“Calm yourself, wenda, and do not struggle,” I heard, no more than a breath behind each sound. “We would not wish the guard wendaa to find you, Terril, now that you have accomplished so excellent an escape.”
Wendaa not w’wendaa, and he called me by name. I had just enough time to realize it was Dallan, before everything disappeared from around me.
10
I awoke with a start and the beginnings of panic, but the walls around me were a reddish-brown wood instead of smooth white stone, and I wasn’t alone in the room. Not far from whatever I lay on Dallan sat in comfort amid cushions, a copper-colored goblet in his hands, his sword still belted around him. That more than anything else kept me from jumping up and running, and it wasn’t until my heart had receded from my mouth that I noticed he hadn’t moved. Working at keeping me off the ceiling, I thought as I lay back again and let my muscles unclench, and a damned good thing he was smart enough to do it. One move out of him and I probably would have been able to answer Garth’s question about whether or not I could fly.
“Wenda, we must make an attempt to cease this,” Dallan’s voice came after a minute, sounding the least bit cautious. “I dislike finding myself at your side each time you awaken from pain-filled, fearful sleep. The practice is becoming upsetting. ”
“Perhaps it would be best if I were the first to make the attempt,” I answered in a rusty voice, smiling faintly at his teasing. “Your part seems far easier to arrange.”
“Not quite as easy as all that,” he said, disagreeing, and then he was beside me, smoothing my hair back with one big hand. “So Tammad’s apprehensions were correct after all. Are you able to tell me what was done to you there?”
I opened my eyes and turned my head to the man looking down at me, seeing the worry lines in his face that I’d thought I’d heard. in his voice. On reconsideration I decided that sitting around waiting for someone to regain consciousness wasn’t the most pleasant pastime in the world, and might even be harder than being the one who had gotten hurt.
“You may rest your mind, for I am completely recovered,” I began at once, starting to get into a sitting position as fast as I could to reassure him, but I didn’t make it. My body screamed out the demand as to whether I’d lost my mind, and then refused to let me have the ability to answer. All I managed was a croaking gasp and very little motion, and even that was swallowed up by Dallan’s hand on my shoulder.
“Completely recovered, are you?” he asked, the growl he refused to allow in his voice showing up in his eyes, his hand continuing to hold me down. “When I allow you to move it will only be slowly, and then for no more than a short time. Have you no concept of how badly you were whipped?”
As a matter of fact I didn’t really, but the stiffness a portion of the pain had turned into started giving me an inkling. It wasn’t going to be as easy as it had been those other times Dallan had mentioned, but it was still going to have to be done.
“I have not the time to move so slowly,” I informed him with as much firmness as I could muster while still under that big hand of his. “Last darkness I was able to do what was necessary, and this darkness I shall do the same.”
“Indeed shall you do this darkness what was done during the last,” he agreed, his tone, for some reason, rather dry. “Last darkness was spent by you in sleep, as well as all the day previous and half the darkness before that. It is now somewhere about mid-day, and you have so far had no more than meat broth in you, swallowed at the times you nearly awoke. I shall fetch you a meal, and then you will sleep again. ”
He straightened and headed for the door in the wall to the right of where I lay, and I was too upset to protest before he had disappeared through it. It was going on two days since I’d escaped from the palace, but I hadn’t done a damned thing about going back except sleep! I moved around a little where I lay, feeling the remnants of pain and the hobbling of stiffness, the strengthlessness that hadn’t quite left me and the hollowness of near-starvation, and cursed under my breath. Dallan was picturing me taking a long time to recover, but he was in for a surprise. I couldn’t afford to take my time, and had no intentions of doing so.
The room I lay in was rather small, but it was also rather pleasant. The reddish-brown paneling of the walls stopped at the wide window to the left of me, and a golden curtain colored the incoming light. The carpet-fur was also golden, and the pillows Dallan had been sitting among were red, all of it going well with the dark brown fur of my bed. Those furs seemed somewhat well-used, with the smell of salves or ointment to them, and once again I was naked under what covered me—but that terrible bronze collar was also gone. I thought about how I’d been stripped naked at that woman Roodar’s orders and I felt the anger come, building slowly toward true fury. We had a score to settle, Roodar and I, but I would need to wait before I knew how big a score. If she had hurt Tammad she would live to regret it-that I swore by everything that was right!
I stopped the fury, saving it for the next time I’d need it. That time it had already served its purpose; although there was sweat on my forehead I was sitting up straight and had gotten that way with a lot less pain than I would have had without the strong emotion I’d used as a crutch. Anger can be very useful if you handle it properly, and it was about time I learned how to handle it.
A minute later the door opened, and I was surprised to see Dallan coming back with a tray. My stomach twisted at the thought of food, and I regretted how little I’d be able to eat.
“Have you taken to conjuring?” I asked as he closed the door before starting toward me with the tray. “I had not thought it would be possible for you to prepare provender and return so soon.”
“As the mid-day meal had already been prepared and a servant was nearly here with it, I had only to take the tray,” he answered, setting the thing down on my lap. “And clearly did you fail to expect so speedy a return, else you would not have been caught in so obvious a disobedience.”
I was able to see the annoyance in his eyes before he turned away to begin gathering pillows from the carpet fur, but I didn’t understand what he was talking about.
“What disobedience do you refer to?” I asked, taking a peek at the food he’d put under my nose. There was a thick meat soup of some kind, a slab of bread, a cup of yellow pudding that was probably pure sugar, and a goblet of what seemed to be juice of some sort.
“I refer to the disobedience of having found you sitting,” he said, stuffing pillows behind my back until they were high enough to lean against. “Were you not told to remain unmoving till you had my permission to do otherwise?”
“Dallan, you continue to speak in riddles,” I protested, reaching a hand out to the goblet of juice. The hand shook slightly, but I was still able to raise the goblet with only a minimal effort. “Though I look upon you with the love of a sister and feel deep gratitude for the manner in which you aid me in my need, I am not bound to obey you. I must restore my strength with all possible speed, and mean to do exactly that. ”
I watched him over the goblet rim as I drank, seeing the annoyance increase in his eyes as he crouched beside me to my right.
“I am greatly honored that you look upon me as a brother,” he said, lacing his fingers together as he stared at me. “Also am I honored that your memabrak Tammad looks upon me the same, and therein lies the root of your confusion. In Tammad’s absence your protection is mine, therefore are you bound to obey me as you do him. In time will your strength be restored, wenda, and to hurry the matter will only cause you greater harm. You will rest and do as I say, and soon will find yourself in full health.”