Present company included; nice of her not to mention that. “Here.” I led her off the road. We rode some distance away, winding through scrubby trees and shrubbery, until I indicated a cluster of vegetation forming a leafy blockade against a rill of windblown sand and soil. It sloped into a slight hollow, good enough for a smidgen of shelter. “No one would believe anyone would camp out here, this close to Julah. This close to real beds.” A glance southwards showed the flickering lights of the city, sparking against the dark horizon. “We should be safe. Come dawn, we can head for Umir’s domain. And let’s hope Nayyib’s there, or this is all for nothing.”
“He is.” Del swung down off of her gelding even as I dismounted. “I asked Ahmahd.”
Well, that was something. More than we had known. “Did he say if the kid was being held against his will?”
“That he didn’t know. Just that Neesha arrived and had not yet departed when Ahmahd and his friend left.”
“So it’s likely the kid would have heard about any reward for me.”
“It seems so.”
“And how do we know Nayyib didn’t tell Ahmahd about Fouad’s cantina, hoping for a cut without involving himself personally?”
Del flicked me an icy glance.
“All right, fine.” I was grinning as I dismounted. “We’ll assume he didn’t.”
“He wouldn’t. But if he had, don’t you think Ahmahd and his friend would have arrived in Julah sooner?”
“Possibly,” I conceded.
“Oh, and I did neglect to mention something Ahmahd said about you.”
“About me? In between seducing you?”
“He did not seduce me. He attempted to seduce me.”
“Ran out of time, did he?”
“He said,” Del began, ignoring me, “that he had seen you dance there at Umir’s and was quite impressed by your skills.”
“At least he’s being honest.”
“He said you were better than he expected—especially for an old man.”
I began untacking the stud. “He did not. You’re saying that.”
“Ahmahd said it.” Del’s expression was blandly serene. “Right before he asked me what a woman my age was doing with a man your age.”
I scowled at the stud, undoing thongs and buckles, and changed the subject. “I don’t suppose this friend of Ahmahd’s felt in need of a bath.”
“As a matter of fact, Ahmahd said he did go to the bathhouse. Why?”
“Because that’s where I was when someone decided to interrupt my soak by taking off my head. Fortunately, I was ready. Last I saw of him, he was wrestling with curtains.” I deposited the saddle on end, plus the tied-on saddle-pouches, then peeled blankets off the stud’s back. They were only slightly damp; we hadn’t ridden long enough for the horses to work up a true sweat. “Did your friend Ahmahd happen to mention how many others might be tracking us?”
“Oh, I’m not being tracked,” Del said, precise as always. “At least, not as prey. For information, yes. But it’s you they want to kill.”
“Comforting,” I muttered, kneeling to hobble the stud.
“I’m assuming a goodly number are hoping to find you,” Del added. “Though they won’t kill you out of hand, Ahmahd said. Apparently Umir’s far less concerned that you dishonored the circle and your vows than he is in recovering the book, despite what the sword-dancers want. The orders are explicit: you are not to be killed until the book is back in his hands, in case you’ve hidden it somewhere. Then they can do whatever they like with you.”
“Comforting,” I repeated. Although it was, a little; easier for me to defend myself if they didn’t want to kill me. Not that all of them would accept Umir’s terms. “Well, at least we know Ahmahd and his friend won’t be following us immediately—Fouad was going to take care of that.” The stud was hobbled, haltered, and watered; he’d already eaten at the livery. I took myself to my pile of gear and unrolled my bedding after grooming the soil beneath it, getting rid of rocks. Aggrievedly I said, “Here I am, being hunted by the gods know how many sword-dancers… and you want us to ride right into Umir’s domain, maybe even into his very house, just to make sure the kid’s all right.”
Del knelt as she unrolled her own bedding. “Yes.”
Nothing more. I shook my head, unstoppered a bota. “I sure hope this Nayyib is worth it.”
“He is.”
