The voice was undeniable, but I didn’t want to tell it what it had asked me. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable in the furs and tried to turn away from the voice, but an arm didn’t let me. It held me up against the big, hard body, making sure I stayed on my left side, holding me still for the hand that continued to stroke my hair.
“You need not be reluctant to speak of it, little one,” the voice pursued, understanding and compassion filling it completely. “I am already aware that you were given to men for their use, and that the use was far from pleasant. Tell me of the one whose memory brought you such pain that I was able to know of it without touching you.”
“He was my master,” I whispered, reaching for my throat to find what had once been there—but no longer was. “He was in truth but one of my masters, and yet he made himself the leader where I was concerned.”
“And he gave you hurt because he was your master?” the voice asked, speaking gently despite the hidden edge. “He found pleasure in doing you so?”
“He found pleasure in attempting to give me pleasure, yet he knew not what he did,” I answered, seeing again, behind closed eyelids, that beautiful, eager face. “He knew nothing of the strength of his passion, of the pain and frustration which was given me by his vigor. He was a child, and thought I had pleasure from him and the others. He-directed and taught the ones who desired me.”
“Directed and taught-! What manner of men were these?” Now the voice sounded confused, as confused as I had been, but confusion no longer bothered me.
“They were slaves and likely born so,” I said, again feeling that terrible pain. “Born and raised to be no other thing than innocents, to be denied all knowledge and mighthave-beens. They each of them held me down to use me, yet did I feel that it was I who stole innocence, I who soiled the purity of souls. Their minds, their thoughts—I could not bear it and yet I was made to bear it, to feel the pitiful efforts of those who will never be whole. They gave me pain, thinking they gave pleasure—and I knew and could not speak of it—they were forever lost and cannot be saved- Please come back to me, Tammad! Please hold me, sadendrak!”
“I will hold you,” the voice whispered, so unsteady that I heard its raggedness even above my sobbing. It hurt so much to know that that might have been done to anyone, even my beloved or the flesh of my flesh, and the arms holding me tight were my only brace against being overwhelmed. I do not despise slaves, my beloved had once said, I merely despise those who make slaves. I, too, hated those who made slaves, hated them and wanted to see them dead. My sobbing continued for a short while, the pain most clearly shared by another, and then the voice told me to sleep, which I had no difficulty in doing.
11
The morning light was gray rather than golden, and seemed to be waiting for me as an audience. My eyes couldn’t have been open for more than two minutes before the sound of rain came, heavy at first and then settling down into the steady mold of an all-day affair—and all night. I cursed under my breath in three languages, hardly looking forward to getting to the palace dripping wet and covered with mud to the knees. But then I realized it was a palace dominated by women that I was going to, and pictured the guard women standing along the corridors yelling at me for not wiping my feet, rather than attacking. The absurdity made me feel just a little better, enough so that I was able to think about getting up and taking a look out the window. There was hardly likely to be much to see, but anything was better than more of simply lying in those furs. I sat up thinking about trying to stretch gently and carefully, and that was when the door to my room opened.
“Go no farther, treda,” Hestin the healer said as he entered, carrying a tray, the words an order despite the calm quiet of his tone. “You shall indeed leave your furs today, yet not till I have said you might.”
I watched him walk over and put the tray down next to the bed instead of giving it to me, and all the annoyance and impatience I felt toward the weather suddenly had a new focus.
“And what if I should choose not to await your permission?” I asked as he gathered up pillows from the carpet fur, his intentions obvious. “I am curious to know of the manner in which you would force me to your will.”
“You will obey me without the need for force,” he answered, calmly setting the pillows on my bed so that I might lean on them. “You wore the bands of a man, did you not? The obedience your memabrak taught you will for now be given to me. Settle yourself among the cushions, and I will feed you. ”
“I would prefer to feed myself,” I said, not quite through my teeth, watching the way he barely even glanced at me. “I am not a child, and dislike being treated as one.”
“You are a wenda, and will do as you are bidden to do,” he said, his tone so matter-of-fact that it almost seemed reasonable. He was crouching near the tray and beginning to reach for a bowl, but as far as I was concerned he’d already reached the last straw.
Once, when I’d wanted to get Dallan away from me without letting him know I was doing anything, I’d brushed him with a nervous reaction, one that caused overwrought people to think they needed to relieve themselves. Just then I didn’t much care if Hestin discovered what I was doing, but I decided to see how long I could keep him going, so to speak, before he figured it out. I couldn’t open my shield without warning him that I was up to something, but I’d worked around my shield before and really did need the practice.
It had taken a matter of seconds to make the decision, and once made I didn’t simply brush the man the way I had with Dallan. I reached around my shield and sent Hestin the conviction that he had to relieve himself, leaving his own mind to supply a reason for the feeling. His hand had just touched a bowl on the tray, but that bowl never got picked up. His hesitation was so brief that it was practically nonexistent, and then he was straightening from his crouch.
“I must excuse myself for a moment, treda,” he said, looking like a man with muscles clenched tight. “I will return in no more than a short while.”
I suppose running would have been too undignified for him, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t hurry as fast as possible. As soon as the door closed on him and his strangely uneven gait, I grinned, then reached down for the bowl he hadn’t managed to pick up and made myself comfortable against the cushions.
The bowl held my old friend the thick, sweet, grainy mixture I’d first had in Tammad’s house, and I managed to eat about a third of it before the door opened again. I thought it was Hestin coming back, but the figure that entered was Dallan.
“Is Leelan the sole person in this house who has been taught to knock?” I commented as he closed the door and came closer. I had decided that taking Hestin on was just practice for what I would have to do that night, so I could look at starting up with Dallan in the same way. Dallan, however, didn’t seem to be in the mood to take offense.
“It was not my intention to intrude,” he said as he seated himself among the remaining cushions on the carpet fur, sounding as though he was intent on something other than the words he was speaking. “I thought perhaps you might still be asleep, and had no wish to waken you unnecessarily.”
“Unnecessarily,” I repeated, wondering what was bothering him. “And now that you find I need not be awakened, you wish to speak with me.”
“Indeed,” he said with a nod, finally raising his eyes to my face. “It has come to me that it might perhaps be best if I were to tell you why I have no wish for us to attempt the palace this darkness. When I became convinced that you three were taken and not merely delayed, I sought out a merchant from Gerleth I had seen here when first we arrived. The man knew me as I knew him, and agreed without hesitation to ride with all haste to my father and tell him of what had occurred. In no more than a short while we will have l’lendaa to accompany us, therefore would it be foolish to make the attempt alone.”