Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (36 page)

It made sense. The tribes and tanzeers didn't mix much; didn't see eye to eye when they did. And if the promised messiah was appealing primarily to the tribes, which is what it sounded like, the tanzeers would want to know.

I dug a copper out of my pouch and flipped it at the boy. He caught it, grinned

again, glanced past me toward Del. Said something quickly in Desert, then turned

and ran into the square.

Grinning, I kneed the stud out. We'd cut straight across the bazaar to the outskirts directly beyond. Where the boy had said there were circles.

"What did he say?" Del asked. "And you know which part I mean."

I laughed, then twisted my head to glance back. "He complimented me on my taste

in baschas."

"That boy must have been no more than twelve!"

I shrugged. "In the South, you start young."

It wasn't easy cutting directly across the square. There was no organization to

the tangled walkways between stalls. Some turned, some stopped, some doubled back. Twice I got turned around, then finally found the way. Through the cheek-by-jowl crumbling buildings, then out onto the plateau.

We were, I judged, directly opposite the hyorts, with Iskandar in between.

But

here there were no hyorts. Here there were no wagons. Only horses, bedding, and

circles.

"Looks more like a war," I observed, "than a gathering for the jhihadi."

Del halted her gelding beside me, gazing upon the scene. "Many wars," she agreed. "Are there not many tanzeers?"

Slowly I shook my head. "It doesn't feel right."

"What doesn't?"'

"The tanzeers are hiring an army... an army of sword-dancers. They only do that

on an individual basis--feuding tanzeers hire men to fight one another, so they

can destroy one another--never as a group. The nature of desert domains is each

man for himself... it just doesn't seem right that so many are here together, and all are hiring men."

Del shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"Maybe," I said uneasily. "Maybe it does."

And then I thought about what Abbu Bensir had said concerning going to a single

place to win coin and find a job. It wasn't the Southron way, but I saw certain

advantages. No doubt so did the others; it was why so many were here.

"We could get rich," I said thoughtfully. "If we hired on with the right tanzeer, we could get very rich."

"I didn't come to get rich. I came to kill a man."

"If you find him," I said, "what do you plan to do? Challenge him to a dance?"

"He's not worth the honor."

"Oh. So, are you just going to walk up to him and gut him?"

Del's expression didn't change. "I don't know."

"You think you might want to consider it?"

Now she looked at me. "I have considered it for six years. Now is the time for

doing."

"But you can't do without thinking it through." I shifted in the saddle, taking

weight on locked arms braced against the pommel. "He's not a popular man.

Others

will want to kill him. I doubt he walks alone. And if he's done all the things

you say, I doubt he pisses alone."

Del's tone was steady. "I will find a way."

I sat back down in the saddle. "Can we at least get a meal first? And maybe a place to stay?"

Del extended a hand, indicating the plateau. "There is a place to stay."

"I kind of thought we might go find a room. It might not have a roof, but then

neither of us is a tanzeer. And it doesn't look like rain."

Automatically, Del glanced up at the sky. It was a clear, brilliant blue, without a cloud apparent. But this was border country. This was odd country; it

just didn't feel right. Too many bits mixed together: vegetation, temperature,

people.

"Sandtiger! Tiger! Del!"

I glanced around. Frowned. Peered at the circles, but saw no one I knew. Only men in the circles with swords in their hands.

"There." Del pointed in the other direction. "Isn't that--Alric?"

Alric? "Oh--Alric." The Northerner who'd helped us in Rusali, the domain just before Julah. I squinted. "Yes, I think it is."

Alric approached, waving. With him walked a short, fat woman. Two little girls

preceded them; in one arm he carried a third. At least, I think it was a girl;

sometimes it's hard to tell.

Del slid out of her saddle. "Lena had her baby."

I stayed in mine. "And, from the look of it, is expecting yet another."

The little girls, upon arrival, hurled themselves at Del, who bent down to receive them. I was privately astonished they even remembered her; they were all

of three and four--or maybe four and five; at this age, who can tell?--and they'd only spent a week or so around us when Alric had taken us into his home

after I'd gotten myself wounded. But Del is very good with children, and the girls had adored her. Obviously their opinions hadn't changed.

