Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (26 page)

style, which was a badge of our profession. It was also convenience; I'd rather

carry a blade across my back than have to lug it around by hand.

The circle was finished. I considered stepping up beside Del to tell her she was

being a silly, sandsick fool; decided against it when I realized it might throw

off her concentration and contribute to her loss, if she lost. And she might.

No

matter how much she crowed--albeit quietly--about youth being an advantage in the healing process, she still wasn't completely recovered from the wound I'd dealt her. Hoolies, her conditioning was terrible! She'd be fortunate if she lasted long enough to put on a decent showing.

Then again, she wasn't precisely on her own. She did have Boreal.

Someone moved close beside me. Male. In harness: sword-dancer. Smelling of huva

weed and aqivi; also a satisfactory visit to Kima's bed, or to another very like

hers.

"So, Sandtiger," he said, "have you come to see the debacle?"

I knew him by his voice. Low, raspy, half-throttled, catching at odd times and

on odd consonants. It wasn't affectation. Abbu Bensir had no choice in the matter of his voice, since a sword-shaped piece of wood had nearly crushed his

throat twenty-some-odd years before. He had lived only because his shodo--sword-master--had cut open flesh and windpipe to let air into his lungs.

While that same shodo's newest apprentice looked on in horror at what he'd done

to a sixth-level sword-dancer.

"Which debacle?" I asked. "The one about to begin in the circle, or the dance you'll ask of me?"

Abbu grinned. "Are you so certain I will ask you?"

"Eventually," I answered. "Your throat may have recovered--mostly--but your pride never will. It was your own fault I nearly killed you--the shodo warned you I was awkward--but you ignored him. All you wanted to do was knock the former chula on his buttocks so he'd remember what he'd been."

"What he was," Abbu said plainly. "You were a chula still, Sandtiger... why deny

it? It took you all of your seven years to rid yourself of the shame--if you've

managed it yet." He pursed weed-stained lips. "I hear you got caught by slavers

last year and thrown into a tanzeer's mine... has that worn off yet?"

I kept my tone even. "Did you come to watch this dance, or simply to breathe huva stink in my face?"

"Oh, to watch the dance... to see the boy humiliate the woman who has no place

in a Southron circle." He shrugged, folding arms across a black-swathed chest.

"She is magnificent to look at--she would fill a man's bed--but to pick up a man's weapon and enter a man's circle is sheerest folly. The Northern bascha will lose--not too badly, I hope; I would not want to see her cut--and then I will commiserate with her." He grinned at me, dark brows arching suggestively.

"I will show her a few tricks with the sword--in bed and out."

I had been in the North four, maybe five months. I'd also spent a year or so with Del. Enough time to discover I'd learned a thing or two about myself.

Enough time to realize I didn't much like the ignorance of Southron men. More than enough time to feel my own share of disbelief at Abbu's bland certainty that a woman good enough for bedding wasn't good enough for the circle.

Then again, not every woman was Del. No other woman was Del. She'd chosen the circle and the sword for things other than equality.

Which didn't make her wrong.

I looked out at Del. She wasn't fit. Wasn't ready. But she was still distinctly

Del.

I glanced sidelong at Abbu Bensir. "Care to make a little wager?"

"On this?" He stared at me in unfeigned disbelief, then narrowed pale brown eyes. "What do you know about the boy? Is he that good?--or that bad?"

No question regarding the woman. Good enough for the wager.

I lifted a single shoulder. "He came to me this morning and begged a dance. I refused; he accepted the woman instead. That's all I know."

Abbu frowned. "A woman in place of the Sand-tiger..." Then he shook his head.

"It makes no difference. Yes, I will wager on this. What do you offer?"

"Everything in this." I tapped the coin-pouch dangling from my belt. "But you've

caught me between jobs, Abbu. There isn't much left."

"Enough to equal a Hanjii nose-ring?" Abbu reached into his own pouch and drew

forth a ring of pure Southron gold, hammered flat into a circular plate.

