Sword Bound

Chapter 18

NOT LONG AFTER DAWN, the crying baby heralded the day. Now Del would know I hadn’t been making things up the night before. I untangled myself from bedding, crawled to the back end, untied the flap, and poked my head out. Morning mist slowly dissipated with the measured arrival of the sun.

And then I noticed the body. My son was rolled up in his bedding just beyond the back of the wagon. His bay was tied to it, but showed no inclination to step on his owner. All I could see of Neesha was a tangle of hair poking out from under a blanket. The rest of him was not visible except as unidentifiable lumps beneath bedding.

How many people can sleep with a crying baby next door?

The noise had roused Del as well. She crawled up beside me with her head stuck out the open rear flap. “I’m so glad Sula is past the age of infancy,” she murmured.

“Oh, she still has quite the voice,” I reminded her. “Especially during her many baths. Baths required because she insists on playing in the dirt, with occasional visits to piss puddles.”

She noticed Neesha below. “What is he doing here? I thought he’d stay with a woman.”

“Maybe she was crying, too.” I undid the pegs of the tailgate and lowered it, crawled out while trying to avoid the bundle of flesh and blood. I stepped around him, put a hand on his gelding’s muzzle so as to back him up a step; he was now perilously close to his owner’s body. “Though I suppose he might be dead.” I prodded Neesha with a bare foot. “Hey. Are you alive?” No reply. Or movement, for that matter. “Up. You can be hung over on horseback. Let’s get out of here.” I paused, wincing. “And how can you sleep with that baby screeching? It’s worse than a rooster.”

Del climbed out of the wagon. “He—or she—is not screeching, Tiger. That’s crying. He—or she—is undoubtedly hungry, or wet. Possibly both.” This time it was her foot prodding Neesha. “Up.”

The bundle of bedding moved. Neesha peeled back his blanket and squinted into nascent daylight. “Can we stay here another day? I met a woman…”

Del and I shook our heads simultaneously in resignation, exchanging wry smiles.

“If you met a woman, why are you here instead of there?” I asked.

Neesha took to rubbing the flesh of his face all out of shape, distorting his answer. “She’s married. Her husband came home.”

Oh, hoolies. “Not exactly a good thing,” I told him. “Husbands tend to dislike such activity.”

“Well, she insisted. Kind of.” He shoved blankets out of the way and sat up. “Never should a man refuse a lovely woman when she wants him so badly.”

“Ah,” Del said. “It’s in the blood, is it not? Tiger acquiescing to women who insist on dragging him to bed. Now his son acquiescing to a woman who insists on dragging him to bed. Fruit of the same tree.”

This required a reply. “Now, bascha, I haven’t acquiesced to an insistent woman for years. Well, except for you. And before you, it was never with a married woman.”

Del raised her brows, seemingly intrigued. “How do you know? I don’t think any woman taking you to bed would say she was married.”

Oh. Well, there was that. “To the best of my knowledge,” I amended.

Neesha scrubbed a hand through dark hair, causing even more disarray. Stubble shadowed his jaw. Time for him and me to use a razor. “Anyway, I came back here to sleep,” he said, a sentence that transformed into a major yawn. “Didn’t want to bother anyone. Especially not her husband, as he came home before his wife expected him.” He winced. “Are they even trying to shut that baby up?”

“Let’s gather the horses,” I suggested. “Neesha, you know where they are. Bring them back one at a time…I think you leading three horses that are familiar to other sword-dancers would be too much of a risk.”

He nodded, rising. After stretching, he went off in search of our mounts.

“Sandals,” I muttered to myself. Those, plus burnous, harness, and sword were in the wagon. The morning was a little chill. And my feet were damp and cold because Marketfield was almost completely grassy, holding the dew. I leaned into the back of the wagon and pulled out my sandals. “I think it’s best if we don’t wear swords and harnesses on the way out of here.”

“I doubt any other sword-dancers are up yet, Tiger,” Del said drily. “They are probably still in bed. Even if the beds are borrowed.”

I sat on the tailgate as I laced up my sandals. “I just don’t want to risk it. I really don’t want to dance again, here. Too many sword-dancers to spread the word that I’m in the North.”

“Didn’t Khalid say Umir was arranging another contest?”

I put on my burnous, belted it. “No, just that he’d put a bounty on my head. He wants me to open that book, not dance.”

Del climbed over the tailgate and disappeared into the interior long enough to gather her clothes. “I suspect word will spread quickly when you’re taken, and many of the sword-dancers would go to Umir’s just to see you.”

“Excuse me? When I’m taken? Do me the courtesy of saying if I am taken!”

“Word will spread quickly if you are taken—” She frowned. “Though I suppose word can’t actually be spread for an ‘if.’”

“There won’t be an ‘if,’” I said. “Not a ‘when,’ or an ‘if.’”

Del buckled her belt. “Then ‘might.’”

“No ‘might,’ either.”

“A ‘maybe.’”

“You won’t win this one, bascha.”

Lacing on her sandals, she smiled. Then said, “They’ll think you’re afraid.”

“Who will think I’m afraid? And of what?”

“Who will: the sword-dancers here in Istamir. Of what: your preference for sneaking out of town rather than meeting them.”

I snorted. “I’m a legend, according to Neesha. And the jhihadi, of course. Neither of which—or whom—sneaks.”

Del shrugged into her burnous. “You are neither legend nor jhihadi if you sneak out of town, which is what you’re proposing.”

