3
The early morning was dim and chilly, especially in the stabling cave where the seetarr were kept. The torches on the walls were low from having burned all night, and that seemed to add to the lack of warmth. I hugged myself against that chill, then had to admit its source was more inner than outer. I’d been given a new sort of imad and caldin to wear, in place of the gowns of my former, temporary wardrobe, and another set was already packed in with Tammad’s things. My memabrak had bought me the long-sleeved, blouse-like imadd and ankle-length, full-skirted caldinn for the upcoming trip, both articles of clothing warmly made against the cooler air we would find higher in the mountains. He had also bought me a pair of lined, soft-leather foot coverings, but those were just then also packed away. They would be given to me when I needed them, when my memabrak decided I needed them; until then I walked barefoot on the smooth rock floor of the cavern, simply hugging myself against the chill.
“Tammad, aldana,” Dallan called softly in greeting as we neared him, his voice both hollow and muffled in the large cavern. “I have myself only just arrived, yet has Cinnan been here for some time. Did he ride alone, he would already be gone.”
“Though one might wish it otherwise, one cannot follow a trail one is unable to see,” the barbarian answered, his mind throbbing with sympathy for Cinnan. “Let us ready our seetarr as quickly as we may, so that the man need not agonize the longer.”
“Most certainly,” agreed Dallan immediately, also feeling the sympathy strongly, then they both turned to what had to be done. Neither one spoke to me or even looked in my direction, but that didn’t mean they weren’t aware of me. Tammad, especially, was very aware of me where I stood, about ten feet back in the shadow between torches, hugging myself and looking down at my still-bare feet.
The night before, our “conversations” had continued the way the first had begun, with the barbarian being pleased and me barely in control of any language whatsoever. After giving me what I had begged for he’d had me bathe him, then he’d given me a few lessons of a kind other than mental. His body was mostly healed from the terrible whipping he’d been given by the intruder, but the remaining scars and ridges upset me out of even more control. I didn’t want him to be hurt again so I’d kept trying to ask my favor, but he hadn’t wanted to be asked. By the time he’d carried me to the bed furs, I’d been as limp as a rag and totally beyond speech.
Earlier the next morning I’d awakened before him, to lie in the furs and stare into the darkness. Tammad had refused to believe what I’d said about my going to Vediaster, but I knew it wasn’t something that could be avoided by disbelief. He also had refused to listen to a request to learn swordwork, and that was a request he could put off indefinitely, especially during a trip when there would be very little time or opportunity for that. At first I hadn’t known what to do, and then it had come to me that both of my major problems could be solved with a single effort, the effort to stay behind. My avoiding the trip would keep the three men who were going safe, and while Tammad was gone I would be able to find someone to teach me swordwork, with the help of my talent if necessary. Rellis felt he owed me a favor for saving Dallan’s life by ending the intruder, and there was sure to be something I could do with that. If I hid out somewhere with my shield closed tight until the three were gone, and then told Rellis I’d been too afraid at the thought of Vediaster to let myself be taken with them, everything ought to turn out just fine. I’d known Tammad would be angry with me when he got back, but I’d preferred the thought of him angry to the thought of him hurt.
Once I’d made my decision I’d slipped quietly out of the furs, tiptoed through the darkness into the bathing room to find my gown, then had gone toward the door to the hall. It was difficult seeing well with all the candles blown out, and I’d been groping for the door when a big hand closed about my arm. My heart had almost stopped still from the fright, but that was only the beginning of it. Behind the shield of deep, deep calm Tammad had rigidly imposed on himself had been his anger, an anger he’d let me feel once it was no longer necessary to stand hunter-still in the darkness. He’d waited to find out if I really had been trying to sneak out of the apartment, and once he’d known for sure he’d punished me for trying to disobey him.
“Aldana, wenda.” Dallan’s voice came, bringing me back to the stabling cave. He was leading his two seetarr, the first a saddle animal with a pack animal behind, and he’d stopped a couple of feet away from me. “I give you greeting for this fine new day, Terril.”
“I thank you for your greeting, Dallan,” I answered, looking up at him with very little enthusiasm. “Please allow me to return it, for it seems only fitting to do so with one who is able to find approval of a day such as this.”
“You find the look of this day unacceptable?” he asked, raising his brows with a surprise he wasn’t feeling. Dallan was teasing me, and knew without doubt that I knew it. “I had not thought you would prefer clouds and rain.”
“My preferences matter not in the least upon any matter one would care to cite,” I informed him, in no mood for even the gentlest of teasing. “The sole point of satisfaction now remaining to me is that soon you will no longer consider this day quite so fine.”
“Of what do you speak, wenda?” he asked, narrowing his eyes as his amusement faded. “What is it that you anticipate?”
“I?” I asked, raising my brows as he had and with just as little real surprise. “I am no more than a wenda, no more than the belonging of one of true worth. In what manner might I anticipate doings concerning I’lendaa?”
Exasperation touched him then, the sort that straightened l’lendaa to their full height to look down at you with hard blue eyes, but I wasn’t in the mood to be intimidated. I was in the mood to be scared stiff, but that wouldn’t have done me any more good than trying to run away had.
“As you seem so well aware of your true place in our world, perhaps you would care to reconsider the response you have given me,” Dallan said, still keeping his voice low. “Or would you prefer that I speak with Tammad concerning your behavior?”
“Speak with him or not as you will,” I retorted, making sure I avoided Dallan’s eyes. “You may be sure, however, that I shall not speak with him, for I no longer feel the least concern over what may become of that beast. Nor those who call themselves brother to him.”
“I had thought, Terril, that you and I were also helid,” he said, using the Rimilian word for a very close, non-blood, nonsexual, relationship. “Have I given you insult with either word or deed?”
I looked up at him then, his features more clearly illuminated by the dying torches than mine, and saw the sober face of truth looking down. Dallan was asking me not to take my mad at Tammad out on him, which was a reasonable enough request for anyone in the mood to be reasonable. The only trouble was, to that point being reasonable had gotten me nowhere, and I was tired of wasting the time and effort.
“You ask me to speak to you of my misgivings so that you, too, may have opportunity to give me insult?” I said, noticing that my question brought back some small part of his amusement. “I am not that much helid to you, Dallan.”
“I gave you no insult, wenda,” came another voice, one I was more than eager to forget. Tammad had his own seetarr ready, and had brought them over beside Dallan’s. “Merely did I weigh your words and find them unsubstantiated, and then did I strap you for disobedience. Insult was neither thought upon nor given.”