Sword-Sworn

by Jennifer Roberson

  “Your song isn’t over.”

  “That part of it is. I vowed to find my brother and kill Ajani.” Her tone chilled. “Apparently they decided the pact no longer applied.”

  “Then make a new song. You’re a sword-singer, after all.”

  Pain warped her words. “A sword-singer without a jivatma.”

  “Well, I’ve got one of those. And a terrible voice, as you’ve pointed out—you can sing for me.”

  It did not set her at ease. “This is not a casual decision, Tiger. This is a song that lasts a lifetime. Kalle I gave up. At the time it was all I could see, were I to achieve the goal I set myself, the goal that allowed me to survive. It wasn’t a wrong choice; it was the only choice. But I am older now. I am different now. I have killed and will undoubtedly kill again; I know I will dance again. That is what I am; no child changes that.”

  “No,” I agreed.

  “But this time, I wish to preserve life. I have no goals beyond that, no song to sing, save I wish to make a new beginning with a new life.” She said her walls had come down. I could hear in her voice the attempt to rebuild them, should it be necessary. “I will ask no man to do what he cannot do.”

  “Then don’t ask me. Just tell me what you need. Now—or after the baby’s born. If Alric can do it, I can.”

  One pale brow arched. “Do you really believe so?”

  I needed badly to knock down the nascent walls. “Well, maybe only until the first time it spits up on me.”

  Her mouth twitched in a faint smile. “You missed all that with Neesha.”

  I feigned wide-eyed hope. “I don’t suppose you could arrange for it to be born as a twenty-three-year-old?”

  “Twenty-three-year-olds spit up. You spit up. That’s what happens when you drink too much.”

  “As you found out.”

  Del sighed. The tension began to seep out of her shoulders. “As I found out.”

  “Look, bascha, what I said yesterday was the truth. I’ve never claimed to be a perfect man, and I won’t ever claim to be a perfect father. And getting hit over the head with a cantina stool two days in a row is more than a little tough to take in! But if you’ll give me the chance to do it—and forgive my lapses—I’ll never say anything rude about how big you look when you’re about ready to drop the kid.”

  “You don’t drop a baby, Tiger; it isn’t a foal. You have a baby. And you will too make rude comments.”

  “Well, all right, yes, I probably will. Some things I just can’t change.” I glanced around. “But I guess I can change where I’d planned to start a sword-dancing school. This place is beautiful. Alimat had its shodo and became a legend. This is Beit al’Shahar, and we can found a new one.”

  She hadn’t yet relaxed. “A child is not a stray kitten, or a puppy with a broken leg, or even an orphan sandtiger cub. A child is for life. Make no promises you cannot keep.”

  “As I made to my shodo?”

  From that, she flinched. “I didn’t mean it so.”

  “Then let me make this promise: I will try.”

  She lifted her chin. “Are you certain?”

  “Hoolies, no! But I don’t know that I’d be any more certain if we were at Alimat just now.” I smiled crookedly. “I never really planned to become a teacher. I never thought beyond dancing. I expected to die in the circle, to meet an honorable death. But that song for me is ended just as yours is for you. It’s time I began another.”

  Her eyes searched my own. “Can you do that?”

  I lifted my hands. Displayed them. “I knew I would have to that day atop the spire in ioSkandi. A child played no role in that decision.”

  “It does now.”

  Softly I said, “Give me a chance, bascha.”

  She closed her eyes a moment, as if praying. Then she opened them. “No wine-girls for you when you go into town.”

  I sucked in a dramatically stricken breath. Then, “Aqivi? At the very least?”

  She considered it. “If you’ll have Neesha tie you on the stud when you’re too drunk to ride, and bring you home safely.”

  “If we’re tying me on horses when I’m too drunk to ride, can I borrow your gelding?”

  “Hah. I knew you liked his walk.”

  “And I’m thinking I’ll invite Alric to pack up Lena and the girls—and maybe a boy, now—and come down here to live. I’ll send Neesha to Rusali to ask. Lena could tend the baby while you’re tending sword-dancers.”

