“Why must you make this so difficult?” she demanded, taking one short step forward. “I came to ask why you have refrained from doing as the others do. Why have you not taken vengeance for what was done to you? Do you mean to await your opportunity, or do you fear me?”
I could not help but smile at the thought of a war leader of Mida fearing a village slave-woman, and then the smile turned to laughter as Famira frowned. The female knew the look of herself, and even in her fur leg wrappings she stood to less of a height than Jalav. My strength was greater than hers, my skill was greater than hers, and I laughed at the audacity of the thought she had voiced. Had she been a warrior, the matter might have been near to a challenge and therefore naught to laugh at, yet she was not a warrior. I laughed as one laughs at a child, and Famira felt the barb and flushed deeply.
“So you do not fear me!” she snapped, pulling open the fur body covering upon her. “I had not realized how much like the men you are, looking down upon all who are not one of you! Yet you have not replied to my question. Why have you not sought me out to take vengeance?”
“One seeks vengeance from enemies who are as they were when the insult was first given,” said I, frowning at the words she had spoken. I, likened to the males? How might my actions be like those of the males?
“And I am no longer as I was,” said Famira, the bitterness a great part of her. She removed the furs from her body, sat to remove her leg coverings, then stood again in naught save her leathers. Her eyes were filled with pain as she looked about herself, and a short, mirthless laugh came forth from her.
“Ceralt’s tent and Ceralt’s belongings,” said she, walking forward to place her hand upon a leather pack. “I would know Ceralt’s things anywhere.” Her eyes left the pack and came to me, and an odd smile turned the corners of her lips. “Would you have the truth?” she asked, her manner strange in its friendliness. “Never have I had the wish to be drawn from the circle by Ceralt, yet I thought that to be Ceralt’s woman would secure the place I had made for myself among the others of the village. Ceralt is a beast, Jalav, and I do not envy you your place with him, for I know now that he would not have allowed me a place above others. He would have used me even more brutally and casually than Cimilan does, and I would have had no more than I have now to show for it. All that I had is lost to me, and was destined to be lost from the first.”
Her voice emptied of the unnatural lightness it had had as she turned her back and bent her head, grief filling her at the sight of her dreams crumbled to ruins about her feet. Her shoulders shook as she struggled to keep from falling to tears, and I recalled the similar plight of a would-be warrior of mine, one who had been taken bound in leather to the dwellings of males, there to be left to be made a slave-woman of males. The young warrior had fought the leather and the hands of males upon her, and then had turned desperate eyes to me where I sat upon my gando.
“War leader, do not abandon me here!” she had cried, a great fear filling her. “I do not wish to lose my place among you!”
“You have no place among the Hosta,” I had told her, signaling my warriors to prepare to depart. “You left the cleaning and sharpening of your sword to those who were younger than you; you walked the woods in pleasure and ate berries while others hunted; you lagged behind in battle till the enemy was vanquished, then strode forth to bloody your sword in the body of one already slain. You are not a warrior but a hanger-on, a slave-female fit for naught save the bidding of males. Rejoice that we leave you with males rather than send you to face the wrath of Mida.”
“Oh, Mida, why have you taken your shield from me?” she had cried as we turned and left her to be seen to by the males of the village. She had not understood, as Famira failed to understand, yet perhaps Famira might be made to understand.
“There was naught ever in your possession to be lost to you,” I said to the village female before me, causing her head to come up. “How is one to mourn the loss of a thing one has never possessed?”
“How can you speak so?” she demanded, whirling angrily to face me, her small hands closed to fists. “All in the village stepped back from my path when I walked among them! All looked upon me and knew me as their better! None dared stand to face me, and no single rider offered me the insult of his smile! Is this your concept of naught to be lost?”
“I know only that which I have heard,” I shrugged, regarding her anger coolly. “The other females kept from your path out of fear of he whom Ceralt named Uncle, a male, I gather, of some note in the village. The males, those termed riders, kept their smiles from you in the belief that Ceralt wished to claim you as his own. In each instance, fear of another gave a false belief to you, a belief that it was you who generated their subservience. Such a state is not a true position of leadership, as you have already learned to your sorrow. Do you wish to deny the contention?”
Her lips parted angrily, as though to retort, yet suddenly the anger went from her and she again bowed her head. “To deny the truth would be foolish,” she said, a deep sigh taking her. “You, who stand beneath the leather of Ceralt, command the awe and fear of the other women simply by being as you are. They see, as I do, a power and presence within you, having naught to do with the actions of others. I have even heard a rider say that he would not care to face you with sword in hand.” Her head lifted and her eyes found mine, and a reluctant truth entered her tone. “I greatly feared that you would come to repay the pain I gave you, yet I found myself unable to sit about and await its coming. Sooner would I have had the pain than the fear of its arrival. ”
Again I smiled at her words, yet this time in approval. Only a fool and coward chooses to run from that which she has earned by her own hand, and whatever else she might be, Famira seemed no coward.
“I had thought you ill when Ceralt first brought you to the village,” said Famira, watching as I sat myself cross-legged upon the lanthay fur. After a brief hesitation, she seated herself as I had, and when no words of rebuke came from me for her liberty, her face and eyes grew calmer. “These marks that I see upon your body,” she said, “was it that which caused your infirmity?”
“Indeed.” I nodded, touching the track of a Silla spear. “I have been allowed my life so that I may do the will of Mida, yet should she be pleased with my efforts, I may also be allowed the pleasure of once more facing she who caused these wounds to be given me. Then we shall see whose lifeblood flows to the ground beneath our feet.”
I had spoken casually, merely voicing an oft-repeated prayer to Mida, yet Famira shivered and wrapped her arms about herself.
“Had I known what I know now,” she breathed, eyes wide, “never would I have approached you, not to speak of knocking you down. Tell me what befell you, Jalav, and tell me of this other who caused such terrible wounds.”
She seemed full eager to hear the tale, yet I wondered if she asked because she wished to know, or if it were merely loneliness for the company of another which prompted her curiosity. I had rarely had the time to speak with any save those warriors who seconded me and Rilas, Keeper of the Clans, yet in the place of males, there was little to do other than spend one’s time in idle chatter. Inwardly I shrugged, knowing I was not kept from more important matters, and began the tale which Famira had requested. She was not one such as Tarla, however, and the end of the tale brought strong anger to the female before me.
“Such cowardly actions, Jalav!” she fumed, nearly taken completely by indignation. “That they would do such a thing to a lone woman is despicable!”
“They are Silla.” I smiled, amused at her indignation. “They knew full well that it was a war leader they faced, not a slave-woman who might be looked down upon. Had I had the strength to reach the sword, the Silla’s blood would have joined mine upon the ground. It is the manner in which one gives an enemy the chance to die as a warrior should.”