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"Well-Keepresses," reminded Dellin. "Perhaps it is an occupational hazard. If
you are as tired as I, then let us do what we have discussed. I think it would
put the situation in perspective for them." I did not believe what I read in
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him.
Sereth took a lash from the post, and without warn-ing brought it down upon
us, my stomach and Celendra s hip, for she was on her side. The thonged lash
bit, and I gasped in pain. He raised the whip to strike again.
"What do you want from us?" I pleaded, but his arm came down. Celendra
struggled to her knees and put a leg over me. She knelt over me. I could see
the long slitsa-shaped welts rising on her skin.
"I would have done this another way, Estri, under my own will," she said,
leaning close to my face, her lips against my neck.
"I would not!" I protested, straining at my bonds, pulling away.
"Move away from her," Sereth commanded of Ce-lendra. Relief flooded me.
"Invite her," he ordered me, bringing the thonged lash down hard on my
stomach. I bit my lip. Celendra knelt at my side, shaking her head.
Twice more did Sereth strike me before I obeyed him.
They sat on either side of us, and we followed their instructions until their
voices faded. Then there were only
Celendra and I, prisoners of mutual need that was, in the end, only partially
fulfilled.
When, in the tangle of bodies that followed, I was once again servicing
Sereth, my emotion got the bet-ter of me.
"I hate you," I hissed at him.
"Good," he grunted. "You do me great honor, ad-mitting that I have shown you
things about yourself you had not seen. Hate and love are like pain and
pleasure, lady, at times one and the same. Between now and the Falls of
Santha, you will learn still more, I promise you."
"I will not go with you. I will choose another."
"Dellin." The Liaison looked up from Celendra.
"Estri no longer wants me to take her to Santha."
"I cannot spare another, and we have an agreement. To fulfill her chaldra, she
must go. Or would you gainsay your task, Estri?"
He would not get that from me. I would not abro-gate my chaldra.
"Then," I said, defeated, "after-1 see the Day-Keeper, you will have your way
with me, as you have had all along." I
myself did not know to which of them I spoke.
The sun sank, the moon rose, and the four of us together spent the night.
Toward sun's rising we slept, and I
awakened at seventh bell, mid-meal hour, in Celendra's arms, still chained
with her to the ring set into the floor. I
moaned and turned, and she pulled me close, nuzzling my hair. The keyring was
between us, that we might free ourselves, and Sereth and Dellin were nowhere
in sight. They had gone, I realized, to the pass games, for this was
Detarsa first Seventh. I had been absent a set from Astria, sun's rising
tomorrow. I roused Celendra, whose hands freed us from our bracelets.
"Would you go to the games?" I asked her, sitting cross-legged, facing her, as
I unlocked the leashed metal band from her throat.
"It would be foolish to so encourage them," she re-plied, fingering the
swollen welts on her belly and hips.
"Perhaps their events are ended."
"And perhaps not. I have a Well to run." She looked at me, critically, at my
own marked flesh. "I shall tender the
Liaison a bill for this," she said as she rose awkwardly and stretched. I,
also, was stiff and sore in every muscle.
We bathed together, I washing her hair and she mine. We soaked long in the
steaming water, fragrant with soothing oils. My welts smarted and burned.
"If I could" Celendra winced as I applied salve to her belly "I would have
them both castrated. When men interfere between two women, they overstep their
authority."
"They paid for us," I reminded her. I would have had little interest in
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Celendra's advances, no matter what the circumstances. I did not tell her
that, nor that I had never been with a woman before, nor that I had gotten
great pleasure from her touch. I handed the salve to her, and she dressed my
lesions, and my eyes watered with the pain.
"Tonight," she said, "you will not know these marks existed." I thought I
would know, for the rest of my life, marks from the last evening's couching.
We went to her keep, where she had food brought to us, and went over the
night's take, and did her paperwork. I
dozed on her couch.
"Estri ..." She shook me awake.
"What?"
"Ginisha was settled by Jerin, while we were with Sereth and Dellin."
I groaned. That meant Feast of Conception. When a well woman is impregnated,
all men who were that night in the
Well are given free access the following evening, for they are considered
talismans to the lucky well woman. The Well is closed to business from any
others, and a great feast and debauch is-put on for the lucky couple at the
Well's expense. Each man re-ceives a special token, which has no denomination,
and is free to use it any way he sees fit.
"And another thing. Your Day-Keeper has arrived, and awaits your pleasure. He
is quartered in their of-fices across the court. Shall I send him your regrets
at being indisposed, or would you see him today?"
"Can I get him into the feast? Or plead exhaus-tion, and not attend myself? I
must see him and get on with my search. I
cannot stay much longer in Arlet. I am not suited to this Me."
"It is not always like this," she said softly, running her hand over my back.
"I will get you a token for him for this evening, but I would not tempt the
fates by having you absent from the Feast of Con-ception." It would be a bad
omen if all who had taken part in the eve of conception were not present for
the celebration.
"I will go, then, to my keep and dress, and to the physician's keep. I would
get checked. The small pain of ovulation might have been smothered by the
larger pains. Directly from there I will go to the Day-Keepers' offices."
"It would take a magician, not a physician, to figure out whose child it was
if you caught last night. Here," she said, handing me a tas-wrapped bundle.
I took it, and unwrapped the breech and band, black with chased-silver studs
and buckles, and silver circles at the nipples, that Celendra had promised to
have made for me.
"It is superb," I said softly, kissing her on the top of her harth-black head.
I put it on. The leather was soft and supple, the lining web-cloth. I looked
at myself in, the mirror be-hind Celendra's couch. In the breech and band,
with the scarlet-hung keep of the Keepress for backdrop, I looked, with my
copper skin and damp-darkened hair, like some Parset warrior woman.
"It suits you," Celendra commented. "May the flow guide you. I will leave [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]