The Warrior Challenged

6

When Dallan let me go the next morning, I had to swallow down the urge to run to the barbarian and throw myself into his arms. It had been a really terrible night, but even the dim gray half-light of dawn was bright enough to let me see clearly the facts of Rimilian life. If I ran to Tammad just as everything inside me screamed for me to do, my memabrak would probably challenge Dallan right on the spot. Tammad knew Dallan had used me before, and knew as well that I’d had pleasure from those uses; a man like Dallan was able to give an unbelievable amount of pleasure, as most Rimilian men were. If I hadn’t had pleasure the night before it was only because Dallan hadn’t wanted me to have it, and Rimilian men don’t look kindly on other men who do that to their women. It might not matter to Tammad that Dallan had been trying to make a point, and I didn’t care to take the chance.

The barbarian crouched beside the fire, prodding it into fuller life, his eyes and his surface thoughts seeing something other than the newborn flames. He was again calm but now there was something new, something hard and determined, and right in the middle of it was Tammad’s thought-feeling of me. I wasn’t sure I liked being in that position in his thoughts, but then he saw me and smiled, and everything else became unimportant.

“Hanna, you are awake,” he said, rising from his crouch and opening his arms to me. “Dallan, how went the darkness?”

“Acceptably,” Dallan allowed from behind me as I tried not to move too quickly into those arms waiting for me. “Only once have I found naught of pleasure with this woman.”

“Was she ill?” the barbarian asked in surprise, his mind automatically beginning to hum from the touch of my body against his. That that was the only explanation to occur to him was normal for a Rimilian, just as normal as asking only Dallan about how things had gone. I was glad not to have to be evasive to questions, but at the same time I was annoyed.

“The woman was not ill,” Dallan answered, crouching down near the spreading blaze with a smile, to pick up a stick and a pice of dimral that waited to be warmed in the fire. “When the woman made Cinnan’s capture possible by Aesnil’s guard, my cousin was so pleased with her that she was given many gifts. One of the gifts given to her, at her own request, was the presence of her servant-slave in her new apartment, all clothing having been taken from him before he was chained hand and foot to the floor. ”

“Stripped and chained’?” the barbarian repeated in outrage above my head, stiffening in insult by proxy. “At her own request?”

“Indeed,” Dallan agreed, his mind beginning to chuckle. “I, a slave, was then forced to submit to my dendaya, which gave little of the pleasure usual in the use of a woman. To be taken apparently brings less to a man.”

“Men are not born to be taken as wendaa are,” the barbarian stated, still more than annoyed. “Such a thing should not have been attempted, not to speak of done. Had I known of this sooner, Terril, you would have been well punished for it.”

“I had the right,” I said with as much stubbornness as I could call up against the disapproval of the man who still held me, wishing I could throw something hard at Dallan’s blond head to dislodge the increased amusement in it. “How often have you told me that ability provides the right?”

“And yet you felt it unfair that I punish you merely because I could,” he came back, his mind sharpening noticeably. “Such was not the true reason for your punishment, yet you felt that it was and that such a reason was unfair. Does the doing become less unfair when indulged in by wendaa rather than l’lendaa?”

“You’re confusing me,” I protested, raising my head from his cloth-covered chest to look up at his face. “I’ve never believed that ability provides the right, but you’ve always insisted on it. Now that I’m trying to use the same argument, you’re switching sides.”

“Terril, you must make the attempt to recall that speaking in your own tongue with others present is extremely ill-mannered,” he scolded, looking down at me sober-faced. “I attempted to correct you in this without speaking of it in words, yet have I now found the words necessary. Will I next find it necessary to correct you as a child is corrected?”

“Do you find the answering of my question so difficult that you need to speak of other things rather than that?” I countered, feeling the flush of embarrassment in my cheeks over the way he had spoken to me. I knew it was rude to use Centran with Dallan and Cinnan around, but when I became upset it just seemed to slip out.

“Wends, when first I told you that ability provides the right, you were not yet able to comprehend the entirety of the matter,” he said with a sigh, rigidly keeping himself from pursuing the scolding he’d started. “As I recall, you were greatly incensed that I had taken use from you and had caused you to feel pleasure. Was I to tell you then that it was my ability as a warrior which provided the right, a right which allowed me to choose what unclaimed woman I wished? The right was one earned with skill and tempered by a knowledge of honor, yet you then knew naught of any rights save those which had been given you by others. Rights earned bring with them a balance of sorts, which most often allows one to see what is proper; rights merely given to one by others provide no such balance.”

“I believe I shall cease doing anything of any sort,” I answered, so confused that I wished I could lock myself away somewhere for a while, to try to get some glimmer of sense from what he’d said. I knew I was missing the point he was trying to make, and all the lessons in proper behavior I’d been getting lately were beginning to give me a headache.

“You may not cease participating in life, hama,” he suggested with a laugh, looking down at me in amusement while Dallan chuckled. “Only through doing is it possible to learn, from those things which are done correctly, and those done in error. For now you may exercise such doing by taking a piece of dimral, and warming it for us in the fire.”

“I find your bravery unparalleled, Tammad,” Dallan commented, examining the meat he, himself, was warming. “My hunger is such that I dare not do the same as you, for burned dimral does little to satisfy the appetite.”

“You are a cruel man, drin Dallan,” I told him in a huff, resenting his comment, his amusement, and the deep chuckling he’d produced in Tammad. “When I have learned to cook with great skill, I shall be sure to use none of that skill for your benefit.”

“One of advanced age often finds little interest in skilled cooking, wenda,” he replied, glancing up at me with a grin. “When the time arrives, please consider yourself at liberty to disregard me as you like.”

The miserable beast thought he was being clever, but worse than that the barbarian seemed to think the same. He nearly strangled trying to keep from laughing loud and hard, letting me go so that he could turn away to struggle in private. I put my fists on my hips, wasted a glare on each of them, then gave it up to go take care of our breakfast.

I managed to get the piece of dimral mostly warmed without doing more than singeing its edges, but that did not reduce the now-unexpressed but definitely still-present river of amusement around me. I was feeling so annoyed and put out over that that we were already back on the road before I noticed the only lack of unanimity among my traveling companions. Cinnan had stayed in his tent until the last possible moment, and had had to work at being polite when he’d given the other two men greeting for the new day. He’d then packed up fast without eating anything, and had returned to riding point wrapped in thick, self-made isolation. He’d pretended to ignore me completely, but was so intensely aware of my presence that the growl in his mind kept trying to snap out of his desperate control of it.

I was glad that my sitting behind the barbarian made it difficult for me to see Cinnan; feeling his mind was bad enough.

When the sun came up high enough to feel, it became clear that we were leaving the deeper cold of the pass behind us. It took a short while for me to realize that, however; most of my attention was on the lesson I was giving. Not long after we had gotten back on the road, my memabrak announced that he was falling behind in his learning, and we were wasting valuable time. The next thing I knew he was projecting sadness at me, doing better than he had a few days earlier, but more in intent than in technique. Sadness is one of the best practice emotions an empath can use; keeping it from sliding off the scale one way into indifference or the other way into grief takes a good deal of control, and control was primarily what Tammad lacked. We continued on down the road out of the pass with me trying to teach the barbarian control, and his first few hours of practice accomplished more than all the days we’d worked before that. He was determined to try and determined to succeed, and that made all the difference.

It was almost precisely midday when Cinnan pulled off the road for the lunch stop, which came as a real surprise to none of us. He’d been so miserably uncomfortable during the morning’s ride that even Dallan had almost been able to feel it, and Tammad had had to grit his mental teeth at times to keep from being swept up in the emotions so often exploding at him. My curtain had helped to keep most of it away from me, but that wasn’t to say I wasn’t affected. Just because there’s a light rain between you and a forest fire, doesn’t mean you aren’t going to sweat from the heat of the blaze.

“Something must be done,” the barbarian said to Dallan in a soft voice as they both headed their seetarr toward Cinnan, who had stopped. “Even should he continue to find himself able to bear it, I cannot.”

“At first I found the matter amusing,” Dallan admitted, speaking just as softly “You are aware that there is but a single thing which may be done.”

“I am indeed aware of that,” Tammad answered with a sigh, faint regret in his mind. “I had hoped for further time before such a requirement would again become necessary, yet do we all do as we must.”

“One often grows accustomed to a matter viewed as distasteful, through more frequent indulgence in that matter,” Dallan said, for some reason sounding as though he were commiserating with the barbarian. “When upset has spent itself, reason will bring to sight a clear view of the necessity.”

Tammad nodded his agreement with whatever Dallan had said, giving me the distinct feeling that this time they were the ones speaking an unknown language. I looked from Dallan, who rode to our right, to the broad, shirted back in front of me without any clear idea as to what they had agreed on, and tried to decide whether or not to ask. I usually dislike not knowing what’s going on around me, but I’d discovered that sometimes you’re better off that way. By then we were far enough off the road to stop, and Dallan and Tammad dismounted together. I had enough time to see that we were a short distance away from Cinnan before two big hands took me by the waist, and then I was being lifted off the saddle fur and down to the ground.

“I regret the necessity, hama, but there is a thing I must require of you,” the barbarian said as soon as I was down, at the same time reaching for his shirt to pull it off over his head. “Cinnan is in great misery from his loss of Aesnil, and we must aid him.”

“Indeed,” said Dallan, coming around in front of Tammad’s big black seetar in time to hear what the barbarian had said. “Tammad and I are unable to do this thing, therefore must it be you who does it.”

“You wish me to aid Cinnan,” I said, suddenly getting a suspicion of what they had meant. Cinnan could be relaxed and soothed with mind power, but I would have to be the one to do it, even if it got me upset; Dallan had no conscious power, and Tammad lacked the necessary control. I didn’t really like the idea but, as had already been pointed out, there wasn’t much choice. I looked back and forth between them, then asked, “You see no alternative to such a doing? You feel it would not be dishonorable?”

