High Couch of Silistra Read online

  I collapsed on the soft mossy ground, panting, grateful for the respite. I had had much time to think. I knew that my fear had triggered something else within me. I desperately wanted to please Dellin, to reach the gentleness in him I had previously known, I told myself. For whatever reason, I determined to do my best to placate him. His rough, offhand treatment had me off-balance, defensive, and much aroused.

  When I was breathing easily, I crawled to where he leaned against a needle-leaved evergreen. His eyes were narrowed on the road. On my knees, I put my cheek and arms against his thigh. He pushed me roughly away.

  “I will let you know when I want you,” he said, not taking his eyes from the horizon.

  I lay where I had fallen. I wanted to cry but bit my teeth into my wrist until the need had passed. That much I would give no man.

  After a time he came to me and motioned me up. He did not extend his hand to me.

  “There is a likely-looking group, there. They seem headed in the right direction. I am going to see if we can join them. Whatever happens,” he said, loosening his sword in his scabbard, “keep silent and do as you are bid.”

  I trailed meekly behind him down the incline and waited silently beside him at the road’s edge as a group of four men approached us.

  When they were almost upon us, Dellin pointed to the ground. I sat. He went to meet them. I could see that they were Slayers, back from the hunt. They wore the slate-colored leather and metal armor, carried helmets crested with parr bristles and square shields emblazoned with the Slayers’ device—sword and stones, in black upon silver. It must have been a successful hunt. Each man had his cape drawn up into the sling. Slayers hunt the chaldless, and outlaws, for sport. In those capes would be the trophies of their victories.

  They were large, fierce, proud men. Dellin, I thought, looked well among them. They circled around him, and I heard laughter, then more low exchanges. I could not catch the words. Dellin turned and pointed to me. One of the Slayers made a remark, and all laughed again. Dellin snapped his fingers and pointed to the ground in front of him.

  I got up and ran to him, conscious of my ratted hair and filthy white s’kim.

  “This,” said Dellin when I stood before him, “is Estri. She has a speech impediment, but is otherwise sound.” His eyes warned me. I flushed but said nothing.

  “I have often thought,” said a red-haired Slayer— from his black belt, their leader—“that that is a glorious quality in a woman. You are very fortunate. I think life would be more pleasant if they were all born mute.”

  There was general laughter at that, and Dellin put his arm around my shoulder and kissed me for the first time that day. I melted to him. We moved off in the direction of Arlet, safe in the center of the red-haired Slayer’s band.

  “Where did you get her?” asked the red-haired one, making small talk.

  “I won her on a gamble, north of Astria.”

  “Umn,” said the Slayer. “I wondered, until you mentioned her muteness, why she was not in a Well. Though she is, perhaps, too slim in the hips to bear child, she is certainly better than what the Wells customarily leave us.”

  “She is also very stupid,” said Dellin, his hand at my throat.

  “That matters little when they are on their backs.”

  “What is that necklace she wears?” asked the red-haired Slayer.

  “She eats a great deal. I rent her out that she may earn her keep,” said Dellin. “She wears what she has earned on the road from Astria.”

  I bit his hand. He jerked it back, into my hair, grasping me tightly at the base of my skull.

  “What is her price?” asked the red-haired one.

  “Only one gold dippar, Ganrom. But for you I will cut that in half.”

  The red-haired Ganrom, leader of the Slayers, grinned broadly.

  “I will take you up on that, should you choose to share our fire this night. I think, too, some others of us are in need of release. We are three days’ march, from Arlet, and we have been on the hunt over a set.”

  He turned to his companions. There were guffaws, and the heavyset dark Slayer on my right reached across me and pounded Dellin on the back.

  “What say you, Idrer?” the leader asked of the heavyset man.

  “I say I would take her if she were deaf, blind, and mute,” answered the dark Slayer on my right.

  “And you, Fen? And Mael, you also?” The two Slayers in the rear laughed their assent.

  I heard little else that was said. My fury roared within me. One gold dippar indeed! If not for Dellin’s restraining hand, and his possession of my chald and my father’s ring, I would have run into the woods and taken my chances with the chaldless.

