Sword-Sworn Page 5

  “That,” I said, “is likely more a result of the swordsmith spreading gossip.”

  “You think he recognized you?”

  “Probably not. As I said, Haziz isn’t a place many sword-dancers go, unless specifically hired. But as you pointed out before, we don’t exactly fit in with the rest of the crowd. All it would take is a description, and anyone who’d seen or heard about us would know.”

  “So. It begins.”

  “It begins.” I glanced sideways at the long equine face with its black-painted eye circles, the wine girl’s dangling golden fringe—I wondered briefly if Del had told her what she intended to do with it—and mournful blue eyes. “That horse is a disgrace to his kind.”

  Del put up her brows. “Just because your horse is afraid of him is no cause to insult him.”

  “He looks ridiculous!”

  “No more than yours did when he stood rooted to the ground, trembling like a leaf.”

  Probably not. Scowling, I said, “Let’s go, bascha. It’s a long ride to Julah—”

  “—and we’re burning daylight.”

  Well. We were.

  Del and I stopped burning daylight when the sun went down. Then it lost itself in its own conflagration, a panoply of color so vivid as to nearly blind you. Desert orange, blazing red, yellow, vermillion, raisin purple, lavender, the faint burnished shadow of blue fading to silver-gilt. Out here twilight dies gently, shading slowly into darkness.

  We were beyond the last oasis between Haziz and Julah, so there was no place in particular we wanted to bed down. We ended up settling for a series of conjoined hummocks carpeted in a fibrous, red-throated groundcover bearing tiny white blossoms, and the threadbare shelter of a thin grove of low, scrubby trees boasting a bouquet of woody limbs bearing dusty green leaves. Within weeks the leaves would dry out, curl up, and drop off, when summer seared them to death, but for now there was yet enough moisture in the mornings for the leaves to remain turgid. Mixed in with the groundcover were taller-growing desert grasses with frizzy, curled topknots.

  “This’ll do,” I said, reining in even as Del dismounted.

  Since the stud was not always trustworthy when picketed close to other horses, I led him to a tree eight paces away and had a brief discussion about staying put as I hobbled him. Del and I busied ourselves with untacking and grooming both mounts, swapping out bridles and bits for halters, pouring water into the squashable, flat-bottomed oiled canvas bags doubling as buckets, and offering them grain as a complement to the grasses. It wasn’t particularly good grazing, but it would do; and the next night we’d be in Julah where they’d eat well.

  Our dinner consisted of dried cumfa meat, purple-skinned tubers, and flat, tough-crusted journey-bread. Del drank water, I had a few mouthfuls of aqivi from the goatskin bota. Sated, we sprawled loose-limbed on our bedrolls and digested, blinking sleepily up into the deeping sky as the first stars kindled to life.

  “That,” Del observed after a moment, “was one huge sigh.”

  I hadn’t noticed.

  “Of contentment,” she added.

  I considered it. Maybe so. For all there were risks attendant to returning South, it was home. I’d been North with Del once, learning what real forests were, and true mountains, and even snow; had sailed to Skandi and met my grandmother on a wind-bathed, temperate island in the midst of brilliant azure seas, but it was here I was most at ease. Out in the desert beneath the open skies with nothing on the horizon but more horizon. Where a man owed nothing to no one, unless he wished to owe it.

  Unless he was a slave.

  Del lay very close. She set her head and one shoulder against mine, hooking ankle over ankle. And I recalled that I was man, not child; free, not slave. That’d I’d been neither child nor chula for years.

  I remembered once telling Del, as we prepared to take ship out of Haziz, that there was nothing left for me in the South. In some ways, that was truth. In others, falsehood. There were things about the South I didn’t care for, things I might not be cognizant of had Del not come along, but there were other things that meant more than I expected. Maybe it was merely a matter of being familiar with such things, of finding ease in dealing with what I knew rather than challenging the unexpected; or maybe it was that I’d met and overcome the challenges I’d faced and did not wish to relegate them to insignificance.

  Then again, maybe it was merely relief that I was alive to return home, after nearly dying in a foreign land.

  I grinned abruptly. “You know, there is one thing I really miss about Skandi.”

