I was hoping to fall asleep and escape everything in the way of questions and decisions, but I was just too hungry and thirsty. I would have opened the bundle I’d carried, but it would have been a waste of time and effort. It wasn’t heavy enough to contain either food or water, and I couldn’t face any other disappointments just then. At least ten minutes went by while I struggled to ignore all sorts of discomfort, and then I suddenly had an odd feeling. Not knowing what it meant I opened my eyes and turned to my back to look around, and then cringed back in shock. A black outline-form was crawling through the low opening into the box-cave, but I wasn’t fortunate enough for it to be an animal. It was a human beast, far worse than anything of the lower orders, and I moaned in misery, sure I knew who it was.
“Wenda, why did you run?” the shadow’s voice demanded, and for a minute I didn’t understand. Then it came to me that it was Dallan rather than Tammad, and I shuddered in uncertain, partial relief.
“How were you able to find me?” I demanded in turn, not quite as strongly, in fact in little more than a whisper. I bumped up against the back wall of the cave, surprised that I was still retreating, upset that I’d gone as far as possible, awash in every emotion of distress there is.
“There was little difficulty in finding you,” he said, dismissing the incredible as unimportant even as he straightened up to his knees. “Of greater moment is the reason for your having done such a foolish thing. No matter your own beliefs, Terril, you are scarcely l’lenda. You may well have found yourself irretrievably lost.”
His voice held the overtones of the beginnings of anger, a clear indication that his mind would have been the same if I had lowered my shield. But I hadn’t lowered my shield and wasn’t about to; what little control I had left would have been totally inadequate to the task of keeping me from broadcasting.
“And what if I had become lost?” I came back, my voice trembling as much as my body. “Perhaps I wished it so for reasons of my own. It makes little difference, for I have now been found. You have only to give me what punishment you find necessary, and we may leave this place.”
“Wenda, your bitterness cuts with the edge of a dagger,” he said, his voice softened and filled with faint hurt. “Is this the sole thing you have come to expect from those about you’? Punishment for that which was done by you? I would sooner you spoke of the cause for the distress which sent you alone into the darkness, than that you wept from the punishment for it.”
“And I would sooner speak to the beasts of the forests,” I said, turning my face away from him. “To speak to l’lendaa is more useless still.”
I knelt beside the back wall, my left shoulder and arm against it, my head down in utter depression. The urge to look at him with my mind was nearly overwhelming, but I forced myself to keep the shield in place. I’d been telling myself I didn’t care what he did to punish me, but when he moved forward on his knees and took my arm to pull me close to him, I gasped from more than the scrape of pebbles on my knees. Coward that I was I did fear what he would do, and I trembled uncontrollably as he held me against his chest. His hard body and strong arms brought warmth to chase away the chill of that dark place, but his being so near also brought flare-tinged throbs to my body as the various punishments I’d been given earlier reasserted themselves. I knew he was trying to look at me even though I kept my head down, and after a minute his hand came to my face.
“Again I have the impression that I hold a woman who has been slave to men,” he said, his fingers touching my cheek gently. “Once, not long after I had first been declared servant-slave by Aesnil, I and four others of my brothers in bondage were called upon to assist in the punishment of a slave wench who was guilty of insolence. Rather than simply being whipped, the wench was passed about among a number of guardsmen to be aroused, yet none were permitted to use her. All during the early part of the day was this done, she being forced to the attending of assigned tasks in the interim, her tears and distress clearly evident to those of us who watched her. When we were permitted to eat our midday gruel, it was she who was made to serve it to us. Her body was small but nicely rounded, pleasant to look upon as she knelt naked before each of us in turn, clenching her thighs as she offered the gruel. She had begged release from those who guarded us, but could not bring herself to do the same with slaves like herself. She saw us as slaves, you understand, rather than as men who were bound.
“When our gruel had been swallowed, it was then necessary to see to the foolish wenda, yet not until she had been made to beg her use of us. That she had no wish to do so seemed an insurmountable problem to those who stood with me, for they had too long been set to the pleasing and serving of wendaa and had nearly forgotten their manhood. They were eager for the use of the slave and feared what punishment would come to them were we to fail in our assigned task, yet they knew not how to achieve their goal. It was left to me to take the wenda in my arms, and once she knew it was a man who held her, her pleas were quickly forthcoming. When first I put my arms about her she felt much as you do now, stiff with refusal yet helpless to disobey, atremble with need and fear, knowing well the power of men yet seeking to hide herself from it. A man’s power has little purpose other than to give pleasure and easing to his woman, memabra. Why do you not seek my assistance when you have need of it?”
“What became of the slave when you were done with her?” I asked in a whisper ignoring his question as I ignored the way he called me his little banded one. I knew I wore his bands; how could I forget?
“She was used by those others who were servant-slaves till she wept with pain, then was she taken by the guardsmen and whipped,” Dallan answered after a brief hesitation, his arms tightening around me. “You need not fear the same, memabra, for we keep no slaves here, and you are no slave in any event.”
“I feel nothing other than slave,” I whispered, discovering to my horror that I held him around, pressing my body against his. “I would look upon it as a great kindness were you to take that sword hung at your side and with it put an end to the misery of my life. I have no further strength with which to withstand the whippings of this world.”
“Never would I take your life, wenda mine,” he said, his voice soothing and filled with concern as he stroked my hair. “We will put an end to some small part of your distress, and then we will speak further upon the balance of it.”
He released his bundles and reached behind me then to the bundle I’d carried, fought open one end of it, and pulled out a sleeping fur. I don’t know what it was I thought I was carrying but seeing the shadow fur over my shoulder surprised me. I began shaking my head and crying, trying to tell him I didn’t need to be used, but I was lying and we both knew it. I still held him around as he spread the fur, removed his swordbelt and then put us on the fur, and when his hands raised my face to his and his lips touched mine I was glad he hadn’t listened to me. He kissed me deeply without touching anything other than my face, and when I could no longer keep from moving against him he reached down and removed his haddin, then knelt above me. His hands went to the open sides of the short gown I wore, his lips to the sides of my breasts beyond the narrow strip of covering silk, and as I reached spasmodically for his shoulders I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to have him, right then, and for once he let himself be rushed. He spread my thighs and entered me strongly, then gave me exactly what I needed; it wasn’t slow and careful, but it was very satisfying. His own satisfaction was a match to mine, but it wasn’t the wildly abandoned thing he had been hoping for. I’d let my shield dissolve at some point, and I could see that easily enough, but the way he continued to hold me gave no indication of how he felt. He knew that all my problems had not been solved by a simple toss on the furs, and he didn’t pretend they had been.