Sword Sworn ss-6

by Jennifer Roberson

  Perhaps he hadn’t expected me to hit upon what was undoubtedly his plan. "You know where the kitchen is," Fouad said gloomily. "If you want food and drink, just ask."

  I started undoing harness buckles. "I’m asking."

  He sighed and nodded. "I thought so. I’ll send one of the girls back with a tray."

  Del stared after him as Fouad departed. I set harness, sword, and knife down on the trunk, then assigned myself the task of testing the feel of the mattress by sprawling across it, slack-limbed. I couldn’t help the blooming of a lopsided smile. I was a Man of Property. I now owned one-third of a modestly successful cantina in a thriving town. But even better, I had a bed and a room to call my own for the very first time in forty years.

  Well. Our own.

  I smacked the bed lightly. "Room for two."

  Del’s gaze transferred itself from the curtained doorway to the bed. While I was pleased, she seemed stunned by events. Or maybe just too tired to take it all in.

  "It doesn’t bite," I said. "And I only do when invited."

  Slender fingers worked at harness buckles. But she stopped before slipping out of it. "We should go after Nayyib."

  I held onto my patience with effort. "Tomorrow, remember? First light. For now, we have the chance to rest under a real roof, in a real bed, and eat decent food for the first time in weeks." Well, cantina food didn’t always live up to ’decent,’ but it would be better by far than dried cumfa and flat, tough-crusted journey-

  bread. Especially when accompanied by something far more palatable than Vashni liquor.

  Hmmm. Maybe the quality of food was something I should discuss with Fouad. After all, it was my reputation at stake now, too.

  Del undid the buckles, set harness and weapons down atop mine, and sat on the edge of the bed. After a moment I wrapped a hand around the braid hanging down her back and tugged her down next to me. We lay cross’wise, feet planted on the packed-earth floor.

  "Tomorrow," I said again.

  Del’s eyes drifted closed. She fell asleep almost at once, thereby proving my point about needing a good night’s rest. I smiled, smoothing fallen strands of hair back from her face.

  Then a thought occured. "I am not jealous," I muttered.

  But I wasn’t so certain I liked the idea of Del spending two weeks in a tent, mostly undressed — mostly undressed! — with a young, handsome, well-set-up buck like Nayyib while I was elsewhere. A young, handsome, well-set-up buck who, more to the point, was Del’s age.

  Now I scowled at the ceiling. What did she see in a man old enough to be her father?

  Oh, hoolies. I got up, carefully shifted Del lengthwise on the bed, which occasioned a murmured but incoherent comment, and took myself and Umir’s book into the common room. Such meanderings of the mind called for goodly amounts of aqivi.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Fouad evinced extreme startlement when I’d set up my study space at a table in the back corner of the common room, on a diagonal line from the doorway. I replaced the wobbly bench with the most comfortable one available, stuffed my spine into the confluence of walls, set out the book so the light from a window fell evenly upon its pages, and proceeded to sit there for hours, a cup and jug of aqivi at one elbow. I’d eaten earlier, but there was always room for aqivi.

  After I’d insistently shooed away three curious wine-girls, intrigued by what I was doing, I’d been left alone. I was aware of whispered comments going on back behind the bar, discussing the new me in tones of disbelief, but dismissed them easily as I lost myself in the words.

  Well, I suppose it was odd to see a man reading in a cantina, ignoring attractive women.

  Fouad eventually arrived. His face was troubled.

  I glanced up, marking my place with a finger. "What?"

  "Is this a plan I should know about?"

  "Is what a plan?"

  He gestured. "You sitting here all afternoon."

  "I’ve spent many an afternoon sitting here, Fouad. Not lately, maybe, but certainly often enough before."

  He leaned closer. "People wish to kill you."

  I figured it out. "You think I’m trying to lure sword-dancers to come in here after me."

  "Aren’t you?" Nervously he smoothed the front of his robes. "Damages can be expensive, Tiger. Broken stools and tables, shattered crockery…" He trailed off, figuring that was enough imagery to get his point across.

