long do you think it will be before you get back?”

“Wenda, there is a great deal remaining to be seen to,” he argued, holding the tops of my arms, his deep voice fractionally less gentle. “This-experimenting you have done with Lenham and Garth has not been good for you, and there will be no more of it.”

I tried to turn around to disagree with him, but the hands on my arms were already directing me toward the room’s mound of cushions with a firmness that brooked no refusal, as if to insist we get more comfortable before the fight started. When we got there Tammad sat and pulled me into his lap, so that our faces were almost on the same level.

“You must hear my words, hama, for I have been greatly disturbed by what has been told me,” he said, serious blue eyes looking straight at me while one big hand smoothed my hair. “I had thought having Lenham and Garth near you would be an easing for you in your new place, a last tie to the old which would assist in your acceptance of the new. In believing this I have, instead, caused you harm.”

“Tammad, that’s not true!” I began, putting my hands to the bare chest I sat so near, but his hand tightened at the back of my neck as he shook his head.

“Terril, it is no other thing than truth,” he maintained, the sadness in his eyes replaced with determination. “I had thought the two men of your worlds well along the road toward learning proper behavior, yet is this patently not so. Your request for their assistance should have first been discussed with me, to learn if such a thing had my approval. Neither of them even spoke of the doing afterward.”

“But that was because I asked them not to!” I protested, deliberately refraining from mentioning that Len and Garth had volunteered to help, not merely agreed when I asked. I hadn’t asked, but I didn’t want to get them into more trouble.

“It matters not that you requested such a thing of them,” he said, shaking his shaggy blond head again. “It was their duty to speak first with me, for I am the man to whom you belong. Such decisions are mine alone to make.”

“No,” I said with a headshake of my own, unable to take my eyes from his face, my voice suddenly without strength. I wasn’t trying to argue what he’s said, and he was well aware of it; what I was trying to deny was the entire concept, the very thought that he would do that to me, but he wasn’t allowing denial.

“It may be looked upon in no other way, my sadendra,” he said, the sadness returned but the determination still firm. “You are my belonging, my wenda, and your obedience to me must be complete. To have allowed you time to accept this was also an error, one which will not be continued. You will perform no further experimentation, and in fact are forbidden even to speak with Lenham and Garth ever again. ”

“You can’t mean that!” I whispered, so deeply shocked that my mind felt numb and cold, my hands like wood on the chest I still held them against. “Tammad, please don’t say that, you know I can’t . . . .”

“But you shall, wenda,’ he interrupted, his calm, even voice so remorseless that it made me want to shiver. “The pain and distress given you by cause of your power has already been far too great; I will not allow there to be more. To be accepted and desired as an ordinary wenda was your deepest wish; it is this wish I mean to see granted you.”

“But I’m not just an ordinary woman,” I protested wide-eyed, so confused I was growing dizzy. “I’m a Prime and getting stronger so quickly that I don’t know what’s happening! And Len and Garth! I can’t just . . . .”

“You shall,” he repeated, interrupting again, those blue, blue eyes refusing to release me. “Though it was surely not done by intention, Lenham and Garth are the cause of your present upset. They look upon you not as a woman but as a Prime, and are able to deny you nothing. In their minds you stand as l’lenda to them, one to be looked up to and obeyed. This has led you to expect the same from all men, and brings you distress when you fail to receive it. You shall not receive this from men, Terril, for you are not l’lenda and never shall be. You are wenda, and must now learn to accept the place.”

What he was saying was so insane and unreal that I couldn’t accept it, not the least, smallest part. He believed it completely and was determined to go through with it, but I couldn’t let him do that to me. I wanted to be his, with every part of my mind and body, but not as a slave!

“You’re wrong in everything you’ve said,” I got out, looking down from his eyes and starting to get out of his lap. “Just give me a minute to straighten my thoughts, and I’ll prove to you that . . . .”

“You will prove nothing, Terril,” he denied, refusing to let me move away from him, frighteningly still wrapped in that calm. “Does my error lie in the insult you felt when Cinnan failed to give you thanks for your presence on the search? One does not thank another man’s wenda for accompanying him where he goes, yet you felt the lack as insult, a thing made clear by your parting words. Or perhaps my error lies in the fact that Lenham and, to a lesser extent, Garth, have come to fear you, and therefore have led you to believe I would do the same? Are these the things in which I am mistaken?”

