Neesha abruptly pushed his mug toward me. “I don’t want this.” He stood up, scraping his bench away from the table. “I’m going to see my sister.”
“Neesha—”
“No.” He leaned down, planted his hands on the table top. He stared hard at me. “No more from you. You are not her father to say what she needs. I’m her blood kin. I say what I do when it concerns her. You have no say.” He pushed himself straight. “No say at all.”
I watched him walk to the door. Watched him walk out. Made no move to go after him. I knew very well that he’d left something unsaid. I was his father, his blood kin, but I had no say over him any more than over Rashida. I hadn’t earned it.
It hurt, knowing that. But I couldn’t fault his feelings. I knew what he was thinking: This journey, which he himself had suggested, was no longer an adventure.
When I departed after several mugs of superior ale, I discovered Del’s white gelding tied just outside the tavern. In fact, not paying any attention, I nearly ran into him. I went over him with eyes and hands as best as I could in dying light, and he seemed fine. I wondered why Darrion hadn’t come in to tell me. But I untied him, led him down to the livery, and did not find the smith there. I thought about it a moment, then walked the horse into the barn, figuring I’d pay the smith in the morning. I was greeted by a series of very loud snorts, a demanding nicker that contained all the arrogance in the world, and repeated thumpings against the wall, thanks to shod hoof connecting with wood.
“Hey, old son.” I should have expected it. Neesha had found Rashida at Mahmood’s, aboard the stud. He would have tended him. I unsaddled, unbridled Del’s horse, turned him in, fed and watered him, then stepped next door to the stud’s stall. He promptly turned his back on me and stood with his head in the corner, one hind hoof cocked up as if he meant to kick me, were I foolish enough to enter the stall. I was not. “I knew you’d take care of her. Did she give you a good ride? She’s Neesha’s sister, and I know you like Neesha.”
He refused to talk to me. He had water and hay, so I picked up saddle, bridle, halter, and blanket and hauled everything inside. Unsurprisingly, Tamar met me at the door. “What are you doing with that? Do you think you’re bringing it inside? Gods only know where it’s been!”
“On Del’s horse. And I don’t trust the smith. Since I didn’t see the stud’s tack anywhere, I’m assuming Del brought it in?”
Her lips compressed. “Very well. But you and the boy will share that small room. Del and Rashida will have the larger one.”
“Well, all right.” It didn’t sound promising to me. That room was too small for two grown men. Then again, Neesha might spend the night elsewhere. Maybe he was paying attention when one of the sisters laid down the rules, and sought a woman in another tavern. “Oh, and it was quite a nice tavern, as you said. I met the young women but not their father.”
The faintest of spasms ran across Tamar’s face. “He’s very ill. The healer says it’s only a matter of time. Sometimes he stays in the common room for a bit; the rest of the time he rests in bed while the girls run the tavern.”
“Well, one of them made it very clear that we should go elsewhere if we wanted more than food and drink. But ale was all I wanted anyway. Neesha left; I don’t know if he’s coming back tonight, or not.”
She sniffed eloquently. “Fools, those young men. They’d do better to keep themselves away from whores.”
It shocked the hoolies out of me that she used the word. And Tamar clearly saw it, because color crept into her face.
I broke out into a wide smile. “I finally outgrew it,” I told her. “Eventually. I have to think my son will also.”
“I lock my door at nine of the clock,” she said. “If he’s not back by then, he’ll have to sleep elsewhere.”
A vision of Neesha bedding down in the livery amused me. Besides, it left me more room if he stayed out all night. But the amusement spilled away. “How is Rashida?”
Tamar’s face tightened. “She’s had a scrubbing with soap and water. Actually, three scrubbings; she says she can’t get clean. But that will pass in good time. Del is helping her a great deal. No false sympathy because she doesn’t—can’t—understand. Just matter-of-fact tending with the occasional kindness.”
“That’s because Del does understand.” Tamar looked at me sharply, and then shocked realization flared in her widening eyes. To change the subject, I said, “We’ll go tomorrow. Then Rashida will be with her parents. That should help.”
Tamar’s shock dissipated. “Not necessarily if she goes right back to where the raiders abducted her!”
“No,” I said. “No, we won’t do that. There’s nothing left but a heap of burned timber.”
She shook her head. “I’ll pray those raiders will be caught and given their own just desserts, but all the men in town are afraid to take them on.”
“No worry,” I said. “Zayid—the red-head—is dead, and so are his five men. Several of us played cat and undertook the job of getting rid of the vermin permanently.”
She was startled. “You did?”
“Me, Del, Neesha, with help from Eddrith and Darrion.”
Her voice climbed to a new register. “Darrion? Darrion helped?”
“He did.”
She shook her head, eyes glistening. “Well, perhaps my grandson will come to something after all.”
I stared at her in surprise, then smiled widely. “He did well.”
She flapped her hand at me. “Go to bed. Go on.”
“Blue curtain?”
“Blue curtain.”
