The sun shone bright off the white walls of the palace as we approached it, and boys came running out to take the seetarr leads Cinnan and Tammad held, then began leading the beasts away. The two boys wore nothing but light brown cloth wrapped loosely around their waists, definitely not haddinn and not meant to be, while bright rings of bronzecolored metal circled their throats. The two men watched the boys who were taking their mounts and pack beasts to be seen to until they were a good distance away, and then Tammad turned to the woman who seemed to be the leader of our escort.
“You keep boys as slaves?” he asked, the calm holding his voice neutral but only barely. “How is it possible for them to have been taken in battle, or to have committed crimes of such severity that condemnation is their lot? They are barely more than children.”
“They are slaves,” the woman corrected with an uncaring shrug, barely glancing at the barbarian. “Your land has its manner of enslaving, we in our land have ours. Come this way.”
The woman’s eyes had brushed me briefly as she turned and headed off, her meaning obvious and intended as a counter to Tammad’s comment about the boys. Both men mentally brushed off the dig as foolishness, but for the first time in a good number of days I felt the confinement of the bands I wore. They had been put on by a man to tell other men that I wasn’t free for the taking, but I was the one who couldn’t get them off. Not having the strength to remove them meant I also lacked the choice about whether or not to wear them, and that suddenly seemed very unfair. Before banding me Tammad had given me the choice, but the only alternative then had seemed to be an endless series of fights that the barbarian would get into with men who didn’t know I was his. He had offered to leave me unbanded if that was what I really wanted, and it had turned out not to be what I wanted at all; had that really been my decision—or merely the first time I’d been maneuvered into obedience?
The palace corridors were wide and cool, but not with the cool of marble. Walls, floor and ceiling were of a shining white rock, and underfoot it was smoother than even years of walking would have made it. Occasional hangings of silk broke up the stone expanse, along with torch and candle holders, paintings, wooden carvings, and jeweled constructions of glass and metal. I would have enjoyed moving more slowly to admire some of those things, but the female guards moved along at a brisk pace, one the two l’lendaa had no trouble matching. I was the only one who had to hurry to keep up.
The women led us quite a ways into the palace, then finally stopped at a beautifully carved wooden door that seemed no different from any of the other similar ones we’d passed. Cinnan had been growing anxious again, but I still hadn’t let myself search mentally for Aesnil. No matter what Tammad had said or how Cinnan felt, there was no guarantee Aesnil hadn’t come to that place voluntarily; if she had, I wasn’t going to be the one to cause her being dragged out of it again.
“You will all wait in here,” the leader of the guard said to us, throwing open the door. “Should the Chama agree to grant you an audience, you will be told.”
“And how long a time is that likely to be?” Tammad asked, looking down at the woman instead of walking through the door. He was supposed to have obeyed her without question, and she stiffened with annoyance when he didn’t. Nothing in his expression showed it, but he’d been expecting the annoyance and was enjoying it.
“It will be till the Chama has made her decision,” the woman answered, refusing to let herself snap the words out despite the anger in her light eyes. “Enter the room or leave the palace.”
Put that baldly there was nothing else to do, but the barbarian continued to look at the woman for a long moment before turning to walk through the doorway. During that moment the woman’s expression hadn’t changed any more than his, but the stiffness of her body was beginning to change to tension because of the worry starting to show in her eyes. If Tammad and Cinnan refused her orders there would be a fight, and somehow she knew the two men would not be easily taken. Her left palm had unconsciously caressed her sword hilt as she’d locked eyes with him, and Tammad had known as clearly as I that she would not back down if it did come to a fight. He didn’t like the woman, but he did give her grudging respect; for that reason, as well as the original ones we had come there for, he turned and led the way into the room.
After all the stone of the corridor, the medium-sized room came as something of a surprise. The floor was carpeted with fur and had quite a few pillows scattered around, but three of the walls and the ceiling were hidden behind a facing of brownish rock, with nothing in the way of silk to decorate it. Large candles burned in sconces on each of those walls, throwing back the dark there would have been without them. There wasn’t a sign of a window in the place, and when the guard leader closed the door behind us it made me very uncomfortable.
“This room is too close,” Cinnan observed as he looked around, heavy disapproval in him. “Perhaps we should have insisted upon seeing the Chama at once.”
“They would not have allowed it,” Tammad said, also looking around from the center of the room. “There is naught we may do save wait-without refreshments of any sort.”
“Barbaric,” Cinnan muttered, his sense of propriety greatly offended. “Wendaa have no true knowledge of hospitality. Without the guidance of men, they behave as mondarayse.”
“Best we recall that we are the outlanders here, not they,” the barbarian cautioned, his glance at Cinnan agreeing with the sentiment but not the voicing of it. “Should the time drag on to too great a length, we will recall to them the duties of a host. ”
Cinnan grunted agreement without adding anything else, and the two of them chose cushions and pieces of carpeting to stake out as their own. They were getting themselves comfortable to wait as long as necessary, but for some reason I couldn’t get myself to the same point of patience. I moved slowly into the center of the room, very aware of the carpeting under my bare feet, beginning to sweat in the closed-in, airless place. I didn’t like all that brown rock on the walls around me, the clothing I wore hung more heavily than ever, and something about that whole situation didn’t make any sense. I frowned in thought for a minute. Was it possible all people showing up at the palace to see the Chama were invited in to wait? Without asking who they were? Without trying to find out what their business was? Without knowing whether they were friend or foe? We hadn’t been asked any questions at all, and the two men with me had accepted the lack without even noticing it. On that world women didn’t question men, not unless they were asking for instructions, so Tammad and Cinnan hadn’t noticed . . . . Hadn’t noticed, but what were they supposed to have noticed? There was something, I’d been thinking about it only a minute earlier, but somehow it had slipped away again. I shook my head to get the sweat-dampened hair off my shoulders, trying to clear the thickening mush filling my mind. It was so hot in that room that I was sweating, and the heat and sweating were making it impossible to think.
“Wenda, are you ill?” Cinnan’s voice came, filled with concern. “Why do you appear so strange, and why do you merely stand there?”
I looked over toward him slowly, trying to understand what he was saying, but everything felt so confused and difficult. Thinking was too hard, much too hard, and wasn’t even worth the trouble. I put my hands to my head, frowning at Cinnan through waves of uncaring exhaustion, vaguely wondering what he was saying, vaguely wondering why Tammad was sitting and staring and blinking slowly at nothing. Not sitting precisely, but slumping, almost as though he hadn’t the strength to sit. No strength, none at all, no will, no strength, no volition. No, nothing, none, a humming chant lulling me, the dance of Cinnan’s struggle to rise flowing with the beat. Cinnan wanted to get to his feet but he couldn’t, even though he was trying very hard. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t do it, and neither did I. Tammad lay slumped on the carpet and Cinnan struggled to rise, and I no longer had the strength of will to stay awake.