It brought back memories: Del and I, in a circle, but only to the win. We'd danced in front of the Hanjii, a tribe who believed in eating the flesh of enemies. Also a tribe which placed great emphasis on male pride and honor; Del's

subsequent defeat of me--thanks to a well-placed knee in a very vulnerable area--had resulted in the two of us becoming guests of honor in a religious ritual called the Sun Sacrifice. Left in the Punja without food, water or mounts, we'd very nearly died.

But did I have anything in my pouch equal to a Hanjii nose-ring? "No," I answered truthfully; I never lie about money. People can get hostile.

Abbu pursed his lips, then shrugged. "Ah, well, another time--unless you still

have that bay stud--?"

"The stud?" I echoed. "I still have him, yes--but he's not part of the stakes."

Light brown eyes assessed me. "Growing sentimental in your old age, Sandtiger?"

"He's not part of the stakes," I repeated quietly. "But I will offer you something of value... something you've been wanting for more than twenty years."

I smiled as color crept into his swarthy face. "Yes, Abbu, I'll meet you in a circle--if the woman loses."

"If the woman loses--" He very nearly gaped. "Are you sandsick? Do you want to

give the wager away?" Eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why do you bet on the woman?"

I nodded toward the circle, where Del and Nabir were bending in the center to place blades on the ground. "Why don't you watch and find out?"

Abbu followed my own gaze. As I had, he assessed Nabir as a potential opponent.

But he didn't assess Del as anything but a potential bedmate.

All to the good for me.

Abbu flashed me a glance. "We are not friends, you and I, but I have never thought you a fool. Yet you wager on a woman?"

I smiled blandly. "Someone has to, or there would be no bet."

Abbu shrugged. "You must want to meet me very badly."

I didn't answer. Nabir and Del had stripped out of footwear and harness, positioning themselves outside the circle directly opposite one another. It was

to be a true dance, a dance of exhibition; a dance of bladeskills matched for the joy of competition. There was no need for anyone to die, which is the true

nature of the dance. Shodos taught no one to go out in the world and kill.

They

taught only the grace and skill necessary to master a Southron sword; that most

of us later hired ourselves out was a perversion of the true dance. It was also

one of the few ways of earning a living in a land comprised of hundreds of tiny

domains ruled by hundreds of desert princes. When power is absolute, you find your freedom--and a living--any way you can.

Abbu Bensir was right: we had never been friends. When I had been accepted as an

apprentice, he was a sixth-level sword-dancer already hiring himself out. He had

agreed to spar with wooden swords as a favor to the shodo, but he had been stupid enough to be careless, believing too implicitly in skills learned years

before. He was older than I and complacent; he had nearly died of it.

Since then we had met from time to time, as sword-dancers do in the South. We had behaved very much like two dogs who recognize strength and determination in

one another; we had circled each other warily, repeatedly, judging and testing

by word and attitude. But we had never entered the circle. He was an acknowledged master, if unimaginative; I had, after seven years of apprenticeship and more than twelve of professional sword-dancing, established a

reputation as a formidable, unbeatable opponent. Bigger, stronger, faster in a

land of quick, medium-sized men. And I hadn't yet lost a dance that required someone to die.

Of course, neither had he.

Which meant he wanted me badly. Now I was worth the effort.

"She is magnificent," Abbu murmured.

Yes, so she is.

"But much too tall."

Not for me.

"And hard where she should be soft."

Strong instead of weak.

"She is made for bedding, not for the circle."

I slanted him a glance. "Preferably your bed?"

"Better mine than yours." Abbu Bensir grinned. "I'll tell you if she was worth

it."

"Big of you," I murmured. "In a manner of speaking."

He might have replied, but the dance had begun. He, like me, watched attentively, assessing posture, patterns, styles. It's something you can't avoid

when you watch others dance. You put yourself in the circle and judge how you would have done it, criticizing the others. Nodding or shaking your head, swearing under your breath, muttering derisively. Occasionally bestowing praise.

Always predicting the victor and how badly the other will lose.

