“At the bidding of wendaa?” she snickered. “They must truly be darayse—and more, to care so little for the wendaa of their land. I would not care to live there.”
“I do care to live there,” I countered. “And I shall return there soon. Then I will no longer need to wear bands as a man’s belonging.”
“The denday Tammad is a man among men; she murmured, glancing sideways to where Tammad and Faddan sat talking and laughing. “I have heard much said of him, and many are the wendaa who would gladly be his belonging. If you do not please him, why does he allow you to wear the fifth band?”
“I please him well enough.” I sniffed, feeling slightly put out. “And he does not allow me to wear his bands, but rather forces me to wear them. But he does not please me at all, and soon I shall return home.”
“Do not speak foolishly, Terril,” she grinned. “If you please the denday, you shall remain his belonging. If you do not please him, he shall unband you and find another to care for you, as he has done many times with other wendaa. He is not darayse, and shall not allow you to be unprotected.”
“In my land, I need no one’s protection.” I said airily “My standing is such that all look upon me with respect. I shall return home as soon as I wish to.”
“And you shall not wish to, save Tammad gives his word,” she laughed. “Were you to make the attempt sooner, it would be your wish to remain unseated that day and perhaps the next as well. The denday Tammad will accept naught save obedience from wendaa.”
“The denday Tammad may accept naught in all!” I snapped, feeling my cheeks redden. “I have given my word to accompany him for the while, and shall do so despite my own wishes to the contrary. I, too, know something of honor.”
I know my head was up as I said that, and she stared at me again in uncertainty Wendaa are supposed to be uninvolved with honor as honor is supposedly a man’s province alone. I found that I meant every word I’d said to her, and that it gave me a sense of satisfaction. I was honor bound to complete the barbarian’s assignment, even if I had been tricked into accepting it. I’d been wrong in trying to run away, because acceptance is acceptance. I’d complete the assignment, and return home with no unpaid debts left behind me.
The girl Doran—whose name was that of a pretty blue flower that grew wild—and I finished cooking and wrapping the dimral while the men socialized and drank drishnak. The fact that they did nothing to help didn’t bother Doran in the least, but it annoyed me quite a bit. In spite of my own experiences to the contrary, I can’t help feeling that catching the beast is the easy part.
When the dimral was all wrapped, it was clothes washing time again. Another stream—or a different part of the same stream—helped to take care of that chore, and then Doran and I were allowed to bathe. I was slightly upset because Faddan was there in addition to the barbarian, but I was too desperate to let that stop me. I’d always considered bathing something to be taken for granted, but on Rimilia it was luxury.
The barbarian insisted that Faddan bathe first, so the man stripped and entered the water while Tammad stood guard. Faddan let Doran hold onto his shoulders while he swam to the middle of the stream and back, and she acted as though she’d just had a brush with death. When he offered to teach her how to swim and she refused with a firm headshake and a large shudder, it made a little more sense, but not much. I’d been swimming since I was a child, and fear of water was something I could feel in others, but not understand on a personal level.
When Faddan climbed out, Tammad took his turn. After he’d splashed around a bit to get wet, he came over to me.
“Would you care to visit the center of the stream, too?” he asked. “I’m a strong swimmer, and there is nothing to fear.”
“I believe I would enjoy that.” I answered his smile. “The water holds no fear for me.”
“Good.” He grinned. “Take hold of my shoulders and do not let go.”
He turned around and ducked low in the water to allow me to reach him more easily, and I had a nice ride out to the middle of the stream. The barbarian’s muscles rippled under his skin, his stroke even and sure, but I was a good swimmer, too. The light stream current was no hazard, so when the barbarian paused to turn around, I let go of him and floated away on my own.
He turned immediately in the water, searching for me frantically; I waved to him with a laugh, then dived under. I didn’t go very deep or very far, but when I surfaced again I didn’t need the thunder in his thoughts to bring me his displeasure. The look on his face was enough to make Sandy’s quadriwagon stop enveloping again, and I didn’t understand it, so I swam closer to him.
“What’s the matter?” I asked in a low voice. “I’ve been swimming for years.”
“This should have been told to me sooner;” he said coldly, anger and annoyance and an odd tinge of fear filling him. “Do you now return to the bank—above water!”
He shoved me in that direction to start me off, then paced me as I swam. I still didn’t know what he was so upset about, but he wasn’t the only one. Faddan stood on the bank looking and thinking pure grim, and Doran, who stood next to him, wasn’t doing much better. When I got to the bank, Faddan reached down and hauled me onto it by one wrist, and the barbarian vaulted out alone a minute later. I stood there dripping and being dripped on by a coldly irate Tammad.
“I do not understand what troubles you,” I said to him. “That I am able to swim should not cause such anger.”
“That you did not say you are able to swim is reason enough for anger,” he answered in a hard voice. “I had thought you close to drowning when you left me! But to behave so foolishly as to swim beneath the water! Do you seek to end your life, wenda?”
“You cannot swim underwater!” I laughed, finally understanding. “That is what troubles you! There is little to it, l’lenda. Would you have me teach you?”
I was feeling pleased that I’d finally found something that that so-superior barbarian couldn’t do, but his feelings and reactions confused me.
“Dress yourself!” he ordered, controlling his fury with much difficulty. “We return to the camp.”
There was no longer anything to grin at, so I quietly put on the relatively clean imad and caldin and gathered up the recently washed ones, plus some of the waterskins. Faddan was still glaring at me, and Doran stood behind and to one side of him, shaking her head ruefully at me. The way they all acted, you’d think I’d committed some terrible crime, but I hadn’t done anything! The barbarian didn’t say another word, and we all walked back to the camp in silence.
Once we got there, Doran went to spread her wet imad and caldin on the roof of Faddan’s camtah, and I did the same on the roof of Tammad’s. I’d barely finished when I was grabbed roughly by the arm and pushed by the barbarian ahead of him into the camtah. I was able to turn to look at him when he paused to close the leather curtain, and the gloom wasn’t so deep that I couldn’t see the switch he was holding. The fury in him hadn’t eased off much, and I was suddenly afraid.
“What did I do?” I demanded in a voice I couldn’t keep from trembling. “You have to tell me what I did!”
But he didn’t tell me. Without a word he held me in place, bared me, and gave me a switching worse than any he had yet given me. I screamed and begged him to tell me what I’d done, but he had no patience for explanations. With the fury was outrage and bitterness, and in my pain I, too, raged and called him barbarian. I was able to keep from projecting, but the barbarian’s arm was stronger than my determination to give him no satisfaction. The tears came long before he let me go, and when he was gone, I lay on the floor of the camtah near my furs, crying uncontrollably.