Sword Singer-Sword Dancer 2 (4 page)

the table, fingers spread, rigid, and trembling. Trembling; I'd never seen Del

shake.

"Could I be wrong?" she asked herself in an odd, toneless voice. Then again, more forcefully, and yet still curiously toneless. "Could I be wrong?"

I wrenched my head around yet again to seek out what had affected her so dramatically. And again, I saw men. I saw one of them rise from his stool and turn away, moving purposefully toward the door. He ducked through the curtain,

was gone; I heard Del release a slow, noisy breath.

"What in hoolies--" An upthrust hand cut me off. I waited, still concerned to see the minute trembling of her fingers, and eventually her eyes lost their opaque, blind expression and Del looked at me. This time, I think, she saw me.

"Private," she said only, and scooped up a cup of wine.

Del doesn't drink much. It isn't like her to gulp wine, but now I saw how she held the cup against her mouth as if the liquor might restore her strength. I watched her throat move as she swallowed repeatedly, sucking wine like a man trying to chase away demons.

Or a woman, with her own.

"Privacy's one thing." I caught the cup in one hand, took it away from her, set

it firmly on the table. "This is another. Maybe what you need is to talk about

it."

"Maybe what I need is a jug of aqivi to shut you up," she said sharply. And then, tight-jawed, she apologized for her tone.

But not for the words. I smiled. "Effective bribery. Shall I call Jemina back?"

"No." Del stared at the cooling mutton stew. "No; we need to save the coin."

"Then let's treat the wine as it should be treated." I refilled her cup.

"With

slow and deliberate appreciation."

"It's sour."

Her color was returning along with her mettlesome mood. "Yes, it's sour," I said

blandly. "So, at the moment, are you."

"But you don't know--" She stopped herself.

"No," I agreed, "I don't. Unless you tell me."

"It's private," Del repeated.

I stirred congealing stew with a piece of bread, making islands out of the meat

and channeling the gravy. Mildly, I said: "You know more about me than anyone else alive."

Her glance was sharp, startled; she considered it, then withdrew abruptly, shaking her head. "I can't. Not now."

"That man--"

"Not now."

There are times, with Del, when silence is the best strategy. Accordingly, I turned my attention to sour wine and mutton stew, while Jemina made eyes at me

from across the smoky cantina.

In the morning Del rousted me out of bed with a fist snugged none too gently against my short ribs. When, aggrievedly, I protested such bad manners, she merely threw me my dhoti, harness and burnous and suggested I put them on as soon as possible, as she had plans for us this morning.

"Plans?" I dressed, slipped into harness, tested the weight of the borrowed blade. "What sort of plans?"

"Supplies," she said succinctly, and yanked aside the curtain.

The motion proved too much for the threadbare cloth that separated our tiny inn

room from the corridor outside. Fabric parted and Del was left standing with a

handful of faded green cloth. With a tongue-click of irritation she tossed it aside.

"Out of sorts this morning, are we?" I picked up saddle pouches and preceded her

out of the musty, low-roofed room. "Maybe if you'd spent more of last night sleeping instead of thinking--"

"You snored."

Ah. My fault, then; I should have known. Accordingly, I possessed myself of silence and went down into the common room to order breakfast.

Del was off her feed, as well; she was too well disciplined to ignore food when

it was offered, not knowing when we might have another meal, but clearly she did

not enjoy it. Impatiently she chewed hard bread, spooned down spiced kheshi, swallowed pungent goat's milk. And then told me to hurry up as I considered a second bowl of kheshi.

I cast her an exasperated scowl. "Hoolies, Del, we don't need to run across the

border."

"We don't need to dawdle here, either. Tiger, you know there is a time limit."

"Time limit, shmime limit," I said testily. "A man's got to eat, Del. Or he won't be any help at all, should you need it."

It shut her up, as I thought it might. She recalled I accompanied her only through personal whim; I could leave any time I felt like it. And by reminding

Del intended to render her aid as best I could, I deflated all her righteous indignation.

It's hard to be angry with someone who's lending you a hand. Also bad manners.

