From Across the Clouded Range (16 page)

“
I was so sorry to hear
about your aunt,” Dasen started when he saw that she had returned.
“I spoke with Governor Rawlins when we arrived. He has offered the
use of this house on Lake Mithrel for as long as we require. I am
told it is only a few hours away by coach. We can stay there until.
. . . well, until . . .”

Teth felt her emotion rise at the
thought of her Aunt’s death. “Thank you,” she cut Dasen off to
spare him from saying what they both dreaded. “That is very kind of
you.”

“
I thought we could use
the time to prepare you for life in the city. I brought you a book
that may help.” Dasen turned and picked a slim leather-bound book
from the chair where he had been sitting with Milne. He approached
and handed it to her. She looked at the spine,
A Woman’s Place in the Holy Order
.
She thumbed through the pages, saw that they had been printed on a
press rather than transcribed, something not often seen in Randor’s
Pass. Several phrases had been underlined. She read one of the
first:

It is well established
that women lack the mental capacity to see and understand the
Order. It is thus the purpose of men to be their guides. Without
this guidance, women will quickly loose site of the Order and fall
into Chaos. Thus women must be subservient to men so that the Order
can be maintained.

Teth felt her anger rise with each
word but managed somehow to keep it from her face. Somewhere, Dasen
was still speaking, “. . . this can be a guide as you prepare for
your new life. I will be happy to help you. That is the role of a
husband, after all.”

Teth ground her teeth to
keep herself from screaming. So this is how it would be. Dasen
already had his plan to turn her into a proper, subservient little
baby machine. And like any good student, he had a book to show him
how. She finally drew her eyes from the terrible book. Dasen was
smiling, as if her silence were confirmation that she accepted his
role over her. She wanted to slap that smile straight off his
face.
But
. She
took a deep breath. Now was not the time.
Wait
, she told herself.
You need him right now, but once you’re joined,
he’ll be as trapped as you.
Looking at
him, she was sure he was too weak and timid to hurt her, but she
had no such reservations. Alone at Lake Mithrel, she could think of
several ways to change Dasen’s mind. If he couldn’t help her, be
her friend, then she’d try something else. She managed a smile, he
already looked terrified. “Thank you for this and your promised
assistance. I am sure it will be very helpful.”

Dasen beamed. “I am so glad to hear
you say that. I know that you have not had a man to guide you, and
do not blame you for that. I am sure that your life has been hard
without that guidance, but once you have found your way back to the
Order, you will see how much easier it is to be part of a
community, to make friends, and find fulfillment in your
life.”

Fulfillment in my life as
your slave?
she thought but kept smiling
and nodding.
Save your anger for a time
when you can use it
, she told herself. “I
have always struggled with my place in the community,” she cooed.
“I hope that this will be a new start.”

“
I am sure it will.” Dasen
almost grabbed her arms in his excitement. “And I am sure you will
enjoy your time at the university. I can teach you some things
about the matronly side of the Order, but the counselors in the
women’s college have dedicated their lives to its study. Their
guidance will be a revelation, I am sure.”

“
I have no doubt,” Teth
nodded like a dog seeking a scrap of meat.
A bunch of men who’ve never been joined telling me how to be
a better woman, I can’t wait for that
.

“
Of course, I will help
you prepare your letter seeking admittance.”

“
Could you? I am so
nervous about my writing.” Perhaps, when I’m through, he’ll use
those skills to write a letter telling his father that he has no
intentions of returning to the city. He could buy a cottage in the
forest somewhere and live as her slave instead.

“
It would be my pleasure.
The letter will have to be worded carefully.”
Oh, very carefully
, Teth thought.
“We cannot deceive the di valati regarding your time away from the
Order. We will have to emphasize your lack of guidance, deep
regret, and desire to find the Order again.”

“
Deep regret,” Teth
echoed.

