It wasn’t long before I heard my door being closed, and the faint sound of bare feet moving across the carpet fur. At that point I really didn’t care what happened to me, but when a big hand touched my hair gently I couldn’t keep from shivering. So many times it had been he who had touched me that way, but this time it wouldn’t be the same. I needed so desperately to be held that I wrapped my arms around myself, my eyes still closed tight against sight of the real world I had come to hate. I had no choice about being in that world but I did have a choice about looking at it, and then all the confusion I had thought resolved came rushing back. Two wide, powerful arms circled me to hold me to a broad, well-muscled chest, but the gesture wasn’t one of a father comforting his daughter, and the hum in the mind above my head confirmed that. Shocked, I began to struggle in protest, and only then did I realize who the hum belonged to.
“Yes, wenda, once again it is I,” Tammad said, looking down at me with those beautiful blue eyes while I gaped up at him in disbelief. “To rid oneself of a l’lenda is not quite as easily done as some apparently believe.”
Without even stopping to think about it I squirmed higher in his arms, threw my own arms around his neck, then kissed him with all the longing in the universe. I know it wasn’t right and certainly wasn’t fair, but I’d missed him so much and it was only a kiss. He contributed more than his own share to the meeting of our lips and souls, but when I felt the hum in his mind begin changing to a growl I gently pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” I said, touching his face with my fingertips as I drew away a little more. “I had no right doing that, but I-couldn’t seem to stop myself. And I’d also like to apologize for what I did to you yesterday. There was something wrong with me, and I didn’t care what I did to anyone as long as doing it accomplished what I wanted. The same thing still needs doing, but I can see to it without hurting or humiliating you.”
“You cannot be saying you mean to continue with this foolishness,” he stated, the look in his eyes beginning to harden. “Have you not just this moment proven that your love for me is as great as ever it was? Have you forgotten my vow that I will allow none to take my woman from me? Think you that vow precludes the doings of the woman herself?”
“It’s not foolishness, and keeping on with it is exactly what I intend,” I told him, deliberately ignoring everything else he’d said as I sat back down on the carpet fur. “I wasn’t lying when I said I’d rather not have you than take the chance of losing you, and you’ve got to understand that.”
“Wenda, how is it possible to understand such a thing?” he demanded, automatically moving his sword out of the way as he shifted to sitting cross-legged opposite me. “To give up a thing is to lose it, more quickly and more definitely than with an as-yet unrealized possibility which may or may not lie ahead! To commit an actual doing out of fear that a possible doing may occur, is the act of one who is likely age-addled!”
“Since you’re older than I am, if I were you I would watch who I called senile,” I retorted, almost wishing a talk between us wasn’t necessary. “I can’t help it if you don’t follow simple logic, but I would prefer if you did understand. Look, it’s really easy: if I give you up now it’s all over and done with, nothing left to spend my life dreading, nothing to lie awake nights worrying about. Knowing it’s all over with hurts, but not as much as sitting around waiting for it to happen. Do you understand now?”
“In no manner,” he said very positively, still looking at me as if I were crazy, and then he sighed. “Clearly is this a view seen only by those who are wendaa, a landscape forbidden to the sight of men. As I am unable to find understanding in your words, hama, perhaps you will have greater success with mine. You fear that one day a facet of the demands of honor will cause me to turn from you, and I say that such a consideration shows only that you have not yet grasped the place where the heart of honor lies.”
I parted my lips to tell him that wasn’t so, that I knew more of honor than I wanted to, but he shook his head to silence me and took my hand in both of his.
“Most certainly is it true that the demands of honor are undeniable to one who is bound to them,” he said, his expression sober and calm, his eyes looking into mine. “Honor is—a thing of fitness, a thing of right, a manner of being which allows one to see what must be done so that the weak may find happiness as easily as the strong. It is these and many other things-yet is it above all fitting. For a man to give his life to honor would be fitting-yet not so were he to give the life or happiness of one who feels love for him. Such would be a great dishonor, to feed one’s pride with another’s pain. That one is most honorable who knows and acknowledges the limits of honor. ”
“I-don’t think I understand what you’re saying either,” I admitted when he fell silent, obviously giving me a chance to comment. “All I know is that I thought I’d lost you, and I didn’t want to live any more. But that isn’t the only side of this, or even the most important. You can’t say you’ve forgotten what I did to you yesterday, and I can’t say I won’t ever do it again. I don’t want to ever do it again, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. If you think I’ll hang around waiting until the next time I end up making you feel like a fool, you’re the one who’s senile.”
“But that, too, is a problem with its solution,” he said, grinning faintly as he stroked one of his hands just a little higher up my arm. “When I was able to know I had been taken a second time, I gave over the foolishness of believing I might best a blood-mad fazee with my hands alone, and sought out the aid of the Murdock McKenzie. He it was who sent me the man Lamdon, and with that one’s assistance was I able to fashion the thing I required. When I came upon Rissim early this day, instructing the young in the use of a sword, I informed him of my intention to approach you yet again, and he asked the favor that I await the time he might accompany me. For that reason was I there, where you saw me, allowing him the opportunity of speaking first with you. Now would I have you attempt to make my thoughts yours again. ”
“But I really don’t want to,” I told him, paying only partial attention to what was being said. His fingers stroking my arm had riveted the major portion of my attention to him, so much so that I just had to use my free hand to touch his own arm. So tanned and warm it was, so hard and yet so delicious to feel, so much a part of him . . .
“And yet you must,” he insisted mildly, the strength in his fingers now gently kneading my flesh. “How else are we to know whether my precautions are adequate? Strike swiftly and with skill, and then shall we know.”
“Swiftly and with skill,” I repeated as his hand made its way up to my shoulder, then I swallowed and muttered a what—the-hell. If he wanted me to do it again, then I would do it again, and maybe there would be something afterward I would have to order him to forget. I began to approach his mind, not as ruthlessly as I had the other times but well enough—and then I pulled back in surprise. Instead of the cloud of calm he had always used as a shield there was suddenly an actual shield, but not like mine or Rissim’s or Irin’s. Tammad had learned to generate a shifting diagonal shield like Farian’s, but its rate of motion was so much faster it was nearly a blur.
“Now do you see the fruits of my efforts,” he murmured, circling me with one arm to draw me close to him again. “You may not touch me should I disallow it, no matter the greater strength of your mind.”