Sword-Bound Page 10

  When the girl came to me, I tousled her matted hair. “Take a bath, Dari…for all I know you’re a Northerner underneath the dirt.”

  We left father and daughter together as Del, Neesha, and I walked out into the Southron sunlight. I untied the stud and swung up. “Aren’t you even a little upset?” I asked, seeing Del’s satisfied smile.

  Neesha didn’t understand either “She made the wrong choice.”

  “Did she?” Del mounted her white gelding. “Dario told me I’d never asked her if I thought her father loved her. I didn’t need to. The answer is obvious.”

  It was so obvious, I waited for it.

  Del laughed and yanked yards of silk into place as she hooked feet into Southron stirrups. “Her father knew she was a girl from the moment she was born. But he never had her exposed.” She laughed out loud in jubilation. “The proud khemi tanzeer kept his abomination!”

  The stud settled in next to her gelding. “As a khemi,” I pointed out, “what he did was sacrilegious. The Hamidaa could very well convict him of apostasy and have him killed, if they knew.”

  Del glanced at Neesha, then looked back at me. “Choices are sometimes difficult to make,” she quoted. “But sometimes easy.”

  This time, Neesha understood.

  We were not offered guest quarters at the tanzeer’s, so it was back to the big oasis once again. I was beginning to think of it as a second home. Our former tree was taken, but while Del and I watered our horses and ourselves, Neesha once again went off to see what he could find.

  This time no Khalid interrupted us. “Maybe he finally got the message.” After the stud drank, I scooped water for myself. “Obviously he wasn’t impressed by me, but he certainly was by you!”

  Del shrugged. “He has talent. But he’s wild. He loses focus.”

  “You tend to do that to a lot of men.” I expected some kind of reaction, but there was none. “Well, one of these days he’ll meet a sword-dancer who won’t put up with him.”

  Del shrugged again. She drank a little then turned her horse away from the spring. I watched her walk him down the path in the way Neesha had gone. I hesitated, chewing at my bottom lip. She had exulted in Dario’s choice to stay with her father. Now she seemed disconnected from it. From me.

  I followed and discovered Neesha had found us a very hospitable tree with spreading limbs and well-clothed branches. It was late afternoon and hot. Few people were moving; most slept the worst of the heat away. I thought it was a very good idea. I tended the stud first, untacking and picketing him where webby scrub grass grew in filtered shade at the edge of the tree canopy. Then I spread my blankets and flipped the saddle upside down for use as a backrest. Neesha had done the same but worked mending his bay’s fraying rope halter. Del untacked and picketed her gelding, then walked away from us, probably looking for a place to relieve herself.

  I stretched out on my back, slumped against the saddle. I was tired. “Was that enough adventure for you?”

  Neesha snickered as he spliced rope together. “It’s a start.”

  “We’ll try to find you more before we head back home.” I watched Del as she walked back. Something about her expression prompted concern. “Bascha, are you all right?”

  Del nodded as she knelt beside me and unrolled her bedding blankets.

  “You don’t look it.”

  She glanced at me, then concentrated on settling her bed just the way she wanted it. When we washed at the tanzeer’s, she had left her hair loose to dry. It fell in a shining curtain, hiding the side of her face as she settled down. She swung it aside, crossed her arms under her head, and stared up through leaves and branches into sky.

  I remembered Lena’s words. “It’s Sula, isn’t it?”

  Del sighed deeply. “I miss her.”

  “So do I, bascha.” And I didn’t say it just to make her feel that she wasn’t alone. I did miss the little monkey. “How about we go up to the horse farm, then go back home.” I said to Neesha, who was finishing repairs. “You could always go off on your own if we head back sooner than you’d like.”

  He stood up and went to swap out the bridle and reins for the halter and lead-rope. Returning, he said, “Well, we don’t know what lies between here and there. I may be sick of adventuring once we reach the farm.” He threw himself down on his blankets, stretching elaborately. “You took him apart, Del,” he began. “I’d never truly seen you dance before. That was most impressive. And then when you took that eunuch’s head…” He shook his. “The North must be a hard place, to train you for such as that.”