  It was. "Fouad, I’m just reading. Nothing more. Del’s sleeping, so I came out here."

  His expression was a fascinating amalgam of disbelief and worry. "But you can’t read."

  "Who told you that?"

  "You did. Some years ago."

  Well, yes, I probably had. "I learned how." I didn’t bother to explain how I learned how; some stories are better left untold.

  "So, you’re reading just to read?"

  "Yes, Fouad. Reading just to read." That, and to learn what I could about magery, since it seemed to concern me in very personal ways now. "I’m not attempting to lure sword-dancers to come in here after me."

  "And if they do come? You’re sitting out here in front of the gods and everybody."

  I dropped my right hand beneath the table, closed it around the sheathed sword, and raised it to a level where he could see the hilt. "Satisfied?"

  Fouad’s concern bled away, replaced by a relieved smile. "Yes."

  "Good." I resettled the sword against the wall, hidden behind and beneath the table. "Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to continue my reading."

  "Damages should concern you, Tiger," he pointed out. "It’s not all profit, you know, operating a cantina."

  "I’m sure you’ll provide a thorough accounting of profits and expenses, Fouad. I trust you." I tapped the page with an impatient finger. "Do you mind?"

  Shaking his head, Fouad wandered away muttering about losing his best corner to a man who wanted to read and who expected all his food and drink for free.

  Well, sure. Why should I pay for what I own?

  * * *

  The next interruption was Del. "What are you doing?"

  I scowled up at her, annoyed as her shadow slanted across the page I was reading. Since I was losing light as the sun went down, it mattered. With no little asperity, I replied, "I should think it’s obvious."

  Her face was creased from the mattress, flushed from recent awakening. She looked very young. "What are you drinking?" She bent forward as if considering helping herself to what was in my cup, then wrinkled her nose as she caught a whiff. "Never mind."

  Del glanced around, looking for someone to take her order, then wandered over to the bar to place it herself when all of the girls disappeared into the back; it was their way of exhibiting jealousy. Apparently Fouad hadn’t yet informed them Del was their boss as much as he was.

  I followed her with my eyes, as did every other man in the cantina, though as yet there weren’t many. Within the hour the common room ought to begin filling up. In the meantime, Del, oblivious to the stares, served as distraction and the object of lustful thoughts, even draped in a sleep-wrinkled burnous, with a sword hilt poking above her shoulder.

  I heard raised voices from behind the curtain, including Fouad’s. The three girls abruptly reappeared, each wearing an outraged expression that altered to sullen resentment as they saw Del at the bar. One of them, rubbing her rump, even deigned to inquire as to Del’s wishes; the other two started working the tables, suggesting more drinks. None of them looked happy.

  Hmmm. Maybe I ought to have a word with them. Couldn’t have them displaying bad tempers to the customers. No doubt Fouad would appreciate me taking a hand in the running of the business.

  Del came back with a cup and flask. "Water," she declared, eyeing my aqivi. "We musn’t drink up all the profits."

  I poured my cup full and availed myself of a portion of the profits. Del sighed and shook her head, hooking a stool to the table.

  I closed Umir’s book with a thump, latched the hook and hasp, and set it
down on the bench next to me so it wasn’t in evidence to casual customers. "You’re only half awake, bascha. Why don’t you go back to bed?"

  "Oh, no, I’m very awake. I doubt I’ll be able to sleep again until well after dark." She drank her water, eyes guileless over the rim of the cup. "In fact, there’s no need to stay the night here. We could get a start now."

  "I haven’t slept."

  "But you’ve spent the balance of the day resting, Tiger, reading a book in a quiet corner. Unless you consider that exhausting labor."

  "Well, it might be," I declared irritably. "It’s written by several people in several different tongues. I have to translate all of them in my head before I can figure out what anybody’s talking about, and even then I can’t always sort through their meanings, since I’ve been a mage all of a couple of months. It’s mental labor, bascha."

  Her expression made an eloquent statement: she did not consider my explanation good enough.

  "Come on, Del, we’ve been through this. We leave in the morning. After we’ve had a chance to sleep in a real bed."