“How might it be dishonorable, wench?” Dallan asked with a puzzled look, putting one hand to the seetar we all stood near. He had removed his shirt even before he’d joined us, which made his shrug more obvious. “Is such a thing not one of your purposes?”

“Perhaps you are correct,” I allowed with a nod, trying to make myself believe that.’ If someone had a particular ability, using it could indeed be considered one of their purposes, even if the using wasn’t especially pleasant for the user. “Cinnan requires aid, and we must aid him. All else must be overlooked for the nonce.”

“Hama, your full understanding comes as a welcome surprise,” the barbarian said, his mind really pleased with me, his smile warm and approving. “It is indeed Cinnan whom we must now consider, for we will soon be out of these mountains. He must not be made to continue on into the presence of others laboring beneath so great a disadvantage. I will take you to him upon the moment.”

“I have no need to approach him more closely,” I told the barbarian with a smile of my own, putting one hand to his arm as he reached toward me. “I am well able to do what must be done from here.”

“You will do what must be done from here,” Dallan echoed with a very odd look, while Tammad raised his brows to stare at me blankly. “You are indeed a talented woman, Terril, yet do I feel that talent such as that is beyond even you. ”

“There is truly little to it, Dallan,” I said, wondering why they were behaving so strangely. “I have done the same with Lenham and Garth, and find a distance so small as this no obstacle. To be truthful, I am even able to do the same with a door closed between.”

“Lenham and Garth must surely be possessed of talents unknown to the men of our world,” Dallan said, switching his odd look to Tammad. “Never have I heard of one of us able to do the same.”

“The talent, you must understand, was mine,” I explained, trying to keep from sounding as though I were boasting.

“Though Lenham and Garth aided me, the doing was also mine. ”

“Wait, wenda,” Tammad said suddenly, the strange stare disappearing abruptly. “The doing you speak of refers to your power. Lenham and Garth aided you in experimenting with your power, and you believe we wish the same done with Cinnan.”

“Certainly,” I agreed, for some reason disturbed that he’d made such statements. That was exactly what we’d been talking about, so why had he felt it necessary to restate the obvious?

“What a great relief,” Dallan said with the odd look gone, exchanging a more amused one with the barbarian. “For a moment I feared for my self-esteem, thinking I might never again attempt that which others are able to do at a distance. ”

“At a distance,” the barbarian repeated, grinning suddenly, and then he and Dallan were laughing, roaring out such high hilarity that tears began to start in their eyes. The laughter bent them almost double, making them pound on each other in absolute glee, the noon sun brightening their tanned, half-naked bodies. All I could do was stand there and watch them, wondering if they’d gone completely insane or only a little bit crazy, feeling annoyance beginning to build in me. When people start laughing without telling you what the joke is, you don’t have to be paranoid to get the feeling they’re laughing at you. In that instance I knew they were laughing at me, but I still didn’t know why.

It took a good number of minutes before fun time was over, and that despite the fact that I stood with my arms folded staring at them coldly. I had really been tempted to make that fun time more general, by helping their laughter up to the point of causing loss of control over certain sphincter muscles, for instance, but I had learned something of selfcontrol. Instead of joining in I just stood and stared, and finally they reached the point of being able to speak again.

“We ask your pardon for having laughed so, wenda,” the barbarian said to me, his still-sparkling eyes on my face as his mind attempted to size mine up. “The misunderstanding was quite amusing, which you will see once it has been explained to you.”

“Indeed,” Dallan said with a nod, wiping at his eyes with a forearm. “I have not laughed so in quite a time-nor enjoyed such a situation in even longer.”

The two of them exchanged wry looks, undoubtedly remembering the last time they’d laughed together. They’d been trying to kill each other that time and the laughter hadn’t been their own idea.

“And what misunderstanding are we discussing?” I asked, totally unimpressed by the apology—and the complete lack of sincerity behind it. Neither one of them was really sorry, only trying to minimize whatever damage they thought they’d caused.

“The misunderstanding is simple, hama,” the barbarian said, moving forward a step to circle me with his arm as he looked down at me. “Thinking we referred to your power, you spoke of seeing to Cinnan from here. It is, however, another power of yours which is required, your power as a woman, which most certainly cannot be exercised from such a distance. Cinnan would need to be most exceptionally endowed for that to be possible.”

Dallan chuckled and Tammad grinned, most likely because of the sudden blush I could feel in my cheeks. No wonder they’d laughed so hard, hearing me announce that I could solve all of Cinnan’s problems from thirty feet away. and that I’d done that sort of thing before with Len and Garth. I unfolded my arms to put one hand over my eyes, terribly embarrassed, but then it finally came through to me just what I was feeling embarrassed about. The heat seemed to drain very quickly out of my cheeks, and I withdrew my hand so that I might look up at the barbarian.

“You have not given your word to Cinnan,” I said, trying in vain not to sound accusing. “Only to me was your word given, that you would make an attempt to understand the reason I so dislike being used by others. You would not break your word to Dallan; am I so much less than he?”

“Hama, I continue to make an attempt to understand your views,” he said with a puff of compassion coming out of his mind, one that was too uneven around the edges. His arm had tightened around my shoulders, and his blue eyes looked down at me soberly. “Whenever possible I mean to consider them as my own, yet in this situation I may not do so. Any other woman of our world would find little difficulty in acceding to the desires of her memabrak, his urgent wish to give aid to a brother. Will you be less than they, when you are clearly so much more?”

“It is one of the purposes of a woman, Terril,” Dallan urged from behind my right shoulder, his faint shadow of compassion at least real. “As we are helid, you may accept my assurances without question.”

“To give him my body is unnecessary,” I nearly begged the barbarian, putting one hand to his chest as I squinted up at him in the bright sunshine. “His difficulty may be soothed and removed with the use of my power. You need not give me to him.”

“A man requires more than the removal of his difficulty, hama,” he answered gently, stroking my hair with his free left hand. “A man requires release, and this may be obtained in only one manner. Come with me now, and this will all soon be behind us.”

I tried to say something about there being another way a man alone could get the release he needed, but I felt embarrassed, and the words refused to come out. Tammad ignored my stammered protests and began leading me across the thickened grass toward Cinnan, his arm tight around my shoulders, his mind easy with the knowledge that he was doing the right thing. It came to me then that my suggestion would have been wasted breath even if I could have gotten it out; Rimilian men would undoubtedly consider the practice unnatural, especially when there was at least one woman available.

Thirty feet can he crossed awfully quickly, even when one of the two people doing the crossing is trying her best to hang back. I didn’t want to help Cinnan with his problem that way, but I wasn’t being given a choice. No matter how I felt about the matter, that sort of thing was normal to Rimilians, and anyone who didn’t understand that was just being foolishly backward. Cinnan was sitting on the ground not far from his seetarr, deep in his own thoughts, but he raised his head when we stopped in front of him.

“Cinnan, my friend, I have come to ask if you would honor me,” Tammad said at once, overriding my intentions to make one more try to stop it all. “My woman is not your own, yet may she perhaps prove to be something of an adequate temporary substitute.”

Cinnan looked up at the barbarian in surprise, and then he moved his eyes to me, definite concern behind them. He knew as well as any of the others how I felt about being given away, and although he didn’t understand it any better than they did, he was still aware of that attitude. He knew that my being given to Dallan the night before had been more of an accident than a usual Rimilian exchange, and he hadn’t expected to be offered the same. His eyes examined my face carefully, the reluctance he saw disturbing him, and I could feel him trying to make himself refuse the offer. He wasn’t yet honor-bound to perform the way he had been the last time, and if he pleaded indisposition his friend and brother would not be shamed. He wanted to refuse, he really did, but his need was too great.

“Tammad, my friend, the honor is mine,” he said, rising from the grass in one fluid motion to put his hand to the barbarian’s shoulder. “You have my thanks, and my gratitude as well.”

“Thanks are unnecessary, brother,” the barbarian answered, gently clapping Cinnan’s shoulder, and then, with a last hug for me, he turned around and walked away. It was stupid to feel abandoned and betrayed, but that’s exactly how I did feel; I wasn’t Rimilian, and none of that was usual, acceptable routine to me. I stood with my head down, staring at my hands, waiting to be grabbed and mauled but instead Cinnan’s hand came to my chin.

“And to you do I give even greater thanks, wenda” he said very softly, raising my face to make me look up at him.

“You have proven yourself able to refuse to do as your memabrak wishes, yet do you refuse, instead, to shame him. Had my need been less, I would not have imposed upon your reluctance. ”

“I am aware of that, Cinnan,” I said, somewhat surprised to see the respect in his mind. He knew I could leave him hurting if I wanted to, and was very grateful that I chose not to. What he didn’t seem to understand was that the choice wasn’t really mine, that I couldn’t face making myself even more of a monster than I already was. Being made a general community project hurt considerably less—but it still hurt.

Cinnan was extremely solicitous, unpacking one of his sleeping furs and spreading it behind a rather large boulder before taking me in his arms and lowering me gently to the ground. He was just about jumping out of his skin with the need to get on with it, but he still began by trying to make me as interested and eager as he was. I’d intended closing my shield and simply letting him do as he pleased until he’d had enough, but suddenly that didn’t seem quite right. Cinnan was taking the trouble to consider me even when he didn’t have to, and repaying him by giving him almost nothing more than he could have given himself wasn’t right. I’d had a pretty terrible night myself the night before, so becoming aware of the wide, strong arms holding me proved not difficult at all, as easy as feeling his kisses and responding to them, as accepting his caresses and returning them. The desire in his mind was as bright as a flare, and letting it glow into mine took no effort at all. When he finally entered me I really wanted him to, and he knew it and was so deeply satisfied that he was beyond words.

There was no embarrassed rush to our time together, neither of us making unseemly haste to get it over with. When it finally did end Cinnan kissed me again, his mind filled with pleasure and delight, his eyes dancing as he chuckled softly. His chuckle was for the blush I showed around my grin, the grin that let him know I’d enjoyed myself despite my initial reluctance. It really made a difference to him that he hadn’t had to force me, an added pleasure that he hadn’t expected.

