Sword Bound

Chapter 21

DEL HAD COME THROUGH HER DANCE UNSCATHED, which wasn’t particularly surprising in view of her opponent. Neesha hissed and muttered now and again as he moved, stretching cut flesh. Del had wrapped his forearm after re-stitching it. It would, she informed him, cause “a beautiful scar,” two cuts in nearly the same place.

Mahmood had assigned a driver to build a fire ring for us, to lay kindling and light it. He’d also provided food and water. Blankets down, Neesha, Del, and I pillowed our heads on saddles.

“You said my scar was beautiful,” Neesha noted to Del.

“Well, that one, yes. The others are inconsequential.”

I lay between them. I felt no urge to speak. In silence, I watched twilight fall, saw the first stars swell into brilliance against the darkening sky. Familiar smells drifted through Marketfield: bread, sausage, roasting meat, onions, beans, potent spices. Familiar sounds—fortunately, the baby had ceased crying. When one has come so close to death, everything in the world seems brighter, richer, more real somehow.

With great care, I arranged my hands against my belly. Aqivi warmed me but did not rid me of pain in the finger stumps.

“Inconsequential,” Neesha muttered.

“Scars are the mark of a sword-dancer,” Del explained. “There is the harness and sword, and the scars. Souvenirs of dances.”

“Souvenirs?” Neesha sounded somewhat aggravated. He was tired, more sore than he let on, and out of sorts. Food and aqivi had not soothed his temper. “Why would I want a scar as a souvenir?”

“As I said: scars are the mark of a sword-dancer. It proves you have danced.”

“And got cut! I’d think that would tell everyone I danced poorly, to get myself cut.”

I couldn’t remain silent. “We all get cut, Neesha. Why in hoolies do you think Del slathered me in ointment and wrapped me up like a corpse?”

He said nothing.

“Ah,” I said. “I see. You believe Rafa is better because he cut me. And that I won merely by happenstance.”

“No, no—”

I cut him off. “If you wish to believe I’m the lesser sword-dancer, go right ahead. But you’re deceiving yourself.”

Anger underlay Del’s tone. “You should be ashamed, Neesha. Tiger won a dance no one else could have. You saw him. You were standing there with your mouth hanging open.”

“You weren’t cut,” Neesha ventured.

“That’s because I disarmed Darrion and shoved him out of the circle before he could bring his sword up from the ground more than two or three inches.”

“And Rafa had his share of cuts and slices before I killed him,” I put in. “You just didn’t see them.”

“And if you don’t want to be cut,” Del said curtly, “then you should go back to the horse farm and stay there.”

Silence replaced conversation. Neesha said nothing for some time. Eventually, in a chastened tone, he apologized. “I didn’t know. About cuts.”

I grunted. “Why do you think these terrible scars of Del’s and mine aid rather than devalue us? Sword-dancers don’t believe we’re weak because of them. They just wonder how in hoolies we survived them, and how in hoolies they can defeat us if we can survive that. If you’re smart, and if the scars are bad enough, you allow them to work for you. As for what you received today, it’s a beginning. Even legends begin as infants.”

He considered that a moment. “Will I ever be good enough to defeat a man like Rafa?”

I stared into the heavens, contemplated lying, thought to say: ‘Yes. Of course. No question of it.’ But I didn’t. I told him the truth. “Maybe. It depends on how much you want to be, and how hard you will work to attain it.”

Eventually Neesha observed, “He’s quite good, is—was—Rafa.”

I closed my eyes. If I lay very still, nothing hurt. “One of the best.”

“But not good enough to defeat the Sandtiger.”

I smiled crookedly. “Not many are.”

“Nor are many as arrogant as the Sandtiger,” Del chided, but I knew she didn’t mean it. We were so different, Delilah and I. She was never arrogant, merely truthful. She never bragged; she let her victories speak for her. I, on the other hand, used the arrogance, the bragging, as weapons to shake my opponent’s confidence, or focus. Often, it worked. But not against a man like Rafa.

“I’m not good enough to be arrogant,” Neesha said.

I opened my eyes. I had not expected such insight in a young man. I smiled into the stars. “I’ll let you know when you are.”

“Foolishness,” Del declared.

“Can I ask another question?” Neesha inquired.

I was puzzled. “When have I ever said you couldn’t? Or shouldn’t?”

“I wanted to help you away from the circle. You wouldn’t let me.”

“It was well-intended,” I told him. “I thank you for that. But when you’re in the midst of convincing other sword-dancers that you are unconquerable—well, that’s what you hope they think—you don’t want anyone helping you from the circle.”

