When we got back to the camp, I put the knife back into the carcass while he went toward his meat. Without stopping, I hurried to the camtah and inside, unable to watch him eat. The furs I lay down on were soft and comfortable, but they did nothing to fill the belly. Feeling miserable, I stretched out and lay still.
“What do you do in here?” the barbarian asked, poking his head and shoulders in past the leather curtain. “Come outside and eat, so we may speak further about this power you possess.”
I turned slightly in the furs so that I could look away from him. “I have nothing to eat.” I answered, feeling my stomach roll around and knot. “What questions do you have?”
“You possess too much pride for a woman,” he said, some strangely mixed emotion filling him. “I was merely returning to you the courtesy I received in your house. I did not bring you here to force you to hunt or starve, wenda, and you shall earn what you eat.”
That word again! “Stop calling me that;” I hissed furiously jerking my head back to him, then shouted, “Stop calling me that name! And take these chains off! I can’t think if I’m in chains!”
“Why do the bands disturb you so?” he asked curiously, unperturbed. “They merely show you to be a highly valued belonging. Would you prefer men to think you completely unprotected, and therefore free for the taking?”
“I don’t care what men think!” I snapped, sitting up on one elbow “I want these chains off!” Then I reached out to him, filling him with my desire to be free, forcing agreement on him.
Mechanically, woodenly, he came farther into the camtah, reaching for my ankle to free me, but then he stopped, frowned, and shook his head hard. He’d been about to do as I’d demanded, but then he drew his hand back again, and there was anger all through him.
“You will not again attempt to control me!” he ordered, cold-eyed, completely in possession of himself again. “You will wear the bands as long as you remain on this world. Too long have you been allowed to force others to your bidding. You care nothing of consequences, only of your own desires, but I shall teach you what others have not. Out of the camtah, wenda, and to your food!”
He grabbed me by the ankle and pulled me out, through the leather curtain and across the veranda to the very edge of it. I was drained by the projection I’d attempted, and I lay where he left me, astounded that he could resist me, appalled that he dragged me around, agonized in that I still wore the bands. I was a Prime, and couldn’t be treated so!
“Eat this!” he ordered, coming back to hand me a piece of the meat I’d cooked. I sat up slowly, brushed the hair out of my face, then took the meat. It was cold and slightly gritty and not cooked all the way through, but the first bite was pure ambrosia. I chewed it, savoring its taste, and the barbarian crouched down near me with the rest of it.
“I do now see more fully how you touch men,” he said around a bite of his own. “Had I not had some idea of your power, I would have been taken. I do not know if I care to have those who oppose me twisted in this manner. It is not a thing to do to a man.”
“That’s not what I’ll be doing.” I mumbled, looking only at my bit of meat. “I’ll just be seeing that they listen to your arguments with an open mind, and finding arguments for you that will convince them. Forcing agreement on them isn’t something I’m allowed to do.”
“Ah!” He stirred, satisfaction strong in him. “Then how is it you attempted thus to twist me?”
“I don’t want to be banded.” I muttered, then looked up at him. “Nobody forces you to wear chains.”
“They are free to make the attempt.” He shrugged. “But who would wish to have a warrior in wenda bands? And would you have all women go without them, so a man cannot know which belongs to another? With the bands, a man’s overfamiliarity with a woman belonging to another cannot be excused by ignorance. He either forfeits his life, or wins the woman for his own.”
“And the woman has nothing to say about it,” I returned heatedly, forgetting about the meat in my hand. “You men chain her and beat her, and hand her around as you please, and she’s helpless to stop it.”
“For what reason should she wish to stop it?” he asked mildly feeling complete conviction for the nonsense he was spouting. “A woman is rarely dissatisfied with the man who chooses her. Her father seeks carefully before he gives agreement for another to band her. Should she so dislike her father’s choice that she cannot accept him, she will not please him enough that he will band her further. A woman with a single band who has not been recently acquired may be bought for very little, all men knowing that she who does not belong with the man who possesses her may be the very one for whom he has been searching. A woman with one band may quickly acquire five with the proper man.”
“So she literally has to work her tail off for the privilege of being chained,” I summed up in disgust. “And you don’t see anything wrong with that?”
“Where is the wrong?” He laughed, shaking his head. “Would a woman be happier if she were allowed to choose him to whom she will belong? I think not. Should she choose wrong, she would thereafter be unsure of herself, hesitant lest she make another mistake. Our women do not have this to plague them. They are free but for the word of him to whom they belong.”
“Some freedom.” I muttered, finishing off the last of my meat. “Free to be bartered and beaten. Hooray for liberty.”
“A woman is not beaten without cause,” he said, studying me carefully. “If a man protects her, hunts for her, clothes her, he has the right to demand obedience from her. Were he to obey her, he would be little more than her slave. But you shall learn the ways of a woman on this world, and shall grow with them. Too long have you been kept as a willful child, and it was no kindness. A child cannot truly be a woman.”
I watched wide-eyed as he stood straight again and went back to carving up the carcass. He really believed everything he’d said, and he was completely confident that he could make me believe it, too! I didn’t know what I should do, didn’t even know if I could do anything! He’d decided to save me from a life that anyone would be crazy to want to leave, and I was to have no say in the matter. I thought about my house on Central, the ease with which I’d had anything I’d wished, and felt like crying.
As the day wore on, I had little time for crying. He had me feed the seetarr while he finished with the carcass, then we went together to a stream not far away. Instead of being allowed to bathe, though, I was made to wash the muddy imad and caldin of the day before while he stood guard. The wet clothing was then taken back to camp to be spread on the roof of our camtah, and we began cooking the rest of the meat. As each piece came out of the fire, he placed it carefully on a large leaf, wrapped it up, and put it away in a sack.
I was sweating and soot-covered when we stopped to eat again, but my eyes weren’t watering. Standing upwind of the fire had helped. The sky stayed grey and threatening, but it still hadn’t rained when the last of the meat was sacked. I thought I’d be able to rest a while then, but my tormentor handed me a brush that was to be used on the seetarr I brushed seetarr until my arms ached, and was laughed at for suggesting that the barbarian do some brushing, too. The mighty warrior was too well occupied with oiling his sword to be bothered with other things.
At long last, every acre of seetar had been brushed. Again I thought I would rest, but again I was mistaken. I was taken, along with the clean imad and caldin and a good half-dozen waterskins, back to the stream. I carried the waterskins, and the barbarian carried a long, thin spear.
After washing the imad and caldin that I’d been wearing, I was finally allowed to wash myself. The water was delightfully refreshing, and the barbarian stripped himself so that he, too, could bathe. When he entered the water, he handed me his strip of brown cloth and told me to wash it for him. I had the urge to let the stream current take it, but the thought must have occurred to him, too. He watched me carefully until the cloth was safely back on the bank.