It didn’t take long before the tents were up, and once they were and the seetarr had been unburdened and fed, Cinnan and Dallan disappeared inside with little more than mumbled words of good night. They’d earlier volunteered to share the night watch between them, and Tammad, knowing he wasn’t taking rest away from either one, accepted their offer with thanks. We both took off our rain capes and hung them on the verandah of our camtah, Tammad lit a candle with a small, complicated device I still considered the next thing to magic, and then we, too, went inside.
“Spread our furs, wenda, and then we may share this dimral,” I was told once we were inside, the dimral in question, still wrapped in preserving leaf, tossed to the tent floor. The barbarian was busy settling the candle, and hadn’t looked around when he’d moved through the tent flaps.
“I already have spread the furs,” I pointed out with just a hint of smugness, reaching down for the dimral he’d brought in with him. “I did it while you were feeding the seetarr.”
“Why, so you have,” he observed with pleased surprise as he turned, his tone suggesting that the accomplishment was on a par with building a house single-handedly overnight. “Our meals become more edible with each one that passes, you no longer consider spreading my furs a doing beneath you, and three full days have passed without a single disobedience. Truly do I believe you are at last becoming a woman of this world.”
“You’re teasing me for a reason,” I said, just holding the leaf-wrapped dimral as I looked up at him, undecided whether to be pleased that he’d noticed my cooking after all, or annoyed that he was trying to get a rise out of me. “I can’t tell why, but you definitely have a reason.”
“Indeed I do, wenda,” he answered with a grin, taking the food away from me before settling himself cross-legged on the tent floor. “When our meal is done, it will please me to share the reason with you.”
“Why can’t you share it with me now?” I asked, sitting down to watch him unwrap the meat and get ready to divide it. “I don’t tease you without letting you know why I’m doing it.”
“So I have noticed,” he said, his tone dry and his glance pointed for all its brevity. “Though you insist that holding my efforts at control up to ridicule when they fail to please you will in the end aid me, I continue to find your amusement of very little aid. Ridicule is a good deal more discomforting when one is able to feel it as well as see and hear it.”
“Of course it is,” I agreed without hesitation, reaching for the piece of meat handed to me at the end of his complaint. “It’s also something most people want to avoid at all costs, so they work hard toward that end. I’ve noticed that you’ve been working harder ever since I started laughing where you can hear it.”
“I have also been thinking a good deal more upon the advisability of cutting a switch,” he said, looking straight at me while taking a bite of the meat. “Before we leave these woods, you understand, and I no longer have adequate opportunity. ”
“You’re not going to switch me,” I said with only a little more confidence than I was feeling, taking a small bite of my own. “If you do you know I’ll stop criticizing you, and you can’t afford that at this stage. You just have to grit your teeth and take it.”
“Perhaps I shall be fortunate enough to find another reason to switch you,” he grumbled, chewing morosely. “Is there nothing to be found over which you would disobey me? No insult you would consider giving me before others?”
“Well, if it’s that important to you, I’m sure there’s something I could find,” I decided, inspecting the piece of meat I held before sneaking a look at him. For the briefest moment he forgot we were teasing each other and began straightening in indignation, his shaggy-blond head rising to the challenge, his blue eyes hardening. Then he saw me watching him and he chuckled, the amusement of a man who knew he had nothing to worry about. I’d learned the difference between teasing a man in private and insulting him in public, and wasn’t about to get caught with another punishment. Very obviously and deliberately I looked around to see that we were alone, looked back to the barbarian with a smile, then just as obviously and deliberately stuck my tongue out at him. His chuckling got deeper and heavier, but he didn’t say a word.
We finished our meal under flickering candlelight, the sound of gentle rain pattering lightly all around, the tent a bit on the warm side with the flaps closed. After sharing a drink of water with me Tammad replaced the skin, then turned to take me in his arms. He kissed me gently, almost tenderly, let me go briefly to remove my imad and caldin and his own swordbelt and haddin, put me down on his furs, then snuffed the candle before joining me. There was a strange sort of happiness in him as he put his arms around me again, that impatient excitement I’d felt earlier which didn’t seem to have any cause.
“I had not meant to speak to you of this now, yet has the time presented itself as proper,” he murmured out of the darkness, letting his hands enjoy me as he held me up against him. “This doing with Dallan and the wenda from Vediaster has brought it to mind, and I cannot rid myself of it-Terril, you do indeed become more of a woman of this world with every day which passes, and soon, I know, you will give me the final proof of it. Soon, I know, your body will fill with my child.”
The words were so unexpected and shocking that I stiffened in his arms, literally struck speechless in reaction. My mind curtain kept my feelings from racing out madly and overwhelming him, causing him to misinterpret the single physical indication of response that he had.
“I do not accuse you of being remiss, hama sadendra,” he assured me immediately, holding me more tightly to comfort my upset. “It disturbed me a great deal when I failed to put a child on you, and at last I spoke of this disturbance to Lenham and Garth. It was then that I learned of the manner in which the wendaa of your worlds keep themselves childless, and that this method must be renewed every so often, else will it fail. They and I calculated that soon you will no longer be held by the thing, and then we may begin the first of many children. I find myself as eager as a boy before his first woman, hama, and cannot wait till my love is within you. You will give me fine, strong sons, I know and, as was once told me, daughters of a beauty to steal my sleep. My love for you is very full.”
And then he kissed me again, the love he spoke of flowing out of his mind and encompassing me. After that, of course, his lovemaking turned more physical, but if my life depended on remembering the time, I would be in a good deal of danger. He did what he usually did to me and somehow I responded, but once it was over and he had fallen asleep, I crept out of his furs and into mine, where I lay curled up on my side in shock.
The sleeping fur was soft and comfortable, and I didn’t need to cover myself in the close, stuffy darkness. My cheek enjoyed the feel of the fur, as did my entire left side, the pain from the bruise on my ribs almost gone. My thumb moved to my lips and I thought about making myself even more comfortable and serene, in a way I hadn’t used since I was a very little girl. The dark was so nice and warm, soothing and concealing, and I could stay in it as long as I liked, as long as I—
DON’T!
My mind clanged with the scream and then I was trembling and crying, still in the grip of hysteria but at least free of the terrifying beginning of catatonic withdrawal. Some part deep inside me, a ,calm, sad part, didn’t let the terror take me again, and helped me to keep the cleansing emotional storm from waking Tammad. I couldn’t face him right then, not even in pitch darkness, and the tears streaming down my face made that abundantly clear.