The higher we climbed into the mountains, the wider the trail became. With the widening came the presence of some grass and eventually a few trees, but I couldn’t seem to make myself interested in the landscape. The air was pure and sweet, warmed by the sun but a good deal cooler than what I’d recently grown used to, and birds flew over us screaming out their indignation at our trespass or merely watching us curiously. The slow, swinging pace was boring and soporific, and when Cinnan pulled off the trail and stopped, it was scarcely an improvement.
“This place seems wide enough to halt for a meal,” Cinnan observed, looking toward the two men who had followed him to the side of the road. “What think you?”
“The same,” Dallan agreed, his casual words showing nothing of his relief. When Cinnan had kept going beyond noon Dallan had begun thinking about his stomach, but Tammad hadn’t noticed. The barbarian was busy plotting and planning again, something that tended to turn him oblivious of his surroundings.
“The halt will do well for us all,” he told Cinnan, reassuring the other man that they weren’t merely wasting time. “When I rode in search of Terril I lacked the good sense to know this of my own self, needing the words of others to calm my haste. The woman is in no danger, Cinnan, merely does she journey as we do. When we find her, you will see the thing for yourself.”
“Indeed,” said Cinnan with a heavy nod, dismounting as he worked to believe what he had been told. “There is little danger in these mountains for those upon seetarr, and once beyond them there will be l’lendaa to give what aid might become necessary, and then the wendaa of Vediaster. Aesnil will not be harmed.”
“Before she is found,” qualified Dallan with a chuckle, also dismounting. “Afterward I feel sure you will speak to her, Cinnan, concerning the foolishness of a woman running from her memabrak and the responsibilities which are hers. My cousin seems greatly in need of a speaking to.”
“Indeed,” Cinnan said again, but this time he didn’t add to the single word. Dallan’s comment had done more to distract him than the barbarian’s reassurances, something
Tammad knew and didn’t mind in the least. He chuckled quietly as he slid from his mount and then turned to lift me down, a chuckle that anticipated what Aesnil would get once they caught up with her. As soon as I was on my feet he went to see what Cinnan was already digging out of one of the packs, leaving me alone to move painfully on the thin, stony grass. I was stiff and aching from the ride, more so than I had been that morning, but that was the way I was supposed to be. It was all part of my punishment to teach me to be a good little girl.
Once I was sure my legs would hold me, I walked as far from the road as possible, right up to the side of the mountain looming so high above us. The grass was slightly thicker there with fewer stones, and the angled sunlight was thick as well. I lay down facing the brownish rock, on my left side in the grass, ignoring the thoughts of comfort coming from the barbarian’s mount. I’d already told him I wanted no comfort, but he refused to leave me alone. He cared about me and could feel the shape and motion of my thoughts, and kept trying to pull me out of the depression. But realizing that the only one really concerned about me was a seetar simply pushed me further down into it.
I lay in relative peace and quiet for a while, aware of the casual conversation exchanged among the men but not really listening to it, and then my solitude was ended. A pair of feet walked up to me through the grass, and a minute later a hand touched my arm.
“Why have you not yet come to me for your food, harm?” the barbarian asked, his hand warm on my arm even through the sleeve. “We must soon resume our journey.”
“I don’t want anything to eat,” I told him, making sure my mind didn’t move toward his. “I’m afraid I’m not feeling very well, but it should pass after a while.”
“You are not ill, wenda,” he said, moving his hand to stroke my hair. “Merely do you feel the punishment you were given for disobedience. The ache will indeed pass, yet not, I hope, the lesson.”
“No, the lesson isn’t likely to leave me very quickly,” I agreed, ignoring the hand on my hair. “Especially since it was a lesson I asked for. I wanted you so much I didn’t stop to ask what I’d be getting, but you’re certainly helping me to find out. From now on I plan on doing a lot of thinking before deciding I want something.”
“What do you speak of, wenda?” he said, his confusion touched only lightly with disturbance. “What is it you mean to ask for?”
“I ask for nothing, memabrak,” I answered, reverting to Rimilian as I sat up away from his hand. “Should it be your wish that I take a meal, I will certainly do so.”
“There—is no need if you have not the desire for it, hama,” he said, his voice a shade more unsure as I stared at the brownish stone in front of me. For the first time that morning he deliberately tried approaching me with his thoughts, but there was nothing out of place for him to find. Every one of my emotions was sealed up and unmoving, and he was far too new at what he was doing to separate and interpret them. I wasn’t resisting him in the slightest, but there was nothing inside me for him to touch.
“Perhaps-you would do well to merely rest till we ride again,” he said at last, upset and frustrated at not being able to find something he couldn’t even define to himself. “I will summon you when your presence is required.”
I had the impression he was about to reach out to touch me again with his hand, but the touch never came. Instead he straightened and walked away, and a minute later there was more low-voiced conversation. I simply lay down again on my side, and stared at weather-browned rock.
After a while I was called over to the seetarr, lifted to my place on the saddle fur, and our trip was resumed. I’d been able to feel a sort of curiosity in the minds of all three of the men when I’d rejoined them, but I hadn’t cared what they were curious about and hadn’t even looked at them. The road kept going upward and we followed the road, the minds of the others working while mine seemed bogged down in the mud. You were a damned fool and now you’re paying for it, something inside me kept saying, paying for it the way every damned fool should. You decided you’re a big girl now, too big to keep running away from commitments, so you made the commitment your gonads screamed for and now you’re stuck with it. You can’t run away and you can’t change it, and you sure as hell can’t live with it. There’s not much of anything you can do, and you know it. Even if you shed a stream of tears it won’t help, because no one cares. I knew the something was right, that even I didn’t care, just like the browned, weathered rock all around.
“So, Terril, your memabrak tells us you mean to learn the doings of a woman of this world.” Dallan’s voice came suddenly from my right, pleased approval beside lighthearted interest. “As that is your wish, I shall myself begin your lessons with a dish unknown to all save my family. I must have your word that you will speak of it to no other, of course, for its preparation is to be a secret between us. Will you give me your word?”
“You may have what you wish, drin Dallan,” I answered, looking at nothing but the broad back I sat behind. “I will, of course, do as you say.”
“Of course,” he echoed, the approval and interest gone elsewhere, a familiar-seeming frustration and disturbance fighting to fill his mind. “When we make camp for the darkness, we will begin.”