Sword-Bearer, page 23
I’d need to count over the years to sort it out. But age aside, Kalle was a fatherless child of rape gotten on a child herself. And Del, now, would see her daughter for only the third time since her birth.
Down from the bluff and beyond the barrows and dolmens of Staal-Kithra, the land flattened and ran out to the shallows. Waterfowl paddled near the shore, fish broke the surface. The boathouse and small dock perched over lapping waves. A bright-painted blue boat, moored to the dock, was adorned with yellow designs I didn’t recognize. The oars were striped red.
With an outstretched hand, Del signaled us to wait some distance from the shore. A man came out of the boathouse and walked up the rise, cord-wrapped beaded braids swinging against a leather-belted russet tunic of lightweight wool worn long to high boots. Leather bracers wrapped his forearms, and a sword rode his shoulder. He was blond, blue-eyed, very fair of skin.
Standing so close to Del, I ventured my question quietly before the young man reached us. “Are any of you plain?”
Del shot me a mystified look. Neesha’s eyebrows rose.
“Well, look at him. Look at you, bascha. Look at Alric. I’ve met other Northerners, too. You’re all annoyingly attractive.”
Del blinked, then smiled crookedly as a spark leaped in her eye. “We cull the plain ones.”
And then the young man arrived before us, tall, broad, handsome, and vital as the sun. In a matter of one sweeping glance, he assessed us. Three with swords and harnesses, Southron burnouses and sandals. There was only one answer. He didn’t waste his breath on the question, though he did look back at Del.
He spoke in Uplander. I’d learned it; Neesha, living close to Istamir, a Northern city, knew it as well. “I am Sten. It’s my honor to ask why sword-dancers—and a sword-singer—have come to Staal-Ysta.”
Del wasted no time. “Delilah. Sandtiger. Nayyib, called Neesha. A matter of an-elisua. I must speak to the voca.”
His chin came up and he reassessed her. While I didn’t recognize him from our former visits to the island, it was obvious to me that he recognized Del, and it wasn’t because of her singular Northern beauty.
Sten acknowledged her words with a slight nod of his head. “In whose name?”
“Torsten,” she answered, “my father. You would have been young when he and his kin were killed along the border by the raider Ajani, but you will have heard the tales. Two survivors: my brother Jamail, and myself. Jamail was taken away and sold to slavers. I was—” The pause was brief, but telling. “I was believed dead, and left behind.”
The faintest twitch of his brows gave away his sharpened interest. “It is your brother, then, that you wish to be called to answer for dishonor?”
I knew her; she wanted badly to tell him off for suggesting Jamail was anything but honorable. “No. My father’s brother’s son. He was cast out of the family, dismissed from Staal-Ysta. But his heart is black with rot. It’s time to cut it out.”
I wondered uneasily if she meant that literally.
Sten’s expression changed to one of surprise. “Kettil.”
“I’ll petition the voca,” she said, “and if they approve of the dance, I’ll stand against him in the circle. It’s my right, as his kin.”
That was very familiar language, and somewhat reassuring. No cutting out of black, rotten hearts. Just a dance to the death.
Except of course it meant she’d be at risk. I was at risk every time I accepted a death-dance, as happened too often lately, but the distance between putting myself in the circle and watching Del in the circle was incomprehensible.
Sten inclined his head, made a gesture toward the lake, and started down toward the boat. Del told Neesha to picket his horse, that young people from the settlement would come to fetch our mounts. He wasn’t certain about that until he saw me pulling picket rope and stake from my saddle pouch.
I smiled at him. “As a child, did you lead your father’s horses from one place or another? See that they were fed?”
“Of course!” Then he saw my point. Out came his stake and picket rope. But he looked infinitely relieved when he saw the young people from the settlement approaching. By my guess, all over twelve. “Wouldn’t they do better if the horses were stabled here?”
I shrugged. “Suggest it.”
“Oh, do,” Del agreed. “It’s never been thought of before.”
