Mindbond by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page B

food this time, and therefore all the more hungry for the damsels—or perhaps it was the moonlight that put foolishness into me, yellow-red light amidst darkness, autumn moon. Though it was not yet the time of witchcraft—hunters’ moon came first. On the mountains, perhaps time ran differently. Or witchcraft. Something happened in me, I felt darkness swirl around me, my vision narrowed, my heart grew hot and swollen in my chest, I felt my manhood stand hot and hard beneath my lappet, and my hands were moving as if of their own will—toward doom—
    â€œKor!” I called hoarsely.
    He was up on the instant, even weak as he was, wobbling over to me, almost falling, and he caught my lifting hands in his own. The deer maidens stood gazing at me in innocent wonder, like fawns seen in the thickets. None of them had made any move to seduce me, but if I had embraced one, I felt sure she would have willingly answered the kiss. Or more than one—ai, thinking made it worse.
    â€œKor,” I panted, “tie me.”
    â€œWhat!”
    â€œI mean it! Tie me stoutly, if either of us is to have any peace this night.”
    â€œAre you—in thrall?” he asked in a low voice.
    â€˜As Birc was? No, I am not yet bleating.” I lost patience. “Would you tie my wrists before I lose what small sense is left to me and overpower you?” I clung to a tree while he went to get the rawhide thongs.
    He padded my wrists with bandaging before he bound them, and then I began to comprehend his reluctance. Once before he had bound me like this, when I lay in a prison pit, a madman, raving and dangerous. When I had ceased to rave I had been unable to remember even my own name. But that had been my father’s doing. Nothing less than his betrayal could have driven me so out of self.
    Or it was devoutly to be hoped, that nothing other could do that to me.… Kor tied me, and the naked damsels watched curiously, setting out seedcakes on willow mats.
    â€œBehind me,” I directed Kor, holding my hands there. “Then you can go back to your bed.”
    He shook his head. “In front. I’ve no desire to make you ache. Dan, think better of me!” Fiercely. “How could I sleep? I’ll be here.”
    His hands, forming the knots, were unsteady. “But you are not well. You have no strength,” I told him.
    â€œI will find strength.”
    Knowing him, I could not but believe him. “Handbond, then,” I told him.
    We passed the grip hastily. I hoped it would help him, but it served only to strengthen the stark longing in me. Then Kor tied my ankles loosely to a treetrunk. Once I felt myself secured I gave in to the dark whirlings that seemed to surround me, the hot yearning within me, the despair. I lunged against my bonds and howled—a long-drawn, wailing sound that I had not known was in me, that shivered in my throat. The deer maidens raised their heads rigidly at that sound and came to their feet, sensing for the first time that something was wrong, that these odd mortals did not always play at games of binding each other to trees. They left the viands but hastily gathered up their willow ware, their lovely bodies poised as if alert for flight. Still, the look on their faces was as much puzzled as frightened.
    Kor had his arms around my chest from behind, trying to restrain me and calm me. He had indeed from somewhere found strength. “Dan—”
    I howled again, and a third time. And as I drew breath an answering howl floated across the distance of the night from somewhere far off on the flank of the mountain.
    The damsels bleated and fled in great leaps, turning to deer in the midst of their leaping. Willow ware lay scattered. I sat still, my passion for white hind and deer women forgotten—that eerie sound seemed still to drift in the darkened air.
    â€œAn echo?” Kor whispered.
    I howled again, not so strongly this time—my voice