The Warrior Enchained

5

He stirred in the bed beside me, his mind coming instantly awake the way an animal’s does, no pauses to question location or self, no sense of disorientation whatsoever. He picked up the thread of consciousness so quickly it was almost as though he had never let it go, even through hours of sleep. He shifted gently and put his arms around me, one below my body, one above, immediately spreading his hands out. If I hadn’t already been awake I would have returned to awareness thinking we had spent our sleep time like that, pressed together in mutual pleasure. I stirred to the stroking of his fingers, feeling the deep pleasure in his mind, feeling the relief he felt at being able to acknowledge that pleasure. He hadn’t been able to do that the last time he’d touched me, and why he had held himself back was perfectly clear.

“I feel you are awake, hama,” he murmured, putting his lips to my hair. “Is this not so?”

“Yes, I’m awake,” I agreed, not moving any more than I had to. When I didn’t add anything, he moved even closer.

“The night was filled with much pleasure for us,” he pursued, pulling me tightly against him. “I have not had such deep response from you since before we parted. You cannot deny the significance of the thing.”

“So you proved you’ve made me as lustful for your body as you seem to be for mine.” I shrugged, keeping my tone light and uncaring. “Do you mean you intend making me rape you from now on?”

“I mean nothing of the sort,” he answered from behind me, annoyance beginning to push his pleasure aside. “It is clear to me, and should be equally as clear to you, that your desire for me is as it was. Speaking words to the contrary will do naught to alter this.”

“I thought you didn’t care what I said,” I observed, feeling his annoyance increase. “I thought you were taking me to Rimilia even if I had to go kicking and screaming all the way. Wasn’t that little charade you devised before last sleep period meant to make life in the furs more pleasant for you? I can’t very well deny it worked, because it did. In future, I’ll probably find it impossible not to respond exactly as you wish.”

“That was not my sole consideration,” he objected, suddenly moving his bands so he could shift me around to face him. The light in the cabin was dim, but I’ve never needed external light to see him. His mind and personality were an inner blaze of light, growing stronger whenever he became angry. “I primarily wished you to know the depth of frustration possible when the one you desire feels no desire for you,” he said, staring down into my eyes. “It is also necessary that you learn to please a man to a greater extent than you have so far attained. Much pleasure is lost to ignorance when it need not be so.”

“Well, there’s no denying I learned something,” I muttered, looking down from his eyes to stare at his chest. “I never had the least urge to do that before, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Did you really enjoy it as much as you seemed to?”

“It was magnificent.” He laughed softly, gathering me close to him. “As your expertise grows, it will become even more magnificent. I have not had sufficient opportunity to school you in such things, which shows how great a fool I am. I should undoubtedly have made the opportunity.”

“You were too concerned with other things of greater importance,” I said into his chest, rubbing my cheek against it. “Even if I went with you, nothing would change. You’re part of something that goes beyond personal preference, beyond pleasure and desire. What do you intend doing with Garth?”

“He will aid my people and become one of them,” he answered after a very brief hesitation, his mind closing into a guarded mold I’d seen before. “His assistance will secure for him a life he now seeks in vain. Ire, like you, will find acceptance among my people.”

“But not if he doesn’t do things for them,” I pointed out, keeping my eyes down. “If he just tries to live among them, doing nothing special, he’ll just be an outsider to be ignored and forgotten. No one will care about him or care whether he stays or goes.”

“This is not true,” be denied, beginning to feet a faint upset. “My people concern themselves with strangers among them, ever seeking to make them less of a stranger and more of a brother. One does not build a strong community by denying others entrance to it nor disallowing their assistance.”

“No one welcomes a stranger without demanding an entrance price,” I maintained. “If they can’t pay the price they become outcasts, unwanted and uncared about. I wonder how long you’ll even remember me, once you have someone else to do your work. Will you think of me from time to time, and at least wonder what I’m doing?”

He was quiet for a moment, ripples of disturbance touching his mind, and then his hands were at my face, lifting it so that I must look at him.

“You speak as though you believe you will not accompany me,” he said, his voice soft but his eyes directly on me. “However this thought came to you, it is untrue. You will indeed accompany me wherever I go.”