  Del sounded drowsy. “Hmmmm?”

  “The metri’s tiled bathing pool. And what we did in it.”

  “We can do that without the metri’s bathing pool. In fact, I think we have.”

  “Not like we did there.”

  “Is that all you think about?”

  I yawned. “No. Just most of the time.”

  After a moment she said reflectively, “It would be nice to have a bathing pool like that.”

  “Umm-hmm.”

  “Maybe you can build one at Alimat.”

  “I think I have to rebuild Alimat itself before building a bathing pool.”

  “In the meantime…” But her voice trailed off.

  “In the meantime?”

  “You’ll have to make do with this.” Whereupon she squirted the contents of a bota all over me.

  The resultant activity was not even remotely similar to what we’d experienced mostly submerged in the metri’s big, warm bathing pool. But it sufficed.

  Oh, indeed.

  FOUR

  THE BALANCE of the journey to Julah was uneventful, save for the occasional uncharacteristic display of uncertainty by the stud when the white gelding looked at him. Del’s mount was a quiet, stolid kind of horse, content to plod along endlessly with his head bobbing hypnotically on the end of a lowered neck—though Del claimed he didn’t plod at all, but was the smoothest horse she’d ever ridden. I wasn’t certain I knew what that was anymore, since the stud had forgotten every gait except a sucked-up walk that put me in mind of a man with the runs, trying to hold it in until he found a latrine. When this gait resulted in him falling behind Del’s gelding, which happened frequently, he then broke into a jog to catch up and reassert his superiority. The gelding was unimpressed. So was I.

  Julah was the typical desert town of flat-roofed, squared-off adobe buildings, deep-cut windows, tattered canvas awnings, and narrow, dusty streets. But there was water here in plenty, so Julah thrived. Opting to cool off before taking the risk of meeting other sword-dancers, we stopped at a well on the outskirts of town, dismounting to winch up buckets. We filled the horse troughs, permitted our mounts to drink, then quenched our own thirst and refilled botas. It was early enough in the season that the heat wasn’t unbearable; but then, we hadn’t reached the Punja yet. There was only one season in the Punja: hot.

  Del dampened the hem of her burnous and wiped dust from her face. “Tonight I get the bath.” Then, “How many sword-dancers are likely to be here?”

  I backhanded water from my chin, realizing I needed to shave before we hit the Punja. “Oh, a few.”

  “Then we shouldn’t stay longer than is necessary.”

  “We’ll head out first thing tomorrow. In the meantime, except for a visit to Fouad’s cantina, we’ll keep our heads down.”

  “Walking into Fouad’s, where at any time there may be half a dozen sword-dancers drinking his spirits, strikes me as keeping our heads up.”

  “Maybe. But we knew we’d face this coming back here.”

  Del said nothing. She had not argued when I said I wanted to return home—we had established that Skandi, for all my parents had come from the island, did not qualify—but she had quietly pointed out that to do so was sheer folly for a man sentenced to death by the very honor codes he’d repudiated. But the mere fact that she hadn’t argued struck me as significant; I suspected Del was recalling that she was exiled from her own homeland and
understood how much I needed to go back to mine. Unlike Del, I wasn’t truly exiled. I wasn’t under pain of death if I went back South. Oh, men would try to kill me, but that had nothing to do with exile. Just with broken oaths.

  At my behest, we waited until sundown before entering Fouad’s cantina. We had in the meantime secured lodging in an only slightly disreputable inn with a tiny stable out behind in an alley and had eaten at a street vendor’s stall. The odors and flavors of spiced, if tough, mutton, sizzling peppers, and pungent goat cheese had immediately snatched me back to the days before we left for Skandi. I’m not sure Del appreciated that so much, having a more delicate palate—or so she claimed—but it felt like home to me. Then I led Del to Fouad’s cantina, which was only fitfully lighted by smoking tallow candles on each small knife- and sword-hacked wooden table. I selected one back in the farthest corner from the door, a windowless nook veiled with smoke from a dying torch stuck in an iron wall sconce, dripping tallow. As we found stools to perch our rumps upon, I leaned forward and blew out our candle. Dimness descended.

