Dallan chuckled and Tammad grinned, most likely because of the sudden blush I could feel in my cheeks. No wonder they’d laughed so hard, hearing me announce that I could solve all of Cinnan’s problems from thirty feet away. and that I’d done that sort of thing before with Len and Garth. I unfolded my arms to put one hand over my eyes, terribly embarrassed, but then it finally came through to me just what I was feeling embarrassed about. The heat seemed to drain very quickly out of my cheeks, and I withdrew my hand so that I might look up at the barbarian.
“You have not given your word to Cinnan,” I said, trying in vain not to sound accusing. “Only to me was your word given, that you would make an attempt to understand the reason I so dislike being used by others. You would not break your word to Dallan; am I so much less than he?”
“Hama, I continue to make an attempt to understand your views,” he said with a puff of compassion coming out of his mind, one that was too uneven around the edges. His arm had tightened around my shoulders, and his blue eyes looked down at me soberly. “Whenever possible I mean to consider them as my own, yet in this situation I may not do so. Any other woman of our world would find little difficulty in acceding to the desires of her memabrak, his urgent wish to give aid to a brother. Will you be less than they, when you are clearly so much more?”
“It is one of the purposes of a woman, Terril,” Dallan urged from behind my right shoulder, his faint shadow of compassion at least real. “As we are helid, you may accept my assurances without question.”
“To give him my body is unnecessary,” I nearly begged the barbarian, putting one hand to his chest as I squinted up at him in the bright sunshine. “His difficulty may be soothed and removed with the use of my power. You need not give me to him.”
“A man requires more than the removal of his difficulty, hama,” he answered gently, stroking my hair with his free left hand. “A man requires release, and this may be obtained in only one manner. Come with me now, and this will all soon be behind us.”
I tried to say something about there being another way a man alone could get the release he needed, but I felt embarrassed, and the words refused to come out. Tammad ignored my stammered protests and began leading me across the thickened grass toward Cinnan, his arm tight around my shoulders, his mind easy with the knowledge that he was doing the right thing. It came to me then that my suggestion would have been wasted breath even if I could have gotten it out; Rimilian men would undoubtedly consider the practice unnatural, especially when there was at least one woman available.
Thirty feet can he crossed awfully quickly, even when one of the two people doing the crossing is trying her best to hang back. I didn’t want to help Cinnan with his problem that way, but I wasn’t being given a choice. No matter how I felt about the matter, that sort of thing was normal to Rimilians, and anyone who didn’t understand that was just being foolishly backward. Cinnan was sitting on the ground not far from his seetarr, deep in his own thoughts, but he raised his head when we stopped in front of him.
“Cinnan, my friend, I have come to ask if you would honor me,” Tammad said at once, overriding my intentions to make one more try to stop it all. “My woman is not your own, yet may she perhaps prove to be something of an adequate temporary substitute.”
Cinnan looked up at the barbarian in surprise, and then he moved his eyes to me, definite concern behind them. He knew as well as any of the others how I felt about being given away, and although he didn’t understand it any better than they did, he was still aware of that attitude. He knew that my being given to Dallan the night before had been more of an accident than a usual Rimilian exchange, and he hadn’t expected to be offered the same. His eyes examined my face carefully, the reluctance he saw disturbing him, and I could feel him trying to make himself refuse the offer. He wasn’t yet honor-bound to perform the way he had been the last time, and if he pleaded indisposition his friend and brother would not be shamed. He wanted to refuse, he really did, but his need was too great.
“Tammad, my friend, the honor is mine,” he said, rising from the grass in one fluid motion to put his hand to the barbarian’s shoulder. “You have my thanks, and my gratitude as well.”
“Thanks are unnecessary, brother,” the barbarian answered, gently clapping Cinnan’s shoulder, and then, with a last hug for me, he turned around and walked away. It was stupid to feel abandoned and betrayed, but that’s exactly how I did feel; I wasn’t Rimilian, and none of that was usual, acceptable routine to me. I stood with my head down, staring at my hands, waiting to be grabbed and mauled but instead Cinnan’s hand came to my chin.
“And to you do I give even greater thanks, wenda” he said very softly, raising my face to make me look up at him.
“You have proven yourself able to refuse to do as your memabrak wishes, yet do you refuse, instead, to shame him. Had my need been less, I would not have imposed upon your reluctance. ”
“I am aware of that, Cinnan,” I said, somewhat surprised to see the respect in his mind. He knew I could leave him hurting if I wanted to, and was very grateful that I chose not to. What he didn’t seem to understand was that the choice wasn’t really mine, that I couldn’t face making myself even more of a monster than I already was. Being made a general community project hurt considerably less—but it still hurt.
Cinnan was extremely solicitous, unpacking one of his sleeping furs and spreading it behind a rather large boulder before taking me in his arms and lowering me gently to the ground. He was just about jumping out of his skin with the need to get on with it, but he still began by trying to make me as interested and eager as he was. I’d intended closing my shield and simply letting him do as he pleased until he’d had enough, but suddenly that didn’t seem quite right. Cinnan was taking the trouble to consider me even when he didn’t have to, and repaying him by giving him almost nothing more than he could have given himself wasn’t right. I’d had a pretty terrible night myself the night before, so becoming aware of the wide, strong arms holding me proved not difficult at all, as easy as feeling his kisses and responding to them, as accepting his caresses and returning them. The desire in his mind was as bright as a flare, and letting it glow into mine took no effort at all. When he finally entered me I really wanted him to, and he knew it and was so deeply satisfied that he was beyond words.
There was no embarrassed rush to our time together, neither of us making unseemly haste to get it over with. When it finally did end Cinnan kissed me again, his mind filled with pleasure and delight, his eyes dancing as he chuckled softly. His chuckle was for the blush I showed around my grin, the grin that let him know I’d enjoyed myself despite my initial reluctance. It really made a difference to him that he hadn’t had to force me, an added pleasure that he hadn’t expected.
Covering himself was somewhat easier with the cloth pants he was still wearing, and then he got to his feet to offer me a hand up. I took the hand and let it pull me upright, brushed my caldin straight with a couple of uninterested strokes, then impulsively reached up and patted Cinnan’s face. I couldn’t have explained why I did that, but Cinnan grinned with such real amusement and enjoyment that I giggled.
“Do—I intrude?” A neutral voice asked from behind me, causing Cinnan to look up and me to turn my head. “The time has been so long that I—we-thought there might have been difficulty of some sort.”
It was Tammad, of course, who stood behind me, and if he hadn’t been rigidly controlling his expression I was sure it would have been very peculiar. Thick calm was stuffed over his mind like a smothering pillow, but it was an oddly green-tinged calm, as though it were holding down something like jealousy. I immediately wondered with a flash of guilt if he’d seen me patting Cinnan’s cheek and was asking himself just exactly how much I had enjoyed myself, and then I saw what a damned fool I was being. He was the one who had given me to Cinnan in the first place, the one who hadn’t thought twice about forcing me to follow Rimilian custom. If he was beginning to find something about that custom to regret, I couldn’t be happier.