Sword Bound

Chapter 29

I WAS HOPEFUL, but Del did not appear. I badly wanted to go to her room, but the landlady had me worried about even glancing in that direction. I sat on my bed and thought about why I was reluctant to cross a small, mean-minded, old landlady, but nothing came to me. I was annoyed, frustrated, and irritated all at once with myself—and a little trepidatious. She might decide at any moment that my eye color would cost extra.

I checked the wall between our rooms in hopes of finding a knothole, or a crack between the planks. And it was as I was squatting, examining the wall, that Del slipped into my room. She put a hand on my shoulder and startled me so much that I tried to stand up too fast, bashed a knee as I ricocheted off the bedframe, and landed on the floor in a most inelegant sprawl of arms and legs.

Del slapped both hands over her mouth to stifle laughter, staggered away two steps. I thought she might collapse onto the bed, she was working so hard not to laugh. I climbed to my feet, brushed myself off, and gave her my best green-eyed Sandtiger’s glare. Del had mastered herself, but nearly went off again.

I kept my voice very low. “Why in hoolies did you choose this place?”

“Because of Tamar,” she answered as quietly. When I looked blank, she added, “The landlady.”

“Why? She looks like she hasn’t cracked a smile in, oh, two hundred years.”

“Did you have to wash your feet?”

“Of course I had to wash my feet! And brush off my coat, too, and wipe down the sandals—which is a good thing, I guess, as otherwise it might be difficult to get into them tomorrow. Oh, and she wants me to wipe the mud off my face.” I paused. “Did you have to?”

“Wash my feet? Or wash the mud off my face?”

I scowled at her. “Both.”

“Yes. I had mud up to my ankles. My face was clean, though.”

“Is she charging you extra for various and sundry things?”

Del frowned, perplexed. “No.”

“Hah!” I said emphatically, then winced because it was louder than I wished. Would that bring Tamar-the-landlady?

“She likes me,” Del added.

Suspicious, I asked, “Did the hostler-smith charge you extra?”

That frown again. “No. Why would he?”

“Hoolies.” I was utterly disgusted. “They’re all picking on me.”

Del nodded, smiling. “You are eminently pick-on-able.”

“That’s not even a word.” I scratched at my face, then began brushing hard at the disguising mud.

She said, “Use the ewer, Tiger. She’s left washing cloths for us.”

“You’re on her side.” I walked around the bed to the tiny table that held ewer, pitcher, cloths, and a mostly-melted candle set in a cup. “Once again, why did you pick this place?”

“Once again, because of Tamar. Consider, Tiger: Will she allow sword-dancers?”

“She allowed you. She allowed me.

“I told her my man insisted I play dress-up games, but had left me in the last town for an itinerant actress. She was most upset on my behalf.”

I grunted. “I’ll bet. And me?”

“I saw you come in. You looked a little like a hunchback. I think she took pity on you.”

“Pity? The damn woman doesn’t know the meaning of the word.” I dipped the cloth into the filled ewer, began wiping my face. “And she doesn’t serve spirits!”

Del sighed. “The medicinal aqivi is in my saddle pouches.”

I brightened. “So it is!” I scrubbed at the dried mud over my scars. “It saves us having to go to a tavern for it.”

“As I was saying, Tamar will guard the door. No one is going to sneak in and challenge you.”

“You snuck in.”

“To your room,” she said. “Not through the front door—no; you missed some. Here, let me do it.” She extended her hand. I put the wet, muddied washing cloth into it. “Sit.”

I sat, ruminating on the fact that the two women currently closest to me thought nothing of ordering me around. No wonder Tamar liked Del.

Del wiped at my face, then stopped and looked at me. “Do you have your shaving things?”

“In my pouches somewhere.”

“Good.” Del stuffed the wet cloth back into my hands, knelt, and began rummaging through my pouches. Eventually she came up with my folding razor. “No soap? I didn’t find any.”

“It was down to a sliver. Not anything to salvage.”

“A dry shave, then.” Del opened the blade right in front of my face. “I’ll neaten you up. Tamar will approve.”

“Hoolies, Del, I don’t care what that woman approves or doesn’t!”

