Phaedra spent much of the night babbling incoherently, and shivering no matter how they piled their furs on top of her. She looked so frail and cold that Bandu joined her under the furs even though Narky thought it was wrong to touch sick people.
“Fevers can jump from one person to another,” he said, and Criton looked worried.
Phaedra sweated a lot that night, and Bandu woke up almost slippery with it. Phaedra looked a little better than before, but she was definitely not ready to travel. Bandu didn’t know if she would ever be ready. It was not much of a recovery, and it could just as easily get worse again.
“I’m going to die,” Phaedra mumbled, when Criton asked her how she felt.
Narky said that was fever-babble, but Bandu knew it wasn’t. Phaedra’s eyes could see them now.
“You’re not going to die,” Hunter more or less commanded. “You’re going to break this fever, and then we’re going to carry you out of these mountains.”
Phaedra looked dismayed. “I can’t,” she moaned. “I can’t go any farther than this. Moving hurts too much. I’m dying, Hunter.”
“You were strong enough to climb out of there,” he told her. “You can do this too.”
Phaedra sighed, but she did not object again.
“We go today,” Bandu suggested. “Too cold here for you.”
They carried Phaedra down the mountain on Grayleg’s back. Grayleg was slow and careful, but Phaedra still cried out faintly whenever the horse’s movements jostled her too hard. Nobody could blame Grayleg: she was doing her best, but going down the mountain would have been hard enough, even without Phaedra on her back. Anyway, that was not the worst part of their journey. The worst part was when the crows began to follow them again.
“Go away,” Bandu told them. She saw how they looked at Phaedra.
“There is no meal for you here,” she said. “Go, or I will eat you.”
She tried to say it quietly, but Narky heard her. He gave her a very angry look, and apologized to his God. Still, the birds stayed farther off after she threatened them. They knew that she wasn’t joking. Crows were no fools.
They had only one tent now, since Narky had used the other one as a rope. Narky insisted that crowding Phaedra was unhealthy, so tonight Bandu and Criton agreed to sleep outside. At least Bandu was used to it.
Criton had never slept out in the open before. He turned over and over and could not get comfortable, and the whispering wind was not a comfort to him. Bandu pulled him near and laid his head on her chest.
“Do you hear it?” she whispered to him.
“You mean your heart?”
“Yes,” she said. “What it says?”
Criton looked up at her. “It says, ‘I love you.’”
She laughed, her worries momentarily forgotten. “What it really says?”
“That’s all it says!” He was smiling too.
“No,” she told him. “I listen to Four-foot’s heart. You know what it says?”
“No,” he said, half sitting up. “What did it say?”
She took a deep breath. “It says ban-doo. It always says ban-doo.”
She saw his eyes widen with his understanding. “Did you used to have another name?” he asked.
“Maybe. I call myself Two-foot before.”
Criton nodded. “Do you want to listen to my heart?”
When she put her head on Criton’s chest, his heart was beating much faster than Four-foot’s heart ever had. It was pounding in excitement. And it was saying her name.
They took the long way out of the mountains, so that they would not have to climb as much and Phaedra would not get bumped as badly. The travel was hard on her anyway, and she kept begging them to stop and rest a little while longer. Still, she was getting a little better, Bandu thought. She was awake for longer, anyway.
One afternoon, when they had stopped beside a mountain stream, Phaedra motioned Bandu to come over to her. “Where are the mushrooms?” she whispered.
“Mushrooms?” Bandu asked, confused.
“The ones I found in the farmer ants’ nest,” Phaedra said, her voice fading away almost to nothing. “They were blueglow mushrooms, Bandu! I saved a few for Psander. Are they safe? Did you pack them already?”
Bandu shrugged and checked the saddlebags. Sure enough, someone had stuffed some mushrooms in there. The sight of them enraged her. She even considered throwing them away. She had almost lost Phaedra in that cave – almost lost her! Her injuries might yet kill her. How could Psander still have a hold over her? Bandu wanted to destroy those mushrooms.
But she didn’t. Instead, she packed them back where she had found them and tried to forget that they were there.
