Tedra groaned inwardly. “That’s a bit old, and I do mean old-fashioned, don’t you think? There’s nothing wrong with my own belt.”
“Likely it is a fine belt-for a warrior,” he said in reply; then his dark eyes met hers to add gently, “You need no belt, kerima. ”
“Then what-” He had grasped both wrists and brought them together in one of his large hands, then began calmly wrapping the rope around them. “Now just a damned minute!” Tedra said with annoyance, but also with some little alarm. “I’m honor-bound to be stuck with you for a month, warrior. This isn’t necessary and you know it!”
“Any challenge loser, or captive, too, for that matter, is treated thusly at first, to declare his or her status to all.”
“No one’s going to believe I’m a challenge loser.”
“Be glad of that, kerima. Challenge losers are scorned. Captives are merely a curiosity.”
“If you’d left me my clothes-”
“Every warrior in my camp would have demanded their removal. I am not the only one who would find it offensive to see a woman dressed so.”
Tedra ground her teeth together, pulled against the rope now tight around her wrists, and glared at the barbarian. “I got to hand it to you, babe. You really know how to make a girl love the hell out of you.”
“This habit you have of saying things you do not mean is confusing, woman. Best do you keep to the truth.”
“I’d love to,” she said resentfully. “But it’s bound to get me punished, as you’ve repeatedly told me.”
“And what is this truth?”
“That I’m beginning to hate you and your planet, and your farden customs. Put that in your hat and eat it.”
He tipped her face around to his when she turned aside so as not to see his reaction to that. But his reaction bewildered her, since there was clear amusement in his expression. And then his words confused her even more, contradicting the amusement.
“You were correct, kerima. Such does deserve punishment. This will be seen to shortly.”
“Thanks. I really needed to hear that.”
He shook his head at her, as if her remarks were those of an incorrigible child, and then his gaze dropped to her bound hands. These he stared at for a long moment and even frowned, leading Tedra to believe he was going to change his mind. No such luck. He picked up her discarded pants instead, cut a few inches off the bottom of each leg, making her groan at the destruction of such a costly outfit, and then slipped one piece each over her hands under the ropes. Protecting her skin? How considerate-and again contradictory. Why should he care? He’d tied her to begin with. So what if she got scraped raw from the rope? She was less than a captive. She was a challenge loser, to be scorned.
In a moment of sheer disgust over the predicament her traitorous computer had left her in, she switched to her own language. “I hope you’re getting all this, Martha, because the strikes against you are adding up. I’m not just going to sell you when I get out of this, I’m going to demolish you-pull all your plugs and melt down your circuits-and that’s just for starters. And just because I’ll have to endure this for a month, whether you come to your senses or not, don’t think time will be on your side. I won’t forget that you could have saved me before that farden challenge. A month of barbarian arrogance shoved down my throat will ensure that I don’t forget. You’ve been-”
The cloth shoved in her mouth shut off her words, and Tedra’s eyes widened as another strip of cloth came to hold the first one in place and tie behind her neck. Bound hands didn’t help to prevent this from happening. All Tedra could do was scream her fury at this last outrage, the sound a mere squeak and too unsatisfying to go on for long.
When she gave it up, he was standing in front of her again, wearing his inscrutable expression. “Thus will be done each time you speak to your Martha in words unknown to me,” he told her. “When the lesson has sufficient time to be learned, I will allow you to speak again, in Sha-Ka’ani.”
Sha-Ka’ani? Was that what he called the Sha-Ka’ari language she had learned? Martha had said the whole planet spoke a single language, though the barbarian must not know that. Even though Tedra spoke another language, he still believed her to be from another country, not another planet. That would make his planet Sha-Ka’an.
Why Tedra felt she had accomplished something by figuring that out, she didn’t know. Maybe because she still didn’t know her tormentor’s name, only his country, and now his planet. But having a positive feeling at that moment, even about something so minor, was needed to counteract all the negative thoughts bombarding her. Tied and gagged. What next?
Chapter Eleven
They were miles away from their place of meeting before Tedra remembered her belt and the homing device it contained. She had been so preoccupied with annoyance over the restraints binding her, as well as distracted by her close proximity to the barbarian, she hadn’t even noticed that all her clothes had been left behind.
He’d climbed aboard his hataar with no help other than the harness post to pull himself up by. Then, still holding one hand to the post, he’d reached down and caught Tedra about the waist, setting her in front of him. With reins attached to the animal’s head, the barbarian had flicked them and off they went, the tamed fembair following close behind.
Now, a good hour later, Tedra couldn’t believe she had been so careless as to overlook something that important. Granted, she’d been gagged and in no position to insist her possessions be brought along. But to just forget? And why didn’t the barbarian want to keep them, if for no other reason than as something curious to show his friends? She had assumed he would when she had taken them off; otherwise she wouldn’t have been so quick to give in and remove her only open link with Martha.
Without voices to follow-and the barbarian had said nothing in all this time-Martha was likely back with the homing device, locked to its signal, maybe even assuming they were silently sharing sex all this time and gloating over it. Without the voices to monitor, the short-range scanner was useless, the reason that the homing signal was so important. The soft clip of the hataar wasn’t likely to be picked up by it. And who knew how many other moving creatures were in the area to confuse the long-range scanner?
Martha would be as lost to what was going on as Tedra was to being protected by her. Without a voice to lock onto, Martha couldn’t Transfer her back to the Rover. Without the phazor combo-unit in her possession, Tedra couldn’t either. Plainly speaking, she would be stranded indefinitely on this backward world without one or the other, and right now she had neither. And it was all his fault.
Tedra was still thinking that when her gag was untied and the cloth pulled from her mouth. So sufficient time had passed, had it? And she was to have learned something? The only thing she’d learned was not to attempt to reach Martha while the barbarian was around. But that farden gag hadn’t been pleasant. Her mouth was as dry as a solaray bath, and one of the things not hanging from the harness post was a water container, so she’d have to suffer with it until water could be found. Maybe the barbarian’s lessons were more ingenious than she had first thought.
After she’d swallowed several times, without much relief, Tedra rasped out, “Tell me… some… thing. Is my time… with you to be… one unpleasantness after… another?”
He lowered his head until his chin rested on her shoulder. This put his cheek against hers and started her mouth drooling, which almost took care of the dryness.
“There will be no unpleasantness, kerima, do you simply obey me and acquit yourself as befitting a woman of Kan-is-Tra.”