Sword Bound

Chapter 33

THE TAVERN WHERE TAMAR SENT US was so different from our cantina in Julah that I very nearly gaped. The tabletops were buffed to a gloss—albeit scars in some of them, which is to be expected in a place where drink is served. The bartop was made of many different kinds of wood, dark and light, filled knots, age rings, stripes wide and narrow, striations and whorls cut into small sections then pieced together into an intriguing pattern. Yet there appeared to be no unevenness in wood that didn’t match. All had been planed smooth, then buffed. The room had a warm, comfortable glow about it. Most of the illumination did not come from candle cups and lanterns on each table, but from twisted iron sconces hung up on the walls. As far as I could tell, each one was capped with pierced tin. Long, fat wicks rose from them. These were oil lamps, not candles with short wicks and meager flame that too often went out, or were knocked over.

We, of course, were strangers. Everyone stopped talking and watched as Neesha and I walked in. No one missed our swords. I saw looks exchanged and heard quiet comments, but none so loud as to be decipherable.

The wine-girls were not dressed in skimpy clothing. Tunics and long skirts, mostly, though waists were cinched tightly in bright scarves to show off admirable curves. But no tassels. Unlike the South, where Del was so different, here all three of the girls were fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and very blonde.

One of the open tables was tucked into a corner beneath a sconce. I wended my way to it through other tables. I was surprised to see that the bench I intended to claim was actually covered with leather. And, as I sat down, I discovered it held padding under the leather. I began to see why Tamar had recommended this tavern over others. I began to see why the owner was a friend. Obsessively tidy woman and what appeared to be an obsessively tidy man.

I sat. Neesha followed more slowly. He sat down with his back to the door. I shook my head in resignation; he wasn’t paying attention. But then, Neesha didn’t need a clear line of sight the way I did. I couldn’t truly relax as long as we were in Istamir, because the gods knew how many sword-dancers were still around. Didn’t have to worry about Darrion, certainly, and Eddrith now simply wanted to spar, but there might be others.

A wine-girl arrived, unbound hair falling in a glorious pale shower nearly to her waist. She bestowed faint smiles on both of us, but did not plant an arm on the table and lean down to show off cleavage. Whatever cleavage she claimed was hidden behind a rich purple tunic. Her skirt was striped purple-tan-yellow beneath a ruby-hued belt. Amber beads ringed her wrists, dangled from her ears.

Her eyes were calm. “My father runs a clean house,” she said in a slightly husky tone. “The food is excellent, the ale superb, and the spirits strong. We will be most pleased to serve you enough food and drink to fill you for a week. What we will not serve you is me or my sisters. We don’t mean to deny men their needs, but there are many taverns that suit that purpose. If you want women, please go elsewhere.”

I looked at the other two blondes. They stood at the bar, calmly watching their sister as if waiting for our decision. I began to smile. “I don’t think Tamar would send us here if it were that kind of cantina—er, tavern. I’m here for some superb ale and have absolutely no designs on any of you.”

Her own smile blossomed from slight into wide. “Tamar only sends safe men here. Be welcome.”

Safe. I’d never heard that word applied to me before.

Neesha, on the other hand…but then I changed my mind about teasing him. He was barely paying attention to a beautiful young woman. “Ale will do for us both.”

She turned briefly and nodded to her sisters, who visibly relaxed. One of them, having drawn two tall mugs with foam spilling down the sides, delivered them with a smooth efficiency before moving away to tend another table.

Del would approve of this tavern. Fouad would not.

Across the table from me, Neesha brooded. I watched the play of expressions across his features. “What?” I asked, when I thought he might actually answer.

He looked up from the table, came back from a far place. “What?”

“I asked first.”

He sighed, ran spread fingers through his hair, then scrubbed it into a landscape of tufts. “I want to help her. But what can I do? What can anyone do?”

He sounded lost. I tried to steer him away from it. “I think we’ve done quite a lot, actually. We killed all six raiders.”