I watched her as the girls competed for her hugs. She was smiling, laughing with

them, exchanging Southron greetings. I almost expected pain, expecting Del to see Kalle in their faces, but there was only happiness. I saw no trace of anguish.

About then Alric arrived with his heavily pregnant wife. The last time I'd seen

her she'd also been heavily pregnant. And since the older girls were but a year

apart, I began to suspect Lena and Alric enjoyed active nights together.

Lena was Southron, and looked it; he was clearly Northern. The girls were a little of both. They had their mother's black hair and dark skin, but their father's bright blue eyes and high-arched cheekbones. They'd be beauties when they were grown.

Alric was grinning. "I thought so!" he said. "I told Lena it was you, but she said no. She said by now Del would have come to her senses and looked for a Northern man instead of a Southron danjac."

"Oh?" I looked down at Lena, who showed white teeth at me. "I suppose you think

she'd be better off with another Alric."

Lena patted her swollen belly. "A strong, lusty Northerner is good for a woman's

soul." Black eyes glinted. "And other things as well."

Alric laughed aloud. "Although so far all this lusty Northerner makes is girls."

He patted Lena's belly. "Maybe this one will be a boy."

"And if not?" I asked.

Alric's grin widened. "We'll keep trying until we get one."

I waited for Del's comment; surely she had one. But the girls were chattering at

her and she had no chance to speak.

Lena waved welcoming hands. "Come, come... we have a house in the city not far

from here. You will come and stay with us; there are plenty of rooms. We can wait for the jhihadi together."

I glanced at Alric. "Is that why you came?"

He shifted the baby in his arms. "Everyone else was coming to Iskandar. Even the

tanzeers. I thought it might be worthwhile to come up myself and see how the dancing was." He gestured with his head in the direction of the circles.

"And,

as you can see, there are sword-dancers aplenty. There will be coin as well.

Or

a tanzeer who'll hire me. With all these little mouths to feed, extra coin would

be welcome."

Three little mouths to feed, and a fourth on the way. No wonder he'd come to Iskandar, but I thought it odd for Lena. She couldn't be far from delivering.

Lena sensed my thought. "A child born in the presence of a jhihadi will be blessed throughout his life."

"Or hers," Alric said affably; the possibility of yet another daughter did not

appear to trouble him.

He hadn't changed much. Still big. Still Northern. Still a sword-dancer. But it

seemed odd to look at him now--smiling, cheerful, openly friendly--and recall how I had felt when I'd first met him. How I'd thought he was after Del. I hadn't trusted him at all until we'd sparred in an alley circle. You learn a man

that way. Learn what he is made of.

"Alric," I said suddenly, "how is your dancing these days?"

His brow creased. "Well enough. Why?"

"How'd you feel about going a few matches? For old time's sake."

He grinned, displaying big teeth. Alric was big all over. "You always beat me,"

he said. "But I've been practicing. Now maybe I can beat you."

I glanced across at the circles. "Shall we go find out?"

"Not now," Lena said. "First you will come to our house. You will eat. Rest.

Give us the news you have. And we will give you ours." She slanted a glance at

Alric. "Time for dancing and drinking later."

Del came forward with a girl on either arm. The roan trailed behind them. "We are grateful for your offer. Your news will be welcome."

I was a little surprised. I expected Del to want to go haring off after news of

Ajani, trying to track him down in Iskandar, or find out if he was expected.

But

apparently she'd thought about what I'd said. If she was to kill the man, it would have to be carefully planned.

"Come," Lena said. She turned and waddled away.

Alric looked at Del over the black-fuzzed head of the baby. He smiled, said something in Northern dialect, slanted an oblique glance at me.

Del's chin came up. She answered briefly in the same dialect, then told the girls to show her the way to their quarters. Tugging on her arms, they led her

toward the city. The roan trotted behind.

