“Then all has been peaceful?” Challen was asking the older man.
“As well as can be with so many women under one roof, yet here you bring us another.” There was frank disapproval in this warrior’s expression, and he went on to add, “Best to see to the disposition of—”
“I know, Lowden, I know,” Challen interrupted with a sigh. “And it will be seen to when there is time for such things. But this woman is special and not to be treated like the others. She is a challenge loser.”
“A—”
That was as far as Lowden got before the rumbling laughter started. An exact copy of Tamiron’s mirthful reaction forced down Tedra’s throat again. She stood there tapping one foot and wondering how much wallop her bound hands would give if she used them as a club. The very idea that this fellow should think she was being gifted to the shodan. And her grinning warrior hadn’t said anything to the contrary, except that she was to be treated differently. If he dared . . .
“I’m going to get mighty tired of being the butt of this particular joke—”
“He laughs at me, woman, not you,” Challen said before she could work up a good steam. “To be a challenge loser, challenge had to be accepted. This is what amuses him, that I would accept.”
Well, that was all right, and she was even magnanimous enough to point out, “What choice did you have after I tossed you over my head?”
Lowden stopped laughing abruptly, but Challen picked it up after seeing his incredulous expression. “Best—best you explain—”
Challen couldn’t get it out, but she caught his drift. “I think he wants me to admit that I took him by surprise,” she told the older warrior, then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Of course, it takes a real lummox to get caught by that particular move—”
“Woman!”
That from both of them, although only Lowden seemed indignant over what she’d said. There was still laughter in Challen’s eyes, and as Challen was the only one she cared to worry about just now, she widened her eyes at him before asking, “Was it something I said?”
He tried to look stern, he really did. “You know exactly what you implied. What has happened to the respect you promised?”
“It’ll be there when you—Stars!” she gasped. “He’s not your shodan, is he?” She turned her wide-eyed look on Lowden, who in turn looked even more indignant.
“Me?” Lowden snorted. “Woman, it was the shodan whose skill you belittled.”
“Now how do you figure that, when I was talking about—” She paused, swinging back to Challen, her eyes narrowing the tiniest bit, not much indication of the temper about to erupt. “I hope I’m drawing the wrong conclusion here, babe. You wouldn’t neglect to tell me you were the shodan if you actually were the shodan, now would you?”
“The matter was of no import to our dealings, kerima, ” he stated calmly.
“Don’t kerima me, you son-of-a-cracked-tube!” The rage broke free. “How dare you not tell me who you were when you knew I had business with the shodan, knew I’d eventually be seeking him? You even had me promise my best behavior so I could meet him! Well, that’s off, if you hadn’t noticed. In fact, I farden well ought to challenge you again!”
He stood there taking her abuse, but when she paused for breath before continuing, he grasped her bound wrists and bent to place them over his head.
When he straightened, she was pretty much locked in place against him, with no way to get her arms out of that forced embrace around his neck. It was no position to rant and rave in, which was what he had probably counted on, and in fact, she was done yelling. But she wasn’t in the least bit cowed by this new restraint.
“There’s something you should know, warrior,” she said quietly now, looking up at him without expression. “When we fought, I didn’t take advantage of certain moves because I felt, you being a man and me being a woman, it wouldn’t have been sporting. I’ve changed my mind.”
That was all the warning he got. Her knee came slamming up between his legs, instantly freeing her as he doubled over in pain. Lowden, watching this, quickly grabbed her arm, thinking she had done it to escape. But since she had no intention of going anywhere, nor could she if she meant to honor her challenge loss, which she still did, she objected to being restrained by another warrior, one to whom she owed no obedience or anything else. And just as Challen had been easy to surprise before he knew what she could do, so too was this Lowden.
With a sharp twist and a foot placed behind his knee, that knee collapsed, bringing him enough off balance in her direction that she was able to send him the rest of the way simply by his hold on her arm. He went down, but didn’t stay down, was back on his feet almost instantly and facing her again. He might be older, but he was still a warrior, and still as big and brawny as Challen. And the look on his face said he’d like to see her try that again. She wasn’t that dumb.
“Tell him to back off, Challen. I’m not going anywhere, and I don’t kick a man when he’s down, so he had no need to restrain me.”
Challen had straightened partially, but was still experiencing a good deal of discomfort. “My uncle . . . did not see it . . .so.”
“Is that my fault?” she retorted. “And by the way, if I had challenged you, I’d say you just lost.” A well-satisfied smile came with that remark. “Be glad I only said ‘ought to’ and leave it at that.”
When he didn’t answer immediately, Lowden did. “The woman needs be punished.”
“Says who?” Tedra demanded, rounding on the man with baleful eyes. “And what’s with all this farden interference, anyway? This is between me and the warrior here, who got exactly what he deserved for the dirty hand he dealt me by not owning up to who he is.”
“Woman—”
“Forget it, Lowden uncle,” she cut him off. “Punishment is uncalled for in this case and won’t be accepted, so keep your suggestions to yourself, why don’t you. And he can get away with calling me woman, but to you I’m Tedra De Arr.”