  She didn’t say anything for several moments. Then she took the steps necessary to put herself into my arms.

  I cradled her head against my shoulder. “Are you crying again?”

  “No.”

  “You are, too.”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “What’s your excuse this time?”

  She drew her head back and looked me in the eyes. “Not excuse. Truth: I may have stopped dreaming about the kind of man I wanted long ago, but I found him anyway.”

  I grinned. “You’re just trying to sweet-talk me into your bed.”

  She took my hand, drew it down to her belly. “I think this baby proves you’ve already been there.”

  I laughed. “Well, yes.”

  Her hand, without excess fanfare, shifted from her belly to mine. And slipped lower, sliding suggestively between dhoti and skin. Which quivered.

  “Uh, bascha…”

  Her other hand was working at the tie-strings. “Hmmm?”

  “What if Neesha comes?”

  “Neesha knows better.”

  “What if Mehmet comes, or some of his people?”

  “Then they’ll all simply discover that their beloved jhihadi is also a man.”

  Self-control was on the verge of departing. “What about the baby?”

  Del laughed. “The baby won’t mind. The baby won’t even notice.”

  I caught the hem of her tunic, slipped it up above her hips. “Are you sure?”

  Her smile was glorious. “I’m sure.”

  “Well, if you’re sure you’re sure…”

  Her mouth was against mine. “Shut up, Tiger.”

  Tiger shut up.

  EPILOGUE

  ALRIC DRAGGED me out of the house. “Come on, Tiger.”

  “I’m not going—Alric, let go…” I tried to free my arm. “This is my own house, you know!”

  He didn’t give up. “Yes, I know that. I helped you build it. Now, come on.”

  Another harsh, half-throttled cry came from the bedroom where Del was in labor. Lena was there and one of Mehmet’s aketni, an old woman who’d borne many children herself. Alric’s children were off being tended by another of Mehmet’s aketni, to get them out from under our feet.

  I planted mine. “Alric—”

  “We’re going.” He practically jerked me off my feet. “Trust me, there is nothing we can do except get in the way. Lena told me that with the birth of every baby. Now that it’s you in my sandals, I understand why.”

  He’d gotten me as far as the dooryard. The panoply of the canyon opened before us, a spectacular fall day with trees ablaze, but I was in no mood for scenery. “How can you expect me to wait out here? She’s been in labor since last night. She could die from this!”

  He shoved me toward the stream. “Yes, she could, but I doubt it. Del is strong, and she’s had a baby. Now, go sit down with your feet in the water.”

  “She had that baby nine years ago!”

  “Tiger, she’s young enough to have ten or twelve more after this one.”

  Hoolies, what an image! I stomped down to the stream, swearing all the way. Alric followed me, likely making sure I didn’t try to go back to the low-roofed house built of mudbrick hauled in from elsewhere, since the soil here was better fit for crops. It’s what Mehmet and his aketni had done.

  I stood on the streambank and listened for Del’s cries over the sound of the water. I didn’t hear anything, which was probably Alric’s intent.

  Something occurred to me: absence. “Where’s Ne
esha?”

  Alric sat down in the grass, then leaned back on elbows. “He and Ahriman climbed up to the chimney earlier. Your new student is very eager to learn everything he can about his shodo.”

  I grimaced. “Ahriman won’t make it past the second level.”

  “No, probably not. But he’s a paying student for the time being.”

  One student in six months. Two if you counted Neesha, but I didn’t expect him to pay; I figured a father owes his son that much, especially when he’s been absent for almost twenty-four years of his life.

  I smiled. “Neesha will make it past the second level.”

  Alric laughed. “Oh yes.”

  “He wants very badly to achieve seven levels faster than I did.”

  “Of course. He’s your son. But he’s hungrier than you were.”

  I glared at Alric. “You weren’t there. How do you know he’s hungrier than I was? He’s certainly had an easier life than I did!”

