He gave no reply, but he did extend his sword toward her raised wrists. Fortunately that disgruntled expression of his didn’t intimidate her, so she knew it was the rope he was after, not her heart. She positioned her wrists, slid the underside of the rope along the blade, and was free of restraints at last, hopefully for good.
She tossed the severed rope to the floor by his feet, then waited for him to join her. If her questions about bathing were going to bother him so much, she’d just wait and watch, thereby learning how to go about it without asking.
There was a bench of sorts nearby that she hadn’t noticed sooner because it was tucked in among the plants, even with several small ones resting on one end of it. A tall stack of towels sat next to this, and Challen used the other end to sit on and remove his boots. He was still watching her rather than what he was doing, and slowly but surely, the annoyance left his expression.
“Sit down, kerima, ” he finally told her.
“And drown? If it’s all the same to you, I don’t mind standing.”
“There is a ledge behind you, there for sitting on.” This with a sigh.
“I’m sure it’s a fine ledge,” she allowed, glancing back at it. “I’ll still stand.”
He made a sound she could have sworn was exasperation-caused, and then the bracs were being peeled off his long legs. Tedra was suddenly feeling more warmth than from just the water, more like real heat as she watched him put a hand to the floor to lever himself over the side of the pool. But then the water rushed at her, distracting her as it slapped against her stomach. Yet in the next moment Challen was standing before her, and it wasn’t only water touching her now.
“These you could have covered with the water,” he said, his large hands circling her breasts.
That was an outright lie she couldn’t help making a rude sound over. “Get off it. You can see through this water.”
“Not as clearly as I see you now. But I do not mind the invitation, woman.”
“I wasn’t... So that’s why you wanted me to sit? Well, why didn’t you say so? I can be more adventurous if it’s for a good cause, and I’m sure this is a good cause ... or are you feeling—better?”
The large hands on her breasts slid around to her back to draw her up against him, and she caught his smile just before his mouth moved over hers in a very delicious way. That was really all the answer she needed. Her own arms moved up to lock around his thick neck, and in the course of the next few hours, she found out that a primitive bath had other, more enjoyable uses than just bathing.
Chapter Twenty-one
Tedra rolled over to find herself tangled up in covers in the center of Challen’s huge bed. She had known she’d feel lost in the farden thing, and without the big barbarian there beside her, she did. However, she hadn’t realized the bedding would try to strangle her.
When she finally got one elbow loose, enough to lean up on it, she glanced around to find what had awakened her, hoping it was ... it wasn’t. Challen hadn’t returned. He’d left her at dawn with a very sweet parting, but obviously he’d meant it when he said he’d be so busy today that he wouldn’t likely see her until this evening, or in his words, this moonrise. He’d ignored several summons yesterday for his time, instead devoting the rest of the day to making her feel very welcome in his home, or at least in his bedroom. But today was back to business as usual, and if she felt deserted, that was just too bad.
The one who had disturbed her sleep was the young Darash female she had met yesterday—well, not actually met. Challen hadn’t bothered with introductions when the girl had brought them a meal last evening. And the girl hadn’t made any comments in the serving of it, had simply left quickly, a warrior waiting at the door for her and closing it after her. Tedra remembered her suspicions rising upon seeing that door-opening warrior, and had immediately got up to test the door herself. But she could open it, she was relieved to find, though not easily, for the thing really was heavy, but she could do it. It had been opened and closed for the servant simply because her hands had been full with the large tray she carried.
She carried another tray now, a much smaller one, and the door to the room had been closed behind her this time. Tedra watched her place the tray on the large square table with the couches around it, where she and Challen had eaten last night. That had been a study in decadence, lying stretched out on those couches so they met at one corner, she on her belly on one, Challen on his side on another, eating with fingers, but not their own fingers. The barbarian got to feed her as he wanted to, and because of where they were, she couldn’t refuse or bite his fingers. He also insisted she feed him, and after a while she didn’t half mind doing it, and getting her fingers sucked in the process. It got so erotic, in fact, the meal was interrupted for an hour and had to be finished cold, Tedra refusing to let him call for fresh food since it would be too easy for anyone to figure out how the first batch had got cold. She accepted the fact that everyone would know what she was doing in Challen’s bedroom, but she didn’t care to be thought so insatiable she couldn’t even take time out for a farden meal—whether it was true or not.
The girl didn’t depart immediately as she had done last night. She approached the bed, smiling, making eye contact, in no way obsequious or appearing slavish in manner. A step above a feudal-type serf, but a step below being actually free, the Darasha had a strange relationship with the ruling class. They were simply servants, subject to certain rules just as the women on this world were, but apparently not disliking their lot. Coming from a world that had no servants, since things mechanical made them unnecessary, Tedra knew it would take getting used to, being waited on by an actual living, breathing person.
This living, breathing person was maybe a few years younger than Tedra, a somewhat pretty girl with brown eyes and hair. That coloring was as close as she got to resembling those women Tedra had seen on the street yesterday. The girl’s skin tone was dark, not golden, and like the Darash male from the stable, she was much smaller than the average citizen of this world, probably no more than five feet and one or two inches, if even that.
