The Thorian Sagas. 1. The Trader.

The others drifted away slowly to retire yet again, having a lot to think about, and going over in their minds what had just happened.

Stoker went back to the fire, visually checking their surroundings out of habit; the security around them, and where weapons were, as Monique refilled his cup before she sat across from him.

She’d lost, graciously, passing him her bracelet, with a hundred questions racing through her mind, wondering if she dared to ask them.

He put it on his own wrist, letting her tie it for him.

She was still breathless, but not from their combat; from what she had learned.

She was confused about many things; things she needed to know, but did she have courage enough to ask him?

He sensed her need to know certain things, and he waited.

“May I ask you a personal question?”

He looked at her.

“You may ask me any question. You have earned that, at least. If I cannot, or may not answer you, I will tell you.”

She considered, carefully.

“Is the way you are… your build…” she blushed, and had to clarify her meaning, showing what she was still thinking about (him being a true man), but was skating around it… “your muscular build; your assurance; your confidence; and your aggression… how all true ‘men’ are?”

After all, he had killed all of those Frexes just before he’d got here, so it was a reasonable question.

Choosing to take on any animal like that, was something they would never have considered doing themselves, but it all seemed second nature to him, and it had been necessary.

She was stumbling for words, obviously still curious about what she had seen of him as a man, and of his physical response to her which they had all seen, but which they would never be able to ask him directly about.

He had half expected that more direct question. He knew he had shocked them.

They may have seen Yunks, so he would certainly have been a surprise to them. He should have been more careful.

He answered as though she’d actually asked that other question about his body, intending to save them any misunderstanding about him.

“Do you really not know about men? Do women like you, not have men of your own in your lives?”

She shook her head.

“Not men like you. Our men are slight, by comparison, easily intimidated… not as… you are.” She still skated around the issue.

“When we became warriors, we chose to have nothing to do with men. We all swore an oath of celibacy, so no… we do not know everything we should know about men.”

He must have been a hell of a shock for them.

He should have learned more about their society on his visits each week than he had, though he had learned so much more than they could ever know… but about other things in their city. He had not expected that anything like that... ‘Challenge’, would be thrown at him, yet he had invited it.

They had all taken that oath of celibacy, of course, but he had not.

Yunks did not need to take such an oath, and they had believed him to be a Yunk, until now.

She continued. “We have men in our society of course, yes. But they are not allowed in here. They also look nothing like you, physically. They are not suited to combat, and they shrink from violence of any kind.

“They also do not… have so much... hair.”

Or so much of anything.

Back to that again.

He almost laughed.

She was nervous to discuss such a personal thing, and she was being very daring and was fumbling her words in her embarrassment, but she needed to know.

Her directness amused him. It was not the time to be embarrassed.

“They are not men, as you are. They are servants. They are the weakest of everyone in the city.”

He did not rescue her from the moments of silence, wanting to see where her mind was taking her.

“As warriors, we have foresworn all interactions between the sexes.”

But Stoker was not a man like their own men. He was much more than that. Much more!

If their men had been more like him…?

And then he, had come into their midst and raised some age-old questions.

He added a comment of his own to rescue her.

“Having seen some of your men in the market, I am not surprised. Few, real women, would consider them suitable as mates.”

She looked up at him. Did he really see them, as real women? It seemed so. It was a comforting, yet disturbing feeling.

He looked at her and was smiling, though he did not feel less like smiling.

She was still not able to ask certain things, so he tried to help her.

“I am as most, ‘true’ men are, with one or two exceptions… a result of my training and upbringing.”

He was nothing like a Yunk. That, was certain. Yunks did not have those other things… those… testicles, that he had.

He struggled to answer her, without telling her too much, without embarrassing them both or divulging the rules that constrained him until he became a year older, when he was thirty.

“My early memories are difficult and sketchy. I was born on the islands in the central sea, as many of those who are trusted to become ‘traders’ are.

“Thorians live in those islands too, but you, would not know that.”

Except, she did now.

She listened and stored it all away, thankful to have some of the most embarrassing things touched upon, and behind her, making it easier for the next time they talked.

“When I was very young, my parents decided that I would become a trader and a farmer, rather than a fisherman; which is a truly dangerous occupation on that inland sea, so they sent me to the land; to Saltash, and I was immersed in a different world and culture, with different rules.

“I was trained there in many things, especially how to defend myself against the more aggressive animals in the wasteland. Something all traders must learn.

“I would be a ‘liaison’, and a ‘trader’, to the cities of women. This city. Fenn. I was told how it would be, and what was expected of me.”

They were both silent.

He was drawn back to those moments of embarrassment.

“I hope you can understand that I never intended to be in this situation with you, or expected you to challenge me, and to learn what I am.”

He sighed.

“But times change. Everything changes.”

He took a deep breath and was even able to laugh.

“As you noticed, and now know, I am a different kind of man.”

He waited to find out what response that would cause, having a ‘true’ man in their midst.

He hurriedly filled in something else she would need to know.

“Despite that, you are all safe with me. “

As safe as they wanted to be.

They already knew that.

“It is death for me if I interact in the wrong way with any woman in any of the cities, before….”

He waved his hand and did not complete that sentence, and she did not ask.

He was warning them.

It must be an age-thing with him, as it was with them.

A ‘man’ was dangerous for them all. But dangerous only in the way he now made them feel about life, and about those things they did not know, but began to wonder about.