That night, Phaedra’s fever finally broke. When they rose in the morning they found her sleeping peacefully under her furs, a smile creeping onto her face despite the beads of sweat that glistened all over her skin. When she awoke, her eyes had lost their glassy look.
It had taken them only two days to reach the mountain called Galadron, but it took two weeks to reach the plains again. Phaedra’s health steadily improved as the days went by. Bandu still watched her carefully, worrying that her cuts would turn colors the way that Four-foot’s had, but Phaedra was lucky. The only thing she still complained about was that she had lost her scrolls when her bag tore. Bandu was secretly glad, though of course she said nothing. Criton had told her that scrolls were just skins covered in old words, but Bandu still did not like them. Dead people should not be able to talk.
When they came out of the mountains, Hunter turned them northward.
“Hold on,” Narky said. “Shouldn’t we go back to Silent Hall?”
“Later,” said Hunter. “First we’re going to Anardis. She said the priests there were healers, and I think a temple library would be a good place for Phaedra to rest right now. Besides,” he added, “I said we could go there after the mountains.”
“Aww,” said Phaedra, a weak smile playing across her lips. “Thanks, Hunter!”
Bandu sighed in relief. The less time they spent in Silent Hall, the better. It was a wicked place.
“I’m glad Phaedra’s doing better,” Criton said that night, when the two of them were alone outside the tent. “I really thought we were going to lose her.”
Bandu nodded. “I know. Don’t talk now.”
“When she came out of there,” he went on, “smelling like death…”
“I don’t want to hear!” she scolded him. “I remember.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I have to talk about it. It’s eating me up. I can’t get it off my mind. I thought she was going to–”
She stopped his mouth with a kiss, and when he tried to say something, gave him another. He soon forgot to talk, which was good. There was too much talk. Talking all the time made her feel weak and stupid, when she knew that she was really strong. In silence, they were equals.
She did not expect it to hurt when they mated, but it did. He did not fit as easily as she had thought he would, but he tried anyway, far too hard. She cried for him to stop, and saw his face change: anger and frustration beat down upon her from his eyes. He didn’t understand.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. He was trying to control himself, but his voice was not as gentle as it should have been.
Bandu glared at him. “It hurts! Why you are angry with me? I don’t hurt you!”
“I’m not angry,” Criton lied. “I’m just – I’m not angry.”
He covered himself and moved away. Bandu said nothing, just watched him while he glared off into the distance.
“I’m sorry it hurts,” he said finally. “I didn’t know it would hurt. Did I – did I do it wrong?”
Relief rushed through her. He was worrying about her now, and not himself. “It is better later,” she said, putting an arm around him. She hoped it would be.
“So what now?” he asked.
She pushed him gently down and laid her head on his chest. “I listen to your ban-doo.”
“My Bandu,” he repeated. “My Bandu.” He began stroking her hair.
She awoke to find herself bleeding. It had been about a month since the last time, so that much was normal, but Phaedra gave her a funny look when she asked for one of those pads that were so useful. Bandu wondered if something was wrong.
“Next time we’re in town,” Phaedra said, sounding normal enough, “we can buy more wool and linen and I’ll show you how to make your own.”
That evening, Phaedra finally revealed what was going on in her head. While Hunter was busy putting up their tent and the others were out looking for firewood, she leaned over and asked Bandu, “So, what is it like?”
Bandu looked at her curiously. What was ‘it?’
“I heard you two sneaking off,” Phaedra explained. “How does it feel?”
“What feels?” asked Bandu. “What is sneaking? I am sneaking off what?”
“Oh, you know,” Phaedra nearly whispered. “Off to make love. With Criton.”
Oh. Bandu shook her head. “It hurts.”
Phaedra nodded, as if this was normal. “They say it’s supposed to hurt the first time. I guess it doesn’t later. But congratulations! The first time is special.”
“Why?”
“Well, because it’s a big change. You were a virgin, and now you’re not.”
“What is virgin?” Bandu asked.