“Well…yes.” He contemplated his ale. “But that doesn’t undo anything that happened.”

I raised my own mug, drank, lowered it and wiped foam away. “No.”

Neesha shook his head. “I don’t know what to do.”

I smiled. “Just be her big brother. The one she’s always looked up to.”

That nearly brought him to tears. He grabbed his mug, spilled some ale, drank down nearly half, I judged, before he took a breath. When he did, he set the mug down with an audible thump. “All dead. Yes. But Rasha—gods. And my mother.” And then he ran out of words to express what he was feeling and just stared at the mug.

For some reason, I thought of Eddrith. I hadn’t seen him since he sliced all the lead-ropes and chased after the five horses the raiders had put up for sale. “You saw Eddrith kill one of the raiders, you said.”

Neesha blinked hard and looked up. “Yes. Or, I think he killed him. I didn’t check to be sure if he was dead. But Eddrith spitted him through the belly.”

Dead, then. “And Eddrith was all right?”

Neesha frowned at me. “Why do you care? What has he to do with anything?” He sat up straighter, finally giving me his full attention. “You said he chased off the horses?”

“Five of your horses, yes. Shorn manes. He cut them free and chased them off, so they could get away from the raiders. We wanted them on foot.” Well, come to think of it, Eddrith had chased off three horses; two had been recaptured by raiders, but then they got loose again as the raiders died.

Neesha was totally baffled. “Eddrith helped you?”

“I didn’t believe he meant it at first, but he did indeed help us.”

“Why?” he asked bluntly. “Why would he want to?”

“To spar with me.” I shrugged. “We came to an agreement. If he helped, I’d spar with him.”

Neesha was shaking his head vehemently from side to side. “You can’t.”

I raised a brow. “Why can’t I?”

“He defeated me. Shouldn’t you support me? Your son?”

“That has nothing to do with this. Or this has nothing to do with that. Whichever way you like it.”

Neesha scowled at me. “It matters.”

I drank more ale. Neesha waited for an answer. Wiping at foam again, I said, “I agreed. I won’t go back on my word.”

Tight as drawn wire, he stared hard at me. He did not drink again. He was very, very angry, and I knew it had nothing to do with my agreeing to spar with Eddrith. Well, almost nothing. He did care about that. What he wanted was to put things back the way they had been. No attack on the farm, no father seriously injured, no mother raped, no sister abducted and violated. He’d killed one of the raiders, but it wasn’t enough. There wasn’t enough in the world. It was grief, for the loss of what he’d known. Grief for his family. Grief, though he didn’t know it yet, for the young man who would never be the same. The light-hearted, cheerful young man whose life had been so undemanding, had finally come up against a painful hardship.

Neesha abruptly pushed his mug toward me. “I don’t want this.” He stood up, scraping his bench away from the table. “I’m going to see my sister.”

“Neesha—”

“No.” He leaned down, planted his hands on the table top. He stared hard at me. “No more from you. You are not her father to say what she needs. I’m her blood kin. I say what I do when it concerns her. You have no say.” He pushed himself straight. “No say at all.”

I watched him walk to the door. Watched him walk out. Made no move to go after him. I knew very well that he’d left something unsaid. I was his father, his blood kin, but I had no say over him any more than over Rashida. I hadn’t earned it.

It hurt, knowing that. But I couldn’t fault his feelings. I knew what he was thinking: This journey, which he himself had suggested, was no longer an adventure.

When I departed after several mugs of superior ale, I discovered Del’s white gelding tied just outside the tavern. In fact, not paying any attention, I nearly ran into him. I went over him with eyes and hands as best as I could in dying light, and he seemed fine. I wondered why Darrion hadn’t come in to tell me. But I untied him, led him down to the livery, and did not find the smith there. I thought about it a moment, then walked the horse into the barn, figuring I’d pay the smith in the morning. I was greeted by a series of very loud snorts, a demanding nicker that contained all the arrogance in the world, and repeated thumpings against the wall, thanks to shod hoof connecting with wood.

