I couldn’t have imagined it. She was responding, arching against me, speaking wordlessly deep in her throat, her hands pressing thrills to my neck and back.
The whip snapped again, and she was fighting me. Her hands pushed against my shoulders. A leg that had caressed mine came between our bodies and braced against my hip. I pulled at it, dislodged it, pressed against her. Her forearm slammed the side of my head, sending a blinding flash of pain to my cheek and jaw—and she was free. She scrambled away and crouched, watching me, waiting for the next attack.
It was that posture that brought me to my senses. It wasn’t the stance of a woman terrified of a rapist. There was nothing of desperation, even of fear, in the way she looked at me. She was a fighter defying her enemy, challenging him, eagerly awaiting the next encounter.
And I was the enemy.
The fury and the need drained out of me, leaving me weak. I took a deep breath and rubbed my face, ignoring the way my hands trembled. The skin on the left side of my face tingled, and my jaw felt tender.
I let myself drop to the ground. Tarani moved slightly to keep me directly in front of her, not relaxing her guard. Come on, I thought. I wouldn’t blame you if you flayed me alive. I was empty of words. I couldn’t explain what had happened, even to myself. How could I hope to ask her forgiveness?
So I sat silently, waiting for her to decide what to do, ready for whatever action she wanted to take.
She laughed.
It was the first coherent sound either one of us had made, and it wasn’t the lovely sound I remembered. It was harsh, triumphant, shocking in the silent night. So shocking, in fact, that it even surprised her. It broke off abruptly and she looked around, as if wondering where the sound had come from. Her gaze rested on me, and she seemed to melt down into a little ball, huddled against the opposite slope of the small hollow.
It seemed like hours that we sat there, struggling—I, at least—to comprehend what had happened. Yet my inner awareness told me it was only a few minutes later that Tarani stirred. I sat up, too, and braced myself. I was ready for what she would say—I had lived it over and over again in those few minutes.
Tarani had approached me gently in the desert and I had refused her. By what right had I now tried to claim her by force? She had responded; of that I was sure. To my already guilty mind, that only made it worse. I was afraid that I had brutalized—and destroyed—her feelings for me.
I didn’t say any of that; I expected her to say it. But she only stood up, stared at me for the briefest instant, dropped her gaze, and started the climb back to the road. I followed her and we walked, side by side but not touching, into larger Eddarta.
13
The city was wakening, getting ready for the day, but as yet there were few people moving about the streets, and soft echoes of our footfalls ghosted behind us. The city was built mostly of stone, reed, and brick, and it was old—older than any place Ricardo had seen in his own world. It showed its age in the patched roofs, where newly cut reed tops were dark splotches against the aged, bleached thatching. Nearly all the structures in larger Eddarta were two stories high; carefully fitted baked-clay bricks were strengthened with a mortar of dried mud. That, too, spoke in its multishaded patterns of years and years of repair.
In this pre-dawn quiet, the city seemed huge and empty. At midday, the streets teemed with crowds of people. Traders, searching out bargains. Lords, looking for particular objects or merely out slumming. Most of all, Eddartans, looking to purchase those things they couldn’t produce themselves—butchers out to buy bread, a baker looking for a new suit, weavers in search of jewelry.
Eddarta shrank under the force of those crowds, but never gave Rikardon the claustrophobic feeling Ricardo had experienced in some of the older European cities he had visited. This city might be old, but it was still quite modern. In Gandalara, there was no iron-based technology to create a need for newness. Old and obsolete were not the equivalent terms in Gandalara that they sometimes were in the world Ricardo had known.
The streets of Eddarta, built for the foot passage of people, still served their purpose very well. Those areas of the city which permitted vleks and carts had been built with wider streets to accommodate the different sort of traffic, and those streets were still wide enough. It might be that the carts were better made now, but that was the only change in “modern” Eddarta.
It was down one of those wider streets that Tarani led me. When we stopped in front of a door, I asked: “Is this Carn’s shop?”
