Sword-Maker, page 21
“I recognize talent when I see it,” I told him. “I acknowledge it. Are you forgetting I wagered on her?”
“You did it to provoke me,” Abbu declared. “We are oil and water, Sandtiger … it will always be so between us.” He stared past me, watching the crowd slowly disperse. Then his eyes flickered back to me. “You have the nose-ring, Sandtiger. Now I will have the woman.”
He brushed by me easily as he turned, black gauze underrobe rippling. He wore a harness and blade, Southron blade, glinting in the sunlight. An old, honorable sword, attended by many legends.
I watched him go, striding away in the fluid gait of a man well-content with his life. A man who, I was certain, entertained no doubts of himself.
Or of the woman he followed.
Six
By the time I reached the cantina, Abbu Bensir had already cornered Del. Well, not cornered exactly; she was sitting in a corner, and he was sitting with her.
She sat with her back to the wall, just as I always did. This allowed her to see me as I approached, although she gave no indication of it. It also allowed me to approach without Abbu knowing, since his back was to me. So I took advantage of it, pausing just behind him. Listening to his approach.
“—you could become much better,” he said confidently. “With my help, of course.”
Del didn’t answer.
“You must admit,” he went on, “it’s unusual to find a woman with your potential and dedication. Here in the South—”
“—women are treated as slaves.” Del didn’t smile. “Why should I be yours?”
“Not my slave, my student.”
“I’ve already been an ishtoya. I’ve already been an-ishtoya.”
Now he was confused. “I am Abbu Bensir. Any Southron sword-dancer can tell you who I am, and what I am capable of. Any Southron sword-dancer … all of them know me.”
For the first time since my arrival, Del looked at me. “Do you know him?”
Abbu sat upright, then twisted his head around. Saw me, scowled, sent me a silent message to leave, then turned back to Del. “Ask anyone but him.”
I grinned. “But I do know you. And what you’re capable of.”
“Which is?” Del asked coolly.
Abbu shook his head. “He will not give you a fair answer. He and I are old rivals in the circle. He will not bespeak me well.”
“And you’re a liar,” I said pleasantly. “I’d tell her the truth, Abbu: that you’re a superb sword-dancer with much to teach anyone.” I paused. “But I’m more superb than you.”
Del very nearly smiled. Abbu merely glared. “This is a private table.”
“The lady was here first. Why don’t we ask her?”
Del made an impatient gesture; she has no tolerance for such things.
I hooked a stool over, sat down, smiled disarmingly at Abbu. “Have you told her your scheme yet?”
“Scheme?” he echoed blankly.
I glanced at Del. “He plans on flattering your skill, since women are gullible creatures … he’ll tell you what he thinks you want to hear, even if he doesn’t agree … and then he’ll take you into the circle, just to keep you interested—” I grinned, “—and then take you straight to bed.”
Abbu’s pale eyes glittered.
“It won’t work,” I told him. “I already tried.”
“And failed,” Del declared.
Abbu, who is not stupid, frowned. He looked at Del. At me. Then demanded his nose-ring back.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it was won under false pretenses. You and the woman know one another.”
I shrugged. “I never said we didn’t. It didn’t come up, Abbu. I offered a wager. You accepted a wager. The nose-ring was fairly won.” I smiled. “And I need it to pay my debts.”
Del was staring at me. “You bet on the dance?”
“I bet on you.”
“To win.”
“Of course to win; do you think I’m a fool?”
Abbu swore under his breath. “I am the fool.”
“For wanting to teach a woman?” Del’s tone was cool again. “Or for betting on the wrong person?”
Kima arrived with a jug. “Aqivi,” she announced, and smacked it down on the table.
Abbu Bensir stared across the lip of the jug at Del in obvious challenge. I have seen it before—Abbu, much as I hate to admit it, has success with women—but I didn’t consider it much of a risk. He wasn’t the type of man who would interest Del. He was too arrogant, too abrupt, too certain of superiority based solely on his gender.