I watched her a moment, noting the slight stiffness in her movements, the pensive frown marring her face. She was defensive about the kid, as if there were more to him than she let on.
She glanced up, caught me staring at her. “What?”
I shook my head and began to unlace my sandals.
“Tiger—”
“I’m tired.” And I was. “Let’s get as good a night’s sleep as we can, then head out at first light.”
Her bedroll overlapped my own. Del took off her own sandals, her burnous, and set both beside her bedding along with harness and sword. She crawled beneath blankets. Bathed in the light of the moon, pale hair glowed. “Are you all right?”
I started to answer her flippantly, then reconsidered. Perched on one elbow, I leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the brow. “I’m fine, bascha.”
With the abrupt change of mood I’d come to recognize over the years as purely female, she said, “If you truly don’t wish to go to Umir’s, we don’t have to. Perhaps we could find another way.”
I didn’t wish to go to Umir’s. But Del wanted it very badly, and I didn’t really have a good enough reason to refuse. I did owe the kid. “We’ll go, bascha. I said so.” I pulled the blanket up to my chin. “Now, let’s get some sleep.”
After a moment of silence, “Tiger?”
“Hmm?”
“Did every sword-dancer at Umir’s wish to kill you? Weren’t some of them your friends?”
Beneath my blanket, I shrugged. “Friends. Rivals. Enemies. That was the way of Alimat. And there’s the matter of elaii-ali-ma… I was as sworn to execute an outcast as they are; that was understood from the beginning. But no—not everyone wished to kill me. One man didn’t.” I smiled, remembering. “Alric. In fact, he helped me escape.”
Her tone was sharp as she hitched herself up on an elbow. “Alric was there? And you didn’t tell me?”
“We’ve been a little busy, bascha.”
“But if he helped you, isn’t he an outcast now?”
“Alric was never an incast. He’s a Northerner. He didn’t make any friends by helping me, and he probably lost some—or all—of those who were there, but he didn’t break any Southron vows. And it’s only Alimat where the codes were so binding.” I shrugged. “It was the shodo’s way of fashioning true men out of worthless meat.”
“A very rigorous binding.”
“Are the Northern vows made on Staal-Ysta any less binding?”
No, they were not. Del’s silence made that clear.
She changed the subject. “Did Alric say how Lena and the girls are?”
“Fine. Lena’s expecting again.” I made an indeterminate sound of derision. “You know, you’d think three daughters would be enough!”
Del settled down again. “Some men insist on sons, and their poor wives keep having babies until they get one. Even if it kills them.”
“You’ve met Lena. You know she loves children. She likely wants a dozen.”
“Well, yes,” Del conceded.
“And it’s Alric who’ll have to support them. See, bascha? There are always two sides. The woman has them, which, mind you, I don’t suggest is easy or without risk, but the man pays for them. That, too, isn’t easy or without risk.”
“Maybe.”
“Fools,” I muttered, trying to get comfortable against hard ground, “both of them.”
“If it’s what they want, then they aren’t truly foolish.”
“It’s one thing if you’re a farmer, bascha. Or a tradesman. But a sword-dancer? If something happens to Alric—and he’s not exactly in a safe
line of work—Lena’s stuck with raising the children on her own.” I shrugged. “Though she’d probably marry again as soon as possible.”
“You mean, once she found a man to provide for her and the girls?”
“Well… yes.” I was wary of where the conversation might be heading; you never know, with Del. “I mean, it is what many women do.”
“It is what most women do,” she said curtly. “They have no other choice.”
Not being up for the verbal sword-dance, I kept my mouth shut.
“Or they could do what I did, and give their child away.”
After that comment, I wasn’t going to sleep any time soon. I contemplated holding my silence in case that was what Del preferred, but I just couldn’t let it go. “You mean Kalle.”
“Of course I mean Kalle.” Del sighed, staring up at the stars. “She has a good home. Better parents than I could ever be—or you.”
