Sharon Green - Terrillian 03, page 11
“For what reason do you fear me, wenda?” he asked, reaching out to slide the gown top off my shoulders and slowly down to my waist. “Do you continue to fear that I will cause you harm, despite my word to the contrary? Your hesitation would be more fitting in one who has never been touched.”
I looked away from him as he urged the gown down past my hips, unable to answer his question. To him there was nothing wrong in what he was doing, on the contrary it was a duty expected of him. If I’d tried telling him how I saw it, he would have laughed or thought I was crazy. When he understood I had nothing to say, he bent to lift me off the floor, then lay down on the furs and took me in his arms.
“It is clear you must be shown the truth of my words,” he murmured, beginning to move his hands on me. His sliding palm touched a still-aching welt just as the thunder crashed again, and I cried out in pain and clung to him, too scattered to continue keeping my reactions to myself. His arms tightened immediately in comfort, holding me to him, trying to calm the shaking.
“It is beyond me why certain wendaa must beg for punishment,” he said, his voice uneven as he held me close. “As slight as you are, a strapping must be nearly unbearable, no matter the care taken with it. Is obedience so impossible to you that you must choose pain over it?”
“From some men, pain is preferable to pleasure,” I gasped, my head whirling.
“Pain will drive away the memory of his arms, the need for his body. From pleasure comes naught save an even greater pain, one impossible to guard against. With pain, one may hate without tears.”
“Ah, wenda, how is it possible to find no more than tears in pleasure?” he asked, something of pain to be heard in his voice. “What is this thing which stands between you and my brother, the thing which brings pain to you both?
Speak to me of it, and perhaps I may aid you as you and he gave aid to me.”
I hate your world, I wanted to say, still trembling against him. If not for this world and its people, he wouldn’t have lied trying to make me work for him. If not for this world and its people, I would not be handed about among strange men, expected to please them. If he were a man of Central, he would be jealous of other men touching me, even if he didn’t have the backbone to do anything about it. He’d want to keep me for himself and he’d care if I slept with anyone else! He’d never arrange it himself, not ever!
“Wenda, I do not understand your words,” Cinnan said, and I realized he was trying to hold me still as I struggled in his embrace. I also realized I’d been muttering aloud, but that part didn’t matter. I’d been muttering in Centran, and Cinnan didn’t speak Centran. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but it felt damned close to being drunk.
“My words-mean nothing,” I got out, well on the way to feeling suffocated.
“Release me now, for I am no longer able to bear this.”
“You must bear it, and more,” he said, his voice as implacable as his arms were impossible to escape. “You have shamed my brother once, and I will not allow you to do the same a second time. You will serve me, wenda, and will find pleasure in the doing.”
I tried to add argument to my struggles, but his lips bottled up the words and refused them exit. With the way I felt, I would have sworn he’d be able to do nothing more with me than commit rare, but being somehow drunk had made me forget what l’lendaa were like. He began working on me immediately, his hands touching just so, his lips and tongue teasing, all of them caressing and heating; despite the pain of the storm and the beating I’d had, despite the drunkenness swirling me around, in no time at all I was lost to what was being done to me. It wasn’t fair for l’lendaa to have that sort of power, to be able to raise a woman’s needs and make her a slave to them, and I told Cinnan so as I kissed him. He chuckled softly and moved his hand on me, and t moaned and threw my arms around his neck. There was no doubt about the fact that he had me, but he wasn’t surprised; he fully expected me to react the way he wanted me to, and would have been surprised if I hadn’t.