Covering himself was somewhat easier with the cloth pants he was still wearing, and then he got to his feet to offer me a hand up. I took the hand and let it pull me upright, brushed my caldin straight with a couple of uninterested strokes, then impulsively reached up and patted Cinnan’s face. I couldn’t have explained why I did that, but Cinnan grinned with such real amusement and enjoyment that I giggled.

“Do—I intrude?” A neutral voice asked from behind me, causing Cinnan to look up and me to turn my head. “The time has been so long that I—we-thought there might have been difficulty of some sort.”

It was Tammad, of course, who stood behind me, and if he hadn’t been rigidly controlling his expression I was sure it would have been very peculiar. Thick calm was stuffed over his mind like a smothering pillow, but it was an oddly green-tinged calm, as though it were holding down something like jealousy. I immediately wondered with a flash of guilt if he’d seen me patting Cinnan’s cheek and was asking himself just exactly how much I had enjoyed myself, and then I saw what a damned fool I was being. He was the one who had given me to Cinnan in the first place, the one who hadn’t thought twice about forcing me to follow Rimilian custom. If he was beginning to find something about that custom to regret, I couldn’t be happier.

“Most certainly you do not intrude, brother,” Cinnan assured him, expansively happy and totally unaware of the strained reserve of the man he beamed at. “The length of time taken was due to the magnificence of your wenda, whose like one would be hard put to find. You are a truly fortunate man, truly fortunate.”

Cinnan turned away then to find his swordbelt and cast-off shirt, and Tammad’s reaction to what he’d said was fascinating to see. None of it reached his face, of course, but inside he was hopping around like a bird in a worm field, not knowing which way to jump first. Cinnan’s praise of me had automatically made him feel proud and pleased, but part of his mind seemed to want nothing to do with such happy emotions. That renegade part was feeling jealous and possessive, unhappy over the fact that I wasn’t miserable over what I’d just been made to do. The barbarian knew that feelings such as those were irrational and was doing his best to fight them, but he couldn’t seem to bring much strength to the struggle. Then some sort of idea came to him, and he walked over to me oozing sympathy—but feeling a good deal better.

“My poor Terril,” he murmured, raising one hand to stroke my hair as he looked down at me. “Your pride refuses to allow you to show your hurt, yet am I well aware of its presence. The thing is now behind you, hama, and you must comfort yourself with the knowledge that your actions were more than honorable. I shall comfort you as well, and between the efforts of both of us, you will be assured that what you have done was fully worthwhile.”

“But I feel no hurt,” I replied with ruthless naivete, giggling again just to sink the knife in deeper. “You were completely correct, hamak, and I was much of a fool. To be held in the arms of a man such as Cinnan is more pleasure than tragedy, and I shall not be such a fool again. I had not before realized how-capable-he is, how much of a man he is. Aesnil must have lost her wits, to run from a man such as that. ”

I gave Cinnan a last, secret look over my shoulder before walking away from Tammad’s stroking hand as if I didn’t know it was there, strolling along in a floating sort of way designed to indicate complete satisfaction and a purposeful submersion in recent, very pleasant memories. The stricken feeling in him was very sharp before he jumped on it and pushed it away from him, but that was the thing that really pleased me. So he would lend me to other men as though I were a patched and raggedy coat, would he? I didn’t care how old or well-accepted the custom was among his people; by the time I got through with that mighty denday, the custom would be a former one.

Dallan and Tammad had already eaten lunch, so that left just Cinnan and me to attack the packs. For some reason we both had excellent appetites, and Cinnan never noticed how I kept looking at him while we ate. Of course, I didn’t want him to notice, and his lack of enlightenment was perfect to keep any real trouble from starting. The man was searching for his own woman who had gone astray, it hadn’t been his idea or request that had put me in his furs, and he wasn’t showing the least post-sex interest in me. Those facts together kept the big barbarian who had banded me from charging over to Cinnan with blood in his eye, and that made things worse for my memabrak. He had bullied and manipulated me into going to Cinnan in the first place, but he had expected me to walk away as upset and miserable as I always had been until then. The fact that I was not only not miserable but was ignoring him to take secret peeks at Cinnan was driving him wild, and he spent the entire time while Cinnan and I ate pacing up and down trying to locate the self-control he seemed to have misplaced. Lending your woman to another man was fine if she came running back to your own strong arms once it was over; I hadn’t thought Tammad was aware of how down I’d been when I’d left Dallan that morning, but it suddenly came to me that he’d known precisely how I’d felt, and couldn’t have been more pleased.

Once the meat was washed down by drinks of water, we took to the road again. All three of the men had packed their shirts away, so every time I leaned up to look over Tammad’s shoulder at Cinnan, the barbarian was more than aware of the movement against his bare back. He stood it for a good ten minutes, then flatly ordered me back to his lessons in emotional control. He was practically wide-eyed with disbelief over the way he was feeling and acting, and couldn’t understand why it was happening to him. I could have explained the psychology behind his reactions, stemming from the way he’d almost lost me and the way Dallan had forced him to give me up for the previous night, but true Rimilian women didn’t do that with mighty l’lendaa. L’lendaa were the ones who did the thinking and had the knowledge, and who was I to buck the system?

The afternoon lesson didn’t go very well, and I didn’t make any effort to explain that, either. What I did make an effort at was letting my attention wander, if not to pleasant memories then to the changing scenery all around us. By mid-afternoon we were definitely coming down out of the pass, and on this side it widened rather than narrowed. Trees and bushes and real grass began appearing, and the longer we rode, the warmer the air became. One stretch of the widened road had to be slowly and carefully negotiated because of the brown boulders and rocks strewn all about, but that was the last of it. After that we were on a road stretching through gently rolling grassland and graceful stands of trees, and the presence of animal minds returned to the background.

After a while the grassland became farmland, and there was even more traffic than us on the road. A couple of carts and one seetar rider passed us going in the opposite direction, but none of them stopped or even exchanged greetings with us, which surprised my three traveling companions. Apparently it was unusual for people to be that unfriendly, and Tammad frowned over what had come at him from the rider’s mind. The man had been so depressed and angry that it was surprising he’d managed to get himself up and moving; he’d withdrawn so deeply into himself that he hadn’t even been aware of passing us. I’d noticed a vague upset and dissatisfaction in the people on the carts, two men first, and then a man and a woman, but the feelings had been faint and undefined. The rider had been a different story entirely, and if there had been a little more strength behind the feelings, he would have been projecting instead of just leaking them.

It was getting on toward sunset when we reached the town, a place that was a lot smaller than Tammad’s city. There seemed to be only a couple of streets of square, one-story buildings, with correspondingly fewer people moving about them. The stands and shops between the buildings were for the most part still being patronized, but a few were in the process of being closed for the night. Torches had been lit on the outsides of the buildings, children chased each other around with less enthusiasm than they would have if it were earlier in the day, and I could feel my curtain thickening to keep out the increased output of so many more minds. The clamor and hubbub came to the barbarian as a surprise, but then his shield of calm swirled over his mind and he forgot all about it.

“The public grounds are to the right, through that lane ahead,” Dallan said, pointing to a fairly narrow opening between two buildings that was lined with shop booths. “Shall we make camp first, or shall we make inquiries first?”

“Perhaps we may do both,” Tammad said when Cinnan hesitated, his choice between the options fairly obvious. “We will all choose a camping place, and then Cinnan and I shall make inquiries the while you and Terril see to our camp. Is this acceptable to you?”

“Completely,” Dallan agreed pleasantly, his smile genuine. He was looking forward to filling his stomach again, and setting up camp would probably let him do it faster than wandering around asking questions. “Follow me.”

This time Dallan led the way, into the opening and between the stalls. The lane wasn’t very long, and beyond it was a stretch of grass and then a wide, open space, quite a few camtahh already set up at intervals around it. A short way to the left, closer to the open space than to the backs of buildings, was what looked like a well. The setting sun was making seeing things clearly difficult, but two long-skirted women stood by the well drawing up water.

“For what reason do we continue to camp out?” I asked, speaking softly so that only the barbarian would hear me. “For what reason do we not find—a place with rooms and food?”

Not being able to come up with a word for inn or hostel should have warned me, I suppose, but there are some things you take so for granted that warnings do not the least amount of good.

“Wenda, this world is not like your own,” Tammad answered, also keeping his voice low. “When one visits a town or city, one shares the roof of a friend or brother. Should one merely be passing through, one camps upon the public grounds set aside for that purpose. On Rimilia, hospitality may only be given, never bought.”

“On Central and other civilized worlds, no one wishes to buy hospitality,” I informed him, annoyed at his faint amusement. “It is comfort and ease one purchases, as well as hot, well-cooked meals.”

“Here, one goes home for such things.” He chuckled, feeling vastly superior again. Rimilian barbarians had a way of looking at things that made them right and everyone else backward, and the attitude still rubbed me completely the wrong way.

It only took a couple of minutes to reach the cleared area, and a minute after that showed us an empty section large enough to accommodate all three camtahh. Tammad and Cinnan unburdened their pack beasts while Dallan started a fire, and then they rode off while the drin of Gerleth started on his own pack beast. I stood around like a sidewalk superintendent, wishing I didn’t feel so totally useless as I always do at such times, but being willing doesn’t make you able. When I’d first come to Rimilia I’d hated the work the barbarian had forced me to do, not knowing what an idiot I was being. Even brushing seetarr is better than standing around while others accomplish something constructive, but I didn’t even know if we had a seetar brush with us. Dallan put up his own camtah then headed toward a second, and I couldn’t stand just hanging around any longer.

“Dallan, allow me to assist you,” I said as I came up to him, drawing a brief glance. “There must be some small thing I am able to do.”

