still breathing?' He grinned again. 'Oh, yes.' He opened wrappings reverently, folding back the fabric with great care. Steel glinted like ivory ice in meager, sallow sunlight slanting through narrow windows chopped into mudbrick. He rose and gestured. 'Do me the favor of showing me your hands.'
Mutely, I put them out. Saw the abrupt widening of his eyes, the startled glance into my face. That he wanted to speak of such things as missing fingers was obvious; that to do so would offend a discerning customer was equally obvious and went against his training as tradesman as well as artisan. After a moment he took my hands into his and began to inspect them, measuring breadth of palm, length of fingers, feeling calluses. He took great care not to so much as brush the stubs.
Then, quietly, he bent, took up a sword, set it into my hands, bowed. And stepped away even as Del moved back on the narrow bed, giving me room to move, to lend life to the sword as I tested its quality.
It took me no longer to judge the blade than it took the sword-smith to judge me. He had selected the one he believed was most appropriate. And indeed it was, in every important way. It was more than adequate—for a temporary weapon.
But then, that was all I required, until I found Samiel.
The swordsmith's expression was a curious blend of surprise and reconsideration. Though he had correctly surmised I knew how to handle a blade—or had, at one time—it was clear he had been dubious because of the missing fingers. The stumps were still pinkish; anyone familiar with wounds, particularly amputation, would recognize that the loss of the fingers was relatively recent. He paid me tribute by displaying his best to me, but he clearly expected less of me in the handling of the weapon.
Unfortunately, testing a blade and going against another sword-dancer were two very different things.
'It will do,' I said, after complimenting him on his art. 'What is your price? I will need a sheath and harness as well.'
He named an outrageous amount. I praised his skill, the product, but politely refused and offered less. He praised my obvious expertise, my experience, but politely declined my counter. So went the bargaining until both of us were satisfied.
His eyes glinted briefly. He knelt again and began to rewrap the bundle of his best.
'Wait.' When he glanced up, I indicated Del.
At first he did not understand.
'A sword,' I explained, 'for the lady.'
It was fortunate he spoke a dialect Del did not, or she very likely would have tested one of the blades on him. As it was she knew by his tone, his expression, by the stiffness in his body, what he said. She was a woman. Women did not use swords.
'This one does.' I said. And then, grateful Del didn't understand, 'Indulge me.'
That, he would accept: that a man might be foolish enough, or lust-bound enough, to woo a woman by seemingly giving into her fantasies, however ludicrous they might be. It lessened me in his eyes, but so long as it resulted in the desired end, I didn't care. For this insult to his person, his skill, his Southron sensibilities, he would vastly overcharge, and I would vastly overpay, but Del would have her blade.
She rose from the bed and stood before him in creamy pale leather tunic, legs and arms bare, a plaited rope of fair hair fallen forward over one breast. He shut his eyes a moment, muttered a prayer, and asked to see her hands. As he touched them, his own shook.
Del shot me a look over his bent head. 'Since you're the jhihadi,' she said pointedly, 'why don't you start changing the Southron male's perception of Southron women as inferior beings?' I grinned. 'I suspect some things are impossible even for the jhihadi.'
'Changing sand to grass is very dramatic,' Del observed, 'especially for a desert climate, but changing women to humans in Southron eyes—male Southron eyes—would be far more proof of this jhihadi's omnipotence.'
This jhihadi knew better than to travel that road. He smiled blandly and did not reply.
'Coward,' she muttered.
Finished with his assessment, the swordsmith dropped Del's hands with alacrity and turned away from her. With skilled economy he selected a sword, rose with it, then gazed upon it with obvious regret. His beautiful handiwork, intended for a man, would belong to a worthless woman merely playing at men's games.
We needed the sword. Carefully avoiding Del's eyes, I told the swordsmith, in his dialect, 'When she's done playing with it in a week or so, I'll sell it back to you. At a reduced price, of course, because of its taint.'
That seemed satisfactory. He placed the sword in Del's hands, then moved back to the farthest corner of the room, pressing himself into it. Knowing what she would do to test the weight, balance, response, I moved only so far as I had to. The swordsmith stared at me out of astonished eyes.
I grinned. 'Indulge me.'
Del danced. It was a brief but beautiful ritual, the dance against an invisible opponent, intended only to allow one to establish a rapport with one's weapon, to let the hands come to an understanding of the fit of the hilt, how the pommel affected balance, how the blade cut the air. It lasted moments only, but enough time for him to realize what he was witnessing.
Impossibility.
Del stopped moving. Flipped the braid behind her shoulder. Nodded.
The swordsmith drew in a rasping breath. He named a price.
Knowing there was no room for bargaining under the circumstances, I accepted. Paid. Saw him to the door.
Del's voice rose behind us. In clear Southron, albeit not his dialect, she said, 'I will not dishonor your art.'
His eyes flickered. Then his face closed up. With his back to us both, he said fiercely, 'Tell no one that sword is mine.'
I shut the door behind him, then turned to look at Del. She had sheathed the sword and buckled on the harness, testing the fit. It would require adjustment, but wasn't bad. 'Happy now?'
She smiled languorously. 'With a sword in my hand again, I can indulge even pigs like him.'
'Then indulge me, won't you? Let's visit the stud together.' I grabbed up my own new harness, slid the sword home. 'I may need you to pick up the pieces.'
The stud was, predictably, full of piss and vinegar. I sighed as the horse-boy led him out of the livery, recognizing the look in the one rolling eye I could see. The pinning of ears, the hard swish of tail, a peculiar stiff readiness in body indicated the stud had an opinion and was prepared to express it.
I didn't really blame him. He'd been cooped up on a ship, nearly drowned in a shipwreck, deserted on an island, refound, then stuck aboard a ship again. Someone had to pay.
I sighed. 'Not here in the street,' I told the boy. 'Someplace where no innocent bystanders might be injured.'
He bobbed his black-haired head and led the way through a narrow alley between the livery and another building to a modest stableyard. The earth had been beaten into a fine dust, and the muckers had already shoveled and swept the yard. At least when I came off, I wouldn't land in manure.
Del, following, raised her voice over the thunking of the stud's hooves. 'Shall I send boys out to invite wagering?'
The tone was innocent. The intent was not. Del and I had indeed managed to make some money here and there with wagers on who would win the battle—but that was when the stud was well ridden, and I was more likely to stick. Del knew as well as I that this battle would be worse than usual.
'The only wager here is how soon I come off,' I said glumly as the boy slipped the reins over the stud's dark-brown neck. Ordinarily his mane was clipped close to his neck, but time on the island had allowed it to grow out. Now it stood straight up in a black hedge the length of my palm. I ran a hand through my own hedge. 'I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to be painful.'
In deference to the Southron sun if not Southron proprieties, Del had donned a striped gauze burnous before exiting the inn. Now she arranged herself against a whitewashed adobe wall, arms crossed, one leg crooked up so the toe of the sandal was hooked into a rough spot. The thin, hand-smeared slick coating was crumbling away to display the rough, hand-formed block of grass-and-mud brick beneath.
She smiled sunnily. 'It won't be painful if you stay on.'