“As nothing more than your woman?” I smiled, then shook my head. “You’d probably starve to death waiting for me to learn how to cook. And you don’t even really want me that way. You told me so before we slept.”

“I said no such words!” be growled, working automatically to keep his distress from growing. “Never would I have said such words!”

“You didn’t have to put it into words,” I answered, losing the smile. “You mind is the strongest I’ve ever seen anywhere, and last sleep period you did something I didn’t think was possible. You hid your feelings from me, so completely I didn’t even know you were doing it. I know how great an effort you had to make, and I also know you wished you didn’t have to make that effort. With an ordinary woman, the effort would be unnecessary.”

“It is possible one might indeed be loath to make such an effort,” he agreed, keeping his eyes directly on me. “However, should one prefer a woman who is far from ordinary, one will make the effort gladly. I have no interest in ordinary wendaa; my desire is solely for you. Perhaps I had best prove this.”

He immediately lowered his lips to mine then, cutting off all further discussion. His desire leapt as quickly into being as it usually did, igniting my own desire, but I felt the need to make an effort of my own. It was impossible not to do and act exactly as he wished, but that time I refused to let our minds merge, refused to allow him entrance to my deepest feelings. My body was his completely, the pool he plumbed to the furthest depths, the vessel he filled with the wine of desire; my mind was encased by a trembling will, as weak as a thought, as strong as desperation. When he was through with me he held me in his arms, his body only partially satisfied, his mind filled with frustration. He tried to hide that frustration the way he’d hidden his desire, but the sour emotions are always harder to handle.

“The experiment didn’t work out too well, did it?” I asked, feeling like an intruder in his arms. “The deep unending love you claim to feel for me seems to be based on what I am, not who I am. How long would your love continue if I never let our minds merge again?”

“I do not have the words to speak what I feel.” He groped, the frustration increasing. “Why do you feel it necessary to withhold yourself from me? Why do you seek to be what you are not?”

“I want to be wanted for the kind of person I am, not for what I can do,” I whispered, close to tears. “Is that so wrong? Am I being totally unreasonable pointing out that all you’re interested in is what I can do for you, even in bed? You don’t really want me, and we both know it.”

“This is not the truth,” he sighed, holding me close to comfort the tears he could undoubtedly feel on his chest. “I am able to think of no way to prove this to you, yet to me it is patently untrue. Perhaps one day I will find the means to prove my words, yet at this moment I am unable to do so. You must take the words and cause yourself to believe them, for they are all I have.”

He projected calm belief as he held me, obviously trying to convince me that way, but his emotions were too well under his control for them to make the sort of impression he was hoping for. I didn’t spend too much time crying, but the tears I did shed weren’t wasted; every farewell deserves at least a few tears. After a few minutes Tammad stirred, then kissed me before getting up and reaching .for his haddin.

“Do you now dress yourself,” he directed, looking down at me as he wrapped the cloth around himself. “You will eat well this day, and then, perhaps, matters will seem less insoluble to you.”

“You expect food to solve all our problems?” I asked, sitting up to wrap my arms around my knees. “Even a nine course banquet wouldn’t stand much of a chance.”

“We will at least make the attempt,” he chuckled, moving over to the light dial. Turning the dial brightened the cabin and let me see his grin, but it also showed me the well-worn imad and caldin, lying crumpled on the floor where they had been thrown. I sighed over the determination in his mind, got out of bed, then threw the dirty clothing into the wall cleaner before going to wash. I didn’t want to put those things on again, but it was that or walk around naked until I had my own things back. Naked would have been bad enough all by itself, but with the barbarian around it was impossible. He kept his eyes on me constantly until the cleaned clothing was returned by the wall recess and put on, and only then led the way out of the cabin to the common area. If he was trying to show how much he wanted me, he could have chosen a less unnerving way of making the attempt. All he did with his try was make me too aware of his determination.