Neesha wisely closed his mouth on any further questioning of Staal-Ysta’s customs.
As we took our turns getting into the boat, I leaned close as he sat down. “Everything here concerns training and discipline. Even the smallest task concerns honor, in young and old. Including dishonor.”
Sten rowed us across the lake to the island. As he was tying up so we could climb onto the dock, a man came down across the shoreline. They spoke, then the man turned and walked back to the trees, disappearing into the shadows.
Once we three stood on the dock, Sten got into the boat to row it back to the other side. But he looked at Del a long moment. “They’ll approve, the voca. You know that. He would be better dead. But it must be kin, and there was no one to ask for an-elisua. He was free to do as he wishes.” He glanced briefly at me, at Neesha, then back to Del. “May you win your dance, an-ishtoya.”
By the time we made our way along the paths cut through the trees and entered the sprawling clearing in the center of the settlement where circles were drawn, I was certain Sten’s messenger had informed the voca exactly who was here. And possibly everyone else, as the area was ringed by mostly men, but a few women as well, armed with blades.
It reminded me most unpleasantly of years before. Del and I in the circle at the voca’s insistence, with neither of us walking out of it. We’d both nearly died. It reminded me, too, of Wahzir’s magic putting me here again, ringed by torches beneath a white-faced moon.
But it was afternoon, not night. The moon was only a crescent high in the sky. No lighted torches ringed the circle. This was not Wahzir’s doing. This was not the voca—or certain members of the voca—attempting to have both of us killed to suit private purposes.
But I realized almost immediately that the gathering of Staal-Ysta’s sword-singers had not been called because we were here. The gathering had nothing whatsoever to do with us. Everyone, all the onlookers surrounding the circle with swords strapped to their backs, was present for a sword-dance.
The song of it filled the air. The blades, certainly, with all the music of the steel, but also two voices. One male. One female. I reminded myself that for all the similarities between Northern and Southron sword-dancing, sword-singers sang.
They sang magic into their blades. They took power from the song.
As we came up from the trees, our arrival was noticed. Elbows tapped ribs as heads tipped in our direction. Del and I were quietly mentioned to others. And though the sword-dance continued, the human circle surrounding the dance parted for us.
It wasn’t precisely a welcome, but it wasn’t repudiation. I saw nothing of hostility, and more than a little curiosity. And while there were a few headshakes when Neesha was noticed, it was because no one knew his name, not that they found him lacking.
I assumed Del would instruct us on what was expected of us, as visitors. The only time I had attended a gathering of all sword-singers on the island was when I was participant, not onlooker. But Del didn’t tell us anything. As the dance continued, as song filled the air, she walked through the break in those gathered until she reached the front row. There she stopped, set her feet slightly apart, and folded her arms across her chest as she watched very closely the dancers in the circle.
Neesha and I looked at one another. He turned up his palms to ask what we should do. I shrugged. So with neither of us knowing whether we would break some terribly stringent rule, we made our way through the parted audience and edged in next to Del, one on either side.
One woman, one man. It was sparring, but hard sparring, clearly meaning more than simple practice, or it wouldn’t have drawn such a large audience. Some form of test, I thought. Perhaps a rank was at stake, and only one would qualify.
The woman’s back was to us. As she and the man slowly changed positions and her face came into view, I stopped thinking about the sword-dance. I stopped thinking about much at all.
Del read something in our postures. She looked at Neesha, looked at me, looked again at the sword-singers. Then she asked, “Is he annoyingly attractive?”
And Neesha said, on a throttled hoot of laughter, “Who’s looking at him?”
Del measured our expressions with a little more care. “Is she annoyingly attractive?”
We said as one, “No!”
Well. There was nothing annoying about it.
Someone outside the circle called for the dance to end and wagers to be paid out. The two inside the circle lowered their blades, grinning at one another. Voices rose, coin was exchanged. Belt-purses were emptied, belt-purses were filled. I saw broad grins, heard laughter, saw wry smiles for bets lost.