Challen stepped between them at that point, recovered enough to take command. “Leave be, Lowden. The woman feels she had good reason for her anger, and in part she does. I cared not to discuss with her what she has to discuss with the shodan, so she was not told that I am he. Such was not the doing of a shodan, but of a warrior more interested in other things.” The way he looked at Tedra just then, no one had to ask, “What other things?”
“I admit my wrong, woman,” he then said to her. “Has your honor been satisfied?”
Had he used any other word but “honor,” she would have stubbornly said no. But he was in essence calling forth her own sense of fair play with that word, so what else could she do but concur?
“As for wrongs, I suppose one canceled out the other—as long as I don’t hear any more talk of punishment.”
“For this there will be none,” he assured her, only to add, “Whether you earn future punish—”
“I get the picture!” she snapped, her temper right back up there with that unnecessary reminder. It goaded her enough to tell him, “And when my service is up, I’ll find another shodan to speak my piece to, so you don’t have to worry that I’ll bother you with discussions you’re not interested in. You aren’t nearly open-minded enough to suit my needs, anyway.”
“As you wish,” he said, but she had the feeling she’d just hit a nerve. She just wished he’d show it.
Chapter Twenty
The route to the state bedchamber, or whatever it was called, was direct, up a grand set of stairs and to the right, down another wide hallway also centered with a soft blue carpet; and there were the doors, two gigantic carved wooden ones that Tedra had the uneasy suspicion only a warrior’s strength could open. Her warrior had no trouble doing so and she was ushered inside, and immediately found out why the older warrior, Lowden, had accompanied them.
“Do you now apologize to my uncle,” Challen told her in a no-nonsense tone.
She almost laughed. She did grin. The
re was no way she could have missed the large bed right upon entering the room, so she couldn’t mistake where she was, and that he meant to take advantage of it.
“What’s the matter, babe? Didn’t you think that request would get results outside this room?”
“That thought had occurred to me, kerima. Do you now do as you are instructed.”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “Why not?” And she gave the stony-faced Lowden a cheeky grin. “Sorry for dumping you on the floor, Lowdy, and for whatever other disrespect you feel I showed you. Things like that tend to happen, though, when strange men put their hands on me.”
“This is an apology, Challen?” Lowden asked, indignation still heavy in his voice.
Challen sighed. “In her way, yes. She is different, not from Kan-is-Tra or even a country known to us. This must be taken into account when dealing with her, else a warrior can easily find his control threatened.”
“If I’m such a trial to you, warrior, why don’t you end my service and send me on my way?” Tedra suggested.
“You are no trial to me, since I have your complete obedience, do I not?”
She wasn’t about to get tricked up by a word like “complete.”
“In this room you do.”
“So this is her challenge-loss service,” Lowden said, that knowledge for some reason lightening his mood. He even chuckled. “You should have made this clear, shodan. Her conduct is then yours alone to see to.”
“Why does that amuse him?” Tedra wanted to know.
Challen also chuckled, now that he understood Lowden’s earlier disgruntlement. “He thought you would fall to his jurisdiction. He has governance over the women of this house, you see.”
“Governance?”
“He sees to their proper behavior.”
“Ah, the whip-wielder. So that’s what an uncle is.”
They both looked at her strangely upon hearing that. She thought it was her derisive tone, but Challen’s question said differently.
“How is it you know not the word ‘uncle’?”
“I’d learned the word, just not its meaning, since we have nothing to compare it with on Kystran. It’s like the food and animals I told you about. I have most of the words, but until I can see them to make the connection ...”
He was still locked on her first disclosure. “No uncles? Then what do you call the brother of your father?”
“The what of my—wait a minute. Are you talking about relatives?”
“Indeed; family, relatives, kin.”
“You don’t have to rub it in the ground. I’ve made the connection. And don’t look at me as if I should have known right off. I told you, we have nothing like that on Kystran—at least we haven’t had for centuries. But I recall now it was a subject in one of the few history lessons required by all.”
Neither man appeared to have understood a word she said, and Lowden verified this. “I will take my leave, shodan. The woman makes my head ache trying to grasp her meanings.”
As soon as the door closed behind him, Tedra snorted. “I happen to know I speak excellent Sha-Ka’ani. What wasn’t to understand?”
“He has not had the opportunity I have had in deciphering your shortened words, but what you have just said still makes no sense, woman. People cannot survive without family.”
“Sure they can. We manage to just fine. It’s just one more of the many differences between our planets, differences I know you don’t care to hear about, so I won’t bore you with an explanation. Details like that can wait for the shodan I finally get around to dealing with, if he’s interested.”
She had to turn away from his look of chagrin before she laughed out loud. Talk about your subtle revenge. He was dying to question her further, but he wouldn’t, not after what he had admitted to his uncle Lowden about deliberately avoiding such talk with her.
An uncle, imagine that. Challen must also have real parents, or did have, maybe even siblings. She should have realized that sooner, primitive culture that this was, and she herself had some questions she’d like to ask now. But having effectively closed the subject in the way she had, she couldn’t ask either.
