Sword-Singer Read online

  I frowned. Shifted my gaze from the boy to the girl, who stood three paces behind the boy and held a pale white staff at the ready position, though I doubted she had the training to wield it properly. It takes years to master a quarterstaff, even for a man, and she, most clearly, was female, if still girl rather than woman.

  Del had put down the saddle pouches. Her hands hung at her sides. She made no attempt to unsheathe her sword, or to knock away the girl’s staff.

  I blinked. Tried to clear my vision. For the moment, the rain had let up. But the day was gray, blue and gray, shadowed with slate and steel.

  Beyond the girl and boy stood a wagon, halfway off the road and leaning away from the hillside. An elderly piebald mare drooped dispiritedly between the shafts, ears flopped, neck low, head hanging between her knees. The wagon, I thought, was as old, as well as incapacitated. One rear wheel, the right, lay flat in the mud. The tilt of the wagon would make it almost impossible for anyone other than a strong man to lift it; two children could not, nor could the woman who stood by it, wrapped in an oiled blanket. Clearly she was apprehensive, staring fearfully at Del and me and the children, and I realized they were her own.

  Such brave souls, the children. And very fortunate. Del and I were friendly; anyone else could have killed them outright for their folly. Easily. Without a second thought.

  I sighed; it wailed deep in my chest. “No harm,” I told them. “We’re travelers, like you.”

  “So they said!” the girl snapped. “We gave them welcome, and they robbed us.”

  “Anyone hurt?” I asked mildly.

  “Only our pride,” the woman answered stiffly. “We trusted too easily. But we learned. Now we do not trust.”

  I gestured toward the wagon. “You’ll have to trust someone, eventually. I don’t think you can repair that, otherwise.”

  “We will do it ourselves!” A fierce, proud young lady. Fifteen or sixteen, I thought. Blonde, like Del. Blue-eyed And, like Del, determined to prove she was as good as any man.

  I almost smiled. But I didn’t, because I thought she was worth better.

  Del was staring at the boy. Her face was pale. She drew in a noisy breath, released it, spoke softly. “There’s no need for the sword,” she said, “or the staff. We’ll help you with the wagon.”

  The girl jerked the staff northward. “Just go on,” she said strongly. “Just go on your way and leave us.”

  “And let someone else come along behind us…someone not so friendly as us?” I shook my head. “To prove our good faith let us shed our harnesses. Unarmed, what threat could we offer?”

  “Just go on,” the girl repeated.

  “Cipriana.” The woman’s voice was gently reproving.

  “How do we know they wouldn’t cut our throats?” the daughter demanded. “What makes them better than the others?”

  “You are wise,” Del said, “to be careful. I respect your determination. But Tiger is right: unarmed, we could help you.”

  The sword wavered against my belly. “Cipriana?” The boy was clearly the shier of the two and well accustomed to deferring to his older sister.

  She shrugged, jaw tight. And then, abruptly, she jerked the staff away. “I am not stupid,” she said fiercely, eyes filled with angry tears. “I know if you want to harm us, you can. What good are Massou and I against you?”

  “Good enough,” Del said gently. “And before we are done, I will teach you to be better.”

  The woman came down from the wagon, clutching closed the folds of her blanket. She was neither young nor in middle years, being somewhere in between; a tall, handsome woman with red hair, firm jaw, green eyes. The dampness caused loosened strands of hair to curl; the rest was fastened to her head in a thick, coiled rope deepened to bronze by the rain.

  She stopped by the girl, touching her shoulder gently. “Cipriana, Massou, you have done well. I am proud. But now, let these people have their freedom again. They have offered us help; the least we can do is accept it with good grace.”

  The boy relaxed his grip on the sword too abruptly; overbalanced, it fell out of his hand and thudded against the turf. He stared up at me in anguished shame.

  “Massou?” I asked. He nodded. “One day, I promise, you will be big enough to carry your father’s sword. For now, you might do better with a knife.”

  “Like this one?” The woman showed me the blade she had hidden in the blanket. At my blink of surprise, she smiled. “Do you think I will stand by and let my children do my fighting for me?”