“You’ll care if she decides to throw you out. You’ll be sleeping with the stud if she does. Now—hold still.”

I squinched up my face. Del poked a finger at a furled cheek. “Stop that. Do you want more scars?”

“Don’t you have soap?”

“It was down to a sliver. I thought I might buy more while we’re here.”

“Young lady!” A gnarled hand yanked the curtain aside. “Young lady, why are you in this reprobate’s room?”

‘Reprobate?’ I wondered if the word had kinship with ‘odious.’

“He’s filthy,” Del said. “He asked me to neaten him. Since I grew up with five brothers, I agreed. I know how you like clean, tidy lodgers. He’ll pay extra, of course.”

In the doorway, Tamar nodded. “Very well. Shall I stand watch for you? I should hate to see him take advantage of you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Del smiled at her. “I have the razor.”

Tamar bobbed her head once. “Very well.” She fixed me with a minatory eye. “If I suspect you are making unsavory plans for this young woman, I’ll hand you over to the Watch. They know me, know my rules. You won’t see daylight for two weeks.”

I stared at her. “Two weeks?”

“Two weeks. That’s the minimum sentence.”

“Well,” I said, “I have no unsavory plans for this young woman. I’m sure five brothers taught her many ways of beating off overeager admirers.”

Del’s smile broadened. Tamar thawed the tiniest bit. “See that you don’t become one of them.” She looked disapprovingly at the sword and harness resting against the tiny table. “Since you aren’t a man with a crooked shoulder, it will cost extra for your sword. I can’t abide weapons in this place.”

“Extra! Is there anything in this town that doesn’t cost extra?”

The old woman stared at me narrow-eyed. “Be grateful you’ve got a room at all.”

She had a point there. “I am,” I said in a conciliatory tone. “Very grateful.”

Tamar bobbed her head. “That’s as it should be.” She looked at Del. “Are you sure you don’t wish a witness?”

Del smiled her sweetest smile. “I’ll slit his throat if he even moves.”

“Ah. Very well.” Tamar yanked the curtain closed again and took herself away.

I stared at the door curtain a moment, suppressing the urge to rip down it and every other curtain in the place, just to drive the landlady to insanity, but dismissed it with regret as Del poked again at my face.

“Now the jaw,” she said. “I’m sure you see why we need not fear other sword-dancers a-hunting you here.”

My eyes crossed as the razor came close to my face. “I suspect she’d take every coin they had before they stepped foot into this place.”

“That’s the point,” Del said. “Now, shut up. I don’t want to nick you.”

Some while later Tamar served cider, fresh bread, strong cheese, and portions of the stew bubbling in the pot that hung from a long iron hook in the kitchen fireplace. There was, however, no place to sit in the small common room just off the kitchen. I asked very politely if we were allowed to take the food and drink back to our rooms.

She was stirring stew in the fireplace with a large ladle. “No, you certainly may not. I like to keep an eye on my lodgers while they eat.”

In an intentionally meek tone, I asked why.

“So they don’t steal my bowls and spoons. Some would, you must know. Some have.”

I examined the bowl and spoon set upon a metal plate. Short of them being pure silver or gold, I couldn’t think of a reason anyone would steal them.

“Eat,” she ordered. “Then off to bed with you.”

I forgot to use my meek voice. “I don’t generally go to bed right after dinner.”

“I want you out from under my feet. If you’d prefer, you may go outside to walk, to waste coin in a tavern. But if you’re here, it’s off to bed with you.”

And then all the inner amusement about the woman’s manner peeled away. Beneath that layer, buried partway because I felt so helpless, was the knowledge that with every passing moment it would become more difficult to find Rashida.

“Listen. Del and I are here together.” I was aware of Del’s surprise that I should say so. “We’re here together, in Istamir, because my son’s sister was stolen by raiders. We’re not here to carouse, we’re not here to make life difficult for you—though I don’t know why you operate an inn when you dislike people so much. We are here to track down these raiders. Nothing more, just to find the girl—and the horses, if we can; they took those as well. And while I usually have respect for women of your age, you’re making it very difficult. We’re here for one very serious reason.” She stood in front of the hearth with her back to it, mouth open, ladle clutched in one hand. She appeared not to notice stew and grease was dripping on her plank floor. Frozen in place, she just stared at me. “I realize Del made up some cockamamie story about masquerading as a sword-dancer, but she is a sword-dancer. Trained on Staal-Ysta. And if it takes killing to get the girl back, then we will kill.”

