The Warrior Challenged

7

The next few days were spent in normal boring travel, and when I wasn’t giving Tammad lessons in control, I was buried deep in thoughts of my own. What I felt and what I’d been told refused to resolve themselves into something I could cope with, and being on my own as far as my abilities went was horribly unsettling. I still had the same abilities I’d had when I’d started, but suddenly whether or not to use them was entirely my own decision. No Amalgamation to turn me off when my job was over, no Tammad to tell me when I’d done wrong and punish me for it, no Garth to talk me into doing experiments, no Len to warn me about making mistakes. I’d ranted and raved about all the restrictions I’d been under, chafed endlessly and complained bitterly, but now that I had the freedom I’d wanted so badly, I was afraid to do anything with it. I kept my arms very tight around the barbarian as we rode, really wishing he hadn’t decided it was time for me to grow up. I wasn’t ready to grow up, and still wasn’t even entirely convinced that staying with him was the best thing for him.

By the time we’d awakened that very first morning, the woman Leelan was already gone, not only from Dallan’s tent but from the whole camping area. Afterward Dallan said that she’d told him she was on her way to take care of some unspecified business, but would be back in Vediaster’s capital city about three days behind us. If we were still in the city at that time, we were all invited to share the hospitality of her house. That didn’t strike me as an invitation to look forward to, but I found myself very definitely in the minority. My traveling companions thought it was a wonderful idea, but what else can you expect from men?

The pestering I’d been anticipating from Dallan never materialized, and once again it was Leelan I had to thank. The drin of Gerleth, back in his haddin as the others were, was his usual pleasant self when anyone spoke to him, but the rest of the time he was thinking, daydreaming, and fantasizing, three distinctly different efforts. Thinking usually involves facts or speculation from known quantities, daydreaming lets the mind flutter wherever it likes without direction, and fantasizing is the almost-wish for a specific event or circumstance, choreographed and dialogued to satisfy an inner craving. The thing that brought all this to my attention was the way Dallan began to fantasize, then cut it off in annoyance. Among normally intelligent beings, it’s usually daydreaming that’s done the least; what begins directionless is most times quickly diverted to thinking or fantasizing. Dallan wasn’t letting himself fantasize, and his day-dreaming had a lot of rigidity about it.

“Hamak, what’s bothering Dallan?” I finally asked the barbarian in a whisper, also using Centran to keep the conversation more private. “Didn’t he enjoy himself with my noble defender?”

Tammad shifted in the saddle, half annoyed and half relieved that I’d interrupted the individual exercise I’d given him to do, then cast about for a way to answer me.

“He did indeed find enjoyment with the woman,” I was told at last, but almost with an air of discussing things that weren’t quite proper. “Any man would find enjoyment with a woman such as that in his arms.”

“Then what’s the problem?” I asked, ignoring that “any man” phrase he’d used. He’d been pushing away a good deal of disapproval when he’d said it, and I didn’t understand why.

“It is not-proper-to use a woman who is unbanded and then fail to band her,” he managed to get out, part of his mind bent out of shape. “That the woman offered herself to Dallan was of no moment, for she comes from a country unlike our own and the drin meant to have her in any event. Come the start of the new day he would have put his bands upon her, yet had she already gone. Such immoral behavior is greatly vexing to us all, yet there is little we may do at the moment to correct it.”

“Immoral behavior,” I repeated blankly, wondering what I was missing. “You think her having spent the night with Dallan was immoral?”

“Certainly not,” he said in soft exasperation, definitely growing impatient with me. “For a man to take a woman for the darkness is natural, as things were meant to be. For a wenda to take herself off after such a doing, alone and without the protection of a man of her own, is completely unacceptable. What if the merging were to have begun a child? What sort of upbringing would such a child have, with no father to raise it and train it? What of Dallan’s feelings, to think that a child of his might well be without protection and provision? The thing was thoughtless and highly improper, and should not have been done.”

