Amazon Chief (20 page)

"All right," I said. "I'm sorry."

She squeezed me for a moment.

"One more thing," she said. "Beria, you asked if I would be upset if you turned to Neela. Yes, I would be ups
et. I would be very, very upset, and so would Lidi. Maybe the two of you could hide it for a while, but eventually someone would find out. These things always come out. And after that, it would be bad. I would be angry with both you and Neela, probably angry enough it would show, and it wouldn't go away. Lidi would be equally upset. I would probably treat you poorly, but I would treat Neela even worse, and Lidi would probably treat you poorly. Eventually, Lidi and I would begin fighting, and then Queen Malora would need to intervene. Do you know what she would do?"

"No," I said in a small voice.

"She would have to use the whipping post, and then she would send one or the other, or perhaps both of us away."

"I won't," I told her.

"Furthermore, I would lose trust in you, and I don't know if I could continue to treat you the way I should. You would lose trust in me. Maya would see I wasn't treating you well, and then she would be very angry with me. But she would also know why, and she would be very disappointed with you and Neela."

"I won't, Omie. I promise."

"Good," she said. She caressed my hair for a moment. "There's something else I need to tell you."

"All right?"

"Benala and I had a conversation similar to this one. She told me I had to wait. And you know what I did?"

"No."

"I began teasing her. Do you know what I mean?"

"Um. Trying to kiss her?"

"Trying to make her want to kiss me," Omie explained. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, I think so."

"I thought I could wear her down. Answer me honestly, were you wondering whether you could wear me down."

"Do I have to answer?" The thought had crossed my mind.

"I think that's answer enough," she said. "I started, well, displaying my body around her."

"Naked?"

"Yes."

"We're naked a lot."

"We are, but it's not the same."

"All right."

"One night, I came to bed naked."

"Oh."

"At first, Benala didn't say anything, but when it grew so overt she was sure it wasn't accidental, she told me, quite firmly, to knock it off."

"Did you?"

"Of course not. I decided it was working, so I doubled my efforts. Two days later, she'd had enough. She told me I was acting like a petulant child and she was going to treat me like one. She dragged me out of the hut-"

"Naked?"

"Yes. And she called everyone else out of their huts. Then in front of everyone, she put me over her knee and gave me the spanking of my lifetime. When she was done, she volunteered me for every crappy job known to Amazons. I was mucking the stable and cleaning the latrine for a month. There wasn't a third time."

"I won't tease," I said.

"Beria, you have a lot of your sister in you. So I am going to be clear. Do not tease me. This is your only warning."

"I won't," I said again. "But-"

"But?"

"Do you think you could kiss me?"

"Beria..."

"Like sisters kiss," I said. "That's all."

"Like sisters." And I nodded. So she rolled me over and gave me a very nice kiss on my forehead.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

"All better?"

"Yes," I said.

And that was the end of that conversation, for a while.

But that conversation changed everything at the same time. I hadn't really been thinking about any of this, not really, but now it seemed like it was all I could think about. That's undoubtedly an exaggeration. But it seemed that way.

Oh, I trained; I trained very hard. When I did well, Omie praised me, and I thought perhaps she was proud of me. She told me she was, and so did Maya.
Malora and Nori also offered praise from time to time. In a way, I began to live for Omie's praise.

Omie loved to wrestle, and I had grown to enjoy it as well. Summer arrived, the days long, and so one evening I asked Omie, "Could we go wrestle?"

She smiled. "Sure. Should we invite anyone else? If Bea knows we're wrestling, she's going to want to come."

"Another night," I said. "I want some private lessons."

She laughed, and we proceeded to the training grounds. I asked if we could practice the hold she'd taught us earlier in the week, so we spent a half hour on it. She let me try applying it to her, at first cooperating, and then resisting, lightly at first, then harder and harder, and finally doing some of the reversals. We switched roles, and she taught me how to escape from the hold, if I recognized it early enough.

We both grew warm and sweaty, and finally she called a break. We sat in the grass, breathing heavily, and she said, "More?"

I nodded.

"All right. We're going to have a practice round, but the only way to win is that hold. I'm going to be trying to do it to you, and you're going to try to do it to me. Nothing else counts."

It was actually pretty comical, and the bout went on for a long time, both of us struggling to do the same hold on each other. Finally, she used a different hold, one that left me helpless on my back.

"Doesn't count!" I said.

"No," she said, panting for a moment. But then, while holding me immobilized by my arm, she wrapped her legs around mine, trapping it, then in a flurry of moves, she rolled me onto my stomach, my leg still trapped. She went through three different holds, none of which I knew, before she applied the one we'd been learning.

"Now it counts," she said, and I tapped out. She released me, then she flopped down next to me. We each rolled onto our sides, facing each other.

"That was fun," I said.

She grinned. "Yeah."

"Can we do this every night?"

"Probably not every night, but yes."

Her hair was in disarray, and I reached out to brush some of it out of her face.

"Don't do that," she said.

I pulled my hand away. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Beria."

She rolled onto her back, but I watched her for a moment, then rolled onto my back, too, but I edged closer so our shoulders were touching. "Why do we wrestle, Omie? We don't wrestle the demons."

"Several reasons," she said. "The most important first?"

"Sure."

"Because it's fun."

