“She speaks the truth,” Dallan confirmed, his mind showing relief that I hadn’t said why he’d been there when I awoke, but his face was frowning and so was Hestin’s. “I knew at the time she had not awakened in two days, yet I took that as the results of exhaustion—and thought that the whipping she had been given had been administered some time in the past. I had not known it had been no more than three days earlier.”
“One does not recover from such a thing in as little as three days,” Hestin said again, taking a pouch of salve from his gray robe. “Even with the aid of this salve. A man, perhaps, might move about despite the pain, yet would even he be far from true recovery.”
“Indeed,” Dallan said faintly and feelingly, his eyes showing that he remembered his own recovery time after the incident in the resting place of the Sword of Gerleth . “Even a man would not recover quite so quickly. You saw her when I first brought her here, and you see her now. What think you?”
“Can there be more than one thought to occur?” Hestin said, and this time the shrug was his. “The treda has the true power, and was able to heal herself.”
Dallan and I both stared at him, but my stare had a groaning, “Oh, no!” behind it. All I needed was another new ability, no matter how useful it had turned out to be! But then it came to me that it wasn’t new, and couldn’t be if it had worked once before as far back as my escape from the Hamarda. That was long before the battle in the resting place of the Sword, so it had to be something I’d had all along. But if I’d had it, why hadn’t I known about it? I found myself staring down at the arms I was resting on, for once more puzzled than upset. If empaths also had the power of healing, why didn’t anyone know about it? I didn’t for a minute believe that I was the only one; somehow, I knew better. So, if I wasn’t the only one, why hadn’t anyone said anything?
“The woman continues to be an unending surprise,” Dallan said at last with a sigh, sounding no more than the least bit put-upon. “Tammad, however, will be greatly pleased, to know that his wenda shall be able to heal what her precipitate actions so often bring her.”
“A thought has just occurred to me,” I said as Hestin chuckled his agreement with Dallan, turning my head to look at the healer again. “As I am no longer in danger of harming myself, I no longer need to remain in this bed. Is that not so?”
My question to Hestin was as innocent as possible, a good girl asking permission before she got up. I was sure he couldn’t justify keeping me under his thumb any longer, and I was right; the point I had missed again was that he didn’t have to justify it.
“You are completely correct, treda,” he answered, his light eyes calm—and very faintly amused. “I believe, however, that a nap will do you little harm, therefore shall you have one. To strengthen you even more against what will need to be faced come the new light, you understand.”
“But I have no wish for a nap,” I said through my teeth as he smiled at me, this time Dallan chuckling in agreement. “You now use your authority over me in an arbitrary manner, a thing my memabrak would not approve of. I need not remain in this bed and shall not!”
“Ah, but you shall, wenda,” Dallan jumped in to add to the fun, leaning forward where he sat. “Above all things, Tammad would wish you to be obedient, no matter whether the command be arbitrary or to a purpose. Should he find, when he returns, that you have indeed been done as you should not have been, it will then be a matter for him to see to. Do you wish to attempt to deny this?”
“What good would it do me, you overgrown lap cat,” I muttered, glaring at the man who dared to call himself my brother. I was so angry I wanted to spit, but all I could do was mutter an insult—and in Centran, at that.
“I take it you have no interest in denying the truth,” Dallan said, his attitude bland with the knowledge that I wasn’t about to insult him openly, thereby giving him something good to go to Tammad with. “Had it truly been our wish to give you difficulty, wenda, the thing might much more easily—and pleasantly-have been done.”
“What more might you do to me than hold me prisoner to your whim?” I demanded, even more outraged that he would dare to pat himself .on the back for being a good guy. “You would not attempt to beat me, I know, for in such an instance I would defend myself without hesitation just as Tammad would expect me to. What other thing do you believe you might do?”
Rather than answer immediately, Dallan got to his feet, a small smile of amusement on his face, and came close to my bed to crouch down beside it. With him that near the hum in his mind was much clearer even with my curtain in place, and suddenly I remembered that I lay there stark naked. Granted I was belly down and my arms more or less hid my breasts, but that wasn’t the point. With Rimilian men it wasn’t being naked in front of them that was upsetting to a woman; it was knowing what they were all too likely to do if their interest was high enough, that nakedness would just make that much easier. Dallan reached out to stroke his hand slowly and gently down my bare back, then chuckled when I shivered.
“You forget that I know you well, wenda,” he said, for some reason being careful to touch nothing but my back. “Were I to say to you that a man’s duty to see to the well-being of another man’s wenda most usually includes her entire well-being, you would find it unnecessary to ask if I spoke the truth, would you not? No longer need we consider you ill and hurt, Terril, and this state you have yourself confirmed. Hestin is a healer, one to whom I may unhesitatingly turn to assist me in seeing to my duty. Shall I ask him to learn if your body desires a man? He will do no more than touch you, and then the route of my duty will be clear.”
I lowered my face to my hands, horribly aware of Dallan’s touch on my back, even more horribly aware of Hestin where he crouched beside my bare thighs. Dallan knew how well I’d been conditioned on that world, how quickly I would respond to the touch of a man like Hestin; then I would be taken in Dallan’s arms, to allow him to ease me as his duty demanded. As Tammad would expect him to do. As I would hate but would be unable to refuse. I didn’t want to have Dallan make love to me, most especially not then, but once Hestin touched me, the decision would no longer be mine.
“Perhaps you now feel more of a need for a nap, sister,” Dallan observed after a minute when he saw I had nothing to say, his voice and mind heavy with satisfaction. “You will obey the healer and myself without question and without demurral, and perhaps I shall see my duty as already done.”
Perhaps he’d see it that way. I lay with my face in my hands and my legs clasped tightly together, so furious I was ready to break. Not only was he blackmailing me, he was also punishing me again, making me obey not only Tammad and Tammad’s wishes, but him and his as well! I didn’t want to obey him, but he was making sure I would.
“The healer and I shall now leave you so that you may sleep, wenda,” Dallan said, and a moment later the too-heavy cover fur was on me again. “Should I return and find you remaining awake, I will know that you require easing first. I wish you dreams of great pleasure.”
I heard the two of them straighten up and begin moving toward the door, and a moment later they were gone. I took my face from my hands and put my cheek down on the bed fur, silently wishing Dallan an embarrassing accident of some sort, silently cursing myself for not arranging that accident. I might have been tempted to do it, but if I knew Dallan he already had someone else lined up to see to his duty if he couldn’t, probably his new friend Hestin. Hestin wasn’t really very happy over what I’d done to him earlier that morning, and wouldn’t have minded making my punishment a little more personal. Only he wouldn’t have seen it as punishment. No Rimilian male did, not even the one who’d tried to attack me. Unless they decided purposely to make it a punishment. I lay there in the dim room, wide awake, listening to the sound of the rain on the window and the splash of it as it drove itself into the ground; wishing Rimilian males could be less physical in their appetites, wondering what I was going to do when Dallan came back to check on me.