“Would the mistress like a bath after she eats?”
Tedra glanced at the small pool, empty this morning. These barbarians had plumbing, for Stars’ sake, complete with hot and cold running and draining water, not exactly a primitive accomplishment. She was finding that, like the Sha-Ka’ari, the Sha-Ka’ani were advanced in some ways, archaic in others, especially the clinging to old beliefs and customs.
“No, no bath, thank you.” She wasn’t likely to enjoy it without the barbarian there to make it enjoyable.
“May I then select a chauri for the mistress?”
Tedra frowned, hearing herself addressed like that a second time. “Look, you’re not a slave and I’m not your mistress, so why don’t you call me Tedra?”
“That would not be properly respectful.”
“Is everyone mistress or master to you?”
“Yes, mistress.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“For what reason should it do so?”
Tedra sighed. “Well, that was a pleasant trip around the block. How about if I order you to call me Tedra? Would that do the trick?”
“Trick?”
“Would it work, an order? Or don’t the wishes of a challenge loser count for much around here?”
“Challenge loser? The mistress is teasing me?”
“Yeah, I’m a great kidder,” Tedra said with a derisive snort, deciding hearing her name on the girl’s lips wasn’t worth this kind of aggravation. “You can fetch me some clothes while I fight my way out of these farden covers—that is, if clothes fetching is part of your job.”
The girl had trouble nodding, she was trying so hard not to laugh. It probably was funny, seeing a grown woman wrapped up in a blanket tighter than a gift-wrapped box and not too clear on how to break out of it, but so Tedra was. She could have said something about the convenience of air blankets, which turned off
as soon as you sat up in bed, leaving nothing to tangle your feet in, but discussing the advantages of her world that she was having to do without would only get her more aggravated.
“If I may?”
The girl crawled onto the bed, found the corner of the blanket that was tucked under Tedra’s hip, and pulled it loose; then the rest of the blanket followed. Tedra started blushing immediately, having forgotten her state of complete undress, but the girl didn’t seem to notice. Having helped with the immediate problem, she left the bed to take care of the next, heading toward a door Tedra hadn’t even noticed yesterday, probably because it was without a doorknob of any kind and stood between two of those great, long chests. It merely pushed open, revealing a room beyond that Tedra was curious enough about to investigate for herself, if she could manage to find the sheet that had become lost under the blanket.
When she arrived at the room some minutes later, draped in the light blue sheet and trailing a good eight feet of it behind her, it took her a moment to grasp that she was looking into an old-fashioned closet, something she’d never seen before. What she thought of as a closet was a mechanical rack that came out of the wall with whatever outfit she had dialed for. She had never thought to wonder where her clothes were kept, or where they went when her robocleaner disposed of them for cleaning—just more of the things she was discovering she took for granted at home.
As closets went, she had a feeling this one was larger than most, just like the bedroom it was connected to. Sight of a long mirror, a wide shelf topped with bottles and jars, and even a couch in one corner indicated it was also used as a dressing room. A number of chests and one entire wall of drawers, some too high for even Tedra to reach, suggested it might also be a place for storage. But there were clothes in evidence, a great many clothes, hung on pegs on the walls, on stands with sticklike arms extended from them, draped on funny-looking racks that stood upright but curved at the top to lay spread-out comtocs on. The setup made everything just about visible at first sight, eliminating the need for an inventory list.
Among the male attire of boots, sword belts, dozens of bracs, all in black zaalskin, and comtocs in some really fantastic, glittering materials, the few chauri looked out of place where they draped over some of the racks. Tedra recognized the female outfits like those she had seen the women wearing on the streets yesterday. They were exactly the same, in thin, gauzy cloth, appearing to be no more than square-cut scarves double-draped and tied together.
“These three have been prepared for you, mistress, but if these colors do not suit, I can prepare you another. There are pieces in any color you could wish for.”
“Pieces” should have given Tedra warning, but even when she moved over to where the girl stood by the three outfits, she was still brought up short. The things really were nothing but scarves—“pieces,” as the girl called them—a top with a skirt, tied together and designed to just hang about the body.
Actually, they were a little more complicated than that, as Tedra saw when she picked up the top of the white one. It was made of a total of twelve scarves that would fall to about mid-thigh. “Prepared” meant the scarves were already tied together in tiny knots where they were supposed to be tied, a knot of six for each shoulder. Individually, each scarf was totally transparent; draped one over the other, they became less so, but not by much, except over the breasts, where they would cross over for an extra layer.
The skirt, now, was another story. It too had twelve square scarves to it, with about three inches of a corner from each scarf sewn to a narrow elastic-like band, one draping over the next to form an even circle around this band that would fit around the waist, and made the scarves lie partially open. None of these scarves were tied together or sewn together in any other way. They hung down the legs, the bottom points falling just short of the ankles, leaving gaps halfway up the calves between each one, and ready to part and expose shin, knee, and some thigh with the least wind or brisk walk.
