Which brought me right back to Tammad and Dallan. Dallan enjoyed using me, but the main reason for his banding me had been pity, pity for what I had gone through. Despite the way he’d humiliated me there was no viciousness in him, no driving need to give me pain in order to make himself feel like a man. He wanted me so that he could protect me from everything including myself, which was a decent motivation but nothing to build a permanent relationship on. Dallan would give up his life before he would see me hurt, but Tammad—I still couldn’t decide. My thoughts became a blur when I tried to think about him, and emotions immediately rose to rule. I hated him for beating me, and for trying to hold me, and for giving me to other men, and for a dozen other reasons, but I also couldn’t forget what it was like to be held in his arms. There wasn’t another man anywhere, even on Rimilia, who was able to make me feel the way he did, but I didn’t understand why. Why couldn’t I simply hate him for what he had done to me? Why couldn’t I turn my back on him and forget him? I would do that anyway when I left Rimilia, but why did the thought of doing it bring pain instead of joy? I would still escape him no matter what he’d done to bewitch me, but why did it have to be so hard?
All those unanswered questions put me in a deep black mood, and when I shifted from brooding to sleeping, it was a distinct relief.
8
All the thinking I’d done before falling asleep hadn’t solved any of my problems, but waking up certainly brought me a new one. I squirmed and moaned against a hard, broad body even before my eyes opened, wondering if I was dreaming, miserable to find that I wasn’t. The early morning light coming into the room showed me Rellis’ face, a chuckling in his mind, his hand moving me as though I had strings. The silver gown I still partially wore was no impediment to his efforts, but when I tried to rise up to reach him, his other hand on the chain leading to the collar about my throat was a distinct impediment to mine. I moaned again and struggled to get free, and the chuckle in his mind emerged from his throat.
“So, wenda, you awaken to a predicament,” he said, grinning down at me. “Perhaps, had you known what you would face, you would not have done as you did.”
“I do not understand,” I gasped, close to tears from the way he was torturing me. “What have I done?”
“In some manner you knew I was asked to comfort you last darkness,” he said, giving me no rest. “It was agreed that you were to believe the choice yours, unimposed by those about you, so that you might take true comfort from the doing. It did not come to me that I had been touched by your power till I had returned to Dallan and Tammad and had seen their surprise at my too-rapid return. I would not have left your side of my own volition, therefore was I forced from you by that which I was unable to see and defend against. Do you deny this charge?”
“I wished neither your comfort nor your use!” I cried, ineffectually trying to push his hand away. “It was my right to refuse you in my own way!”
“You have no such right,” he disagreed, ignoring my efforts. “You may not refuse the man chosen to ease you by those who claim you, for in so doing you spit upon their authority and shame them. Are you unable to see that you have no right to shame them?”
“What of my shame?” I demanded with a sob, held down by throat and thigh. “By what right do they shame me? By the right of their being l’lendaa? By the belief that I, merely wenda, have no place protesting my shaming? Am I of so little consequence that my shame may be so easily overlooked?”
“What shame do you speak of, wenda?” he asked, his mind truly perplexed as his brow furrowed. “What shame might there be for a wenda in obeying him to whom she belongs? There is no shame in use, for that is one of the purposes of wendaa, to be used. What other shame might there be?”
I became aware of the tears rolling down my cheeks, but only because I didn’t know how to answer him. I did feel shame when I was forced to a l’lenda’s use, but I couldn’t explain why in any other way than by saying it was wrong. I knew it was wrong but Rellis didn’t, and there seemed to be no clear way for me to explain it to him.
“To be put to the use of a l’lenda by the decision of another is wrong,” I groped, trying to make him understand. “It is not only wrong it brings great shame, and I am not alone in believing so. Ail my people believe the same, therefore . . . .
“Your people!” he laughed, interrupting me with amusement. “Now do I believe I begin to see. The darayse of your land are unable to bring pleasure to their wendaa, therefore do they beseech the approval of their wendaa before their pitiful attempts. Should they succeed in giving pleasure, the wenda is praised for having done the proper thing; should they fail, which is much more likely, they condemn the wenda for having done a shameful thing. In fear of having their inadequacy brought to light, they deny their wendaa to all others, harshly condemning any use other than their own, immediately placing the weight of guilt on all who disobey them. I know their sort well, for in my youth I visited a city of such darayse, a city which no longer stands. The fools gave insult to true l’lendaa, bringing down their wrath upon them. Their wendaa, when taken from the place at battle’s end, thought much the same as you and were not easily reached, yet—look you. As I touch you deeply, are you able to deny me?”
I gasped and tried to refuse the sensations coursing through me, but it was impossible. I would have had to have been dead to succeed, and my body told me I was definitely not dead.
“As you cannot refuse me, is your response not meant to be?” he pursued. “Where is the shame and wrongness in doing as you were born to do? Where is the shame and wrongness in giving pleasure to one approved of by him to whom you belong? It is pleasure he, himself. cannot give, and he joys in the thought that his woman is able to do the thing for him. If they are one she, too, will find joy in giving joy, and will see no shame in the doing. It will be her decision to do so, and she will not need to have force used upon her. Should there be shame involved, it is surely that a wenda must be forced to give joy to her beloved. The thought then comes that he cannot truly be her beloved after all. Let us remove this gown.”
His hand left me then, but only to move to the silver gown so that it could be slid off me. I didn’t have the strength to resist, but more than that I was caught up in the question of what he’d said. He thought I was wrong for making men force me to their use, wrong for finding shame where there was none, inconsiderate and uncaring of a man I supposedly loved. I didn’t love him—them—but that wasn’t the point. Did they all see it in the same way? I couldn’t have been wrong right from the beginning—could I?
“You will not be clad so cumbersomely upon your journey,” Rellis said, tossing away the well-worn silver gown while I still drowned in confusion. “After your punishment, I will see you clad more appropriately.”
“Punishment?” I asked, trying to remember everything we’d talked about. “Do you mean to use me after all?”
“No, wenda, I do not mean to use you,” he sighed, trying not to lose patience. “Had you not used your power I would have given you pleasure, yet you chose to do as you deemed best. Now I do as I deem best.”
He put his hands on me again, and what he gave me really was punishment. He made me want him so badly I nearly died, but he didn’t let me have him. I’d refused his attentions the night before, and all the begging and pleading I did made up for it not at all. He allowed me no release whatsoever, and when he was finally through with me I was well into hysterics. His hands opened the collar around my throat and made me sit up, and by the time my crying had eased up I was already into the clothing he had brought. Clothing. I looked down at myself through a film of tears, burning and unable to sit still, seeing a slightly longer, slightly fuller, version of the thing Dallan had made me wear the day before. The top of it veed down to my waist but it had a back, leaving only my arms and sides bare. When I got to my knees, the skirt reached to the middle of my thighs, and I could feel Rellis’ eyes on me and the approving hum in his mind. He wanted me, I knew he did, and I couldn’t make myself not beg.