I looked up at him again with the chill back and spreading, his hand on my arm and his arm around my waist two metal bands of irresistible strength, finding myself immediately recaptured by his light blue stare. I had wanted to have nothing more to do with my abilities, and it had bothered me deeply that Len feared me and Tammad might do the same, and I had been feeling insulted over the way the men were treating me, but—

“I can’t obey you completely and be nothing more than another woman,” I whispered, still whirling with confusion that spun out thin tendrils of fear. “Tammad, please, if you really love me you won’t ask me that. There are times when I wish it were possible to have nothing more to do with my talent, but that only happens when I’m tired from the fight to control and understand it. When I’m not tired I know better than to wish for such a thing, because my talent can’t be ignored or forgotten about. I want to live with you and never leave you, but it has to be in a way we both can accept. If you ask me to give up using my abilities and be something I’m not, it will destroy everything we have together.”

“Hama, I shall not allow anything to destroy what we have together.” He immediately soothed me, drawing me close to lean against his chest, the hilt of his sword brushing my right side as he did so. “And I would not demand that you cease being what you are, for that cannot be done. You will use your power when I find it necessary for you to do so, and in the interim you will continue with my teaching. As for asking you to obey me and being no more than another wenda-Terril, those are things I would not and do not ask, nor would any true man. These are things I shall have from you, as my due, for I am the man to whom you belong. You have not been given the choice of obeying, for such a choice would be difficult and demeaning for you to make. There is no choice before you; you shall obey.”

I tried to shake my head in denial of that terrible calm and rock-hard decision but his arms tightened around me, holding me against him exactly as he wished. I wasn’t being asked to obey him—I was being told that I would, no arguments, buts, excuses, or exceptions. I struggled against that warm, broad body, fighting to get loose, but how was I supposed to fight against strength like his? I squirmed wildly, but even that didn’t dent his calm.

“Your upset now is great, I know, yet shall it soon pass,” he said, trying to send a portion of his calm to soothe my desperate panting and struggle. “You now believe you face a terrible fate, yet shall it prove to be more pleasurable than terrible, more delightful than confining. The burdens will be gone from your shoulders, and your heart will be light with song. All decisions of weight and upset will be mine to make, and your lot no more than to give me your love. Is this too great a thing I ask, that you give me your love?”

I tried to look up at him and found that I could, discovered that he was letting me do it. But there was something else that was happening, something I could feel although not understand or fight back against, something that was taking me over. I hadn’t cried in a while, hadn’t really wanted to cry, but his last words and that sudden, terrible feeling had brought the tears out to roll slowly down my cheeks.

“Please don’t do this to me,” I begged, the sobs already beginning to shake me, feeling so terribly, terribly small in the circle of those mighty arms. “I don’t know what you’re doing to me, but you have to stop it! You have to!”

“Wenda, I do no more than reassure you of my love,” he said with gentle sadness, wiping at my tears before cradling me in his arms again. “Do you not feel the same love for me, the same burning desire I have ever felt for you?”

As he said the words I did feel it, the bottomless, insatiable need to have him again, to be held in his arms and kissed fiercely, to belong to him with every part of me. My tears increased as I shook my head yet again, trying to beg him to stop, but he would not. His hands were already moving slowly over me, his mind clearing to the growl of desire, his eyes demanding my very soul. In an instant I no longer sat in his lap but lay on the carpet fur beside him, his lips brushing mine, his hand moving up beneath my gown to slide to my thigh. I put my own hands to the broadness of his shoulders, shuddering at what his stroking touch was doing to me, closing my eyes to stop the useless flow of tears. I had to fight him but I couldn’t, couldn’t and was rapidly reaching the point where I didn’t want to, couldn’t even remember why I had to. He was so strong and hard under my hands, stronger and harder even than the fur-covered marble floor I lay on, warmer even than the fur carpeting itself. His lips came to my lips again and I accepted them hungrily, moving against his hands even as I tried to touch all of him with mine, whimpering when his swordbelt and haddin kept me from it. His mind chuckled but his lips refused to leave mine, one broad fist going to my hair to hold me still. Whatever was done would be done the way ’ he wanted it, and allowing me my way wasn’t what he wanted.