“Someone who hasn’t done it before. A maid, like… well, like me.”
There was a sinking feeling in Bandu’s stomach. “I not like you now? Why changed?”
“Just because,” Phaedra said uncomfortably. “Because it’s different. You can never be a virgin again. Making love shouldn’t hurt as much now, and it won’t make you bleed again even if you want it to.”
That was the most ridiculous thing Bandu had ever heard. “Why,” she asked slowly, “do I want to bleed more?”
“Oh, you won’t have to,” Phaedra said hurriedly. “Criton won’t leave you, so you’re safe. It won’t come up.”
That made even less sense. What was Phaedra trying to say? Bandu didn’t think her bleeding had anything to do with Criton, but apparently Phaedra thought otherwise. Could she be right? If Criton left, would it make Bandu bleed more? Or did she mean that mating would hurt her all over again if she did it with someone else? What if she didn’t want to mate with anyone else, or to ‘make love,’ as Phaedra called it? And if she did, how would her body know that it wasn’t still with Criton? Bandu wasn’t even sure what to ask first. In the end, she just said, “What?”
Phaedra might have been trying to confuse her, because she tried to make up for the nonsense of her words by saying them faster.
“Well, you know,” she said, “some men take women’s virginity and leave, which is terrible because then you’ve been disgraced and you can’t marry anyone else. If you did, they’d find out you weren’t a virgin because you didn’t bleed. A lot of women in Karsanye ended up that way, and their fathers disowned them, and they had to become whores or starve. A whore makes love to men for money, Bandu. Everyone said those girls wished they could be virgins again, but it was too late. But don’t worry, you’ll be fine because Criton is a good man and he’ll marry you.”
Bandu scratched at a scab on her knee, and tried to make sense of all that. “What is ‘marry?’” she asked. “Why it needs virgins?”
Phaedra looked a little shocked. “You don’t know what it means to – um, all right. When a man marries you, it means you… you belong to him. And he belongs to you, sort of. You don’t make love with anyone else. It’s a lifelong bond.”
“Why?”
Phaedra just stared for a moment. Bandu thought she had heard, but she repeated herself anyway just in case.
Phaedra wrinkled her brow. “Why is it lifelong, you mean, or why don’t you make love with other people?”
Bandu nodded. “Yes,” she said.
Phaedra looked a little horrified. “Because… because you’ve shed your blood with him! It’s sacred!”
Sacred? Oh! “The Gods are angry?” she asked.
“Yes,” Phaedra said, sighing. “Yes, it makes Them very angry.”
“Why?”
“It just does. It insults Them.”
It seemed to Bandu that the Gods were getting worse and worse. What business did they have deciding how people mated?
Hunter was listening to them, she noticed, though he was pretending not to. He was done with the tent, but he was still walking slowly around it and looking it up and down, as if he thought he might have made a mistake somewhere.
Phaedra was too frustrated and confused to notice. She saw Bandu looking elsewhere and asked, “What part don’t you understand?”
Bandu blinked, and looked back at her. “I marry because I hurt every time I make love with a new man? Or because Gods want me only with Criton?”
Phaedra shook her head. “No, no, you’re not listening hard enough. I thought I said, you can only lose your maidenhood once. After that, lovemaking won’t make you bleed. But when you’ve lost your maidenhood, your virginity, you can’t marry anyone except for the man who took it.”
“Because then Gods kill me?”
Phaedra looked a little angry. “No, Bandu, because no man will want to marry you then. They only want to marry you if you’re a virgin.”
“Oh,” said Bandu. She continued slowly, carefully. “So men only marry if virgin, but Gods only kill if I marry wrong person. If I don’t marry, then is safe.”
She was sure she had understood it this time, so why was Phaedra getting angrier?
“No, Bandu,” she said. “You have to marry. If you make love to a man but don’t marry him, you’re no better than a prostitute!”
Bandu scratched her head. “Do Gods kill them?”
