Sword Bound

Chapter 7

DEL WAS UP AT DAWN. I woke up when she threw her covers back, but did not immediately join her. I knew what she was about.

The forms. The sheer grace of preparing a body to dance. Muscles warmed, loosened; the body’s agreement that it would do what it was told. When she was done, Del smiled. A sidelong glance told me she knew I was watching. She raised her brows in a question.

“Yes,” I said. “All right. You approve or reject your own dances. Point taken. And, I daresay, you will put that boy on his butt.”

“I’ve decided to teach him a lesson,” she said. “Nothing done too quickly. Nothing done so hastily that he can’t understand what’s being done to him. He needs to learn what it is he needs to learn.”

Before I untangled that, Neesha poked his head out from under blankets. He rubbed one eye. “What did I miss?”

Del smiled.

“Everything.” I flipped the blankets all the way back and stood up from my bedding. “I assume the idiot will be here soon. I’m going to go visit a bush now, so I don’t miss anything.”

“Oh,” Neesha said. “Me also.”

And as we moved with alacrity around the wide-canopied tree, the stud let loose a river to remind us of what we were about.

She moved beautifully, did my bascha. Her feet sluffed through the sand with the soft, seductive sibilance of bare flesh against fine-grained dust. Wisps rose, drifted; layered our bodies in dull, gritty shrouds: pale umber, ocher-bronze, taupe-gray.

Dawn had passed. All was clear now, in the newborn sunlight. As I drew the circle, the news was passed: a woman danced against a man. Some men, Southroners, laughed, disbelieving it. Khalid had walked over naked except for dhoti. And he carried an unsheathed sword.

The dance began as all dances do: two swords in the center of the circle, a sword-dancer on either side. This time, I was given the task of telling them to begin.

I watched her move. I watched the others watch her move. All men. No women here, at this moment, under such circumstances; never a woman.

Except for Del.

Admiration, as always. And pride. Two-edged pride. One, that the woman brought honor to the ritual of the dance within the circle, and two, that she was my right hand, my left hand; companion, swordmate, bedmate. Pride is always a two-edged blade. When it concerns Del, the second edge is the sharpest of all for me, because for the Sandtiger to speak of pride in Del is to speak also of possessiveness. She’d told me once that a man proud of a woman is too often prouder of his possession of her, and not of the woman for herself.

I saw her point, but…well, Del and I don’t always agree. But then, if we did, life would be truly boring.

“Gods,” Neesha said in wonder. “I’ve never seen her like this.”

I nodded. “You’ve seen her spar in order to teach. This is Del dancing.”

I watched the man she faced in the circle. Khalid showed more skill than he had before, and Southron-style: dip here, feint there, slash, lunge, cut, thrust…and always trying to throw the flashes and glints into her eyes; ordinarily, a shrewd ploy. Khalid displayed some experience. But while another opponent might have winced or squinted against the blinding light, giving over the advantage, Del didn’t.

I knew she could kill him if she wished, though Khalid didn’t. He hadn’t realized it yet.

Few men realize it when they enter the circle with Del. They see only the tall Northern woman with thick white-blond hair braided back, and blue, blue eyes; her perfect face with its sun-gilded flesh stretched taut across flawless bones. They see all of that, and her magnificent body, and they hardly notice the sword in her hands. Instead, they smile. They feel tolerant and magnanimous, because they face a woman, and a beautiful woman. And because she is beautiful they will give her anything, if only to share a moment of her time, and so they give her their lives.

But she wasn’t here to kill Khalid.

She danced. Long legs, long arms, bared to the Southron sun. Step. Step. Slide. Skip. Miniscule shifting of balance from one hip to the other. Sinews sliding beneath the flesh of her arms as she parried and riposted. All in the wrists with Del. A delicate tracery of blade tip against the afternoon sky, blocking Khalid’s weapon with a latticework of steel.

“Hoolies,” Neesha whispered. “She’s playing with him.”