  I winced, wishing his words had been a bit less blunt.

  Whether that was the reason, or something else, Del’s tone was flinty. “Not as hard as the South, where women are not allowed to do and be what they wish.” Then, abruptly, she pressed the heels of her hands against eye sockets. “Oh, don’t listen to me. That tanzeer has put me in a mood with all this talk about women as abominations. Unclean vessels. To make a religion out of it! He is the excrescence.” She turned onto one hip to face us, propping herself up on an elbow. “Tell me, Neesha, were you raised to believe women have no value except to look after the man’s wishes? To make him sons? You’re a Southroner.”

  Neesha froze, eyes widening. He flicked a glance at me, asking for help; he got none, so he looked back at her. Carefully he said, “My father gave her more freedom than most men give their wives.”

  “He gave her more freedom,” Del said pointedly. “Do you see what I mean? It wasn’t something she was raised with. A man had to give it to her.”

  I almost laughed at him. I’d been the target of such discussions many a time.

  He was clearly uncomfortable, trying to figure out how in hoolies to say the right thing. “I—well…I didn’t really pay attention growing up. I just know, compared to what I’ve seen since, she wasn’t so circumscribed. She was free to speak, and she won her share of arguments.”

  “And you have a sister. How is she being raised?”

  Neesha’s smile came quickly. “My sister knows her own mind. I don’t think any Southroner could convince her otherwise, and that includes our father.”

  Del grunted. “That’s something.”

  “We used to spar,” he continued, “Rashida and I. We’d draw a circle and batter away at one another with dead tree limbs we fashioned into so-called swords.”

  Del rolled back onto her spine, collapsing loosely with limbs sprawled out. “Maybe she should go to the North. Be a sword-singer. That is, if your father would allow it.”

  Neesha grinned up into the sky, finding a way through the thicket. “Well, we’ll see him the day after tomorrow. Why don’t you ask the man himself?”

  And that put paid to the topic. Del announced she was going to take a nap and rolled onto her side facing away from us. Neesha and I exchanged grins, and then I settled into a more comfortable position and drifted off.

  Chapter 11

  AT A LARGE OASIS SUCH AS THIS ONE, it is always possible to buy food from someone if one is tired of travel rations. All three of us decided fresh meat, bread, dates, and cheese would taste much better than what we’d tucked away in our saddle pouches. I cleared dead coals out of the fire ring and built a modest pyramid of sticks, Neesha went looking for food, and Del took our empty coal pot and went to a near neighbor to beg for fresh chunks burning hot. Once she returned I carefully spilled the coals into the fire ring and used a stick to arrange them amidst the kindling. The fire burned warmly by the time Neesha came back with our dinner. In one hand he carried chunks of meat speared on three slender sharpened stakes, two loaves of fresh bread, a hunk of goat cheese to go with the mutton, and a handful of dates. A feast.

  As we ate, the sun slid down the sky, dousing itself in a panoply of red, gold, and orange. Bluish twilight settled. The air was redolent with roasting meat, heavily spiced. Around glowing fire rings, people laughed and talked; others sang, played wooden flutes; and some just ate, like the three of us. Neesha and I washed
the meal down with aqivi while Del kept to water, after reminding us the aqivi wasn’t meant to be drunk, but to aid in disinfecting wounds. Her protest was unconvincing, and Neesha and I merely smiled at her cheerfully as we passed the bota back and forth.

  It was as we finished dinner that the man arrived. He wore a burnous of superior silk dyed deep green with copper-colored embroidery along the sleeve hems, a wide, copper-studded leather belt. Matching cuff bracelets glowed in our firelight. Under a green turban with a glinting amber brooch pinned to it, his features and coloring were Southron, but when he glanced at Del he did not assume the pained or outraged expression of a man who wished not to speak in a woman’s company. Neither was there curiosity or disbelief; he simply glanced at her briefly, took a deep breath as if to convince himself he should make no comment, then looked down at me where I sat on my blankets.

  He spoke Desert with a liquid flexibility. “I am Mahmood. I am a merchant. Others told me how to recognize you because of the scars on your face, and the Northern woman who rides with you. You’re the Sandtiger.”