He was, most of all, too Southron.
“What can you teach me?” Del asked.
I kicked her under the table.
Abbu considered it. “You are tall,” he said, “and strong. You have as good a reach as any Southroner—except perhaps the Sandtiger. But you would do better to make your patterns smaller. More subtle.” He reached across the table, tapped Del’s left wrist. “You have the necessary strength here—I saw it—to support the smaller patterns, but you don’t use it. You were much too open earlier. It slowed your response time and left opportunities to defeat you. That you won had less to do with your better skill than with the boy’s inexperience.” He smiled briefly. “I would not do the same.”
It was an accurate summation of Del’s dance. That he also suggested smaller blade patterns did not please me, because it showed me he’d judged her very well. Del usually does employ smaller, tighter patterns, but she was out of condition and hadn’t employed her usual techniques.
And if anything would impress Del, it was a man judging her on her merits instead of by her gender.
“Here,” I said abruptly, “no need to let good aqivi go to waste.” I grabbed the jug, started splashing liquor into the cups Kima put down.
Abbu watched me sidelong. In profile, his nose was a travesty—but it lent him the cachet of hard-edged experience. Unlike Nabir, he was not a boy on the threshold of manhood; Abbu Bensir had stepped across many years before. He had the lean, lethal look of a borjuni, though he was sword-dancer instead of bandit.
What he thought of me, I couldn’t say. I was considerably taller and heavier, also younger—but Abbu Bensir was right. I hadn’t quite recovered strength, stamina, or health from the wound Del had given me, and it showed. Certainly it showed to an experienced sword-dancer who knew very well how to judge what counted.
He eased himself back on his stool and tipped aqivi down his throat. “So,” he said idly to Del, “has this big desert cat told you of our adventures?”
“Adventures?” I echoed blankly; Abbu and I had not, to my knowledge, ever shared much more than a cantina.
Predictably, Del said no.
Of course it was what he wanted. With an adroit flick of fingers, Abbu slipped the neck of his underrobe and let it fall open. His throat was now bared, showing the pale scar left by the shodo’s knife. “My badge of honor,” he said. “Bestowed on me by none other than the Sandtiger.”
Del’s brows rose.
Abbu’s tone was expansive. “It was quite early in his career, but it was a dramatic signal to the South that a new sword-dancer was about to be born.”
“There was nothing ‘about to be’ about it,” I said sourly. “It took me seven more years.”
“Yes, but it served notice to those of us able to judge such things as talent and potential.” He paused. “To those few of us.”
“Did it?” Del asked coolly.
“Oh, yes,” Abbu said. “He was a clumsy seventeen-year-old boy with hands and feet too big for his body—and his brain—but the potential was there. I knew what he would become … so long as his inborn submissiveness and all his years as a chula didn’t destroy him before he truly began.”
Del’s lids didn’t flicker. “Abbu Bensir,” she said softly, “be careful where you walk.”
He is not a stupid man; he changed tactics instantly. “But I am not here to talk about the Sandtiger, whom you undoubtedly know much better than I do.” There was a glint in his eyes. “I came to offer my services as a shodo, even briefly. I think you could benefit.”
“Perhaps I could,” Del said. And then looked me dead in the eye. “If you kick me one more time—”
I overrode her by raising my voice and talking to Abbu. “Won’t you be going to Iskandar like everyone else?”
“Eventually. Although I think it is nonsense, this talk of a jhihadi.” Abbu shrugged, swallowed aqivi. “Iskandar himself, the stories say, promised he would return to bring prosperity to the South, to turn the sand to grass. I see no signs of that.” He shook his head. “I think it is nothing more than a foolish man who fancies himself an oracle … a zealot who requires attention before he dies. He will rouse the tribes, undoubtedly—that, I hear, is begun—but no one with any sense will pay mind to it.”
