Roughly, he pulled me erect, then turned and headed toward the line of camtahh in the distance. Garth moving off with him on his right. I stumbled along behind him, still crying, still too overwhelmed to protest in words. I turned my head, back to look pleadingly at Murdock, sobbing as the tears rolled down my cheeks, but there was nothing Murdock could do and he knew it. And yet he took a step after us, as though intent on following, his mind in such a whirling frenzy that he barely registered the increasing pain he felt from being erect so long. He took another step, raised his cane off the ground—and was caught just in time by two of the XD men before he crumpled to the ground. The two men hurried him toward the ground car, so intent on getting him back to the embassy that they totally ignored Tammad’s l’lendaa. The l’lendaa, two escorting Len and two escorting Gay King, firmly urged their charges after Tammad and me; the fifth, after retrieving his dagger from where I’d dropped it, calmly brought up the rear. None of them looked back, and Tammad didn’t either.
By the time we reached the camtahh and the people waiting for us, I was exhausted. I’d been dragged the entire distance by one wrist, refused a slower pace, refused a rest break of any sort. I was gasping from the lack of air in my lungs and stumbling from the weakness in my limbs, but Tammad had refused to notice my difficulty and Garth had decided not to mention it. I hadn’t mentioned it either, but only because I’d known that mentioning it would have wasted what little breath I had. I was being punished, and I didn’t have to wonder for what. The more Tammad thought about what had happened, the angrier he got.
“Aldana, denday, aldana!”
“Welcome home!” came from all around us, a cacophony of greeting in every mind and on every pair of lips. The men came forward with the women right behind them, and it wasn’t difficult seeing that the group was the same which had accompanied Tammad to the Ratanan, the Great Meeting. Fifty warriors, more than half of them with women, still trailed after their leader, following where he took them, asking no questions.
“We have heard something of the happenings on your journey, Tammad.” Faddan grinned, limping closer with everyone else. There was still a bandage around his thigh covering the wound he had gotten during the fight with the savages at the Ratanan, but that didn’t mean he was going to allow himself to be left behind when Tammad decided there were places to go and things to do. Faddan was a true l’lenda, contemptuous of wounds and unwilling to allow them to slow him down.
“Aye,” Loddar laughed, with Kerman chuckling at his side. “Hannas was somewhat preoccupied with other matters, yet he paused briefly to speak with us. Should you need to go in search of Terril again, I would be pleased to accompany you.”
“And I!” agreed Loddar and Kerman together, the others around them laughing further agreement. I wiped at the sweat covering my forehead and face and tried to collapse onto the grass where we’d stopped, but one jerk on my wrist and I was standing straight again. Or as straight as I could manage after a quarter-mile run.
“There will be no further searches for Terril,” my tormentor said, looking at me with grim satisfaction. “She will remain with him to whom she belongs, and no further disobedience will be tolerated. Has my pavillion been erected?”
“It stands there, denday,” Loddar answered, indicating a place in the middle of the other tents. All of the l’lendaa were examining me with their eyes, understanding that Tammad’s anger wasn’t for them. They were curious about what I’d done, but they weren’t about to ask their leader for details, not when he was in such a touchy mood.
“Good,” Tammad said, and then we were off again, heading for the pavilion that was the denday’s tent during the Ratanan. If they hadn’t come straight from the Ratanan, Tammad’s camtah would have been just like everyone else’s.
If I’d bad to go a step farther than the pavilion, I probably would have fallen down dead. As soon as we were through the tent flaps and my wrist was finally released, I fell straight down to the furred carpeting covering the floor and didn’t move. The hanging that divided the pavilion in two was stretched across the width of it, but even if sleeping furs were arranged and waiting behind that hanging, I couldn’t have gotten to them. I let my eyes close as I concentrated on gulping in as much air as possible, paying no attention whatsoever to anyone else in the pavillion.
“I think it’ll be a while before she makes any more trouble,” Garth’s voice came, his attention clearly on me. “What were your men talking about when they came to meet us?”
“They merely discussed the journey recently completed,” Tammad answered, a sudden thoughtfulness to his voice. “Amid this woman’s distractions, I had forgotten you are unable to speak our language. The l’lendaa who accompanied me were given your tongue at the embassy, before our departure, by use of that termed ‘learning machine’. A pity I cannot have you acquire our tongue as easily.”
“I think that would create more problems than it would solve,” Garth agreed with a sigh. “It looks like I’ll be acquiring your language the old-fashioned way.”
“There are enough of those about us to see to the matter,” Tammad said, moving around the pavilion. “Until your lessons have begun you may have an interpreter, perhaps even this female here. After they have begun, there will be no speech for you other than in the language you are attempting to learn. In such a way will your comprehension be sooner in the coming.”
“Ouch,” Garth said wryly, the prospect less than appealing to him. “If I don’t learn, I don’t talk to anyone but myself. I don’t think I’m going to be enjoying the next few weeks.”
“I have no doubt that you will learn quickly,” Tammad chuckled, finally ceasing his wandering. “Take your ease here while I see to the quartering of our other guests, and also to the preparation of a meal. We will retire early this darkness, for we leave early on the morrow.”
Garth grunted his thanks and Tammad left, too wrapped up in his newly made plans to think about me any longer. I rolled over onto my back and opened my eyes to stare at the tent ceiling, still too played out to think of anything but how miserable I felt.
“Your face is dirty,” Garth observed from the spot he’d chosen to sit down on, a few feet to my right. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Prime with a dirty face before.”
“Don’t speak to me,” I muttered, still staring up at the ceiling. “Not even to ask the time of day.”
“Why not?” he countered, stirring where he sat. “Are you afraid I’ll tell you what a stupid, infantile thing you did? Well, you’re too late because that’s exactly what I am telling you.”
“It’s none of your business what I do!” I snapped, jerking my head around to glare at him. “At least I tried, which is more than I can say for the rest of you big, brave men!”
“Oh, sure you tried,” he snorted sarcastically. “You tried to make Tammad look like a damned fool and nearly succeeded! The only reason he faced you like that was because he cares for you and doesn’t want to see you unhappy. Haven’t you any idea what it means for a warrior to face an untrained woman half his size? Whatever he does, he looks and feels like an idiot! If he had any sense, he would have put you over his knee again and whacked you till you howled!”
His light eyes were furious with me, his voice harder with determination than I’d ever heard it before. I tried to keep the tears from welling out of my eyes again, but it was a lost cause. I was too tired to have the control I needed, and hurting too much inside to try for it. I rolled away from him and curled up, resting my cheek against the fur floor covering, letting the tears come any damned way they wanted to. It was quiet for a minute or two, then Garth was sitting right behind me.