I suppose I expected the common area to be empty, but as soon as the cabin door opened I found I was wrong. All six of Tammad’s l’lendaa were them, sitting where they’d been the last time I’d seen them, none of them aware of being watched by Garth, who was also in his usual place. The main point of interest for Garth seemed to be the three female trippers, who now sat among the six men, laughing in delight as they fed their giant captors by hand. When one of the men ignored the bit of food being offered him and snapped instead at the hand holding it, the woman involved shrieked in mock fear, setting off further laughter in everyone else. It was an unexpectedly jolly and intimate grouping, and Garth was filled with vast confusion. When Tammad spoke to him, he started guiltily.

“What?” he asked, turning his head to look up at the barbarian. “I’m sorry, I didn’t bear what you said.”

“I merely asked after your sleep,” Tammad answered, lowering himself to the carpeting without showing any of the amusement he felt. “Was it adequate to your needs?”

“I suppose so,” Garth muttered, reaching for the cup of hot kimla sitting on the small table at his elbow. He sipped at the kimla then sat staring at it, just as though there were nothing else in the room worthy of his attention. I sat myself on the carpeting beside Tammad, not too near, not too far, hoping I might be forgotten. I didn’t have much of an appetite, and wasn’t in the mood for an argument.

“You seem uncertain in your answer,” Tammad observed, still talking to Garth. “Do you perhaps feel a lack unshared by those about you?”

“Aside from the fact that I seem to be the only one who slept alone, not at all,” Garth answered, watching his cup until he drank from it. “Maybe I ought to borrow some of the crew’s dip-reals.”

“Ah, you feel yourself badly used,” Tammad nodded. “Or perhaps it would be more apt to say, badly unused.”

“Are you laughing at me?” Garth demanded, raising furious eyes toward a Tammad who was grinning faintly. “You are laughing at me!”

“I merely find amusement in a discomfort l’lendaa rarely know,” the barbarian soothed him, leaning back against his pillows. “If you wished a woman, why did you not take one?”

“Just like that?” Garth asked, sarcasm strong in his voice. “Sure, why not. Come on, Terry, it’s my turn.”

I continued to sit where I was, knowing Garth wasn’t serious, knowing he bad no intentions himself of getting up. But I wouldn’t have minded leaving at that, since I had the vary strong conviction that Tammad bad set himself to teach Garth a lesson, one that I would not particularly care for.

“This woman is mine,” Tammad told hire mildly, merely stating a fact that called for no argument. “Should her use be given to another the decision would also be mine. Your request was not serious, I know, yet you addressed yourself to her. Why did you not address me?”

“Because you’re not my type,” Garth snorted, sending Tammad a sour look. “Do you really expect me to take this discussion seriously?”

“Perhaps not,” Tammad conceded. “Perhaps it is impossible to teach a man of your worlds freedom. Why did you not take one of the other females to your bed? My warriors are not that badly in need, and are aware that you are my guest.”

“Why—I don’t know.” Garth faltered, suddenly finding more sobriety in the discussion. “Was I supposed to just walk over and pick one? What if she refused to go with me? And don’t you remember how they were acting? What if the one I picked had hysterics?”

“There seem to be a great many reasons why it was best for you to remain alone in your bed,” the barbarian said, not conceding the point in the slightest. “Had my warriors been equally concerned with questions such as those, they too would have slept alone. And perhaps the females would not be as pleased as they appear to be.”

“And that’s another thing I don’t understand,” Garth complained, turning his head to look at the other group again. “Suddenly those three can’t do enough for your men, and they’re practically singing while they do it. Unless I’ve gone stark, raving mad, those women were raped during the sleep period, and by two men each. Now, I’ve seen women who were raped before, and none of them looked like those three. They were more like what those three looked like before the sleep period.”

The bewilderment in Garth’s voice was painful to hear, almost as painful as feeling it in his mind. He turned tragic eyes to Tammad, who gave him understanding without pity.

“Perhaps the reason for this is clear once it is explained,” he said, then gestured toward the other group. “Perhaps asking them would assist you.”

Garth, embarrassed, hesitated. “How could I—” then stopped in confusion before turning his desperation toward me. “Terry, tell me what they’re feeling,” he pleaded, his face as flushed as if he’d been running. “I can’t just go over there and ask them, but you don’t have to.”