By the time he let me up long enough to pull my gown off, I was almost in tears again. I struggled out of the wretched thing as quickly as possible and lay back down on the carpet fur, then had to wait while he slowly removed his swordbelt and haddin. His eyes touched me all over as he rid himself of encumbrance, as slowly as his hands had moved, as thoroughly as he had taken my kiss. I burned so terribly that I wanted to writhe where I lay, moaning for what I knew he would soon give me, certain I would die before he decided he had tortured me enough. I closed my eyes and tossed my head back and forth, holding to the fur to either side of my body, and then he was lying down beside me again to take me in his arms.

“Do you doubt that you are mine, hama?” he asked very softly, his hands on me setting the flames to leaping and crackling. “Are you able to oppose my will?”

“No,” I whispered with a violent headshake, knowing I spoke the absolute truth, clutching at him with a frenzy beyond my control. “I am yours beyond doubt and denial, hamak. Take me now, I beg you to take me now!”

“You have only to ask, sadendra mine,” he answered, his mind glowing with the pleasure of my having spoken to him in Rimilian. “You shall never find the need to do more than ask.”

In no more than a heartbeat he was thrusting inside me, gathering me to him and taking my lips even as he began to stroke deep. I held to him as he took my soul, mindless with the joy he gave, trying to make him know that I never wanted him to stop. It went on for a time that was just short of forever, to that place of total fulfillment and shuddering ecstasy, and then, when awareness returned though the glow still remained, I looked up to see him crouching beside me. I hadn’t even completely come out of it yet, but he had already replaced his haddin and swordbelt.

“I go now to speak further with Cinnan and Dallan, concerning the journey we begin tomorrow,” he said, one wide hand smoothing back my sweat-soaked hair. “Rest yourself now and regather your strength, then plan what you do not care to leave behind you. When I return we will take a meal, and you may ask for what you wish then.”

He went to one knee and gave me a quick but very definite kiss, his mind thoroughly appreciating me, and then he was up and striding toward the door and out. By the time I was able to do more than just lie there on the carpet fur he was long gone, but by then my mind was beginning to creak back to functioning. I rolled to my side and forced myself to sitting, put my head in my hands to ease the dizziness, then managed to wonder what the hell he had done to me.

After another couple of minutes I was able to get unsteadily to my feet, but I didn’t even look toward my discarded gown. The first thing I needed was in a silver pitcher on one of the side tables, a light, pretty wine I had come to enjoy. I stumbled over to it, tried to get as much of the wine as possible into the cup, then held the cup in two trembling hands. I had always been told that wine wasn’t made to be gulped, but the fools who had told me that had certainly never experienced what I’d just been through. I gulped down everything I’d poured into the silver cup, closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and only then felt ready to try standing without leaning or holding on.

“I don’t believe it,” I muttered to myself, grateful for the way the wine was starting to force my blood into moving again. “I absolutely and completely don’t believe it.”

The small, wavery image in the silver goblet I still held didn’t believe it either, and I was glad there were two of us. Somehow-some how-Tammad had overwhelmed me with his mind, a mind that wasn’t anywhere near as strong as mine. How the hell had he done it?

The same way he did it the last time, the wavery silver image answered, sounding smug and know-it-all. You tried to force him into taking you back to the embassy, and he nearly blew your circuits. This time he refused to let you disobey him.

That’s stupid, I retorted with ridicule, not quite up to gesturing such nonsense aside. Last time he used the strength of anger and outrage. This time he wasn’t even annoyed. And wouldn’t I have felt him attacking? Why didn’t I understand what he was doing until it was way too late? And what happened to my filter curtain and my shield’? Why didn’t one of them activate to bail me out?

If you didn’t know you needed help, how do you expect unreasoning defenses to have known it? the image sneered, just short of laughing at me. He isn’t of Centran stock, you know, so why does his talent have to be like yours? Even identical twins have differences, and he got you with one of the differences.

There’s got to be a defense against it, I came back with more desperation than certainty. There’s got to be a way to keep him from doing that to me. I can’t spend the rest of my life being nothing more than a—a

Rug? the image suggested helpfully with a snicker, and that absolutely finished it. I threw the goblet across the room with every ounce of strength I’d recouped, then sank down to the carpet fur with my hands in my hair.