“We are riding out of town. There’s a difference.” I paused, relieved that I was on the verge of being rescued. “And here comes Neesha with the stud.”

By the time our horses were packed and ready to go, which took very little time, many more people were awake and working, preparing wagons and market stalls for commerce later in the day. When Mahmood exited his wagon and began giving orders, I went over and thanked him for the use of his wagons.

“But I am grateful to you,” he said. “My men and I might have died when those raiders attacked, even if my former outriders had accompanied me.” He paused. “Perhaps especially if my former outriders had accompanied me.” He smiled as we clasped hands. “I am proud that the Sandtiger rode with me.”

Nice to be appreciated. I mounted the stud, taking a rein from Del. I looked at Neesha, clearly hung over. Still, he was already on his bay with the blue roan to be ponied alongside. “Are you going to be able to stay ahorse?”

He peered at me out of one squinted eye, the other squeezed closed. “Of course.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

“See? We’re sneaking,” Del murmured.

I ignored her. “Let’s loop around the buildings and bypass the main road.” I looked again at my son. “Will you be able to direct us to the farm?”

He scowled at me. “Ride to the end of the paved road and go west. That’s really all you need to know right now.”

Unfortunately, this was not accomplished. Even as we turned our horses south before going west, someone shouted at us. For a fleeting instant I thought it was Mahmood, and we’d forgotten something, but the actual reason for the shout was very different.

A man dragged a woman out from one of the narrow alleyways. She was in tears, dark hair and clothing in disarray. Her lip was split, and a bruise bloomed on one cheekbone. The man was all Southroner; dark skin, black hair and eyes. He dragged the woman to a stop in front of us, which naturally caused us to rein in the horses immediately.

He was so angry he sprayed saliva. “You!” he shouted at Neesha. “You have defiled my wife!”

To Del, I quietly said, “Uh-oh.”

“I should have her stoned,” the man shouted, “but I have been convinced this was your doing. She had no wish for what happened to happen! You forced her!”

I knew better than that. It was too easy for women to attach themselves to Neesha. There was no need for him to force a woman, even if he was the type to do it. And he wasn’t. However, this was a tidy little trap. He couldn’t very well admit he’d forced the woman, which he hadn’t; but if he said he hadn’t forced her, it would place her in danger of an even worse beating. Perhaps a beating that would kill her.

My son glanced at me. I shook my head slightly and spoke quietly. “You’ll have to find a way to settle this.”

“Coin?” he asked.

“That could go either way. He might be greedy enough to take it, or it will inflame him further because you’re insulting his wife by suggesting she can be paid for.”

“Oh, hoolies,” Neesha muttered.

“Yup,” I agreed. “Best ask him what he wants…short of your death, that is.”

“Well, yes,” he said sourly. “I’d much prefer to avoid that.”

“Stop talking!” the man cried. He thrust the woman down hard enough to drop her to her knees. He ignored Del, not surprisingly; she wasn’t capable of defiling anyone. He stared hard at me, then at Neesha. He grabbed a handful of his wife’s hair. “Which one? Which one was it?”

Sobbing, she looked at Neesha. It was clear she wished not to indicate either of us. But her husband was too angry, and she’d already had a taste of his violence. “Him,” she said. “The young one.”

Neesha didn’t deny it. A wave of color rose in his face. It wasn’t shame; it was anger. “Beat me,” he challenged. “Beat me instead of her.”

“Did she consent?” the man cried. He shook her head by the hair. “Did she consent, or did you force her?”

Either answer was dangerous, for the wife or for himself, and Neesha knew it. But he found a novel approach. “I was drunk,” he answered. “Too drunk to remember. Much too drunk. Men in the cantina with me—even the cantina owner—can attest to my drunkenness.”

“He was drunk,” I put in. “He reeked of spirits when he came to sleep by our wagon.”

Del added, “Very, very drunk.”

The husband glared at all of us but reserved his enmity for Neesha. “I will have this settled. I will have this settled. You will see!”

And so we did. A man came out of the gathering crowd. Borderer by the look of him: brown hair, not black; grey eyes, not dark; skin color close to my own. A sword rode high on his left shoulder. And hired, I realized, by the angry husband.

He looked straight at Neesha. “My name is Eddrith,” he said, “and I challenge you.”

Without looking at one another, Del, Neesha, and I muttered simultaneously, “Oh, hoolies.”

And then another man stepped out from the crowd. He looked straight at me. “And you.”

I blinked. “Me?” Here I’d been thinking about Neesha’s first true sword-dance, and this man was challenging me. Though I guess I should have been glad of the advance warning. It was no longer required that I be given one.

His smile was edged. “I want Umir’s bounty. You lose, you go with me.”

The stud jangled bit shanks and pawed at the earth as I sat at ease in the saddle, leaning against the pommel on stiffened arms. “And if I win?”

“Then another sword-dancer will have the honor—though it’s not truly that, is it?—of hauling you to Umir.” His eyes were an icy blue, his hair white-blond. Definitely a Northerner. “But I think that will not happen.”

“Rather full of yourself, aren’t you?” I asked lightly. But before he could answer, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a third sword-dancer slide out of the crowd. By all the gods above and below—and sideways, for that matter—what was going on?

But this latest sword-dancer I knew.

Darrion was very solemn, but he looked neither at me, nor at Neesha. Only at Del. “I challenge the sword-singer trained at Staal-Ysta.”

“Oh hoolies” indeed.