“Except the tanzeers.” I shrugged as Abbu frowned over his tankard. “They won’t believe the Oracle’s foretellings, but if they have any intelligence at all they’ll recognize that this Oracle—and the proclaimed jhihadi, if one ever appears—could siphon off some of their power.”
“An uprising,” Abbu said thoughtfully, “couched in the name of religion.”
“People will do amazing things in the name of faith,” I remarked. “Wrap it in the trappings of holy edict, and even assassination is revered.”
“I don’t understand,” Del interjected. “What you say of religion, yes—that I have seen myself—but how would it affect the South?”
I shrugged. “The South is made up of hundreds of desert domains ruled by any man strong enough to hold it. He comes in, establishes his dominance, names himself tanzeer to gain a little glitter—and rules.”
She blinked. “So easily?”
“So easily,” Abbu confirmed in his broken voice. “Of course, any man who decided to do it would require a large force of loyal men … or a large force of hired men loyal to his coin.” He grinned. “I myself have engaged in establishing several such new reigns.”
Del’s tone was bland. “But you yourself have never attempted to set up your own domain.”
He shrugged. “Easier to take the money and leave, then move on to the next desert bandit who has notions of naming himself tanzeer.”
Del glanced at me. “Have you done it as well?”
“Never from the beginning,” I told her. “I have hired on to protect the tanzeer already in place, but I’ve never gone in and set up a brand-new domain.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “So a tanzeer is not born … he becomes a prince only through force of arms.”
I shook my head. “A tanzeer is born if his family has held the domain long enough. And some of these desert ‘princedoms’ have been in existence for centuries, handed down to each heir—”
“—who must himself be strong enough to hold it,” Del finished.
“Of course,” Abbu rasped. “There have been many newly proclaimed tanzeers, inheriting at an untimely age, who simply could not muster the forces needed to defend against usurpers.” He smiled. “That is the easiest way of enlarging a domain.”
“Stealing from someone else,” she said.
“All of the domains were stolen,” Abbu countered. “Once, surely, the South belonged to no one, it simply was—and then men strong enough to do so selected for themselves the domains they wanted … and so on and so on until the land was sectioned off from the sea to the Northern border, and to the east and west as well.”
“Sectioned off,” she echoed. “Is there no free land left at all?”
Abbu shrugged. “Domains exist where the land is worth having. There is water, or a city, or an oasis, or mountains—a place worth having becomes a domain. What no one wants is free.”
“The Punja,” I said. “No one rules the Punja. Except the tribes, maybe … but they have more respect for the land. They don’t divide it up and sit on it. Nor do they give in to the rule of any man proclaiming himself a tanzeer. They just go with the wind, blowing here and there.”
“Much like a sword-dancer.” Del turned her cup on the table. “So, the Oracle—who gains disciples among the tribes—offers threat to the tanzeers.”
“By rousing the tribes, yes,” Abbu agreed.
“But the Oracle is only a mouthpiece,” I said. “It’s the jhihadi who offers the true threat. Because if the stories were to come true—that sand will be turned to grass—it means all of the South would be worth having. Each man would be a tanzeer unto himself, and the authority of those petty princes holding the present domains would collapse.”
“So they will try to kill him.” Del’s tone was matter-of-fact. “No matter who he is, no matter why he’s come; even if it’s all a lie—the tanzeers will have him killed. Just in case.”
“Probably,” I agreed.
Abbu smiled a little. “First they would have to find him.”
“Iskandar,” Del said. “Isn’t that where he’s supposed to appear?”
Abbu shrugged. “That’s what the Oracle says.”
“You’re going,” she pointed out.
Abbu Bensir laughed. “Not for the Oracle. Not for the jhihadi. I’m going for the dancing. I’m going for the coin.”
Del frowned. “Coin?”
Abbu nodded. “Where there are people gathering, there will be wagering. Where there are tanzeers, there will be employment. Easier to find both in one place rather than scattered across the South.”
