“It is unnecessary to call Tammad,” Loddar answered, pulling me away from the spit by one arm and gesturing toward a woman not far from us. The woman hurried over to take my place, first wiping my blood off the handle with her caldin, and the thing was done no matter how hard I struggled against Loddar’s fingers.
“I am much of a fool,” Len said, looking into Loddar’s eyes and undoubtedly feeling the faint contempt Loddar was keeping from his face. “I have been considering myself a free man, yet I am not even free enough to stop a woman from hurting herself. If I were in your position, I would be feeling the contempt you do a good deal more strongly.”
“Freedom is not an easy thing,” Loddar told him, his smile filled with understanding. “For some, it is necessary to grow into the state, and it is Tammad’s will that we assist you. If you are willing.”
“I am more than willing.” Len grinned, bolstered by the lack of critical judgment from the l’lenda. “Now what are we to do with this woman?”
“We will see to her,” Loddar said, turning from Len to take my hands in his. I tried to close my hands to keep them from being looked at, but the pain was too great and I was too wild with rage to use pain control. Len reached over and held my wrists while Loddar pried my fingers open, then my brother empath waited while the l’lenda finished his examination.
“The injury is not serious,” Loddar finally pronounced, raising his eyes to mine with a good deal of disapproval. “Her hands are not the hands of a woman well used to hard labor, and should not have been subjected to such overuse. They will heal quickly, yet Tammad will not be pleased.”
“You are mistaken,” I told Loddar, my resentment of his treatment of me clear in every word I spoke. “I was ordered to see to the krayea by no one other than your denday, and that is what I shall do till he recalls my presence and commands differently. Release me so that I may return to my work!”
“Woman, you speak foolishly,” Loddar said, shaking his large, shaggy blond head at me. “It was not Tammad’s intention to see you harmed, therefore is it unnecessary to see his pleasure interrupted to keep you from it. Should you wish a greater portion of his attention, I suggest you labor toward that end when in his furs. For now you will come with me.”
He let go of my hands to take my arm again, and then he, too, was dragging me in the direction he wanted me to go. I was so furious I was nearly speechless, and Len’s very obvious amusement as he followed us didn’t help at all. I seriously considered telling Loddar he was an idiot for thinking I cared who Tammad took to his furs, but finally decided I’d be wasting my breath. At least I knew I didn’t care anything about that big barbarian, and one day I’d prove it.
Loddar dragged me to a tent not far from Tammad’s pavilion, pushed me down on the edge of the verandah, then began rummaging through a sack of his things lying on the ground beside the verandah. I sat there wincing at the brightness of the setting sun, cradling my aching hands against me, ignoring Len where he stood staring down at me, and most of all wishing I were somewhere else. My hair was stringy with sweat, my shoulders, back and arms ached, my hands hurt with a stabbing pain, and I was beginning to hate everyone around me. I was vaguely aware of Garth coming over to Len to find out what was going on as Loddar turned to me with a silk-lined leather pouch of the salve he intended putting on my hands, and that’s when I became aware of what was going on in Tammad’s pavilion.
Many people have remarked, usually nervously, how empaths almost seem able to read minds as well as emotions. They point out the interpreting we do as an excellent example of the contention, asking how it’s possible for an empath to know people’s intentions and actions merely from knowing what emotions they’re experiencing. During the period when
I was still answering the contention, I usually cited the example of gestures among untalented people. If an untalented person saw someone else taste something and then grimace, did it take telepathy to know that the second person had disliked what he’d tasted? If that same untalented person saw a third person rubbing his hands together and grinning, did it take telepathy to know the third person was anticipating something extremely pleasant? Emotions are gestures of the mind, each nuance reflecting and defining a different action or reaction. A trained empath can usually tell what’s going on between two people even if he or she can’t see them, and Tammad’s pavilion was much too close to where I was sitting.
“Give me your hands, Terril,” Loddar directed, crouching down in front of me with the leather pouch. “This salve will heal the sores upon your palms, so that you will be able to use your bands come the new sun.”
His mind, like every other l’lenda’s, was prepared to accept nothing but obedience, but I wasn’t about to just sit there and become an uninvited guest at Tammad’s party.
“I cannot stay here,” I said, looking up at his dark outline-form where he crouched in front of the sun. “Should you wish to see to my hands, you may follow me to another place, farther away, where my thoughts may be my own.”
I began to get to my feet to leave there, but Loddar’s hand was suddenly on my shoulder, pushing me back down.
“I have no need to follow you,” he said, shaking his head. “Perhaps Terril has forgotten that the darayse of her land do not dwell in ours. Give me your hand, wenda, for Tammad would wish me to see to your injury.”
“I don’t care what Tammad would want!” I snapped, pushing at his hand, not caring that he didn’t understand the language I’d switched to. “Get out of my way, you bully, and leave me alone!”
“I do not know the words you speak, wenda,” he answered, with a frown, “yet do I feel that were I to know them, I would not care for them. I have shown you the patience due from a man toward another man’s wenda, yet does my patience grow exceedingly thin. Do you now obey me, else shall I see my will done in another manner.”
“And what of my will?” I demanded, not having been able to budge his hand an inch. “Is my will nothing, a mere scream in the wind, a candle in the forest’s darkness? Am I of so little value and worth that my will means nothing?”
He frowned at my question, confusion muddling his thoughts, and for an instant I thought he was going to answer me, but abruptly the intention was rejected. He shook his bead with a sigh, let go of my shoulder, then pushed me flat on my back.
“Though there are not the words, a man does what he must,” be muttered, reaching to his swordbelt, and then his hands were at my ankles, chaining them together with a bronze-colored clip that held to one link of each of the ankle bands I wore. I yelled incoherently and tried to struggle free, but he ignored my struggles and pulled me upright again to take my right wrist and tie it to the metal upright of his tent’s verandah with a piece of leather. My left wrist was added to the upright just below my right one, and then the salve touched my palms, soothing the pain and hurt as if by magic. Loddar smoothed the salve all over with two fingers, checked to make sure I couldn’t pull loose from the upright, then stood straight and walked away, wiping his hand on his haddin. He had already tagged me as a settled problem in his mind, but the problem wasn’t settled as far as I was concerned. I pulled at the leather without doing any good, but I had to get out of there!
“I admire efficiency of effort, don’t you?” Len’s voice came, filled with amusement. I turned my head to see that he was talking to Garth, who stood next to him looking down at me. “Why do the job and leave the woman free to ruin it, thereby requiring that it be done again? Tie her up before starting, and you only have to do it once.”
“I think I like that,” Garth said, beginning a slow grin as he stared at me. “Yes, I definitely like that.”