Warrior's Woman

by Johanna Lindsey

“You lie, Tamiron Ja-Na-Der! She wears no colors.”

  “Through her own ignorance.” Tamiron’s voice seemed unnaturally calm after the heat of Kogan’s. “She comes not from Kan-is-Tra, so knows nothing of our customs. She also has ways much different from our own, as you have both found out for yourselves. Think you a Sha-Ka-Ran woman would dare behave as this one has?” Tamiron didn’t expect an answer or wait for one. He gave Bullan a level look and said quietly, “Best you release her now, before we must bring the matter to the shodan. ”

  “There is no reason to involve the shodan. ”

  Even Tedra, as groggy as she was becoming, could hear the nervousness in Bullan’s reply. And damned if he didn’t let go of her. Trouble was, she nearly fell on her face, and would have if Tamiron hadn’t been near enough to catch her.

  “Are you all right, Tedra-de-Arr?”

  She was too busy dragging in lungfuls of air to answer just yet, but when she did, it was to complain as she pushed away from him. “You sound just like my android, calling me by my full name. De Arr happens to be my classification, not a last name as you know it, so just Tedra will do if we’re friends. If not, you might as well call me woman. I’m getting used to it.”

  “It is good to know you are accepting some things of our country. Were you as wise to accept all things, you would not have been claimed by a warrior who thought he had every right to claim you.”

  “I knew I was going to like you, babe, if that’s the extent of your scoldings.”

  “Scoldings? I think you will receive much more than that, Tedra.”

  “Oh, come on, you’re not going to tell him about this, are you?”

  Before she got an answer, Kogan interrupted quite insolently. “I would know who her protector is, Tamiron, or must I take your word that she has one, when her presence here alone says she does not?”

  Tedra glanced from one to the other, expecting to hear a challenge issued. She hadn’t yet learned that warrior arrogance allowed for a certain belligerence that all warriors accepted as normal, so this in itself was no cause for insult. The way they saw it, every man had the right to doubt, argue, and disagree, no matter who was involved.

  “There is no need to take my word,” Tamiron said, but he was grinning when he added, “You need only come to the castle and ask anyone there where the woman sleeps. You will be told she sleeps in the bedchamber of the shodan himself.”

  “That was rather crudely put,” Tedra said as she watched her two would-be claimers hurry away after hearing that.

  “It was said to embarrass you, but I see you are not embarrassed. Best I leave the disciplining of you to the one who has the right.”

  She took his arm and started him back toward the castle. “But I like your idea of disciplining so much better. Do keep it up, and then you might not feel the need to file any extra reports for the day.” She waited for him to say he wouldn’t be telling Challen about her little escapade, but was met only with silence. She gritted her teeth, telling him. “Look, all I wanted was to see a little of your town. I wasn’t going to go far, and I wasn’t trying to escape, if that’s what you think.”

  “I believe you have discovered that to leave Sha-Ka-Ra by yourself would be no easy task, but no, the thought that you were attempting such had not occurred to me.” And then he chuckled. “Likely you would have drawn no notice had you been properly cloaked. Of course, I would not have let you venture too far from the castle without stopping you.”

  “You followed me?” she said accusingly.

  He merely nodded, showing not the least embarrassment that he hadn’t interfered before the situation got sticky. Likely he thought she wouldn’t have learned her lesson so well if he had. It came to her suddenly why she had been noticed so soon, so she didn’t tear into him over his delayed rescue.

  “It’s the farden cloaks, isn’t it? And since they’re different colors, that’s the colors that warrior was talking about, the colors of the cloaks.”

  Again he nodded, then elaborated. “The Ly-San-Ters’ family color is blue, but the color of the household of the shodan is white. Either color or both combined are recognizable as Challen’s. To leave the castle without cloak and slippers is to become claimable. Were neither supplied with your chauri?”

  She looked pointedly down at her scanty outfit and bare feet with a grimace. “If they were, don’t you think I would have used them?”

  He smiled to acknowledge her attempt at humor, but still shook his head at her in what could only be considered disapproval. “The lack could be no other thing than Challen’s wish that you not leave the castle until he could escort you himself; thus your disobedience of his wishes must be made known to—”

  “Now hold on,” she cut in anxiously.

  This was no minor thing to call for minimal correction. If Tamiron hadn’t been there, the matter could have got serious. Serious, too, was likely to be her punishment if Challen found out about it.

  “What if I swear it’ll never happen again?” she continued hopefully. “Couldn’t you see your way clear to keep it between ourselves, then?”

  “And have Kogan or Bullan get up the nerve to apologize to the shodan for attempting to claim his woman?”

  “I’m not his woman,” she snapped, but only because she saw Tamiron’s point. For Challen to find out about it later would be much worse, for then she would be guilty also of keeping secrets from him and involving his best friend in them. “You know,” she added conversationally as they reached one of the doors at the rear of the castle, “I’d forgotten for a while that I don’t like this world very much. I should be grateful I’m going to be reminded of it in a really big way, since one of the main precepts of a World Discoverer is to remain aloof and indifferent to the world they discover so they won’t be tempted to stay. Explorations naturally frowns on losing its pilots that way.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Tedra spent the last few hours of the afternoon working herself into a fine case of nervousness tinged with anger, the anger because she had no business being nervous. Whatever Challen did to her she had to accept for the simple fact that she’d known she would be punished if she were caught leaving the castle, but she’d left anyway. If you were going to flaunt rules, you couldn’t cry over the consequences, now could you?