“I don’t know how many times I have to say it,” I observed, ignoring his desperation. “I’m not here to make life easier for you mighty males, even in passing. If you want to go through channels to get an answer, be my guest. I’m sure the captain knows the right frequency to reach Central central.”

His embarrassment faded immediately to angry annoyance, echoing the annoyance that came more strongly from Tammad. The barbarian hadn’t really wanted me to read the women for Garth, but he didn’t care for the way I had refused. He had the distinct impression I’d meant the words for him as well—and he was right.

“It seems you have now discovered why one does not plead with a woman,” he said as Garth began drawing himself up. “Yet this discovery is only incidental to the purpose of our discussion. We have as yet to discover the reason for the behavior which disturbs you. Let us question one of the three together.”

Garth let his anger at me drain off reluctantly, then turned his attention back to Tammad. The barbarian had gotten the attention of one of his men, and had pointed out the girl he had chosen for his victim. The l’lenda took the girl’s arm, spoke to her quietly, then gestured toward Tammad, causing the girl to lose most of the laughter that bad filled her. She hesitated very briefly, as though gathering her nerve, before getting to her feet. By the time she was standing in front of us, her defensiveness was a mile high and a yard thick. I recognized her as the one Tammad had sent to wake me the day-period before, and wondered why he kept singling her out.

“My companion wishes to speak with you,” Tammad told her, nodding toward Garth. Hi a voice had been very gentle and encouraging, but that hadn’t done much to affect the girl’s stiffness. She turned her head to Garth, waiting without speaking, defying him with her eyes no matter what he wanted.

“I have a question,” Garth said, his voice as gentle and confident as Tammad’s had been. He wasn’t feeling any less distress than he bad been, but he’d been embarrassed once over the distress and didn’t want it to happen again. “You and your friends seem a good deal happier than you seemed before the sleep period. I won’t pretend I don’t know what happened to you three between then and now, so my question should be obvious. Why are you so much happier?”

The girl drew herself up, her face tinged with pink, her body trying to look dignified even in the altered towel she still wore. It didn’t seem possible for her defensiveness to increase, but she proved it was more than possible.

“We were hard up and got taken care of!” she snapped, her shoulders tensing to the scrape in her voice. “Chalk it up to that!”

“Now, look . . . !” Garth began, his own voice beginning to be angry and offended, but Tammad interrupted before a shouting match could start.

“Why do you speak so, wench?” he asked, his tone still mild but his voice sharpening just enough for her to notice. “A question was asked you; we await a civil answer.”

The girl’s bead snapped around to allow her to stare at Tammad, but whatever she’d been prepared to say to him was swallowed when she met his gaze. She bit her lip, trying to sustain her anger, and in some small measure succeeded.

“A civil answer won’t do him any good,” she muttered, not quite up to using the same tone on Tammad that she had used on Garth. “One like him already has all the answers—about everything. Besides, he wouldn’t understand.”

“Why don’t you try giving me a chance to understand?” Garth put in, his voice calm again. “If all my answers are wrong, how will I ever find out if no one tells me?”

Her face screwed up into a stubborn, resentful mold, showing as clearly as her mind that she was just short of refusing, but a quick glance at Tammad showed her that he was still watching her with the same look he’d used earlier. It was a look I was well familiar with, one he usually used on me, and she couldn’t stand up to it any more than I could.

“You won’t understand,” she muttered again, but to Garth, looking down at the way her fingers twisted at her waist. “It sounds stupid when you put it into words.” Then her head came up, and she looked at Garth defiantly. “Sure, they did whatever they wanted to us last sleep period, but not like any other man ever did. They didn’t ask, and after it they didn’t treat us any different than they did before. They—just didn’t ask.”

“You were right,” Garth said, shaking his head in bewilderment. “I don’t understand. What has asking got to do with it?”

“All men ask,” she said, looking and sounding disgusted. “It’s not the asking that gets you, it’s what goes along with the asking. If you answer yes, you’re a tramp, if you answer no, you’re a dip-teaser. With most men, no matter what you do is wrong. With these guys—they wanted it and they took it. They didn’t give us a chance to say yes or no, and they made us like it. After it was over, they still liked what they saw. We never had that before.”

