The Unfinished Song: Taboo (18 page)

“It seems if I stop Rthan from escaping, I cannot stop you. I judge him to be the greater threat,” he told Dindi. “I’m not unaware of the irony that I, an exile myself, should be the one who must throw the stones of judgment. I must, in fairness, offer you the same choice I had on the eve of my own trial. Flee, now, and be certain of keeping your life. Or, if you will cast your fate into my hands,
go back to the Tor of the Initiates,
tell
no one of this meeting. I will decide what to do and summon you tomorrow morning.”

Then he turned and ran down the hill, to stop Rthan, and if need be, avenge Brena.

Kavio readied a battle-ax before
he
climbed a tree and dropped into the fray from above, taking all combatants by surprise. The young Tavaedi Initiates did not want to welcome any more guests to their fight. He had to repeat his orders to them several times before they growled and retreated.

“He was trying to escape!” they yapped, over and over, as if he couldn’t deduce the obvious. They almost sounded guilty about it.
Because they couldn’t stop him?

Though Rthan didn’t have a weapon, Kavio faced off with him warily, prepared for a grueling slug-out with the big man. Instead, Rthan held up his hands and backed up. Frustration twisted his mouth into a mock smile. “Perfect timing. I don’t think I could have refrained from wringing their necks one minute longer.”

“Where is Brena?” Kavio demanded, in no mood for banter.

“I don’t
—
”

“Here.” She staggered into view, dirty and bloody and obviously battle-worn.

Kavio felt torn between relief and the urge to hang Rthan from the tree. He raised the stone ax at Rthan. “I’ll take care of this one.”

“I didn’t try to escape,” Rthan said, not to Kavio, but directly to Brena. He said it clearly and forcefully,
then
repeated it, pleading to be believed. “I didn’t try to escape, Brena. Not while your daughters were here.”

Brena’s face softened. Kavio didn’t like where this was going. He had suspected from the start that Brena might fancy the big brute, but fancy or not, he didn’t intend to let her be abused.

“You attacked Zavaedi Brena…”

“No,” she said.

“No,” Rthan said, at the same time. Finally he faced Kavio. “By my word of honor, I did not try to escape. Zavaedi Brena was called to, uhm, other matters
—
” he looked at her askew, apparently a little uncertain of the alibi, “And left me in charge of the Initiates. A few of them,” again he struggled for words, and grimaced, “questioned my authority.”

“It was my fault,” said Brena. “I should not have left. I take full responsibility.”

“Do you trust this man’s word, Zavaedi Brena?” Kavio asked her. Studying her injuries closely, he realized the slimy scratches on her arms glowed faintly blue, a telltale
sign
of a fae assault.
Other matters, indeed.

She didn’t hesitate. “I do.”

Kavio questioned the rest of the witnesses. Most of the Initiates looked away, refusing to meet his eyes. The Initiate boys involved in the fight returned increasingly squirrelly answers to his questions. Rthan glared at them, but stood stiff with resignation. It was obvious he expected the worst.

“The earth and air should still remember the design of your recent actions,” Kavio said. “I will seek a Vision to tell me the truth of what happened here.”

He paced the practice area, teasing the breeze for strands of light. He found Rthan’s strong blue line, thorny with spikes of red rage, entwined with other lines, mostly purple laced with red malice. Images of the recent past flashed around him, just glimpses, but enough for him to see Rthan given charge of the Initiates by Brena. Enough to see the pack of hotheaded youths set upon him without provocation.

Kavio frowned. He gestured to Tamio. “You—you’re the sept leader of these other young men?”

Tamio nodded, cocky and proud.

“You defied the teacher and elder given charge of you,” Kavio said. “And then you lied about it. That is insubordination. No warrior would be allowed such defiance.
Still less a Tavaedi.
Do you know the punishment for insubordination?”

The young man’s face drained of all color, but to his credit, he stood his ground. “Whipping.”

“By a gauntlet of your own peers,” finished Kavio. “Take off your Tavaedi costume until you have redeemed your honor.”

With a glare of mingled hate and humiliation, Tamio stripped to his loincloth.

Brena looked grim, but she didn’t contradict Kavio when he gave the order for the Tavaedi Initiates to each select a branch from the nearby trees,
then
form two lines. There were perhaps
two dozen
young men and women in each of the parallel lines. At Kavio’s nod, Tamio took a deep breath and began to run as swiftly as he could between the two rows. His peers lashed him with the branches as he sprinted past them. By the time he reached the end of the gauntlet, his back and buttocks flamed from the blows. A few tears of pain squeezed out of the corners of his eyes. He dashed them away quickly, and Kavio pretended not to notice.

“You took your blows bravely.” He leaned forward and pitched his words for Tamio alone. “There’s a better use for that courage.”

Tamio tossed his head. From the young man’s sullen twitch of brow and lips, it was impossible to tell if he took the words to heart or merely concealed his bile. Kavio had only sent one other man through the Gauntlet: Vultho, Hertio’s kinsman. Vultho had retreated into a hate-filled sulk ever since. That had been no loss, since Vultho had been stupid, drunk or sober, to begin with, but Tamio had promise.

“Is there aught else I can help you with, Zavaedi Brena?” he asked. He considered her disheveled state. “Any problem with the fae?”