“I just had an argument with a reflection,” I said out loud, wondering if that’s what it felt like to lose your mind. “And I don’t even think I won. What am I going to do?”

This time there were no answers handily available, which wasn’t quite as comforting as it should have been. I didn’t know if I would rather be crazy, or forced to do everything Tammad’s way. He loved me so much he was even going to protect me from thinking for myself.

By the time Tammad came back, I hadn’t so much pulled myself together as scraped the scattered shards into some semblance of neatness. After I’d gotten into my gown again, it suddenly came to me that I’d been told I was going after Aesnil whether I wanted to or not, and definitely not as one of the chief searchers. Something inside me laughed hollowly at that, with nothing resembling real amusement. There would be trouble if I went, certified and guaranteed, but what good would it do just saying I “knew” it? Lately I was beginning to know a lot of things, and one of them was that whoever said “knowledge is power” was an idiot.

Tammad was followed into the bathing room by a servant carrying a tray, and once she had made her delivery he closed the door behind her. I sat calmly and cooly among the room’s cushions, my legs folded modestly to my left, my hand holding the silver goblet I’d retrieved and refilled, my mind closed tight behind the heaviest shield I could buffer up. Garth had wondered if I could work through my own shield the way I’d worked through Len’s, and so had I. If it did turn out to be possible, I’d find it out some other time.

“I see you have bathed, hama,” he observed, walking over to investigate what was on the tray the woman had brought. “Once we have eaten I, too, shall bathe, and then we may see to giving one another further joy. For what reason did you not greet my return as you usually do?”

He turned around to look directly at me then, his question decorated with just the right hint of faint disappointment; not criticism, mind, just disappointment. He did it so well that I wondered briefly what full mind control could possibly do to improve it.

If you don’t mind, I’m in the middle of getting stinking drunk,” I said, raising the goblet to illustrate my point. “Right after that I intend killing myself, so don’t waste your time waiting for the answers to any questions.”

“You may not kill yourself, hama, for you have not asked my permission to do so,” he retorted, a faint grin touching his face and eyes, knowing damned well there hadn’t been enough wine left in the apartment to make a child drunk. “For what reason did you not greet my return as has become usual with you?’ ,

“I can’t decide whether to jump out the window or to drown myself,” I mused, firmly refusing to remember what Garth had said about jumping. “What about poison’? Maybe I can find some poison.”

“Perhaps one of these dishes here has been poisoned,” he suggested, beginning to get into the spirit of the thing. “Come and join me for the meal, and we may investigate the matter together. ”

“I don’t want to die with you,” I said. looking down into what was left in my silver goblet. “I may not be able to live without you, but I don’t want to die with you.”

There was silence for a moment after that, and then he was crouching down in front of me to put a gentle hand to my face.

“Do you find life as my woman so intolerable, then?” he asked softly, the words faintly tinged with hurt. “Have I brought you too great an amount of pain to bear?”

“Stop that!” I snapped, startling him, sending my glare directly into those innocent blue eyes. “When I said I wanted you to see me as clearly as you see others, I didn’t mean I wanted to be manipulated! Haven’t you done enough to me for one day?”

“Truly do you sound as though you had been beaten, wenda,” he said with a dryness that surely covered annoyance, taking his hand back to hang the arm on one broad thigh. “As you seem to feel the need so greatly, perhaps it would be best to grant it to you.”

“Not all beatings have to be physical,” I muttered, swallowing the urge to back away from that hardened stare. “How would you like it if I did the same thing to you?”

“Would you attempt such a thing?” he asked in turn, the words now very soft, opposing the look in his eyes. “Would you seek to do to me what the Garth R’Hem Solohr feared you would do to him?”

“Certainly,” I answered after trying not to swallow very hard. “Then I could stop wasting time looking for ways to kill myself. It would be taken care of without my having to lift a finger.”

“Indeed,” he said with a nod, his grin strong. “Indeed would the matter be quickly seen to. For what reason do you upset yourself now? For what reason do you not wait till the horrors of your new life have been experienced before agonizing over them?”