I hitched up the saddle and tack once more and walked on down the hall. Maybe Del would sneak into my room again.
I had long since given up on Del’s coming to my room, and when she did I was so sound asleep my heart nearly burst out of my chest from surprise. “Stop doing that, bascha!”
There was no light, so I couldn’t see her. “Doing what?”
“Scaring the daylights out of me!”
“Hoolies, Tiger, I’d think you’d be a bit more alert when there are sword-dancers after you!” I was amused to hear ‘hoolies’ coming from her, until she finished the thought: “Then again, that’s what happens to older men.”
I realized then that Neesha was not in the room. Well, there had always been a good chance that he wouldn’t return until morning. “Then if I’m old, you might have taken pity on me.” I sat up. I’d put the mattress on the floor because, as Tamar had once warned me, the bed was too short for someone of my height.
“I didn’t say ‘old,’” Del noted. “I said ‘older.’”
I felt the presence of someone very close to me. Hearing, feeling—didn’t matter. You just kind of know when someone is close, even if it is pitch black. Then hands patted my leg, moving from knee to mid-thigh.
I nearly quivered. “Are you trying to send me a message? If so, I have definitely received it!”
I heard soft laughter. “No, no message. Truly, I’m just trying to find you. I’d stay to take advantage of you, but I want to get back to Rasha.”
She sat down close as I levered myself up on elbows. “How is she?”
Del sighed. “Difficult to know. She walks from anger to fear to sadness and shame, then back again.”
“Shame! Why shame?”
In the dark, she was silent a moment. “Women are taught they should maintain their maidenhead until they marry. She no longer has it.”
I sat up next to her. “That’s hardly her fault!”
Del’s tone was delicate. “It doesn’t matter, Tiger. It’s rare that a man will forgive his bride’s lack of maidenhead. She’s now considered a whore.”
I was astonished. “Rashida is not a whore!”
Del said nothing a moment. When she did speak, it was with an undertone of sadness. “No. But men will believe so.”
I said something very rude about a certain number of males. A large number.
“Well, yes,” Del agreed. “But
you and I are hardly like others. You didn’t expect me to be a virgin since I’d already told you what happened. You also weren’t looking for an unsullied bride.”
“Hoolies, Del…you don’t mean she can never marry, do you?”
“It depends on the man. Here in the North there are considerably more freedoms than women experience in the South, but a woman without virginity—unless she’s a widow—is always suspect.”
“Suspect for what?”
Del sighed. “Sleeping with a man not her husband.”
I mulled that over. “I didn’t expect you to be a virgin even before you told me what had happened.”
“Thank you very much!”
“Well, think about it, bascha. You spent how many years training on Staal-Ysta, surrounded by men? You rode alone across the Punja. And you took up company with me.”
Her tone was exquisitely dry. “The last being the most damning.”
I couldn’t come up with a good answer for that. I took the conversation in a new direction. “Did Neesha come to see her? He said he would.”
“He did come, but Tamar chased him out. We were helping Rasha bathe.”
I remembered how Tamar had said Rashida bathed three times because she felt so dirty. I knew it wasn’t dirt and grime and mud she was referring to. “So he left?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No.”
I sighed. “So, about Rashida—what do we do?”
“We take her home.”
“Her home is gone.”
“Ah,” Del said on a note of realization, “so it is. Well, maybe that’s not a bad thing. We’ll take her to her parents. That’s also ‘home.’”
I found a thigh and cupped my hand over it. “Can you stay the night?”
“No. I suspect she will have night terrors. I should be with her.”
I’d sort of expected that. “Then you’d better go, because otherwise I’m going to do my best to talk you into carnal activities.”
Del laughed, though she restrained it so as not to disturb Tamar. “‘Carnal activities.’ I like that.”
“So do I. But I guess they’re out for tonight.”
“Sadly, yes.” She leaned, kissed me briefly, then rose. “Goodnight, Tiger. I’ll see you in the morning.”
By the time I wished her goodnight, she was gone.
Chapter 34
NEESHA WAS SITTING OUTSIDE ON THE BENCH on Tamar’s porch when I finally awakened and went out to look at the day and its weather, carrying the tack I’d collected from Del’s room. Seeing him made me pause a moment. Tied at the porch posts were the stud, Del’s gelding, Neesha’s bay.
He sat on the bench next to the basin of water for washing feet, slumped against the wall. It made me look down at my feet. My poor sandals were stiff from water and mud, though I’d cleaned off most of the leather because of Tamar. Either they’d soften as I wore them, or I’d need new ones.
“Feet all clean?” I did not want to venture onto the uncomfortable ground we’d walked the night before.
“They’ll do.” Neesha rose. “I ran into Eddrith at a tavern. He, of all people, had the five horses. He didn’t know where to take them. And he doesn’t know where the raiders may have taken the rest. For all we know they’ve already been sold.”
I knew that was a bitter and painful realization for him. So many years put into developing superior breeding stock, and now only five were left. I went to the stud and began getting all the pieces arranged in order. “Any of them a stud horse?”
