“My actions do not have your approval?” he murmured softly, for my ears alone, his light eyes angered. I made no answer to him, for the thing was self-evident, and his anger grew even greater. He shifted quickly to one knee, reached toward me and lifted me from where I had been placed, then stood and carried me past the still-weeping Balinod into the mass of males who had watched the dispute. The male called uncle now knelt beside Balinod, attempting to stop the flow of blood from his arm, and as Ceralt passed, he sent a malicious glance toward his back. There was another one, I thought, who would not long be left among the living had there been Midanna about. To give one such as he the opportunity to do ill was foolishness indeed, yet Ceralt paid the elder male no mind. The group of males parted to allow Ceralt his way, and I was carried toward the side of the dwelling, where lay the lenga pelts I had seen earlier, yet much reduced in number. Ceralt placed me upon one of the remaining pelts, then stepped back to regard me as others of the males came to clap him on the back.
“A fine catch,” grinned one, looking down upon me. “I, too, would have taught Balinod his place had he attempted to take her from me.”
“Aye,” laughed a second, standing to Ceralt’s other side. “With one such as she, a man has no need of a fire in his halyar. ”
I writhed against my bonds in fury as all joined their laughter to that of the second male, and even Ceralt showed a grin, though his anger was still with him.
“Her fire derives too much from willfulness,” said he, his eyes yet upon me. “I shall quickly give it a new source, and teach her that which has been too long in the coming.”
He then turned from the males and walked a few steps to where a fur covering had been placed upon the wall. He took the covering and donned it, and began to turn back toward me when his eye was caught by the sight of the two drinking skins hanging upon the wall not far from him. Ceralt now gazed briefly upon the drinking skin to the right, then walked to it and took it from the wall. The males who yet stood above me guffawed loudly and elbowed one another at sight of the skin at Ceralt’s lips, and some few turned to grin down upon me with secret knowledge in their eyes. I still knew not what the skin might contain, yet it certainly seemed that its contents were not meant for my benefit.
Ceralt replaced the skin upon the wall, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then returned to where I lay and drew his dagger. One touch of the blade freed my legs from their cramped position, yet did not remove the leather from about my ankles. Ceralt straightened my body upon the pelt, wrapped me in it, then threw me easily to his shoulder.
“I bid you all a good rest this darkness,” he called cheerfully to the other males as he carried me to the door. Bound and wrapped in a lenga pelt was I, upon the shoulder of a male, seeing naught of where I went save the backs of Ceralt’s leg furs as he crunched upon the thin white ground covering. Ceralt had me, and what befell me next would be entirely of his choosing.
The fire in my dwelling seemed bright when we entered, so bright that I averted my eyes when Ceralt turned to close the door behind him. He turned again to continue into the room, and I saw that he had pulled the leather through the door hole, leaving it to hang within the dwelling. Now none might enter the dwelling from without save by the actions of one within, although the chill we had left in the darkness entered somehow to touch me deep. I recalled the Ceralt of old, considered what he had come to be, and again attempted futile efforts to free myself. I did not wish to be with him. yet as he had said, my wishes were of no consideration.
Without ceremony, I and the lenga pelt about me were dropped to the pelt I had slept and lain upon so long. Ceralt pulled the covering ends of pelt from me, then removed the copper belt from my waist before turning away. I lay upon my back, my bound wrists beneath me, my ankles crossed and tied as they had been, the crackling fire throwing shadows everywhere I looked. Never might one feel so helpless as when one is bound tight and weaponless, awaiting that which Mida has seen fit to send. Over and again does Mida test her warriors, and often does she send punishment to those who displease her. Much had I displeased her of late, and, if I were not faced with punishment, then testing was to be my lot. I threw my head from side to side, breathing heavily, yet there was no escape from the misery which held me.
Ceralt I found in the midst of removing his coverings, leaving naught save his leather breech. The breech, too, was quickly removed, and when he had tossed it from him, truly did I wish to gasp at sight of him, for never had I seen his manhood so enlarged nor so enraged. The male hungered furiously for the use of Jalav, and nearly did I miss the sight of the dagger in his hand and the strange glint in his eye. When he saw my gaze upon him, he smiled faintly, and moved to stand over me where I lay.
“Your disapproval of my actions is no longer evident,” said he from his height, free hand caressing the blade he held. “Have you come to change your opinion, or are you merely concerned with other matters?”
The softness of his tone disturbed me, as did the flashing of the firelight from the blade in his hand. I wet dry lips with an anxious tongue, and made no attempt at response.
“Your sharp tongue seems stilled,” he mused, crouching down to stroke my hair. I shivered at the touch and attempted to shake his hand away, but he held my head still. “No, Jalav,” he denied, tightening his grip till my neck felt close to snapping and tears stood out in my eyes. “You are now lawfully mine, and may not deny me. So you feel I showed weakness in not slaying Balinod, do you? Had it been you, would your dagger have drunk from his throat?”
He crouched above me, his fist in my hair, his broad, strong body menacing, his eyes demanding a response. My breath came and went quickly, shaking me, and never had I felt so before another living being. It was my will to give him no answer to his demands, yet my voice, of its own volition, whispered, “Yes!”
“So you would have killed him,” he nodded, his grip loosening somewhat. “A savage has no mercy within her to bestow upon another, yet a man deals with others as he sees fit. To Balinod, a man, I chose to show mercy, yet you, wench, shall have none of it. You are not a man.”
His hand, holding the dagger, moved to my throat, and I felt the cold, sharp edge of it upon my flesh. My hands and feet, bound tightly in leather, were numb, and a similar numbness touched the rest of me, shocked that Ceralt would act so. I had never thought the male capable of such a deed, and the light touch of his breath upon my face cooled the sweat which covered my brow. A long moment he remained unmoving, during which time I held firmly to the memory that my life sign still hung about my neck, and then he grinned and moved downward with the blade, severing the leather tie at the top of my garment.
“I had not really expected you to beg for your life as Balinod did,” he said softly, removing his fist from my hair. “Had you done so, I would have been disappointed, yet there are other things which touch you more deeply than a threat to your life.”
His grin widened as he said this, yet I knew not which things he meant. A great relief had come with the removal of the blade, for it is deemed a deep shame for a warrior to die so, bound at the feet of a male, without the glory of battle. I had been prepared for the journey to Mida’s realm, yet I was greatly pleased that I need not arrive there in shame. Ceralt moved his blade first to one side of my garment then to the other, and with the final passage of the blade, my garment hung loosely upon me, having been cut at the points where the ties had bound it closed. Though I knew not what he was about, the grin was strong upon him, the gleam in his eyes now pleased. Ceralt took hold of the severed garment still upon me and continued to pull and tug at it till it was free of my body and he was able to cast it from him. I then sat up, struggling to remove my hair from before my face so that I might see what was about me, yet the seeing was no comfort. The male had placed himself upon the pelt beside me, the dagger no longer in his grasp, the sword of his body nearly quivering in its eagerness to plunge deep. It was my will to have naught further to do with this male Ceralt, yet it had been so long since I had last taken a male, and my body recalled the pleasure he was able to give. The moisture flowed from within me as I smelled the strong smell of a male in need, the familiar smell of Ceralt, the smell of my own desire, yet I attempted to deny the urgings thus brought upon me, and began to move from the side of the male. He, however, liked not such movement, and quickly grasped my arms to draw me close.