“Perhaps you would care to spread the furs in the camtahh once they have been erected,” he said, paying most of his attention to hefting the folded tent he meant to put up next. “There is very little else suitable for a wenda.”

“Perhaps I might begin our meal,” I suggested, knowing the fire was all ready to cook on. “Were you to tell me what you wish, I would be able to . . . .”

“No, wenda, no,” he said hurriedly, finally turning to look at me with the tied camtah upon his broad shoulder, his mind scurrying around. “I have not yet decided what I wish for this darkness, and there is no knowing when Tammad and Cinnan will return. To offer them a meal which is overdone or cooled to tastelessness would be inconsiderate, therefore shall we not begin our meal till I am done with the camtahh. Then I shall allow you to assist me.”

He reached out a big hand to pat me on the head, then turned away to walk to where he wanted the tent to go, the muscles in his back, shoulders, and arms rippling when he shifted the camtah to the ground. He was too busy to see me turn away in misery, and probably wouldn’t have noticed even if he wasn’t busy. What he was most concerned with was not having his meal ruined, something that would happen without fail if he let me do the cooking with no one watching me. It would have made me angry—if it hadn’t been so abysmally true.

The glare of sunset had faded to a thickening dark, soft and fuzzy around the edges and sort of bumbling, a very young dark not yet old enough to be called night. I wandered away from where Dallan was working so hard to get us settled, aware of other fires around the camping area but not really seeing them. Nothing suitable for wendaa to do, he had said, but when I suggested cooking he almost fell all over himself finding reasons why that wasn’t a very good idea. There were women on Central who were actually ashamed of being able to cook, I knew, considering the ability too far beneath a modern, talented woman. I moved across the dust of the camping ground, watching my still-covered feet flip out the bottom of my caldin as I walked, wondering how it felt to be that accomplished. To be able to do something with your own hands that you could share with others, that people could enjoy and honestly praise you for. To make you feel that you weren’t simply taking up space better used for a different purpose . . . .

Aldana, wenda,” a deep voice came, a voice I didn’t recognize. “Do you stroll about seeking companionship?”

I looked up in confusion with my thoughts still mostly turned inward, to discover that I’d come something of a distance from where Dallan was. There were a number of people around with tents and fires of their own, but for the most part they were solitary male people, like the one who had stood himself in my path. I didn’t need more than the light of his fire to see that his haddin was dirty and stained, his swordbelt old and not very well kept, his seetar thoroughly tied and hobbled to keep it from escaping his presence and service. The man looked down at me with a sharp hum in his mind, his flat, lusterless eyes taking in every inch of me, his left hand resting on his sword hilt. He seemed different from most of the other men I’d met on that world, but not different in the right way.

“Aldana, l’lenda,” I acknowledged politely, wondering why he’d stopped me. “I do not stroll in search of companionship, merely do I stroll. I wish you a pleasant darkness.”

I began to step around him then, but he moved just as I did, deliberately blocking my way. As soon as the hum in his mind began rising to a growl I knew what he wanted, but the revelation had arrived too late. I tried whirling fast to run back the way I had come, but that was something he was expecting. His right fist shot out and tangled in my hair, and I was forced painfully back to him.

“I mean to have the pleasant darkness you wish me, wenda,” he said with a chuckle, continuing to look me over. “There was another I had thought to take, yet are you a far more toothsome choice.”

“You cannot,” I said with difficulty, really hurting from the way he was holding me, my hands to his fist. “I am banded, and my memabrak will soon return to seek me.”

“Do you take me for one who is bereft, wenda?” he demanded, tightening his grip until I cried out, his mind instantly angry. “A man may put his bands upon a rella wenda, yet is she scarcely of concern to him beyond her obvious value. Were you a woman a man would fight for, you would now be tending his fire and camtah, or accompanying him where he rode. That you remain behind and do naught is solely for the reason that you have been commanded to it, your strength conserved for your only purpose. I will give the man to whom you belong a coin in payment for your use, and he will be more than satisfied.”

He pulled me around then and began heading me toward his tent, his mind filled with desire and the intention of easing it. His grip hurt so much that my eyes were full of tears, and the sobbing that had got itself started refused to let me stop it. I was suddenly very much afraid of what would happen, but not only of what that man would do to me. I knew he would use me the way Dallan had used me the night before, but he wouldn’t be at all concerned about hurting me. I could stop him from hurting me, keep him from being in the least interested in me, but to do that I’d have to turn the coldness loose again, the soullessness that had so much control and power. I was trembling and sobbing as the man dragged me along too shaken and frightened to use my abilities myself, it would have to be the soullessness or nothing. I honestly didn’t know which I feared most, being hurt or hurting someone else like that, but my trembling increased as we began to approach the verandah of his camtah. I didn’t want him to hurt me and I didn’t want to hurt him, all I wanted was for him to let me go. I tried to struggle and then cried out again when his fist shook my head hard, my mind picking up the amusement of those men who were close enough to see what was going on. They all thought it was funny that I’d been caught, and none of them would help me against one of their own kind. The sobs shook me, and the trembling, and then

“Hold!” cried a voice, a furiously commanding voice, one that trembled more from rage than fear. I didn’t understand what was happening or who could possibly belong to a voice like that, but the man holding me spun around, dragging me with him, and then I saw.

The one who had shouted for him to stop was a woman.

“Release her at once!” the woman ordered, so angry she should have been emitting bolts of crackling electricity. She stood with feet spread wide and head held high, dressed in tight gray cloth breeches and white shirt rather than imad and caldin, leather sandals on her feet, a leather band holding her long hair back. Her left hand rested on the hilt of a sword, a large sword for such a large woman, but no more the size of a l’lenda’s sword than she was l’lenda high. The big blond man holding me stared at her speechlessly for a moment, and then he threw his head back and laughed.

“You would have me release her?” he asked the woman, sounding as offensive as it’s possible to be. “Surely you ask such a thing for you wish to take her place in my arms, yet must you first grow as lovely as she. A rella wenda this one is, dark-haired and green-eyed and softly weeping. Show me the manner in which you weep, wenda, and perhaps I shall choose you instead.”

“You may choose me more easily than that, gendis,” the woman returned with a snort of ridicule, looking the man up and down in scorn. “Continue to hold that girl as you do, and you shall quickly have me-just behind my sword. Remove your hand from her, else I shall remove the hand from you.”

“You dare to think yourself able to face me?” the man snarled, wildly furious at the way the woman had insulted him. Gendis meant someone without a single redeeming feature, a total loss, an absolute yahoo, and his mind seethed with fury. With a single, sharp thrust of his arm he threw me to the ground behind him, then drew his sword and raised his head. “Were you truly a wenda, your death would be a loss,” he growled, beginning to advance on the woman. “As you are not, weerees, there shall be no loss at all.”

With the last of his words he charged the woman, sword up and swinging, fully expecting to connect with his target. The woman, however, hadn’t grown furious at being called a plaything and a toy as he had expected her to, and wasn’t simply standing and waiting for him to cut her down. She danced fast under his swinging blade, drawing her own weapon as she turned, fully balanced, completely unhurt, and totally prepared to meet his next charge—which came almost immediately. The man was even angrier at having swung and missed, his mind filled with the most out-of-control rage I’d ever felt, emotion rather than thought sending him forward again. He slashed again and she avoided the swing a second time, still making no effort to do anything other than make the man appear clumsier than he was. A third swing came and then a fourth, the woman dodging nimbly and the man stumbling, and the foaming fury in the man’s mind almost made me ill.

I sat up on the ground where I’d been thrown, half in the dirt and half on the man’s verandah, one hand to my ribs on the left where the whole side felt bruised. The woman was continuing to lead the man all over the area, her movements precise, her mind cool and controlled and not at all afraid, her thoughts busy with some sort of plan. It was fairly obvious that the man wasn’t exactly the best with a sword, but he was big enough and strong enough to swing the monster thing, and if he once connected with any part of the woman, it would be all over for her. I sat and stared at the two of them, holding my ribs, wondering if the woman meant to kill the man or simply keep leading him around until he dropped from exhaustion. A couple of his swings had been so wild that he’d ended up with the woman behind him, and if she’d wanted to she could have put her sword in his back. I was sure she had been even more aware of those openings than I was, but she simply wasn’t interested in them and I thought I knew why. She seemed to have contracted a disease called honor, and I sincerely hoped it wouldn’t prove fatal.

The glide—and-stumble dance continued another couple of minutes, all eyes in the vicinity on it, and then came the opening the woman had been waiting for. The man was just about rabid with rage, his insane fury the only thing keeping him erect, and at last he couldn’t stand being led around like that anymore. He gripped his sword two-handed and raised it high and to the right of his sweat-soaked head, screamed wordlessly to gather every ounce of strength left to him, and charged directly at the woman with the most controlled gait he’d used in the entire fight. This time he had no intentions of plowing past her, only of cutting her in half with his two-handed swing, but instead of being upset a burst of triumph flashed in the woman’s mind. Although I couldn’t imagine why, that seemed to be what the woman had been waiting for; she immediately shifted her stance with instant readiness in her mind, set herself, then waited. The big man came at her, closer and closer, but not until that giant sword began slashing down at her did she move, jumping back at the last instant and only just far enough. The man had committed himself to the swing, and as soon as its arc passed her she would sweep in close to him with her own sword, opening him wide before he was able to so much as think about a backswing. It was what she had been waiting for—but she’d forgotten about the spectators.

Too many of the men around there were like the one who was fighting, more uncaringly dirty than shabby, casual about possessions especially if they were someone else’s, not particularly honorable and not particularly interested in being so. When the fight first started they were no more than amused, expecting the man to have no trouble with the woman. When the trouble started their amusement died, and two or three of them had gotten to their feet to urge on and yell to the man who was making them all feel like fools. When the fighter had set himself for the final charge, one of the standing men must have slipped up behind the woman in the growing dark; the first I saw of him was when he tripped the woman in her backward jump, destroying her balance and sending her down on her head. He was away again immediately, getting himself out of danger’s reach, but the damage had already been done. The woman was down and dizzy from hitting her head, and the man above her didn’t hesitate. He came forward with a yell of triumph and raised that monstrous sword two-handed directly above his head, gleefully ready to bring it down right into her.