“I like to get started with things as quickly as possible,” I replied, not caring much for his version of humor. “You don’t seem to think I’ll have any problem, but you’re not looking at it from where I’m standing. I won’t be able to do it, you know.”

“Have no fear, all necessary doings will be mine,” he reassured me, the grin still strong. “Have you thought upon what you will need on the journey?”

“Tammad, I don’t want to go to Vediaster,” I said, trying to make him understand how serious I was without projecting the feeling. “If I do go, something will-happen.”

Oh, good, I thought, watching him frown faintly with lack of understanding. Such detailed description and flowing verbiage is guaranteed to make him see your side of it.

“What sort of thing do you believe will occur, wenda?” he asked, working at sounding reasonable. “That Vediaster is ruled over by wendaa should not disturb you, for you, too, are wenda. L’lendaa are not encouraged to visit there, yet are they allowed to do so and also to depart in peace. There will be danger for neither you nor we. What is it that disturbs you?”

“I really wish I could tell you,” I answered, frustrated over having nothing more than a stupid feeling. “You’ll just have to leave me behind.”

“Wenda, such a thing might have been possible had you not spoken as you did earlier in Rellis’s chamber,” he said, more reproof than regret in the eyes that looked down at me. “Your words were a challenge to my authority over you, and therefore may not be allowed to stand. You shall not be left behind. ”

“Damn it, if you go alone there won’t be any trouble!” I nearly shouted, rising to my knees in response to the way he’d straightened and headed back to the food tray. “If I go with you, something will happen!”

“Indeed,” he said without turning to look at me, reaching to the pitcher of wine the tray held. “What will occur is your learning full obedience. What things do you wish to bring with you upon the journey?”

“I don’t own anything to bring with me,” I answered with the fuming anger I felt, filled up to there with frustration and upset. “I don’t own one single thing on this world, and my possessions equal my value, which is just the way you want it. The only problem is, you won’t regret it nearly as much as I will.”

I sat back down on the carpeting turned away from him, one knee up with elbow resting on it, hand to head. Hints, hints and more damned hints, but nothing solid but a feeling! If I hadn’t been so angry I would have begun feeling frightened, that and sick to my stomach. ,Something unpleasant was going to happen, but what?

“Terril, when one fears a certain thing, justifiably or unjustifiably, all other things about that central object take on a reflection of the fear it generates,” Tammad said from not too far behind me, his voice filled with compassion. “You fear the life which will be yours beside me, and therefore do you begin to fear all occurrences in that life. I shall not allow harm to come to you, hama, and for that you have my word. ”

When his big hand touched my shoulder I twisted around and grasped his arm two-handed, really needing to put my face to it. He’d be hurt because of that promise, I knew he’d be hurt, and I had to do something about it.

“Hamak, please!” I nearly begged, strangling his arm with the hold I had on it. “When are you going to teach me how to use a sword?”

“Hama, I have not yet given my agreement to do so,” he came back, his voice suddenly very neutral. “Is this the sole manner in which you wish to ask for the thing?”

I hesitated briefly before looking up at him, but using my eyes didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. The man I’d been banded by wore no particular expression, neither encouraging nor discouraging. Neutrality is at times a very fine trait, but I suddenly noticed that he also wasn’t making any promises.

“Doesn’t it matter to you that now I know I have to learn swordwork because of you?” I asked, reflecting that the more upset I got, the more answers I seemed to get. Maybe if I got hysterical, which wasn’t, at that point, too farfetched a possibility, I’d know it all. “Don’t you want to be as safe as you promised I would be?”

“To wish to learn sword skill in order to protect your hamak is a fine and noble motivation, wenda,” he allowed, a twinkling in his eyes despite the continued sobriety of his expression. “There is, however, your hamak’s permission first to be obtained, which may perhaps be gotten by pleasing him. Do you mean to please him?”

That’s a good question, I thought, still looking up at him. I’d just discovered that the reason I needed swordwork was to protect my beloved, but my beloved, a true l’lenda, considered that too funny for words. It so happened I did too, especially since Cinnan and Dallan would be with us, but none of that answered the question. Tammad thought it was funny, but I knew; was I going to let something terrible happen to him because I was too good to bend a little?