She was staring at Garth, trying to see if he did understand after all, but Garth was staring down at his folded legs, his mind working furiously. He thought in silence for a minute or two, then raised his head again.

“This—difference in attitude you’re talking about,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Would you try it with me to see if I could do it?”

“No,” she answered immediately, disgust back in her voice. “You asked.”

“So I did,” he sighed, shaking his head but at himself. “Thank you for answering my question so completely.”

The woman hesitated, wondering if be would say anything else, then shrugged and turned away when it was clear that he wouldn’t. When she was back among her group again, Garth turned to me.

“So that’s what I was doing wrong all that while,” he said, a strange calm-but-excited feeling in him. “I was asking.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” I snorted, very aware of Tammad, behind my arm, looking at us. “You can’t really believe all women think like that, Garth, no one alive is that innocent.”

Garth flushed just the way I wanted him to, and the confusion rolled back over him. I shook my bead in derision to increase his confusion, feeling Tammad’s annoyance flare when he realized what I was doing.

“One must use sense when listening to the words of a wenda,” the barbarian put in to Garth, sounding considerably more casual than he was feeling. “The wenda who spoke before us resolved the matter in her own way, which is but one way of many. It may seem different to other wendaa, yet it may also seem the same, as each wenda is not equally willing to speak of the thing. A woman’s denial is often meant as a gesture, to salve her pride and protect her willfulness, a thing the truth would not accomplish.”

Garth breathed an “Ahhh” of satisfaction, his mind and eyes filling with instant amusement, especially when I turned on the barbarian in a fury.

“You think you’re so smart!” I hissed at Tammad, feeling—actually feeling—the way be was laughing at me. “When it comes to women you think you know it all, don’t you? You think you can roll over anything or anyone you please, especially if they’re female! Well, the one thing I really want to see is the day you meet a woman you can’t push around or browbeat into listening to you! That’s the day that overblown ego of yours will explode in your face and free all that hot air you’re filled with! You’ll probably end up being no more than two feet tall!”

I began getting to my feet to storm back to my cabin, furious with both of them, when a big hand grabbed my caldin sash and pulled me back down to the carpeting. I sprawled on my left side, closer to Tammad, and looked up to see the deep amusement those blue eyes still retained.

“As the time of my come-uppance has not yet arrived, you would do well to recall that you have not been given permission to leave,” he said, his voice just short of its usual chuckle. “I will see what food there is within you, so that you may be more attractive to him who claims you when I am no longer able to defend my right to you.”

“Maybe I’ll be the one to claim you then,” Garth put in, leaning forward to grin down at me. “I don’t know as much about women as he does, but I intend learning all I can. By the time he can’t control you any longer, I should be able to take over—if I haven’t found anyone of my own by then.”

“I have no worries on that score,” I told Garth angrily and with bitterness, sitting up again with my back toward Tammad. “By the time you’ve learned to ignore a woman’s wishes the way he does, to beat her and bully her the way he does, you won’t want me around any longer. Every time you look at me you’ll know how wrong you are, and how quickly you turned your back on what’s right. I’ll bring back memories that are too painful, Garth, and every time you look at me you’ll know what’s right. You just won’t want to admit it.”

Garth’s grin had disappeared entirely by the time I was through, his light eyes a somber reflection of his thoughts. He didn’t mind seeing me embarrassed and pushed around a little, especially if he could help, but turning mild revenge into a way of life was something else again. Tammad had been trained to it from childhood, but Garth had been taught different values, ones the barbarian would not find as easy to overcome as he thought they would be. Tammad was trying to turn Garth into a barbarian, but I was fighting to keep him civilized and sensible. One barbarian in a woman’s life is more than enough.