The incensed indignation pouring out at me told me I would be smart to let the whole thing drop, but that didn’t mean I stopped thinking about it. It was hard accepting the apparent fact that on Rimilia it was the man who got caught if he messed around with an unbanded woman, but that was the only way I could make any sense out of it. I already knew that all the children belonged to the men and that if a woman was put up for banding by someone else the children she’d produced didn’t go with her, but I never would have guessed in what direction that line of thinking could go. As long as there was a man there to claim ownership of a child, it didn’t matter who fathered it; how the child turned out after it was raised was the important part. For a woman to take the chance of starting a child and then to disappear without giving the man involved an opportunity to do the right and proper thing was Rimilia’s version of scandalous behavior, and somehow I couldn’t help grinning at the thought. Dallan had been the victim of a hit and run, and he was the one worrying about whether or not that particular night would produce something unexpected.

The country of Vediaster began a few miles beyond the town we’d camped in that first night, but at first there was nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the countryside we’d passed through. Despite the fact that no one had admitted seeing Aesnil and her two companions coming through the town, we were all still certain we were right behind them. The road had widened considerably, a requirement of the volume of traffic that used it, and only short distances of that road wound through forest or uninhabited field. Most of the land all around us was under cultivation, a sign of a prosperous country, but there were also a number of sword-bearing, unbanded women on the road, most of them coming from the opposite direction. None of the three men with me did anything but nod politely in answer to their nods, but the three minds were nothing but disapproving.

We camped the third night in a stand of trees not far from the road, knowing that on the following day we’d reach the city of Vediaster, the seat of power for the country of the same name. Cinnan was distracted and almost unbearably impatient, fighting to keep himself from riding on ahead without rest, just to get there sooner. Dallan was distracted and down in the dumps, fighting to keep from watching behind us for the woman who had said she’d be coming back to the city we were heading for. Tammad was distracted with something he’d been thinking about, something pleasant but also something that was making him the least bit impatient. I was annoyed that it happened to be raining, a light, pleasant rain, but one that meant I couldn’t try my hand at cooking again.

With Dallan finally thinking about something other than his stomach, I’d spent the last three days working at getting the best of our food rather than the other way around, and really believed I was finally getting somewhere. I’d cheated by watching the minds around me as I’d cooked, letting their reactions tell me when it was time to take something out of the fire or time to leave it in a little longer, what to season with and how much to use, what was tasty and what was just barely edible. The most annoying part was that none of the three seemed to notice that they weren’t dying of food poisoning any longer, or that I had taken over something they hadn’t even wanted me to think about. They accepted my efforts without comment and without notice, but at least I felt better about it.

It didn’t take long before the tents were up, and once they were and the seetarr had been unburdened and fed, Cinnan and Dallan disappeared inside with little more than mumbled words of good night. They’d earlier volunteered to share the night watch between them, and Tammad, knowing he wasn’t taking rest away from either one, accepted their offer with thanks. We both took off our rain capes and hung them on the verandah of our camtah, Tammad lit a candle with a small, complicated device I still considered the next thing to magic, and then we, too, went inside.

“Spread our furs, wenda, and then we may share this dimral,” I was told once we were inside, the dimral in question, still wrapped in preserving leaf, tossed to the tent floor. The barbarian was busy settling the candle, and hadn’t looked around when he’d moved through the tent flaps.

“I already have spread the furs,” I pointed out with just a hint of smugness, reaching down for the dimral he’d brought in with him. “I did it while you were feeding the seetarr.”

“Why, so you have,” he observed with pleased surprise as he turned, his tone suggesting that the accomplishment was on a par with building a house single-handedly overnight. “Our meals become more edible with each one that passes, you no longer consider spreading my furs a doing beneath you, and three full days have passed without a single disobedience. Truly do I believe you are at last becoming a woman of this world.”

“You’re teasing me for a reason,” I said, just holding the leaf-wrapped dimral as I looked up at him, undecided whether to be pleased that he’d noticed my cooking after all, or annoyed that he was trying to get a rise out of me. “I can’t tell why, but you definitely have a reason.”

“Indeed I do, wenda,” he answered with a grin, taking the food away from me before settling himself cross-legged on the tent floor. “When our meal is done, it will please me to share the reason with you.”

“Why can’t you share it with me now?” I asked, sitting down to watch him unwrap the meat and get ready to divide it. “I don’t tease you without letting you know why I’m doing it.”