Neesha shook his head. “Two of the mares are obviously in foal. If the other three were bred, it’s too early for me to know.”
“So no stallion.”
“We—well, my father, providing he can—will need to find a good stallion elsewhere and breed the three mares to him, if they’re not in foal.”
“I’d offer my stud, but I hardly think he’s what you want to breed.” He had never been a particularly attractive horse, but I couldn’t have asked for a better one in so many ways.
Neesha’s lips twitched wryly. “Well, no.” He sighed. “So I guess they’re starting over. After thirty years.”
“No, you’re not,” I told him. “You have five good mares. Two are in foal. You know what good brood mares are worth. And they’re not the first mares your father ever bought. He’ll know a good stallion for them. And you could get a stud colt from one of the two mares in foal. You aren’t starting from the very beginning where no one will sell you a good mare.” I brightened. “And there’s the roan mare I inherited from Kirit. Six mares will help get the farm on its feet again.”
After a moment, he nodded. “That’s true.”
“So we ride to Sabir’s and Yahmina’s today.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to run the mares loose, or pony them off of our mounts?”
He thought it over. “Easier to let them go on their own. They’ll look to your stud to make the decisions.”
“Oh, that could be a problem, if he decides to pitch a fit.”
“He only pitches a fit with you. He knows you expect it, so he gives it to you.”
That sounded more like the old Neesha. “Will Rashida ride double with one of us, or ride a mare bareback?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Let her choose,” I suggested. “Give her something to think about.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Where are the horses now?”
“In a corral at the livery.” He rose. “I’ll go over there. Once you and Del are ready, we can turn the mares loose and send them out of town. I think they had enough of freedom yesterday. They’ll stay close.”
“Well, if you see Eddrith, tell him we’re leaving town. He’s not going to get his sparring session unless he finds me on the trail. I’m not waiting for him.”
Neesha nodded absently as he stepped off the porch, mind on the horses and the journey.
“Don’t you want breakfast?” I asked.
Neesha’s smile was very faint, but recognizable. “Well, no. I already had breakfast.”
“Elsewhere?”
“Elsewhere.”
“With female companionship?”
“With female companionship.”
I grinned and went back into Tamar’s inn. I remembered my days at Neesha’s age. No responsibilities except in the circle. And women who did not expect you to stay. Though it was best, as Neesha had learned, not to go to bed with married ones.
That is, I hoped he had learned it.
Since I didn’t know Rashida prior to the abduction, I couldn’t compare her behavior now to what it had been. But she walked out of the inn with composure, hair combed and tied back, clothing clean and neat. I’m sure Del had told her all the raiders were dead, so she need not look for them around every corner every moment. I wondered, however, if it was possible not to look. I could not imagine what it was like for any woman, let alone a young girl, to go through what Rashida had.
Tamar gave her some clothing and mentioned in passing that she wore the outfit when she rode many years ago—I had trouble picturing her as a carefree young woman.
Rashida wore a long rusty-brown tunic with split sides, a long skirt also with split sides, and a doubled leather belt, though Tamar said the buckle had broken a long time ago. It was now tied off like a latigo on a saddle. The end dangled to her knees. She was, however, barefoot; Del said no one had any boots or sandals that would fit.
Rashida shrugged. “I’ll ride barefoot. I ride that way around home all the time.”
Then it struck her, as it did us, that she would not be riding around the home she’d known all of her life. And Neesha, who’d been refused several times when wishing to see her, wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. He just hugged her. Hugged and hugged. Rashida clamped her arms around his waist and pressed her head into his chest. She was trembling.
I glanced at Del. I had no idea what
had been said among the women yesterday, and I don’t know if Rashida cried then, but she did now, holding onto the only one spared the fire and outrage done to her family. I thought it was probably a very good thing.
When Neesha looked over her shoulder at me, tears were visible on his face. He was not so self-conscious as to try to hide them. “We’ll go see the horses,” he said. “Rasha can pick which she’d like to ride.” Before any of us could say anything, he set her down and turned away from us. With his hand resting gently on the back of her neck, they walked down the street toward the livery.
Watching that, I said grimly, “It’s a good thing those men are already dead. Because I’d kill them again. And more painfully.”
Del met my eyes, understanding completely. Her face was tight, her tone tighter still. “I think we should have done as I suggested. Cut off arms, legs, let them bleed, then take the head.”
This time I didn’t argue her out of it.
Tamar looked at Del’s face, then at mine. Her mouth was compressed, her eyes fierce. “It’s too bad she can’t kill them. The girl.”
Del looked at her sharply, clearly surprised. And in Del’s eyes I saw the memory of what she had experienced; how, after five years of training, she had killed Ajani, the man who had done to her what had been done to Rashida.
Then Tamar smiled thinly. “Take her home.” She nodded at us both, then went inside and shut the door.
Rashida ended up riding her brother’s bay, rather than any of the mares. Del’s idea. When I got the chance, I asked her why.
Sword-Bound Page 28