“In uplander, a kymri,” I explained. “We don’t have many here in the South … but Abbu is right. If this Oracle rouses enough people, they will all go to Iskandar. So will the tanzeers. And so will sword-dancers.”
“And bandits?” she asked.
“Borjuni, yes,” Abbu agreed. “Even whores like Kima.”
“I want to go,” Del said.
I sighed. “Seems as good a place as any to learn something of Ajani’s whereabouts.”
But Del wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at Abbu. “And I want you to teach me.”
I nearly choked on aqivi. “Del—”
“Tomorrow,” she declared.
Abbu Bensir merely smiled.
Seven
“Why?” I asked, standing in the doorway. “What are you trying to prove?”
Del, inside her tiny room at the inn, barely glanced at me as she sat down on the edge of her slatted cot to pull off boot and fur gaiter. “Nothing,” she answered, unwrapping leather garters.
“Nothing? Nothing?” I glared. “You know as well as I do you don’t need Abbu Bensir to teach you anything.”
“No,” she agreed, peeling gaiter from boot.
“Then why—”
“I need the practice.”
I stood braced in the doorway, watching her tug off the boot. She dropped it to the floor, then turned to the other boot. Once again, she started with the gaiter. Her bare right foot was chafed at the edges; the rest of it was white.
“So,” I said, “you’re using him for a sparring partner.”
Del unlaced the garter. “Is he as good as he says he is?”
“Yes.”
“Better than you?”
“Different.”
“And was it you who put that scar on him?”
“No.”
She tilted her head slightly. “So, he is a liar.”
“Yes and no. I didn’t give him the scar itself, but I did provide the reason for making it necessary.”
Del looked up at me. “He doesn’t hate you for it. He could—another man might—but he doesn’t.”
I shrugged. “We’ve never been enemies. Just rivals.”
“I think he respects you. I think he knows you have your place in the South—in the pecking order of sword-dancers—and he has his.”
“He is an acknowledged master of the blade,” I said. “Abbu Bensir is a byword among sword-dancers. No one would be foolish enough to deny him that to his face.”
“Not even you?”
“I’ve never considered myself a fool.” I paused. “You’re really going to spar with him?”
“Yes.”
“You could have asked—”
“—you?” Del shook her head. “I did ask you. Several times.”
“I’ll spar,” I said defensively. “Just not with my jivatma. We’ll go find some wooden practice swords—”
“Steel,” Del said succinctly.
“Bascha, you know why I don’t want—”
“So you don’t have to.” She stripped gaiter free of boot. “So I’ll use Abbu Bensir instead.”
“But he thinks he’s teaching you.”
“He may think whatever he likes.” Del tugged at her boot. “When a man won’t do what you want him to in the way you want him to, you find new names for the same thing. If it satisfies Abbu Bensir’s pride to believe he is teaching the gullible Northern bascha, let him. I will still get my practice. I will still improve my fitness.” She looked at me squarely. “Which is something you need, too.”
I ignored that; we both knew it was true. “How long is this to go on?”
“Until I am fit.”
Frustration boiled up. “He only wants to get you into his bed.”
Del rose, began to unhook her harness. “I am having a bath brought for me. If you truly believe I would be the kind to tease you, you would do well to leave.”
On cue, one of the innkeeper’s sons rolled the cask from out of my room. It was empty, of course, which meant Del had paid extra for clean water. But she had no money.
Frustration rose another notch. “Am I paying for this, too?”
Del nodded.
I glared. “Seems like I’m paying for an awful lot, yet getting nothing for it.”
“Oh?” Pale brows rose. “Is courtesy and generosity dependent upon how soon and how many times I will go to bed with you?”
I moved aside as the boy rolled the cask through the doorway. I waited impatiently for him to drop the cask flat and depart; once he had, I turned back to Del.
I stood directly in front of her now, halting as she turned from the cot to match me stare for stare. Barefoot, she gave up an extra finger’s-worth of height to the five additional I always claimed. But it didn’t diminish her.