“Hey, old son.” I should have expected it. Neesha had found Rashida at Mahmood’s, aboard the stud. He would have tended him. I unsaddled, unbridled Del’s horse, turned him in, fed and watered him, then stepped next door to the stud’s stall. He promptly turned his back on me and stood with his head in the corner, one hind hoof cocked up as if he meant to kick me, were I foolish enough to enter the stall. I was not. “I knew you’d take care of her. Did she give you a good ride? She’s Neesha’s sister, and I know you like Neesha.”

He refused to talk to me. He had water and hay, so I picked up saddle, bridle, halter, and blanket and hauled everything inside. Unsurprisingly, Tamar met me at the door. “What are you doing with that? Do you think you’re bringing it inside? Gods only know where it’s been!”

“On Del’s horse. And I don’t trust the smith. Since I didn’t see the stud’s tack anywhere, I’m assuming Del brought it in?”

Her lips compressed. “Very well. But you and the boy will share that small room. Del and Rashida will have the larger one.”

“Well, all right.” It didn’t sound promising to me. That room was too small for two grown men. Then again, Neesha might spend the night elsewhere. Maybe he was paying attention when one of the sisters laid down the rules, and sought a woman in another tavern. “Oh, and it was quite a nice tavern, as you said. I met the young women but not their father.”

The faintest of spasms ran across Tamar’s face. “He’s very ill. The healer says it’s only a matter of time. Sometimes he stays in the common room for a bit; the rest of the time he rests in bed while the girls run the tavern.”

“Well, one of them made it very clear that we should go elsewhere if we wanted more than food and drink. But ale was all I wanted anyway. Neesha left; I don’t know if he’s coming back tonight, or not.”

She sniffed eloquently. “Fools, those young men. They’d do better to keep themselves away from whores.”

It shocked the hoolies out of me that she used the word. And Tamar clearly saw it, because color crept into her face.

I broke out into a wide smile. “I finally outgrew it,” I told her. “Eventually. I have to think my son will also.”

“I lock my door at nine of the clock,” she said. “If he’s not back by then, he’ll have to sleep elsewhere.”

A vision of Neesha bedding down in the livery amused me. Besides, it left me more room if he stayed out all night. But the amusement spilled away. “How is Rashida?”

Tamar’s face tightened. “She’s had a scrubbing with soap and water. Actually, three scrubbings; she says she can’t get clean. But that will pass in good time. Del is helping her a great deal. No false sympathy because she doesn’t—can’t—understand. Just matter-of-fact tending with the occasional kindness.”

“That’s because Del does understand.” Tamar looked at me sharply, and then shocked realization flared in her widening eyes. To change the subject, I said, “We’ll go tomorrow. Then Rashida will be with her parents. That should help.”

Tamar’s shock dissipated. “Not necessarily if she goes right back to where the raiders abducted her!”

“No,” I said. “No, we won’t do that. There’s nothing left but a heap of burned timber.”

She shook her head. “I’ll pray those raiders will be caught and given their own just desserts, but all the men in town are afraid to take them on.”

“No worry,” I said. “Zayid—the red-head—is dead, and so are his five men. Several of us played cat and undertook the job of getting rid of the vermin permanently.”

She was startled. “You did?”

“Me, Del, Neesha, with help from Eddrith and Darrion.”

Her voice climbed to a new register. “Darrion? Darrion helped?”

“He did.”

She shook her head, eyes glistening. “Well, perhaps my grandson will come to something after all.”

I stared at her in surprise, then smiled widely. “He did well.”

She flapped her hand at me. “Go to bed. Go on.”

“Blue curtain?”

“Blue curtain.”

I hitched up the saddle and tack once more and walked on down the hall. Maybe Del would sneak into my room again.