  “Or a man; we make do on our own.” The girl flicked a glance at Del. “Does he do the fighting for you?”

  Del smiled slowly. “Little ishtoya,” she said, “your courage is laudable. But first you must learn better manners.”

  Color flared in the girl’s face, then spilled away. Ashamed, she bowed her head. She had a slender, childish neck. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “But without my father…” Her voice trailed off. She looked at the boy, at her mother, then lifted her head and squared shoulders. “There is no one left to do a man’s work for us, and so—”

  “—and so it falls to you.” Del nodded. “I know. Better than you think.” She looked across at the wagon. “We will repair it, if we can. If not, perhaps I might ride ahead to a roadhouse and see if a new wheel can be bought, if I can have the loan of your mare.”

  Instantly suspicion flashed in the girl’s eyes. And then died. “Will he stay with us?” She looked directly at me.

  I sneezed, and regretted it at once.

  “Have you caught cold?” the woman asked. “Poor man, and here we stand in this wet, nattering on about wheels and wagons.” She cast a glance at Del. “We are grateful for whatever help you can give us. But what can we do for you?”

  Noisily, I sniffed. “Make it warm again.”

  Eleven

  The woman’s name was Adara. Massou was ten. Cipriana fifteen. They were Borderers, Adara said, who had left the tiny settlement but a day’s ride from Harquhal to go north. Adara’s husband had been a Northerner, though she herself was half Southron—a typical Borderer, with a language born of both cultures—and he had wanted the children reared as he had been reared, knowing something solid of heritage as opposed to a Borderer’s piecemeal lifestyle. Unfortunately, he would now never see it: the journey this far had been fraught with difficulties and he had died but a week before. Of the strain, Adara said quietly; his heart had given out.

  We huddled around a tiny fire beneath the rainbreak Adara stretched out from the end of the wagon and staked, sipping gritty effang tea and getting to know one another before the repair work was begun. (Effang is not one of my favorite drinks, but they didn’t have any aqivi and beggars can’t be choosers. Our wine was nearly gone. And at least effang is Southron.) Massou and Cipriana sat with their mother between them, clearly protecting her as much as she protected them. Del and I gave them room, not wanting to trespass any more than was necessary.

  “A week?” I was surprised they had continued on so soon after the man’s death. Also that they had continued at all.

  Adara drew in a deep breath. “We considered turning back, of course. But Kesar had worked so hard to bring us this far that we couldn’t dishonor him so.”

  I looked at the girl, at the boy, at the woman. “It isn’t an easy journey,” I said quietly, “not for anyone. Even Del and I recognize the risks.”

  “And we don’t?” Adara was not a meek-tongued woman, though her tone was unrelentingly courteous. “We have been robbed twice, Sandtiger—once unknowing, at night, the other in full daylight. Our food supplies dwindle daily, our mare is old and tired, our wagon now lacks a wheel. Do you think we’re blind to these risks?”

  “No,” Del said quietly. “What he means is, there are those who are more able to accept the risks than others.”

  Cipriana scraped fair hair back from her face. “Just because I don’t wear a sword doesn’t mean I can’t do my part.”

  Del didn’t smile.
“Then why did you leave it to Massou?”

  Cipriana opened her mouth, clamped it shut. It was Adara who answered for her. “I made her give it to him,” she said calmly. “A sword is a man’s weapon.”

  Her children looked at Del, hilt poking over a shoulder, who merely sighed a little and nodded. “Southron, without a doubt, regardless of Border habits. Well, I compliment Kesar on desiring freedom of choice for his children.”

  Color flared in Adara’s face. “You have accepted our hospitality—”

  “—and I am grateful, but it doesn’t mean I have to believe as you believe.” Del spoke gently. “Woman, tend your children as you see fit; they are yours, not mine. But you should know that when a woman undertakes to do things a man ordinarily does, she should be prepared to act as a man when she must.” Del looked at the girl. “Cipriana, you have courage and spirit. But if you mean to use the staff, you had best learn how to do it.”

  Next she looked at the mother. “You, Adara, should hide a knife in your boot as well as behind your blanket; men expect panic from a woman, not forethought. As for Massou and the sword—” she shook her head, “—a boy would do better with a sling. He can hide, and strike in secret; a much more effective defense.”