Cinnan chucklingly shared the pleasure he made me feel, typically taking even more than he gave as most Rimilian men did, but as far as he was concerned he was only beginning. I couldn’t have disagreed with him on my own, but I wasn’t making many of my own decisions just then. I became more aware of being held by him, his arms tight about me as he stroked deep to satisfy us both, the satisfaction somehow becoming less and less with each passing minute. In its place the storm intruded, searing fireworks and deafening explosions battering harder and harder in an attempt to shatter my shield and mind. I had been sweating from Cinnan’s efforts and my own, but the sweat increased and turned clammy, making Cinnan’s massive arms and body under my hands and against my flesh fire hot. My head throbbed and I couldn’t breathe, and when I moaned with the heavy pain settling all about me Cinnan chuckled again, thinking my moan was one of pleasure. He leaned down to kiss me without breaking the stride of his lazy stroke, not yet ready to build toward full passion again, but I knew I’d suffocate during one of his sustained kisses. Desperately I jerked my face away, gasping for the air I needed so badly, and the laziness in the body above me suddenly disappeared.
“Wench, what ails you?” Cinnan’s voice came, a frown to be heard in it. “You have become pale, and your body trembles in my arms. Where is the pleasure you felt but moments earlier?”
I closed my eyes as I simply dragged in air, unable to answer him as the pain flared through me. It felt as though I were being flogged to death, whips striking from all directions around me. Cinnan’s hand came to my sweat-soaked hair, smoothed it once with a gentle motion, and then he withdrew from my body. I immediately began shivering violently, feeling the withdrawal of his body’s warmth as almost pain, barely knowing it when he gathered up the fur we’d been lying on and wrapped me in it. My eyes opened with a good deal of effort as the shivering began subsiding, showing me a sober, worried-looking Cinnan who held the fur about me. He smoothed my hair again in an almost unconscious gesture, then backed off the bed furs and turned toward the door to the other room. He was still four hurried strides from it when it opened, admitting a quickly striding Tammad.
“Cinnan, excuse the intrusion,” the barbarian began, “yet there is a matter of great-” His words broke off as he realized Cinnan was on the way out rather than being intruded upon, and his calmly worried expression changed to a frown. “What occurs here?” he demanded, a heavy edge to his voice. “What has she…”
“This is scarcely likely to be her doing,” Cinnan interrupted with an impatient gesture, stopping in the middle of the room as Tammad came up to him. “The woman has taken seriously ill, and I had intended fetching a healer.
You will, of course, sit with her till his arrival.”
“Ill?” Tammad echoed, jerking his head around in my direction. “It was her assistance that I came for, as word has been brought me that Lenham has collapsed to unconsciousness after being taken by great pain. In what manner is she ill?”
“I know not,” Cinnan answered, following as Tammad quickly made his way over to me. “She was excellent in use, far better than I had expected, this despite her great initial reluctance. She glowed beneath me, filled with pulsating life-and then the life drained from her, and all pleasure as well. She became as you see her now, and I knew not what to do.”
“Terril, speak to me,” the barbarian urged, sitting down in front of me where I lay curled in the fur, sweating and in pain. “Tell me what has touched you and Lenham so cruelly, so that I might see to it. Have you been taken by the same thing? What is it?”
His hand wiping the sweat from my forehead trembled slightly, almost in time to the storm sounds beyond the window. I tried looking up at him, but couldn’t seem to focus my gaze; even holding my eyes open was painful. I licked dry lips from an even drier tongue, finding it difficult to answer even after making the decision to try.
“The-storm,” I whispered, too deeply wrapped in stabbing nails to even wonder if he could hear me. “The storm-such pain. Can’t hide from it. Can’t stop it.”
“What does she say?” Cinnan demanded, leaning closer. “Why must she continually speak in that barbaric tongue?”
“I much doubt that she realizes which tongue she speaks in,” the barbarian muttered, his hand searching for one of mine through the fur so that he might squeeze it gently. “She has told me that the storm brings her pain, and that she is unable to halt it. It is undoubtedly through her power that she is tormented so, yet I spoke of easing her. How am I to keep my word, Cinnan?
How?”
“Tammad, brother, do not torment yourself,” Cinnan answered gently, putting a hand on the barbarian’s shoulder. “A man may do no more than his utmost, especially against those things he has no understanding of. It is possible I may be of assistance to you, yet I must first speak with Aesnil. I will return as soon as may be.”
