“You still seem disturbed, wenda,” Cinnan’s voice came unexpectedly, startling me with his undetected entrance into the room. I struggled around on the bed fur to watch him come closer, annoyed with myself for not keeping track of him. He carried a bowl of something with a wooden spoon handle sticking out of it, and stopped next to the bed furs to crouch in front of me.
“We will see this food within you, and then you may tell me what disturbs you,” he said, reaching a hand out to smooth my disarranged hair. “Often, a woman finds it difficult to speak to the man who possesses her, less difficult to speak to another who is willing to listen. I will listen, wenda and we will rid you of your upset.”
“Just so easily?” I returned, pulling my head away from his big hand. “With no more than a single discussion, every point of distress plaguing me will be seen to? How powerful you have become, Cinnan, and how awesome.”
“Woman, I do not care for your tone,” he said, his gaze hardening in response to my sarcasm, his mind hardening to match. “A warrior, should he be so foolish, may spurn the aid of another with such words, yet a wenda has neither the strength nor the weapons to answer the insult so generated. To answer courtesy with insult will bring you no more than a strapping.”
“Where you see courtesy, I see no other thing than condescension,” I said, putting my cheek back down to the fur in weariness. “Leave me be, l’lenda, for there are none upon this world who may aid me.”
“Your distress seems weighty indeed,” he mused, bringing more of his attention to the discussion and away from the distractions his mind had been filled with. “I had not intended condescension toward the one who assisted in my survival in the ralle, wenda. Should it be within my power, I would return that timely assistance, and sweeten your life as mine was sweetened. Is there nothing I may do to aid you?”
“Certainly,” I said, watching his broad, handsome face as his light eyes watched me. “Unbind me and return me to my people, and all debts between us will be done. That is the only assistance now capable of sweetening my life.”
“Ah, wenda, there would be little assistance to you in such an action,” he sighed, shifting slightly in his crouch as upset touched his mind. “Even were you mine to take where I willed, allowing you to flee whatever distress holds you would not eliminate that distress. It would follow though you fled to the farthest corner of the world, hold you though you fought with the very last of your strength. You must battle it now and find victory, else will you never be free of it.”
“There is little likelihood of victory when I must battle l’lendaa without number,” I shrugged, or at least tried to shrug. “As you, yourself, are l’lenda, I was foolish to speak of it. Now leave me be, for I am weary and wish to rest.”
I closed my eyes to dismiss his physical presence, but could hardly miss the sharp flash of frustration and annoyance that lit his mind. I knew I’d never get anywhere with him and was tired of wasting my time, but he wasn’t prepared to be reasonable.
“What foolishness do you speak’?” he demanded, putting his hand to my face to shake it, trying to get me to look at him again. “L’lendaa do not battle wendaa, they do what they may to assist them! Do you truly believe there are l’lendaa hereabouts who would not assist you?”
“Certainly not,” I answered, opening my eyes as he wanted me to. “Every l’lenda within reach would eagerly offer me the same exceptional assistance offered every other wenda, the same, noble assistance you, yourself, offered Aesnil. I consider myself truly blessed.”
He stiffened and drew his hand away, but instead of feeling anger or insult, bleakness seeped out of every corner of his mind.
“It was my wish to give nothing but love and happiness to Aesnil,” he said, the bitterness in his voice turning his mind raw with pain. “When I was chosen to band her my heart soared, for my desire for her was like a fire in dry woods, consuming all it touched in mindless need. I was content to be no more than he who banded the Chama, he who directed her dendayy in accordance with her wishes. And then did she direct that I be captured and sent to the vendra ralle.”
He put the bowl down, forgotten, and rose to his full height, his eyes seeing something other than the room as he began to pace. I flinched at the tortured emotions his mind poured out, regretting having broached the subject, but knowing it was far too late to stop it.
“How great my fury was, I have no need to speak of,” he said, walking out of my line of vision toward the room’s wide windows. “Had it been a man who had done me so, I would not have rested till his blood covered my sword. And yet—When I found her there, behind the ralle in the guard room, her life about to be taken by the swords of the three vendraa who had caught her—it was they whose blood I wished to see on my blade. My love for her is as great as ever, yet I cannot allow myself to forget what was done to me, nor am I able to allow her to continue in her previous actions. I gave her pain and humiliation, yes, yet far less than she had earned. She will continue to be punished till she is able to grasp the enormities she has committed, grasp them and regret them. It is a duty I cannot refuse to attend to.,,
He was silent then, his mind still in a turmoil but slowly settling down, and then he was suddenly on the other side of the bed furs, leaning across it to put a fist in my hair and turn my head to him. I gasped more in surprise than in pain, for he wasn’t really hurting me, and looked up into his eyes.
“And another duty I have been given is to see to your feeding,” he said, his light-eyed gaze directly on me. “Though you seek to distract me with argument and insult, I will not be distracted. Will you eat, or must you be punished and then fed?”
His mind wasn’t really like that of Tammad, but he seemed to share the ability to put aside his personal problems to concentrate on whatever job was at hand. He wasn’t simply threatening me to make me obey, any more than Tammad would have been simply threatening, which gave me very little choice.
“I have had enough beatings at the hands of l’lendaa,” I said, trying to sound saintly-brave but too tired to argue. “I will therefore do as you wish.”
“A wise choice.” He nodded, releasing my hair so that he might reach lower with both hands to the clip at my wrist bands. “As for the rest, you have clearly spoken an untruth.”
“What untruth?” I asked, now free enough to sit up. “Of what do you speak?”
“I speak of your observation upon the subject of beatings,” he said, walking around the foot of the bed to get to the bowl he’d left on the other side. He crouched down to pick up the bowl, then grinned faintly. “It is apparent to any man who speaks with you that the number of beatings given you has not been nearly enough. Had it been otherwise, the edge would surely have been taken from that weapon you use in place of a tongue. ”
He pushed the bowl into my hands then stood again, folding his arms in that unspoken-threat-while-waiting manner that seemed to be part of a l’lenda’s nature. The glare I sent him only broadened his grin, but he didn’t speak and neither did I. Being that close to even cold food had turned me ravenous, giving me something more important to do with my mouth than talk. I took the spoon and began using it, ignoring the smug satisfaction coming out of Cinnan’s mind.
I had gulped down almost the whole bowl of stew before Cinnan turned away from me to take his weapon off and put it on a table, then turned back to me.