  I raised my brows to ask a mute question as I finished chewing the last bite of mutton and tossed the bota to Neesha.

  He appeared to understand what I meant, and answered me. “They said you hire on to protect caravans.”

  I swallowed the chunk of meat. “Who’s ‘they’?”

  Mahmood waved a hand apparently intended to encompass the world. “They. People. Just—people.”

  I nodded at him as I drank a squirt of aqivi. “Yes, we’ve guarded caravans.”

  “We’re going to the North with spices and silk,” he explained. “Saffron and cinnamon, both very costly, and silk threaded with silver. They would be most interested in my goods.”

  Borjuni—raiders—would be interested in his goods. Del was nodding.

  “I hired two men as outriders. I lost one to a viper,” he continued, “and another refused to finish the journey when he met a woman in a small village. I am left with no guards. If you and the woman come with us, I would pay you well.”

  At least he understood that if he hired me, he would also have to hire Del. That was a nice change.

  “What about me?” Neesha asked, aggrieved. “We’d be three. Better odds, don’t you think?”

  Mahmood stared at him, sizing him up, then looked back at me as if asking if Neesha was worth the coin. I smiled at him. “Yes, we are three, and the odds indeed would be better.”

  He bobbed his head and offered a small, soft leather bag. “In advance,” he said, leaning down to put it into my hand. “More when we reach our destination.”

  “Where in the North are you going?” Del asked.

  “Istamir. Not far across the border.”

  She nodded. “Those folk will pay well for your goods.”

  “Provided we can get them there,” he said somewhat gloomily. “I’m told the borjuni are bad this season.”

  Borjuni were bad any season along the border. The problem was, you never knew exactly where they’d be on any given day. There might be none in your vicinity. There might be many. Mahmood was wise to replace his missing outriders. Mahmood was wise to hire all three of us.

  “Four wagons,” he said. “Not so many. One driver each, all experienced.”

  “Do you drive?” I asked.

  A nod of the turban. “Lead wagon. I know the way.”

  Del observed, “So do I.” She smiled faintly at Mahmood. “So if raiders kill you, we could still get your goods to Istamir.”

  He was not exactly sure how he should react to that, coming from a woman. It suggested the possibility of an attack, which would be very bad fortune, and he wasn’t certain what Del could offer as an outrider.

  “Istamir is a day’s ride to my family’s place,” Neesha said. “We’d just have to drop back down a bit.”

  “And from here to Istamir, three days.” Del nodded at Mahmood. “We will get you there safely.”

  Faintly, Mahmood thanked her, then looked at me. He was more comfortable looking at me. While he accorded Del more acceptance than he would other women—she was a Northerner, and the Sandtiger’s partner—he just didn’t know how to treat her. But I gave him credit for trying.

  “First things first,” I said. “Change out of that expensive burnous and put on your plainest. Leave off the wrist cuffs. Wear a belt with no ornamentation. Take that brooch off your turban.”

  He was plainly shocked. “But I am successful! No one will know it if I dress like a peasant. They will believe they can haggle me down from my prices!”

  Dryly, I said, “Do you want raiders to know you’re so successful? And they won’t haggle anyway. They’ll just kill you and ride away with your costly spices and fabric.”

  He struggled with it. I was willing to bet it had taken a lot of years and as much effort to reach his current affluence.

  After a moment he looked at me worriedly. “I can leave off the ornaments, but I have no plain burnouses.”

  I shrugged. “Not difficult to fix. Just bring me one. I’ll get it wet, then drag it in the dirt.”

  He wasn’t sure if I was joking or not. His voice was weak. “In the dirt?”

  “In the dirt. And if the one you pick has sleeve embroidery, smear mud over it.”

  More weakly still, “Mud?”

  “We’ll hide your some of your silks under the floorboards, and stuff some into our saddle pouches. The three of us will also carry as many of your spices as we can.”

  “The dust!” he cried, horrified. “And stuffing them into your saddle pouches? It will ruin the silks, even wrapped as they are!”