She brushed dried glittery blue blood from her arm and straightened her dress.

“Not at all. Why do you ask?”

“If you have no further need of them, I would like to talk to Rthan and Tamio privately. If you two will come with me?”

They both looked dubious, but followed him out of the practice area. Kavio wondered what Dindi had decided, but he did not glance up toward where he had last seen her. Instead, he followed the gurgling sound of water to a hidden cove along the river. A number of men and a few women already waited there. They had boats ready, and a number of different kinds of weapons arranged neatly on oiled skins.

Kavio said. “Rthan, I hope you haven’t forgotten our bargain.”

“I can keep my end,” Rthan said. “Can you?”

Kavio scratched his cheek. “There is one little problem. Hertio thinks we have no need of learning to fight in boats. As a matter of fact, he forbade me to train the Yellow Bear warriors in your people’s method of combat.”

Rthan looked at the boats, the waiting men and women, the piles of weapons.

“Don’t worry,” Kavio said. “I found a way around it. All of these warriors, though most of them were born in Yellow Bear, are of Rainbow Labyrinth kinborn. So I’m not disobeying my War Chief’s command.”

Rthan muttered something that may have been ‘slippery eel.’

His opinion didn’t matter. Rthan wasn’t in a position to bear tales to Hertio prematurely, before Kavio had a chance to prove the value of his approach. Tamio might. He was still stinging from the humiliation of the gauntlet. Time to offer the honey.

“If you want to fight Rthan, here’s your chance,” Kavio told him. “But I should warn you. This time, he’s going to hit back.”

As evening fell, Rthan poked at the mat on the ground across the hut from
Brena’s
own, more comfortable cot. He loved the smell of Brena’s cozy
hut. Rosmary and sage and cinnamon and a dozen other mysterious herbs from her wall
of little pots, baskets and amulets permeated the smoky air.

“Rthan,” she said, unexpectedly right behind him.

He nearly jumped. Her breath felt warm against his back.

“I missed one of your injuries,” she said. She stroked his arm. He looked at the arm in question, but all he saw was a scratch. Not a bone deep,
blood-gushing
slice from elbow to wrist that one could wave at one’s buddies and laugh, “Naw, it’s just a scratch,” but an actual,
angry
-
kitten
-
tussled
-
string
-
from
-
your
-
fingers
scratch. When she began to fuss again with her jars and poultices, he lost patience. He pried the jars of goo from her hands.

“Woman!” he barked. “Enough! A healthy man cannot have your hands all over him like that without a healthy response.”

“Return my ointment at once!” She tried to reach around his
chest to wrestle back her jars.

Instead of returning them, Rthan set them down and lifted her up. Though she squealed in protest, he carried her all the way to her bed and set her down in the pile of soft otter fur. She kept struggling, he responded by pinning her wrists over her head, and it wasn’t until he heard her sharp intake of breath that he looked down at her. She lay helpless beneath him, undressed for bed and exquisitely lush. Firelight from the hearth
suffused her skin with
the glow of molten caramel. They had both known he had the ability to overpower her any time he wanted. It was a different thing to feel it, tangibly, to have her at his mercy again, as she had been the first night they met on the tor of dark magic. A question flickered in her dark gold eyes.

He released her abruptly. 
“It’s late, it’s cold, pull up your blankets and go to bed.”

He had escaped halfway back to his own lonely mat, when she said, low and sultry, “The blanket is not as warm as you. I’m still cold.”

He took another step towards his mat.

“Colder,” she said.

Another step away from her.

“Colder,” she said.

He turned around. She had not pulled the blankets up at all. Instead, she had unleashed her breasts from the leather wraps that normally held them firm against her chest. He step
ped
toward her.

“Warmer,” she said, “But not warm enough.”

He came to the bed.

“Warmer,” she whispered.

He lowered himself over her. Her breasts fit into his questing hands. With his thumbs, he pressed and teased her nipples. She sighed into his kiss.

“Was it this you wanted?” He reached for the little jar, opened it and slid two of his fingers into the slick salve.

“That is an herbal lotion used for soothing and moistening the skin,” she said, trying once more to grab it from him. “It is not for play!”

“But I want to play.”  He captured her hands again and held them over her head. “And I’m tired of you being the only one allowed to rub on lotions.”

Brena tried to sit up, to restore order, but Rthan held he down and her body seemed more interested in cooperating with him than with the stern voice in her mind warning her this was dangerous territory. Then Rthan began to massage the oil into her skin, and any remaining ability she retained to resist him melted. Slowly and masterfully, he slid his hands down her neck, down her arms, up her calves, up her legs. He kneaded her breasts, wheeling her nipples with his fingers. Each expanse of skin he claimed tingled with heat.

Then she felt her thighs parted, and, knowing what he intended, bashfulness overtook her pleasure and made her struggle to escape him. Her shame was absurd
—
she had lain with a man before, and birthed two babes
—
but with Rthan she felt like an Initiate again, embarrassed at the strength of her need, shy of what he might think of her. However, he would not let her go. With a firm, but strong, hold, he spread her thighs again, and with deliberate slowness, worked the ointment into
her secret places
. Then he lowered his mouth and licked the liquid he had just applied, until her own liquid made her wet. His tongue quickened. She thrashed and cried aloud as another wave of scrumptious warmth bathed her.