She nodded, not looking at me, and tapped lightly on the door, once, and then twice more.
Carn was the name of a man friendly to the Fa’aldu, part of the group which helped slaves escape. On our way to Eddarta the first time, Vasklar at Stomested had given us Carn’s name as someone to go to if we needed help.
The door opened into darkness and we slipped through it.
“Speak ye the word,” growled a bass voice to our left. The windows were tightly covered with louvered shutters. As my eyes adjusted to the interior darkness, I could make out a slim shadow against one of the dimly glowing rectangles.
“To drink in the desert,” I said, remembering the amusement with which I had heard Vasklar’s solemn pronouncement of the “password”. Having seen the mines, and having learned what escaping slaves risked if recaptured, I was no longer amused.
“That be an old word, my friends,” the man said. “Name the one that gave it you.”
“Vasklar,” Tarani said. As the light grew with the outside dawn, details became clearer—like the dagger in the man’s hand, turning restlessly from a thin black line to a triangular shadow. At the sound of our friend’s name, he lowered the dagger and took a step backward.
“Aye, he said two might come. Another word, for surety—a name.”
“A name?” Tarani said, confused—but I thought I knew what the man meant.
“Thymas,” I said. “He was with us at Stomestad.”
The dagger’s shadow disappeared, and a strong-fingered hand closed on my arm. “A light not be safe as yet. What need ye? Have ye fed?”
“Sleep,” Tarani murmured, and I thought of all she had gone through in the past few hours. Strangely, there was no anger associated with the thought of the compulsion she had held for so long, only awareness that it had required a great deal of energy to handle compulsion and illusion at the same time. Then the struggle—
My mind sheered away from thinking about that.
“We need a safe place to sleep,” I said. “Then food, if you can spare it. Then—”
“It be enough for now,” he stopped me. “Will ye be sought this day?”
“Aye,” I said. “It be likely.”
His dialect is easy to pick up, I thought, even though this is the first time I‘ve heard it. Come to think of it, the Gandaresh I‘ve been exposed to is strikingly homogeneous. The Lords have a slightly more formal style, but for the most part, Gandalarans from both sides of the world speak nearly the same language. His syntax is different, as well as the inflection—I hope I‘ll have time to ask him about it.
Carn went to the window, pulled a brace bar, and opened the shutter a crack. A bar of lighter gray spilled into the room, and by that slight illumination, Carn gestured to me for help. For the first time, I could see that this was not so much a room as a storehouse. Goods of different kinds were stacked against the interior walls, packed for travel in bone-handled nets. I saw cloth, and art pieces, and—a long bundle, wrapped in heavy cloth—the gleaming tip of a bronze sword.
A prism-shaped stack of rolled carpet stood away from the walls, in the center of the room. Carn had me lift one end of the top roll, exposing a hollow area protected by an inverted V of tied reeds. Then he started pulling away false ends, short rolls of carpet identical to matching rolls on the other side. In the few minutes we worked, the sliver of gray light had brightened until the entire room was visible. When I looked inside the tent of carpet we had opened, I could see a yawning b
lackness in the floor.
“‘Tis not a large place,” Carn said, breathing heavily, “but it be room enough for a day’s rest. Use the lamp wisely; I’ll stamp three times when it’s time for ye to come out again. The end of this day, at least.”
I brought Tarani from where she rested on a heap of fabric. In the new day’s light, her weariness showed in the shadows under her eyes and the waxiness of her normally pale skin. Carn looked at her and caught his breath. I thought he might question us, but he merely said: “Aye, Lords will seek such a one.”
I crawled through the triangular hollow to the floor opening and lowered myself gingerly to stand on an earthen surface, my shoulders above the room’s brick-laid floor. Carn helped me pull Tarani’s half-conscious form through the “doorway” in the tent of carpet. In stages, Tarani cooperating as best her exhaustion would allow, I lifted her down through the cellar entry and carried her along a short, shallow ramp to a small room that barely allowed us to stand. I had only seconds to look around before Carn started replacing the carpet ends and shutting out what little light had followed us down. The walls were bare earth, like the floor, and one was sweating gently, creating at its base a small stream of water which leaked out of the room through its own fist-size tunnel.