“It so happens I do intend pleasing him,” I replied with a sniff, finally letting his arm go. “What do I have to do first?”

“That, wenda, should be fairly obvious,” he said, straightening up and raising to his lips the goblet he was carrying, probably to hide a grin. “You have not yet greeted my return in the manner which has grown usual with you.”

He spent some time swallowing the wine he’d taken, but why he wasn’t choking was beyond me. He knew damned well I’d have to drop my shield to give him his greeting, and that would put me at his mercy again—if I couldn’t figure out what he was doing and how to stop it. He didn’t seem willing to discuss what he’d done to me; was that because he was hiding something—or because he didn’t understand it himself?

“Now, how could I have forgotten to greet you?” I asked in a murmur, deciding to go for broke. It was time to answer a previously asked question, and also time to dent some of that nauseatingly thick smugness my hamak was wrapped in. For the first time I made the effort to really look at the inside of my shield, just as I’d looked at the outside of Len’s. At first there was nothing, no single crack or crevice, nothing that would allow the faintest breath in or out—and then it came to me that I was looking at it wrong. Len’s shield was the way mine had been before the trouble, adequate for the purpose but full of spaces if you looked at it properly. Mine lacked those spaces—but that didn’t mean I couldn’t go around it. “Around” wasn’t the right word any more than “spaces” was, but that was the closest I could come to verbalizing something that could only be felt. My shield had no spaces, but I could go around it.

It felt odd reaching around with my shield still in place, as though I were reaching out with a hand that didn’t move from my side-yet could still get to and grasp anything in normal range. An invisible hand it was, or an emotion invisible to another empath, to someone who was watching closely for my shield to drop. Rather than becoming aware of my unshielded mind, Tammad felt instead the bodiless kiss I had taken to giving him in greeting, the sensation that was interpreted as having a pair of lips pressed to his. He started when he felt that unexpected sensation, and then he was frowning down at me.

“What have you done, wenda?” he demanded, his annoyance and outrage deliberately pushing at my shield. “You could not have touched me as you are.”

“The wise teacher makes sure to stay a few steps ahead of her student,” I commented, drawing my knees up to hug them with my arms. “I told you my abilities were growing stronger and spreading. Didn’t you enjoy your greeting?”

“Ever shall I find joy in the greeting of my wenda,” he said as he stared down at me, his annoyance so high that his voice had nearly become a growl. He seemed to want to say something else, but rather than do so he turned abruptly and went back to the tray, lifted the pitcher, then took his time pouring more wine. When he finished his task and turned back to me, he was well in control of himself again.

“There is a thing you perhaps fail to comprehend, hama,” he said, the words as smooth as his expression. “When a man bands a wends she is then completely his, to be touched and used by him as thoroughly as he wishes. No wenda is permitted to keep herself from her memabrak, the man who has banded her, in any manner whatsoever. Should you truly wish to please me, you must also do the same.”

His blue eyes were full of satisfaction as he sipped from his refilled goblet, the satisfaction of knowing he would win no matter what I did. If I obeyed him I would be unshielded, if I disobeyed he could forget about teaching me to use a sword. There were definite disadvantages in being paired with a strong, intelligent leader of men, I could see, but I really had no choice. It was annoying that he was making it so hard for me to protect him, but I wasn’t about to give up just because he was a stubborn barbarian. I could be stubborn too, and I had to learn to counter whatever it was he’d done to me at some time or other. I would have preferred later to sooner, but it wasn’t working out that way.

“Of course no woman should keep herself from her memabrak,” I agreed after only a slight hesitation, dropping my shield even as I rose to my feet. “What else may I do to please you, hamak?”

“You may now join me in our meal,” he answered, the grin returning when he let his eyes and mind brush me. The hum of interest in his mind was always so strong that it intimidated me somehow, making me feel small and weak and very vulnerable despite the fact that I knew he would never hurt me. Or, rather, that he would never hurt me voluntarily. Sometimes when he made love to me he lost control of himself; although he never caused any serious damage, it was enough to remind a woman of the price she sometimes had to pay for being mindless enough to get involved with a barbarian in the first place.

