The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

The shaman noticed her discomfiture. "I'm sorry, Ayla. I don't mean to embarrass you. You really do speak Zelandonii very well, probably better than I do, since I've forgotten so much. And it isn't really an accent you have. It's something else. I'm sure most people don't even notice. It's just that you have given me such an insight into Brugar, and that helps me to understand Attaroa."

"Helps you to understand Attaroa?" Jondalar asked. "I wish I could understand how someone could be so cruel."

"She wasn't always so bad. I really grew to admire her when I first came back, although I felt very sorry for her, too. But in a way, she was prepared for Brugar as few women could have been."

"Prepared? That's a strange thing to say. Prepared for what?"

"Prepared for his cruelty," S'Armuna explained. "Attaroa was used badly when she was a girl. She never said much about it, but I know she felt her own mother hated her. I learned from someone else that her mother did abandon her, or so it was thought. She left and nothing was heard from her again. Attaroa was finally taken in by a man whose mate had died in childbirth, under very suspicious circumstances, the baby with her. The suspicions were borne out when it was discovered that he beat Attaroa and took her before she was even a woman, but no one else wanted responsibility for her. It was something about her mother, some question about her background, but it left Attaroa to be raised with and warped by his cruelty. Finally the man died, and some people of her Camp arranged for her to be mated to the new leader of this Camp."

"Arranged without her consent?" Jondalar asked.

"They 'encouraged' her to agree, and they brought her to meet Brugar. As I said, he could be very charming, and I'm sure he found her attractive."

Jondalar nodded agreement. He had noticed that she could have been quite attractive.

"I think she looked forward to the mating," S'Armuna continued. "She felt it would be a chance for a new beginning. Then she discovered the man with whom she had joined was even worse than the one she had known before. Brugar's Pleasures were always done with beatings, and humiliation, and worse. In his way, he did ... I hesitate to say he loved her, but I think he did have feeling for her. He was just so ... twisted. Yet she was the only one who dared to defy him, in spite of everything he did to her."

S'Armuna paused, shook her head, and then continued. "Brugar was a strong man, very strong, and he liked to hurt people, especially women. I really think he enjoyed causing women pain. You said the flatheads don't allow men to hit other men, though they can hit women. That might have something to do with it. But Brugar liked Attaroa's defiance. She was a good deal taller than he was, and she is very strong herself. He liked the challenge of breaking down her resistance, and he was delighted when she fought him. It gave him an excuse to hurt her, which seemed to make him feel powerful."

Ayla shuddered, recalling a situation not too dissimilar, and she felt a moment of empathy and compassion for the headwoman.

"He bragged about it to the other men, and they encouraged him, or at least they went along with him," the older woman said. "The more she resisted, the worse he made it for her, until she finally broke. Then he would want her. I used to wonder, if she had been complaisant in the beginning, would he have grown tired of her and stopped beating her?"

Ayla thought about that. Broud had grown tired of her when she stopped resisting.

"But somehow I doubt it," S'Armuna continued. "Later, when she was blessed and did stop fighting him, he didn't change. She was his mate, and as far as he was concerned, she belonged to him. He could do whatever he wanted to her."

I was never Broud's mate, Ayla thought, and Brun wouldn't let him beat me, not after the first time. Though it was his right, the rest of Bran's clan thought his interest in me was strange. They discouraged his behavior.

"Brugar didn't stop beating her, even when Attaroa became pregnant?" Jondalar asked, appalled.

"No, although he seemed pleased that she was going to have a baby," the woman said.

I became pregnant, too, Ayla thought. Her life and Attaroa's had many similarities.

"Attaroa came to me for healing," S'Armuna was continuing, closing her eyes and shaking her head as if to dispel the memory. "It was horrible, the things he did to her, I cannot tell you. Bruises from beatings were the least of it."

"Why did she put up with it?" Jondalar asked.

"She had no other place to go. She had no kin, no friends. The people of her other Camp had made it clear to her that they didn't want her, and at first she was too proud to go back and let them know that her mating to the new leader was so bad. In a way, I knew how she felt," S'Armuna said. "No one beat me, although Brugar did try it once, but I believed there was no other place for me to go, even though I do have relatives. I was the One Who Served the Mother, and I couldn't admit how bad things had become. It would have seemed that I had failed."

Jondalar nodded his understanding. He, too, had once felt that he was a failure. He glanced at Ayla, and he felt his love for her warm him.

"Attaroa hated Brugar," S'Armuna continued, "but, in a strange way, she may have loved him, too. Sometimes she provoked him on purpose, I think. I wondered if it was because when the pain was over, he would take her and, if not love her, or even Pleasure her, at least make her feel wanted. She may have learned to take a perverse kind of Pleasure from his cruelty. Now she wants no one. She Pleasures herself by causing men pain. If you watch her, you can see her excitement."

"I almost pity her," Jondalar said.

"Pity her, if you want, but do not trust her," the shaman said. "She is insane, possessed by some great evil. I wonder if you can understand? Have you ever been filled with such rage that all reason leaves you?"

Jondalar's eyes were huge as he felt compelled to nod his assent. He had felt such rage. He had beaten a man until he was unconscious, and still he had been unable to stop.

"With Attaroa, it is as though she is constantly filled by such a rage. She doesn't always show it—in fact, she is very good at hiding it—but her thoughts and feelings are so full of this evil rage that she is no longer able to think or to feel the way ordinary people do. She is not human any more," the shaman explained.

"Surely she must have some human feeling?" Jondalar said.

"Do you recall the funeral shortly after you came here?" S'Armuna asked.

"Yes, three young people. Two men and I wasn't sure about the third, even though they were all dressed the same. I remember wondering what had caused their deaths. They were so young."