And when he reached that certain age… what then? Would they still be safe?

Monique should, by the law of the city, ask him to leave them now, and to go and sleep with his horses, or even to leave the city immediately; but she did not.

No one needed to find out about this.

He had been in the city each week for the last three years and no-one had considered that he might be a problem, but then he had rarely needed to stay a complete night.

He had given no sign of any difficulty.

There were many laws being flouted, and openly broken. Especially with her daring to challenge him in a contest, as she had, and which had never been done before either. But who would know?

He saw she was not about to react as she knew that she should. She hesitated. That was all he needed to see. She would not betray him now.

“You know us. Those others in your city, know us as… ‘Yunks’, and call us that, though I am not one of them. The proper name, is, Eunuchs, though I am not physically altered as they are.”

They had soon noticed that about him!

He heard some giggling to one side, realizing that many others were listening to his words; overhearing everything he said.

Not that it mattered. They should know these things, and they should have been taught.

He would always be honest with them.

He should share more, in full and open honesty (but when had he ever been less than that?), so that they would be aware of him and the danger he posed for them if any of them became careless or encouraged him in the wrong way. They were already aware that their own men needed not only great encouragement to engage in sex, but that they had difficulty completing any act… of that particular kind.

He was not limited in that way... not from the changes they had seen.

He spoke to Monique, but his words were intended for them all, telling them so many things that they had not known about the ‘men’ outside of their city.

“When you disrobed in front of me after your challenge; I felt disturbing emotions that I should not have felt for you. I know that you saw that, but it was too late for me by then.”

They had seen, and it was too late to undo that now.

“I think you saw….”

They had!

“I could not help it. You are all very beautiful women. We do not often see such a delicate beauty where I come from. Life can sometimes be very difficult, but we make up for that with a passion for life; a life that is often likely to be cut short.

“You do not face those challenges, so you have grown relatively weak in every direction. You live in dying societies, for all of your safety and contentment. Perhaps that is why it is dying. Life must be challenged and fought for to be appreciated.”

And it would soon be challenged from outside.

They were listening. Their societies were dying?

He could not tell them about an approaching time of upheaval building in the other three cities, and that had not yet got to infect this one, but it was there; simmering, building.

Such a rebellion happened every few generations.

Such upheavals every few generations seemed to be necessary for them to appreciate how well-looked after and protected they were, under any kind of treaty.

That upheaval, would be the time when all of their grievances could be addressed and a new treaty agreed upon, and a new direction taken.

He closed off those other thoughts and described to Monique, with the others listening, what he had seen and felt when he had first seen her naked.

“I admired your smooth, soft, unscarred body… your breasts… your wider hips, and I found that I was as curious about you and your bodies, as you were about mine when I got rid of my belt.

He could be equally outspoken.

“Nonetheless, as I told you, you are safe with me. It would be death if I broke that trust, or even thought to try. However, you should not tell anyone that I am not a Yunk, or my visits here would come to an immediate end.”

The Council would see to that, and would, themselves, plead a violation of that treaty. It would bring everything another step closer.

‘Men’, outside men, were not allowed in the city. They tolerated Yunks, but not the others.

The Treaty was clear about that.

But if he was not a Yunk, what was he? They had better not take that thought any further.

He fell silent, having given them a lot to think about.

Monique needed to change this difficult subject, and picked up on something he’d said, earlier.

“You said that you had wrestled Thorians. That you’d defeated, Thorians?” That he was even like them.

He nodded, confirming what she’d said; relieved to move away from that other sensitive topic.

“I am undefeated at what I do. Yes, I have defeated many Thorians among all who came against me. I have not been defeated at wrestling at any time in my life, but I will soon leave my prime and will be dethroned by a younger and stronger man.”

Perhaps even by a woman.

The right woman.

“I will soon have to step down or be injured. Thorians do not like to lose, but they soon get over it and learn from it. They take wrestling, seriously, and they... never... give up.

“We all learn best from our defeats, and grow, through hardship.”

She resisted asking any more questions about them, the Thorians, though he had given her several openings. She would learn more if she did not pry too obviously. She would never dare ask about, ‘men’.

And he was a real man. And he would be spending the night in their close society!

Unheard of! But breathlessly exciting, causing the blood to race and the pulses to quicken, and a tingling in the air touching all of their skins.

They might not sleep. A man. A true man, in their midst! Would they be able to survive those hormones in the air, bathing them all, and those difficult, rebellious thoughts, also floating around, and wanting to enter all of their bodies in the stealth of night and inseminate them!

They would allow it, and they would tolerate it? Oh, yes, they would even welcome it!

He was constrained by similar vows to their own. If they could trust him.

She knew they could.

Unfortunately!

What had happened between them began to open up other avenues of conversation that she could touch upon at some other time.

She had learned that they, the Thorians, not only came down to Saltash, but that many of them lived there, and that others lived on the islands in the central sea, as well as in the mountains.

Retribution for such openness, concerning a taboo subject, did not suddenly rain down upon them all. No one could know, though it was said that the Thorians knew everything, even their innermost thoughts.

What he said made sense. Life should be lived to the full, and that it should be a constant challenge, to be best appreciated. They had all felt that excitement.

He was right. They were too comfortable and pampered within their city walls.

After an hour of such conversation, they fell silent for a while.

No one was sleepy now, and Monique was not going to lose this opportunity, having been given so much to think about.