  “It’s a different kind of hunger, Tiger. Your ambitions were to escape slavery in body and mind. Neesha wants to live up to the legend he’s held in his mind since childhood and to make you proud of him.”

  “I am proud of him!”

  Alric shrugged. “He has to discover it in his own way.”

  But my mind turned from Neesha and back to Del. Unable to stand still or sit, I began to pace. “Hoolies, I’d rather be in the midst of a death-dance than this. How can you stand the waiting, Alric?”

  “Well, I’ve done it four times, so I have experience. And will likely do it again a few more times.” His smile was content. “Four healthy daughters.”

  I stopped pacing. “Del says men make their wives keep having babies until they get a son, even if their wives don’t want to.”

  “That may be true of some men,” Alric agreed equably, “but I’ll have sons enough when my daughters marry.”

  If I had a daughter… if I had a daughter, men would think of her as they did of all women. Even as I had, before Del trained me out of it.

  Well, mostly.

  “I’ll kill them,” I said.

  Alric’s brows ran up beneath the fair hair hanging over his forehead. “Kill who?”

  “The men who try to get my daughter into bed.”

  The big Northerner laughed. “She’s not even born yet, Tiger—and she may be a he!”

  “I need to think about it, though. What I might face. Because, you know, if it is a girl, and she looks like Del…”

  “Let’s hope so. I’d rather a daughter look like Del than a big, slow danjac such as her father.”

  “I can’t do this,” I said abruptly. “I can’t just wait out here. What if Del wants me with her?”

  “Trust me, Tiger, Del doesn’t want you with her. Best you stay out here—unless you like having her curse you.”

  “I’m going.” I started toward the house, taking huge, long strides to get me there the faster. Then Lena appeared in the doorway and I began to run. “Is she all right? Is she all right?”

  Lena was smiling as I arrived. “She’s well, Tiger. So is the baby.”

  I stopped dead. “The baby? It’s here?”

  “Yes, the baby is here. Go in, Tiger. You’ve been waiting long enough.”

  But suddenly I couldn’t make myself move. “Maybe I shouldn’t. Del will be tired. She’ll want to rest.”

  Lena laughed. “Go on, Tiger.”

  I felt a hand come down on my shoulder. Alric’s. “She won’t curse you now. They never do once the baby’s born.”

  I took a deep, steadying breath, then a second one. And I went in to see what the Northern bascha and I had wrought.

  The old woman of Mehmet’s aketni was helping Del drink a cup of something that smelled slightly astringent. When she saw me come into the bedroom, she smiled, set the cup down, and waved me in. Staring at Del, I didn’t notice her departure.

  I couldn’t see any baby. Just Del, lying beneath the covers. She was propped up against pillows. Lines of exhaustion were in her face, but there was also a contentment that outshone everything else.

  I lingered in the doorway until she saw me. Her hair, wet with perspiration, was pulled back, braided out of the way. Her smile was weary, but happy.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “Where is she, Tiger. A baby is not an it.”

  Ah, good. She sounded normal.

  Then it struck me. “It’s a girl?”

  “That’s what ‘she’ usually means. And she’s right here.”

  I saw then that they had wrapped the baby in so many layers that she looked more like a lump of bedclothes than a person. Del lifted that lump from beside her. I heard a muffled noise that sounded suspiciously like a sandconey warning of predators.

  “Come see your daughter.”

  I didn’t move. “You don’t want to do this again, do you? Ten or twelve more times?”

  Del looked horrified. “No! Why do you ask me such a thing?”

  “Alric said you could have ten or twelve more… and he and Lena are already headed in that direction.”

  She laughed. “Tiger, stop putting it off and come and see your daughter.”

  When I reached the bed, Del put up a hand and urged me to sit. I did, very carefully. And then she peeled back the wrappings and I saw the face.

  I was aghast. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with her.”

  “She’s all red and wrinkled! And she has no hair!”

  Del’s smile bloomed. “The red will fade, the wrinkles will go, and the hair will grow. But she does have some hair, Tiger. It’s baby fuzz. See?”