The two in the circle clasped forearms in high good spirits, exchanged compliments and insults. The young woman, hair pulled back into a single braid, dressed in a brief woolen tunic dyed black, wore bracelets on both wrists, and a twice-wrapped string of blue beads around her neck. Color stood high in her face, so pure in the harmony of the bones. She glanced up, clearly searching for someone in the crowd, and then her eyes stopped moving. Her brows twitched, rose, and a slow smile blossomed. Then she rested the flat of the blade against her right shoulder and, with a bright glint in her eye, flashed the kind of smile every man alive knew how to read.
Del stuck a rigid thumb between my ribs. “She’s too young for you.”
Well, no. Not considering the age gap between Del and me. But I poked her back. “She’s not looking at me.”
No, she was not. She was looking at the other male in our party. And Neesha was most definitely looking back.
“They grow up,” Del said mournfully. “They grow up and leave the longhouse. And all we can do is watch them go.”
I snickered. “You’re not much older than he is.”
Then two sword-singers came up and engaged us in a conversation that had nothing at all to do with sons leaving longhouses, and probably everything to do with Del being annoyingly attractive.
I SPENT HOURS IN conversation with various older sword-singers and Staal-Ysta students. I lost track of Del, and Neesha had disappeared, though with the latter I had a good idea of the cause if not his whereabouts. I was handed cups of ale, and occasionally amnit, which was a Northern spirit similar to Southron aqivi. By the time the sun touched the treetops—no horizon was visible in a thick forest—I was talked out. Torches were placed throughout the clearing. I had turned down numerous invitations to spar. The older men had questions about Southron technique, while the younger ones asked me about various tales they’d heard of my exploits.
Our visit to the island was all very different this time. The edged courtesy of the voca and students the first time around, coupled with hostility and distrust in some cases, gave way now to acceptance, to simple interest. The day of the sparring between the young woman and a man seemingly around her age had transformed itself into an outdoor celebration. Boar and deer meat was hung on spits over fires, sliced for platters; bread was piled high on the tables brought out from the longhouses; big jars of ale and spirits, plus drinking horns and cups. Many folk sat down on benches to eat and talk, while others wandered from person to person. Even young children found their way into the gathering, which reminded me of Sula at home with Alric and Lena once again looking after her while Del and I took ourselves elsewhere.
When Del reappeared, she was accompanied by a man I judged in his fifties. He was pleasant of feature, somberly dressed in lightweight brown wool robe split in the back for riding, and despite the kinder temperature of spring, wore his dark blond hair braided in fur and leather wraps. He saw me waiting, raised a cup in greeting, then said something in quiet tones to Del and departed. She came up to me, and I recognized the expression. She had donned her bland face that gave away nothing, unless you knew her very well.
I knew her very well. “What is it, bascha?”
“The voca.” She picked at the cord tying her braid together. “One has died, another is traveling. No one will formally hear my request for an-elisua until the one returns from his journey, and the other is replaced.”
“So, business simply stops?”
“Business that can be put off, yes.” She was clearly unhappy and as clearly anxious to do something about it. “Arne was more recently named to the voca and understands that I wish this to be done quickly. But he said the best they can do for now is summon Kettil, with no assurances that he’ll come. He’s not required to if the voca can’t formally meet. He’s not required to come at all.”
That seemed an ineffective way of punishing a man. “And if he doesn’t come?”
“Then the person calling for an-elisua is given permission to hunt him down.”
Well, that seemed effective. And deserved. “Hunt him down and kill him, I’m assuming.”
She nodded. “Here, it would be a sword-dance in the circle, with many witnesses. But if am forced to hunt him, and I find him, he may simply ignore the challenge to a death-dance. He could kill me at any time, in any fashion, outside the bonds of an-elisua.”
“Del—” I broke it off, scrubbed at my face. “You do see that this is all very one-sided. All Kettil has to do is not come, and if you find him, not accept the challenge.”
Del scowled at me from under knit brows. “How many men do you know, if challenged by a woman in front of companions or, in Kettil’s place, in front of men who ride with him, would turn his back on her and ride away? Especially a man like Kettil.”
