Sharon Green - The Warrior Challenged

“Men on this world are taught that nothing of value is gotten in life without paying a price for it,” he mumbled around a sloppy mouthful, more of his attention on the food than on me. “The price has to mean something to the one paying it, has to be more than a gesture, otherwise it buys nothing but its own value. If you’re not willing to pay that sort of price you won’t get what you think you want, even if someone decides to let you have it. If Tammad does it at all he’ll do it the right way, and your price will be paid in full. If you decide you really want it.”

He looked straight at me with those gray eyes again before going back to his food, and only then did I begin to understand that Len and Garth were being taught more of Rimilian ways than how to use a sword. What he’d said to me was probably something not usually said to a woman, as most women would have no need to know about it. Paying a price for something was obviously one aspect of the Rimilian code of honor, and women weren’t expected to have anything to do with honor.

When Garth’s eyes left me I rose silently to my feet, then walked around the bathing pool to stare sightlessly out of a window. The trouble with a code of honor was that it was horribly habit-forming, like a dangerous drug; once you got a taste of it you found yourself lured to other aspects of it, wondering if you could handle it under real pressure. Calling it a stupid waste of time is one way of admitting you don’t have what it takes to cut it, and I wasn’t ready to admit a defeat like that. I closed one fist around a handful of sheer white curtain, knowing that refusing to admit it didn’t negate a defeat, but I wasn’t beaten yet. I might end up beaten, but I refused to anticipate an end before it reached me. I wanted to win—if I could just figure out what it was I was fighting for—and against.

I wasn’t very good company for the next couple of hours, but Garth didn’t seem to mind. He made a considerable dent in the contents of both food trays, then lay down among the cushions simply to watch me. I became aware of that along with the humming in his mind, the sort of humming Rimilian men usually did when they looked at me. But Garth wasn’t Rimilian, not originally at any rate, and I wasn’t used to getting that sort of hum from him. It was enough to bring my attention back to my lunch guest, and when he saw my eyes on him he grinned.

“Tammad ought to be getting back soon,” he observed, raising the goblet of wine he’d poured to sip from it. “Have you made any decisions yet?”

“Dozens,” I answered, pulling my eyes away from him and trying to do the same with my mind. “If I can manage to stick with even one of them, I might be able to accomplish something. ”

“Why don’t you stop wandering around the room like a lost soul and take it easy?” he asked, his amusement rising again. “If you keep up that pacing for very much longer, you won’t have the strength to coax Tammad even if you decide that that’s what you want to do.”

“Is that what’s you got you turned on?” I demanded as I jerked around to face him, suddenly understanding the reason for the hum. “Are you expecting him to let you watch?”

“I don’t have to watch,” he said with a grin, still sipping at the wine. “Just knowing what he’ll make you do is enough. Some day I’ll have a woman of my own, and I’ll do the same thing with her. What he’ll be teaching you is that no matter how strong you get, he’ll still be the boss. On this world, men always are.”

“Are they really,” I said, straightening where I stood, the anger threatening to fill me completely. “Would you like a dissenting opinion on that?”

The fact that I hadn’t raised my voice erased Garth’s grin and replaced it with a narrow-eyed, wary look, but I didn’t get the chance to tell myself that whatever I did to him he more than deserved. The door to the hall chose that minute to open, and the one opening it was Tammad.

“Ah, Tammad, you’re back!” Garth called out at sight of him, rising quickly to his feet with relief flooding his mind. “How did the meal go?”

“Rellis has no doubts concerning the wisdom in joining our efforts against the Amalgamation,” the big Rimilian answered as he closed the door behind him. “He wishes to hear further upon the matter which is primarily your province, therefore shall you soon be summoned to speak with him. It will be necessary that Lenham translate for you, yet do I see that he has already departed. Where has he gone?”

“I’m not sure, so I’d better go look for him,” Garth said, finishing his wine in a single swallow before returning the goblet to the tray it came from. “It would be rude to make Rellis wait.”

If Tammad hadn’t already moved away from the door, he would have been in definite danger of being run down despite the fact that Garth wasn’t his giant size. He got a quick nod and smile and then Garth was gone, getting out while the getting was good. Garth still wasn’t really afraid of me, but he had more sense than to hang around after getting me mad.

“For what reason does the Garth R’Hem Solohr act so strangely?” I was suddenly asked, the words turning my attention to the frown that accompanied them. “For what reason was his leave-taking so hurried, and for what reason had Lenham already gone?”

Those blue eyes were reflecting the abrupt suspicion be hind them, the suspicion that there might be a matter of duty to be attended to. Tammad considered it his duty to punish me when I did things he didn’t approve of, usually things that could conceivably get me hurt or killed if I did them under other circumstances. My hamak was trying to keep me safe and alive, but I didn’t particularly care for the way he went about it.

“One of the reasons Garth left so abruptly is that I have something to tell you,” I forced out, nerving myself to do what had to be done. I still didn’t really understand why I could say just about anything I liked to Len and Garth, but couldn’t do the same with Tammad. My fingers twisted nervously at my waist as he approached me, and I could feel the questioning coming out of the blue eyes looking down at me. The top of my head didn’t even reach his chin, his giant, well-muscled body was nearly twice as wide as mine, and the sword hanging at his left side that he could handle one-handed was too heavy for me to lift even with two. I looked up at him with as little of the dismay I felt as I could manage, and blurted, “Are you afraid of me?”

I knew I’d botched it as soon as the words were out, but it was too late to call them back. Tammad was looking down at me almost blank-faced with incomprehension, his mind-wide-eyed, if a mind can be said to be wide-eyed-with total lack of understanding and the beginnings of serious concern. If that didn’t mean he thought I was going crazy, no other reactions of his ever would.

“Should a man be wise, he will indeed look upon wendaa with a certain fear,” he answered slowly after a very long minute, carefully choosing his words. “Wendaa are small and usually helpless, and should a man allow this truth to slip from him, he may easily, although inadvertently, cause them harm. To feel such a fear and guard against its loss is the duty of a man, for no true man would wish to harm his wenda. Is this what you sought to speak to me of?”

His mind was now cautiously trying to approach mine, a habit he’d picked up in the last couple of days. When an empath looks at someone, he or she looks with mind as well as eyes, and Tammad was as much of an empath as I—or Len.

“No,” I answered, looking down from his stare even as I stopped his fumbling, mostly untrained probe from reaching me. “For the last couple of days I’ve been-experimenting-with my returned abilities. Len and Garth have been helping me. ”