I looked at Del's expression. And then, quietly, I sent the girl away with the

second bowl of kheshi and stood up, gathering saddle pouches once more.

Silently, I indicated the door. Del turned on her heel and marched out.

It was clear Del recalled more of Harquhal than I did though it had been nearly

a year since she had been here. She led me directly to a small shop tucked into

the shadows along the wall, and proceeded to spend an untold amount of time examining what appeared to be piles of furry pelts, supple leather, a heavy, dyed fabric. Weary of following along like a bearer waiting attendance on Southron lady, I dumped the pouches by the door and began to do my own examining.

The shop reeked of tanned leather and pungent fur, as well as other smells I could not begin to name. Accustomed to desert silks and gauzes, I could not comprehend what a man would want with so much weight and bulk. But Del apparently did; eventually she chose the things she wanted and gave the shopkeeper very nearly all of our coin.

"Sulhaya," she said, as he rolled the pelts around soft leather into long, flexible bundles and tied them.

He answered back in Del's indecipherable Northern tongue; I looked at him more

sharply. He was old, and therefore white-haired, and the South had baked his flesh, but his eyes were blue as Del's. No Southroner, this; he was clearly a Northerner, which meant Del apparently knew what she was doing. Some consolation, I guess, considering I didn't.

The old man's eyes were on her sword hilt, poking above Del's left shoulder.

Boreal's hilt is fashioned in such a way as to fool the eye, to bewitch the beholder into something like a trance if you stare at the hilt too long. The silver is everchanging, one shape melting into another, then another, until you

forget about time entirely, thinking only of the moving forms within the metal.

Trying to follow, to name at least one, before the blade assumes the aspect of

the hilt and dispatches you entirely.

"An-ishtoya?" the old man asked, and Del stopped short.

Her face was frozen, sculpted into a flawless display of rigid beauty. But hard

as stone, and equally inflexible.

An-ishtoya. The highest rank a Northerner can know, as student, apprentice, in

the circle. The rank is bestowed by the an-kaidin, the sword-master, higher than

the teachers themselves, the kaidin; highest of the high. She had been ishtoya--student--and then an-ishtoya--the paramount--proclaimed so by the an-kaidin himself.

But Del had turned her back on it, naming herself, instead, a sword-dancer, as

she was free to do, and bound by no rituals other than those determined by the

circle.

The old man had clearly trespassed upon her rigidly guarded privacy. But she did

not react as she so often did with me. Perhaps because of his age. Perhaps because he was a Northerner. Perhaps also because he knew better what the word

meant, and all its accompanying weight.

"No," she said after a moment. "Sword-dancer."

Something moved briefly in his eyes. But his face--a webbing of lines and creases deeply incised in flesh lighter than my own--did not change. He looked

again at Boreal, and then he nodded. Once. "Sing well," he said, in Southron, and turned away to tend another customer.

I shouldered saddle pouches, took on one of the rolled bundles, stepped out of

the shop just ahead of Del. As she exited I paused to fall into step beside her.

"Sing well," I said, puzzled. "Didn't he mean 'dance'?"

Del had hitched her sausage of hides under one arm. Her face was expressionless.

"No," she said. "He didn't."

So much for expecting an answer or further explanation. Knowing better, however,

than to hound her for it, I let the subject drop.

We tacked and loaded the horses with care, knowing Harquhal was our last settlement before the border. And once out of the dun-colored walls and heading

north, I would become a stranger to my environs; Del would be guide, while I was

left to do as she suggested in matters of conduct, not knowing Northern ways.

Our roles would be reversed, and I wasn't certain I liked it.

Though Del undoubtedly would.

She was still locked in silence as we led her coy gelding and my snuffy stud out

of the lath-built stable behind the inn. Across broad rumps our mounts now carried the sausage rolls of fur and leather, jutting up and out. The stud wasn't yet certain he approved of such measures; he walked with his massive hindquarters curiously elevated, as if on tiptoe. The frequent and noisy swishing of his tail told me quite eloquently he was considering making comment,

as only a horse can.

He snorted, banged my right shoulder--purposely--with his nose, nibbled.