“You did it to provoke me,” Abbu declared. “We are oil and water, Sandtiger … it will always be so between us.” He stared past me, watching the crowd slowly disperse. Then his eyes flickered back to me. “You have the nose-ring, Sandtiger. Now I will have the woman.”
He brushed by me easily as he turned, black gauze underrobe rippling. He wore a harness and blade, Southron blade, glinting in the sunlight. An old, honorable sword, attended by many legends.
I watched him go, striding away in the fluid gait of a man well-content with his life. A man who, I was certain, entertained no doubts of himself.
Or of the woman he followed.
Six
By the time I reached the cantina, Abbu Bensir had already cornered Del. Well, not cornered exactly; she was sitting in a corner, and he was sitting with her.
She sat with her back to the wall, just as I always did. This allowed her to see me as I approached, although she gave no indication of it. It also allowed me to approach without Abbu knowing, since his back was to me. So I took advantage of it, pausing just behind him. Listening to his approach.
“—you could become much better,” he said confidently. “With my help, of course.”
Del didn’t answer.
“You must admit,” he went on, “it’s unusual to find a woman with your potential and dedication. Here in the South—”
“—women are treated as slaves.” Del didn’t smile. “Why should I be yours?”
“Not my slave, my student.”
“I’ve already been an ishtoya. I’ve already been an-ishtoya.”
Now he was confused. “I am Abbu Bensir. Any Southron sword-dancer can tell you who I am, and what I am capable of. Any Southron sword-dancer … all of them know me.”
For the first time since my arrival, Del looked at me. “Do you know him?”
Abbu sat upright, then twisted his head around. Saw me, scowled, sent me a silent message to leave, then turned back to Del. “Ask anyone but him.”
I grinned. “But I do know you. And what you’re capable of.”
“Which is?” Del asked coolly.
Abbu shook his head. “He will not give you a fair answer. He and I are old rivals in the circle. He will not bespeak me well.”
“And you’re a liar,” I said pleasantly. “I’d tell her the truth, Abbu: that you’re a superb sword-dancer with much to teach anyone.” I paused. “But I’m more superb than you.”
Del very nearly smiled. Abbu merely glared. “This is a private table.”
“The lady was here first. Why don’t we ask her?”
Del made an impatient gesture; she has no tolerance for such things.
I hooked a stool over, sat down, smiled disarmingly at Abbu. “Have you told her your scheme yet?”
“Scheme?” he echoed blankly.
I glanced at Del. “He plans on flattering your skill, since women are gullible creatures … he’ll tell you what he thinks you want to hear, even if he doesn’t agree … and then he’ll take you into the circle, just to keep you interested—” I grinned, “—and then take you straight to bed.”
Abbu’s pale eyes glittered.
“It won’t work,” I told him. “I already tried.”
“And failed,” Del declared.
Abbu, who is not stupid, frowned. He looked at Del. At me. Then demanded his nose-ring back.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it was won under false pretenses. You and the woman know one another.”
I shrugged. “I never said we didn’t. It didn’t come up, Abbu. I offered a wager. You accepted a wager. The nose-ring was fairly won.” I smiled. “And I need it to pay my debts.”
Del was staring at me. “You bet on the dance?”
“I bet on you.”
“To win.”
“Of course to win; do you think I’m a fool?”
Abbu swore under his breath. “I am the fool.”
“For wanting to teach a woman?” Del’s tone was cool again. “Or for betting on the wrong person?”
Kima arrived with a jug. “Aqivi,” she announced, and smacked it down on the table.
Abbu Bensir stared across the lip of the jug at Del in obvious challenge. I have seen it before—Abbu, much as I hate to admit it, has success with women—but I didn’t consider it much of a risk. He wasn’t the type of man who would interest Del. He was too arrogant, too abrupt, too certain of superiority based solely on his gender.