I’d done a lot of agonizing up till then about what I could and couldn’t do to another living being, but when I saw the woman about to die all conscious thought and decision went by the boards. Without the least hesitation I hit the man with insecurity, a hard enough jolt to make him unsure about everything, including his balance. That giant sword above his head was suddenly leaning too far back for him to have a really good grip on it—or, at least the insecurity made him believe-so all he could do was twist around as he let it fall, bringing it down safely behind him before he was hurt by it. I began getting to my feet just as he turned his head to look at the woman, his eyes gauging the distance to be sure he would reach her with a single sweep of the blade no matter how insecure he felt. I couldn’t let him hurt her for trying to help me, I just couldn’t, but before the problem became critical a new element was added to the scene.

“Put up that sword, else use it on one who has a similar weapon,” another voice growled, and then Dallan stepped out of the gloom and approached the man standing over the woman. “Or perhaps I should not suggest such a manly thing to one who happily strikes at the helpless.”

Dallan stood with his own sword in his hand, still in those tight cloth pants, bare-chested, blond-haired head up, broad shoulders back. The first sight of him had frightened the other man, but Dallan’s insult triggered the man’s flash-quick temper and insane anger. Rather than stopping to think about it he immediately raised his sword and charged the drin of Gerleth, which proved to be his last mistake. Dallan had enough body-weight and strength not to need to side-step; he blocked the swinging attack with his own weapon, then immediately moved in answer, and the man’s head flew from his shoulders. My shield was already closed tight by then, so all I had to do was avert my eyes while I hurried to the woman who still sat on the ground with a hand to the back of her head.

” Are you harmed?” I asked as I crouched down beside her, quickly letting my shield dissolve. I hadn’t wanted to feel that man die, but now it was over and the woman needed help.

“For the most part, no,” the woman answered with a grimace, clearly annoyed with herself. “My pride, however, is seriously damaged, that and my estimation of myself as an adequate fighter. To be downed by the simplest of subterfuges!”

“You were not truly defeated,” another voice put in, and then Dallan was crouching to the right of the woman as I crouched to the left, his sword already wiped and sheathed. “Had that other not intervened you would have had him, neatly and with skill. I must ask your pardon for my own intervention. ”

“Truly would I be a fool to berate a man who has saved my life,” she said with a wincing grin, Dallan’s compliment having eased a good deal of the non-physical pain she’d been feeling. “I must make the effort to recall that all people are not possessed of honor, difficult though the concept is to accept. It had not occurred to me that I must concern myself with one who would come behind. I give thanks that the gendis was not able to maintain his balance when first he thought to strike at me.”

“Yes, a truly fortunate thing,” Dallan murmured, his glance at me both brief and completely revealing. He knew I’d knocked the man off-balance, but he didn’t seem to be upset by it. “You must join us at our campsite till your head has cleared, else shall you likely be faced with another of these darayse before you have had opportunity to recover. Once you have returned to yourself, they will be of no bother to you.”

“I thank you for your offer of hospitality,” the woman answered warmly, beginning to get to her feet. Her usual litheness was hobbled by the dizziness that hit her, and Dallan had to put his arm around her fast to keep her from falling again. The hum in his mind grew at the contact, but I don’t think he missed the fact that the woman was still able to hang onto her sword, then unsteadily sheathe it.

“I am Dallan of Gerleth, and the wenda is Terril,” Dallan offered, very obviously making no mention of his title and position. “Our fire is yours for so long as you have need of it. ”

“I am Leelan of Vediaster,” the woman returned, still too shaky to notice the way Dallan was looking at her. “So the girl is yours. Has she been harmed?”

“Terril?” Dallan echoed in surprise, immediately moving his eyes to me. “In what manner might she have been harmed?”

“The gendis took her with the intention of using her,” Leelan explained, glancing up into Dallan’s face. As large as she was she still had to look up, but it didn’t seem to bother her. “The girl was clearly unable to defend herself, therefore did I demand her release. She should not have been left to walk about unescorted.

” Unable to defend herself,” Dallan echoed with what turned out to be annoyance and faint anger, his eyes just about blazing out of the dark at me. “We shall speak of this matter, wenda, when our guest has been seen to.”

“You would punish her for the honorless doing of another?” Leelan demanded with as much strength as she could muster while I dropped my eyes. The thought of Dallan’s punishing me didn’t bother me half as much as the suspicion of what I thought he intended instead.

“Calm yourself, Leelan of Vediaster,” Dallan said to soothe her, his voice softer than hers had been. “The girl is mine for neither punishment nor the withholding of it, nor would I punish her in any event. She and I are helid, and I believe the time has come to speak sternly with her.”

“Helid?” Leelan repeated in great surprise while I flinched to have my guess confirmed. Dallan was going to lecture me about defending myself, and I really didn’t want to go into that. “You freely admit to being helid with one who is female and a rella wenda?”

“Terril is most certainly female, yet is she scarcely a rella wenda as you speak of it,” Dallan came back, looking down at Leelan. “Her memabrak is Tammad, a man who cherishes her as few women have ever been cherished, a man who would not degrade her by holding her as no more than a woman for show. Despite her great beauty, Terril is not rella wenda. ”

“You defend the girl, yet not yourself,” Leelan said in nearly a murmur, smiling faintly up at Dallan in spite of the look he was giving her, a hum beginning in her mind that was both familiar and unfamiliar. “Never before have I met a man who felt no shame at being helid with a female. With your agreement, Dallan of Gerleth, I would learn to know such a man more completely.”

“My agreement is easily come by, Leelan of Vediaster,” Dallan answered with a grin, his arm tightening the least bit around her. “Allow me to assist you to our fire, where we may take our ease and-converse.”

Both of them grinned at that one, but they still started off in the direction of our campsite, happily forgetting all about me. I was using pain control on Leelan with a very delicate touch, helping along her own excellent recuperative powers rather than forcing them to the job of healing her. Even if I didn’t owe her the help, I would have worked at restoring her to full health simply for the distraction she would be for Dallan. The drin of Gerleth had always been fascinated by women who were really free, and if Leelan’s presence couldn’t get me out of that lecture, nothing would.

With the former spectators of the fight all disappeared into their camtahh, I was able to trail a good distance behind Dallan and Leelan back to our campsite without being bothered. I might have made more of an attempt to keep up with them if my side hadn’t been hurting the way it was, but probably wouldn’t have intruded in any event. I had never before seen anything on Rimilia to match their mutual absorption and attraction, and it made me smile to realize that even their names were similar. Watching them stare at each other was fun, but it was bound to be even more fun when Dallan came out of it and tried telling Leelan what to do. The big woman from Vediaster wasn’t likely to stand still for something like that, and Dallan would deserve whatever she did to him because of it. In the meanwhile I’d be entirely forgotten, most especially where lectures were concerned.

By the time they reached the fire Leelan was walking on her own, and Dallan glanced back to make sure I was in sight before going over to check on the contents of the large pot that hung from a tripod over the fire. He stirred the contents with a shallow-bowled wooden scoop before tasting it, then turned to Leelan with a smile.

“I feared for the stew, yet is it unharmed,” he told her. “It will be a short while before it is done, however. Therefore you may rest yourself till then. I will rejoin you in a moment, when I have completed the chores left unfinished by cause of that minor distraction.” Then, since I had gotten close enough, he added to me, “Best you keep a close watch on your stew, Terril. Should it burn, I will shame us all by weeping.”

Leelan chuckled as she watched him walk away toward the second camtah that wasn’t yet standing, the camtah he’d been just beginning on when I’d left. My talking about making the meal must have frightened him so badly that he’d left tent putting-up for later, and had immediately started the stew. Leelan turned back to look at me when I stopped by the fire, her amusement at Dallan’s comment fading, then sat herself down when I did.

“You have not yet answered my query as to your wellbeing, Terril,” she said softly, large light eyes watching me carefully. “Were you harmed by that gendis?”

“I am no more than bruised, Leelan,” I answered, trying to manage a smile, then looked away from her. “You have my thanks for coming to my assistance, and it shames me that you were given pain by cause of it.”

“Such pain is naught, girl,” she said, brushing the matter aside, her mind agreeing with the words. “While training with the sword I was often given much worse, till I learned to disallow such treatment.”

“Truly?” I asked, looking back at her in startlement. “It had not occurred to me that there would be difficulty of that sort given to one who wished to learn.”

“How else is one to learn, save through the desire for avoidance of difficulty?” she asked, her amusement back again. She was a really big woman, no more than half a head shorter than Dallan, her body well proportioned to that height but still supple and lithe. Her long hair was Rimilian blonde and her eyes were light, and the man she had challenged had lied about her attractiveness. Her oval face had a delicate sort of beauty that was also strong with personality and character, especially when she smiled or was amused. She looked like someone who would make a good friend, which was surprising, considering where she came from.

“Terril, mind the stew,” Dallan called from where he was working, his thoughts back on his stomach again. I looked at Leelan and shook my head with a sigh, making her chuckle, then got to my feet to stir the stew. When I sat down again, I decided it was time for a little truth-speaking.

“The stew, of course, is not mine but his,” I admitted, forcing myself to meet her eyes. “He spoke of it as mine only to spare me the embarrassment he knows I feel at being unable to cook. That l’lenda was correct when he named me no more than a rella wenda. Few have been able to rise to my level of uselessness. ”

“The gendis was no l’lenda,” she stated, her frown only in her mind, which left her pretty face expressionless. “Bearing a sword does not make one a l’lenda any more than the lack of the ability to cook makes one useless. It seems more than a matter of cooking which disturbs you, Terril. Should you wish to speak of it, I would be willing to listen.”