“She’s not,” I told him. “This is a lesson. Whether he will heed it is up to him.”

Neesha shook his head, spellbound.

“You did wager on her, didn’t you?”

Neesha’s mouth twisted. “I thought it might not be polite.”

“To wager on Del while everyone else—except me, of course—is wagering on Khalid? Hoolies, kid, Del and I made a living for nearly a year doing this. I thought you were smarter than that!”

Neesha scowled. “Apparently not.”

I agreed wholeheartedly. “Apparently not.”

“Sword-dancer?” The question came from a man who stepped up next to me, slipping out of the crowd to stand closer to me than I liked. “Sandtiger?”

I glanced briefly. Young man. Copper-skinned. Swathed in a rich silk burnous of melon orange, sashed with a belt of gold-freighted bronze. A small turban hid most of his dark hair, but not the fringe of dark brown lashes surrounding hazel eyes.

“Sandtiger?” he asked again, hands tucked into voluminous sleeves.

“Sandtiger,” I agreed, still watching the dance.

He sighed a little and smiled. The smile faded; he realized my attention was mostly on the circle, not on him. For just an instant, anxiety flickered in his eyes. “My master offers gold to the sword-dancer called the Sandtiger.”

There was a time I’d have given him my full attention at once. But now Del and I owned two-thirds of a cantina, and earning coin by dancing wasn’t quiet as vital as it had been. “Can we talk later? I’m a little busy.”

“Of great urgency, my lord Sandtiger. My master waits to speak with you.”

I didn’t answer at once. Too much noise. All the indrawn breaths of the onlookers reverberated as one tremendous hiss of shock and disbelief. Well, I could have warned them…I glanced at Del, automatically evaluating her condition. Her face bore a faint sheen of sweat. She was sun-flushed, lips only slightly parted. Her breathing was even. Khalid hadn’t offered her much at all. He lay sprawled in the sand, dust sticking to every inch of bared flesh. His chest heaved as he sucked air.

“He’ll never live this down,” Neesha observed. He looked at the robed, turbanned man. “What business have you?”

“With my lord Sandtiger.”

I couldn’t help but grin at the expression on Neesha’s face as he was dismissed so swiftly.

Del turned and looked at me. The sword hung loosely in her hand. She hunched one shoulder almost imperceptibly—a comment; an answer to my unspoken question on whether she was all right—and then she nodded, only once; an equally private exchange.

I turned back to the messenger. A servant, I was certain, but not just any servant. Whoever his master was, his wealth was manifest. And in the South, wealth is synonymous with power.

“Yes?” I asked.

The hazel eyes were fixed on Del as she cleaned her sword. Onlookers huddled and muttered among themselves, settling bets. None were winners, I knew—not even my foolish son. Only the one wise man who knew her better than most. Many drifted away from the circle entirely, away from the woman who had defeated a man in a supremely masculine occupation with supremely “masculine” skill.

Khalid got up, shook sand out of his hair and, red-faced, inclined his head. Del nodded back, accepting his retirement from the circle.

I smiled a little. The servant looked back at me. He didn’t smile at all. “A woman,” he said. Two words full of disbelief, shock, a trace of anger as well. Underlying hostility: a woman had beaten a man.

“A woman,” I agreed blandly. “And what is it you wish to speak to me about?”

He pulled himself together. “My master extends an invitation for you to take tea with him. I am not authorized to inform you of the employment he has to offer. Will you come?”

Tea. Not one of my favorite drinks. Especially effang tea, gritty, thick, offensive, but customary in the South. Maybe I could talk the man into some aqivi, now that I was drinking it again. But it wasn’t entirely my decision.

I glanced at Neesha, who shrugged. “The horse farm will be there when we’re done. And this might be an adventure.”

I laughed, then looked back at the short man. “There are three of us,” I said. “Including the woman.”

He was torn. Utterly torn. “Will you come without her?”