  “Oh, good,” Del commented, brushing bread crumbs off the table. “Makes it so easy to see whom I’m to stick my sword into.”

  “We’re not going to stick swords into anyone, bascha.”

  “Not even Fouad?” Del really seemed focused on the fact that my friend had betrayed us.

  “Not immediately,” I told her. “Maybe for the after-dinner entertainment.”

  Fouad, proprietor of my favorite cantina, was a small, neat, quick man of ready smile and welcome. Though he had wine-girls aplenty—Silk was working our corner, though clearly she hadn’t yet recognized me—he enjoyed greeting newcomers personally. He approached the table calling out a robust greeting in Southron and offering us the best his cantina had to offer.

  In bad light, wreathed in smoke, shorn of most of my hair, with double silver rings hanging in my ears and a tracery of blue tattooing along my hairline, I was no doubt a stranger to him at first glance, as I’d hoped. But Del, as always, was Del, and no man alive, having seen her even once, forgot what or who she was.

  Or whom she traveled with.

  Fouad stopped dead in his rush to greet new custom. He stared. He very nearly gaped.

  He had, helpfully, placed himself within my reach. I rose, kicking back my stool, and leaned close, slapping one big hand down upon his shoulder in a friendly fashion. “Fouad!” I shut the hand, gripping him so firmly a wince of pain replaced his shocked expression. “Join us, won’t you? It’s been a long time.” I shoved him toward the empty stool and pushed him down upon it. “There’s much to catch up on, don’t you think?”

  He was trembling. Very unlike Fouad. But then, so was betrayal.

  I yanked over another stool and sat down upon it. “So, what’s the news? Any word out of Sabra?”

  Fouad flicked a white-rimmed glance at Del, then looked back to me again. The robustness had spilled from his voice. “They say she’s likely dead.”

  I raised a brow. “‘They say’? They’re not sure?”

  “She disappeared.” His thin tone was a complex admixture of emotions. “Some say a sandstorm got her, or a beast, or the Vashni. But Abbu Bensir said differently.”

  I grinned. “Abbu would. He’s always one to tell a good tale. So, what did Abbu say about Sabra?”

  “That you killed her.”

  “He did not.” That from Del, who was never one to let a good story get in the way of the facts. “Sabra died of her own folly.”

  In truth, Sabra had died because she laid hands on a jivatma which was, at the time, utterly perverted by magic, full of a sorcerer wanting very badly to get out. Which he had managed. Unfortunately, the vessel he chose for freedom—Sabra—was far too weak to contain him. But I suppose “folly” fairly well summed it up.

  “And just when was good old Abbu here last?” I asked idly.

  Fouad had stopped trembling. Color returned to his face. We had always been friends, and I supposed he was recalling that. But wariness remained. And guilt. “Weeks ago,” he said. “He’s north of here now, I hear.”

  Well. At least I wouldn’t have to grapple with Abbu Bensir immediately. “Aqivi?”

  “Water for me,” Del said.

  It gave him something to do. Rather than calling Silk over, Fouad sprang up.

  “This time,” I said quietly, “leave out the drug.”

  His face spasmed. “I will drink first of each, if you like.”

  I was prepared to wave it away, knowing my point was made, but Del was less forgiving. “Do so,” she said, in a tone that lowered the temperature of the room markedly. “And you will remain at this table. Let it be brought.”

  After a moment, Fouad bowed to her with one hand pressed over his heart and quietly bade Silk, lingering nearby and trying to catch my attention now that she had recognized me—Silk had always been one of my favorites and, she said, I one of hers—to bring water, aqivi, bread and cheese. Then he sank down on the stool. He looked older than he had when we first entered the cantina.

  I waited.

  He drew in a deep, sharp breath, then let it out in a rush of helpless sound. “She would have killed me had I not done her bidding.”

  “Of course she would have,” I agreed.

  “I begged her not to make me do it.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “I prayed—”

  “Enough,” Del snapped. She glanced at me. “Do you intend to kill him, or shall I?”

