Not much later the march began again. I moved woodenly in the wake of the wagon, my mind numb to everything but the continuing—and slowly increasing—burning inside me. I now knew what the—treatment—had been for, and also knew why the hizahh’s females had been permitted to watch. The object put inside me was a birth control device, something to make sure no hizah put a child on me. The women of the tribe, the lawful, legitimate bearers of children to their men, were permitted to see this being done to assure them that their places were not being usurped. The biggest joke of all was that I didn’t need their treatment, but they didn’t know that. And then I wondered if it would make any difference to them. I would probably still be done the same as any other bedin, no matter what the truth was. The only bedin given special attention was one who had failed to please her hizahh; the rest just faded into the background in their minds, anonymous in their veils and headbands. Individuality was not a trait prized in bedinn.
It was still dark when the caravan stopped and camp was made. All bedinn were untied to do the small unpacking and the preparing of a hot meal, and being thrust into their midst was literally staggering. Every one of them, the women from Tammad’s city included, was burning up in her need, the single object in mind being reaching the men as soon as possible. The only fear they felt was the fear of being left untouched, and that fear made them frantic in their haste. They would do anything demanded of them in order to be satisfied, and that thought alone made me sicker than I had been. They’d been primed like animals for the coming festivities, animals trapped and bought and trained to perform as their owners wished. I stood to one side while I thickened my shield against their emotions, then slowly joined them and began doing my share. I may not have been much on that world, but one thing I wouldn’t be was a trained animal.
Dawn wasn’t very far away by the time the hizahh were ready for their meal. I noticed a definite warming in the air as I helped the others carry the food to the large tent with white silk hangings. Each of the men was offered what had been prepared and brought, and then the men made their selections—but not only among the food. By some prearranged system the men took turns gesturing women to them, and when all the selecting was done the women were made to eat first. We weren’t allowed to eat much, only enough to prove that the food was untampered with, and then the hizahh took it. I was aware of some of the bedinn moaning softly and pleading with their hizahh for attention, but no matter how I felt I couldn’t bring myself to do the same. The hizah I knelt before watched me closely while he ate, his mind suspicious and somehow unsatisfied. When he finished his meal and gestured that I present my wrists, I had the definite feeling that the coming session would not please him. I couldn’t possibly have been more right.
The hizah who had chosen me was not Kednin, but he reacted the same as the other man had. After he’d satisfied himself he beat me with the same broad strap they all seemed to use, taking no real pleasure in the beating aside from a feeling of seeing to something that had to be done. He hadn’t been dissatisfied with me, or I would have felt a whip instead of a strap; my failure had been one of being just under very satisfying. I’d made the man force me into responding—which was something he enjoyed—but my eventual response hadn’t been abandoned enough to suit him. He beat me to teach me his preferences in the matter, then sent me back to the bedin tent to clean up after the meal. Once the necessary was done, I lay my aching body on the cloth of the tent floor, ignored the extreme heat of the day, and quickly fell asleep.
I was awakened from a bad dream around midday, but not for anything simple like serving or eating. Every female bedin in the tent was ordered into a robe and sandals by a male bedin, then led out into the hot sun and through the camp. On the outskirts of the camp, near the tethered seetarr, a large wooden frame had been set into the sand. The frame was Y-shaped with notches cut into the arms of the Y, and whatever it signified was a source of great fear to the veiled women around me. As soon as we arrived we were ordered to our knees by the only hizah present, who looked down at us with a frown of displeasure in his blue eyes.
“One of you has been found to be in need of a lesson for failure,” the man announced, looking directly at each of us in turn, which brought some of those kneeling about me to come close to fainting. “Those who are not given the lesson this day must pay close heed to its teachings, to more easily avoid such a lesson themselves in future. Hizahh are not long patient with failure.”
He gestured behind us then, but not to have his victim chosen from among us; the victim had already been chosen. Two male bedinn came forward with a naked woman held between them, a veiled woman with short blond hair and brown eyes. The woman struggled as if trying to break those impossible grips, but no sounds came forth around the gag which was visible only where her veil didn’t hide it. Findra was angry and outraged rather than deeply afraid, but that was only because she didn’t understand what was going on. The blond ex-tripper didn’t speak the language those around her spoke, and the lack had turned out to be her downfall.
The hizah waited until Findra had been tied by the wrists to the notched arms of the Y frame, her toes at least six inches from the sand, then he stepped closer to her and spoke so that only she might hear. His totally incomprehensible words made no impression on her, but he didn’t realize that. He turned away from her and walked back toward the tents with one of the male bedinn following him, and quickly disappeared. The remaining male bedin had been taking his time uncoiling a long, dark-brown whip, but he didn’t drag the thing out beyond the time it took the hizah to reach his tent. As soon as the veiled man was gone, the large, bronze-chained bedin, clad only in a black haddin, brought his arm back and then forward, laying the whip across Findra’s back with a crack that was close to sensation for those of us watching.
If the sound alone was pain to us, the actual feel of the lash was beyond pain to Findra. Her eyes widened as her throat tried to scream, her head snapped back with the shock of it, and her body twisted six inches above the sand, straining in silence to shriek out the terror and exquisite agony of the stroke. Kneeling in the sand I was forced to feel everything she felt, every spasm of every nerve ending, every degree of disbelief and horror suddenly bursting from her mind. I staggered under the load, feeling close to passing out, and then my shield snapped shut, protecting me from insanity and an overload of too-heightened emotions. I trembled and put a shaky hand to my head as the lash fell on Findra a second time, but it took the sight of a broad red line on her white, writhing body to make me realize what I was doing. I was protecting myself at Findra’s expense, happily leaving her there under the lash as long as my own sensibilities were safe and snug. She’d known I was the only one who could translate for her, but she hadn’t pressed me to speak when I’d been commanded to silence. She’d accepted her own peril to keep from putting me in a similar one, and I’d abandoned her to a sadistic “lesson” she couldn’t possibly have avoided alone.
The decision wasn’t carefully thought out, but that didn’t make it any less definite. I braced myself and opened the shield again, but didn’t let Findra’s silent hysteria distract me. It was the male bedin I wanted to reach, and when I did I found what I’d hoped to find. The man was as bored and uncaring as all of them were, finding no pleasure in whipping the girl before him other than the vague satisfaction of doing a job that needed doing. The third stroke reached Findra even as I entered the man’s mind, choosing among his emotions for the ones I needed most. The boredom was perfect, as was the discomfort he felt in the heat of the sun, and the contempt he felt for all women fitted in with the rest like a sword in a warrior’s hand. I was trying to work quickly and powerfully, but the strength of my projections surprised even me.