  “Not unless we splash through puddles, which is unlikely here in the Punja. And if borjuni should appear, they won’t assume silk is in our pouches. Better to keep some than lose it all.”

  “And the spices…on your horses, too?”

  “Spices smell. They will smell less if they’re packed in our saddle pouches.” Still seated, I dangled the bag of coins in front of me, offering it. “You don’t have to hire us if my requests are too onerous.”

  Stiffly, he said, “They are demands, not requests.”

  I displayed my teeth in something akin to a grin but wasn’t, quite. “You don’t have to hire us if my demands are too onerous.”

  He looked at Del, at her harness and sword lying next to her on her blanket. He looked at Neesha and his sword and harness. Finally he looked back at me. “But you’re the Sandtiger.”

  “Then give me credit for knowing about guarding caravans and fighting borjuni. Don’t make yourself an obvious target.” His caravan would be a target regardless, but no need to advertise just how much Mahmood transported. “Make your last wagon the lightest. Some silks, some spices, yes. If any raiders appear, they’re more likely to cut out the last wagon. You’d lose less.”

  He was horrified. “Cut out the wagon? But I’m hiring you to guard all four wagons!”

  “And we will,” Del said matter-of-factly. “But sometimes you must throw a dog a bone so he doesn’t steal the meat.”

  “He’s the Sandtiger,” Neesha put in with a dramatic note of wonder. “A living legend would guard your caravan!”

  I slanted him a glance and saw that he was trying very hard not to laugh. But it was enough for Mahmood.

  “Yes,” he said, with a trace of annoyance in his tone. “It will be as you say. But I will get the burnous wet and I will drag it through the dirt.”

  Which meant it wouldn’t be as worn-looking as I wanted, but I had to give him something for his pride. “Come get us tomorrow morning.”

  He nodded stiffly and walked away.

  Neesha had the grace to wait until Mahmood was out of earshot before he began to laugh.

  “That’s rude,” Del noted acerbically.

  Neesha forced words out between blurts of laughter. “But the look on his face! Silks in our saddle pouches? Spices in our saddle pouches? The horror of such a thing!”

  Del picked up her water bota and
squirted him.

  “Children,” I sighed, and tucked away the little bag of coin. In a saddle pouch.

  Del, Neesha, and I were up, packed, and ready to go when Mahmood arrived not long after dawn. His expression was one of a rather morose stubbornness. He had indeed sullied his burnous but not by much. It was yellow made somewhat dull with dust, but there was no mud, even on the sleeve embroidery. No cuff bracelets, though, or copper-ornamented belt, and no brooch on his green turban.

  “I picked off every stud from this belt,” he announced grimly, “and it took a long time. Do you know what this cost me to buy?”

  “No,” I answered, “but your being a merchant, I suspect you traded for it and no coin changed hands. Now, let’s go to your wagons and portion out the silks and spices.”

  “You’ll ruin the worth of the fabric,” he moaned.

  “Wrinkles,” Del said, “can be pressed out.”

  She was in harness now, wearing an indigo burnous that set off the blue of her eyes. She didn’t need embroideries, cuff bracelets, a belt weighted with worked metal or gems to impress or to raise her stature. She needed only herself. And Mahmood, seeing her in the full light of day, realized it. Many Southroners considered her too blonde, too pale, too tall. Too much of everything, especially self-confidence, self-governance, and a dedication to plain speech. Mahmood was not one of those men. His brows slid up, his mouth loosened, and he stared.

  Neesha, leading his horse up by Del, snickered. Del herself made a shooing gesture at Mahmood. “Go.”

  Apparently it was enough. Mahmood managed to stop staring and led the way to the easternmost edge of the oasis as we led the horses over. Four wagons, as he’d said, and three with drivers on the ground holding the teams. Despite his dress, the canvas-topped wagons were sturdy but unprepossessing; at least he knew to do that much. Nothing of them attracted interest—unless, of course, you just wanted to steal whatever the wagons might carry and discover later if the goods were worth coin or not. Like any self-respecting borjuni.

  “All right,” I said. “Find the richest fabric you have.”