“Ahhhhh.” His tone rose, then dropped low in sudden realization.

“The mind,” I said, “is as important as the skill. The sword is not the only weapon you have.”

“I think I’m beginning to see that.”

I blew out a long breath. I had a belly full of food, and aqivi in my blood. All of me was sore, tired, aching, incapable of movement. The shakes had died away, but the pain in my hands had not. I wasn’t sure which would win throughout a long night: exhaustion or enough pain to keep me from sleep. And without sleep, whatever I felt now would feel worse in the morning.

Del seemed to realize what I was thinking. “More aqivi? For medicinal purposes?”

And for the first time in my adult life, I said no.

Come morning I was close to wishing, though not quite, that Rafa had killed me. Hard-fought dances always set up aches within the bones, complaints from overworked muscles, the occasional sharp stab of a cut stretched and broken open. My skills, my talent, had kept me alive, but my age multiplied every ache and pain. I lay very still on the blanket, debating whether I should even attempt to sit up.

Next to me, Del did so. Neesha, too. She made no complaint; he did. He seemed surprised by the protests of his body; he was young, healthy, fit. But he had never tested his body so much, never fought a sword-dancer as good as Eddrith. Being young did not guarantee a pain-free life.

He glanced down at me, noting I was awake. Noting, too, that I showed no signs of moving. Smiling widely, he kicked my left foot. “Up, old man. We are, as you say, burning daylight.”

“Neesha,” Del said sharply. “Have some respect.”

I saw the bafflement in his eyes, the lack of understanding of what his action had provoked. Certainly he had kick-prodded me before, as I had kicked him. As Del had.

Realizing that, Del softened her tone. “You didn’t know. Nor even now, do you?”

“Know what?”

“That was a death-dance, Neesha.”

Disbelief reigned supreme. “Rafa said it was for Umir’s bounty!”

“Rafa lied,” Del said.

“But—that’s not done. Both of you told me so.” He looked down at me, perplexed. “You taught me so.”

I expelled a long breath. “It’s different with me. I’m not one of them anymore. Any sword-dancer can do anything to me. Lie. Attack without warning. Challenge me outside of a circle. Any sword-dancer may make up their own rules and break them a moment later. There is no binding, Neesha. No oaths, no vows, no codes. Not anymore. I thought you knew that.”

And yet knowing is not always the same as understanding.

“None?” he asked. “None at all?”

“None at all.”

Neesha thought about it. He looked at Del, looked at me, then prodded my foot with far less emphasis than before. It wasn’t so much a kick as a push. “Up. I’ll be gentle with you.”

Del sighed. “Truly your son.”

Neesha bent to extend a hand. “Help, old man? Now that we’re not in front of everyone?”

I grunted. “‘Old man’ could take you any day.”

Neesha hooted a laugh. “Not today!”

“No help necessary.” I levered myself up on an elbow. “‘Young man’ can go get the horses.”

Del waited until Neesha was gone. “Do you want help?”

“I’m not getting up without it,” I said.

Grinning, Del bent down, heaved me up as I pushed off from the ground. I blessed her size and strength; a smaller, lighter woman couldn’t have done that. As I caught my balance, she said, “The ride will loosen you.”

“Or kill me,” I said in a strangled tone.

Del’s amusement faded. “Tiger—he’s young. Younger than his years.”

I attempted to move muscles that had no inclination to do so. “I know that.”

“He grew up on a horse farm where likely the only violence he saw or experienced was breaking horses to the saddle.”

Tried another set of muscles. “I know that, too.”

“He said himself that his primary sparring partner was his sister.”

I examined the bandaging Del had done, noting a few spots of dried blood. “Bascha, what are you trying to say?”

Del sighed. “He’s not you. He’s not me. We are who we are, you and I, because of what happened to us when we were young.”

I stopped doing anything except to look at her. “I understand everything you’re telling me. I don’t fault him for it. The life he led prior to meeting us was the kind of life you and I should have had…hoolies, the life you did have until Ajani and his raiders attacked your family’s caravan. He’s cheerful and happy and full of life. Naive, even. But he learns quickly. And he’s steadfast about the things he feels are right. He’s an honorable young man.” I shrugged. “But that doesn’t change the fact that he’ll drive us sandsick sometimes, or make us wonder if he’s a fool.”

Del nodded. “I wish he knew you better. I wish he understood you better.”

I grinned. “Just what I said in relation to you on that first journey together across the Punja.”

“Oh, you did not!”