I pursed my lips and nodded. “I see your point.”
“Men here remember that Kettil trained on Staal-Ysta, Tiger. Many knew him, some well. Arne said it’s very unlikely Kettil would refuse to engage, particularly as it’s a kin-challenge. He has no love for his kin.”
I was still unconvinced, and Del realized it.
“It’s rare an-elisua is called. In this case, there is no question that he should be summoned. Arne told me the voca have long wanted an opportunity to do so. But there was no kin to call for it. No one to meet him in the circle.”
I wanted to point out that leaving it up to kin, with the possibility that none may remain alive in order to call for an an-elisua, made it a simple matter for the transgressor to avoid any penalty. Hoolies, the transgressor could arrange to kill the kinfolk and make the entire issue of an-elisua moot.
“So, bascha, you are here now to call for it, and the voca can have you do the work for them.”
Del’s tone turned bitter. “And it may be for nothing.”
“After all that, now you say it may be for nothing?” I shook my head. “How can it be for nothing? You said this is what you want, to bring Kettil here and make him answer for what he’s done. He killed Mahmood, Darrion, and Eddrith, and did whatever it is he did to get himself cast out by your father and expelled from Staal-Ysta. You’re the bravest and most honorable woman I know. This isn’t cowardice. Why would you change your mind?”
“Kalle.”
I frowned, completely confused. “What has Kalle to do with it?”
Del looked me dead in the eyes. “If I am killed by a man worthy of being killed himself, as even the voca believe, Kalle will be expelled from Staal-Ysta.”
I nearly gaped. “Why? She has nothing to do with it.”
“If Kettil wins, the dishonor transfers to my kin. My name will be erased, but I’ll be dead and won’t suffer for it. But Kalle? Well, she’ll be expelled—or she’ll have to call an-elisua and face Kettil herself.”
“She’s a child!”
Del made a belaying gesture. “It wouldn’t be now. It would wait until she was eighteen. Time enough for Kettil to be killed elsewhere, were the gods generous. But Tiger, this is her home! She is a child, as you said. I can’t let her lose everything!”
“This an-elisua is ridiculously complicated.” I scratched at the back of my head. “So, what can be done?”
Del shrugged a little. “I can decide to do nothing at all. Not appeal to the voca. I can let Kettil continue doing whatever he likes. But he killed Mahmood, Darrion, and Eddrith, and all of Mahmood’s drivers, just as you said, and he’s killing other innocents simply because they dare to cross the Punja. And he will continue doing so. Tiger—he raped five young women and murdered them. That’s why my father cast him out, and why he was expelled from Staal-Ysta when it was learned what he’d done. If anyone deserves to die, it’s Kettil.”
“Five women,” I echoed blankly. “He raped and murdered five of them?” I couldn’t really think of any crime more deserving of death than that.
“My kin never told me,” Del said. “You don’t speak of such things when kin are cast out, and Staal-Ysta keeps its secrets, too. But Arne told me what Kettil did. He felt I should know. Kettil has been gone for several years. No one on Staal-Ysta knew where he was, or where I’ve been. Now he’s within reach, and I am, and they want him dead.”
“They said nothing to you about Kettil when we were here before.” Or she just didn’t tell me, which I felt was unlikely. She’d already said Neesha and I were her family. She’d have told us what Kettil had done, had she known.
Del shook her head. “I’ve told you—you don’t speak of such things with those who are not kin. And I was dishonored, remember? Aside from the fact I didn’t know what he’d done, Arne says the voca hoped someone else had killed him. But they didn’t, and now he’s bringing dishonor to Staal-Ysta, because that’s what outsiders know of him: that he’s a sword-singer trained here. It’s a poor reflection on the voca, the students, and the history of Staal-Ysta.” She pushed a loose strand of hair out of her face. “If I call for an-elisua and I kill him in the circle, all is well. If I lose—and die—Kalle is expelled from her home.”
