Sword Bound

Chapter 30

THE BLACKSMITH WAS DRINKING ALE and eating bread and sausage for breakfast. He sat on a section of a sawn tree stump, set between smithy and livery. Black hair needed washing, and he took no care whether he dripped ale down his shirt by taking too large a swig. But black eyes were watchful, taking in passers-by, grinning to himself if he found one amusing.

Del and I wandered up. I went to peer into the as yet unfreshened coals, while Del stood on the other side of the smith, studying something else. He glanced at her, nodded his head hello, stared a moment longer, then returned his attention to the street. He ate the last chunk of crusty bread, drank down the final swallow of ale, set the mug on the ground and rose.

“Well now,” he said. “You don’t have to be a blind man to know you’ve got business here other than shoeing and stabling horses.”

“Business, yes,” I agreed. He looked again at Del, at me, and grunted. “Together then.”

“So we are,” Del said lightly.

“I see you’re not hiding that sword anymore,” he told me. “Makes me wonder why you did at all. A good reason, maybe. For you.”

Del unsheathed her sword. In the doing of it, she diverted the smith’s attention from me just long enough for me to bury a fist into his belly and shove him down onto the stump. The mug bounced off and made a whacking sound as it struck the wall. Del took two steps closer, tapped his throat very gently with her sword.

“A red-haired man,” she said.

And I added, “Horses with shorn manes.”

The blacksmith glared at us over the glint of bared blade. “I told you yesterday I don’t know any such man, and I haven’t seen horses with shorn manes.”

“You lied,” Del said quietly.

“I did not—”

But he broke off as I unsheathed my sword. “You know,” I began, “few men, maybe none, would set up custom hidden away back here if they wanted to make a living. Sure, you’d have a few horses to shoe, people looking for oddments, repairs. And the same applies to the livery. It’s too far from the main street. I suspect most of your stalls are empty most of the time. You don’t make much of a living this way. Unless, of course, you have customers who would rather not be known and pay you for silence. Raiders, perhaps.”

Bread crumbs clung to his beard. “I run honest establishments.”

Del set the tip of her sword just beneath his chin, tapped it. “You do not. No such thing.”

I crossed my arms across my chest. “I imagine a man like you wouldn’t say no to more coin. Another ‘extra,’ you might say.”

He gave up any pretense of being an honest, if unpleasant, man. “They’d kill me. They’d kill me certain-sure.”

I smiled at him. “They can’t very well do that if they’re dead.”

That startled him. “You can’t kill them! Not Zayid’s men!”

Del asked, “Does Zayid, by any chance, have red hair? Red beard?”

The smith’s mouth was tight. “Yes.”

Underneath at his neck, Del shaved some hair from his beard. “We might kill you. But we’d rather pay you.”

“Where?” I asked.

“I don’t know right where they are.” He stiffened as I rested my blade on his shoulder. “They don’t tell me! And I don’t go looking! They’ve a camp somewhere. They only stay here sometimes.”

“There’s a horse fair tomorrow.”

Small, dark eyes shifted from my face to hers.

“It wasn’t a question,” Del told him. “They’ve got horses. Stolen horses. And a stolen girl.”

I tapped his shoulder with my sword. “Her mother and father would like her back.”

“And the horses,” Del added. “It’s a shame, don’t you think, that men would covet another man’s things so much as to beat that man near to death, rape his wife, and steal his daughter.”

“They’ll be at the fair, won’t they?” I waited. “That is a question.”

“Yes. Yes. If they’ve got horses, they’ll be here later today. Over at Marketfield.”

Del and I were thinking the same thing. Easy enough for him to send a messenger boy to Zayid. I drew from behind my wide belt the small leather bag containing the rest of the coin Mahmood had paid us. I tossed it into the smith’s lap. Del had also prepared for this; she dropped a second small bag into his lap.

“Silence,” she said. “No messengers. Your mouth stays closed. We’ve bought that mouth, after all.”