“And yet, right and wrong are not simple entities,” Tammad put in. “To each of us, that which we desire is right, that which hinders us, wrong. A woman, however, will consider that which she feels should be desirable as right, where a man is able to see the reality of the desire. My Terril has been taught that all those about her owe her deference and obedience, for her talent sets her above those others. She strives to maintain this state of affairs, yet finds happiness only when she is made to obey my wishes, whatever they may be. Is she, then, one whose words it is wise to give heed to, one who clearly sees her own needs and the needs of others? A man listens to the words of all; a wise man hears the true from the false.”

“And an intelligent man uses his eyes and common sense,” I added immediately, not liking the way Garth’s distress and confusion eased in Tammad’s direction. “He talks glibly enough of happiness, but how happy do I look to you? Am I glowing and in love with the whole universe, am I laughing over nothing and constantly humming to myself? If I’m all that happy, why does he have to keep me a prisoner?”

“Your happiness would return if you allowed it to do so,” Tammad growled his eyes undoubtedly hard where he sat behind me. “A stubborn, female foolishness keeps you from what once was yours, before the foolishness occurred to you. Am I to bow to foolishness and release you, thereby adding to the foolishness? Once we have reached Rimilia, things will be as they were.”

“Things will never be as they were!” I flared, twisting around to glare at him. “As soon as you find out I’m not kidding about not working for you, your intense interest will dissolve and turn elsewhere. You won’t know if I make it back to my own people and you won’t even care. If another man takes me prisoner instead, well so what? I’m nothing but a woman, a mere wenda, and that’s what women are for, to give men a good time. What difference does it make which men and women are involved?”

He stared at my anger in silence for a moment, the hardness in his light eyes tinged with disturbance, and then he shook his head.

“Would that I had your ability,” be murmured. “It seems impossible to me that you truly believe this, that I would cease to care what befell you.”

“You haven’t begun caring about me yet,” I pointed out, finding it impossible to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “When I stopped to think about it, I discovered that everything you did was designed to make life easier for yourself.

You protected me because you needed me, not because I meant anything to you. You let me fall in love with you because I was easier to control that way and gave you less trouble. You returned me to the embassy not because it was what I wanted, but because you had given your word to do so. You could have saved me a lot of grief by explaining what you were doing, but it was too much trouble explaining a l’lenda’s actions to a mere wenda. You simply did not care enough about me. And you don’t care enough about me now to keep from embarrassing me in front of strangers. If you want to know how I really feel, you now have it all.”

I was looking at him defensively, half expecting him to punish me for having spoken to him like that, half wondering what be was really thinking. I’d learned to be wary of touching his mind too deeply, knowing how he disliked it, which was why he’d been able to fool me so completely the sleep period before. His surface emotions were mostly vast confusion, swirling around a tinge of outraged denial, but his control was too good for me to believe that denial. Garth’s mind was even more troubled than it had been, but he wasn’t prepared to put his distress into words. Tammad, though, was a different matter.

“It is beyond me how you are able to believe these untruths,” he said, shaking his head again. “The sole thing which occurs to me is that you are interpreting through mistake rather than describing from reality. That you now find yourself embarrassed is no more than the fruits of your own doing, the results of your attempts to disobey me. Should you again begin to obey me, the embarrassment will be no more. As you will find when we have reached Rimilia.”

I opened my mouth to continue the argument, especially to demand why I had to obey him, but changed my mind and turned away without saying the words. Arguing with a barbarian is a waste of time, not to mention breath and effort. Getting to Rimilia wouldn’t change a thing, especially when my government found out what he was trying to do. Truths would be proven on Rimilia, all right, but not the truths he was expecting. A minute later the steward showed up with our food, giving us something else to concern ourselves with, but not something to divert our thoughts. Through the silence of eating the twisting of Garth’s uncertainties was very clear, especially as he had no food to partially divert him. He drank fresh kimla and worried at his problems, never noticing that Tammad wasn’t enjoying his meal any more than I was. The barbarian was too distracted to do more than make sure I ate as he wanted me to, but I no longer cared what he forced me to do. He would only have to be tolerated until we reached Rimilia, and then I would be free to go about my business again—without the stupid ideas I’d somehow managed to pick up. A Prime has no business thinking about spending her life with a barbarian, no matter how romantically attractive the notion appears to be. I’d made a mistake, but it was not a mistake I’d be making again.