The defense was automatic. “I might be a superb father, for all you know—I just don’t particularly care to find out.”
“You can’t be a superb father if you have no children,” Del declared. Then amended it almost immediately. “That is, if you know you have children and don’t stay around to raise them. Otherwise you’re not a father at all. Just the means for making them.”
Did the same apply to a woman? I decided not to bring it up for fear it was a sore spot; pointed debate is one thing, but engaging in it to hurt someone is another thing altogether. I wondered how often Del’s daughter crossed her mind. She never spoke about her. “You miss her, don’t you?”
Del turned over, putting her back to me. “I don’t even know her, Tiger.”
“I mean, you miss what you might have had.”
“I made my choice before Kalle was even born. There was nothing to miss.”
And yet Del had once insisted on going North to see Kalle against my preferences, though I didn’t know the girl existed then; she had been driven to see her daughter six years after her birth, as if it were some kind of geas. The journey had tested us both in many different ways, had taught us about strength of will, determination, the power of the binding between us; had nearly ended in both our deaths. Kalle was around eight now, I thought. Old enough to understand her mother had given her up in a quest to execute the men who’d robbed Del of a family. And Kalle as well.
“Maybe someday,” I said, purposely not mentioning that Del, by breaking her vows, was exiled from the North and thus from her daughter.
“What?”
“Maybe someday you’ll see her again.”
The tone was frigid. “And how would that come to be, do you think?”
“If Kalle came looking for you.”
Del’s single burst of throttled laughter was bitter. “Oh yes, they would let her come searching for a woman who has no honor, a woman exiled from her homeland. And why would Kalle wish to? She has a mother and father.”
“But they aren’t her blood.”
She was silent a moment, then turned over to face me. Her eyes, black in the glow of the moon, were steady. “Do you believe that matters? Blood? To children whose true mother and father have disavowed them?”
“You didn’t disavow Kalle.”
“They will have told her I did.”
I scratched at the stubble I hadn’t gotten the chance to shave. “I think blood matters, yes. I think a child might wish to search for her mother. Hoolies, I went all the way to Skandi, didn’t I?”
“And repudiated your family.”
“The metri wanted nothing to do with the son of a disobedient daughter who dishonored her exalted Family by daring to sleep with a man well below her class.”
“Your mother left Skandi to be with the man she loved, below her class or no. Do you really believe she’d have disavowed you if she was willing to go that far?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I dismissed. “I ended up a chula with the Salset anyway. And how in hoolies did we get onto this subject? We were talking about Kalle.”
“You say it matters to children that they know their own blood.”
“I believe that, yes.”
“Does it matter to men or women that they know their own children?”
“You’re the one who dragged me all the way into the ice and snow so you could see Kalle again, bascha! I would say yes to that as well, based on your example.”
Del did not answer. When I realized she didn’t mean to, I shut my eyes and, when I could slow my thoughts, gave myself over to sleep.
TWENTY-SIX
BREEZE becomes wind. Wind becomes gust. Gust becomes storm: simoom. The sky is heavy with sand, the sun eclipsed, occluded by curtains of it, pale as water, hard as ice. At the edges of the Punja it scours the earth of vegetation; in the Deep Desert, where the tribes take care to protect themselves, it stings but does not strip; to strangers, wholly innocent but thus sweeter victims, it is death. Clothing is torn away. Flesh abraded. Eventually flayed. In the end, long past death, the ivory bones are polished white. And buried, only freed again by yet another fickle, angry simoom, digging up the dead.
White bones in white sand. Fingerbones scattered, the vertebrae, the toes. The skull remains, but lower jaw is lost. Teeth gleam, that once were hidden by lips.
I walk there, find them: pearls of the desert. Out of boredom, I begin to gather them, to arrange them against the flat sand. Not many left. The skull, lacking half its jaw; upper arm, forearm; the ladder of ribs. The knobby-ended thigh. I reassemble the pieces and stare at the puzzle, wondering who and what it might have been, when it wore flesh.