Tamar’s eyes were very wide. After a moment she looked at Del, seemingly for confirmation. Del didn’t smile, but neither was she rude. She nodded once, confirming my words. Tamar stared at her a moment longer then looked back at me. “Young man, if you’re riding with a Northern woman trained on Staal-Ysta, the very least you should know is that she’s a sword-singer.”

It was my turn to stare. But Tamar turned back to her stew, breaking up a floating layer of grease with her ladle. Her spine was utterly straight. I looked at Del, who shrugged. Then looked at my plate.

As if she could see with the back of her head, Tamar said we could take food and drink to our rooms. Fresh out of words, I walked from the kitchen swiftly, carrying mug in one hand and a plate full of stew, cheese, and bread in the other. Del followed.

“Fetch that girl home!” Tamar called.

Del and I, after eating and returning plates, spoons, and mugs, dragged my mattress off the bed and put it in her room on the floor, along with my things. Her mattress joined it. Now we could sleep closer to one another than an entire room apart. I no longer cared what Tamar might say.

While it was not our habit to go to bed immediately after dinner—at home, Sula wouldn’t let us anyway—this time we took Tamar’s advice, ‘advice’ being a kinder word than ‘order.’ We lay down side by side. I shoved arms beneath my head and stared at the ceiling.

Del snugged herself close to me, hips and shoulders touching. “You’re worried,”

I released a heavy sigh. “We’ve got to find her soon.”

Del’s sigh matched my own. She pressed hands against her face, then ran them over her hair to the mattress and let her arms flop down against it. “Yes.”

“Raiders didn’t kill you.”

“No. I thought they would. They killed everyone else save my brother. At first, I was too young to know what they saved me for. Just like Rashida.” I recalled then that Rashida was fifteen or so, the same age as Del when she was abducted. “But I learned, and so will she. If she hasn’t already.”

“They’ll come for the horse fair tomorrow. They must, if they mean to sell any of them, and they certainly won’t want to keep all of them. What did Neesha say? The horses were ‘coin on four legs’? Well, that’s what these raiders want. Coin in exchange for horses.” I stretched a lid out of shape as I rubbed an eye. “We should have found her.”

“We’ve done what we could today,” Del said. “We even gained assistance, with Eddrith. I saw no red-haired man in any of the taverns I visited, and you saw neither man nor horses. We can’t conjure her, Tiger. But we have clues: a man with red hair—as I said, that’s not common—and horses with shorn manes.”

“But they may not come here precisely because there’s a red-haired man among them and horses with shorn manes. They may go to another town, another fair, if they know Harith’s horses are identifiable.”

Del thought that over. “And they might even go south.”

“What?” I levered myself up on an elbow to look at her more easily. “That’s a long ride from here.”

“And no one there knows a red-haired rider, probably. Certainly no one knows Harith’s horses. Not so many, at least.”

I swore and flopped back down on the mattress. “But do they know where the oases are? Have they any idea about the Punja?”

“It’s too bad they saw you with Mahmood’s caravan. You could hire on as a guide and work from the inside.”

I thought about that a moment. Unfortunately, what Del said was true. I remembered the man. He would remember me. “I don’t think it’s possible.”

“No,” she agreed regretfully. “It was only a wish.”

I went very still. I didn’t even blink. “Wait…”

“What?” Del asked. “What are you thinking?”

“If you were a raider,” I began, “and you wished to come to Istamir, would you keep yourself to the main part of town? Would you go the smithies and liveries there, where passers-by would see you? Or would you find a smith and an hostler where no one would think to look for raiders or stolen horses?”

Now Del was still as well. “I did ask him about a red-haired man,” she said. “I said I was trying to avoid him.”

“And he told me he hadn’t seen any horses with shorn manes.”

We thought about that for a moment.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

And I, “First thing.”