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She lay against me, relaxed as death, and said, “Vazkor is generous to his slave.” There was still some acid in her tongue.
“Console yourself,” I said. “Chula shall suffer worse than you. I will ensure that. When I have lashed her, I shall cast her off, and her brats.”
“Only for correcting a slave? You are too harsh,” she murmured.
We had reached the tents now, black on the westering glare. The shireens were at the central fire and turned to stare at me; the warriors, lounging over their tackle or captives, stared too.
Through the sea of sunset and firelight and staring, I carried Demizdor. She was the only reality in the world at.that hour.
Later, I took Chula to Finnuk’s tent.
She did not want to go.
The night had turned chill, blue-black as raven’s wings with stars caught in the feathers of it. Finnuk had a fire outside, and sat there with his two sons after his meat. I pushed her to him.
“Here is your daughter,” I said. “You may have her back.”
At first they were all mute with astonishment, their mouths open, only the flames speaking. Then Finnuk surged up, heavy with his anger as only old men can be, for he was old to be a warrior.
“Have her back? By the snake, I do not want her back.”
“Ah!” I roared. “So she was no use to your tent either?”
He floundered around a little, and the sons and their dogs growled and padded up and down, eyeing me. Chula meanwhile crouched there, crying inside her veil in loud, furious Growings. By now others had come to see, having followed our progress through the krarl.
“This is my daughter,” Finnuk finally informed me.
“Own her, then,” I said.
“I do. I do, by the snake. What wrong has she done? She is a good wife to the chief’s son. She has borne him three healthy boys.”
“She has borne me trouble,” I said.
“How has she done so?”
“I had a slave,” I said, “valuable, a city woman of great
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Worth I might have bartered and enriched this krarl thereby. This one, at your feet sniveling, has scarred my slave, my property.” I knew very well the tack to take. He frowned and grumbled under his breath.
“If that is so, no doubt the slave was disobedient-” “This woman, your Chula, is disobedient, and to me. I have done with her. Take her, or let the wolves have her. She is no longer anything of mine. You see, Finnuk, there are many witnesses to hear.”
Chula wailed. She buried her face in the dirt and kicked her heels.
“Wait now, Tuvek Nar-Ettook,” Finnuk remonstrated. “She has been stupid and you should beat her. But this is not a thing for which to cast her off. What of your sons?”
“They are no sons of mine. I renounce the sons with the dam. Maybe she has been dishonest in this, too. Am I to be her whore-master?”
He trampled around his fire, glaring, at a loss. “There is the matter of her dowry,” he said at last. I was only too ready for this. I flung down by Chula a leather bag of gold rings, all war spoil, worth more than what he had given me with her, save for her emerald, which Tathra wore now. He was quick enough to point that out to me.
“The Eshkiri slave your slut has ruined brought me a bodIce of emeralds. Finnuk may come and take his pick.”
He shook his head. He did not want to let it go at this, but could see no way around. Besides, I looked and sounded angry, mad-angry, as a bull shut from the cows. I was not, in fact, as angry as that, only drunk with a host of emotions that were painfully new to me. I was cutting the cloth to fit me, and Finnuk and his daughter getting the edge of the knife.
‘Tuvek Nar-Ettook,” he said, “she is worthless dross. She has displeased you, and I shall improve her. I will keep her in the tent of my women for a few turns of the moon. Then you shall decide.” I shrugged.
“That is of no significance to me. Keep her and keep the gold. For I shan’t want her till the moon falls.”
At this, Chula raised herself. She tore at the air with her hands, and screamed, “Tuvek! Tuvek-Tuvek-” Her eyes were wilder than any I had ever seen. They told
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me something of my own injustice to her, and I did not like it. There was no room in my world for anything but one.
“I will wed the Eshkir woman before I claim this mare,” I said.
And I strode off from Finnuk’s fire, and once more there was silence behind me, only the crackle of the flames.
I went to Kotta’s place next. She met me at the flap.
“I have come for the Eshkir,” I said.
“Have you, warrior?” Kotta said. “I have dressed the wound, but she has fever, your slave. If you take her to your tent and lie with her, you kill her. The city women are for the most part not strong, and she will not bear it.”
“Then I will not lie with her,” I said. “She shall stay here.”
Kotta’s eyes, seeing nothing, seeming to see everything, unnerved me.
“This is a new sickness,” she said. But, as I ducked inside the tent, she added, “I am thinking Tathra has not met her son this night.”
“Her husband will be with Tathra,” I answered. “I will go tomorrow.”
It was dull in the healer’s tent, a tan smoky light. Demizdor lay on the rugs, and her head was turned from me. I saw she was unmasked; only a foam of her bright hair had washed across her face to hide it. My pulses ran so fast the tent leaped before my eyes, but I went to her quietly.
“Demizdor,” I said, “when you are well, you shall come to my hearth, but you need fear nothing.”
She did not look at me, but the blanket over her breasts moved more swiftly than it had before I drew near.
“Demizdor,” I said, “I have taken the woman back to her father. My other two wives will not trouble you. I tell you now, when the fighting is done and we are in the summer camping, I will wed you. You shall be my first wife in Chula’s stead.”
Very softly she asked, “How shall I support this matchless konor?”
The adder was still under the flower, I saw. I did not reply. I lifted the swathe of blond silk from her cheeks, and turned her face gently with my hand. Her eyelids flickered as if she were sleepy; she would not look at me.
“You shall have a city mask to wear,” I said. “Not the sil-
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ver deer, the other has had that. I have a better one, a silver lynx with amber ornaments for the hair. And I will get you fine weave from the Moi. You will find it kinder on your skin.”
“So,” she murmured, “why do you bother to woo me, warrior? I am your property. You may use me at any time you wish.”
Then I knew somehow-maybe from her eyes and from her talk, which was not like the cold, harsh talk I had had from her before-that she was in the same net with me.
I leaned and kissed her. For all she was ill, her mouth was cool and sweet. She caught my arms and held me to her. I had never dreamed that such a thing could make me glad.
Yet when I let her go, she turned from me and hid her face again, muttering in her own tongue, the language of the cities, which now I could not understand. Her liking for me must have been seething in her some while, fermenting against her will into the wine I had just tasted. It did not occur to me then that it could shame her to face me, shame her blood and her pride, make her doubt her reason almost, that she should hunger for one on whom her kind spit.
I went out of Kotta’s tent on fire with the victory, acknowledging my fortune.
Let no man count himself fortunate till his gods brand it on his back.
2
The fighting and the raids of the Warrior month were past, and the green month that comes after was done too; it was the month of the Maiden, the marriage month, and the krarl had settled among the wild fields and orchards and the sinking white stones of the eastern summer pasture, when Demizdor came to my tent.
She had had the fever a long while, and then she had been
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fragile as a leaf. So much might have told me how she feared to come to me, but I was a fool still, and finding desire in her eyes and in her touch, believed the battle won. Seeing she was sick, I left her in Kotta’s charge and in her tent. Here Demizdor dwelt, communicating with no one save the healer and me. It was as well she had my protection. I knew the women of the krarl hated her for her difference and for her beauty-it was the old story of Tathra all over again. Indeed, Tathra hated Demizdor, too, and about this matter, Kotta and my mother fell out. I do not know what words were spoken or what threats offered and scorned. Certainly Kotta had no choice but to harbor the Eshkir since I had ordered it.