I let the grin fade. “Listen, bascha…I’m not a father to him. I’m not even a man to him. I’m a name. He thinks only of the legend, and sometimes he comes up against the truth without actually understanding it: that I am just a man, like he is.”

“Hunh.” Del looked beyond me. “He’s coming now. I’ll go help him bring the horses in.” But before she left to do so, she said with a furrowed brow and deep consideration, “Maybe I should sleep with him to find out if he’s just a man, like you are.”

As she walked away, I shouted after her, “That’s not funny!”

This time around, we were able to ride out of Istamir without being stopped by sword-dancers, angry husbands, or anyone else. We even rode down the center of the main street, shod hooves clopping, instead of avoiding it. When we rode into Istamir people glanced at us with only passing interest, but now many of them stared as we rode out. The three of us had managed to make ourselves famous. And we couldn’t even blame the husband, or Darrion, Eddrith, or Rafa. Del was Del, and I was me. Neesha had gained perhaps a smidgen of notoriety, but it was at Del and me they stared—though that was nothing new, after a sword-dance.

The stud, for a wonder, was in a quiet mood. He had never been one to respect my physical condition, being completely self-centered when it came to expressing his mood. But whatever his reason to walk smoothly this morning, I was grateful for it.

Kindness in the skies, kindness to the eyes. Beneath a bright but softer sun, rounded hills rose to our right, preface to mountain flanks. Grasslands were deep green, almost glowing in the light. Trees were more profuse. In the North, scents were different, far different from the South. Here, shrubbery bloomed, and trees rustled in an infant breeze. Foremost, the smells were of rich earth, of new blossoms stolen from branches and lofted on the wind.

A glance at Neesha presented a young man riding with a smile, a looseness in his body. Nayyib was nearly home. And Del…her eyes drank in the views, her soul drank in the knowledge that she, too, was home. We had come to the North before, she and I, but in the unkindness of winter, when snow blew bitter-hard and the wind was a bone-deep cold. Not here; farther north, in the frozen fastness of sharp and ragged mountains. Dark, all of them, verging on black, built of bleakness. And if one rode far enough, high enough, a village on the shore, and Staal-Ysta on the island, afloat on freezing water.

The faintest track here, nearly hidden among grasses. Neesha had taken the lead. He rode easily, hips absorbing the rhythm of his mount. The roan mare was again tied off to his saddle. From time to time he closed a hand on the lead-rope and urged her closer to him, clicking with his tongue, speaking quietly. She trotted abreast of him or slowed to a walk. Occasionally she snaked her head out to grab at grass, ripping it, soil clinging, from the earth. The stud did the same, and Del’s gelding. Rich grazing here, as my son had said.

I raised my voice. “How far, Neesha?”

He twisted in the saddle to look at me, one hand spread upon his bay’s rump as he leaned. “Not long. By midday. Probably just in time for your old bones.” I saw the flash of white teeth in his tanned face. “It will be most interesting to watch you and my mother meet for the first time since I was conceived.”

Interesting. Hunh. I could think of other words. “Awkward” was foremost, with “uncomfortable” right behind it. But at least I knew that we would meet; she had no idea. “Your stepfather knows about me?”

“Well,” Neesha said dryly, “he knows that someone lay with her.”

That deserved a glare, except I wasn’t sure he could see it. “But not me precisely. I mean, he won’t know I’m your father. That it’s me in his house.”

“Oh, he will know you’re my father. My mother never kept it a secret. I think she was proud of you.”

That, I could not grasp. “Why in hoolies would she be proud of me? We spent but a single night together. What woman wants to be left like that, who isn’t a wine-girl?”

“But you told her, she said. You told her of your life among the Salset. You told her what you wanted, what you dreamed of. She was the first to know…maybe even the only one to know, once you were free, before you rode away from Alimat as a seventh-level sword-dancer.”

Apparently I’d told her far too much. Among the Salset, I was only rarely allowed to say anything. It was only to Sula, an older and wiser woman, that I could speak of my hopes for freedom. She’d told me any number of times she had faith in me. And it was Sula, for whom our Sula was named, who had nursed me back to health after I’d killed the sandtiger, when poison burned my blood.

But freedom…freedom was intoxicating. Neesha’s mother was my first woman as a free man. She had consented. She had wanted it. And afterward, there were no regrets from her. She had been a virgin but saw a man who warmed her. A man who answered curiosity.

Neesha, still twisted in the saddle, said, “Her name is Danika.”

Then he turned back. It was privacy he gave me; once again, more insightful than expected.

Danika. I had not remembered her name. She said it only once, naming herself as we learned one another’s bodies. As we made ourselves a son beneath a half-faced moon.