beside her. He really did not know this woman well. She had remained aloof all the years the Master trained him, only instructing him curtly in computations. Thanks to her, he could count to one hundred, and tell whether six handfuls of four ears of corn were more than two baskets with fifteen ears each. (They were not.) Such calculations were difficult and pointless, and he had not enjoyed the lessons, and Sola had made him feel particularly stupid, but the Master had insisted. Thus his chief association with her had been negative.
He had been surprised when she was delegated-or had volunteered-to accompany him here for his manhood test. A woman! But as it had turned out, she was quite competent. She walked well, so that they made good distance each day and knew the route, and when they encountered strangers she had done the talking. They had spent the nights in the hostels, she in one bunk, he in another, though he would have preferred even now to sleep in a familiar tree. Aloof she remained, but she did not entirely conceal her body as she showered and changed for the night, and the glimpses he bad had, had given him painful erections. His nature was animal; any female, even one as old as this, provoked him. And she did know his origin and understand his limitations.
Now, in this strange unfriendly camp, hurt by his own failures, he had come to her-his only contact with his only friend, the Master.
'So you asked the young girls, and they ridiculed you,' she said. 'I had hoped better for you-but I was young once myself, and just as narrow. I thought power was most important-to marry a chief. And so I lost the man I loved, and now I am sorry.'
She had never talked like this before. Var lay silent, satisfied for the moment to listen. It was better than thinking of his own humiliations. She referred, of course, to her former husband-Sol of All Weapons, who had lost his empire to the Master, and had gone to the mountain with his baby girl. The episode had become legend already; everyone knew of that momentous transfer of power and that tragic father-daughter suicide.
If Sola had loved power so much that she had given up the man she loved and the daughter she had borne to him, and taken the victor to her bed-no wonder she suffered!
'Would you understand,' she asked, 'if I told you that when I thought I'd lost my love for ever, he returned to me-and I found that it was only his body, not his heart, that was mine, and even that body maimed and unfamiliar?'
'No,' Var said honestly. It was easier to voice the words for her, for she understood him whether or not his wilderness mouth cooperated.
'Not everything is what it seems,' she murmured. 'You, too, will find that friendship can make hard requirements of you, and those you might deem enemy are men to be trusted. Life is like that. Come, let's get this done with.'
He recognized a dismissal and began to crawl out of the tent.
'No,' she said gently, holding him back. 'This is your night, and you shall have it in full measure. I will be your woman.'
Var made a guttural sound, dumbfounded. Could he have-understood her correctly?
'Sorry, Var,' she said. 'I hit you with that too abruptly. Lie down.'
He lay down again.
'Wild boy,' she continued, 'you are not a man until you have taken a woman. So it is written in our unwritten code. I came to make sure you accomplished it all I have'-here she paused-'done this before. Long ago. My husband knows. Believe me, Var, though this appears to be a violation of the standards we have taught you, this is the way it must be. I cannot explain it further. But you must understand one thing, and promise me another.'
He had to speak. 'The Master-'
'Var, he knows!' she whispered fiercely. 'But he will never speak of it. This was decided almost ten years ago. And you must know this, too: I am older than you, but I am not past bearing age. The Nameless One is sterile. Tonight, and the nights that follow-it ends when we reach home camp. If you should beget a child on me, it will be the child of the Weaponless. I will never wear your bracelet. I will never touch you again, after this journey. I will never speak of what happened here between us, and neither will you. If I am pregnant, you will be sent away. You have no claim upon me. It will be as though it never happened-except that you will be a man. Do you understand!'
'No, no-' he mumbled, already sick with lust for her.
'You understand.' She reached out suddenly and put her hand upon his loin. 'You understand.'
He understood that she was offering her body to him, and that he had no stamina to refuse. He was wilderness bred; the willingness of the female was the male's command.