I had long since given up on Del’s coming to my room, and when she did I was so sound asleep my heart nearly burst out of my chest from surprise. “Stop doing that, bascha!”

There was no light, so I couldn’t see her. “Doing what?”

“Scaring the daylights out of me!”

“Hoolies, Tiger, I’d think you’d be a bit more alert when there are sword-dancers after you!” I was amused to hear ‘hoolies’ coming from her, until she finished the thought: “Then again, that’s what happens to older men.”

I realized then that Neesha was not in the room. Well, there had always been a good chance that he wouldn’t return until morning. “Then if I’m old, you might have taken pity on me.” I sat up. I’d put the mattress on the floor because, as Tamar had once warned me, the bed was too short for someone of my height.

“I didn’t say ‘old,’” Del noted. “I said ‘older.’”

I felt the presence of someone very close to me. Hearing, feeling—didn’t matter. You just kind of know when someone is close, even if it is pitch black. Then hands patted my leg, moving from knee to mid-thigh.

I nearly quivered. “Are you trying to send me a message? If so, I have definitely received it!”

I heard soft laughter. “No, no message. Truly, I’m just trying to find you. I’d stay to take advantage of you, but I want to get back to Rasha.”

She sat down close as I levered myself up on elbows. “How is she?”

Del sighed. “Difficult to know. She walks from anger to fear to sadness and shame, then back again.”

“Shame! Why shame?”

In the dark, she was silent a moment. “Women are taught they should maintain their maidenhead until they marry. She no longer has it.”

I sat up next to her. “That’s hardly her fault!”

Del’s tone was delicate. “It doesn’t matter, Tiger. It’s rare that a man will forgive his bride’s lack of maidenhead. She’s now considered a whore.”

I was astonished. “Rashida is not a whore!”

Del said nothing a moment. When she did speak, it was with an undertone of sadness. “No. But men will believe so.”

I said something very rude about a certain number of males. A large number.

“Well, yes,” Del agreed. “But you and I are hardly like others. You didn’t expect me to be a virgin since I’d already told you what happened. You also weren’t looking for an unsullied bride.”

“Hoolies, Del…you don’t mean she can never marry, do you?”

“It depends on the man. Here in the North there are considerably more freedoms than women experience in the South, but a woman without virginity—unless she’s a widow—is always suspect.”

“Suspect for what?”

Del sighed. “Sleeping with a man not her husband.”

I mulled that over. “I didn’t expect you to be a virgin even before you told me what had happened.”

“Thank you very much!”

“Well, think about it, bascha. You spent how many years training on Staal-Ysta, surrounded by men? You rode alone across the Punja. And you took up company with me.”

Her tone was exquisitely dry. “The last being the most damning.”

I couldn’t come up with a good answer for that. I took the conversation in a new direction. “Did Neesha come to see her? He said he would.”

“He did come, but Tamar chased him out. We were helping Rasha bathe.”

I remembered how Tamar had said Rashida bathed three times because she felt so dirty. I knew it wasn’t dirt and grime and mud she was referring to. “So he left?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No.”

I sighed. “So, about Rashida—what do we do?”

“We take her home.”

“Her home is gone.”

“Ah,” Del said on a note of realization, “so it is. Well, maybe that’s not a bad thing. We’ll take her to her parents. That’s also ‘home.’”

I found a thigh and cupped my hand over it. “Can you stay the night?”

“No. I suspect she will have night terrors. I should be with her.”

I’d sort of expected that. “Then you’d better go, because otherwise I’m going to do my best to talk you into carnal activities.”

Del laughed, though she restrained it so as not to disturb Tamar. “‘Carnal activities.’ I like that.”

“So do I. But I guess they’re out for tonight.”

“Sadly, yes.” She leaned, kissed me briefly, then rose. “Goodnight, Tiger. I’ll see you in the morning.”

By the time I wished her goodnight, she was gone.