“Before one may speak, one must first find the words,” I told her with the same sickly smile I’d been managing all along. “Do not concern yourself with me, Leelan. I have been moody of late, and the incident with the-gendis-has upset me.”

“You find it sufficient that the l’lenda Dallan concerns himself with you?” she asked, one brow rising toward her leather headband, her mind curious but restrained. “For what reason did he appear so incensed that a small, unarmed wenda such as you was unable to defend herself? Of what does he mean to speak to you, and for what reason do you appear unwilling to hear him?”

The questions were calm and undemanding, casually hung up in front of me just in case I cared to take one or two of them down to answer. Light, wide eyes regarded me in the same way, without pressure, but how do you tell anyone, even a stranger, that what’s bothering you is that you’d rather be admired than feared? How do you tell them that the only thing you’re really good at makes you an unspeakable monster, something that anyone with sense would avoid? Things like that sound too ridiculous and melodramatic when put into words, and saying them to yourself doesn’t do any good at all. If I told her that Dallan was undoubtedly angry with me for not defending myself, she would never understand.

“How goes the stew, wenda?” Dallan asked as he came up, unaware that he’d interrupted anything. “But a few more moments and I will be done.”

“I have myself not yet eaten,” Leelan remarked, watching as Dallan checked his handiwork again. “To be frank, I found myself with little appetite for what would be produced through my own efforts. I fear that the skill of cooking is not one I may claim as my own.”

“Soon there will be none upon this world save l’lendaa who are able to do so much as warm dimral in a fire,” Dallan remarked back, giving the stew a final stir of satisfaction before dragging himself away from it. “To a large degree the thought grieves me, for then what use might be found for wendaa’?”

He gave Leelan a very bland look as he headed back toward the third camtah, causing her to begin laughing softly but deeply.

“A man who gives as well as he gets, that one,” she observed to me, still chuckling comfortably. “I am unused to ones such as he, and shall likely find this darkness of great interest. He doubted my words, yet made no effort to contradict them-nor to support them for your sake. He was aware that you had spoken the truth to me.”

“He is often aware of many things,” I grumbled, watching Dallan a moment before looking away from him. “I will now also likely be told that absolute truth is at times unnecessary. Should he attempt to lecture me so, I believe I shall inform him that I told you he was worthless in the furs.”

“Be sure first that your memabrak is present,” she advised with a big grin, enjoying my comment. “L’lendaa rarely take such light-hearted jestings in the spirit they were meant, and often become proddish from them. The matter of helid would be unlikely to protect you.”

“Should I say such a thing, even my memabrak would be unlikely to protect me,” I countered, still feeling down. “He, too, is l’lenda, and he and Dallan are close. Do wendaa in Vediaster have memabrakk?”

“Some,” she allowed with a slight nod, shifting a little away from the fire. “There are those who are unable to see to themselves, who lack even the desire to make the attempt. These are banded by men who wish such women, yet is the number of those who go unbanded far greater. We who go armed will ourselves do the banding.”

“You-band men?” I said, the idea suddenly appealing to me. “As though they were wendaa? Do you even five-band them?”

“Indeed,” she answered with a wide grin, enjoying my reaction. “Should they merit five-banding. They are most of them quite proud of the bands they wear, which show they have found favor in a w’wenda’s eyes.”

I heard the difference in the word immediately, the rolled and doubled first letter that was usually used only for the word “l’lenda”. I didn’t have to ask what it meant, as I already knew: women warriors were not ashamed of being women.

“I commend you for the manner in which you take this news, girl,” she said, still watching me closely. “Wendaa who are not of our country often shudder in revulsion and fear upon hearing the same, unable to so much as consider the notion. Had you been born one of us, you would likely be w’wenda yourself.”

“Would it be possible for you to teach me the use of a sword?” I blurted without first stopping to think, pushed into the request by the inner pressure that had never really let up. “I have need of the knowledge, yet am I unable to speak of my reasons.”

Her mind went so startled that she couldn’t think of a thing to say, and then she lost the opportunity. The sound of seetarr hooves came, announcing the return of Tammad and Cinnan, and then Dallan was there by the fire with us, waiting to greet the newcomers. It wasn’t the time to pursue my request—or answer it—and we both knew it, so all we did was wait until the two men had unsaddled their mounts and come to join us. ,

“Never before have I seen so cold and unfriendly a place,” Cinnan grumbled in disgust, then realized he might have made a mistake saying something like that in front of an unknown guest. He looked at Leelan and said, “It was not my intention to give offense to one who dwells here, wenda. Please accept my apologies.”

“As offense was not taken, apologies are unnecessary,” the woman answered, a faint smile on her pretty face as she rose to her feet. “I, too, merely pass through this place on my way elsewhere, and I, too, have found it to be less than hospitable. ”

“And yet was it nearly the place she merged with the soil,” Dallan put in, and then told the rest of the story. The barbarian was immediately furious, of course, looking at me with his mind as well as his eyes to make sure I was all right, and I finally got some glimmering of why, a long time ago, a man of that world had not raised his sword against two others he’d been traveling with when they decided to keep me rather than return me to the one who had banded me. “I shall not kill you,” he had said to them as he mounted up to ride away. “That doing is the right of he to whom she belongs.”

Tammad stood listening to Dallan’s story with fury blazing in his mind, his outrage so strong that it nearly knocked me over in spite of the curtain protecting my mind. Part of his fury was, strangely enough, aimed at Dallan, but only in an impersonal, general sort of way. He knew Dallan had really had no choice about killing that man, so he wasn’t blaming him; what he was doing was cursing the fact that there had been no choice. He wanted to have that man in front of his own sword, to he able to face him and defeat him personally, and the fact that he couldn’t was so frustrating to him that his output made me tremble. It was almost as bad for me as his projections had been before we found out he was fully operational in empathy, and I was almost to the point of needing to shield when Dallan finished his story and introduced Leelan. Both Tammad and Cinnan had reacted very oddly when they’d first looked at her, their minds trying to slip out of a hum into a growl, but after the story and introduction the barbarian regarded her with something very much like respect.

“You have more than my thanks, wenda,” he said, his expression and voice more sober than usual. “I now stand in your debt, and shall till I am able to do for you as you have done for me. Should you ever be in need of any sort, you have only to call upon me.”

“There are many-kinds of need, l’lenda,” she answered, grinning faintly as she looked him over. “One day I may indeed call upon you-should that not be too far from the circumstances you have envisioned.”

“To circumscribe one’s gratitude is to belittle the act which produced that gratitude,” he said, aware of the way she was looking at him—and not minding a bit. “Should there ever be a need—of whatever sort-you have only to call upon me.”

They were looking each other over with a good deal of approval, something I should have expected, since Tammad’s tastes were a lot like Dallan’s, neither one of them doing anything that wasn’t done by any other Rimilians. Cinnan—and even Dallan-looked on with mild interest and polite attention, but suddenly I didn’t like that free, strong, unbanded w’wenda much anymore. As a matter of fact I didn’t like any of them anymore, especially a certain any. Without saying a word I got to my feet, left the fire, and went straight into a camtah.

The tent was pitch dark and without sleeping furs, but I couldn’t have cared less. I crawled away from the entrance flaps and found the side wall to the right, then just sat down next to it. I hated that world and everyone on it almost as much as I hated myself, but I refused to cry about it, not any of it. I’d had to half kill myself and him in order to get even the suggestion of respect, but he’d given it to her almost as soon as he’d seen her. Respect and gratitude and more interest than I could stand to think about. L’lenda wenda he used to call me, but it was clear to everyone involved that she really was.

I had shielded completely and was sitting with my eyes closed, so it was given to my ears to tell me when I finally had company. I had been left alone for quite some time, which had made me feel even more miserable, but the entrance of someone else didn’t lighten the load. There wasn’t one of them I wanted to see or talk to, and for the hundredth time I wished I had a tent of my own. Whoever it was had a candle, and after the usual pause to settle it I heard the sound of someone sitting down.

“Your food has been put aside for you, hama,” I was told, his voice even and calm. “It is no longer as good as it was when hot, yet does it retain some measure of taste.”

“Thanks for the effort, but I’m not particularly hungry,” I told him, hating the fact that he was punishing me again. I had walked away without saying a word to anybody, deliberate rudeness in view of the presence of a guest, so if I wanted to eat, what I’d get would be cold leftovers.

“You will eat whether there is hunger within you or not,” he said, that damnable calm still completely in control of him. “The upset you were given earlier is not likely to have encouraged your appetite, yet must you eat if you wish to continue in good health.”

I didn’t say anything to that, and for the obvious reason. Good health hadn’t been what I’d been thinking about ever since I’d entered that tent, and I didn’t find much interest in it then.

“Also must we return to our own camtah,” he continued, ignoring my silence. “It is extremely rude to keep others from their rest.”

“So my presence here is rudeness,” I said, glad I had kept my eyes closed and my left shoulder near the tent wall. “And here I thought I was being exquisitely polite, getting out of the way and out from under foot. I hadn’t expected it to be Cinnan’s turn quite so soon, not with all that gratitude you feel toward her. Why didn’t you simply switch camtahh, and save her the trouble of having to move around?”

“You-speak of the woman Leelan?” he asked, suddenly sounding confused. “She and Dallan have gone to his camtah. In what manner would she affect Cinnan and myself?”

“If you’re trying to say you scarcely noticed her, don’t waste the breath,” I said, letting my head touch the tent wall the same way my shoulder was doing. It wasn’t fair for her to be so much better than me—or that he would notice. And if he’d had to notice, why had he had to do it so-openly?

“You believe I wished to take use from the woman of Vediaster?” he asked, his voice sounding odd. “You came to this camtah so that °I might do so without hindrance?”

“Isn’t that what a good, obedient Rimilian woman is supposed to do?” I said, silently cursing the burning in my throat. “Step quietly out of the picture so that her lord and master will be free to express his-gratitude?”

