“It is as I discovered earlier,” he murmured, his tone even and calm. “Men of your worlds have been taught a strangeness when dealing with their women. Tell me what terrible things have been done to this woman, and tell me also what action would prove my manhood.”
“What was done to her is obvious enough,” Garth came back stiffly, knowing there was a hidden trap but not knowing where it lay. “Is she on board this vessel willingly? Is she to be released when the journey is over? You know the true answers to those questions as well as I do.”
“Indeed.” Tammad nodded, still totally unruffled. “The woman has not accompanied me willingly, nor will I release her when we have reached Rimilia. Have I not said what reasons I have for doing such things?”
“You said you love her,” Garth grudged, far from being convinced. “But if you really loved her you would let her go, give her a chance to think things over and come back on her own. This way you’re trying to force her love.”
“You would have me release the woman, believing as she does that I care only for her ability and what use I might make of it?” the barbarian countered, his light eye’s sharp. “What woman of pride would return to me under circumstances such as those? Even should she recall the love she once felt for me, how might she return and profess it?”
“You could follow after her and court her,” Garth said, but his mind was full of embarrassment at the suggestion. It was impossible imagining the giant barbarian courting any woman, and even Garth could see that.
“Follow after and coax her attention as the men of your worlds,” Tammad said, refraining from showing any of the scorn in his mind. “Is the fate of my world to await the whim of a courted wenda? Even had I the time to spend on such an undertaking, what would the woman think of the man who came begging her favor? Should she wish to indulge her humor the fate of the man would be humiliating, calling for the deepest self-abasement possible. Is this a thing to offer a woman, a man who has forgotten his manhood?”
“It doesn’t always work like that,” Garth muttered, rubbing his face with one broad hand. “What you’re saying is that it’s better to carry the woman off than to try to convince her. It may be easier, but that doesn’t necessarily mean better. And once you do carry her off, how do you get her to see things your way? Beat her, the way you beat Terry?”
Garth was using anger to bolster his position and Tammad seemed to know it. He unfolded his large body and leaned back on his pillows, then shook his head at Garth.
“A man speaks best to a woman when he holds her in his arms,” he said, as though explaining the matter in words of one syllable. “She then knows the truth of his feelings, clear beyond any doubt. Should she be completely uninterested, her body will so inform his, giving him also the truth of the matter. If he is wise he will then release her, for she is not his true love. What led you to believe I have ever beaten this woman beside me?”
“Why, she told me so.” Garth blinked in surprise, turning his head to look at me. I knew he was looking at me because I could feel his eyes even though I had turned my head away. Her body will tell his if she’s uninterested, Tammad had said. I knew what my body had told him, but that wasn’t the truth. What the body wanted and what the mind wanted were two different things.
“Do you believe the woman is incapable of speaking other than the truth?” the barbarian asked Garth, still without accusation. “It is true I did indeed beat her once, yet the thing was not a doing to boast off and build one’s manhood upon. The woman gave me deep insult, yet punishment would have been a more fitting response. A switching teaches what a beating does not—it builds a basis for respect and obedience rather than for bate and a need for revenge. A switching is little more than what was given her earlier.”
“But that was nothing,” Garth protested, and then his hand was on my arm, demanding my attention. “Is that all he ever did to you, Terry? That and nothing more?”
I raised my eyes to study his face, but looking at him didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. Garth had switched sides again, and for reasons that seemed to be totally irresistible to certain men.
“How would you like that little bit of nothing done to you, Garth?” I asked, wasting my breath because I was in the mood for it. “How would you like to be taken in a man’s arms and made love to even if it wasn’t what you wanted? You stood and faced him with swords once. Could I do that? He beat you, Garth, but he didn’t laugh at you. If I tried it, he would laugh. I can’t even lift a sword.”
I got to my feet then and walked away from them, blocking out whatever their reactions to my speech were. I didn’t want to know what they were thinking and feeling, I only cared about what I was feeling. Even if nobody else cared, at least I cared.
I went back to the cabin I had napped in, closed the door behind me, then sat down on the bed with my back to the closed door. I was hoping for enough peace and quiet for a good session of uninterrupted brooding, but without a door lock there wasn’t much chance of it. No more than a minute later the door opened again, admitting guess who.
“Do you truly wish you might face me with swords?” the barbarian asked, a definite disturbed note underlying his usual calm. “I had not considered the possibility.”
“Of course not,” I answered without turning. “I’m nothing but a woman.” He didn’t reply to that, but just stood there waiting, and after a minute I understood what he was waiting for. “I know well enough I could never face you with swords,” I said, lowering my head. “Even if I could lift one.”
“I would not have laughed,” he said, finally coming closer to stroke my hair. “To draw sword against another is not a matter for laughter. Why do you refuse to hear my words, l’lenda wenda? That I have need of your abilities does not mean I have no desire for you in your own self. How may I convince you of this?”
“You cant,” I said, shaking my head against his hand. “If I let myself believe you I’d just be leaving myself open to be hurt again, and I can’t do that. The pain would be less if I did face you with swords.”
“I would never find myself able to raise sword to you,” he whispered, sitting down next to me to draw me close. “And yet, as great as my love is for you, my need is nearly as great. My people—our people—have need of the talent you possess, and you must not deny me. Turn your face from me in ail other things if you must, but do not deny me in this.”
My cheek was against that broad, bare chest, feeling his warmth and the vital life in him. His brawny arms were around me, holding me gently yet possessively, his mind speaking to mine of the desperation he felt. I felt a crushing need to cry like a child, sobbing wildly, but the time for tears was long past. When pain goes deep enough, nothing soothes it.
“I can do nothing else but deny you,” I whispered back, falling easily and naturally into the Rimilian language. “Tammad, hamak of my soul, I would give up anything and everything I possess for you, even unto my life, but you, through your own words, show your love for your people greater than your love for me. You would allow me to turn from you completely, if only I would aid your people. I cannot fault you for this love that takes you from me, nor am I able to fight it. I simply cannot allow myself to be placed second, not knowing when another love might place me third or fourth or lower still. Should I attempt such a life, I would wither and die. I have not the stuff of sacrifice within me.”
“Terril,” he sobbed, crushing me to him, his mind searching frantically for a way to deny what I’d said. A terrible ache had come to claim him, one almost as bad as mine, but he was the one who had set up the rules. His own words proved what mine could not, and the search for denial was a waste of time. I had never seen this giant of a man cry before, but there was no shame in him for what he was doing. In his culture tear’s were reserved for very special times, times when nothing else will serve. His sense of loss was nearly inconsolable and I moaned with the pain of it, far too close and personally involved to fend it off. His arms crushed me, his mind crushed me, I tried to contain it all, but I couldn’t. The raw power of his body and mind overwhelmed me completely, sending me tumbling down into gray and yellow-shot black.