“Best to take it,” I suggested. “Because after today, you’ll be missing some of your regular customers. And somehow I think you never asked them for extra anything.”

Del leaned back against the wooden wall next to the smith, hooking up a foot. She did not sheath her sword. “Tiger, why don’t you get the horses. I’m enjoying the beautiful morning speaking to my good friend the blacksmith.”

The small black eyes blinked rapidly.

“Tamar’s right,” I said. “You are an odious man.” Smiling broadly, I went into the livery.

Del and I rode to Mahmood’s wagon, which apparently had become our official meeting place. He and merchants at all the other wagons had their wares out on tables, wooden barrels, planks, tailgates, blankets on the ground, baskets, iron rods rising from the earth with small display arms, even a few women—wives or daughters—wearing the merchandise. Marketfield was a mass of ordinary things such as pots, knives, mugs; cookfires hosting spits cranked by children; flatbread cooked over a tabletop coal fryer; cider, ale, other drinks and spirits. Music sounded from several directions.

The field slowly took on the mixed aromas of various foods. Some merchants had hired women dressed in sheer veils to slip through the crowd, enticing men to come to their employers’ wagons. Other men shouted out what they had to offer. Women and children carrying full baskets wound their way, offering ribbons, pastry delicacies, even flowers. Produce was available, as were fresh meats hanging from racks. Adding to the noise were goats, chickens, lambs, pigs; the gods knew what else. It seemed everything in the world was for sale in Istamir on Marketday.

Mahmood had set up cleverly constructed multi-tiered wooden racks over which he draped fabric samples, and on a wide table made of individual planks laid down across his water barrels, he offered woven baskets full of spice. Each of his four wagons was arranged the same way. A great deal of time had been spent, probably by his drivers, pouring spices into small, tightly-woven fabric bags wrapped at the mouth with colored yarn. Amber for saffron, orange for cinnamon.

Mahmood himself had discarded the drab clothing I’d made him wear as we traveled; he was dressed for a meeting with the wealthiest tanzeer in the South. (Which reminded me of Umir, damn him and his bounty to hoolies.) Peacock-blue burnous, belted by silver-studded leather, and a turban made of his silver-and-blue cloth. It was intricately wrapped, and a peacock feather was pinned to the front of the turban by a chunk of raw turquoise. Multiple cuffs of silver studded with turquoise hugged his arms, matching rings on his fingers.

Del and I dismounted, tied our horses to the tailgate. I put the nose-loop on the stud, but there was enough confusion going on, coupled with a myriad of smells, that I doubted he would scent whichever mare it was who’d taken his interest before.

We slipped between wagons to Mahmood, standing behind his table. Already there was a crowd of women present, dazzled by the silver-threaded fabric. Some had already put spices in their market baskets and now had time to please their eyes. He glanced up, saw us, and immediately cried out.

“Del! Del! You must come! Come!” He worked his way from behind his table. Ignoring customers, he put his hands together, bowed the tiniest degree, then grabbed one of her arms and dragged her close to his table. “Here! Here! You must!”

“Must what?” she asked warily.

Mahmood glanced at me briefly. “You will see! Del, here…” He grabbed a length of fabric on display, swiftly and neatly swirled it around her, tucked folds here and there, then dropped the end over her head to hang to her shoulder. Her arms were bare, but from head to toe the blue-and-silver fabric swathed her without hiding her curves. Her single braid hung free of the cloth across her head. Because of the Southron sun she wasn’t as pale as the Northern women, but the glow was understated. Her blue eyes almost seemed to blaze.

Mahmood instantly turned back to his customers, deftly moving his hands to indicate how he had draped and wound the cloth. Of course the sword hilt poking above her shoulder gave the vision an incongruous look, but Mahmood had known better than to ask her to take off harness and sword. When Del reached up to slip the fabric from her head, he stopped her hand.