I walked over to him near the tray, joined him in deciding what we both wanted to eat, then carried one of the chosen bowls as we took them back to the cushions. Every step of the way I was aware of his attention on me, the hum in his mind that could turn to a growl at any time, his very close proximity without the least touch of his hand. He was brushing me with his restrained desire, forcing me to feel it, getting me ready for what he’d want after the meal. He knew I lost control when he did that to me, that I became aware of the soft fur under my feet, the silken gown draping my otherwise bare body, the five bronze, small-linked chains that were the bands he’d put me in. Soon those things would focus on and highlight my own desire, and control of my abilities would be completely beyond me.

“Do not sit yet, hama,” he directed, breaking into my thoughts just as we reached the cushions. “First I would have you remove that gown, so that I might look upon all of the woman who is mine.”

I could feel his eyes on me as I bent to put my bowl on the carpet fur, but I didn’t dare look up. Without the gown I would be totally naked, in a room where anyone could walk in at any time. Most people knocked before entering a bathing room, but not everyone and not every time. He was trying to fluster me, and was unfortunately doing a damned good job of it. It took very little time to slip out of the gown and put it aside, and then I stood in nothing but my bands.

“How lovely a woman is in the sight of a man,” he said softly, this time drawing my eyes to him. He had removed his swordbelt and seated himself among the cushions, his goblet on a small, low table not far from his left hand, the bowl he’d chosen in his right. He sat cross-legged as he looked up at me, and that light-blue stare conveyed the absolute sense of possession all Rimilian males felt when they looked at their women.

“Come and sit beside me, hama, so that we may share our meal as always,” he said, patting the fur to his immediate right after shifting the bowl to his left hand. “And you may also, if you wish, speak of what you would have of me.”

I retrieved my bowl and sat down where he’d indicated, my right side to his right thigh, angled to face him, legs together and bent to the left. I was also very busy cursing him out, silently but nevertheless vitriolically. He had made me strip naked while he remained clothed, and that was the way I was supposed to ask for lessons in sword use? I was a woman, nothing but a lowly wenda, and he was going to make sure I understood that fact in every fiber of my being.

I had chosen spiced fish cubes and he a meat and cooked vegetables concoction, and there was silence while we fed ourselves and each other. When I put a fish cube in his mouth, he took it with the feeling of being given what was his anyway; when he fed me some of the meat and vegetables, he was sharing what was also his, what he generously gave to one who had none of her own. The emotions were a little blurry around the edges and too wide and full to be accidental or natural, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t really feeling them. Tammad was magnifying what he considered the truth, helping me out to make sure I didn’t miss it. He didn’t want me confused about who and what I was, where I stood and what was expected of me. I’d been spoiled up till then, allowed to believe as I liked, but now that was over.

We shared another two bowls of food, then two after that, and every once in a while Tammad gave me his goblet to drink from. The wine was soft and golden rather than hot and tawny like drishnak, suitable for a woman as the strong, spicy drishnak was not. By the end of the meal I was gritting my mental teeth, fighting to resist his deliberate propaganda, but I was finding it harder and harder going. I was a woman and I did belong to him, and standing up to him had always been so damned difficult. When I sipped from his goblet, taking wine with his permission, something inside me wanted to throw up its hands and walk away in defeat.

“Now that we have had our meal, we may spend a time speaking together,” he said, taking his goblet back after my last swallow, then stretching out among the cushions on his rightside. “Was there any matter you wished to discuss?”

The eyes watching me were open and innocent, the mind behind them comfortable and patient. He was more than aware of what I was feeling, and had no intentions of letting me regain my self-possession before pressing the point of sword lessons. I was female, and had to be taught how silly I was for wanting something that was strictly for men.

“Hamak, I would-have you teach me the use of a sword,” I got out with difficulty, looking down from his eyes, knowing why I was speaking Rimilian. I was a Rimilian woman asking something of a l’lenda, and that was the only language suitable. Both of my hands were on my bare right thigh, and the embarrassment was so severe it was painful.

“Hama, I would give you all that I might, yet am I far from convinced of the necessity for such a thing,” he answered, also in Rimilian, his deep voice grave with the weight of a decision that just might have to be no. “You must speak to me of the reasons you feel such a need, and also urge my belief. No wenda of our city has ever asked the same.”