"And what was that?" I asked Alric.

He grinned. "I asked her if a Southroner was enough man for a free-hearted uplander woman." Blue eyes glinted. "Speaking as an older brother looking out for a sister's welfare."

"Of course," I agreed dryly. "And what did the sister tell the older brother?"

"There is no Southron translation. It was a Northern obscenity." Alric's grin stretched wide. "Which says something all on its own."

Well, I suppose it does. But he didn't tell me what.

"Let's go eat," I said sourly.

Alric's eyes were guileless. "Would you like to hold the baby?"

Which gave me an opportunity to use an untranslatable Southron obscenity.

The toothy grin widened. "And here I heard you were a father."

The stud walked onto my heels. Since I'd stopped moving, it wasn't surprising.

"A father--? Oh. That." In disgust, I elbowed the stud in the nose and pushed him back a step. "Have you see him?"

Alric hitched the baby higher on a big shoulder and headed for the city.

"Your

son? No. Just heard there was a boy here--young man, really--who says he's the

Sandtiger's son."

"He isn't," I muttered, matching my pace to his. "At least, not as far as I know."

"Does it matter if he is?"

I thought about it. "Maybe."

"Maybe? Maybe? What an odd thing to say." The baby caught a handful of blond hair and tugged; Alric freed it gently. "Don't you want to have a son to carry

on your blood?"

What blood? And whose? For all I knew, it could be the blood of borjuni killers.

"I figure I'm doing a good enough job carrying it all on my own."

Alric scoffed, but gently. "A man should have a son. A man should have a family.

A man should have kinfolk to sing the songs of him."

"Northerner," I muttered.

"And if you meet him in the circle?"

I stopped short. "He's a sword-dancer? My s--this young man?"

Alric shrugged, frowning a little. "I heard of him at the circles. I assumed he

was a sword-dancer, but perhaps he isn't. Perhaps he's a tanzeer."

My son, a tanzeer. Which meant he could hire me.

"No," I said, "I don't think so."

"Well, it doesn't matter. He is whatever he is." Alric lengthened his stride and

led me into the city.

Three

The building Alric had claimed for Lena and the girls was large--four rooms--but

lacked a roof and half of a wall on one side. Into the room lacking most of one

wall he put the carthorse and his own mount, a bald-faced bay gelding. It left

two rooms vacant: he offered one to Del and me.

I've never been one for sharing close confinement, preferring privacy, but in some situations it's good to have folk around. I thought it possible this might

become one of them. As the city filled with strangers, trouble would inevitably

break out. There would be thieves, certainly, come to prey upon worshipers, and

feuds between hostile races. And if the promised jhihadi never arrived--which I

believed was likely--frustration would drive impatient people to do things they

might not otherwise think about. Like starting fights, and killing. All things

considered, I thought Alric's offer generous. Del and I agreed.

Lena sent the two little girls--Felka and Fabiola; don't ask me which was which--off to help Del with settling our belongings in one of the other rooms.

I

briefly considered lending a hand, then decided against it; Del looked pleased

to spend time with the girls, even though they'd be little help, and I felt more

like sitting with Alric by the fire, sharing a bota of aquivi. Lena prepared food.

Alric wiped his mouth. "Did you ever find Del's brother?"

I accepted the bota. "We found him. We left him."

"Dead?"

"No. With the Vashni."

Alric grimaced. "Good as dead, then. They're not a hospitable tribe."

I cocked an eyebrow in his direction. "It was a Vashni you got your sword off of, wasn't it? The blade with human thighbone hilt?"

Alric nodded. "But I put it away and got a Southron sword. I decided it was a bit too grisly to use a sword with a hilt made out of the bone of a man I never

knew--or maybe a man I did know."

"New swords," I reflected. "A lot of that going around."

"I noticed." Alric's eyes were on the harness next to my leg. "No more Singlestroke?"

I accepted a flat, hot loaf from Lena, blew on it to cool it. "Got broken in a

sword-dance after we left Julah." I blew some more, then bit. The steaming loaf