  They stared at her, all three of them, struck dumb by her quiet and competent summation. I sipped effang, coughed, turned aside to sneeze. Tears ran down my face.

  Adara, diverted, smiled. “Poor Tiger,” she said. “You are in misery.”

  “And will be, until I’m South again.” I scowled at Del. “The sun’ll be down behind the mountains soon, bascha. If we’re going to see to this wagon, let’s get at it before I start feeling worse.”

  “Thanks to me.”

  “Thanks to you.” I rose, stretched, cursed inwardly as all my joints protested.

  Massou’s curiosity asserted itself. “Why is she to blame?”

  “Because it was her fault.” I scowled at the unblemished serenity of Del’s expression. Thought about explaining how she had made me catch cold, knowing how it would sound. “Never mind, Massou…let’s just go fix the wagon.”

  The problem was simple enough to repair. It was a matter of fashioning a new linchpin, lifting the wagon high enough to slip the wheel back on, then driving the linchpin through the wooden axle and pegging it in place. Unfortunately, I was the one who got to do most of the heavy work; even with leverage, numbers and willingness, most of the operation called for brute strength.

  Which naturally meant me, according to Del; the sardonic observation made Cipriana and Adara laugh, while Massou merely looked at me in perplexity.

  I sighed. “Look at your hands and feet, boy. One day you’ll be as big as I am, and then they’ll call you brute.”

  Grinning at Massou’s immediate inspection of hands and feet, Del examined the mare. Gently she checked legs, hooves—fingering splints and bog spavins, setting fingernails between cracks in the hoof walls, ticking off infirmities—yet speaking softly all the while. The mare nosed Del’s hair briefly, then returned to her stupor between the shafts.

  Del turned to Adara, brows pulling downward. “How far are you bound?”

  “To Kisiri,” the woman answered. “My husband’s kin are there.”

  Del tilted her head in consideration, mouth twisted doubtfully. “Too far, I think, for this mare. All the way over Reiver’s Pass.” She shook her head, patting the mare’s shoulder. Even a passing glance at the animal underscored Del’s concern; in addition to the weaknesses Del had found, she was swaybacked, knock-kneed, too thin—clearly worn down from a journey still in its infancy. “The Heights will suck the wind out of her and leave her with nothing to breathe.”

  “She has to last the journey! How else are we to go?” Adara moved rapidly to the mare’s head, neatly forcing Del to step away. The woman stroked the age-faded piebald face and whispered words of encouragement. “She is tired, that is all. In the morning she will be better.”

  “In the morning she might be dead.”

  Adara turned to Del. “Have you no kind words in your mouth? Must you strip away our hope?” She flicked a glance at Cipriana and her brother, both white-faced and wide-eyed with a sudden comprehension of the possibility of failure, and what it might mean for them. “Do you forget I have children to tend?”

  Del’s tone was gentle, but underneath lay the subtle edge of true-honed steel. “Hiding the truth from them helps no one. Suckle them on dreams and falsehood to the exclusion of reality and they’ll be unprepared for life.”

  Adara’s green eyes narrowed. She was a tall, strong woman, more substantial than Del, and with as much determination. Beneath wool skirts and long belted tunic was a firm body accustomed to hardship. It was hardship of a different sort than Del’s, but equally valid.

  Uneasily, I looked from one to the other. I hate it when women fight…unless, as has occasionally happened, they’re two cantina girls fighting over me. This, however, was different.

  Adara opened her mouth to answer sharply, paused, glanced briefly at me. Reconsidered her words. She modified her tone, but the intent remained quite clear. “Cipriana will one day be a wife, not a warrior. And the man she tends will be her husband, a settled man, who has no need of a sword, nor of a wife who wears one.”

  “Hoolies.” I muttered wearily. I found a stump—wet, of course—and sat on it, shivering in the dampness. The rain had faded to mist, but the sun had yet to shine. Everything was soot-gray and slate-blue; even the turf, ordinarily a rich, lively green, was dull and blotchy, channeled by runnels pouring off mounds and hummocks and terraces.