“So I have noticed,” he said, his tone dry and his glance pointed for all its brevity. “Though you insist that holding my efforts at control up to ridicule when they fail to please you will in the end aid me, I continue to find your amusement of very little aid. Ridicule is a good deal more discomforting when one is able to feel it as well as see and hear it.”

“Of course it is,” I agreed without hesitation, reaching for the piece of meat handed to me at the end of his complaint. “It’s also something most people want to avoid at all costs, so they work hard toward that end. I’ve noticed that you’ve been working harder ever since I started laughing where you can hear it.”

“I have also been thinking a good deal more upon the advisability of cutting a switch,” he said, looking straight at me while taking a bite of the meat. “Before we leave these woods, you understand, and I no longer have adequate opportunity. ”

“You’re not going to switch me,” I said with only a little more confidence than I was feeling, taking a small bite of my own. “If you do you know I’ll stop criticizing you, and you can’t afford that at this stage. You just have to grit your teeth and take it.”

“Perhaps I shall be fortunate enough to find another reason to switch you,” he grumbled, chewing morosely. “Is there nothing to be found over which you would disobey me? No insult you would consider giving me before others?”

“Well, if it’s that important to you, I’m sure there’s something I could find,” I decided, inspecting the piece of meat I held before sneaking a look at him. For the briefest moment he forgot we were teasing each other and began straightening in indignation, his shaggy-blond head rising to the challenge, his blue eyes hardening. Then he saw me watching him and he chuckled, the amusement of a man who knew he had nothing to worry about. I’d learned the difference between teasing a man in private and insulting him in public, and wasn’t about to get caught with another punishment. Very obviously and deliberately I looked around to see that we were alone, looked back to the barbarian with a smile, then just as obviously and deliberately stuck my tongue out at him. His chuckling got deeper and heavier, but he didn’t say a word.

We finished our meal under flickering candlelight, the sound of gentle rain pattering lightly all around, the tent a bit on the warm side with the flaps closed. After sharing a drink of water with me Tammad replaced the skin, then turned to take me in his arms. He kissed me gently, almost tenderly, let me go briefly to remove my imad and caldin and his own swordbelt and haddin, put me down on his furs, then snuffed the candle before joining me. There was a strange sort of happiness in him as he put his arms around me again, that impatient excitement I’d felt earlier which didn’t seem to have any cause.

“I had not meant to speak to you of this now, yet has the time presented itself as proper,” he murmured out of the darkness, letting his hands enjoy me as he held me up against him. “This doing with Dallan and the wenda from Vediaster has brought it to mind, and I cannot rid myself of it-Terril, you do indeed become more of a woman of this world with every day which passes, and soon, I know, you will give me the final proof of it. Soon, I know, your body will fill with my child.”

The words were so unexpected and shocking that I stiffened in his arms, literally struck speechless in reaction. My mind curtain kept my feelings from racing out madly and overwhelming him, causing him to misinterpret the single physical indication of response that he had.

“I do not accuse you of being remiss, hama sadendra,” he assured me immediately, holding me more tightly to comfort my upset. “It disturbed me a great deal when I failed to put a child on you, and at last I spoke of this disturbance to Lenham and Garth. It was then that I learned of the manner in which the wendaa of your worlds keep themselves childless, and that this method must be renewed every so often, else will it fail. They and I calculated that soon you will no longer be held by the thing, and then we may begin the first of many children. I find myself as eager as a boy before his first woman, hama, and cannot wait till my love is within you. You will give me fine, strong sons, I know and, as was once told me, daughters of a beauty to steal my sleep. My love for you is very full.”

And then he kissed me again, the love he spoke of flowing out of his mind and encompassing me. After that, of course, his lovemaking turned more physical, but if my life depended on remembering the time, I would be in a good deal of danger. He did what he usually did to me and somehow I responded, but once it was over and he had fallen asleep, I crept out of his furs and into mine, where I lay curled up on my side in shock.

The sleeping fur was soft and comfortable, and I didn’t need to cover myself in the close, stuffy darkness. My cheek enjoyed the feel of the fur, as did my entire left side, the pain from the bruise on my ribs almost gone. My thumb moved to my lips and I thought about making myself even more comfortable and serene, in a way I hadn’t used since I was a very little girl. The dark was so nice and warm, soothing and concealing, and I could stay in it as long as I liked, as long as I—

DON’T!

