James White - The First Protector

She had closed her eyes while he was speaking. A moment passed before she opened them and said, "I am a small, weak, beautiful woman and you, you are what you are. What is to stop you taking me?"

"No!" said Declan fiercely. "I could take you, now and for many nights to come. You would bite and scratch and doubtless add more scars to this already scarred body, and the pleasure would far outweigh the pain. But I do not want to take you like that, not against your will, for that way you would really come to hate and despise me.

"Hatred is not what I want from you for the rest of my life."

Her eyes were closed again, tightly. She did not speak.

"I do not want to make you my property," he went on softly, "like a cloak or a pair of boots or something else of use or value that I have come to own. No, I am a man who would have died and who you made well and strong and vigorous again, so I and the rest of the life you have given me are your property, not mine."

Her eyes were open again, very wide, but still she did not speak.

"If you do not want this property," he went on, "if your answer is still no, then I must leave you, and quickly, lest my resolution and self-control fail me and my behavior becomes that of a rutting animal rather than a thinking man. When we reach the caravanserai and you and Ma'el continue the journey to Cathay, I shall ask to be released from his service and take employment as a guard on the next caravan returning to Alexandria, or wherever else fortune takes me. And if other women should come into my life, none of them will be the one I truly love…"

Declan broke off. It was difficult to tell in the light of the dimmed lamp, but it seemed to him that her eyes were wet. He felt a small stirring of hope because he thought he might know the reason.

"I have never seen you show fear," he continued in a reassuring voice, "but you are very young and virginal and, as is natural, afraid of what I would do to you-"

"You are well experienced," she interrupted, "in deflowering virgins?"

The words were a stinging criticism but somehow her tone sounded sad and disappointed rather than angry. He shook his head firmly.

"I have not had that experience," he said. "But all women begin as virgins, and when I was much younger and a virgin myself, one of the nicer, motherly ones told me that it had been far from pleasant when it happened to her. Even though I would be as gentle as I am able, if you were to allow this to happen between us, I would hurt you, but only for the first time. After that…"

"It hurt for the first, second, and third time," she broke in, her face dark with remembered pain and terror. "I was scarcely eleven summers when those three brave warriors came to loot our home and kill my family. They took their pleasure of me, thrice within the hour, and left laughing." Suddenly her voice was thick with shame and anger as she ended, "So you see, Declan, you must search farther for your first virgin."

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through his nose before he would trust himself to speak. "If ever I find your three brave warriors " he said, "the rest of their lives would be numbered in moments. But the gross dishonor that befell you is in the past and it is your future, hopefully our future years together that concerns me now. My feelings for you are

But you know my feelings for you. Please come to me, or at least give me hope. Give me an answer other than no."

"Declan," she said, and the sheen of tears in her eyes was plain even in the dim lamplight, "you are a brave and resourceful warrior, noble and uncomplaining under pain, and in many other ways you have proved to be the gentlest of men. I have grown to admire you more and more over the past months and I too, have harbored feelings so fierce and strong that a young woman like myself should not dare to speak them aloud. But I keep trying to tease you, and test you for weaknesses where no weakness exists. But…" suddenly she smiled "the answer is still no…"

Slowly her slender arm reached upward to pull aside the curtain and Declan saw that she was lying under the burnoose but not wearing it, or anything else. The petals of many, sweet-smelling desert flowers lay under and around her.

"… But I ask with love that you should come to me."

–

For the next four nights they slept closely together in the tent and wakened in the morning to bathe together in the pool, and during the daylight hours they were never far from each other. Ma'el, who had tact and a gentle understanding, remained in the wagon so that they had nothing to do but be with each other. Then early on the morning of the fifth day, Declan was awakened by Sinead who was trembling violently, bathed in sweat and with her arms locked so tightly around him that he could scarcely breathe. Before he could speak she was almost screaming at him.

"Declan!" she cried out before he could speak. "Please help me. Protect me from these horrible visions. They are of creatures of iron and smoke and great, screaming metal birds that take hundreds of people into their bellies before flying away with them. Save me Declan, I am losing my mind…!"

Ma'el Report. Day 112,138…

A physical and emotional coupling between my servants Sinead and Declan has taken place, but completely unexpected was her sudden acquisition of the timesight. The images that she foresees are terrifying her-they are so forward-reaching and clear in their implications that they frighten me as well-so that I must work with the assistance of her mate to save her mind from becoming dysfunctional. If this is successfully accomplished there will, of course, be no need to replace them as servants, a fact which on a personal level pleases me very much.

"It has become apparent that if I am to make the maximum possible utilization of her new faculty, the remainder of the Taelon surface and orbiting technology, as well as a little about my purpose in coming to Earth, must now be revealed to them without further delay."

–

As Ma'el sat down cross-legged under the tent awning, Declan thought, not for the first time, that for a man so ancient in years the other's thin body had a flexibility and ease of movement that rivaled his own. At his right, Sinead could not have been sitting closer to him, with an arm around his waist and hanging on so tightly that the sand under them might have been water in which she was afraid of drowning. She released her grip when Ma'el inclined his head and looked at her.

'That is not necessary," he said gently. "During the words that I must say to you, a close physical as well as the emotional contact that exists between Declan and yourself will be a reassurance for both of you. Now, please believe me when I say that there is nothing in your mind that can harm you because the things that you have seen are far away and have not happened yet, nor will they happen in your lifetime. Mentally, it will be very uncomfortable for you, but when you are ready, please describe to me, in as much detail as you can recall, the sights, sounds, and words, if you heard any, that made up your recent time-sighting."

"My timesighting?" said Sinead, replacing her arm even more tightly around Declan's waist and trying to delay the discomfort to come with a question. "Did not you say, after many unsuccessful attempts to awaken the faculty in me, that I was an unsuitable subject who would never be able to see into the future?"

"I was mistaken," said Ma'el. "I had assumed that when a young woman given the faculty proved to be deaf and blind to the unfolding of times to come, the reason is that she cannot or will not bear the child or children that will extend her line into that future. Plainly that situation no longer applies here. The physical and emotional factors that…"