I marked the placement of the lantern, appreciated the provision of a chamberpot and a water jug; then darkness set in. Tarani shivered, and so did I. It was the first time I could remember feeling physically cold in Gandalara, and I supposed it was the dampness and the nearness of the river.
I had glimpsed a pile of bedding in the nearest corner. I left Tarani momentarily, sorted out pallets from blankets by feel, and did the best I could to make us a bed. Sleep and warmth were too paramount for any consideration of propriety or embarrassment. I pulled Tarani close against me under the blankets. She huddled into the warmth, shivered violently once, and fell asleep with her arms tucked into my chest and her head on my shoulder.
I awoke to a vibration in the ground beneath and around me. The blankness and the dank smell of the place kept me disoriented for a second or two, then a pleasant ache in my arm recalled Tarani’s presence and brought the situation into focus.
Must be people up above, I decided. Confirmation came immediately as voices filtered faintly through the cushion of carpet that enclosed the entrance to this place.
Tarani stirred. I eased away from her, yawning, and felt around for the lamp and the sparker, attached to the lamp base by a length of string. I gripped the scissor-like handles of the sparker and snapped the flint against the tiny piece of steel. The noise seemed unbearably loud in that small area, as did the hiss as the wick of the candle caught. But once the chimney was in place, casting refracted light all around us, some of the cold and fear leeched out of us. We could see one another, and the room.
Tarani reached out to touch the lamp chimney with shaking fingers. “The design—it’s like—could it be that he made this?”
“Volitar?” I asked, thinking again that I would have liked to get to know the man who had been a father to Tarani. Once a gemcutter, he had adopted a new trade late in his life, that of glassmaker. “Why not?” I shrugged. “It won’t be the first coincidence we’ve run across.”
Not by a long shot, I affirmed silently.
Tarani’s hand dropped away from the lamp chimney. “For the first time,” she said, “I am glad Volitar is dead. Glad that he did not live to see what Zefra has become … what she has been always.”
She looked at my face, nodded to herself, and smiled bitterly.
“Yes, I see her clearly, Rikardon. In the days I have spent in Eddarta, she has talked of nothing but my ‘rightful place’ as High Lord. And in her speech I heard years of loneliness, helplessness, imprisonment, frustration. She is mad indeed, mad with a need for the power which has made her its victim.” She sighed. “Nor can I fault her for it. I have shared her cell for only a few weeks, and—” Her voice shook. “And I am no longer confident of my own sanity.”
She huddled into herself, the attitude of her body warning me away.
“You’re thinking of—what happened on the hillside,” I said. It didn’t have to be a question.
“Yes,” she said. Her voice came out choked, awkward. “I am sorry, Rikardon. I cannot tell you why … I mean, I did want … forgive me.”
She‘s blaming herself? I thought, astounded. After I attacked her, she‘s apologizing for not letting herself be raped?
“There is nothing to forgive,” I said. Shame overwhelmed me; I couldn’t go on. Shame—and something else.
Thought of the hillside had brought forth a tactile memory of Tarani’s body beneath me, and with memory came desire. I wanted Tarani again, with the same scary fierceness. I fought to control it, taking deep breaths, clenching my hands until my arms trembled.
Tarani saw my distress, and did exactly the wrong—or the right, depending on viewpoint—thing. She rocked up to her knees, leaned across the distance between us, and put her arms around my neck.
What little control I had, dissolved in that instant.
I kissed her roughly and swung her, beneath me, to the pallet-covered dirt floor. She struggled, pulled her face away, gasped for breath, beat at me with her hands. I pinned her wrists above her head and kissed her again, forcing her legs apart, pressing into the softness between them.