I sit back, studying the forgotten remnants of a living being. Then pick up the curving, fragile short rib. Close my hand upon it.
Over the skull, as I watch, flesh grows. Hollows are filled, angles coated, like moss on a rock. A face stares up at me, though it lacks a lower jaw. Even without eyes, I know her.
“Time runs away,” she says. “You must be faster, if you choose to catch it.”
Her words are clear despite deformation. “And if I don’t?” I ask.
“It is best to be the hunter, not the prey. The prey perishes.”
“Unless it escapes.”
“But you will not.”
Sobering pronouncement, especially from a woman dead a month, a year, a decade. “If I’m to find you,” I say, “how about a hint?”
“The answer is in your bones.”
I hold up the rib. “Yours are more accessible.”
The upper lip, lacking a lower, achieves only half a smile. “Your bones know where to find mine.”
I replace the rib in the collection on the sand. “And if I am to sacrifice flesh in order to hear them? To become like you?” I hold up mutilated hands. “Why would I wish to? I have already donated two fingers.”
“Count mine,” the woman says, who lacks even hands.
I smile wryly. “Point taken.”
“The bones know. Listen. Then come and find me.”
And the flesh retreats, and the woman says no more.
“The bones know,” I echoed.
“What?” Del asked.
I blinked into chilly dawn. “What?”
“What did you mean? The bones know what?”
“What bones?”
She sat up, folding back blankets. “The bones you were talking about.” Del picked a stray hair out of pale eye-lashes. “I hope you aren’t referring to the fingerbone necklet Oziri gave you. Because if you are, it means I’m going to have to kill you.”
I grunted, scrubbing at an itchy, sleep-creased face. The sun was barely up, peering over the blade of the horizon.
“Find me,” she had said once. Or twice. Maybe thrice. “And take up the sword.”
“The bones know,” I declared, though mostly it was distorted by a tremendous yawn. “Mine, though, not those.” Awareness coalesced. “Oh, hoolies, not that thrice-cursed dream again!”
Del crawled out of her bedroll, untangling twisted burnous from around her hips. “I
f we didn’t have so much to do today, I’d tell you to go back to sleep. Maybe next time you woke up you’d make more sense.”
I frowned. “What do we have to do today?”
Del laced up sandals. “Rescue Nayyib.”
I watched her walk off, hunting privacy. I grumbled a protest, yawned widely again, contemplated going back to sleep. My bones ached.
My eyes flew open. “Bones.” I sat up, threw back covers. All I wore was my dhoti, since I’d neglected to grab my burnous back at the bathhouse. That left me with an expanse of flesh tanned a deep coppery-brown, with the fine hairs bleached bronze-gold. I couldn’t see any bones. Not naked ones. Just the lines and angles covered by muscle and flesh. I knocked on a kneecap, then inspected an elbow, since they were closer to the surface. “Is there anything any of you have to tell me? Like, how it is I’m supposed to find this woman?” Or whatever she was, buried in the sand.
For all they supposedly knew the answer, my bones remained stubbornly silent. Muttering, I pulled on my own sandals, cross-gartered them up my calves, then got up and limped off to make my own morning donation even as Del returned from hers.
“Don’t take long,” she called. “I want to get started.”
Not something a man wants to hear first thing in the morning when he’s only barely awake. “It’ll take as long as it takes,” I muttered, scowling at the sunrise.
Del had everything packed and the horses loaded by the time I returned, reins in her hands; and no, I had not taken that long. She was clearly impatient to get going.
“Hold your horses,” I said, wondering if she’d get the joke.
She didn’t. “According to you, we could reach Umir’s today if we leave early enough.”
“And we will reach Umir’s today, even if we leave after we eat.”
“We can eat on the way.” She had packed my things, leaving behind only my harness, sword, and knife. Ready to go.
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