The man with the sash of red would have shouted Bryahn quiet, but instead was too involved with answering the questions of those who stood around him— distraught, almost hysterical questions. Bryahn’s hand on Lisah’s arm guided her toward the cave mouth, Wind Whisper leaving off cleaning herself to accompany them, and a moment later they were out in the clean, fresh air of the woods again. It was nearer sundown than it had been, the dimness of overhead greenery turning to shadowy dark, and once they had put sufficient distance between themselves and the cave, Bryahn wiped his sword on his pants leg and finally resheathed the weapon. Lisah, reminded by that that she still held her own weapon, did the same, then glanced uncomfortably about. A difficult situation had been faced and overcome, but there was still a far more unpleasant one ahead.
“I find it difficult to remember when I last met a bunch like that,” Bryahn said, still faintly put out. “It would be pleasant to believe that what we said will make a difference, but unfortunately I know better.
That chief fool will begin spouting his nonsense again, and as quickly as he does the bunch of them will be his once more.”
He waited for an agreement from the girl who walked beside him, at the very least a comment or a grumble, but nothing of the sort was offered. Perhaps she had been more shaken by the encounter than he’d realized.
“Your silence seems rather heavy, Lisah,” Bryahn observed after a moment, Wind Whisper having just confirmed the fact that they were not being followed. “Is something disturbing you?”
“I have no need of a pretense of concern from you, Bryahn,” the girl responded, the words as stiff as her back. “I may have little experience with men, but as you can see I have finally found my way through to the truth. Do me the courtesy of no longer considering me a mere child who needs to be told tales of love and devotion. Duty and honor will see me through what needs to be done, and then you and I may part company.”
“These woods have grown darker than I thought,” Bryahn muttered, totally at a loss as to what her meaning might be. “I had thought I was in the midst of finding my way easily, but instead I discover myself suddenly lost. What pretense of concern are you talking about, and what is it that needs to be done?” “You know very well what I mean,” Lisah replied, the stiffness still fully with her. “You used a pretense of love to cozen me out of my chain, but miscalculated when you thought to simply demand my sword. I will not only not surrender my sword, I also demand the return of my chain. My entire panoply will be needed when I am finally able to leave you.”
“I see,” Bryahn said, taken aback by how far the misunderstanding between them had gone. “And the time you are able to leave me will be when?”
“When I have given you the heirs I agreed to bear,” she said, her chin high with a definite air of martyrdom about her. “Duty and honor demand that I I fulfill the agreement made, but happily say nothing about the need to remain, once my duty is done, with a man who hates me. With your second wife beside you, you will scarcely notice I am gone.”
“My second wife?” Bryahn echoed in confusion, wondering if the encounter with the beast had unbalanced her. “I barely have a first wife, one it so happens I do love. How can you believe I hate you?”
“How could I believe anything else?” she countered, giving him no more than a quick glance. “A man who loves a woman accepts her as she is. Only when he hates what she is does he continually try to change her. Your own actions have shown me the truth, Bryahn.”
Bryahn stared wordlessly down at the girl, stunned at the manner in which she had taken the perfectly ordinary arrangements that any man would have made concerning his new wife. It was his duty to be certain she was safe, and how might she be safe if he allowed her to continue wearing armor and weapons?
The man made a sound in his throat as he listened, for the first time, to the tenor of his thoughts. If she would be safer without armor and weapons, then so would everyone else, he and his fighters included. He had been lying to himself, and just like those people back in the cavern, hadn’t wanted to give up so comforting a posture.
“It seems those poor fools behind us are not the only ones with fear-beasts,” he said at last with a sigh, putting his arm around the girl to stop her determined forward progress. Their camp was not far ahead, the cookfires showing more brightly across the landbridge over the stream, and he wanted to say what he had to say before they got back. “Lisah, you will come to know that I do love you, but you may not have the return of your chain, nor will you retain your sword once we have reached Dunkahn lands and your new home. The fear-beast I sacrifice to has as much substance as the one we slew—and just as little—and therefore does it refuse to be denied.”
“Your concept of love is to deny me utterly then,” the girl said, her shadowy face looking up at him with less expression than her voice. “Clearly, then, I must learn to practice the same sort of love with you.”
“You reply to an attack that has not truly been launched,” he told her, tightening his arm and adding the second to keep her from pulling away. “There is no denial in my love, only full acceptance, and now you may riddle me this: if you should come upon a battle you find of interest and your armor and weapons are upon you, will you join the battle, or smile faintly as you pass it by?”
“Why—I would join it, of course,” she answered, the words hesitant with uncertainty. “Would you expect me to do anything else?”
“No, I certainly would not,” he responded, feeling himself smile at the woman who was his. “And that, my girl, is the reason you will not have your armor and weapons. My fear-beast is the thought of losing you before we have truly had one another to learn and love, and I am helpless to deny it. It must be your fear-beast which is denied, for our sake as well as the sake of others.”
“What,is it you think I fear?” she asked, uncertain whether or not to be angry. “And for what reason need I concern myself with others? They may do as they please just as I do the same.”
“What you fear is that you will never have the opportunity to prove the skill you have acquired,” he said, speaking gently as he stroked her light brown hair. “The fear is reasonable and is shared by every man and woman who has ever had battle skills to be proud of, but you may no longer allow it to rule you. The others I made mention of—they may not do as they please, for they are the children we hope to have, our beloved offspring who will never see the light of day if you are slain in battle. Do you still consider them ones you need not concern yourself with?”
“I—had not thought to look at it in such a way,” the girl said in answer, staring up at his face with disturbance now filling her. “I would not deny life to my own children, but—what of my life and needs? Must I concern myself only with the needs of others?” “There is nothing of ‘must’ about it,” he answered, continuing to stroke her hair. “I have discovered another fear-beast of mine which I have already buried my sword in, and never again will I pay it homage. All decisions about armor and weapons and joining or not in passing battles—those decisions are now yours to make rather than mine. I have enough trust in the wisdom of your judgment to know the decisions will be the right ones, right for you, for me, for everyone. Wrong is sometimes right and right is sometimes wrong, and we all must learn to take life as it rolls past us. I shall no longer see you as a woman to be changed, only one to be accepted as she is. Are you able to accept me as / am?”
“Pigheadedly stubborn and with a tongue as well oiled as a sword properly wrapped for storage?” she demanded, but Bryahn was delighted to hear a laugh along with the words. Then she raised a hand to his face, and he knew he had chosen correctly. “Wrong is right when the fear-beast to be bowed to is yours, but right is wrong when my interests disagree with yours,” she said, not having missed those very obvious points. “I will first need to think about all this, and then you may have my very proper, very correct decisions. And I may yet leave you when I have given you the heirs I promised.”