My belly clenched as I watched. There was no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Del was the superior sword-dancer--far superior--but she was, to me, all too obviously out of condition. She was slow, stiff, awkward, employing none of her

remarkable finesse. Her blade patterns were open and sweeping, which is alien to

the woman whose true gift is subtlety. Her stance lacked the lithe, eloquent power so often overlooked by men accustomed to brute strength in opponents.

She

gave Nabir none of the Del I knew, and yet she would beat him badly. It was obvious from the start.

Which gave me grounds for relief.

Abbu was glowering. "The boy is a fool."

"For dancing with a woman?"

"No. For giving in too easily. See how he defers to her? See how he allowed her

to direct the dance?" Abbu shook his head. "He's afraid to hurt her, and so he

has given her the circle. He has given her the dance. And all because she's a woman."

"You wouldn't?" I asked as blades clanged in the circle. "Are you telling me you

could ignore her sex and simply fight her, dancer to dancer?"

Abbu glowered more darkly.

I nodded. "So I thought."

"And you?" he challenged. "What would the Sandtiger do? He was a woman himself

for half his life--"

I closed my hand on his wrist. "If you are not very careful," I began, "our dance will be right now. And this time I will open your throat with steel instead of wood."

A roar went up from the crowd. It had nothing to do with Abbu and me, but with

the outcome of the dance. Which meant Del had won. They'd have cheered for Nabir; for her, they'd award only silence once they were over their shock.

Abbu, swearing, jerked his wrist free. "You are soft," he accused. "Do you think

I can't see it? Your color is bad, your bones too sharp, the look in your eye is

dull. You are not the Sandtiger I saw dance eighteen months ago. Which means you

are old, sick, or injured. Which is it, Sandtiger?" He paused. "Or is it all of

them?"

I showed him all my teeth. "If I am sick, I'll get better; injured, I will heal.

But if I am old, you are older; look in a mirror, Abbu. Your life is in your face."

I didn't exaggerate. His swarthy face was sharply graven at mouth and eyes, and

there was gray in his dark brown hair. The nose had been broken at least once,

retaining a notch across the bridge that had, in my apprenticeship, boasted a Punja-bred hook. He was, I knew, past forty; in our profession, old. And he looked every year of it.

But then, so do I. The desert is never kind.

Del, in the circle, said something to Nabir. Knowing her, it was something diplomatic. Something to do with victory in the future; she is not a woman to grind a man's pride in the dirt unless he demands it. And Nabir hadn't, not really. Oh, he'd been certain of his victory, but then I'd known a certain other

young sword-dancer who'd felt much the same upon receiving his blued-steel, shodo-blessed sword. And who'd lost his first dance to an experienced sword-dancer who had no time to humor the whims and pride of an arrogant young

man; I'd deserved to lose. And I had.

Now, so had Nabir.

He took it badly, of course. So had I. It remained to be seen if Nabir would learn from the loss or let it fester in his spirit. Admittedly he had more to flagellate himself with--he'd lost his first dance to a woman--but if he was smart he'd think twice about underestimating his opponent. Too many variables entered into a dance, certainly more than sex. And if Nabir didn't learn how to

deal with them, how to adapt, he'd be killed the first time he entered a circle

to dance to the death.

When the boy refused to answer Del, she turned away and walked out of the circle. She still wore blue wool tunic and trews, now stained with sweat; she needed to switch to Southron clothing. A lifted arm scrubbed dampness from her

face and stripped it free of loosened hair. Her movements were stiff, lacking grace. She bent, scooped up harness and boots, let the crowd fall back from her.

She was flushed, a little shaky, obviously tired. But she hid the magnitude of

it from everyone save me.

I was so glad to have the dance over I didn't think about anything else.

"The boy was a fool," Abbu declared.

"Yes."

"And I a fool for risking so much on him."

I smiled. "Yes."

Abbu pulled the Hanjii nose-ring from his pouch. "I pay my debts, Sandtiger.

I

won't have it said I don't."

"Now I don't need to, Abbu."

He glared at me sourly as he handed over the nosering, then stared past at Del's

retreating back. "There is much she could learn, if a man took the time to teach