“Wenda, it was in thanks for your safety that I felt such gratitude,” he said, for some reason sounding more pleased than annoyed. “The woman kept you from harm, and for that I owe more than I shall ever be able to repay.”

“Don’t you worry about that, she’ll help you make a damned good stab at it,” I answered, then couldn’t help adding, “I wish she’d minded her own damned business!”

“Terril . . . I cannot reach your thoughts, yet am I suddenly possessed of a strange conviction,” he said, the words slow and measured. “I had never thought to see such a thing in you, yet do I belive that you are filled with jealousy.”

“I am no such thing!” I spat, still refusing to look at him, but discovering that my eyes had opened anyway. “There’s not a thing to be jealous about, not a single thing! The two of you finding interest in each other is nothing more than normal on this world, nothing that would upset anyone with sense. If it doesn’t make you jealous to give me away to all those men,why should I care what you do with anybody else?”

I was looking down at the shadowy hands in my lap my head still against the tent wall, feeling so miserable that I wanted to cry. But I also didn’t want to cry, and was determined not to, even if the burning in my throat strangled me. I hated everything and everyone around me, but most of all I hated that burning.

“I see now that if you had not been affected so strongly, you would not have left so abruptly,” he said, and I could feel the touch of his thoughts on my shield, trying to reach through to mine. “Come into my lap and arms, hama, so that I might hold you.”

“Don’t touch me!” I told him hoarsely, shaking off the big hand that came to my shoulder. “I don’t want to be held, and especially not by you!”

I should have known he wouldn’t listen, he had never listened to anything I ever said. The hand I had shaken off came back to wrap itself around my arm, and when I pulled against it and struggled, his free arm circled my back, trying to get a better, more all-around grip. The only problem was that his stupid, oversized hand touched my side at rib height, and I couldn’t keep from yelping at the pain.

“What is it?” he demanded, immediately pulling both hands off me but letting them hover. “For what reason did you cry out so? How were you hurt?”

“I must have turned wrong,” I muttered, trying not to shiver because of the flashing ache. “If Cinnan is waiting to get his tent back, let’s give it to him.”

I began moving toward the tent flaps, intending to pass him on the right where he sat facing the wall I’d been leaning against, but he refused to let me by. He lifted me below my thighs and shoulders as he turned toward the candle, sat me gently in his lap, then started taking off my imad. He was very careful of my struggling while he untied ties and pulled the blouse off over my head, then began examining me with a grim look on his face. It didn’t take him long to get to my side, and when he saw the large, ugly bruise his jaw tightened.

“One would find it difficult to turn in any manner which was not wrong with a bruise such as that,” he said, raising cold and angry eyes to mine. “How deeply I wish that Dallan had not slain that virenj-see! Why did you not say you were hurt?”

“It looks worse than it is,” I answered, lowering my eyes from his as I wrapped my arms around my half-bare body. “Give me my imad back.”

“You will have it back when I wish to give it to you,” he said, his voice harder than it had been. “For what reason did you not speak of this hurt?”

“Maybe because it was no one else’s business!” I flared, but still didn’t raise my eyes again. “Maybe because I think of it more as a reward than a punishment. I took this without wanting to hurt him back, and would have taken a lot more! This is what I got for not being a monster and a thing, and it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as stopping him would have! I’m learning to be human, I really am—but I wish he had killed me.

I was able to hold back until his arms came gently around me, and then I let my face fall to his chest, needing the contact desperately. It hurt my side to sit like that, but it hurt even more deep inside me. I would have done anything to be human instead of a monster, but I was afraid that somehow it wouldn’t turn out that way.

“Hama, I cannot understand this confusion that you speak,” Tammad said after a short time of simply holding me against him. “For what reason do you believe that to accept pain is to be human? And for what reason must you see yourself as monstrous when others do not see you so? Dallan tells me he believes you kept the sadarayse from slaying the woman of Vediaster after she had been downed from behind. Surely a doing such as that cannot disturb you.”

“But don’t you see that even that was wrong?” I nearly begged, raising my face to look at him. “What was the difference between what I did and what that other man did to Leelan? He snuck up on her from a place where she couldn’t see him, and struck without warning; how was I seen, and what warning did I give? Using my abilities against unsuspecting people is wrong, you know it is! How many times have you told me that, over and over? How many times has Garth said it, and Len? I know it’s wrong, but I can’t stop doing it; I tell myself it’s natural to use my abilities, foolish to wish I didn’t have them. At the beginning of this trip you said I couldn’t use them, but did I listen? No, I had to hurt you first, and that still didn’t stop me, just the way it wouldn’t stop any other monster. You have to beat me harder, and maybe then I’ll learn.”

I put my head against his chest again, too filled with self-hatred to do any more, and his hand came to the side of my face as he held me tighter. By rights he should have walked away from me in disgust and horror, and I didn’t know why he hadn’t

“I see, hama, that I should have given more thought and attention to you than I have,” he said with a sigh, leaning down to put his lips briefly to my hair. “So deeply immersed was I in my own difficulties and intentions, that I saw no part of your own. Proper teaching should have been given you a long time past, yet did I err in seeing you as no more than a wenda. Sit up now, so that we may begin.”

In confusion I let him urge me away from his chest, understanding nothing of what he was talking about. His blue eyes looked at me soberly where I sat in his lap, and his big hand came to smooth my hair.

“Even had you been born a wenda of this world, you would not have been given the teachings of a boy,” he said. “You would, however, have a closer understanding of the necessary, having been taught to share your life with one who must bear the burden. In this instance is it you who bears the burden, and though I attempted to take it from your shoulders, I should have known that such a thing is impossible. It must be my duty, instead, to strengthen you for that burden. Will you hear my words and know them as truth?”

I nodded hesitantly, still not understanding, but he smiled gently, as though my agreement had been enthusiastic.

“On this world, all male children are prepared for the wielding of weapons,” he said, keeping his eyes only on my face. “A number of them grow to be merchants or shopkeepers or healers who will do little with the swords they are taught to use, yet many will grow to be l’lendaa and some few even dendayy. As it is impossible to know from the very beginning what each of them will be, they are all taught the same with no distinctions. The first thing they are taught is that a weapon, any weapon, is not to be used without reason. To do so is to be less than a man, for a true man has reason and is able to distinguish between right and wrong.

“Wrong is to use a weapon merely because one is able, merely because it gives one pleasure to do so,” he said. “One must think of oneself among others, and consider if one would find approval in being attacked so by another, merely because that other has greater skill. Should one find a thing wrong when it is done to oneself, it is equally wrong to do the same to others.”

“But that’s what I’ve been saying!” I objected, the confusion I felt making me even more upset. “I’ve been doing terrible wrong, and it doesn’t stop!”

“Hush, wenda,” he scolded gently, briefly putting one hand under my chin. “This is but the first lesson taught a child, and although it is greatly important, it is not the only lesson.

“Once a boy’s teaching with a sword has begun, he must then learn the lesson of patience,” he continued. “When one bears a fine new weapon one has just begun to learn to use, one is eager to test that weapon and learning. There are many contests and trials of skill in which these young l’lendaa are allowed to participate, yet are they forbidden to draw sword at any other time. They are told that one does not bare a blade without using it, therefore are they made to shed a small amount of their own blood if ever they are found with weapon in hand without a proper reason for its being there.”

“You mean they’re forced to cut themselves?” I asked in horror, finally distracted from my own problems. “You make children hurt themselves just for being children?”

“When one begins the lessons of manhood, one must also begin to put away the doings of childhood,” he explained, looking as though he’d expected my comment. “Those young l’lendaa will grow quickly to be men, and as the child is taught, so does the man do. To allow the child to wave his child’s sword about as he wills, is to have a man who does the same with a man’s weapon. Is it not worth a few drops of blood and a wound which quickly heals, to save a life which might be accidently taken by the thoughtless sweep of an unguarded blade?”

It sounded so logical when he put it that way, but it also sounded terribly cold-blooded. I couldn’t quite bring myself to agree with him, but he didn’t wait for agreement.

“Once the l’lenda-to-be has been taught prudence, skill, and patience, he must then be taught the reality of what he does,” I was told. “The contests and trials of skill are engaged in with blunted weapons, and even when one downs one’s opponent, that opponent rises again after, at most, a matter of moments. From such things a boy might come to believe that his opponents will ever rise again after being downed, or that he, himself, will do so after being bested. He must be taught instead that the sword of life is never blunted, that if he should best another that other will never again rise, that if he himself is bested, he will be slain. I will not tell you now what method is used to impress this truth upon them, yet are they taught to know it beyond all possible doubt.”

I shuddered at the grimness in his voice, not about to ask any questions concerning the part he’d left out. I didn’t want to know what method they used to teach boys their own mortality and the mortality of others; it had to be terribly painful, and not necessarily in a physical sense.

“Even with all this preparation,” he went on, “one does not truly become a l’lenda till one has stood in answer to a challenge and has shown one’s strength and understanding. I do not now refer to skill, hama, for to stand victorious after challenge is a self-evident indication of skill. The strength I speak of is the strength to defend one’s self and property, knowing full well that a life will be taken by that action. The understanding necessary is upon the point that one is justified in that defense, that wrong lies with the one who attempts to take what belongs to another, whether that thing is property or life itself. One is wrong to take or attack without provocation, never to defend or protect. A true l’lenda does not joy in bringing others hurt, hama, yet is he able to give that hurt when necessary. It is not only his right, it is his duty.”

He was looking at me now with an expectation of sorts, as if waiting to hear that I understood what he’d said and agreed with it. Everything was always so clear-cut and easily answered to him, so simple and understood with ease. I really did wish I could be that way, but I didn’t seem to have it in me.

“Even if doing it makes him feel like an ugly, horrible creature?” I asked, looking up into those blue eyes that never tried to turn away from unpleasant things. “Even if defending himself makes him feel worse than anything another person could do, including killing him? Isn’t it better to let other people be the monsters, even if you have to die for it? I know you don’t agree with me, but I’d rather be a dead human being than a live monster.”