  We proceeded at a good pace, faster than was comfortable for me, through the day. We overtook a party of merchants, with their large wagons pulled by plodding docile denters, and when the sun was low, we in turn were passed by two mounted runners, their red cloaks flying behind them, pushing their sleek threx at top speed. These were headed to Astria. The four-footed threx showered us with clods of dirt and dust kicked up by their mighty hooves.

  Soon after that, the Slayers turned off the road. The sun was sinking when we came to a clearing that showed traces of many previous camps. There the men set down their bulging capes and set about building a fire.

  “Down the path,” pointed Ganrom, “is a pool where the girl could wash. Should I send Idrer with her? I would speak with you, Dellin, alone.”

  Dellin looked at me, then the red-haired Slayer. He raked his hand through his hair, pushing it back. He nodded and turned his back to me.

  When I returned with Idrer from the pool, naked, carrying my hand-washed s’kim, the fire roared high and Dellin and Ganrom were huddled together like old friends, sharing a bladder of drink.

  I was shivering in the cold night air, my hair wet, clammy, and dripping on my back. I hung the s’kim to dry on a shrub, and sat close to the fire, that its heat would dry my hair and bake the chill from my bones. Idrer patted me on my damp head and went to Dellin.

  “The moment took me,” Idrer explained, handing Dellin a coin. “Your price,” the heavyset Slayer continued, “is much too low. She is like a high-couch well woman.”

  Dellin snorted, looked down, then back up. “My appreciation, Slayer,” he managed. “I taught her all she knows, but, like any other woman, she has her better times. Often I have to beat her to get her to perform. Perhaps she is taken with you.” Dellin passed the bladder to Idrer.

  “I had wondered,” said Idrer, “how she amassed so many coins at such a low price.”

  “We stopped in Port Astrin,” bluffed Dellin airily.

  “Ah,” said Idrer. “That, then, explains it.”

  “Estri, here,” Dellin called. I went to him, managing to step on his foot in doing so. I was flushed, and not from the fire. I knelt before him docilely, and he pulled me to his lap and began caressing my breasts.

  “I had a coin girl once,” reminisced Ganrom. “I made much money on her, and she gave me great pleasure. She was comely for a Well reject, though not so beautiful as this one.” I had never thought of the fate of the Well rejects. I was learning.

  “What happened to her?” Dellin asked.

  “I came upon hard times and traded her for a threx. Sometimes I wish I had not done so. The well women think themselves more than human. I seldom use them.”

  “In Astria,” said Dellin loyally, “they aim to please.”

  “And they make sure you know it. I do not like feeling as if I must thank a woman for pleasuring her. I prefer to have the girl thank me.” The red-haired Slayer grinned.

  Dellin’s hands did their work. I knew he teased me for the Slayer’s benefit, but I could not help responding to him. He bent his head to kiss my erect nipples, while I tried my best not to put on a show for Ganrom and his men. I heard meat sizzle on the fire and smelled the tas as it cooked.

  “I could tell them you are not what you pretend,” I whispered in
Dellin’s ear. “They would kill you. I would still get to Arlet.”

  “I would not, were I you,” he growled at me, “for they would never believe you, and you would become what I have made you, a Well reject, a coin girl. With a different master, perhaps Ganrom, you would play that role for the rest of your long life. You must remain a coin girl. The Slayer would take great offense if he knew I lied about you. He caught my accent, and called me on it. It took me the whole time you were gone to placate him. I did not lie, but I gave him less than the truth. On Silistra, it seems, a man is allowed some secrets.”

  His hand went to my belly, and I moaned helplessly. The ring glinted in the firelight.

  “What are you?” he hissed.

  “A coin girl,” I whispered, defeated, betrayed by my body.

  “Will you eat, Dellin, or are you too full of love?” It was Mael’s voice.

  Dellin pushed me off his lap, and I sprawled half on the ground, half on Ganrom’s crossed legs.