My mind clanged with the scream and then I was trembling and crying, still in the grip of hysteria but at least free of the terrifying beginning of catatonic withdrawal. Some part deep inside me, a ,calm, sad part, didn’t let the terror take me again, and helped me to keep the cleansing emotional storm from waking Tammad. I couldn’t face him right then, not even in pitch darkness, and the tears streaming down my face made that abundantly clear.

It took awhile before I was up to thinking again, and even then I didn’t really want to. I turned onto my back in the furs with a shuddering sigh, draped my right arm over my eyes, and let the feeling of exhaustion quiet me. For once my emotions were very easy to separate, but that wasn’t to say they were calm and under control. I was back to living with a whirlwind in my mind, but at least I could see the components of it.

The first and easiest part of my problem was the way I felt about being pregnant. I loved Tammad and wanted to give him everything I could, but there was something frightening and vaguely disgusting in the thought of having a child put in me deliberately. I knew people did it all the time all over the Amalgamation, but I’d always felt reluctant and repelled, and couldn’t seem to shake the attitude. What made it the easier part of my problem was that I was on Rimilia, a place where women didn’t have to worry about that sort of thing. I seemed to have lost all track of time, but my six-months-worth of protection shouldn’t have had much more than two or three months left to go. Once it had worn off I would be immediately vulnerable, and Tammad would waste no time asking if I were ready and willing. He would take me in his arms and kiss me as he entered my body, and then it would be done the way Rimilian men always did it. There would be no pain, only overwhelming pleasure, and afterward I would be as happy as he was. I knew I would be happy—and that was my second, almost shattering problem, the one that had nearly caused me to withdraw from reality.

I took my arm down from my eyes, seeing splotches of brief, bright color before the darkness closed in again, hearing the soft breathing of my sadendrak where he lay asleep to my right. Sadendrak. The word meant someone who brought meaning to your life, someone whose absence would make that life not worth living. I would gladly die for my hamak

sadendrak, my beloved reason for living, and sooner die than tell him I knew how happy I would be with his child inside me-because I’d already had the experience.

Toward the end of my first stay on Rimilia, I’d suddenly discovered one day that my protection had worn off without my knowing it, and that I was pregnant. At first I hadn’t known what to do, and then I’d wanted to tell Tammad, but we were then in the middle of the Ratanan, the Great Meeting, that was so important to Tammad and the Amalgamation alike. I’d decided it wasn’t the time to distract him with my news so I’d waited, but before the right time carne he sent me back to my embassy, fulfilling the word he’d given on the matter even before I’d left Central. I didn’t know then that he was planning to follow almost immediately and claim me permanently, I’d thought he didn’t want me anymore once he no longer had need of my abilities. Almost as soon as I’d reached the embassy I’d taken a transport back to Central, and the first thing I’d done on Central was have the fetus removed from me and placed in stasis.

Tammad, my beloved, I’ve already been given your child—and I had it removed and put in a place where it will live forever but never grow large enough to be born, never be something to hold in your arms to love as you raise it.

How was I supposed to tell him that? It would be hard enough to say to a man of Central; how was I supposed to say it to a Rimilian?

If I could get back to Central I could have it reimplanted, but the only transport available was at our embassy, which was a long way away from where I currently was. How did I get back there without telling Tammad why I had to go, why it would be best if he didn’t go with me?

What would I do if I couldn’t get back, and time passed, and he made me pregnant again before I could retrieve our first child?

How did I explain that I’d given away a child that was his, on that world much more his than it could ever be a woman’s?

What was I going to do? What could I do?

I put my hands over my face to try to hide in an even deeper dark, but unfortunately I’d already gotten over the compulsion to hide. I knew I would have to face my number one problem head on, at some time in the near future, in a way that wouldn’t make Tammad hate me forever.

The only thing I didn’t know was how I was going to do that.

