“Perhaps we may do both,” Tammad said when Cinnan hesitated, his choice between the options fairly obvious. “We will all choose a camping place, and then Cinnan and I shall make inquiries the while you and Terril see to our camp. Is this acceptable to you?”
“Completely,” Dallan agreed pleasantly, his smile genuine. He was looking forward to filling his stomach again, and setting up camp would probably let him do it faster than wandering around asking questions. “Follow me.”
This time Dallan led the way, into the opening and between the stalls. The lane wasn’t very long, and beyond it was a stretch of grass and then a wide, open space, quite a few camtahh already set up at intervals around it. A short way to the left, closer to the open space than to the backs of buildings, was what looked like a well. The setting sun was making seeing things clearly difficult, but two long-skirted women stood by the well drawing up water.
“For what reason do we continue to camp out?” I asked, speaking softly so that only the barbarian would hear me. “For what reason do we not find—a place with rooms and food?”
Not being able to come up with a word for inn or hostel should have warned me, I suppose, but there are some things you take so for granted that warnings do not the least amount of good.
“Wenda, this world is not like your own,” Tammad answered, also keeping his voice low. “When one visits a town or city, one shares the roof of a friend or brother. Should one merely be passing through, one camps upon the public grounds set aside for that purpose. On Rimilia, hospitality may only be given, never bought.”
“On Central and other civilized worlds, no one wishes to buy hospitality,” I informed him, annoyed at his faint amusement. “It is comfort and ease one purchases, as well as hot, well-cooked meals.”
“Here, one goes home for such things.” He chuckled, feeling vastly superior again. Rimilian barbarians had a way of looking at things that made them right and everyone else backward, and the attitude still rubbed me completely the wrong way.
It only took a couple of minutes to reach the cleared area, and a minute after that showed us an empty section large enough to accommodate all three camtahh. Tammad and Cinnan unburdened their pack beasts while Dallan started a fire, and then they rode off while the drin of Gerleth started on his own pack beast. I stood around like a sidewalk superintendent, wishing I didn’t feel so totally useless as I always do at such times, but being willing doesn’t make you able. When I’d first come to Rimilia I’d hated the work the barbarian had forced me to do, not knowing what an idiot I was being. Even brushing seetarr is better than standing around while others accomplish something constructive, but I didn’t even know if we had a seetar brush with us. Dallan put up his own camtah then headed toward a second, and I couldn’t stand just hanging around any longer.
“Dallan, allow me to assist you,” I said as I came up to him, drawing a brief glance. “There must be some small thing I am able to do.”
“Perhaps you would care to spread the furs in the camtahh once they have been erected,” he said, paying most of his attention to hefting the folded tent he meant to put up next. “There is very little else suitable for a wenda.”
“Perhaps I might begin our meal,” I suggested, knowing the fire was all ready to cook on. “Were you to tell me what you wish, I would be able to . . . .”
“No, wenda, no,” he said hurriedly, finally turning to look at me with the tied camtah upon his broad shoulder, his mind scurrying around. “I have not yet decided what I wish for this darkness, and there is no knowing when Tammad and Cinnan will return. To offer them a meal which is overdone or cooled to tastelessness would be inconsiderate, therefore shall we not begin our meal till I am done with the camtahh. Then I shall allow you to assist me.”
He reached out a big hand to pat me on the head, then turned away to walk to where he wanted the tent to go, the muscles in his back, shoulders, and arms rippling when he shifted the camtah to the ground. He was too busy to see me turn away in misery, and probably wouldn’t have noticed even if he wasn’t busy. What he was most concerned with was not having his meal ruined, something that would happen without fail if he let me do the cooking with no one watching me. It would have made me angry—if it hadn’t been so abysmally true.
The glare of sunset had faded to a thickening dark, soft and fuzzy around the edges and sort of bumbling, a very young dark not yet old enough to be called night. I wandered away from where Dallan was working so hard to get us settled, aware of other fires around the camping area but not really seeing them. Nothing suitable for wendaa to do, he had said, but when I suggested cooking he almost fell all over himself finding reasons why that wasn’t a very good idea. There were women on Central who were actually ashamed of being able to cook, I knew, considering the ability too far beneath a modern, talented woman. I moved across the dust of the camping ground, watching my still-covered feet flip out the bottom of my caldin as I walked, wondering how it felt to be that accomplished. To be able to do something with your own hands that you could share with others, that people could enjoy and honestly praise you for. To make you feel that you weren’t simply taking up space better used for a different purpose . . . .
Aldana, wenda,” a deep voice came, a voice I didn’t recognize. “Do you stroll about seeking companionship?”
I looked up in confusion with my thoughts still mostly turned inward, to discover that I’d come something of a distance from where Dallan was. There were a number of people around with tents and fires of their own, but for the most part they were solitary male people, like the one who had stood himself in my path. I didn’t need more than the light of his fire to see that his haddin was dirty and stained, his swordbelt old and not very well kept, his seetar thoroughly tied and hobbled to keep it from escaping his presence and service. The man looked down at me with a sharp hum in his mind, his flat, lusterless eyes taking in every inch of me, his left hand resting on his sword hilt. He seemed different from most of the other men I’d met on that world, but not different in the right way.
“Aldana, l’lenda,” I acknowledged politely, wondering why he’d stopped me. “I do not stroll in search of companionship, merely do I stroll. I wish you a pleasant darkness.”
I began to step around him then, but he moved just as I did, deliberately blocking my way. As soon as the hum in his mind began rising to a growl I knew what he wanted, but the revelation had arrived too late. I tried whirling fast to run back the way I had come, but that was something he was expecting. His right fist shot out and tangled in my hair, and I was forced painfully back to him.
“I mean to have the pleasant darkness you wish me, wenda,” he said with a chuckle, continuing to look me over. “There was another I had thought to take, yet are you a far more toothsome choice.”
“You cannot,” I said with difficulty, really hurting from the way he was holding me, my hands to his fist. “I am banded, and my memabrak will soon return to seek me.”
“Do you take me for one who is bereft, wenda?” he demanded, tightening his grip until I cried out, his mind instantly angry. “A man may put his bands upon a rella wenda, yet is she scarcely of concern to him beyond her obvious value. Were you a woman a man would fight for, you would now be tending his fire and camtah, or accompanying him where he rode. That you remain behind and do naught is solely for the reason that you have been commanded to it, your strength conserved for your only purpose. I will give the man to whom you belong a coin in payment for your use, and he will be more than satisfied.”
He pulled me around then and began heading me toward his tent, his mind filled with desire and the intention of easing it. His grip hurt so much that my eyes were full of tears, and the sobbing that had got itself started refused to let me stop it. I was suddenly very much afraid of what would happen, but not only of what that man would do to me. I knew he would use me the way Dallan had used me the night before, but he wouldn’t be at all concerned about hurting me. I could stop him from hurting me, keep him from being in the least interested in me, but to do that I’d have to turn the coldness loose again, the soullessness that had so much control and power. I was trembling and sobbing as the man dragged me along too shaken and frightened to use my abilities myself, it would have to be the soullessness or nothing. I honestly didn’t know which I feared most, being hurt or hurting someone else like that, but my trembling increased as we began to approach the verandah of his camtah. I didn’t want him to hurt me and I didn’t want to hurt him, all I wanted was for him to let me go. I tried to struggle and then cried out again when his fist shook my head hard, my mind picking up the amusement of those men who were close enough to see what was going on. They all thought it was funny that I’d been caught, and none of them would help me against one of their own kind. The sobs shook me, and the trembling, and then