  Tedra couldn’t. But she could farden well complain about such ridiculous rules being forced on her in the first place. She had never before been stopped from coming and going as she pleased, not since she had become an adult. So she couldn’t go far, but had to stick around for a while. She accepted that as part of her challenge loss. But the service that loss demanded didn’t take up every hour of every day, just a few in the morning and evening, and maybe a few more if Challen happened to catch her in his bedroom in the afternoon. That didn’t amount to more than half her waking hours, and being confined to the castle for the other half smacked of imprisonment no matter how she looked at it.

  Oh, yes, she had her complaints lined up, but Challen was going to punish her anyway, because he was a barbarian and they seemed to think punishment was the answer for everything around here. So all right, she’d already accepted that, but what she needed was a this-for-that list so she’d know what it was she was accepting. Every other woman on this world probably knew exactly what punishment would be given for whatever wrong she committed. Not having that knowledge herself was what Tedra couldn’t stand and was causing her such nervousness as the sky darkened outside and Challen’s return became imminent.

  Taking what precautions she could, Tedra placed herself as far from the entrance to the bedroom as she could get, which was out on the balcony. She wanted plenty of opportunity to observe Challen before he reached her. She could determine then how angry he was and if jumping off the balcony to disappear for a while, at least until he cooled down, might be the wiser course. She wasn’t likely to do that, brave fool that she was, but she still wanted that option. Maybe if she broke something on the way down—these individual
rooms were twenty or more feet in height— he’d forget about punishing her.

  The balcony would have been a balm to her senses under any other circumstances. There was a view of a good portion of the town seen above the outer walls, of the castle grounds below, even of the street through the wide front gate, left open until late at night. She could see gaali stone tenders using the long poles that flipped open the covers on the posts along the street as the daylight departed.

  She had done some cover-opening herself, having watched yesterday how Challen did it. Each wall in the bedroom had a narrow ledge at about a seven-foot height, with a wooden top that rolled back into the wall at the turn of a lever. Concealed inside these ledges, of course, were layers of gaali stones; with five adjustments on each lever, light could be had anywhere from dim to superbright, shining up the white walls and onto the ceiling, reflecting off the marble as if a sun had been let into the room. She had also opened all the gaali stone boxes on their stands throughout the room, leaving alone only those out on the balcony; there was enough light spilling from the room that the balcony was well lit anyway.

  Tedra spent only a few minutes taking in the view before turning about to face the bedroom so she could watch the door. It was a long time before it finally opened, but she didn’t desert her position. And Challen wasn’t alone. He held the door open for a Darash to enter with a tray of food and waited to close the door upon her leaving. Then he looked for Tedra.

  It wasn’t hard to find her. There wasn’t anywhere to hide in the large room except maybe under the bed, but they both knew she wouldn’t stoop to hiding. Besides, she was visible on the balcony. Not as visible as he was inside the room, but visible enough. And all her waiting and careful positioning proved useless. The barbarian wasn’t revealing any of his emotions as he crossed the room to stop in one of the arched openings. He was the picture of calm control. But maybe that was revealing in itself. No smile of greeting. No rekindling of the burning look of passion she had had from him at their earlier meeting. Just a quiet perusal that lasted several tense moments.

  “Come inside, woman.”

  Even his voice contained not the slightest inflection. “Are we going to eat?”

  “We are going to talk. I am going to eat.”

  “So I’m to be sent to bed without my dinner?”

  “That—among other things.”

  For a second there she had been filled with such relief. No dinner. A barbaric child’s punishment, but so minor. Now she came forward with extreme wariness to accept the hand he held out to her. She didn’t think of rejecting it. They were, after all, in the place of his complete power over her.

  He led her right to the table where the platters of food had been deposited. There were both red meat and white meat, cut in neat little chunks with a dark sauce over them; what could be either vegetables or pared fruits; a basket of sweet crumos rolls; some kind of baked dessert with a glazed topping and a really delicious smell to it; and a carafe of yavarna wine. There was enough for two, maybe even three, people.

  Tedra hadn’t felt the least bit hungry until now, looking at all that food and knowing she couldn’t have any. Challen stretched out on one of the couches, but didn’t indicate she should do the same. But no matter where she went in the room while he ate, knowing he was eating was going to play havoc with her belly. Going without dinner when you didn’t see or smell the food first was one thing, this quite another.

  She started to turn toward the window couches when Challen’s voice stopped her. “You will remove your chauri now.”

  A glance at him showed he wasn’t making a move to remove his bracs or the fancy blue metallic comtoc he wore. Well, how many times today had she thought to herself she’d rather be naked than wearing the damned chauri? And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t stood naked in front of Challen before while he remained clothed.