We reached the city of Vediaster about mid-morning of the following day, coming in from fields and forests that sparkled under the bright sun after the previous day’s rain. Vediaster was as open and unwalled as Tammad’s city on the plains had been, but in this new place I’d been able to find no trace of guarding l’lendaa, fighting men assigned to make sure the city wasn’t hit with a surprise attack. I hadn’t even detected the presence of w’wendaa in their place, which had to mean there were no guards. Vediaster was nothing but an open city, welcoming everyone who came.

The four people who rode into the city that morning were a silent group, each one concerned with his or her own thoughts. Cinnan began searching faces as soon as there were faces to search, half of him pleased there were so many females to check, half of him growing anxious and desperate at the numbers. Dallan also began searching faces, but he wasn’t looking for the same one and wasn’t even aware that he was doing it. Tammad was still considering what to say to the Chama of Vediaster, deciding what to tell the woman ruler of that country that would get her to go along with everyone else on Rimilia in their dealings with the Centran Amalgamation. The Amalgamation had been given permission to build the political complex they wanted to put on Rimilia, and in return the Rimilians were to have certain gifts. Tammad had been arranging everything, and although the leaders of my Amalgamation didn’t yet know it, those arrangements were designed to give Rimilia the upper hand in all negotiations and, eventually, control of the Amalgamation itself. I didn’t completely understand how that was supposed to happen, but Tammad did and he was seeing to it. Taking on the entire Amalgamation didn’t bother him in the least, nowhere near as much as my problems bothered me.

The imad and caldin I wore were too heavy for me to be really comfortable in that warm sunshine, but I soon became even more uncomfortable for another reason. When I’d first entered Tammad’s city riding behind him, all of the women on the streets of that city were dressed and banded the way I was, in imadd and caldinn and differing numbers of small-linked, bronze indications of ownership. The crowds on the streets of Vediaster were the same, men and women and children everywhere, passing or in front of or moving in and out of the one-story stone and wood buildings and shops, but the composition and appearance weren’t the same. The men were far fewer in number, and the vast majority of them weren’t l’lendaa. The children running around playing chase games were identical, but most of the women they accompanied or played near were not in imadd and caldinn. The women wore cloth breeches and shirts and heavy sandals, and even the ones who weren’t armed didn’t wear wenda bands. Here and there a skirted figure could be seen hurrying along with head down, apparently as uncomfortable at being barefoot and banded as I was becoming. The women we passed as we rode by turned to stare at me with disapproving frowns, and if my curtain hadn’t been in place and thickened, it probably would have been unbearable. The three men I rode with were tolerated, but my presence wasn’t accepted well at all.

“I think we had best decide now whether to approach the palace of the Chama at once and openly,” Tammad said suddenly to the other two men, his voice held low despite the crowd-noise and city-sounds nearly drowning him out. “To believe we will simply stumble across Aesnil upon one of the streets of the city would be foolish, even with the aid of a seetar who continues to feel her clearly. When she is found it will almost certainly be at the palace, yet must we decide whether to approach it openly.”

“As you did in Grelana, when you came in search of Terril,” Dallan said, doubling the point Tammad was trying to make. “You demanded your wenda from Aesnil, and were given a place in her vendra ralle instead.”

“There is no reason to believe that the Chama of Vediaster will do as Aesnil did,” Cinnan said, maintaining the position he’d held to doggedly for the last three days. “Should we offer courtesy of manner, we will likely receive the same in return. ”

“And if we do not?” Tammad asked, his mind wary with “once bitten, twice shy.”

“Should we be taken in this city and thrown into chains, who will there be to help free us? Who will there be to be certain of Aesnil’s safety? Should we be called upon to fight for our freedom, which of us will find it possible to raise sword to a wenda? Are we to welcome the choice between our lives and safety and theirs?”

“What other choice have we?” Cinnan asked, his tone strong but his mind upset. “Should we not present ourselves at the palace, we will not find Aesnil.”

“Merely to appear there will not immediately bring Aesnil to view, Cinnan,” Dallan put in, still determined to be more practical than sympathetic. “The palace here is easily the size of Aesnil’s, perhaps even larger. Do you mean to tramp up and down its halls, peering into every room’.’ What courtesy will be found in such a manner?”