He walked out of my line of vision for a minute, and when he reappeared going toward the door he wore his haddin and swordbelt again. The barbarian lay down beside me and took me in his arms, but even his presence didn’t do anything to help. The pain just went on and on, doubling me over and making me sick to my soul.
It’s impossible to know how long Cinnan was gone. The passage of time is always subjective, even with timepieces around. It had finally occurred to me to wonder why I was still conscious when the door to the room opened, admitting Cinnan and a number of other men. They all strode quickly to the bed furs, and Cinnan clapped Tammad briskly on the shoulder.
“Bring the woman and come with me, brother,” he said, his voice sounding eager. “I may have found the answer to her difficulty. “
“How?” Tammad demanded, only glancing at Cinnan before lifting me and the fur off the bed furs. Being moved that abruptly hurt, but I hadn’t the strength even to moan.
“The inner fortress,” Cinnan answered, moving fast to keep ahead of Tammad. “I spoke with Aesnil, and discovered that there are chambers deep within which have no direct contact with the outer world. Should it be possible to shield the wenda from the storms, the place is there.”
“Cinnan, brother, you have more than my thanks,” the barbarian answered, his voice soft and even despite his hurry. “Should this take the pain from my woman, my debt to you will be unrepayable.”
“Do not speak foolishness, Tammad,” Cinnan laughed, shaking his head. “What else might one do than assist a brother? And I have already been repaid, with a sight I scarcely expected to see. When I spoke with Aesnil, the wenda appeared concerned over this one! She immediately offered the use of the fortress, and her own services as well! Perhaps she will become the woman of my heart sooner than I had expected.”
The barbarian grunted and said something else to Cinnan, but I couldn’t follow the conversation any further. We were outside the apartment and hurrying through the corridors, practically in the middle of the storm despite the coated cloth hanging across every normally open area. The crash and crackle of the thunder and lightning were the only things left in the world, black pain and yellow pain and every color in between. I strained and fought against it, and kept wishing that I could just give in.
And then the storm feeling was further away, no more than a matter of inches but far enough to let me breathe a little more easily. I forced my eyes open to see us entering a narrow, torch-lit area at the end of a short, narrow, delicate bridge piece, beyond which was a larger room, also torch-lit.
Entering that place was impossible other than in single file, which gave the men carrying Len on a litter a good deal of trouble. Cinnan was already in the larger room, as were Aesnil and a number of female slaves, and as soon as I was carried in Aesnil gestured and began leading the way toward a heavy, closed door. The deeper we went into that place, the more the pain receded, the more it dropped to a tolerable level. I found less and less of a need to fight and struggle, even though I still hurt quite a bit. I took a deep, shaky breath, ready to try relaxing for the first time in hours, and instead passed out.
CHAPTER 5
The room I awoke in was only torch-lit, but even if it had been blazing with bright, cheery light, there wouldn’t have been much of an improvement. All four of the walls were cold, undecorated stone, the floor uncarpeted stone, the ceiling dimly seen stone. Aside from the narrow pile of furs I lay on, one small table and a couple of torch sconces, the room was entirely bare. I shivered as I looked around at it, wondering if it was a cell rather than a room, wondering if the heavy wooden door was locked. I couldn’t remember how I had gotten there, or why someone would lock my in a cell. I moved around under the fur covering me, realizing I was naked, growing more and more upset-until the door opened, admitting a female slave carrying a tray. The naked slave hurried to put the tray down on the small table, fell to her knees and put her forehead to the floor, then scrambled up and backed out of the room. I didn’t know Aesnil stood by the door waiting for the slave to leave until I saw her, the bright red of her gown an incongruous sight in the drab of that room. She closed the door firmly behind the hurrying slave, moved gracefully to the tray that had been left, chose one of the bowls, then brought it over to me.