  “I was hoping you would be passed this way,” said the red-haired Slayer through a mouthful of tender tas. He put a grease-slick hand on my naked thigh. I groaned, but I did not move. I looked up at Dellin beseechingly, but he had his hands on a tas chop and would not meet my eyes. I started to shift my hips off Ganrom’s lap.

  “No,” he mumbled. A hot dribble of meat juice struck my thigh. “That is the part of you I will get to first. Let it be.”

  They did not offer me a piece of meat, though Dellin took a second chop, bit it once, and handed it to me. I gnawed it gratefully, trying to keep the grease from my face and hair.

  The men passed the bladder, and Ganrom gave me a swallow when Dellin proffered it to him. It was crude kifra, but it warmed. I ached within. I wanted Dellin badly, but it was another who would have me. I hated him for arousing me, purposely, for Ganrom.

  After the third round of kifra, Ganrom’s hands found me of interest.

  Fen put another branch on the fire, that there would be sufficient light.

  Dellin leaned down toward me where I lay, my head on the ground and my hips on the red-haired Slayer’s lap.

  “Estri”—his lips brushed my temple—“do use your skills. I would enjoy watching you. Give your best to Ganrom, and prettily. Perhaps, when you are done, I will reward you.”

  I would have in any case. I was beyond caring where I was or who was who. But I moved for Dellin, as seductively as possible, and with much emotion. I was exquisite. I would make him sorry he had given me to another man.

  Ganrom did not believe it. I went for his inner need and gave him such prolonged ecstasy that he rolled and moaned and whimpered. The three Slayers and Dellin got more than they bargained for. One learns many dances in Astria.

  Finally, I lay panting, sleek and glistening with sweat, in the fire glow. Ganrom heaved great gulps of air beside me. I bent one leg at the knee and brought my foot near to my buttocks. I rubbed my inner thigh and turned my face to Dellin, my lips parted, chest heaving. I would not describe the look on his face, but although it was his game, it was my point.

  Ganrom struggled to sit up. “Kifra,” he croaked. “Dellin! I will buy her from you. Name your price.”

  My heart stopped. Perhaps I had done too well.

  Khaf-Re Dellin started to laugh. He put his head in his hands and shook with laughter. Uncertainly, the others joined in.

  Presently he looked up at the red-haired Slayer, who, to my amazement, was also consumed with merriment. There were tears of mirth on his face.

  “The reason you want her, Slayer, is the reason I cannot part with her,” he got out. “You know, as I, that we are all bound.”

  “I would be so bound, my friend.” He was shaking his head, back and forth, back and forth. “A coin girl,” said the Slayer in wonder, “a coin girl. Doubtless you will allow us to accompany you to Arlet.”

  Dellin inclined his head. He had regained control of himself. “Everyone,” he wondered, “wants to accompany me to Arlet. I would be honored by your presence, as I am honored by your interest. So be it.” He passed the kifra bladder to me. I drank three swallows and handed it back. His fingers touched mine, and I thrilled to the insignificant contact. I caught his eye and begged him without words. His lids half-closed, he looked coldly down upon me and signified his refusal. Then he gestured to Mael, the brown-skinned Slayer, to take his place next to me, and walked to the other side of the fire.

  As Mael spoke gently to me, I glimpsed Dellin coming around to seat himself on Ganrom’s far side. I rolled so that my back was to them, facing Mael. Mael was young and hesitant, for all his bravado earlier.

  I touched him, and he was mine. I was glad, and I was faultless.

  I rolled away from him and sat up, pawing the hair off my face and breasts. I shrugged and raised my hands, dropping them back in my lap. I made sure to keep my head high and my back straight. I would not show him my humiliation, my need.

  There was one left. Fen, who had cooked the dinner, was blond and slighter than the others. He spoke quietly when he saw my eyes on him.

  “I cannot,” he declined. “Not like this, not now. Watching you was more than I needed, lady. I am not rejecting you. I will try tomorrow.”

  I tried to look disappointed.

  Mael put his hands companionably around Fen’s shoulders, holding the wine to his lips. “I guess us boys have got to leave some things to the men.” He was rueful about his own performance before his leader and the stranger, and he was obviously relieved that Fen had fared as badly as, if not worse than, he.