  "You could have slept in a real bed this afternoon."

  "I was, in case you haven’t noticed, being a considerate individual. I let you have the whole bed all to yourself."

  "Considerate?" Del eyed my jug. "How much of that have you had?"

  I brightened. "Enough that I wouldn’t trust myself to stay ahorse."

  "Hah," she retorted. "You wouldn’t admit to being too drunk to sit a horse if you were lying face-down in a puddle of piss."

  "I dunno," I slurred, blinking owlishly. "I might need you to help me to bed. You know, hold me up, take my sandals off, undress me…" I waggled suggestive eyebrows at her.

  Del’s face was perfectly bland, but I saw the faintest hint of a twitch at one corner of her mouth. "Dream on."

  I stiffened on my bench. "That’s cruel. I told you how I feel about dreams."

  She was laughing at me unrepentantly even as she rose. "I will leave you to your reading, then."

  "Wait — where are you going?" I started to reach for the book and my sword. "Back to bed?"

  She paused. "Don’t look so hopeful, Tiger. No, not to bed. I have it in mind to purchase some new clothing. Something — different."

  "Why? What kind of clothing? How different?"

  "Something suitable for serving liquor."

  I stood up so fast I overset the bench. "You’re not — you can’t mean — tell me you don’t…" I stopped, untangled my brain, started over from an entirely different direction, a more positive direction in view of Del’s tendancy to disapprove of what she described as my tendancy toward possessiveness. With immense courtesy, I queried, "What is it you intend to do, pray tell?"

  "Learn how to run a cantina."

  Alarm reasserted itself. "By being a wine-girl?"

  Del took note of the fact my raised voice, carrying, had stopped all other conversations throughout the common room, focusing abrupt attention on ours. With a glint in her eye she inquired, equally loudly, "What’s wrong with being a wine-girl?"

  I had committed a slight tactical error in the rules of war: I had taken the battle to the enemy’s home. I could continue the fight valiantly if foolishly, or retire from the field with honor intact.

  Not that Del ever allowed me any when she owned the ground.

  "Why, nothing," I replied guilelessly. "I’m sure you’d make the very best wine-girl this cantina’s ever seen."

  Which, of course, did nothing at all to endear me to the wine-girls currently present, who already resented Del; yet another tactical error. Retreating with as much dignity as possible, I righted the bench and resumed my seat, whereupon I rescued the book, then promptly buried my face in a cup of aqivi.

  Del said calmly, "A good proprietor understands all facets of a business."

  I wanted very badly to ask if those facets included selling her favors, but I decided I’d said quite enough for the moment.

  But later… well, later was a different issue altogether.

  I gulped more aqivi as Del departed, thinking maybe it was best if I got drunk before she started serving liquor to men who were entirely too free with their hands.

  Of course, Del was more likely to chop off a wandering hand than slap it playfully.

  I reconsidered getting drunk, if only to bear sober witness to the justifiable murder of several men.

  Then again, they were customers. It’s tough to make any profits if you kill or maim the customers.

  I went back to the aqivi.

  Sometime later, as the girls took to setting out and lighting table candles, I gathered up book and sword and made my way back to the room that was now ours. It was kind of a nice feeling knowing we had a place to leave things as needed on a regular basis as well as to sleep. I’d bunked often enough at Fouad’s in earlier days but almost never alone… well, come to think of it, I wouldn’t be alone now, either, but back then I’d ridden alone, too.

  I wondered as I slid aside the door curtain if this was a sign of getting soft or of advancing age, this appreciation of property. I’d never had a place of my own, nor needed one. With the Salset, as a chula, I slept on a ratty goatskin, but even that hadn’t been mine; at Alimat, learning to sword-dance, I’d had a bedroll and a spot on the sand to throw it, but neither qualified as a home. A room in the cantina wasn’t a home, either, but it was more than anything I’d claimed before.