  Bloodthirsty Northern bascha. I smiled, and let Fouad start sweating again. When the water and aqivi arrived—and Silk was shooed away—he poured cups of each and tasted both. Del rather pointedly turned her cup so her mouth would not touch the rim where his had touched. Me, I just picked up the aqivi and knocked back a slug.

  Long practice kept me from choking. Long abstinence—from aqivi, anyway—burned a line of fire from throat, through gullet, into belly. But being the infamous Sandtiger, I did not indicate this. I merely took another big slug.

  Del’s brows pulled together briefly, but she blanked her face almost at once.

  “So.” I grinned companionably at Fouad. “At Sabra’s behest, in fear for your life, you drugged our wine. I, innocent as a woolly little lamb, wandered off looking for someone and walked into a trap you helped set. Del, meanwhile—also drugged—was handed over to Umir the Ruthless to become a part of his collection.” Umir the Ruthless had tastes that did not incline to women but to unusual objects. He was ruthless not because he was particularly murderous personally, but because he’d do anything to get what he wanted. Even if he hired others to murder for him. “Del apparently feels what you did is worthy of execution. But I’m a more generous soul. What do you suggest I do about this?”

  Fouad’s tone was a carefully weighed mixture of resignation, suggestion, and hope. “Forget it?”

  I nearly choked on a mouthful of aqivi. Far less amused, Del stared him down.

  Fouad, suddenly smaller on his stool, sighed deeply. “No, I suppose not.”

  “We could have been killed,” Del said.

  “No!” Fouad exclaimed. “Assurances were made…” As if realizing how ludicrously lame that sounded, he trailed off into silence. “Well,” he said finally, “they were. I’m only a lowly cantina keeper, not a sword-dancer to parse between what is threat and what is honesty.”

  “You’ve parsed enough in the past,” I reminded him. Fouad had always been an excellent source of information and interpretation.

  He debated whether to acknowledge flattery or avoid it altogether. He shrank further inside his yellow robe.

  “So,” I said, “you really didn’t think they’d kill us—”

  “And they didn’t!” Fouad, having discovered a salient point, sat upright on the stool again. “Are you not here? Are you not sitting before me, eating my bread and cheese, drinking my liquor?”

  “Water,” Del clarified, displaying her cup. “But yes, I will give you all of that: we are
indeed alive and sitting before you. Eating and drinking. Whether you intended it or no.”

  “I didn’t want you dead! Either of you!” He looked from Del to me, and back again. “Why would I? I have nothing to gain from your deaths. I wanted merely to prevent mine.”

  “What did she pay you?” I asked.

  “Nothing!”

  Del was clearly skeptical. “Nothing?”

  “She permitted me to keep my life,” Fouad explained. “I am somewhat attached to my life and considered it payment enough, under the circumstances. Though undoubtedly others might not agree.” He eyed me, clearly expecting a reaction. Then a frown pinched his brows together. “You look—different.”

  “A full life will do that to you,” I replied gravely. “Especially if you’re sold off to a murderous female tanzeer intent on punishing you for killing her father, despite the fact that said father deserved to be slowly roasted to death over a nice bed of coals.” As Aladar had been the one to throw me into his mines and nearly cost me my sanity, I felt justified in my stance.

  Color deepened in Fouad’s face. He stared hard at the surface of the table. “I am not proud of it.”

  “Oh, that does change matters,” Del said with delicate irony.

  “You would do the same!” he cried; and then abruptly recalled to whom he spoke. Two sword-dancers, who defended the lives of others—and their own—without recourse to such cowardly acts as drugging customers’ wine. His breath came fast. “What do you want, then? To kill me?” He paused. “Really?”

  I smiled sweetly. “Two-thirds of this place.”

  Del cut me a sharp glance, not being privy to my plan. Fouad missed it, being entirely taken up with the magnitude of my revenge.

  I lifted a forefinger before he could sputter out a protest. “You might have told Sabra no.”

  “She’d have had me killed!”

  “So could we,” I reminded him. “Though at least we’d do you the courtesy of killing you ourselves, instead of hiring a total stranger to do the job.” My gesture encompassed the cantina. “Two-thirds, Fouad. One-third for you, one-third for me, one-third for Del.”