Noum om Beng slapped him again, even more lightly, a feather-blow. Then he turned away. To the warrior who had captured Hresh he said brusquely, “Take this boy back to his people.”
The chilly light of the midnight moon was glistening when Hresh returned to his own settlement. Everyone was asleep but Moarn, who was on sentry duty. He looked at Hresh without interest as the Beng warrior rode away.
Sleep was a long time coming, and when it did Hresh dreamed of glossy little mechanical creatures rolling in silent armies through endless ruined streets, and of gleaming mysterious objects hidden in the depths of the earth.
In the morning he expected the full wrath of Koshmar to descend upon him. But to his relief and also somewhat to his chagrin, no one seemed even to have noticed that he had been missing.
Torlyri had rehearsed the words a hundred times. Yet as she approached the settlement of the Helmet People they all seemed to fly from her head, and she felt completely adrift, lost in turmoil and confusions, unable to speak even her own language properly, let alone that of the Bengs.
Three days had passed since her twining with Hresh. She had not been able to find the courage to make this journey until now. The morning was hot and humid, and an obstinate sultry wind was blowing, raising gray clouds of dust in the dry streets and sending it swirling irritatingly all about her. Again and again she thought of turning back. This visit seemed utter madness to her. She would never be able to make herself understood. And even if she did, even if she managed to find the man she had come here to see, what was the use? It would bring her nothing but pain, she was certain, and she had already had pain enough.
Tense, tight-faced, Torlyri forced herself to keep going onward, down the long narrow avenue of ruined white-fronted buildings that led into the district known as Dawinno Galihine. At the entrance to the Beng settlement a helmeted sentry appeared and gave her a questioning look.
“You are expected?” he asked. “What is your business? Who are you here to see?”
He spoke in the sharp, barking Beng language. The words should have been gibberish to her. And yet she had no difficulty making out their meaning. So it had worked! True to his word, Hresh had actually taught her to comprehend their speech!
But could she speak it herself now?
No words came to her. They were trapped deep in her mind and would not rise to her lips. I have come to see the man with the scarred shoulder, that was what she meant to say. But there was no way she could bring herself to tell this sentry such a thing. She was shy as a girl today; and the man’s tone of voice seemed cold and hostile to her, and his words a rebuff and a dismissal, though probably they were meant only as a routine interrogation. Fear assailed her. The resolve that had brought her here had never been strong, and now it fled altogether. She was not here to see anyone; this was all a mistake; she had no business here. Without replying she turned to leave.
“Wait,” the Beng said. “Where are you going?”
She halted, struggling with herself, still unable to speak.
Finally she managed to say only: “Please — please—”
She realized that she had spoken in Beng. How strange that felt, using those alien words! Go on, she thought. Say the rest of it. I have come here to see the man with the scarred shoulder No, she still couldn’t say it, not to this grim-faced stranger, not to anyone. She could barely say it even to herself.
“You are the offering-woman?”
Torlyri stared. “You know me?”
“Everyone knows you, yes. You wait here. This place, right here, offering-woman. You understand me?” He pointed to the ground. “Here. Stay.”
Torlyri nodded.
I am speaking their language, she thought in wonder. I understand what he says to me. And then I open my mouth and their words come out.
The sentry swung brusquely about and disappeared into the Beng settlement.
Torlyri stood trembling. He wants me to wait, she said to herself. Wait for what? Wait for whom? What shall I do?
Wait,a voice deep within her said.
Very well. I will wait.
The minutes slipped by, and the sentry did not return. The hot dust-laden wind blew through the canyon of empty ancient buildings with such force that she had to shield her face from it. Once again she thought of going, quickly, quietly, before anyone came. But she hesitated. She wanted neither to stay nor to go. Her own indecisiveness began to amuse her. At your age! she told herself. These fears, this ridiculous shyness. Like a girl. Like a very young girl.
“Offering-woman! Here he is, offering-woman!”
The sentry had returned. And he was with him. She had not needed to ask; the sentry had known. How embarrassing that was! And yet how much simpler for her.
The sentry stepped aside and the other came forward. Torlyri saw his scarred shoulder, his beautiful searching red eyes, his high, rounded golden helmet. She began to tremble, and angrily ordered herself to stop. No one had forced this moment upon her. She had chosen it. All this was something she had brought about herself.
In another moment she knew she’d be crying. Yet she could not bring herself under control. Her fear was too great. Her soul was at risk here. So long as neither of them had been able to speak the other’s language, her little flirtation had been perfectly safe, an innocent game, a playful pastime. She could always pretend that nothing was going on between them, that nothing had been pledged, nothing had been ventured, nothing had been committed. Indeed, nothing had.
But now that she understood Beng—
Now that she could say what was in her mind—
The wind came hotter and harder, so that the heavy burden of dust it bore darkened the sky over Dawinno Galihine. It seemed to Torlyri that if it grew any stronger it would blow down these tottering buildings which had withstood the storms and earthquakes of seven hundred thousand years.
The man of the scarred shoulder was staring at her strangely, as though astounded that she had come, though she had visited the Beng settlement many times before. For a long while he did not speak, nor did she.
Then at last he said, “Offering-woman—?”
“Torlyri is my name.”
“Torlyri. It is a very beautiful name. You understand what I say to you?”
“If you speak slowly. And you? Do you understand me?”
“You say our words very beautifully. Very beautifully. Your voice is so soft.” He smiled and put both his hands to the sides of his helmet, letting them rest there a moment, as though in indecision. Then swiftly he undid the helmet’s throat-strap and took it off. She had never seen him without it, indeed had never seen any of the male Bengs bareheaded. The transformation was an unsettling one. His head seemed oddly small this way and his stature diminished, although but for the strange color of his fur and eyes he was identical now to any man of her own tribe.
The sentry, who had remained hovering in the background, coughed ostentatiously and turned away. Torlyri realized that this removing of the helmet must be some kind of invitation to intimacy, or perhaps some even more heavily charged act of commitment. Her trembling, which somehow had halted without her noticing, began again.
He said, “My name is Trei Husathirn. Will you come to my house?”
She started to say that she would, and gladly. But she checked herself. She knew the Beng language, yes, or such a smattering of it as Hresh had been able to learn and to teach her, yet how could she know the meanings within the meanings? What did “Will you come to my house?” mean? Was it an invitation to couple? To twine? To mate, even? Yissou help me, then, she thought, if he thinks I am pledging myself to be his mate, when I know nothing more of him than his name! Or was it simply an acknowledgment that they were standing in a hot, dusty, windswept street when they could be drinking wine and eating cakes in some more comfortable place?