“No!” Phaedra nearly screamed. Then she turned and saw Hunter nearby, and lowered her voice. “Bandu, it’s not about the Gods this time, all right? The Gods don’t kill prostitutes. Oh, hold on, I should have said – ’prostitute’ is another word for whore. Sorry if I confused you. The important thing is that men don’t take care of prostitutes, they only pay them. Men take care of their wives, the women they marry.”
This was why Bandu did not like talking. It made people angry sometimes, and she still couldn’t make sense of what they were saying.
“I think I know now,” she said to Phaedra, to calm her down.
It worked. Phaedra heaved a big sigh of relief, and calmed down almost immediately. “You understand, then?”
The trouble was that Bandu wanted to understand. “I try,” she said. “I don’t know why men marry only virgin. Can you say?”
Phaedra nodded warily, but she did not say anything for a long time. Bandu wondered if she had forgotten the reason. Finally Phaedra began to speak, slowly, as if she wanted to give Bandu time to hear everything. But Bandu suspected her real reason was that she needed time to invent an explanation.
“Men want to be the first,” Phaedra said. “If you bleed, they know they were first. If you don’t, they know someone else was first.”
“Oh. Why they need to be first?”
Phaedra nodded at the question, but paused again before she answered. “They only want to marry someone who will be faithful to them. If they weren’t the first, then they know you were already unfaithful to someone else.”
Bandu snorted. She couldn’t help it. “They don’t know,” she said. “Maybe someone else dead! Maybe someone else leaves, like you say about Karsanye. They know if they ask!”
“Well, that’s true,” Phaedra said. She tried again. “But it’s not really just that they want to be first, Bandu. It’s that they want to be the only one. If they weren’t first, then they couldn’t have been the only one.”
“Only one is important?”
“Yes,” Phaedra said. “It’s very important to them.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s more special that way.”
Maybe they were finally getting somewhere. “Why more special?” Bandu asked. “And how you know if you are only one for them?”
Phaedra shook her head. “You don’t. But you don’t really need to be. Men are more experienced, and that’s all right.”
Now Bandu was getting annoyed. “Why all right? Man needs to hurt and make bleed so he feels good that he is only one, but he never bleed and doesn’t need you to be only one for him? You say men are wicked!”
“No,” Phaedra said. “Well, that is, not all of them. Anyway, if they marry you, they promise in front of the Gods that they’ll stay with you as long as you both live.”
So that’s how the Gods were involved! Finally, an explanation!
“I understand,” Bandu said. It was all starting to make sense. “They do not break promise, because then they make Gods angry and they die.”
Phaedra looked extremely uncomfortable. “Well,” she said, “it doesn’t always work that way. It can take the Gods a long time to notice, and if They favor a man for some other reason, They’ll often overlook things like infidelity.”
Bandu’s eyes widened of their own accord. “So you say men are wicked because they think Gods won’t care?”
“Well, yes,” Phaedra said. “I suppose that’s true. But keep in mind, also, that men can’t always control themselves.”
It was Bandu’s turn to be shocked. “But you say they need to be only ones for us! They want to hurt us, so they know they are only ones, and then they marry and break promise to Gods because they can’t control? So you say men are wicked and stupid, and want to hurt us.”
Phaedra shook her head, but she said nothing. Bandu understood. If Phaedra had nothing to say, that meant that Phaedra did not want Bandu to be right, but that she was right anyway.
“You are wrong,” Bandu said gently, trying to reassure her. “Criton is not stupid, and he doesn’t want to hurt me. And I don’t bleed last night, only today. If he doesn’t know about blood, and doesn’t ask, then he doesn’t care.”
Phaedra looked surprised, even a little confused. “He’s a good man,” she said weakly.
“But you say first time is good and special,” said Bandu, “and that is also wrong. If first time is special, then I hope only because first time is bad. I say if other people want to be virgin again, they are stupid. I am not stupid, and men are not all stupid.”
“I hope not,” Phaedra said.
“If some men want first time to hurt and bleed,” Bandu said, “then those men are wicked. They are very wicked, and you should not want them.”
Phaedra nodded noncommittally. “I’ll have to think about that,” she said.
Bandu hoped she would.