  Ganrom and Dellin were eyeing each other, making valiant efforts to remain upright and straight-faced.

  Idrer was lying on his side with a bladder pillowed on his arm. He convulsed silently.

  My eyes were for Dellin. I guessed him less drunk than he appeared, though he seemed to match the Slayers’ leader swallow for swallow. He caught my eyes and pointed to his lap. I nodded.

  I stood, as languorously as I could manage, and walked my best toward him. I knelt down at his feet, and he pulled me toward him. I had wanted his touch so desperately, tears squeezed from my eyes when I felt his arm around me. Tears of joy. I should have been anything but happy to be with the man who had done this to me.

  He lay back and made me work, his heavy-lidded eyes on me. I forgot everything but his instructions. He took a long time with me, and I felt more with him in that awful place than I thought a woman could feel with a man. Yet, he made no sound, nor did he once lose that distant look. I deep-read him. He had nothing more important within. He was engrossed with the moment, the context. But I could coax from him not a single moan of pleasure, even in the final moments.

  I curled myself on the ground beside him, my head at his calf. I fell asleep to the sound of his voice, and Ganrom’s, as they discussed hunting the chaldless.

  The morning dawned bright and clear, and I found myself imprisoned within the circle of Dellin’s arms. My back to his chest, he had held me through the night.

  I lay unmoving, content, until the sounds of the Slayers rising woke him. He pushed back from me, stretching and yawning. We went together to the quiet pool and bathed. The warm muck on my feet and the cool waters on my flesh revived me. I took care to hold my hair from the water. Too much washing is not good for long hair.

  Dellin bathed himself when I climbed out on the bank, and motioned me to follow him back to camp. He had said not one word to me, nor did he look behind to see if I followed him as he had bid me.

  We ate and broke camp and were on the road again by the time the sun had lost its ruddy glow. I labored, as before, to keep the pace. Even in such a simple thing as speed of stride is a woman at a disadvantage.

  I thought, as we passed out of the wooded area into tilled land, about Arlet. It would be good to be within a Well again, where men seek out a woman, pleasure with them, and depart. To spend long periods of time with a man, I concluded, is surely more difficult than having them come, high in expectation, to use one. The
Well life allows a woman to maintain her dignity.

  There were denter and woolly tas grazing in the rail-fenced pastures on both sides of the road. I could see farmers’ keeps and animal barns in the distance. The green-and-gold binnirin waved high for miles in front of us, and the smell of new-turned earth came rich and moist to my nostrils. A yellow crier darted across the road, its wings invisible, screeching.

  With Dellin’s arm on mine, in the midst of the Slayers, I made my way toward Arlet. Only two more days, with luck, and I would see civilization again. I listened to the men jabber around me. Dellin concealed his ignorance of Silistra with masterful skill. As I listened, I realized he did this as a deep-reader does, by concentrating the men’s attention to the subject he would study, and drawing them out. He made intuitive jumps of understanding. I began to wonder if perhaps he was not an undeveloped telepath, so smooth with his facade.

  The road was becoming more traveled. Often we passed traders, farmers, and carts.

  We stopped and lunched in an unfenced field, under the shade of three huge wisper trees, a solitary stand in that wide expanse of weeds and rocky ground.

  When we had eaten, Mael drew out his sword and with its point made a large circle on a level stretch where no grass grew. This was the Slayers’ circle.

  He then, with decorum and attention to proper form, invited Fen to join him within its boundaries. The slight blond man accepted eagerly, and the two fell to swordplay with a will. They were well-matched, and obviously familiar with each other’s moves. They engaged and disengaged, laughing and cursing, neither able to score a hit, which would have been fatal had this not been play, or drive the other from the circle. Finally, with more imagination than either had previously shown, Mael pretended to stumble, and rolled under Fen’s guard, hoping to drive the point of his sword up to touch his opponent’s breech. This he managed to do, but by that time Fen had his sword’s point at Mael’s throat.