The gentle reproof in his voice was making it worse for me, telling me I wasn’t being the best woman to him I could possibly be. I loved him so much I wanted to be the best woman possible for him, which meant he was pitting my own feelings against me. I was being made to feel that what I wanted was wrong, but the feeling wasn’t coming from him. I looked up hesitantly to find that he had turned to his back in the fur, a cushion under his head, his goblet put aside. He held his arms out to me, telling me to come closer, and I was so eager to obey that I nearly forgot our conversation. I put my hands on him as he drew me close to his chest, and then he simply waited. With his warm, hard flesh under my hands it took me a minute to remember what he was waiting for, and another minute after that to force myself not to say to hell with it and begin kissing him all over.

“Hamak, I must learn sword use for I feel that I must,” I said, haltingly, looking down into the eyes that looked up at me. “There is a—a feeling-that I have, that will not let me rest; it whispers to me constantly. You have my word that I will do my utmost to keep from shaming you.”

“I have no doubt of that, hama,” he said, using one hand to slowly stroke my hair. “And yet must I be sure that this-need-you feel would not interfere with what other duties I set you. Are you able to reassure me of this?”

Reassure him. He was holding me and stroking my hair and making sure I could feel the hum in his mind, and I was supposed to reassure him. I’d never heard it called that before, and also discovered that what it was called didn’t make much difference. He wanted to be coaxed and I was going to have to do it-without a single guarantee of success. I still had the choice of forgetting about it, but that was one choice I didn’t care to make.

“Surely you know, beloved, that I would never neglect you,” I murmured, leaning down to put my lips to his face, then gently work my way to his ear and neck. “Please, Tammad, I ask a very great deal, I know, yet are you one of the few strong enough to be asked such a thing. Other men would merely laugh and refuse, but you-you have the strength and understanding to do more than simply reject my need. You are a man among men, and may do as others cannot.”

The dialogue was making me queasy, as was the wheedling tone I was using, and kissing him that way was making me want him more. Aside from that, though, things weren’t going as badly as I’d thought they would. Tammad was a Rimilian l’lenda, and Rimilian warriors were used to letting themselves be coaxed into things by their women. I could feel his sudden realization that what I’d said was beginning to sway him, and decided to press my advantage as far as possible.

“Ah, hamak, my respect for you is boundless,” I purred, letting him feel how much I was enjoying running my hands over him. “To take on the burden of instructing one who is so helpless and weak! Truly is that an undertaking for a man with capabilities far beyond those of others. You are strong, and brave, and generous, and- Oh!”

I’d cried out involuntarily at the sudden, unexpected sensation, a sensation that was completely nonphysical in origin, no other thing than physical in application. Both of his hands were on my back, holding me to him, but just as I hadn’t used lips to give him his kiss, he hadn’t used a hand to touch me in his favorite place. He’d been looking for a way to distract me from saying what was obviously getting through to him, and it seemed as though he’d found it.

“Ah, you felt my caress, then?” he said with surprised satisfaction, really very pleased with himself. “My progress clearly continues and improves, just as you wished. Are you not pleased as well?”

“Indeed, hamak, I am greatly pleased,” I gasped out, finding it impossible not to try pulling away from him, finding the pulling away just as impossible. Slowly, clumsily, but very definitely, he was touching me, exactly the sort of touching he was trying for.

“It was not my intention to interrupt you, hama,” he said, his hands also moving slowly over my back, under my hair. “Please continue with the thought already begun.”

“The thought,” I echoed, trying to remember what I’d been saying, my hands already closed tight on his arms. Oh yes, swordwork, a sword that cut rather than only pierced, a sword worn to the side in a sheath rather than under a-“The feeling—the feeling will not let me rest, hamak,” I babbled, beginning to feel dizzy and even more aware of how naked I was. “It is for your sake that I seek such a thing, only for your sake. For your safety, for your touch, for your love- Ohhh!”

I lost it entirely, then, squirming up to bury my fists in his hair so that I might kiss him wildly and madly. He had apparently paid attention to what he was receiving at some time when he made love to me, and that’s just what I was feeling then, that he was prepared and beginning to make love to me. The sensation of the first touch of his flesh to mine was what I had, that and no more, and I knew I couldn’t live without more. I moaned and begged as I kissed him, dying for him, and he wasted no time giving me what I begged for.