When he didn’t answer immediately, Lowden did. “The woman needs be punished.”

“Says who?” Tedra demanded, rounding on the man with baleful eyes. “And what’s with all this farden interference, anyway? This is between me and the warrior here, who got exactly what he deserved for the dirty hand he dealt me by not owning up to who he is.”

“Woman-”

“Forget it, Lowden uncle,” she cut him off. “Punishment is uncalled for in this case and won’t be accepted, so keep your suggestions to yourself, why don’t you. And he can get away with calling me woman, but to you I’m Tedra De Arr.”

Challen stepped between them at that point, recovered enough to take command. “Leave be, Lowden. The woman feels she had good reason for her anger, and in part she does. I cared not to discuss with her what she has to discuss with the shodan, so she was not told that I am he. Such was not the doing of a shodan, but of a warrior more interested in other things.” The way he looked at Tedra just then, no one had to ask, “What other things?”

“I admit my wrong, woman,” he then said to her. “Has your honor been satisfied?”

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 another shodan to 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’d show it.

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.”

“This is 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.”

Neither man appeared to have understood a word she said, and Lowden verified this. “I will take my leave, shodan. The woman makes my head ache trying to grasp her meanings.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, Tedra snorted. “I happen to know I speak excellent Sha-Ka’ani. What wasn’t to understand?”

“He has not had the opportunity I have had in deciphering your shortened words, but what you have just said still makes no sense, woman. People cannot survive without family.”

“Sure they can. We manage to just fine. It’s just one more of the many differences between our planets, differences I know you don’t care to hear about, so I won’t bore you with an explanation. Details like that can wait for the shodan I finally get around to dealing with, if he’s interested.”

She had to turn away from his look of chagrin before she laughed out loud. Talk about your subtle revenge. He was dying to question her further, but he wouldn’t, not after what he had admitted to his uncle Lowden about deliberately avoiding such talk with her.

An uncle, imagine that. Challen must also have real parents, or did have, maybe even siblings. She should have realized that sooner, primitive culture that this was, and she herself had some questions she’d like to ask now. But having effectively closed the subject in the way she had, she couldn’t ask either.

She didn’t let the lost opportunity bother her, however, and busied herself looking over her new sleeping quarters instead. Here she was a little more than impressed. The sheer size of the room nearly made her drool. This single chamber the shodan used only for sleeping was twice the size of her whole new house. Of course, there were no movable walls here to section off individual rooms for separate needs. What you saw was what you got. But she liked what she saw.

Like the meeting rooms below, this room was also extremely light and airy, with tall arched windows along one long wall, even taller arched openings on another that led out to what looked like a large garden balcony. Sheer white curtains stirred with gentle breezes over these openings, blending in with the white-and-silver-veined, marblelike walls and floors. There was more of the soft blue carpeting in certain areas, under and around the mammoth bed, under low, backless couches that surrounded a large square table, also low to the floor, and made of some kind of highly polished dark wood. Another fancier piece, a good ten feet round and with white designs running through the blue, was smack in the center of the room, for show obviously, since there was nothing on it.