Caught up in need, I started pushing at her rhythmically, the two-layer cloth barrier a torment of frustration. I growled, shifted my grip so that one hand held both Tarani’s wrists, and pulled awkwardly at her clothing.
She twisted her face away from mine and gasped: “Let go. Please. Let go.” It was then I noticed that the rhythm wasn’t mine alone. Her hips rose to meet me, her legs spreading wider with every thrust. “Please let go,” she groaned again, and I released her wrists.
For a frantic few seconds, we struggled with the clothes, reluctant to break the haunting, building, compelling rhythm long enough to clear away the barriers. Then she had one leg free of her trousers, mine were pushed out of the way, and her softness opened to me.
We both cried out as I entered her. Tarani’s hands gripped my neck, and her mouth sought mine as we moved together in sweet and scary excitement, wanting it to be over, wanting it never to end.
At the last, I broke away from her embrace, levered myself up on my arms, and focused every fiber of consciousness on the fused heat that was both of us, throbbing between her legs. Her hands slid down to my buttocks, gripped and relaxed, not so much guiding as amplifying the rhythm of our striking flesh, sending tremors of anticipation up my spine.
The moment came when we knew release was imminent. I moaned in joy and grief. Her pelvis twitched, creating a slightly different angle; her legs spread even wider. And, suddenly, I was pounding into the full, flattened softness, pounding and roaring and not hearing Tarani’s scream of relief, and joy, and despair.
Tarani’s labored breathing brought me back to the world. I heaved myself up on my elbows, and her lungs, relieved of pressure, gulped in air. She opened her eyes, and I knew that she, too, had only now wakened. Afraid to see what lay in her eyes, I kissed her gently.
Her lips were soft, responsive, eager. With a thrill of joy, I felt myself, still joined to her, begin to stiffen. Welcoming it, nurturing it, I let my lips touch her face, her throat. I slipped my hand under the fabric of her tunic and caressed her breast, full and firm. She moved and made a sound—and we took the time, then, to be free of all our clothing.
I kissed her breast and breathed her name: “Tarani”.
She held my head against her and whispered back. “Ricardo. Oh, Rikardon.”
What did she say? I thought—then lost interest.
We were in the grip of need once again, less urgent for its recent satisfaction, but no less strong. It built more slowly, climbed just as high, and left us, this time, exhausted and at peace. I had strength enough to roll my weight off Tarani. Still joined, we slept.
14
; A stamping sound from above roused us, then we heard Carn’s voice whispering from the opening. Light spilled down from the wide square, wavering and shivering.
Lamp light, I thought. Can it be night again, so soon?
“It be time to go,” Carn’s voice was saying in a projected whisper. “I’ve a meal for ye; I’ll leave it here. Did ye hear?”
“Yes,” I said, as Tarani stirred beside me. “We heard, Carn. Thank you.”
“Aye,” was all he said, and I heard his footsteps move away from the opening. He had left the light, which was a good thing. The candle in our lamp had burned itself out while we slept.
Tarani lay in the shadow of my body, so I couldn’t see her face when she came fully awake. Neither could I miss the sudden tension in her body. We moved apart, felt around for our clothes. I pulled a tunic over my head, heard and felt it rip, and pulled it off again.
“I think this is yours,” I said, holding it out toward the shape which was all I could see of her. It was lifted from my hand and another tunic left there. We sorted out our clothes and dressed, neither one of us suggesting that it would be easier with light.
I didn’t know how Tarani was feeling, but I felt clearheaded for the first time in—days? weeks? Light-headed, too—whether from relief or lack of food, I couldn’t say. I was a little shocked, definitely embarrassed by what had happened between us, but not regretful.
No, not at all regretful.
The memory of it stirred me in a distant, unreal way—because, in memory, I could leave behind the feeling, identifiable only now, that the need had been separate from us, an entity all its own, moving us, controlling us, using our bodies to satisfy itself. The force, the savagery of what Tarani and I had shared had been wonderful, exalting … and terrifying. I had no desire to re-create it.
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