“Then what are we to do?” Cinnan demanded in a hiss, his agitation so strong that his seetar snorted and shook its head. “Do you propose that we take ourselves secretly into the palace in the guise of wendaa, hoping that those who stand guard will fail to notice us? Or do you prefer that we stand about outside the palace, telling one another amusing tales the while we attempt to see in through windows?”

“Cinnan, calm yourself,” the barbarian advised softly, noticing but not looking at the people who had begun to stare at him as we passed. “We will indeed enter the palace, yet not as those who ride in search of a wenda. I will seek an audience with the Chama, and will tell her of the outworlders and what we mean to do to best them. Once she has agreed to join us, we will broach the subject of Aesnil.”

Three women on seetarr galloped past us going in the opposite direction while Cinnan digested that, but the dust raised by their passage didn’t readily settle down. I could smell food, and people, and animals, and dust, all around and getting stronger almost by the minute. It was all giving me a not-quite headache and a queasiness in my stomach, a general sensation of not feeling really well. We hadn’t been traveling long that day, but I was also feeling very tired and wishing there were good-quality accommodations nearby, someplace with an air-conditioned room, a soft, wide bed, and an excellent kitchen supplying room service. The barbarian’s hard body was hot where I held him around, —and I was close enough to smell his sweat.

“Such an approach would indeed be the wisest way,” Cinnan grudged at last, his normal intelligence struggling to drag him away from the urge toward hysterics that he’d felt ever since Aesnil’s disappearance. “This seetar would surely find it possible to lead me to my wenda, yet is the Chama unlikely to appreciate his presence in her halls. We three shall approach the matter as you suggest.”

“Not we three,” Tammad corrected, and again I could feel his mind working. “It would be best to have one without the palace, one who would either be able to aid us should ill befall us, or ride to fetch our l’lendaa. We know not why Aesnil was brought here, yet is it near certain that she was brought rather than merely accompanied. I had not wished to increase your distress, Cinnan, yet has the time come to speak of the matter.”

“And I am the one to remain behind,” Dallan said with understanding and approval, trying to help soothe Cinnan. “I shall watch carefully from afar, and should any difficulty arise, I will do what seems best.”

“And I will wait with him,” I said, suddenly understanding, despite the faintly vague way I felt, that that might help me with my problem. Dallan had always been someone I could talk to, and even if he yelled at me I was sure he would be able to come up with something I could do.

“No, wenda, you will continue to accompany me,” the barbarian said at once, aiming the words at me over his right shoulder. “The drin Dallan must fade from sight when he leaves us, and this your presence would make more difficult. ”

“I would need to do no more than change my clothing and remove my bands,” I protested, looking up at the face turned partway to me. “How might a man hide himself more easily than a woman in a city such as this?”

“As the clothing of a plains woman suits you best, and I shall not permit my bands to be removed from you, there is little need to discuss how your dark hair and green eyes would not go unnoticed,” he answered, his voice as calm as his mind. “You will remain with the man who has banded you, and will obey him as you must.”

“You’re being unreasonable,” I came back in Centran, more annoyed than I’d expected to be. “I can see that the people here are as blond as everywhere else, but dark hair is only unusual, not unheard of. And if necessary, I can probably find a way to cover it. Let me go with Dallan. ”

“No,” was all he said before turning his face away from me again, absolute finality in the word. His mind was made up, and he wasn’t about to change it.

Only two more streets were gone behind us before their general plans were hammered out, and then Dallan wished his two companions good luck and turned his seetar toward a side street leading off to the right from the main thoroughfare we continued along. I seethed in anger as I watched him go, deeply resenting the fact that I couldn’t go with him. I wasn’t being allowed to go with him, but no one cared how angry that made me. I was being forced to obey the man who had banded me, and that was the way things were supposed to be.

Cinnan and the barbarian engaged in very little conversation for the rest of the ride, but strangely enough Cinnan seemed to have calmed down. It looked like he found Aesnil’s being taken from him easier to accept than the thought of her running away, and his mind was filled with cool planning and consideration instead of agitation. Tammad’s thick calm was shielding his mind again, but beneath it I could feel his own plotting and calculating. Both of them ignored me as if I weren’t there, and for them I wasn’t. Even Tammad couldn’t reach through my curtain to what I was really feeling, and he and Cinnan both were taking silence for acquiescence.