He was, most of all, too Southron.
“What can you teach me?” Del asked.
I kicked her under the table.
Abbu considered it. “You are tall,” he said, “and strong. You have as good a reach as any Southroner—except perhaps the Sandtiger. But you would do better to make your patterns smaller. More subtle.” He reached across the table, tapped Del’s left wrist. “You have the necessary strength here—I saw it—to support the smaller patterns, but you don’t use it. You were much too open earlier. It slowed your response time and left opportunities to defeat you. That you won had less to do with your better skill than with the boy’s inexperience.” He smiled briefly. “I would not do the same.”
It was an accurate summation of Del’s dance. That he also suggested smaller blade patterns did not please me, because it showed me he’d judged her very well. Del usually does employ smaller, tighter patterns, but she was out of condition and hadn’t employed her usual techniques.
And if anything would impress Del, it was a man judging her on her merits instead of by her gender.
“Here,” I said abruptly, “no need to let good aqivi go to waste.” I grabbed the jug, started splashing liquor into the cups Kima put down.
Abbu watched me sidelong. In profile, his nose was a travesty—but it lent him the cachet of hard-edged experience. Unlike Nabir, he was not a boy on the threshold of manhood; Abbu Bensir had stepped across many years before. He had the lean, lethal look of a borjuni, though he was sword-dancer instead of bandit.
What he thought of me, I couldn’t say. I was considerably taller and heavier, also younger—but Abbu Bensir was right. I hadn’t quite recovered strength, stamina, or health from the wound Del had given me, and it showed. Certainly it showed to an experienced sword-dancer who knew very well how to judge what counted.
He eased himself back on his stool and tipped aqivi down his throat. “So,” he said idly to Del, “has this big desert cat told you of our adventures?”
“Adventures?” I echoed blankly; Abbu and I had not, to my knowledge, ever shared much more than a cantina.
Predictably, Del said no.
Of course it was what he wanted. With an adroit flick of fingers, Abbu slipped the neck of his underrobe and let it fall open. His throat was now bared, showing the pale scar left by the shodo’s knife. “My badge of honor,” he said. “Bestowed on me by none other than the Sandtiger.”
Del’s brows rose.
Abbu’s tone was expansive. “It was quite early in his career, but it was a dramatic signal to the South that a new sword-dancer was about to be born.”
“There was nothing ‘about to be’ about it,” I said sourly. “It took me seven more years.”
“Yes, but it served notice to those of us able to judge such things as talent and potential.” He paused. “To those few of us.”
“Did it?” Del asked coolly.
“Oh, yes,” Abbu said. “He was a clumsy seventeen-year-old boy with hands and feet too big for his body—and his brain—but the potential was there. I knew what he would become … so long as his inborn submissiveness and all his years as a chula didn’t destroy him before he truly began.”
Del’s lids didn’t flicker. “Abbu Bensir,” she said softly, “be careful where you walk.”
He is not a stupid man; he changed tactics instantly. “But I am not here to talk about the Sandtiger, whom you undoubtedly know much better than I do.” There was a glint in his eyes. “I came to offer my services as a shodo, even briefly. I think you could benefit.”
“Perhaps I could,” Del said. And then looked me dead in the eye. “If you kick me one more time—”
I overrode her by raising my voice and talking to Abbu. “Won’t you be going to Iskandar like everyone else?”
“Eventually. Although I think it is nonsense, this talk of a jhihadi.” Abbu shrugged, swallowed aqivi. “Iskandar himself, the stories say, promised he would return to bring prosperity to the South, to turn the sand to grass. I see no signs of that.” He shook his head. “I think it is nothing more than a foolish man who fancies himself an oracle … a zealot who requires attention before he dies. He will rouse the tribes, undoubtedly—that, I hear, is begun—but no one with any sense will pay mind to it.”