  I grinned wryly as I returned the book to a saddlepouch and slid them under the bed. For a while there, in Skandi, it had looked as though I might be heir to a vast trading empire, due to inherit wealth, vineyards, ships, and a chunk of property containing an immense and beautiful house. But that was when the metri had a use for a long-lost grandson; that use had changed, and so had her attitude. She had, in fact, eventually denied altogether I was her grandson, claiming her daughter had died before I was born- But Del made a surprising discovery on the way back home: I bore the keraka, the birthing mark that proved me a Stessa, one of the Eleven Families of Skandi. They claimed to be gods-descended, those families, but unless the gods they worshipped were petty and avaricious, I hadn’t noted any resemblance or advantage.

  Still, I couldn’t help the hand that stole up to my head, fingers parting hair to feel behind my left ear. Had the priest-mages of ioSkandi not shaved my head, we’d never have known the truth. Del had once asked if I now considered the possibility of returning to Skandi and presenting my case to the ten other Families, but I wasn’t interested. The metri had her heir in Herakleio, a cousin of sorts. He was Skandic-born, bred into island customs and convictions, one of them. I was Southron-born and -reared despite my Skandic ancestry; I belonged here.

  Of course, only if I survived the current minor problems of sword-dancers out to kill me, and Umir the Ruthless.

  My eyes were gritty from reading all day. For that matter, all of me was gritty; I hadn’t bathed in days. It crossed my mind to ask Fouad to have the girls bring in a half-cask and fill it, but I decided not to push my luck. I was in their bad graces after my comment to Del. So I opted for the public bathhouse down the street a way. A hot bath, a filling meal, a drink or two, and a good night’s sleep in a real bed. I felt my jaw: and a shave. Because come morning, we’d be back on the sand, sweating under burnouses, hunting one of Del’s strays.

  Of whom I was decidedly not jealous, thank you very much.

  I donned harness, did up buckles, made sure the blade exited the sheath without catching, and took myself off to the bathhouse.

  Del, who had explained that the scent of an unbathed, hot, active, liquor-imbibing male was not necessarily arousing in intimate moments, would undoubtedly appreciate it.

  Me, I’d never noticed. But sometimes you just have to cater to a woman’s wishes if you want her to yield to yours. It’s the way of the world.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Julah’s public bathhouse was actually a bath tent . In a small courtyard set back from the street, not far from the main
well, an enterprising soul years before had strung a cross-hatching of ropes from hooks pounded into the back walls of buildings, hung swathes of gauzy fabric over them to form tiny private "rooms," built three good-sized fires, and hired people to keep big cauldrons filled with heated water. Others filled smaller wooden buckets and hauled the water to the rough-hewn tubs in each "room." It wasn’t much, but when you’ve been in the desert for weeks on end, it was sheer luxury. From time to time sun-baked ropes and fabric had to be replaced, but otherwise it was business as usual.

  I paid the price for water and soap, which cost extra, gave the hirelings time to reheat the tepid water in a tub, waved away the attendant who offered to scrub my back, and pulled the draperies closed. There’s not a lot of privacy in the bathtent, but since only men used it, it didn’t really matter. I stripped down and draped the burnous over the nearest rope, bowing it slightly, then made a small pile out of sandals, dhoti, and harness next to the tub. I risked one foot in the water, hissed a bit, then worked the other one in. The introduction of netherparts required a bit more courage, but once I was down, rump planted against wood, water lapping around my navel, the contrast between cooling air and hot water faded. Sighing, I unsheathed the sword, balanced it across the width of the tub, and felt the knots in my muscles begin to loosen. Bliss.

  I was about halfway through my bath when an overeager attendant pulled the curtain back, chattering to his customer, only to blush fiery red when he realized the tub already held a body. He apologized effusively and yanked the curtain closed, but not before the stranger had a good look at me hunched in the tub with one foot stuck up in the air as I scrubbed at toes.

  Additional mortified apologies from the attendant were issued through the curtains. Smiling, I assured him that all was well and forgiven — even as I quietly climbed out of the tub, pulled on my dhoti (not easy over wet flesh), knotted sandal thongs together and hung them over a shoulder along with the harness. The sword was in my right hand. I bent over, sloshed my left through the water as if I was only just exiting, then waited.