“You are mistaken, Terril,” he said, and his continuing calm patience surprised me. “I do indeed agree with a part of what you have said. It is far easier to allow others to do as they will, far less damaging to one’s self-image of nobility to merely accept harm and never to give it. One may then smugly say that he has never brought pain or harm to another, and happily accept the end of his life secure in the knowledge of his goodness. If he were not to find an end, however, he might soon discover that his goodness is not quite as extensive as he believes. He, who had the ability and skill to halt one who had no honor, chose instead to accept and allow wrongdoing for the sake of his own comfort. His great sacrifice in the name of good allows a sadarayse, one who is far below the level of a man, to continue on and harm others, perhaps many others before one is attempted who considers the well-being of others above his own. This one will accept the pain of bringing harm to another, so that those innocents beyond him will not suffer needlessly. It is indeed far more pleasant to accept harm to oneself, hama, yet at what cost? A l’lenda has been taught to accept his duty and not shirk it; one who shirks finds more pleasure, yet spurns the necessary. Who, then, I wonder, is truly the monster, the creature? The one who stands and fights, or the one who merely accepts what is given?”

The question, which should have been rhetorical, hung in the air between us like a palpable presence, refusing to let itself be ignored. He was waiting for an answer, demanding that I give one, refusing to let me avoid it. The only problem was that all I had was more confusion, nothing remotely like an answer.

“But you said using my abilities was wrong,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself again to keep from shivering. “You said it more than once and so did others. And you don’t know what it’s like when they’re afraid of you, when they move back to make sure you don’t notice them and do something . . .”

“You believe one who is l’lenda has never been shown fear?” he asked, and this time there was impatient ridicule in his tone and expression. “You have been too much among l’lendaa yourself, Terril, where the fear is not so easily seen. When Cinnan and I spoke to the shopkeepers of this place, many of them trembled to find themselves faced with our presence without the matching presence of l’lendaa of their own. Had they known he and I are dendayy, leaders in our own cities, their fear would have been much greater. We bear weapons which are able to do great harm, you see, and also possess the skill to wield them.”

“But you and Cinnan would never hurt anyone without reason,” I protested, upset even more that he brought up the same point Dallan had. “They have no cause to be afraid of you.”

“And yet they are,” he said, for some reason looking pleased. “When there is fear in a man and he fails to control it, it soon begins to control him instead. A man in control of his fear is aware of all danger around him; a man whose fear is in control sees danger everywhere. The two outlooks are not the same, wenda, and you were not told that the use of your abilities is wrong. You were told that to use them against others without adequate reason was wrong, a distinction you were then unable to make. Now you must strive diligently to make the distinction, for I no longer forbid you the use of your powers.”

I know my jaw hit the ground, then, and from all the way up in his lap, at that. A few days earlier I would have been absolutely delighted to hear him say that, but right then all I felt was panic.

“How can you say that?” I demanded, my voice suddenly as shrill as my eyes were wide. “I’m supposed to be your memabra, subject to you and obedient to you in all things. You can’t just cut me loose that way!”

“I have not-‘cut you loose,’” he denied, and I swear I could see a grin lurking in his eyes. “You remain my memabra and shall continue to be obedient, yet must you see to the matter of your power yourself. I had not understood that to forbid you its use was the same as forbidding a l’lenda grown the use of his sword. A boy child may be made to wound himself and a girl child may be switched, yet a l’lenda grown must be allowed the choice of when to bare his weapon, and a woman of power must be allowed the directing of that power. I attempted to bear the burden for you, hama sadendra, yet this may not be. The burden of power may not be borne by any save its possessor, and that one must be strong. All I may do is aid you in gaining the necessary strength. ”

“But you’re not being fair,” I tried, still feeling horribly-abandoned. “What if I can never be strong enough’? Or what if I decide to use my abilities to get out of having to obey you?”

“You must have the necessary strength, therefore shall we seek together to find it,” he answered, as blind and unsatisfying an answer as I’d ever heard. “And as for obeying me-do you mean to attempt disobeying me, wenda?”

The look in his eyes had hardened with the question, the sort of hardness I’d probably never be able to stand up to even if I lived to be a million years old—and got stronger every year I lived. With my shield still closed I knew he wasn’t projecting at me, which meant there had to be another reason why I squirmed uncomfortably and felt the urge to drop my eyes. I wasn’t afraid of him-exactly—but I also wasn’t quite up to disobeying.

“Stop trying to bully me,” I grumbled, but I’m afraid it came out more a request than an order. “I’m so confused right now that even this tent could intimidate me, so you’re wasting good bullying.”

“Should I have my way, wenda, it will be this camtah especially which intimidates you,” he said, surprisingly looking even more stern than he had. “Your behavior has been reprehensible of late, and I will have no more of it.”

“Behavior?” I echoed, having no idea what he was talking about. “What behavior, and what has it got to do with this tent?”

“You know well enough the behavior I refer to,” he answered stiffly, still mostly thunderous. “For a woman to look with interest upon a man who is not her memabrak is shameful, most especially when he is a man whose bands are on another. You will not again approach Cinnan’s camtah, nor will you look upon him again in such a—a-mindless-manner. You will look only upon me so, else shall I switch you°.”

His voice had by then become nearly a growl, and his brows had lowered so far that they were downright menacing. I was so delighted I let my shield dissolve, and through the curtain I could feel the heavy, ominous green tingeing his thoughts. He really was jealous, but not of Cinnan. He wanted my interest to be his alone, because that interest meant more to him than. he could put into words. I loved him very much right then—but then I remembered a couple of somethings.

“I don’t understand how you expect me to look at you like that,” I said with full innocence, staring up into two dim, dangerous pools of’ blue. “It’s been so long since it was you making love to me, that I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like. If you keep giving a girl away, you can’t blame her for forgetting. ”

“Such forgetting is not possible, wenda,” he growled, really very unhappy with me. “Either a woman prefers one man above all others, or she does not. To know this when she is untouched by others, is not the same as to know it amid much other use. A man who does not fear to share his woman is one who knows well the quality of her love; to refuse to share her is to say he mistrusts her love for him.”

“Well, the least you could do is remind me what you’re like every once in a while,” I answered in annoyance, hating the way he always made things sound so logical-when it was something he wanted to do. “Like now, for instance.”

“No, wenda, I may not use you now,” he denied, his mind under such strong control that it was almost like a physical drawing away. “This would not be the proper time.”

“And why not?” I snapped, suddenly remembering another something else that filled me with the sort of anger that would sear anything it touched. “Can it be you have another date, one that can’t be shoved aside for a while the way I can be? Are you silly enough to believe I don’t know what you felt when you looked at her? Do you think I’ll just step aside and let her lead you off by the nose? Well, do you?”

By that time I was just short of shouting, and not really noticing what must have been a fairly strong projection. Tammad’s mind had winced with the desperate urge to back away, but you can’t back away from someone sitting on your lap. He opted for leaning back instead, trying for distance to give him a chance to fight off my mind, and ended up thunking down flat on the tent floor with me following, leaning on his chest. He looked up at me with an echo of the thunk in his expression, one hand to the back of his head, and if it had been possible for someone with his personality to be really wide-eyed, he would have been wide-eyed.

“Wenda, the woman of Vediaster was not even in my thoughts,” he said, looking confused. “I did no more than recall the bruise upon you, and had no desire to add to your pain. ”

“Oh,” I answered with great intelligence, tempted to feel like an idiot, but that particular subject was too important to me. “Well, you better make sure you keep it that way. I don’t want her anywhere around you, not even in your thoughts. Do you understand me, memabrak?”

“Hama, this jealousy you show is totally uncalled for,” he said with the same sort of innocence I’d used, his grin pure satisfaction. “I have had wendaa without number since I became a man, and have thereby learned that only one holds true interest for me. What others I have now only serve to point up the truth of the matter.”

“If I were you, hamak, I would find a safely banded woman to do any future pointing up with,” I said, moving higher on his chest to look directly down into his eyes. “If you don’t, the woman you find so much interest in might become somewhat annoyed.”

“Wendaa are well known for becoming annoyed,” he said, the blandness in his voice and expression doing nothing to keep his hands from spreading out on my bare back. “I have given my word in gratitude; what if I am called upon to redeem that word?”

“Why, then you’ll just have to honor your word,” I answered, still looking unblinkingly down at him. “While you’re honoring it, though, you’d better keep firmly in mind the fact that I’m no longer forbidden to use my abilities. Other people are one thing, but you are definitely in a class by yourself. If I find you letting that-that female-get her claws into you, I’m going to see how hard it is to make squished l’lenda”

“L’lenda wenda,” he laughed softly, bringing his hands up to my head, feeling not the least intimidated or insulted. Loved and really wanted was what he was feeling, and it came to me then how deeply he had been hurt by all the times I’d insisted I neither loved him nor wanted him. His emotions were always so well covered that I’d never been able to reach that particular set before, but right then his mind was wide open to me. We both needed a time of stern jealousy and deep possessiveness before going back to normal interaction with other people, and that was the time we would be best off taking it before getting it out of our systems. I leaned down and brushed his lips with mine, gently and tenderly, and then had no further patience for gentle and tender. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him with every ounce of strength I had, reaching at the same time for his mind. When he said no he usually meant it, but that time I was the one who refused to argue. I wanted him and I wanted him right then, and for once I got exactly what I wanted.

It took quite a while before it was over, and thanks to pain control I felt nothing but pleasure. When we were finally ready to leave the tent, the barbarian pushed the flaps aside to find our sleeping furs piled up just outside. We’d both forgotten about poor Cinnan, who had apparently gotten tired of waiting for us to get out of his tent. The furs had been put there to tell us we were trading tents for the night whether we liked it or not, and instead of feeling guilty we just laughed and went back inside.