“Pretty legs, Jorak!” Rokir said. “How would they feel?” His voice broke on the last word. Judging by the sound and by their pimples, they weren’t very far into adolescence. Alea tucked her skirts tight to hide her legs from below, trying to ignore the panic that hammered in her breast as she examined them more closely. As ordinary boys, they would have seemed well-proportioned and muscular, but as young giants, they were gangly and scrawny—and giants they were, for their heads reached above the branch she had had to jump to catch on her way up. That made them eight feet tall or more, definitely giants, but with a foot or two of growth yet to come.
“Pretty indeed!” Rokir answered. “I’ll touch and see!” He swung himself up on a limb—and it broke, spilling him to the ground.
Jorak guffawed. “You can’t go climbing as you used to, Rokir! It takes grandfathers of trees to hold us now!”
“All right, so I’ve a lot to learn.” Rokir scrambled to his feet, red-faced. “So have you, Jorak!”
They hadn’t been raised as giants, then, for if they had, they would have known what size of trees they could climb, and which were too small for their weight. That meant they were Midgarders, boys who had been cast out of their villages for being too tall, obviously on their way to becoming giants. In spite of her fright, Alea felt a rush of sympathy for them, even tenderness, for she was twice their age at least, and had just learned what they had learned—that the self-righteousness of the Midgarders hid an unbelievable intensity of cruelty. She wished she couldn’t believe it.
Then the boys shook the tree again. She hugged the branch to hold herself upright, but her skirts fell loose once more. Rokir whistled with an admiration that held a mocking echo, Jorak leered up at her, and the sympathy drowned under a flood of fear. Alea knew the sound, knew the expression, and was determined never to let a man catch her again, even if he was a fuzz-checked boy.
An eight-foot-tall, three-hundred-fifty-pound boy.
“Come down, pretty!” Jorak called. “Or I’ll shake you down!”
“You?” Rokir scoffed. “You wouldn’t know what to do with her if you had her!”
“Just what I’ve done before!” But Jorak’s voice struck an echo of uncertainty. “What would you know about it anyway, pie-face?”
“I’ll show you, as soon as she falls into our arms!” Rokir said with some heat—too much heat, Alea thought; it struck a false note.
Then the tree lashed about so wildly that Alea cried out, hugging the limb to her right, afraid the trunk would snap—but it didn’t. She thought frantically. If they had to egg each other on with jibes and insults, that meant they were really reluctant to try to grapple her…
“Do it like a whip! ”Jorak called. “One … two … three…” The tree abruptly lashed back, breaking Alea’s hold and spilling her off the limb. She cried out in panic, a cry that was choked off as her rope caught her with a painful pinch on the stomach. Her makeshift staff fell clattering, and its tether jerked painfully against her wrist. She dangled, kicking and flailing, trying desperately to get back on her perch.
“She tied herself on!” Jorak called in disappointment. “But what a pretty fruit she makes, doesn’t she, Rokir?”
“She does that.” Rokir was working hard to sound gloating, as he’d probably heard older boys do. “Let’s pluck that tasty plum!”
“How, if the branches won’t hold us?” Jorak said, then brightened. “Come to think of it, she’s not all that high up! Give me a boost, Jorak, and I’ll have her down!”
Alea pulled her staff up quickly, before they could think to pull on it. She held it in both hands, ready to strike and wishing she’d learned how to do it right.
“So, she’ll give us a drubbing!” Rokir hooted. “Not much good that’ll do her! Come on, Jorak, make a step.”
“Wish I’d thought of it first.” By his tone, Jorak was glad he hadn’t. He cupped his hands, and Rokir stepped into them, steadied himself on a limb, and climbed up to Jorak’s shoulders, where he reached up and snatched at Alea’s ankle. She jerked it out of reach and chopped at his knuckles with her staff. He yanked his hand out of the way in the nick of time, grinning. “So our plum has a thorny stem! But you can’t hit me when you’re swinging about like that, pretty plumkin!”
The rope was biting into Alea’s midriff so hard she could scarcely breathe, but the thought of falling into the boys’ hands galvanized her with fear. “I’ll learn,” she promised Rokir.
“It talks!” Rokir crowed. “Did you hear that, Jorak?”
“I heard,” Jorak grunted. “Hurry up and get her down! I can’t take your weight much longer!”
“Bear up,” Rokir told him. “Life’s gone sour, so I need something sweet.”
Alea’s thoughts raced. Their big talk showed that they feared sex as they desired it, shying from the unknown as much as craving the ecstasy, promised by the gossip of the older boys. If they hadn’t been hiding such reluctance, she probably would have been their victim already, even though she was high above them and armed with her staff. If they were still virgins, and as filled with misgivings as with eagerness, she should be able to talk them out of it.
“There’s no fun in taking what’s not given,” she told the boys. “I’ve seen it, and I know.”
“Seen it?” The boys stared, and she could see in their eyes that they were wondering if she had watched, or been part of it.
“Well, unless you enjoy hearing people scream,” Alea told them. “If you’re the kind of boy who thinks it’s fun to torture little furry animals, maybe you would think it’s fun.” She shuddered as she said it, remembering.
Rokir jumped down, wide-eyed and taken aback. Jorak groaned with relief, rubbing his shoulders, then grinned up at Alea. “Come on! You know you’d love it! All women do!”
“No we don’t,” Alea said sharply—or as sharply as she could with the rope digging into her. She caught as much of a breath as she could and told him, “Women hate being forced, young man. If we could get revenge on a man, we would—the very worst revenge we could take, I promise you!” She said it with such vehemence that both boys recoiled. Jorak’s eyes wide with surprise and apprehension: “But … but the big boys said…”
“They said what they thought others expected to hear!” Alea snapped. “Have you asked a woman? Believe me, even if we’re willing, there are precious few men who are good enough lovers to make it much of a pleasure to us!”
“You’re lying!” Rokir protested. “Everyone knows it’s fun, that the pleasure just happens!”
“It takes patience and skill,” Alea contradicted, “and that means years of learning—not that I’d have a chance to know!” The bitterness in her voice surprised even herself—not that it should have. That bitterness made the boys recoil again, though, wide-eyed and with guilt shadowing their faces.
Alea throttled back her anger—if they could feel badly about what they’d tried to do, they were good boys underneath. If she could reach that goodness …
“It’s true, lads,” she said, more gently. “Ask any woman. In fact, ask as many women as you can. You might do it well when you get the chance, that way.”
The boys glanced at each other, then looked away. Rokir sent a quick look at Alea, but couldn’t hold it and looked down at his toes.
“You can come down, then,” Jorak said gruffly. “We won’t hurt you.”
“Come down?” Alea couldn’t help smiling. “That’ll take a bit of work. Turn away, please.”
Jorak frowned. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to have to kick high to get a leg over that branch, if I’m going to get back up on it—and I have to, I can’t just untie myself while I’m hanging.”