She didn’t let the lost opportunity bother her, however, and busied herself looking over her new sleeping quarters instead. Here she was a little more than impressed. The sheer size of the room nearly made her drool. This single chamber the shodan used only for sleeping was twice the size of her whole new house. Of course, there were no movable walls here to section off individual rooms for separate needs. What you saw was what you got. But she liked what she saw.
Like the meeting rooms below, this room was also extremely light and airy, with tall arched windows along one long wall, even taller arched openings on another that led out to what looked like a large garden balcony. Sheer white curtains stirred with gentle breezes over these openings, blending in with the white-and-silver-veined, marblelike walls and floors. There was more of the soft blue carpeting in certain areas, under and around the mammoth bed, under low, backless couches that surrounded a large square table, also low to the floor, and made of some kind of highly polished dark wood. Another fancier piece, a good ten feet round and with white designs running through the blue, was smack in the center of the room, for show obviously, since there was nothing on it.
There were a number of great carved chests in the same dark wood up against another wall, each a good five feet long and several feet high, with padded tops in the same white material as the couches making them suitable for sitting on. Chairs were conspicuously absent, but there were more of those comfortable-looking backless couches set before two of the open windows, with smaller tables about them, and what Tedra imagined to be gaali stone stands.
What she found the most impressive, and personally delightful, was a ten-foot-high tree in the corner between the windowed wall and the balcony, fully green-leafed though well contained, sitting in a beautiful black glazed urn. Smaller plants sat beside it, filling that corner with greenery in differing heights, and before all of this was a sunken pool, perhaps eight feet round, with bright red flowers floating on its surface.
“A pool in a bedroom?” Tedra turned around to locate Challen and found him where she’d left him, by the doors, doing nothing else but watching her. “It’s kind of small, isn’t it?”
“It is for bathing, not swimming.”
“Oh, that’s right.” She turned back toward the water before he could see her grimace. “I forgot I’m going to have to do without a decent bath for a while.”
His chuckle was close and getting closer, telling her he was moving up behind her. “My bath is one thing you will not find complaint with, kerima,” he said, misunderstanding her comment. “So which do you care to test first, the bath—or the bed?”
“I’d opt for the bed if that pause was meant to be significant, but are you really up to helping me test it out—after what I did to you?”
She turned to catch his rueful smile. “Perhaps not.”
Guilt stirred, but she quickly stomped it down. “I’ll wait to test out the bed, then. I’m afraid I’d get lost in it by myself, it’s so big.” The thing had to be at least ten feet square, and was covered with a soft, billowy blue spread that looked like it might swallow her up if she lay in the center of it. “But I’d rather pass on the bath, if you don’t mind. It’ll take some nerve building before I’m ready to experience that novelty of your world.”
His humor returned when he heard that. “It is true it is not a normal means for bathing, but it is not so deep you need fear it. And it has been prepared for my arrival.”
“I wasn’t worried about the depth, though I suppose I should have been. But don’t let me stop you from enjoying it. I’ll—watch.”
“You will do more than that, kerima. ” He was chuckling again, which should have given her warning. “You will join me.”
She hadn’t felt him untying her rope belt, but she couldn’t very well miss the fur blanket being lifted off her. “Now wait a�
�” She was picked up in strong arms and on her way toward the sunken pool before she could complete that protest. “Put me down, Challen! I mean it! I don’t want—no!” She found herself dangling directly over the water, held out at arm’s length. “Don’t you dare ...”
He did; simply let go of her. Tedra screamed on the way down, but it wasn’t that far a drop, and he’d been right about the water not being very deep, only hip-deep for her. Her scream of fright quickly turned to several more of rage as she held her arms up and away from the now swirling, lapping, clinging water—uck!
Challen was laughing outright, watching her. “Did I not know better, woman, I would swear you have no liking for water. Is it not warm enough for you?”
She noticed it now that he mentioned it, warmth, clinging to every inch of her that it touched, surrounding her, seeping into her pores. It wasn’t as terrible as she had thought it would be, kind of like standing in a vat of thin gel or thick air, but it would still take getting used to.
“Is is supposed to be warm?” she asked, finally looking up at him.
“Is it supposed . . . you would prefer a cold bath?”
“I would prefer a solaray bath, but that’s beside the point, since I’m not likely to get one here. My question was legitimate, warrior. Warm, hot, cold, what’s the norm?”
He didn’t answer. He started taking off his sword belt, still without answering. She finally got the message that she’d annoyed him somehow, and she figured she knew the “how.”
“You know, warrior, things like this are going to crop up now and again during our time together, you thinking I’m taking you around the block or teasing, when I’m not. When one person has never been in water before, but the other has, it’s kind of natural for the one to ask questions about temperature and such—”
“Enough, woman. You have not a body that has never known water. Think you I could not smell the difference?”
She nearly choked. She did laugh. “Somehow, some way, before I leave this planet I’m going to get you on my ship and into a solaray bath. You won’t be touched by water, but you’ll be cleaner than you’ve ever dreamed of being, and it only takes about three seconds. That’s modern technology, efficient, quick, and easy. And I’d say by that expression of yours that you think I’ve just handed you another ‘tall tale.’ That’s all right, babe. To each his own.”
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