But now that she understood Beng—
Now that she could say what was in her mind—
The wind came hotter and harder, so that the heavy burden of dust it bore darkened the sky over Dawinno Galihine. It seemed to Torlyri that if it grew any stronger it would blow down these tottering buildings which had withstood the storms and earthquakes of seven hundred thousand years.
The man of the scarred shoulder was staring at her strangely, as though astounded that she had come, though she had visited the Beng settlement many times before. For a long while he did not speak, nor did she.
Then at last he said, “Offering-woman—?”
“Torlyri is my name.”
“Torlyri. It is a very beautiful name. You understand what I say to you?”
“If you speak slowly. And you? Do you understand me?”
“You say our words very beautifully. Very beautifully. Your voice is so soft.” He smiled and put both his hands to the sides of his helmet, letting them rest there a moment, as though in indecision. Then swiftly he undid the helmet’s throat-strap and took it off. She had never seen him without it, indeed had never seen any of the male Bengs bareheaded. The transformation was an unsettling one. His head seemed oddly small this way and his stature diminished, although but for the strange color of his fur and eyes he was identical now to any man of her own tribe.
The sentry, who had remained hovering in the background, coughed ostentatiously and turned away. Torlyri realized that this removing of the helmet must be some kind of invitation to intimacy, or perhaps some even more heavily charged act of commitment. Her trembling, which somehow had halted without her noticing, began again.
He said, “My name is Trei Husathirn. Will you come to my house?”
She started to say that she would, and gladly. But she checked herself. She knew the Beng language, yes, or such a smattering of it as Hresh had been able to learn and to teach her, yet how could she know the meanings within the meanings? What did “Will you come to my house?” mean? Was it an invitation to couple? To twine? To mate, even? Yissou help me, then, she thought, if he thinks I am pledging myself to be his mate, when I know nothing more of him than his name! Or was it simply an acknowledgment that they were standing in a hot, dusty, windswept street when they could be drinking wine and eating cakes in some more comfortable place?
She stood there, searching his face, praying for guidance.
Into her silence he said — sounding hurt, she thought, although the cadence of Beng speech was so fierce that it was hard to tell — “You do not wish to come, then?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then let us go.”
“You must understand — I can’t stay long—”
“Of course. Just a short while.”
He made as though to go; but she remained where she was.
“Torlyri?” he said, reaching toward her, not quite touching her.
He looked strangely vulnerable without his helmet. She wished he would put it back on. It was the helmet that had drawn her to him in the first place, that simple shining golden dome lightly bedecked with leaves, so different from the eerie nightmarish helmets that most of his tribefellows preferred: his helmet, yes, and something about his eyes, and the way he smiled, and the way he held himself. Of the man behind the eyes she still knew nothing.
“Torlyri?” he said again, almost plaintively.
“All right. A short visit.”
“You will come! Nakhaba!” His eerie red eyes glowed like fiery suns in his delight. “A short visit, yes! Come. Come. I have something for you, Torlyri, a gift, a precious thing especially for you. Come!”
Quickly he strode past the sentry, not even looking back to see if she was following him. The sentry made a gesture that she did not understand, but that seemed friendly: perhaps a holy sign, perhaps just a bawdy one. Torlyri made the sign of Yissou at him and went rushing after Trei Husathirn.
His house, as he called it, was a single room. It was situated on the ground floor of some rambling palace of the sapphire-eyes, a structure built of a white stone with a cool yellow fire mysteriously burning within the building-blocks. Trei Husathirn’s house was a sparse place, with a pile of furs to serve as a bed, a simple upright altar of some sort in a niche, a few spears and throwing-sticks leaning against the wall, and two or three small wickerwork baskets that might contain clothing or other personal belongings.
Torlyri saw no sign of a woman’s presence anywhere about the room’s furnishings. She felt a great rush of relief at that; and then she felt abashed at feeling such relief.
Trei Husathirn knelt at his altar and whispered some words she did not hear, and laid his helmet within the altar niche with obvious reverence. Then he rose and came to her side and they stood facing each other, neither of them speaking.
She thought of all that she had planned to say to him, once they were finally alone and now that she was able to communicate properly with him, and she saw now the absurdity of the little speech she had constructed. To speak of love? How? By what right? They were strangers. In their occasional meetings when people of one tribe were visiting the other they had enjoyed eyeing one another, and winking and grinning, and pointing and laughing at things that had suddenly seemed funny to them, the gods only knew why. But nothing had ever passed between them. Nothing. She had not even known his name until a few minutes ago. All that he had known of her was that she was the offering-woman of her tribe, and even that might have had no real meaning to him. And now they were face to face, silent, neither of them with the slightest idea of what to do or say next.
To her horror she found herself reaching her hand to his right shoulder, lightly touching the long narrow scar that ran from the fleshy part of his forearm to the side of his neck. The fur was gone there and smooth silver-pink skin showed, very odd to the touch, like ancient parchment. When she realized what she was doing she pulled back from him as though she had put her hand in a bonfire.
“Hjjk-men,” he said. “When I was a boy. The beak they have, very bad. Three of them died for this.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It was long ago. I never think of it.”
The trembling began again. Torlyri steadied herself. His eyes rested unwaveringly on hers, and she made herself meet his gaze. He and she were almost the same height; but she was tall, for a woman. There was great strength to him. Plainly he was a warrior, and surely a valiant one.
It was his turn now to touch her. Lightly he drew his fingers over the spiral of brilliant white fur that ran from her right shoulder over her breast to her hip, and then he ran his hand down the matching stripe on her left side.
“Very beautiful,” he said. “The white. I have never seen anything like it.”
“It’s — not common among us.”
“You have a child, Torlyri? With the same white?”
“I have no children, no.”
“A man? You have a man?”
She saw the tension on his face.
The easiest thing would be to tell him what was, after all, the truth: No, I have no man. But that was only part of the truth, and she needed to have him know more. “I had a man for a while,” she said. “He went away.”
“Ah.”
“He went far away. I will never see him again.”
“I am very sorry, Torlyri.”
She managed a flickering smile. “Are you, really?”
“Sorry that you have been hurt, yes. Not sorry that he has gone away, no, I could not say that.”