  Obscurely, Del asked, “How old were you when she was born?”

  Adara stared. And then answered politely enough, “Fifteen, even as Cipriana herself is now.” She glanced at the girl, a mother’s quiet pride evident in her smile and the softening of her face. “I had been wed but a nine-month, so clearly the gods blessed the union.”

  “Fifteen.” Del’s expression was masked, but I knew her too well to miss the odd note in her voice. One of weariness and recollection. “At fifteen, I too dreamed of a husband and daughter…and a softer sort of life.” Her eyes flicked a glance at me, at Cipriana, at the woman. Her tone hardened. “But the gods saw fit to give me a different road.”

  The Border woman was neither vindictive nor cruel, and did not, thank valhail, display the quick-striking dagger of a jealous female’s tongue. Plainly she heard the peculiar note in Del’s tone, and it touched her. Hostility spilled away; her question was very soft. “Is it too late to take another?”

  In a clipped, harsh tone, Del answered. “Much later than you know.” And then, abruptly, as if she regretted saying anything at all, she was asking questions about the remaining food supplies.

  Adara sighed. Lines crept back into her face, aging her beyond her thirty years. “We have what the thieves left us: a little flour, dates, dried meat, grain for the mare in case foraging isn’t enough…some tea and water…” Her head dipped briefly, then snapped back up. The Border woman would not acknowledge how bad the telling sounded. “We had a nanny in kid, and another just weaned—”

  “—and two hens,” Cipriana said hollowly, “with a rooster. In crates.” Her face was solemn. “They took them all except the mare; they said she wasn’t worth it.”

  As one, we looked at the mare. No, to thieves, she was not. Unless they meant to eat her, but she was too old and too thin to offer much other than tasteless sinew and bone.

  Del nodded. “Have you coin?”

  Even Massou, young as he was, understood the possibilities in the question. And misunderstood, even as his sister and mother did. I didn’t really blame them; they had been hard-used by thieves. There was no reason to trust anyone else until we gave it to them.

  “Nothing left,” Adara said sharply. “Will you take the mare, now?”

  Del’s tone didn’t change, only the end of the question did. “Have you coin to buy supplies when you reach a settlement?”

  The
Borderer’s color deepened. Ashamed, she looked at me, still sitting huddled on the stump. “No,” she said very softly. “I thought to sell the mare.”

  Del shook her head. “She will bring nothing; would a man pay coin for a horse no one else will steal?” She didn’t wait for a protest. “For now, what you need is fresh meat. It won’t last, but it will fill the belly tonight and tomorrow morning.” She looked at Massou. “Do you know how to set a snare?”

  His pinched face brightened. “Oh, yes! My father taught me.” The brightness fell out of his face as memory replaced it. Grief renewed, he stared hard at the ground.

  Del’s tone was brusquely sympathetic. “Fetch the makings, then, and you and I will snare us a meal.” She paused. “If your mother doesn’t mind.”

  That Adara wanted to was plain. But she made no protest, being a realistic woman: food had to come from somewhere and someone; Kesar was cold in the ground. Instead, she merely nodded.

  Massou stared at Del. “But—you’re a woman. Shouldn’t he set the snares?” A finger jutted in my direction.

  Del’s expression didn’t change. “Tiger is ill and needs to rest.”

  “Will you take me as well?” Cipriana asked eagerly, and then shot a stricken glance at her mother. “May I?”

  The corner of Del’s mouth twitched.

  Adara’s firm jaw was tight, stretching flesh over bone. I knew what she would say, and why; she would not lose son and daughter to Del. “It would be best if you stayed here, Cipriana. A woman prepares the meal.” Swiftly, before Cipriana could express disappointment, Adara added, “Perhaps you might ask Tiger to tell you about the Punja and all of the places he has seen.”

  “But what about me?” Massou demanded promptly. “I want to listen, too.”

  Del’s tone was dry. “Don’t fret, Massou. He has stories enough for us all, and for all the days of forever. And he’s a hero in every one.”

  I sniffed pointedly. “Not much of one at the moment.”

  Adara smiled; Cipriana giggled. Massou looked merely confused.