It was somewhat surprising to find the palace in the center of the city, only fifty feet of emptiness and a high stone wall separating it from the buildings, houses and shops surrounding it. There was a wide gap in the wall that seemed to be a major gate, guarded by a number of tall, armed women dressed in yellow, with grim, dedicated expressions on their faces; when the barbarian told them he’d come to speak with the Chama, we were all made to dismount. The women looked the two l’lendaa over with hums of interest in their minds, and although Tammad’s expression never changed, his mind bulged with held-down outrage and indignation. His definition of female didn’t include such behavior, and if he’d been anywhere but Vediaster at that particular time he would have let them know it. He wasn’t about to jeopardize Cinnan’s chances of getting Aesnil back, but the way he was gritting his mental teeth almost made me grin.

Five of the guardswomen escorted us across the ground toward the palace proper, which meant I didn’t get to spend much time with the urge to grin. Every one of them considered me something low and distasteful, unappetizing in the extreme and nothing to associate with or even to walk too near. If it were jealousy or envy, emotions I’d read in other women more than once, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but all those women felt was disgust and scorn. I walked barefoot across the grass behind two of them, Cinnan and Tammad to either side of me, tasting the way I was unarmed, dressed in ankle-length skirts, banded, and having been ridden behind a man. Any one of those things would have produced the disgust, but all of them together did more than that. To those large, proud women I was a lower life form, and the taste of that made me sicker and more depressed than I had been.

The sun shone bright off the white walls of the palace as we approached it, and boys came running out to take the seetarr leads Cinnan and Tammad held, then began leading the beasts away. The two boys wore nothing but light brown cloth wrapped loosely around their waists, definitely not haddinn and not meant to be, while bright rings of bronzecolored metal circled their throats. The two men watched the boys who were taking their mounts and pack beasts to be seen to until they were a good distance away, and then Tammad turned to the woman who seemed to be the leader of our escort.

“You keep boys as slaves?” he asked, the calm holding his voice neutral but only barely. “How is it possible for them to have been taken in battle, or to have committed crimes of such severity that condemnation is their lot? They are barely more than children.”

“They are slaves,” the woman corrected with an uncaring shrug, barely glancing at the barbarian. “Your land has its manner of enslaving, we in our land have ours. Come this way.”

The woman’s eyes had brushed me briefly as she turned and headed off, her meaning obvious and intended as a counter to Tammad’s comment about the boys. Both men mentally brushed off the dig as foolishness, but for the first time in a good number of days I felt the confinement of the bands I wore. They had been put on by a man to tell other men that I wasn’t free for the taking, but I was the one who couldn’t get them off. Not having the strength to remove them meant I also lacked the choice about whether or not to wear them, and that suddenly seemed very unfair. Before banding me Tammad had given me the choice, but the only alternative then had seemed to be an endless series of fights that the barbarian would get into with men who didn’t know I was his. He had offered to leave me unbanded if that was what I really wanted, and it had turned out not to be what I wanted at all; had that really been my decision—or merely the first time I’d been maneuvered into obedience?

The palace corridors were wide and cool, but not with the cool of marble. Walls, floor and ceiling were of a shining white rock, and underfoot it was smoother than even years of walking would have made it. Occasional hangings of silk broke up the stone expanse, along with torch and candle holders, paintings, wooden carvings, and jeweled constructions of glass and metal. I would have enjoyed moving more slowly to admire some of those things, but the female guards moved along at a brisk pace, one the two l’lendaa had no trouble matching. I was the only one who had to hurry to keep up.

The women led us quite a ways into the palace, then finally stopped at a beautifully carved wooden door that seemed no different from any of the other similar ones we’d passed. Cinnan had been growing anxious again, but I still hadn’t let myself search mentally for Aesnil. No matter what Tammad had said or how Cinnan felt, there was no guarantee Aesnil hadn’t come to that place voluntarily; if she had, I wasn’t going to be the one to cause her being dragged out of it again.

“You will all wait in here,” the leader of the guard said to us, throwing open the door. “Should the Chama agree to grant you an audience, you will be told.”

