Surprisingly enough, we were allowed to sleep undisturbed for quite some time before quiet bustle awoke us. The veiled women were moving around the tent lighting candles, straightening up, and preparing another meal. We were given a pot, water, dried cereal grain and a cooking stand tripod affair with fire-ledge and pot-ring raised two feet from the floor—and told to prepare our own meal. After the meal we all helped in the clean-up, then stood by while our teacher inspected our efforts. She passed them without finding fault, but didn’t miss the opportunity to tell us that the men might not feel the same if they inspected. If our efforts were found to be unsatisfactory, the only thing we could do would be to suffer our punishment and swear to do better next time.
Darkness had fallen by the time we were sent for by the hizahh. We were the only ones left in the tent when the two big men in black haddinn and bronze neck chains entered and motioned to us to follow them, and one of the women was so nervous she almost knelt and bowed to the men before realizing her mistake. We’d been told these unveiled men were bedinn too, male slaves who were used to do the jobs women weren’t strong enough to do. The men were all members of other tribes who had been found guilty of serious crimes. When a tribe decreed a man among them guilty, they stripped the man of his veil and possessions, castrated him, then sold him to another tribe as a slave. That explained their strange lack of interest in us when they’d bathed us; they were no longer capable of feeling interest. If I’d noticed that their bronze neck-chains had been permanently closed around their necks with tools, I might have understood what they were a good deal sooner.
After putting on brown robes and stopping for our sandals, we were led back to the tent we’d been in earlier that day. The air outside was almost cold, so cold we shivered in our robes until we were inside again. The darkness outside had been lit by torches, but the tents were lit by slim candles standing in ornate holders. We were met at the tent entrance by one of the veiled women in a light brown robe, then led deep inside once our sandals were off. I was used to walking barefoot on that planet, but walking on the soft white silk made me feel strange, as though it was a brand new experience. I didn’t particularly care for the feeling, but I wasn’t able to rid myself of it until we stepped through hangings into the presence of hizahh.
The white robed and veiled men lay at their ease all over the floor, served by their slaves who moved unobtrusively among them. The female bedinn all wore their robes as they served, their minds carefully considering every move they made, their suppressed fear so thick it filled the tent like a noxious vapor, transmitting itself to our group of newcomers. We entered hesitantly, in a bunch, clutching our robes to our middles as the attention of the veiled men came to us, appalled to discover that we’d been deserted by our guide. We stood alone in front of all those eyes, not knowing what to do, suddenly having forgotten everything we’d been taught.
“Why must new bedinn always be so graceless?” one of the men said, looking us over with less than approval. “Are all men save ourselves incapable of training females? Even the youngest of my daughters has attained more presence than they.”
“They will learn, Kadrar,” another laughed, glancing at the first man who had spoken. “Should our bedinn come to us already trained, where would be the pleasure in teaching them to serve? Bedinn, step forward before us and remove your robes.”
Slowly, hesitantly, we moved into the midst of the men, then opened our robes and let them fall to the silk at our feet. The minds around us began to hum so suddenly that I closed my eyes, embarrassed and frightened, wishing I could turn and run out of there. I didn’t need to guess what those men were feeling, I could feel it myself, that sudden desire accompanied by the knowledge that nothing could stop them from satisfying that desire. It’s a feeling a woman has reason to fear, a feeling that turns her helpless with humiliation when she sees it. If she can feel it instead of just seeing it, it becomes ten times worse.
“Ah, I see we have a shy flower,” a male voice came, accompanied by a few chuckles. “Perhaps it will be necessary to deny her a robe entirely until the foolishness is forgotten.”
“See how she darkens yet further at the suggestion,” another laughed as the amusement spread around the tent. “I believe the shade goes well with her coloring. Let us not discourage it.”
“You may do with her as you wish when she serves you, Simlal!” snapped the one previously called Kadrar, the only one among them not amused. “Investing new bedinn bores me, and I would have it done with as soon as possible! Continue now, Kednin.”
“Very well, Kadrar,” the one called Kednin sighed, and I knew him as the one who had spoken to us earlier in the day. “We will complete the investiture as quickly as possible so that you may take a bedin to ease your temper. Perhaps you would care to take one now, and forgo the boredom you so clearly see in store for you? In view of your great need, we will be pleased to excuse you from the proceedings.”
“An excellent suggestion,” the one named Kadrar said, and I opened my eyes to see him rising to his feet. He gestured to the nearest bedin and then turned and strode out through the silken hangings, his white robes billowing behind him, a sickly frightened girl hurrying in his wake. The man was pleased to be getting out of there, but not half as pleased as the rest were to see him gone.
“An excellent suggestion indeed,” the veiled Kednin commented once the other man had left, and the rest laughed their agreement. “Now we may continue undisturbed. Approach me, bedin, and kneel before me.”
Kednin had pointed to the first of us on his right, and the woman, after a trembling hesitation, walked to him slowly and knelt down as ordered. The man’s mind was pleased as his eyes moved over the woman, but all he did was affix a veil to her hair to hide her face and band her brow with bronze-colored links. After that she was sent back to the line and another woman was appointed to take her place. One by one every one of us went, and the last one to go was me. Since I hadn’t been standing at the end of the line, I couldn’t help wondering why I’d been singled out like that.
“And for our last and newest bedin we have the shy flower,” Kednin said when I’d knelt before him, his eyes intense above his veil. His hands brought the last veil to my face, and then the last bronze-colored band to my head. The veil was heavier than I’d expected and the band lighter, and somehow there was no difficulty in keeping either one in place. When it was all done I was ready to stand up and go back to the line, but Kednin had other ideas.
“I would see what you have learned, bedin,” he said, his eyes still on me. “First bow to me, then place your wrists behind you.”
I hesitated longer than the first woman on line had, longer than was really wise, but there was something in the man’s mind I didn’t like. When I felt the beginnings of his annoyance start I quickly did as he’d ordered, but was still caught unprepared when I suddenly felt my wrists being tied with leather.
“Have you never been bound so, bedin?” he chuckled, amused by the way I struggled against the leather. “I, unlike my brother, find great amusement in investing new bedinn. They find their new state difficult to accept till it has been taught them in a proper manner.”
“Unbind me!” I snapped, furious to the point of not caring what they wanted. “Unbind me and return my clothing! I am a free woman and will not be treated so!”
“Ah, the spirit of a free woman,” he said, a smile of pleased anticipation in his voice. “I see I was correct in believing the foolishness of rebellion would most easily be drawn from our shy flower. You are mistaken in believing yourself a free woman, bedin, and this will be proven to you.”
His hands flew out and grasped me by the forearms before I could get to my feet as I was trying to do, holding me in place before him as someone else came up behind me. Drawing back away from his grip proved impossible, just as impossible as avoiding the man behind me. The second man pulled my head back by the hair, moved the veil aside, then forced a wad of cloth into my mouth just as I opened it to scream. The scream turned into a gurgle then died altogether as a strip of leather was tied around the wadding to hold it in place. After that the veil was replaced, my hair was released, and the second man stepped back.