“
I am sure that the di
valati will find that a compelling reason to approve your study.”
Dasen looked at her, beaming. The joy on his face was almost
infectious, almost. Teth, for her part, hoped that he was too
entranced by her doe eyes to see the smirk that she could not fully
banish from her face.

“
It appears the sun is
falling behind the mountains,” Teth observed. “We wouldn’t want to
defy the Order before we have even been joined.” She had gotten
everything she needed from Dasen and was ready for him to leave. In
the end, he was just like every other boy she had met. He would
never accept her for who she was. He would try to force her to be
something she could never be, insist that she learn her place,
follow his rules, be his toy. Perhaps he would use his intellect
rather than his fists, but it was all the same to her. Well, she
had a lot of experience with his type, and Dasen would soon find
out what happened when Tethina Galbridge was pushed, she pushed
back, hard.

Dasen managed to pull his eyes from
her and glance out the window. Long shadows were indeed creeping
over the cottage and surrounding clearing. The Order dictated that
a woman not see any men once the sun set on the night before she
was joined. They likely had another hour before full sunset, but
she counted on Dasen not knowing how the mountains made the sun
seem to set early. “You are quite right,” he conceded. “I have to
say that it has been a pleasure speaking with you. I . . . well, I
do not know what I expected, but I am much encouraged by our match.
I hope you feel the same.”

“
I certainly do. Now you
should be on your way. I have much work to do to prepare myself for
the ceremony.”

“
Please, pass along my
thanks to your aunt and my regrets that I was not able to bid her
goodbye.” With that, Dasen found her hand, brought it to his lips,
and kissed it gently. Luckily, he did not see the look of distaste
on her face – even though her heart betrayed her by doubling its
pace. He rose, backed away a step, and finished, “I shall look
forward to seeing you tomorrow and beginning our journey
together.”

“
Yes,” Teth managed. No
one had ever had the audacity to kiss her before, even on the hand,
and she was surprised that she could still feel where his lips had
brushed her. She cursed herself for acting the girl, but the
unwelcome reaction seemed to please Dasen. He smiled genuinely.
Teth had to admit that it was a nice smile, there was kindness in
it, a warmth that no person, beyond her aunt, had shown her in
years. She cursed herself again for her weakness and cast the
thought from her mind. “I will see you tomorrow,” she finished.
“Thank you for coming.”

They smiled dumbly at each other for a
few more heartbeats before Dasen turned, nearly stumbled over a
chair, and, blushing, made his way out the door. He looked back one
last time before he reached the clearing and waved. For some
reason, Teth was sad to see him leave and almost regretted the way
their relationship would have to go. He seemed to actually like
her. She just wished it was the real Teth that he liked.

“
Tethina, what was that
about?” Milne’s voice rose as loud as Teth had heard in weeks. A
fit of coughs followed. Teth took a deep breath and turned
resolutely to face her aunt. On the way to her room, she casually
tossed Dasen’s book on to the fire.

“
I know you didn’t mean
any of that,” Milne scolded as soon as Teth walked through the door
to her room. She was propped up in her tiny bed with no intent of
sleeping. “So what are you trying to do? I thought we agreed that
you were going to be his friend, to trust him.” She coughed but
held up a hand to show that she was not finished. “If you’re going
to trust him, you have to be honest with him.”

“
Did you see that book he
brought?” Teth proclaimed defensively. “He has already decided what
my place should be. He’s no different from Counselor Torpy, except
that he’ll be my husband. He can do a lot more than make me
transcribe
The Book of
Valatarian
.”

“
I did not see the book,”
Milne admitted, “but I met Dasen. He is just like he was as a boy:
considerate, kind, thoughtful. I promise you that he doesn’t want
to hurt you. But he doesn’t know what to do any more than you do.
So he has read some silly books. That is what he does. It is up to
you to show him that his books are wrong. And you can’t do that
unless you put down that constant guard of yours. Let him know you.
Let him see the real Tethina. Allow him to know and love you like
Ipid and I do. Show him that you are willing to compromise but be
honest with him about where the line is. Do you really think that
Ipid or I would allow you to be joined to someone who will not love
you. Surely, it will take time and work, but if you allow it, I
know that he will love you, the real you.”