I laughed. "I don't think that's the real reason."

"It's really good exercise, and it helps you learn to tumble and fall. It helps you learn to scramble. And those are important when fighting demons."

"That makes sense."

"I don't like talking about this part," she said, "but demons aren't the only things we fight. Sometimes..." She paused. "Sometimes we have to fight men."

"Bandits?"

"Sometimes. And sometimes we can be surprised. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"No."

"By bad men who like to hurt women, Beria."

"Oh," I said. "We wrestle them?"

"We don't always have our weapons," she said. "Or we might not want to use them." She paused. "Imagine if your older brothers had tried to interfere when you decided to come with us. Imagine if the only way I knew how to fight was with a sword."

"My brothers wouldn't attack you."

"Yours might not, but some brothers would, or some fathers, or some boyfriends. Imagine if they decided to teach me a lesson. I wouldn't want to be forced to kill your brother, Beria, but if the sword is all I know, that might be my only choice."

"Oh," I said in a small voice. "If one of my brothers attacked you, you'd kick his ass."

She laughed. "Yes, I would. But in the end, I'd damage his pride, and if he didn't submit, I might hurt him, but only enough to get him to stop. But if I didn't know how to wrestle, I'd have to use my sword. Imagine how upset you would be if I'd had to hurt one of your brothers that way."

"Yeah," I said.

Then she looked over at me. "And it's really good exercise, too, with a much smaller chance of actually getting hurt than practicing with weapons when you're this tired."

We smiled at each other.

"But mostly, it's fun."

And I laughed. I agreed, it was fun, then I sobered. "Maya doesn't agree."

"She has fun away from the training ground, depending upon who is there."

"She likes beating me."

"She does," Omie agreed. "
But she better look out."

I grinned.

After that, several times a week, if we weren't on patrol, Omie and I wrestled in the evenings. Sometimes we let others come with us, but they understood this was our time together.

* * * *

My birthday came. I was fifteen. I got picked on, this time all day long. Maya made me tell several embarrassing stories about myself, two at each meal and two more at the bonfire. But there was cake and presents.

Omie gave me a sword, a real sword. It was plain and simple, but functional, and the grip was perfect for my hand.

That night, in our hut, I told her, "I'm fifteen now." I took her tunic from her and hung it up. When I turned around, she was wearing the simple shift she wore to bed.

"Yes, you are," she agreed.

I stepped closer. "I'm old enough to kiss."

She grew still then turned her back to me. "No."

I stepped closer and put a hand on her shoulder. "I love you," I told her.

She made a strangled sound and pulled away. She had never pulled away from my touch before. "Please, Beria, don't do this. It's teasing."

"I'm not teasing," I said.

"I am not touching a child. I know you don't think of yourself as a child, and maybe I don't either, but by Amazon law, you are not an adult. There will be no kissing. Or anything else."

I stepped away. "Fine," I said quietly. I hadn't changed clothes yet. I turned to the door. "I'll be back later. Don't wait up."

"Beria..."

"I'm not angry, Omie," I said. "I'll be back later. I'm going to go sit by the fire for a while, that's all. Don't wait up."

There were still a few Amazons at the fire, talking quietly. Maya and Malora were gone, but I saw Bea with Clara. Both Neela and Aura were on patrol; Amazon life goes on, after all. Chalena was there, too, talking quietly with Bea and Clara. They offered me a place next to them, but I collected a mug of cider and sat down next to the fire, grabbing a stick and stirring the ashes for a while.

I didn't notice, but I presumed Bea got her. Ten minutes later, Maya sat down next to me. "Hey."

"Hey," I said.

"Did you and Omie have a fight?"

"No. Yes. No, not a fight."

Maya waited patiently.

"I made a fool of myself."

"Ah," she said. "Sucks, huh?"

"Yeah. I asked her to kiss me."

"And she said no?"

"Yeah. I feel like an idiot."

"Don't," Maya said. "You don't know how many times Malora asked me to let her kiss me, and I rejected her pretty hard."

I looked over at her.

"I don't know why it hurts so badly," I said.

"I don't, either." She smiled. "You're fifteen. I was twenty-two. If I made it to twenty-two, you'll make it to sixteen."

"What if she still doesn't want me?"

"Has she said she doesn't want you?"

"She said I'm too young."

"Omie is pretty straight spoken, Beria."

Omie didn't seem that straight spoken to me, but I realized I was comparing her to Maya, who turned straight talk into a profession. I smiled weakly.

"Can I stay with you and Malora tonight?"

"Why do you want to do that?"

"I can't face her, Maya."

"Honey, I think you're going to have to."

"Why?"

Then I heard Omie's voice. "Because she's right behind you, and she's worried about you, and she really needs you to calm the voices, Beria. Please, will you come to bed? I need you."

I looked over my shoulder. She was standing there wearing nothing but her nightshirt. Her face was furrowed the way it got when the voices were especially bad
.

She held out her hand to me. "Please." Her voice cracked, and it broke my heart to know she was hurting. I took her hand, and she pulled me to my feet. I wrapped my arms around her, pressing her face into my neck the way she liked. Her hands wrapped around me, one settling on my neck, the other wrapping all the way around my neck so she could press her hand against my cheek.

Then Maya stood and stepped behind my warrior. "Do you need me as well?"