He was rough, crude, cruel, dangerous. He was cold of soul and hot of temper. Perhaps he had not always been that way, but she had watched him change since the Time of Going Forth, more and more becoming a law unto himself. Growling and scowling, objecting to all of Koshmar’s decisions, setting out into the hill country on solitary journeys whenever he pleased, organizing his own little army of defense without even asking Koshmar’s permission, finally challenging the chieftain outright — and forcing Kreun, that too, simply throwing her down and using her against her will—

Well, that was the way Harruel was. Probably now out there in the wilderness he was coupling with all the women who had gone, not just his mate Minbain but Thaloin too, and Weiawala, and Galihine, and Nittin. He was king now. He could do as he pleased. He would be coupling with me, Taniane thought, if I had gone. But you could do worse than couple with a king.

She wondered why Kreun had refused him. Probably because her head was so full of Sachkor, that was why. Forcing someone was not right, but ordinarily no one needed to be forced. One needed only to be asked in a courteous way. Taniane would have coupled with Harruel in the settlement, if he had asked. But he had never asked. He had always kept to himself, forever muttering and glowering. It struck her that perhaps he had thought she was too young, though she was not much younger than Kreun, and Kreun had caught his fancy. Kreun is very beautiful, Taniane thought; but they say I am beautiful too.

The idea of coupling with Harruel excited her. To feel all that strength, all that dark force of his, between her legs! To hear him grunt in pleasure! To have him dig his fingers deep into the flesh of her arms!

Yes, but Harruel was out there in the wilderness now, and she was still in Vengiboneeza, waiting to grow older, waiting for her time to come. It might never come. Koshmar was full of vigor. There was no longer a limit-age. Taniane had dreamed of becoming chieftain someday; now she saw the realization of that dream receding farther and farther into the future.

“And would you become chieftain if you were with Harruel now?” Haniman asked, giving her a skeptical look. Haniman was her main friend these days, and her coupling-partner. He wanted to twine with her too, but Taniane had never granted him that. “Harruel is chieftain himself. That’s what ‘king’ means. And he has a mate, besides. There’d be no place for you.”

“Minbain is getting old. Life in the wild country is harsh. She might die in another year or two.”

“And Harruel would choose you? Well, he might. Or take Weiawala away from Salaman, or Thaloin from Bruikkos. Harruel is king. He does as he pleases.”

“I think he would choose me.”

Haniman smiled. “So you would be the mate of the king. Would that give you any power? Has it given Minbain any power?”

“I am not like Minbain.”

“That is indeed so. You think you’d be able to wangle a share in Harruel’s authority, is that it?”

“I might be able to do that,” said Taniane.

“As Hresh would say, you might also be able to learn how to fly by flapping your arms, if you worked at it long enough. But that’s not wonderfully likely.”

“Not flying, no. But I could have found my way around Harruel.” Taniane grinned slyly. “And Harruel won’t live forever. It’s dangerous in the wild country. Do you remember the rat-wolves? The bloodbirds? If something happened to Harruel, would Konya become king, do you think? Or would the ones who had left the city prefer the old custom and choose a woman to be chieftain, perhaps?”

Haniman laughed, a sharp snorting kind of laugh. “How marvelous you are, Taniane. Out of nothing at all, you conjure up a role for yourself as Harruel’s mate in place of Minbain, and as Harruel’s master when you are his mate, and then as Harruel’s successor after he dies. But meanwhile you are here and he is somewhere far from here, and getting farther every day.”

“I know,” she said, looking away.

Haniman’s hand came to rest suddenly on her knee, and moved a short way up her thigh toward the meeting-place of her legs. Taniane let it remain there.

Her thoughts turned darker. She was here, and Harruel was there, and, as Haniman had pointed out, she was conjuring great things for herself out of nothing at all. She had made her choice; now she had to live with it.

If only Hresh were not such a fool!

She still winced at his stupidity, that day that he had come rushing up to her idiotically begging her to twine with him. Of course she had wanted to twine with him! But she had felt compelled to say no to him. If she had given in to him so readily, right then and there, she would have had no hope of gaining him in the way she wanted him. He would twine with her, yes, and then he would go off, caught up in the frenzy that comes over one in one’s first twining days, and twine perhaps with Bonlai or Sinistine or Thaloin — or with Haniman, for all anybody knew — and eventually the frenzy would pass and he would settle into some sort of a regular twining partnership with someone. With anyone. Not necessarily her. What she had wanted, when she refused him, was for him to go off and gain some twining experience and return to her in a more seemly way, wanting her all the more. And she would have accepted him gladly. But he hadn’t done that. Instead he had barely spoken to her ever since; he had kept his distance from her as though it would burn him just to look at her.

The fool! Wisest one in the tribe, and a fool all the same!

Haniman’s hand moved farther up Taniane’s thigh. The other one began to caress her shoulder. It glided toward her breast.

“Couple with me?” he asked.

She nodded, still thinking of Hresh, how she might have become twining-partner with the sharpest mind of the tribe and gained all manner of wisdom that way: how she might even have mated with him, if custom now allowed the old man to mate. Custom had changed enough to allow the offering-woman to mate with Lakkamai, hadn’t it? Though a lot of good that had done Torlyri when Harruel had split the tribe apart. If I were Hresh’s mate, Taniane thought, then I would hold power just below that of Koshmar, and if Koshmar died—

“And twine with me afterward?” Haniman asked.

“No,” Taniane said. “I don’t want to twine with you.”

“Not now, or not ever?”

“Not now. Maybe not ever.”

“Ah,” he said. “Too bad. But you’ll couple with me?”

“Of course.”

“What if I asked you to be my mate, too?”

Taniane gave him a long steady look.

“Let me think about that one,” she said. “Meanwhile let’s just couple, all right?”

For Torlyri it was a dark and anguished time. She felt that the light had gone out of her soul, that she had turned to a lump of black ash.

All that pain over a man!

How quickly, how deeply, she had become dependent on Lakkamai! How vulnerable she had left herself to his leaving her! She barely recognized herself in this strange shattered woman who could not awaken in the morning without reaching toward the empty place where Lakkamai had slept beside her, and without hearing in her mind his echoing voice, calmly telling Harruel that he too would join the party that was going from Vengiboneeza.

Torlyri had lived satisfactorily enough for thirty years and some without any great need of men. Her love for Koshmar and her responsibilities as offering-woman had made a sufficient life for her. But then had come the New Springtime, then had come the Going Forth, and everything had changed. Suddenly everyone was coupling, suddenly everyone was mating, suddenly new children were being brought into the world in unprecedented numbers. In that great flowering of the tribe Torlyri had felt herself blossoming, opening, ripening. Changing. She too yearned now for coupling, even for mating. So she had given herself to Lakkamai; and now Lakkamai had gone off with Harruel; and Torlyri found herself desolate, although she tried to tell herself that she was no worse off than before she had become entangled with Lakkamai.