  With a shrug she said only, “You’re the boss.”

  She untied the belt, and with a lift here, a tug there, she stood beside his couch unclothed, the chauri in a fluffy pile on the carpet next to her feet. Again his eyes moved over her in a calm study, reminding her of the day they met, which gave Tedra her first suspicion of the kind of hell she was in for tonight.

  “Do you now sit here,” he said.

  The “here” was his loins, which he indicated while watching for her reaction. She didn’t disappoint him, flushing with bright color. Her eyes brightened, too, as they locked with his, but with irritation at her own embarrassment. If she had had a few years of sex-sharing behind her instead of only a few days, she could have taken this in stride, but not even all they had done in those few short days had prepared her for straddling his hips naked while he was still clothed.

  She did it, however, and tried for an unconcerned tone. “Is this how we’re going to talk?”

  “This is how you will feed me. We will talk while you do so.”

  Double whammy, feeding him, which had been such an erotic experience just last night, and she couldn’t very well not remember that while sitting on him, and being forced to handle and smell the food she couldn’t have. Talk about your cruel and unusual punishments. Or was this merely a little extra thrown in as they discussed what a bad girl she’d been?

  “Let me take a wild guess,” she said, reaching for the platter of meat and thinking about dumping it over his head. “Your good buddy Tamiron spilled his guts to you, right?”

  “His guts remain where they should be. He had words with me, if that is what you ask in your Kystrani way.”

  “But you’re not interested in my side of it, are you?”

  “Your reasons for earning punishment will not keep that punishment from you.”

  “Is that so?” she said, shoving a chunk of meat into his mouth. “What if I told you someone forced me to leave the castle grounds at the point of a knife?”

  “Is this true?”

  “No.” She jammed two more chunks of meat past his lips. “I just wanted to see if all reasons don’t matter, or only the ones you assume to be true.”

  He frowned at her then, and stopped the next meat chunk coming at him by grabbing her wrist. “This is no matter to treat lightly, woman.”

  “Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. It’s a matter that has given me considerable anxiety, which I’m willing to bet now is just another part of the punishment. But let me tell you something.” She set the platter she was holding on his chest so she could use her other hand to fill his mouth with food and keep it full, long enough to say her piece. “Your rules might apply to all your women, but I’m not one of them. I’m a visitor here and so should be allowed immunity from your rules, especially since I find them totally barbaric, not to mention offensive. Where I come from, women can go wherever they want, do whatever they want, be whatever they want, and wear whatever they want. They aren’t treated like children half the time and slaves the rest of the time.”

  “Are you finished?”

  By his very tone she knew that nothing she had said made one bit of difference to him. “No. For the record, I never agreed to obey your farden rules, just you in this room. But since that doesn’t matter any more than anything else I’ve said, you better tell me now. How many different ways do you big, brave warriors have for punishing us poor, helpless women?”

  He had the gall to grin at her derisive tone. “There are too many to name. A woman learns by experience.”

  “Experience, huh? That had better be your idea of a joke, babe, because if you think I’m going to go through this kind of anxiety every time I step a little over the line, you’re crazy.”

  “The rules for our women are for their protection. You will obey them for your protection.”

  “Even when I can protect myself?”

  “You cannot set yourself against warriors, woman. Do you go alone among them, you will be claimed. Do you challenge them, you will lose. Here a woman does not go where she pleases, do as she pleases, be what she pleases, or wear what she pleases—not in a country
where warriors will not have it so. You have learned this truth once in challenge loss. Now you will learn it again in punishment.”

  “Just like that?” She took the platter from his chest and dropped it loudly back on the table. If that didn’t let him know she’d finally got angry, the furious gleam in her eyes did, as well as the finger she jabbed in his chest. “I’m supposed to let you abuse me, you arrogant jerk? Just lie back and take it? All I was was bored and wanted to see a little of your town. You call that a crime worth punishment?”

  She rose to her knees with the intention of getting up. A hand high on each thigh forced her back to her seat. Both hands then slid down to her knees to push her legs flush against the sides of his chest, so she was hugging him with her thighs. For a moment, Tedra forgot what she was angry about. Challen was quick to remind her.

  “You left the household of your protector without escort, something no woman in Kan-is-Tra may do. For that you will be punished.”

  He said this quietly, but she could detect no trace of regret in his expression, no reluctance to mete out the punishment. He was simply stating the way it was. And he wasn’t finished.

  “Also, did you leave without wearing the colors of the house that would identify you. For that you will be punished.”

  “I didn’t know about that,” she interjected curtly.

  “Ignorance can be no excuse, since you would have been given the proper clothing had you requested the escort as you should have done.”

  “But would I have been given the escort? Tamiron seemed to think not.”

  Challen didn’t deign to comment about that, probably because he still wasn’t finished. “You used your skills against unknown warriors, thereby inviting them to a showing of the same, which you may not have survived. For that you will be punished.”

  “Tell me something, Mr. Judge and Jury. Was I supposed to just let those two brainless wonders steal me away?”

  “Had you done what you were supposed to do, they would not have bothered you.”