“I am pleased to see that you have recovered,” she said, handing me the bowl with a warm smile. “You must now eat to regain your strength, and then you will be completely whole again. “
I took the bowl automatically, still trying to remember what had happened, and then I realized that my shield was closed. Not knowing any better I opened it-then slammed it closed again against the shock of more than atmospheric static.
“How long have I been here?” I gasped, putting one shaky hand to my head as memory came flooding back. “How long a time do those storms continue?”
“The new day has begun,” she answered, looking at me narrowly in the dim torchlight. “How are you able to know that the storms continue? Ah, but of course. You are able to feel them. I believe I no longer envy you your powers.
“
“No one possessed of sanity and sense would envy me my powers,” I came back, looking around for a place to put the bowl she had given me. “There is little pleasure in being sought for no more than their use.”
“Do not put your food aside!” she said sharply, taking the bowl back before I could get rid of it. Your strength will not return without it and your strength will be necessary if we are to escape from here!”
“Escape?” I echoed, staring at her with the frustration of not being able to read her. “Have you gone insane after all’? How would it be possible to escape, and to where would we run? Are we to float through these walls? And what of your position here? You cannot be Chama if you are no longer present.”
“I no longer am Chama!” she spat, squeezing the bowl between her hands as her lovely face twisted with grief. “I have publicly renounced the position, and will not take it up again no matter the doings of Cinnan! He believes I may be forced to his will, yet his beliefs will prove to be mistaken! One who has been a Chama will never be a slave!”
She looked down at the bowl in her hands, seemingly ready to throw it violently away from her, but then she realized what she was about to do. I could almost see her grabbing her fury and forcing it back down, establishing control over it before stepping closer and sitting down on the bed furs next to me. Her movements were still jerky as she took the small scoop out of the bowl, scraped off the excess cereal grain against the side of the bowl, then stabbed at my face with the scoop. I was so startled I opened my mouth, and found myself being fed the cereal grain I hadn’t really wanted.
“The man is insufferable,” she muttered, barely giving me a chance to swallow before stabbing at me with the scoop again. “He beats me and uses my body as though I were a slave, then demands that I behave as a Chama! When I refused to continue with the farce and informed the dendayy of my decision, he dared to give me as host-gift to the beast who holds you! I refuse to allow this state of affairs to continue, therefore shall we escape together. “
“You still have not told my how we are to escape from this place,” I said as fast as I could before the next scoopful came at me.
“This fortress was built by my family,” she answered, grim satisfaction accompanying the sharp, angry movements of her hand. “For one of the blood, there is more than a single exit from it. We will await the end of the storms, and then we will depart. Do you fear to go with me?”
She stopped feeding me for the moment, but I still hesitated before answering her. I wanted very much to be away from that place, but-all alone on Rimilia, with no one but another woman like myself? Where would we go? Would I live to see my embassy again? What would we do if we were captured by strangers, men who decided they wanted us? Did I have the nerve to face Rimilia on my own?
“I do fear to accompany you,” I said at last, feeling more of the throbbing headache that had diminished so much from the day before. “You find yourself filled with the same anger which fills me, and yet-I fear the world beyond these walls and you do not. That I have even greater fear of the doings within these walls is happenstance. I do fear to accompany you, yet I shall do SO.”
“Ah, Terril, it seems it is best that I shall no longer be Chama,” she sighed, putting her hand on my arm. “Your lot must truly be worse than mine due to aid you gave me, yet I spent not a single moment in thought concerning what was to become of you. I must see to it that your reluctance to remain grows much greater than your reluctance to depart. In such a way will departure please the both of us.”
She reached forward to hug me briefly, smiled in a sympathetic way as she got to her feet, then returned the bowl to the tray and left the room. I stared after her, wondering what she could possibly have been talking about, then shrugged to myself to dismiss the question. Aesnil always had been somewhat on the strange side, and it wasn’t likely that she’d change. What she’d said meant nothing at all, and I would be foolish if I wasted time thinking about it.
