Had he used any other word but “honor,” she would have stubbornly said no. But he was in essence calling forth her own sense of fair play with that word, so what else could she do but concur?
“As for wrongs, I suppose one canceled out the other—as long as I don’t hear any more talk of punishment.”
“For this there will be none,” he assured her, only to add, “Whether you earn future punish—”
“I get the picture!” she snapped, her temper right back up there with that unnecessary reminder. It goaded her enough to tell him, “And when my service is up, I’ll find anothershodanto speak my piece to, so you don’t have to worry that I’ll bother you with discussions you’re not interested in. You aren’t nearly open-minded enough to suit my needs, anyway.”
“As you wish,” he said, but she had the feeling she’d just hit a nerve. She just wished he’dshowit.
Chapter Twenty
The route to the state bedchamber, or whatever it was called, was direct, up a grand set of stairs and to the right, down another wide hallway also centered with a soft blue carpet; and there were the doors, two gigantic carved wooden ones that Tedra had the uneasy suspicion only a warrior’s strength could open. Her warrior had no trouble doing so and she was ushered inside, and immediately found out why the older warrior, Lowden, had accompanied them.
“Do you now apologize to my uncle,” Challen told her in a no-nonsense tone.
She almost laughed. She did grin. There was no way she could have missed the large bed right upon entering the room, so she couldn’t mistake where she was, and that he meant to take advantage of it.
“What’s the matter, babe? Didn’t you think that request would get results outside this room?”
“That thought had occurred to me,kerima.Do you now do as you are instructed.”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “Why not?” And she gave the stony-faced Lowden a cheeky grin. “Sorry for dumping you on the floor, Lowdy, and for whatever other disrespect you feel I showed you. Things like that tend to happen, though, when strange men put their hands on me.”
“Thisis an apology, Challen?” Lowden asked, indignation still heavy in his voice.
Challen sighed. “In her way, yes. She is different, not from Kan-is-Tra or even a country known to us. This must be taken into account when dealing with her, else a warrior can easily find his control threatened.”
“If I’m such a trial to you, warrior, why don’t you end my service and send me on my way?” Tedra suggested.
“You are no trial to me, since I have your complete obedience, do I not?”
She wasn’t about to get tricked up by a word like “complete.” “In this room you do.”
“So this is her challenge-loss service,” Lowden said, that knowledge for some reason lightening his mood. He even chuckled. “You should have made this clear,shodan.Her conduct is then yours alone to see to.”
“Why does that amuse him?” Tedra wanted to know.
Challen also chuckled, now that he understood Lowden’s earlier disgruntlement. “He thought you would fall to his jurisdiction. He has governance over the women of this house, you see.”
“Governance?”
“He sees to their proper behavior.”
“Ah, the whip-wielder. So that’s what an uncle is.”
They both looked at her strangely upon hearing that. She thought it was her derisive tone, but Challen’s question said differently.
“How is it you know not the word ‘uncle’?”
“I’d learned the word, just not its meaning, since we have nothing to compare it with on Kystran. It’s like the food and animals I told you about. I have most of the words, but until I can see them to make the connection …”
He was still locked on her first disclosure. “No uncles? Then what do you call the brother of your father?”
“The what of my—wait a minute. Are you talking about relatives?”
“Indeed; family, relatives, kin.”
“You don’t have to rub it in the ground. I’ve made the connection. And don’t look at me as if I should have known right off. I told you, we have nothing like that on Kystran—at least we haven’t had for centuries. But I recall now it was a subject in one of the few history lessons required by all.”
