“You want to… My God, Natahk, haven’t you done enough? Can’t you leave us any peace at all?”
“I want only to speak with her, Verrick. I won’t harm her as long as you obey me.”
Alanna spoke up quickly. “Jules, it’s all right. I’m not afraid.” She was, but her fear was for him. “Go, please. I’ll be all right.”
Jules stared at her with such a strange mixture of anger and concern that she was confused and silenced.
“My daughter?” he said to Natahk. “My house? You leave me no rights at all, do you, First Hunter?”
“The right to live your life with your family in peace, as long as you obey me. Go.”
Alanna spoke up again. “Please, Jules. Go.”
Jules looked from Natahk to Alanna, and finally to Neila. He gestured Neila to him, but she hesitated.
“Go,” said Alanna urgently. “Don’t let me be the cause of your getting hurt.”
Neila went to Jules and they left the house together. Alanna looked after them sadly. Then she heard Natahk sit down again and she turned to face him. “You are destroying him.”
“If he cannot change, he will be destroyed. He knows that.”
Alanna sighed and sat down. “What do you want of me, Natahk?”
“A narrative. Reasonably detailed, true.”
It was what she had expected—what he had promised her days before. She relaxed a little. “Where shall I begin?”
“With your capture.”
She obeyed, telling her story easily, altering only those facts that would indicate that her husband was something more than a judge.
Natahk questioned her from time to time, but for the most part, he listened. She did not know how much he believed, did not care. She kept to the truth as much as she could because her story was so long. She wanted to be able to tell it over in the same way as many times as Natahk might wish without having to struggle to remember too many lies. But surprisingly, Natahk seemed content with one telling.
“Why are you still here?” he asked when she had finished. “You could have left with the prisoners—should have left with them.”
She looked at him, startled. “Should have?”
“If you intended to rejoin your husband. It was your last chance.”
She shrugged.
“You do not believe me. You still expect your Tehkohn friends to help you, even though you will be on your way south before noon.”
Alanna said nothing. Let him worry. She would have been busy praying herself—if she had been Missionary enough to pray.
“You ask for punishment,” said Natahk. “You challenge.”
“I have said nothing.”
“Yes.” Natahk yellowed slightly. “Even your silences challenge. Why did you stay, Alanna?”
“To help my people.”
“Which group?”
“The Missionaries. Do you think the Tehkohn need my help?”
“And what is it you want to help them do?”
“Live. In spite of your goading. In spite of their beliefs.”
“That is a fragment of truth. Now tell me the rest.”
“I… hoped to free them from the meklah.”
“Why? The meklah does no harm as long as it is eaten regularly.”
“And it does no good. Do you not withhold it to torture your captive Missionaries?”
“We withhold it until they obey-and they learn to obey very quickly. But are you less vulnerable to me because you are free of the meklah? Was your father?”
She did not answer.
“You planned for the Missionaries to leave the valley,” he accused. “It is the only answer. But where were they to go?”
The truth? No. But what lie was possible? “I don’t know.”
He stood and came to face her. “I have not wanted to beat you.”
She did not have to pretend fear. “When Jules talked with the Tehkohn Hao, Diut promised to move the Missionaries to a place of safety if they co-operated. And he promised to have them all killed if they refused.”
Natahk stared at her, unbelieving. “Are you saying that he did nothing more than threaten, and Verrick believed?”
“Yes.”