Milne’s words stung like needles. Teth
knew that her aunt was right, but she couldn’t risk it. It was too
much of a leap with a boy she barely knew. “It is so hard,” she
whispered, wiping a tear from her cheek. “Why does it have to be so
hard?”

“
Because for some reason
that is what the Order has deemed for you.” Milne held out her
arms. Teth climbed into her bed and laid her head on her aunt’s
rattling chest. “The Order must have great plans for you, because
it has tempered you more than any child I have ever
seen.”

#

Dasen walked back toward Randor’s Pass
in a much better mood than he had enjoyed on his first trip down
the inhuman path. His initial impression of Tethina had been
everything he feared. She looked like a wild boy crammed into his
sister’s dress. Girls, by his estimation, were supposed to be
shapely, plump, and soft. None of those words would ever be used to
describe Tethina. Everything about her was jagged, slim, and hard.
She was not muscle bound as he had feared but rather lean and
sleek, like a deer. At the same time, she had none of the features
that typically defined a woman: no breasts that Dasen could see,
narrow hips, hair shorter than his own. Her face was angular and
sharp. There was no plumpness to her cheeks or the long expanse of
her neck. Her face and arms were as tanned as a peasant working a
field, and she did not wear a speck of powder to lighten her
complexion or rouge to highlight her cheeks. Yet, her eyes were
sparklingly blue, so alive that Dasen could not help but be drawn
into them. Her lips were full, smile infectious. And her hair, what
there was of it, was fine and of the most intriguing light-auburn
color. Dasen could also not help but admit his excitement at seeing
the expanse of shapely leg and thin ankles at the bottom of her
ill-fitted dress.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind,
she was also so familiar to him. He could almost imagine running
behind her as a child, rolling in the grass, sleeping in the same
bed, talking quietly after the house was dark. He could not
reconcile in his mind how someone so strange could at the same time
be so familiar.

Yet most encouraging was how much
Tethina seemed to want to change, to find her proper place in the
Order. Dasen had expected that to be a long, slow struggle, but it
was clear that she had come to the same conclusion he had, that she
could not continue on her current path and needed guidance to
change. They clearly still had work ahead of them, but if her
current attitude held, he was confident that they would find their
way.

He stumbled on a root, caught himself
on a nearby tree, and silently cursed the path. Couldn’t they at
least smooth it out? He could not wait to be away from these rustic
villages without even so much as a proper street. It was really no
wonder that Tethina had turned out as she had. Living in this
backwater, surrounded on all sides by impenetrable forest, as far
as a person could reasonably get from real civilization, it was a
wonder that the villagers were not all Sylian savages. Its
proximity to the White River, which could carry logs all the way to
Thoren, made Randor’s Pass the most populous village in this area,
but it was still tiny by Dasen’s standards. The people he had seen
were like those in the other woodland villages they had passed:
stocky, rough-looking men built to fell trees and demure women in
long dresses with impossibly long braids hidden under their
bonnets. The children were ragged, dirty, and rough but they were
also stout, vital, and energetic. And all of them, men, women, and
children, held their head up, had life in their eyes, and
determination on their faces. This was not like the depravity he
saw at his father’s mills, the dirty scarecrows working the fields
of the plains, or the nodding deference that defined the servants
in the noble houses.

Tripping again, Dasen concentrated on
the path and soon emerged in the village. He was dripping with
sweat, his legs were tired from the rough walk, and he was
breathing hard. He stopped to rest and cursed the scuffs on his
boots. They were new, meant for tomorrow’s ceremony, and horribly
uncomfortable, but he had wanted to make an impression on Tethina.
Now he would have to ask Elton to polish them again. He hated
making the big man do such menial work, but he was the only servant
who had completed the trip.