“No! Please. A moment longer. Perhaps two moments…three?” He draped the fabric over her head once more, did something with his fingers that made it fall gently to her shoulder. Again he turned to his crowd. “You see what this cloth looks like on a woman. Beautiful! See how it brings out the blue of her eyes? See how rich it appears with just a touch of silver threading? A husband would be neglectful if he did not wish to see his wife in cloth like this. And look! Other colors as well. Go! Ladies, go and find your husbands, bring them here!”

Del glanced at me with her mouth hooked wryly. And then the wry look was banished, replaced with a look so intense that I knew something was wrong.

“Tiger!”

She unsheathed, scattering the women like a flock of chicks, took two steps as I ducked out of the way, cut the air with her sword, stilled it, and allowed the man to spear himself on her blade like a piece of meat on a kabob skewer. Del jerked it out of him, tried to lift a leg to push him over, but the cloth draperies got in the way. By then the man—a sword-dancer—was down anyway. She stood over him as her sword dripped blood. “Not from behind,” she said, angrier than I’d seen her in some time “Not in the back when he doesn’t know. There’s no honor in that!”

The sword-dancer gazed up at her, blood staining his burnous. He gasped, “Elaii-ali-ma.”

“Not from behind,” Del told him. “Elaii-ali-ma doesn’t mean you can kill a man from behind. To do so could well result in you being called an oath-breaker. And now you have paid the price for it.”

Well, she didn’t exactly have that right. He could kill me however he liked, though taking me through the back wouldn’t add any particular luster to his name. But he didn’t hear the last of what she said. He was gone.

One-handed, Del began trying to tear the beautiful cloth from her body. “No woman should be cursed to wear this if she has to move! You can’t do anything dressed like this!”

“Oh, I don’t know.” I shrugged. “You can kill a man.”

Del stopped pulling at fabric. Her expression and tone was pure exasperation. “He would have beheaded you!”

That made me rub the back of my neck, of course. I noted the crowd we had drawn came from neighboring wagons as well as Mahmood’s. A glance at Mahmood’s face showed an expression of horror.

Del became aware of it, too. And an astonishing thing happened: she blushed. She handed her sword to me and began to unwrap the cloth with a kinder touch. Once done, she put the bundle into Mahmood’s hands. She raised her voice so that most could hear. “It’s very pretty.”

Well. It had been. Before blood stained it.

Del brushed by me, slipping between the two wagons. I followed to the tailgate. There I handed back her sword. “I think I forgot to say ‘thank you.’”

“How many more?” She shook the blade to shed blood droplets, then grabbed a section of her burnous to wipe it clean. “How many more to fight before they give up?”

“I don’t think they will give up, bascha.”

She sheathed in a practiced movement. “We should go home. We should find Rashida, find the horses, and just go home.”

I had never heard that tone from her. She saw my surprise, tossed her braid behind her shoulder, and asked me why I hadn’t known the sword-dancer was coming up from behind.

“Because I was looking at and appreciating a beautiful woman.”

She made a dismissive gesture. “Tiger, tell the truth.”

“That is the truth! Besides, who can hear in all this noise?”

The tension was leaving her body. She nodded. “Yes. All right.” She looked past me, eyes intent again. I swung around, a little on edge. Another sword-dancer.

“It’s Eddrith,” I said. “He was to meet us here.”

Del relaxed. “Yes. I remember.”

I waited until Eddrith reached us. Before either Del or I could speak, he said, “It’s already being passed around all of Marketfield.”

“What is?” I asked.

He halted, looked at Del. “How a Northern woman in a gown killed a sword-dancer.”

Del scowled. “I’m better when I’m not in a gown.”

Eddrith’s brows ran up. I just grinned. “Too bad you missed it.”

“Horses,” Del said, impatient. “A red-haired man.”

Eddrith nodded. “I’ve found the horses.”

I was startled. “You’ve found—? Well, let’s go take a look. We’ll come back for our horses after we’ve figured out what we need to do.”

Eddrith said, “Follow me.”

And follow we did.