“Except the tanzeers.” I shrugged as Abbu frowned over his tankard. “They won’t believe the Oracle’s foretellings, but if they have any intelligence at all they’ll recognize that this Oracle—and the proclaimed jhihadi, if one ever appears—could siphon off some of their power.”
“An uprising,” Abbu said thoughtfully, “couched in the name of religion.”
“People will do amazing things in the name of faith,” I remarked. “Wrap it in the trappings of holy edict, and even assassination is revered.”
“I don’t understand,” Del interjected. “What you say of religion, yes—that I have seen myself—but how would it affect the South?”
I shrugged. “The South is made up of hundreds of desert domains ruled by any man strong enough to hold it. He comes in, establishes his dominance, names himself tanzeer to gain a little glitter—and rules.”
She blinked. “So easily?”
“So easily,” Abbu confirmed in his broken voice. “Of course, any man who decided to do it would require a large force of loyal men … or a large force of hired men loyal to his coin.” He grinned. “I myself have engaged in establishing several such new reigns.”
Del’s tone was bland. “But you yourself have never attempted to set up your own domain.”
He shrugged. “Easier to take the money and leave, then move on to the next desert bandit who has notions of naming himself tanzeer.”
Del glanced at me. “Have you done it as well?”
“Never from the beginning,” I told her. “I have hired on to protect the tanzeer already in place, but I’ve never gone in and set up a brand-new domain.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “So a tanzeer is not born … he becomes a prince only through force of arms.”
I shook my head. “A tanzeer is born if his family has held the domain long enough. And some of these desert ‘princedoms’ have been in existence for centuries, handed down to each heir—”
“—who must himself be strong enough to hold it,” Del finished.
“Of course,” Abbu rasped. “There have been many newly proclaimed tanzeers, inheriting at an untimely age, who simply could not muster the forces needed to defend against usurpers.” He smiled. “That is the easiest way of enlarging a domain.”
“Stealing from someone else,” she said.
“All of the domains were stolen,” Abbu countered. “Once, surely, the South belonged to no one, it simply was—and then men strong enough to do so selected for themselves the domains they wanted … and so on and so on until the land was sectioned off from the sea to the Northern border, and to the east and west as well.”
“Sectioned off,” she echoed. “Is there no free land left at all?”
Abbu shrugged. “Domains exist where the land is worth having. There is water, or a city, or an oasis, or mountains—a place worth having becomes a domain. What no one wants is free.”
“The Punja,” I said. “No one rules the Punja. Except the tribes, maybe … but they have more respect for the land. They don’t divide it up and sit on it. Nor do they give in to the rule of any man proclaiming himself a tanzeer. They just go with the wind, blowing here and there.”
“Much like a sword-dancer.” Del turned her cup on the table. “So, the Oracle—who gains disciples among the tribes—offers threat to the tanzeers.”
“By rousing the tribes, yes,” Abbu agreed.
“But the Oracle is only a mouthpiece,” I said. “It’s the jhihadi who offers the true threat. Because if the stories were to come true—that sand will be turned to grass—it means all of the South would be worth having. Each man would be a tanzeer unto himself, and the authority of those petty princes holding the present domains would collapse.”
“So they will try to kill him.” Del’s tone was matter-of-fact. “No matter who he is, no matter why he’s come; even if it’s all a lie—the tanzeers will have him killed. Just in case.”
“Probably,” I agreed.
Abbu smiled a little. “First they would have to find him.”
“Iskandar,” Del said. “Isn’t that where he’s supposed to appear?”
Abbu shrugged. “That’s what the Oracle says.”
“You’re going,” she pointed out.
Abbu Bensir laughed. “Not for the Oracle. Not for the jhihadi. I’m going for the dancing. I’m going for the coin.”
Del frowned. “Coin?”
Abbu nodded. “Where there are people gathering, there will be wagering. Where there are tanzeers, there will be employment. Easier to find both in one place rather than scattered across the South.”
