Tammad was followed into the bathing room by a servant carrying a tray, and once she had made her delivery he closed the door behind her. I sat calmly and cooly among the room’s cushions, my legs folded modestly to my left, my hand holding the silver goblet I’d retrieved and refilled, my mind closed tight behind the heaviest shield I could buffer up. Garth had wondered if I could work through my own shield the way I’d worked through Len’s, and so had I. If it did turn out to be possible, I’d find it out some other time.
“I see you have bathed, hama,” he observed, walking over to investigate what was on the tray the woman had brought. “Once we have eaten I, too, shall bathe, and then we may see to giving one another further joy. For what reason did you not greet my return as you usually do?”
He turned around to look directly at me then, his question decorated with just the right hint of faint disappointment; not criticism, mind, just disappointment. He did it so well that I wondered briefly what full mind control could possibly do to improve it.
If you don’t mind, I’m in the middle of getting stinking drunk,” I said, raising the goblet to illustrate my point. “Right after that I intend killing myself, so don’t waste your time waiting for the answers to any questions.”
“You may not kill yourself, hama, for you have not asked my permission to do so,” he retorted, a faint grin touching his face and eyes, knowing damned well there hadn’t been enough wine left in the apartment to make a child drunk. “For what reason did you not greet my return as has become usual with you?’ ,
“I can’t decide whether to jump out the window or to drown myself,” I mused, firmly refusing to remember what Garth had said about jumping. “What about poison’? Maybe I can find some poison.”
“Perhaps one of these dishes here has been poisoned,” he suggested, beginning to get into the spirit of the thing. “Come and join me for the meal, and we may investigate the matter together. ”
“I don’t want to die with you,” I said. looking down into what was left in my silver goblet. “I may not be able to live without you, but I don’t want to die with you.”
There was silence for a moment after that, and then he was crouching down in front of me to put a gentle hand to my face.
“Do you find life as my woman so intolerable, then?” he asked softly, the words faintly tinged with hurt. “Have I brought you too great an amount of pain to bear?”
“Stop that!” I snapped, startling him, sending my glare directly into those innocent blue eyes. “When I said I wanted you to see me as clearly as you see others, I didn’t mean I wanted to be manipulated! Haven’t you done enough to me for one day?”
“Truly do you sound as though you had been beaten, wenda,” he said with a dryness that surely covered annoyance, taking his hand back to hang the arm on one broad thigh. “As you seem to feel the need so greatly, perhaps it would be best to grant it to you.”
“Not all beatings have to be physical,” I muttered, swallowing the urge to back away from that hardened stare. “How would you like it if I did the same thing to you?”
“Would you attempt such a thing?” he asked in turn, the words now very soft, opposing the look in his eyes. “Would you seek to do to me what the Garth R’Hem Solohr feared you would do to him?”
“Certainly,” I answered after trying not to swallow very hard. “Then I could stop wasting time looking for ways to kill myself. It would be taken care of without my having to lift a finger.”
“Indeed,” he said with a nod, his grin strong. “Indeed would the matter be quickly seen to. For what reason do you upset yourself now? For what reason do you not wait till the horrors of your new life have been experienced before agonizing over them?”
“I like to get started with things as quickly as possible,” I replied, not caring much for his version of humor. “You don’t seem to think I’ll have any problem, but you’re not looking at it from where I’m standing. I won’t be able to do it, you know.”
“Have no fear, all necessary doings will be mine,” he reassured me, the grin still strong. “Have you thought upon what you will need on the journey?”
“Tammad, I don’t want to go to Vediaster,” I said, trying to make him understand how serious I was without projecting the feeling. “If I do go, something will-happen.”
Oh, good, I thought, watching him frown faintly with lack of understanding. Such detailed description and flowing verbiage is guaranteed to make him see your side of it.
“What sort of thing do you believe will occur, wenda?” he asked, working at sounding reasonable. “That Vediaster is ruled over by wendaa should not disturb you, for you, too, are wenda. L’lendaa are not encouraged to visit there, yet are they allowed to do so and also to depart in peace. There will be danger for neither you nor we. What is it that disturbs you?”
“I really wish I could tell you,” I answered, frustrated over having nothing more than a stupid feeling. “You’ll just have to leave me behind.”
“Wenda, such a thing might have been possible had you not spoken as you did earlier in Rellis’s chamber,” he said, more reproof than regret in the eyes that looked down at me. “Your words were a challenge to my authority over you, and therefore may not be allowed to stand. You shall not be left behind. ”
“Damn it, if you go alone there won’t be any trouble!” I nearly shouted, rising to my knees in response to the way he’d straightened and headed back to the food tray. “If I go with you, something will happen!”
“Indeed,” he said without turning to look at me, reaching to the pitcher of wine the tray held. “What will occur is your learning full obedience. What things do you wish to bring with you upon the journey?”
“I don’t own anything to bring with me,” I answered with the fuming anger I felt, filled up to there with frustration and upset. “I don’t own one single thing on this world, and my possessions equal my value, which is just the way you want it. The only problem is, you won’t regret it nearly as much as I will.”
I sat back down on the carpeting turned away from him, one knee up with elbow resting on it, hand to head. Hints, hints and more damned hints, but nothing solid but a feeling! If I hadn’t been so angry I would have begun feeling frightened, that and sick to my stomach. ,Something unpleasant was going to happen, but what?
“Terril, when one fears a certain thing, justifiably or unjustifiably, all other things about that central object take on a reflection of the fear it generates,” Tammad said from not too far behind me, his voice filled with compassion. “You fear the life which will be yours beside me, and therefore do you begin to fear all occurrences in that life. I shall not allow harm to come to you, hama, and for that you have my word. ”
When his big hand touched my shoulder I twisted around and grasped his arm two-handed, really needing to put my face to it. He’d be hurt because of that promise, I knew he’d be hurt, and I had to do something about it.
“Hamak, please!” I nearly begged, strangling his arm with the hold I had on it. “When are you going to teach me how to use a sword?”
“Hama, I have not yet given my agreement to do so,” he came back, his voice suddenly very neutral. “Is this the sole manner in which you wish to ask for the thing?”
I hesitated briefly before looking up at him, but using my eyes didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. The man I’d been banded by wore no particular expression, neither encouraging nor discouraging. Neutrality is at times a very fine trait, but I suddenly noticed that he also wasn’t making any promises.