The boy’s eyes widened. “All around,” he answered. “There are many, many rooms. Many more rooms than people. Stay where you want.” His eyes were on my sword hilt. “Sword-dancer?” he asked.
I nodded confirmation.
“Then you will want the circles.” He waved a hand. “On the other side of the city. It’s where all the sword-dancers are.”
“All?”
“All,” he repeated. “They come every day. That’s where they all stay, to challenge one another so they can impress the tanzeers.”
“And where are the tanzeers?”
The boy’s quick smile flashed. “In the rooms that still have roofs.”
Ah. Of course. In a ruin as old as Iskandar, timber would have rotted. Dwellings would be roofless, except for those with more than one story. Which was where the tanzeers would go.
So. The division of power began.
Boys often learn things other people don’t. “How many?” I asked. “How many tanzeers?”
He shrugged. “A few. Not many yet. But they have brought sword-dancers with them … the rest they are hiring.” His eyes were very bright. “You’ll have no trouble finding work.”
It didn’t ring quite true. “And do you know why they’re hiring so many of us?”
The boy shrugged. “Protection against the tribes.”
It made sense. The tribes and tanzeers didn’t mix much; didn’t see eye to eye when they did. And if the promised messiah was appealing primarily to the tribes, which is what it sounded like, the tanzeers would want to know.
I dug a copper out of my pouch and flipped it at the boy. He caught it, grinned again, glanced past me toward Del. Said something quickly in Desert, then turned and ran into the square.
Grinning, I kneed the stud out. We’d cut straight across the bazaar to the outskirts directly beyond. Where the boy had said there were circles.
“What did he say?” Del asked. “And you know which part I mean.”
I laughed, then twisted my head to glance back. “He complimented me on my taste in baschas.”
“That boy must have been no more than twelve!”
I shrugged. “In the South, you start young.”
It wasn’t easy cutting directly across the square. There was no organization to the tangled walkways between stalls. Some turned, some stopped, some doubled back. Twice I got turned around, then finally found the way. Through the cheek-by-jowl crumbling buildings, then out onto the plateau.
We were, I judged, directly opposite the hyorts, with Iskandar in between. But here there were no hyorts. Here there were no wagons. Only horses, bedding, and circles.
“Looks more like a war,” I observed, “than a gathering for the jhihadi.”
Del halted her gelding beside me, gazing upon the scene. “Many wars,” she agreed. “Are there not many tanzeers?”
Slowly I shook my head. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“What doesn’t?”
“The tanzeers are hiring an army … an army of sword-dancers. They only do that on an individual basis—feuding tanzeers hire men to fight one another, so they can destroy one another—never as a group. The nature of desert domains is each man for himself … it just doesn’t seem right that so many are here together, and all are hiring men.”
Del shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“Maybe,” I said uneasily. “Maybe it does.”
And then I thought about what Abbu Bensir had said concerning going to a single place to win coin and find a job. It wasn’t the Southron way, but I saw certain advantages. No doubt so did the others; it was why so many were here.
“We could get rich,” I said thoughtfully. “If we hired on with the right tanzeer, we could get very rich.”
“I didn’t come to get rich. I came to kill a man.”
“If you find him,” I said, “what do you plan to do? Challenge him to a dance?”
“He’s not worth the honor.”
“Oh. So, are you just going to walk up to him and gut him?”
Del’s expression didn’t change. “I don’t know.”
“You think you might want to consider it?”
Now she looked at me. “I have considered it for six years. Now is the time for doing.”
“But you can’t do without thinking it through.” I shifted in the saddle, taking weight on locked arms braced against the pommel. “He’s not a popular man. Others will want to kill him. I doubt he walks alone. And if he’s done all the things you say, I doubt he pisses alone.”
Del’s tone was steady. “I will find a way.”
I sat back down in the saddle. “Can we at least get a meal first? And maybe a place to stay?”