"Knock it off," I suggested, fully aware of the fore-hooves tromping so closely

to my own heels.

He did not, and so I thrust a doubled fist noseward as he reached for my shoulder again. Fist and nose connected. He jerked backward instantly, nodding

and bobbing his head at the end of braided, blue-dyed reins while one eye rolled

in innocent, baffled amazement. But the eye also shrewdly judged; I smiled, wagged a warning finger, saw the tip-tilted ears flick up. Instantly he pinned

them back again, but he'd given himself away; he wasn't angry so much as disgruntled that I'd caught him at his tricks, and disgruntlement I could deal

with.

Del shook her head. "I don't know why you keep him. He's more trouble than he's

worth."

"That depends," I said, recalling the stud had, by all accounts, killed one of

my enemies. Unfortunately, I hadn't been present to witness it. "As for why, I

guess it's mostly habit. Like a man who keeps a nagging wife year after year after year."

She cast me a level glance, refusing to enter the debate. "One of these days he's liable to kill you."

"Oh, I don't think so. He might dump me on my head every now and again, but in

the long run I think he's rather fond of me." I patted the firm, plate-shaped jaw. "We're a lot alike."

"Thickheaded," Del agreed, and then looked past me to the cantina where we had

spent most of the former evening.

I looked with her and saw nothing. But, looking back at her, I saw she did.

And knew she would have to finish it before we left Harquhal.

I sighed. Nodded. Stopped. "Go on," I told her. "Get it over with."

She snapped her head around. "You know?" "I know you'll never let it rest," I said calmly. "Go, bascha. See if he's there. If not, we can ride out of here knowing at least you looked. If he is, well..." I shrugged. "Up to you, bascha."

"But--you don't know why--" She broke it off, shook her head a little.

Silk-bright hair, unbraided, slid across silk-clad shoulders. "You can't."

"Thickheaded I may be, but I am not entirely stupid," I told her bluntly.

"You

saw a man last night, and until you see him again and satisfy whatever craving

kept you awake last night--in a real bed, I might add--you'll be moody as a breeding woman."

She opened her mouth promptly to protest the last part of my comments. Del dislikes me to make fun of women, or otherwise discount them because of their gender. Now, mostly, I do it out of a desire to bait her, hoping for verbal combat; once I did it because, in the South, women count for little. Del had changed much of my attitude, but so had slavery. A man raised a slave suffers his own humiliation, and quickly learns not to judge others as he is judged.

But Del, after a moment, did not rise to the bait at all. She merely clamped her

mouth closed. Her expression was grim. "It is a thing I have to do."

"I know that. I just said that."

"I will be fair," Del told me. "It will be a sword-dance." I nearly laughed; trimmed it to a smile when I saw that however I responded would matter greatly

to her. "If he's a sword-dancer, it'll be fair," I agreed. "If he's not, it'll

be a joke."

Pale brows knitted. "Tiger--" But she stopped short, locking away whatever words

she had meant to say, and left me looking into the face of torment.

"Go," I said gently. "I'll be there, bascha."

We tied the horses and left them, pulling aside the same vermilion curtain we had pulled aside the night before. Huva stink clung to the cantina, but the smoke was barely visible. It was early yet for the place to fill with men seeking dreams in liquor, smoke, women.

But not too early for the man Del sought.

At last he saw her coming. I knew him only by that; by the surprise in his eyes,

the admiration; the slow flame of desire. He was clearly Southron, dark of hair

and skin, with deep-set, pale brown eyes. The age I could not say, save to mark

that he had spent his years in the desert, for the sun had taken its toll.

His

teeth flashed white against the swarthiness of his face.

Del ignored the others at his table. She merely stepped to the edge, leaned forward a little, to make certain he heard her words, and invited him into the

circle.

And the man was clearly astonished. "Circle?" he echoed blankly, in patent disbelief. And then he recovered himself, and laughed. "Bascha, I will gladly meet you in bed, but never in a circle." He waited out the snickers and laughter, smiling blandly, but I saw the faintest line of puzzled consternation