That damned calm was back in his mind, the calm he usually moved through life with, the calm he used in place of the true shield he didn’t seem able to form, the calm I didn’t have to look up to his face to see. This time it wasn’t covering anything but more calm, but even if it had been I wouldn’t have been in the least interested. The strapping he’d given me had been very short, but he’d made sure it would hurt; I wasn’t going to be allowed to disobey him, and that’s all he cared about. For my own part I didn’t even care about that much anymore, and was beginning to hope I’d get killed. He’d be sorry then that he hadn’t listened to me.
“What words of hers did you find unsubstantiated, Tammad?” Dallan asked when it was clear I would be neither looking at nor speaking to the big barbarian. “Perhaps Cinnan and I should hear them as well.”
“The woman wishes to remain behind, Dallan,” Tammad said with a sigh of long-suffering patience, his calm faintly rippled with annoyance. “She has been told that she will be taught proper obedience upon this journey, therefore does she seek to avoid making it. She has said that her presence will bring us ill; is such a contention to be credited when we ride to Vediaster? Perhaps in another city her fears might well be justified, yet in Vediaster?”
“I see the difficulty,” Dallan admitted with his own sigh, one that tried to disguise the fact that he had already switched sides. “In a city of l’lendaa there might well be some number who would stand against you for the possession of a green-eyed, dark-haired wenda such as Terril; in Vediaster there is unlikely to be even the thought of such a thing. The wendaa who rule it would not allow such thoughts.”
“Exactly,” the barbarian agreed, his annoyance gone. “I have never myself visited that city, yet have I heard of it from others. The woman fears naught save the wailing dark.”
Dallan shrugged without adding anything, trying to catch my eye to let me know he’d been as open-minded as possible, but that was his opinion. Mine was that I’d get more positive, intelligent response by looking for it in the stone of the cave floor.
With all packing and conversations taken care of, I was herded along between the two men as they went to where Cinnan waited for us. The third Rimilian was dressed the way Tammad and Dallan were, which surprisingly wasn’t in their usual haddinn. Under their swordbelts all three men wore tight cloth pants like the leather pants Dallan had worn as a servant-slave in Aesnil’s palace, pants that had a good deal of stretch and were made of the same cloth as my imad and caldin. Tammad had a tight, long-sleeved shirt and short, lined boots to go with the pants, but both shirt and boots had been packed away for use at another time, probably the same thing the other two men had done with their accessories. Cinnan’s pants were gold, Tammad’s tan, and Dallan’s blue; both sets of my imodd and caldinn were of a lovely, delicate pink. ,
“Dallan, Tammad, I give you greeting for this new day,” Cinnan said warmly as we came up to him. “I had not thought you would be prepared so early to depart. You both have my thanks.”
“Thanks are unnecessary, Cinnan,” the barbarian said with a shake of his head, dismissing Cinnan’s almost-pathetic gratitude. “There is a question I would ask one final time, however: you both continue to feel it wiser that we leave our followers behind rather than have them accompany us? We three alone will be a more effective force?”
“We three alone will cause the wendaa in Vediaster less distress,” Dallan said, Cinnan’s firm nod supporting the statement. “We would not wish them to believe we ride in conquest, and cause them to send their females against us in defense of their city. We go to retrieve a wenda, not to slay hordes of them.”
“Indeed,” said Cinnan, his mind as confident as Dallan’s. “Were we to ride against them we would certainly be victorious, therefore do we refrain from causing them fright.”
How chivalrous, I thought as Tammad nodded his own agreement, now completely convinced. The tall, generous l’lendaa of this area magnanimously allowed the poor little females to believe themselves safe due to the strength of their own swordarms, chuckling indulgently all the while. It came to me then to wonder why l’lendaa from another area, not quite as generous with an entire city and its surrounding countryside at stake, hadn’t already ridden in and defeated those poor, helpless women. Remembering the pair of twin male slaves brought as a gift to Aesnil by the ambassador of Vediaster, the two big, beautiful men whose minds had been so full of fear and cringing that slaves were all they would ever be for the rest of their lives, I would have enjoyed asking about previous invasion attempts. I really did want to ask the question, but the three big, strong men I accompanied had already dismissed the subject, and were too busy leading their seetarr out of the stabling cavern to be bothered. I was herded along with the rest of the animals before the question could even be framed.
Outside the cavern the rising sun was already beginning to warm the air, and a small crowd was there to see us off. Rellis and a recovering Seddan, among others, said good-bye to Dallan; Loddar and Kerman and a dozen others wished Tammad a swift journey, and Cinnan’s men confidently assured him that he would soon be returning with Aesnil on his saddle fur, holding to him with the deep love he had made her feel. I tried to find Len and Garth in the crowd, checked again when I couldn’t, then remembered that the barbarian had forbidden me to see them ever again. I stood alone in the middle of all those friendly, chatting people, an island of silence in a sea of conversations and laughter, and looked down at the flagstones of the courtyard. Tammad said no and Len and Garth obeyed him, and I was already beginning my new life. A bright new life, full of all the hope and promise and love I’d been told it would have, as deeply satisfying as anyone could ask. The flagstones were rough and hard under my bare feet, but I had long since become used to walking barefoot. People can become used to anything, if they’re kept at it long enough.
The good-byes and good wishes lasted until we rode away from them, Cinnan in the lead, Tammad and Dallan together behind him. I, of course, was on the saddle fur behind the barbarian, my arms around his body as I’d been ordered to keep them. The saddle fur was a lot softer than the saddle itself would have been, but I was still in a good deal of discomfort from the punishment I’d been given. The discomfort was meant to be an extension of that punishment, an object lesson on the consequences of disobedience, and I’d been forbidden to use pain control to make the time any easier. I tried to tell myself I wouldn’t have used pain control anyway, would have preferred feeling the pain to help myself remember that I didn’t care about that beast any longer, but after only a few minutes gave up the effort. It hurt to sit and ride like that, hurt in a way that was terribly humiliating, but I wasn’t being allowed to avoid the sensations. I was being made to feel them and learn from them even if I didn’t want to. I was a banded wenda being taught to obey her l’ lenda.
Depression is a funny emotion; it can be weak enough to simply sour a good mood, or strong enough to cause suicide or murder. It makes you very aware of the grim things happening around you, but lets you ignore anything pleasant; events are never neutral under its sway, only dim, bad, or dreadful. We rode away from Dallan’s house back up to the mountain road Aesnil and I had been caught on during our escape attempt, followed the road to the turnoff for Vediaster, then followed that new road. It was narrow enough to cause us to ride single file for quite a way, surrounded by the rock of the mountain, the trail leading gently but definitely upward. Cinnan’s mount moved eagerly forward, somehow almost smelling Aesnil’s previous passage from the very air we moved through, but no one asked me about it. Cinnan, up ahead, already knew where the search was taking him, and Dallan, bringing up the rear, was simply enjoying the ride and the pretty day. The barbarian I held to was busy with his own thoughts, was enjoying the feel of my arms around him, and was faintly impatient to be where we were going. I, as opposed to the others, was simply depressed.