“And how long a time is that likely to be?” Tammad asked, looking down at the woman instead of walking through the door. He was supposed to have obeyed her without question, and she stiffened with annoyance when he didn’t. Nothing in his expression showed it, but he’d been expecting the annoyance and was enjoying it.

“It will be till the Chama has made her decision,” the woman answered, refusing to let herself snap the words out despite the anger in her light eyes. “Enter the room or leave the palace.”

Put that baldly there was nothing else to do, but the barbarian continued to look at the woman for a long moment before turning to walk through the doorway. During that moment the woman’s expression hadn’t changed any more than his, but the stiffness of her body was beginning to change to tension because of the worry starting to show in her eyes. If Tammad and Cinnan refused her orders there would be a fight, and somehow she knew the two men would not be easily taken. Her left palm had unconsciously caressed her sword hilt as she’d locked eyes with him, and Tammad had known as clearly as I that she would not back down if it did come to a fight. He didn’t like the woman, but he did give her grudging respect; for that reason, as well as the original ones we had come there for, he turned and led the way into the room.

After all the stone of the corridor, the medium-sized room came as something of a surprise. The floor was carpeted with fur and had quite a few pillows scattered around, but three of the walls and the ceiling were hidden behind a facing of brownish rock, with nothing in the way of silk to decorate it. Large candles burned in sconces on each of those walls, throwing back the dark there would have been without them. There wasn’t a sign of a window in the place, and when the guard leader closed the door behind us it made me very uncomfortable.

“This room is too close,” Cinnan observed as he looked around, heavy disapproval in him. “Perhaps we should have insisted upon seeing the Chama at once.”

“They would not have allowed it,” Tammad said, also looking around from the center of the room. “There is naught we may do save wait-without refreshments of any sort.”

“Barbaric,” Cinnan muttered, his sense of propriety greatly offended. “Wendaa have no true knowledge of hospitality. Without the guidance of men, they behave as mondarayse.”

“Best we recall that we are the outlanders here, not they,” the barbarian cautioned, his glance at Cinnan agreeing with the sentiment but not the voicing of it. “Should the time drag on to too great a length, we will recall to them the duties of a host. ”

Cinnan grunted agreement without adding anything else, and the two of them chose cushions and pieces of carpeting to stake out as their own. They were getting themselves comfortable to wait as long as necessary, but for some reason I couldn’t get myself to the same point of patience. I moved slowly into the center of the room, very aware of the carpeting under my bare feet, beginning to sweat in the closed-in, airless place. I didn’t like all that brown rock on the walls around me, the clothing I wore hung more heavily than ever, and something about that whole situation didn’t make any sense. I frowned in thought for a minute. Was it possible all people showing up at the palace to see the Chama were invited in to wait? Without asking who they were? Without trying to find out what their business was? Without knowing whether they were friend or foe? We hadn’t been asked any questions at all, and the two men with me had accepted the lack without even noticing it. On that world women didn’t question men, not unless they were asking for instructions, so Tammad and Cinnan hadn’t noticed . . . . Hadn’t noticed, but what were they supposed to have noticed? There was something, I’d been thinking about it only a minute earlier, but somehow it had slipped away again. I shook my head to get the sweat-dampened hair off my shoulders, trying to clear the thickening mush filling my mind. It was so hot in that room that I was sweating, and the heat and sweating were making it impossible to think.

“Wenda, are you ill?” Cinnan’s voice came, filled with concern. “Why do you appear so strange, and why do you merely stand there?”

I looked over toward him slowly, trying to understand what he was saying, but everything felt so confused and difficult. Thinking was too hard, much too hard, and wasn’t even worth the trouble. I put my hands to my head, frowning at Cinnan through waves of uncaring exhaustion, vaguely wondering what he was saying, vaguely wondering why Tammad was sitting and staring and blinking slowly at nothing. Not sitting precisely, but slumping, almost as though he hadn’t the strength to sit. No strength, none at all, no will, no strength, no volition. No, nothing, none, a humming chant lulling me, the dance of Cinnan’s struggle to rise flowing with the beat. Cinnan wanted to get to his feet but he couldn’t, even though he was trying very hard. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t do it, and neither did I. Tammad lay slumped on the carpet and Cinnan struggled to rise, and I no longer had the strength of will to stay awake.