The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [290]
But Attaroa looked stunned when she heard the translation. Most men had been more than willing to share the Gift of Pleasures with the handsome woman to gain their freedom. Visitors unfortunate enough to pass through her territory and get caught by her hunters had usually jumped at the chance to get away from the Wolf Women of the S’Armunai so easily. Though some had hesitated, doubtful and wondering what she was up to, none had ever refused her outright. They soon found out they were right to doubt.
“You refuse…” the headwoman sputtered, unbelieving. The translation was spoken without feeling, but her reaction was clear enough. “You refuse Attaroa. How dare you refuse!” she screamed, then turned to her Wolf Women. “Strip him and tie him to the practice target.”
That had been her intention all along, just not so soon. She had wanted Jondalar to keep her occupied through the whole long, dreary winter. She enjoyed tantalizing men with promises of freedom in exchange for Pleasures. To her, it was the height of irony. From that point, she led them into further acts of humiliation or degradation, and she usually managed to get them to do whatever she wanted before she was ready to play her final game. They would even strip themselves when she told them she would let them go if they did, hoping it would please her enough.
But no man could give Attaroa Pleasure. She had been used badly when she was a girl, and she had looked forward to mating the powerful leader of another group. Then she discovered that the man she had joined with was worse than the situation she had left behind. His Pleasures were always done with painful beatings and humiliation, until she finally rebelled and caused his painful, humiliating death. But she had learned her lesson too well. Warped by the cruelty she received, she could not feel Pleasure without causing pain. Attaroa cared little for sharing the Mother’s Gift with men, or even women. She gave herself Pleasures watching men die slow and painful deaths.
When there was a long time between visitors, Attaroa had even played with S’Armunai men, but after the first two or three fell to her “Pleasures,” they knew her game and would not play it. They just pleaded for their lives. She usually, but not always, gave in to those who had a woman to plead their case. Some of the women were not as cooperative—they didn’t understand it was for them that she needed to eliminate men—but they could usually be controlled through the males to whom they were tied, so she kept them alive.
Travelers ordinarily came during the warmer season. People seldom traveled very far in the cold of winter, especially those on a Journey, and there had been fewer travelers lately, none the previous summer. A few men, by a lucky fluke, managed to escape, and some women ran away. They warned others. Most people who heard the stories passed them on as rumors, or fantastic tales of storytellers, but the rumors of the vicious Wolf Women had been growing, and people were staying away.
Attaroa had been delighted when Jondalar was brought back, but he turned out to be worse than one of her own men. He wouldn’t go along with her game, and he didn’t even give her the satisfaction of watching him plead. If he had, she might have even let him live a little longer, just to savor the pleasure of seeing him bend to her will.
At her command, Attaroa’s Wolf Women rushed Jondalar. He swung out wildly, knocking aside spears and landing hard blows that would have telling aftereffects. His struggles to get free were almost successful, but he was eventually overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers. He continued to fight while they cut the lashing closures of his tunic and trousers to strip him of his clothes. But they expected it and held sharp blades to his neck.
After they tore off his tunic and bared his chest, they tied his hands together with a length of slack rope between them, then lifted him up and hung him with his hands over his head from