“I will not.”

He sighed deeply and began to turn away. Then he swung back. A hint of desperation showed in his face. “The woman comes.”

“And me,” Neesha added.

The servant barely looked at him. He gestured expansively, one smooth hand sweeping out of its silken sleeve. “This way, my lord Sandtiger.”

I grinned at Neesha as I followed the man.

Rather than Umir’s sprawling brick palace, this tanzeer currently occupied a series of elaborate tents. And we did not see him immediately. Well, we didn’t see him at all—only I was given the honor of stepping into the man’s presence. And what he desired of me might indeed qualify as one of Neesha’s adventures. But I didn’t think it was one we could accept.

When I was guided back to the guest tent, I found Del and my son ensconced comfortably on low divans, nearly buried in colorful tribal pillows, picking black grapes off a cluster and eating pale green melon chunks.

“You started without me?” Half of me was serious. I sat down on the edge of Del’s divan and began dining on various kinds of fruit. Wine was also offered in a ceramic carafe. I tasted it and nearly spat it out; too sweet for me.

Neesha had no patience. “Well?”

I ate a little more. Then sighed. “He’s the tanzeer of Hafiz, which is where we are. A small domain, yet wealthy; next door to Dumaan, also small, but not wealthy.” The South was full of domains large and small. Basically, it depended on who was strong enough to keep his patch of dirt and sand. “But there might be a slight problem with this. We might want to consider continuing our journey to your mother’s place.”

Neesha frowned. “Why? Coin is coin. Does he want us to kill someone?”

I shook my head.

“Well then,” he said, “what’s the problem?”

“He’s a khemi.”

“Oh,” Neesha said after a moment. “Uh-oh.”

Del frowned at us both. “What? What do I not know?”

I sighed. “It’s a religious sect. An offshoot of the Hamidaa faith. Hamidaa hold majority here in Hafiz.”

She nodded acknowledgment, but the frown didn’t fade.

“Khemi are zealots,” I explained. “They take the word of the Hamidaa’n—the sacred scrolls of the Hamidaa—rather literally.”

She narrowed her eyes. “And what does the Hamidaa’n say?”

I cleared my throat. “That women are abominations, unclean vessels that should not be touched, spoken to, or allowed to enter a khemi’s thoughts.”

Silence. Neesha stopped chewing, waiting for Del’s reaction.

“Pretty conclusive,” she observed after a moment. “Can’t be too many khemi left, if they don’t have congress with women.”

She was taking it better than I’d expected. “I imagine they’ve figured out a few loopholes, since the job involves a son. Ordinarily I’d have turned it down, of course, since I do have some sensibilities, after all, but, well, it’s not entirely up to me.”

Neesha was puzzled. “Just what is this job?”

“We are expected to negotiate the release of this son, who was kidnapped two months ago.”

“Negotiate.” Del nodded. “That means steal back. Who, how, and when?”

“Name’s Dario,” I said. “Soon as possible.”

“Of course,” Del said dryly. “But that’s the who and the when. What about the how?”

“Haven’t gotten that far. I wanted to leave something for you and Neesha to contribute.”

“Hoolies,” Neesha said, reaching for the wine carafe. “I have no idea. Steal back a kid?”

“We stole you,” I reminded him.

“You traded for me,” Neesha clarified. “I’m worth a book.”

“You’re worth a grimoire,” I said. “A book of magic. Better than just a book.”

“Ah,” he said. “Certainly it’s better if my life is worth more than a book.”

Del smiled briefly, but she was more interested in the central topic. “I imagine this khemi had an explanation for why his son was kidnapped in the first place.”

“Claims the neighboring tanzeer of Dumaan took the boy to force trade concessions. And Hafiz is more than willing to pay handsomely.” I pulled the leather purse out of a pocket in my russet burnous and rattled the contents. “Half up front, half after.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Neesha observed. “When do we leave?”

“About a half hour ago.”