Chapter Seven
Indya waved to Mavia, who was riding in the cart, Zozo running with Ashka. Mavia waved back. Mavia was coming with her to Averdine, and Indya's friend hadn't seemed sad to leave Edith, who had returned.
It wasn't difficult to see why. Edith was a huge, angry-seeming man, as big as Kythe and Zen, and he hadn't seemed happy to find the rí at his home. Indya had no idea how Mavia, so full of laughter, could have had such a child. Indya blamed Mavia's husband, whom she disliked even never having met him, but she didn't say so to Mavia.
Edith had refused to allow Mavia to to Averdine with Indya, shaking his head, not even looking at Indya after his first alarmed, sweeping glance. "She's got no use to me anymore," Edith said, giving Mavia a glance, "but she's still my responsibility."
"She has many uses, you saying that," Indya had cried, almost in tears, she was so angry.
"Please, Indya," Mavia had said in a low voice, meeting her eyes, Indya aching to see the disappointment there.
But Kythe and Zen had spoken to Edith privately, the man looking angry and scared, and Edith had consented. Indya still didn't know why Mavia would need permission, considering Mavia was the parent in the relationship.
"He's had too many disappointments in his life," Mavia said on the day they left, when Edith stayed in the cabin and didn't say goodbye to Mavia. Mavia was making excuses for his bad behavior, her hands arranging a shawl on her lap. "The girl he pined after married another with more land, and he had ambitions that didn't get met. Maybe now that I'm not a burden to him, he'll find what he wants."
"You are never being a burden to nobody ever," Indya had said, feeling such a wave of anger on behalf of her friend that she'd had to swallow the rest of what she wanted to say. "You are joy with your laughing that makes everyone around you be happy."
Now Indya was riding Saba, looking around herself at Matise, this land Zen and Kythe's father ruled, which they crossed into on the third day. Even now, the rí didn't ride without other men, and there were twenty in the camp when they got there.
And there had been Kythe and Zen's familiar tent. So, Indya had her own tent again, and Mavia lived there, and Mavia never said anything when Indya was gone for the night, which was every night. When Kythe and Zen came to her tent, Mavia was quiet in front of the rí, sewing and sewing, but every once in a while, if someone said something funny, Indya would hear her raspy laugh from the corner.
It was still cold, but she was warm in clothes Kythe and Zen had given her, soft boots that she loved. She hadn't ridden yesterday, not able to sit on a horse. Today, she still was glad to stop in the afternoon, rubbing her bottom, Kythe's eyes slanting to hers and a smile coming to his mouth.
* * *
"What's the matter, nina?" Zen had said the first night she'd visited their tent after they'd come back, in the evening.
She'd been walking around their tent quietly, Zozo following her like he was afraid she'd disappear again, looking at things, thinking how foolish she'd been, how much she'd scared them. How much she'd scared herself. She could have died for nothing more than one man's lies and her pride. She'd gone and sat down, Zozo coming to her and putting his head on her lap, Indya stroking his head.
"What's wrong, alea?" Kythe said.
Looking down at her hands, she had answered. "I don't stop think about what I did. I don't give you reasons in my letter. You don't know why. I saying I'm sorry to you, but it's not enough for me. I was being proud too much to wait for the truth. How do you punish your people when they are doing something wrong?"
"The men? We eschdul them," Zen said.
"What is that?"
"We tie them by their hands to a post in the ground and strike them with an esh."
"What is an esch?" she said a little more faintly.
Kythe walked to a chest and opened it, pulling it out and showing her.
Indya swallowed, her vision going a little gray at the edges. Then she nodded. "You will do this to me," she said, setting her jaw, her heart pounding. She'd clasped her hands together because they were shaking.
"Nina," Zen said, his voice saying no.
She frowned at him, her nose flaring, her chin coming up. "I'm not afraid," she said, "Well, I am being afraid, but if your peoples is enduring this punishment, I is enduring, and then I am forgiving myself. I'm strong."
"She's right," Kythe said. "She will take her stripes for what she has done, not giving us a chance to tell her the truth, running from us and almost dying, making us worry and look for her for months. Will you accept your punishment from me, how I will do it? I am the one who punishes the men. You don't have to worry I will go easy on you."
"Yes," Indya said, breathing fast, looking up at him. "And it will be over."
"Then it will be over," Kythe agreed. "We will do it here, now."
"Now?" she said, beginning to shake. "Yes. Okay, now." Her heart was thudding in her chest. It was better this way. She didn't want to wait, anticipating it. Kythe was being kind.
"She's frightened, brother," Zen said.
"As she should be," Kythe said. "She's not only going to be our wife, brother. We don't want another woman, so she will also be our savorenella. Our savorenella comes to us and asks for punishment for something she's done. Shall we deny her, or shall we take our pleasure on her striped flesh?"
Indya looked at Zen. He studied her face and then he rose, his breathing deeper. "Go lie down," he said to Zozo and Ashka, who went straight to their places, his voice different.
"Then stand up, savoronella, woman-for-sex, and strip," Kythe said. "Leave your hair in the tail. We want to see your face, see your sweet body."
She stood, shaking all over like she was cold, her hands going to the fastenings of her dress behind her. She dropped all of it onto the floor and was naked. She looked at Kythe's face when he came and looked down at her, that same cool expression.
"You've never felt the lash before. You're gentle and unused to pain. You've said you want this. But if you can't bear it, make a fist with this hand," Kythe said, touching her right hand, "and Zen will tell me. I will stop, little alea. There's no shame."
"All right," she said, her eyes still on his face.
Zen walked and picked up the high bench for the saddles to rest on and set it down in the middle of the floor, beginning to secure a rope to it.
Kythe's huge hands went to her breasts, cupping them, her nipples jutting. He rested them there, his eyes on them. "I missed you, alea, like fire. I thought of you, lying awake in the night, wanting your warmth. You are made for us. I want to whip you and hear your cries."
He said that and her nipples twinged and got hard, even though he hadn't touched them. His eyes were on them, flashing to hers, and his face took on that cruel-for-sex expression now. She squirmed a little, her heart pounding so hard she knew he could feel it against his palms.
He dropped his hands and leaned down and spoke in her ear, his voice quiet. "I'm going to strip it all away and find the center of you, beautiful alea, pretty flower, where you're so soft. You're mine for this time and I'll do what I like."