“In uplander, a kymri,” I explained. “We don’t have many here in the South … but Abbu is right. If this Oracle rouses enough people, they will all go to Iskandar. So will the tanzeers. And so will sword-dancers.”
“And bandits?” she asked.
“Borjuni, yes,” Abbu agreed. “Even whores like Kima.”
“I want to go,” Del said.
I sighed. “Seems as good a place as any to learn something of Ajani’s whereabouts.”
But Del wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at Abbu. “And I want you to teach me.”
I nearly choked on aqivi. “Del—”
“Tomorrow,” she declared.
Abbu Bensir merely smiled.
Seven
“Why?” I asked, standing in the doorway. “What are you trying to prove?”
Del, inside her tiny room at the inn, barely glanced at me as she sat down on the edge of her slatted cot to pull off boot and fur gaiter. “Nothing,” she answered, unwrapping leather garters.
“Nothing? Nothing?” I glared. “You know as well as I do you don’t need Abbu Bensir to teach you anything.”
“No,” she agreed, peeling gaiter from boot.
“Then why—”
“I need the practice.”
I stood braced in the doorway, watching her tug off the boot. She dropped it to the floor, then turned to the other boot. Once again, she started with the gaiter. Her bare right foot was chafed at the edges; the rest of it was white.
“So,” I said, “you’re using him for a sparring partner.”
Del unlaced the garter. “Is he as good as he says he is?”
“Yes.”
“Better than you?”
“Different.”
“And was it you who put that scar on him?”
“No.”
She tilted her head slightly. “So, he is a liar.”
“Yes and no. I didn’t give him the scar itself, but I did provide the reason for making it necessary.”
Del looked up at me. “He doesn’t hate you for it. He could—another man might—but he doesn’t.”
I shrugged. “We’ve never been enemies. Just rivals.”
“I think he respects you. I think he knows you have your place in the South—in the pecking order of sword-dancers—and he has his.”
“He is an acknowledged master of the blade,” I said. “Abbu Bensir is a byword among sword-dancers. No one would be foolish enough to deny him that to his face.”
“Not even you?”
“I’ve never considered myself a fool.” I paused. “You’re really going to spar with him?”
“Yes.”
“You could have asked—”
“—you?” Del shook her head. “I did ask you. Several times.”
“I’ll spar,” I said defensively. “Just not with my jivatma. We’ll go find some wooden practice swords—”
“Steel,” Del said succinctly.
“Bascha, you know why I don’t want—”
“So you don’t have to.” She stripped gaiter free of boot. “So I’ll use Abbu Bensir instead.”
“But he thinks he’s teaching you.”
“He may think whatever he likes.” Del tugged at her boot. “When a man won’t do what you want him to in the way you want him to, you find new names for the same thing. If it satisfies Abbu Bensir’s pride to believe he is teaching the gullible Northern bascha, let him. I will still get my practice. I will still improve my fitness.” She looked at me squarely. “Which is something you need, too.”
I ignored that; we both knew it was true. “How long is this to go on?”
“Until I am fit.”
Frustration boiled up. “He only wants to get you into his bed.”
Del rose, began to unhook her harness. “I am having a bath brought for me. If you truly believe I would be the kind to tease you, you would do well to leave.”
On cue, one of the innkeeper’s sons rolled the cask from out of my room. It was empty, of course, which meant Del had paid extra for clean water. But she had no money.
Frustration rose another notch. “Am I paying for this, too?”
Del nodded.
I glared. “Seems like I’m paying for an awful lot, yet getting nothing for it.”
“Oh?” Pale brows rose. “Is courtesy and generosity dependent upon how soon and how many times I will go to bed with you?”
I moved aside as the boy rolled the cask through the doorway. I waited impatiently for him to drop the cask flat and depart; once he had, I turned back to Del.
I stood directly in front of her now, halting as she turned from the cot to match me stare for stare. Barefoot, she gave up an extra finger’s-worth of height to the five additional I always claimed. But it didn’t diminish her.