There was a tie belt in the same material to fit over the top, to add form to the body, and probably to help keep the scarves covering what they were supposed to cover. Tedra couldn’t have cared less as she tossed the one she had examined back on its rack. She had only two words for the girl awaiting her decision as to which one she would wear.
“Forget it.”
“Mistress?”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those things, kiddo—what is your name, anyway?”
“Jalla, mistress. If these colors—”
“It’s not the colors, Jalla, though I’ve never been partial to pastels. It’s that peekaboo material, not to mention the farden things look like they’re designed for removing, not putting on. There must be something else I can wear.”
“But—”
“Something like what you’re wearing.” The white, sleeveless tunic and skirt were exactly like what the male Darash had worn, the only difference being he wore pants, and Jalla, a full, ankle-length skirt. “Now that looks cool and comfortable, and I wouldn’t feel like I’m playing watch-closely-and-you-might-see-something.”
“But this is not a chauri. ”
“So?”
“So the ladies of Kan-is-Tra wear only the chauri. You can wear only the chauri.”
And the servants did not, obviously. Nor did Tedra miss the fact that Jalla had included the whole country in that, not just the town.
“What happens if I refuse?”
Jalla actually grew alarmed at that question. “But you cannot. The shodan would not allow it.”
Tedra gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to wear that damned chauri, but she didn’t want to get into a blowup with Challen either, when things had been going so smoothly with him. She looked wistfully at his clothes all around her, but knew she didn’t dare borrow any, that the first warrior she came across would demand she hand them over, and she didn’t care to go through that again.
“Farden hell,” she fairly snarled, but pointed a finger. “That one.”
She’d picked the light green, since she had a feeling the blue and the white were somehow symbolic with the shodan, likely his colors, if the color scheme of the castle was any indication. And right now she was too displeased to want to please him by wearing his colors.
“Whose chauri are these, anyway?” she asked as Jalla began helping her dress, and she saw how easily the top could become hopelessly tangled if it wasn’t put on carefully.
“Yours, mistress.”
“But whose were they before?”
“Yours—”
“Never mind,” Tedra cut in, her patience gone with her irritation.
The clothes had been there before she was, so they couldn’t be hers. And she didn’t really care to know who had shared Challen’s closet before her. But he’d be hearing what she thought of wearing someone else’s chauri.
When she looked down at the finished package, she groaned. When she caught her image in the mirror, she groaned louder. It was much worse than she’d thought it would be. Now she knew why the women she had seen on the streets looked so soft, shy— helpless. There was no other way to look in one of these outfits.
Tedra wasn’t one to object to a little skin showing. It wasn’t that, for she had bodysuits that showed off more. But she’d never worn anything that was so dainty, so blatantly feminine, so farden delicate-looking. In it, she felt strange, exposed, vulnerable.
“The shodan will be pleased, mistress,” Jalla offered nervously. She hadn’t missed those groans. “You look beautiful.”
“I look like a Sex Clinic worker,” Tedra replied in disgust. “But as long as Martha can’t see me in it, I suppose I’ll survive the wearing of it.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Tedra got her revenge for being forced to wear the chauri, and was it ever sweet in being so unexpected.
Jalla had taken her on a tour of the castle after she had finished eating. It was really interesting, and she even forgot for a while the way she was dressed, especially w
hen she began seeing other women dressed exactly the same, and none of them feeling the least self-conscious about it. Jalla introduced her to a good number of them, explaining who they were and why they were there. She learned a great deal that morning about the women of Sha-Ka’an, very little of which she liked, but then she wasn’t there to change their world, just trade with it, and hopefully enlist aid from it.
One of the rooms she wasn’t supposed to go near was where Challen was conducting business, but when had “wasn’t supposed to” ever stopped her. She slipped into the back of this room despite Jalla’s protests, the girl flatly refusing to go with her. It was long and cavernous, the walls and floor in that shiny, marblelike substance, in this case light blue veined with dark. There was row after row of those low couches all in white, with an aisle down the center of them, and at the far end of the room, sitting behind a desk and looking like no more than a Goverance Building official, sat Challen.
Expecting a throne, at the very least a raised dais piled high with pillows, Tedra was surprised by the normal-looking desk. But she supposed this was just one more of the little abnormalities of Sha-Ka’an that made it so different from what she knew of the history of her own people.
The room was crowded with men, just about every couch filled with two or three of the big guys. They were probably waiting their turn to speak with the shodan, who was presently speaking with a group of four men who stood before his desk.
Tedra couldn’t hear anything that was said from that distance, and she was about to slip back out of the room with no one the wiser that she’d intruded in this strictly male domain, when Challen made eye contact with her and stopped whatever he had been saying. She supposed she was in hot water now, watching him stand up, come around the desk, and start down the aisle toward her. He’d given no excuse for his leaving so abruptly, so heads started turning to see what drew him, and very quickly Tedra had every eye in the room on her.