  To please Del, I said that yes, I could see the wisps of something that approximated hair. But if that’s all she was going to have the rest of her life, I wouldn’t have to worry about what men might think.

  “Hold her, Tiger. She’s yours, too.”

  I recoiled. “I’d drop her!”

  “You won’t drop her. Have you ever dropped a sword?”

  I refused. “You can hold her. I’ll just look at her.”

  “I’m very tired,” Del said. “I’m very weak. I need you to hold her.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her. “You aren’t any better at lying now than you were before she was born.”

  Del was aggrieved. “I am tired, Tiger.”

  She was. Some of the animation in her face had faded. “Are you all right? I mean, will you be all right?”

  “I will be fine just as soon as you hold your daughter.”

  I scowled. She always did drive a hard bargain. “All right. What do I do?”

  “Just take her in your arms and cradle her. Put her head in the crook of your elbow.”

  “What if she cries?”

  “Just hold her.”

  “What if she’s hungry?”

  “Then give her back to me.”

  I leaned forward, grasped the lump, lifted. Discovered she weighed nearly nothing.

  Del’s tone was appalled. “Don’t just clutch her in midair, Tiger! Hold her against your chest.”

  Apparently I got it sorted out, because Del quit giving me advice. She lay there smiling at us both.

  I ventured, “Does she have any arms and legs, or is she just a lump with a head attached?”

  Del sighed. “I should have known you wouldn’t appreciate the moment.”

  I grinned. “It’s not a moment, bascha. It’s a baby.”

  She reached out a hand and stroked the wrappings. “I thought maybe we could call her Sula.”

  It shocked me. I could think of nothing to say.

  “That woman gave you your freedom,” Del said. “As much as there was to be found in the Salset. Not enough, I know—but more than you might have had otherwise.”

  After a moment, when I had my emotions under control, I nodded. “Take her,” I said. “Bascha—take her.”

  She heard the tone in my voice. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Not
hing, bascha.” I leaned forward, steadied the little bundle as she was taken from me, then bent down and kissed Del’s forehead. “Rest. I’ll come back later.”

  I waited until she had settled the baby beside her. As her eyes drifted closed, I left the room.

  Alric saw my face as I came out of the house. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “You look—odd.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Then why are you in harness?”

  “There’s something I need to do.”

  “Tiger—something’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I repeated. “There’s just something I need to do.” I paused. “Alone.”

  Alric was troubled. He and Lena were sitting outside the house on the wooden bench I’d built. The chickens Mehmet had given us darted around the dooryard, and the half-grown gray tabby cat was chasing an insect. We had, in six months, accumulated all the trappings of a regular family: a house, chickens, mouser, two goats.

  And now a daughter.

  “I have to, Alric. I’ll be back later.”

  He nodded and let me go.

  I met up with Neesha and Ahriman at the passageway into the upper canyon. Ahriman was a short, compact Southroner with black hair and eyes. He was several years younger than Neesha and rather shy in my presence. Which made it difficult to get him to actually attack me in the schooling circle. He did better with Neesha, whom he did not hold in awe.

  “How’s Del?” Neesha asked at once.

  “She’s fine. So’s the baby.”

  “She had it?”

  “Her. She had ‘her.’” I nodded. “A little while ago.”

  Neesha was studying me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Tiger—”

  I stopped him with a raised hand. “Nothing is wrong. Go on up and see Del and the baby—she’s your half-sister, after all. I’ll be back.”

  Neesha didn’t look any less concerned than Alric. But I had no time for them.

  No time for much of anything.

  * * *

  The climb up to the broken chimney was easier now than when I’d made it six months before. Not only did I know where I was going, but I was utterly focused on my goal. When I reached the tunnel, I didn’t think twice about the darkness. I ducked my head, went inside, followed it back to the slot near the boulders blocking the rest of the passageway. There I took off the harness, dropped it to the dirt floor, and pulled the stopper from the little pot I’d collected on the way out of the house. I smeared grease on my abdomen and spine, tossed the empty pot away, unsheathed the jivatma. I left the harness where it lay.