Sword-Maker(109)

Except I couldn’t find him.

Oh, people knew of him. I went to each of the three cantinas Sarad had mentioned, plus two more. None of them were real cantinas, being little more than broken buildings where a Southroner with liquor had set up hasty shop, selling cups of aqivi and amnit at premium prices. But no one seemed to mind. It was a place—or places—to gather, swapping tales and seeking work.

Yes, men said, they knew him. And they described him in the fashion I’d grown accustomed to hearing. But none of them had a name. Everyone knew him only as the Sandtiger’s cub.

I found it disconcerting. Anyone could claim the same, since no one knew any different, and do all sorts of nefarious deeds, thereby harming my reputation, which I’d been at some pains to establish. It had taken years. And then some boy fancying himself my son appropriates it without my knowledge.

I didn’t like it much.

Even if he was my son.

After a while, I gave up. But I cautioned everybody to point him out to me if he ever showed his face where I could see it.

Which gave them all something to laugh at: a grown man—the Sandtiger—had mislaid his own son.

I went “home” with my new-bought sword and thought bad things about the man who claimed my blood; by inference, also my name. I didn’t like it at all. My name was mine, won at a very high cost. I didn’t want to share it. Not even with a son.

I woke up because of the stud. It was very late and very dark, and everyone else was asleep, bundled up in blankets because of the temperature. Alric, in the other room, snored gently in Lena’s arms.

Del, in our room, slept alone in her personal bedding. As I did in my own.

The stud continued to stomp, paw, snort. If I let him go much longer, he’d wake up everyone else. And since I didn’t much feel like making excuses for a horse, who wouldn’t have any, I decided to shut him up.

I sighed, peeled back blankets, crawled to my feet. Alric’s makeshift roof dipped down from rotting rafters, but it cut out some of the wind. It also cut out the light. I had to strain to see.

It was cold outside of my blankets. Here’d I’d been saying how nice it was to be back home again where it was warm, and it had to go and get cold. But I shut it out of my mind—glad I’d slept in my clothes—and went out to see to the stud.

Del’s blue gelding was tied in one of the corners of the room Alric had deemed the stable. He’d been roused by the stud’s noise, but stood quietly enough. The stud, however, did not; tied out of reach of the roan, he nonetheless warned him away.

Alric’s blanket-and-skin roof did not extend to the “stable,” but the light was little better. There was no moon, no stars. It was all I could do to see through the damp gloom. Wind brushed my face, crept down the neck of my tunic. I put my hand on the stud’s warm rump, then moved around to his head. Promised to remove his gehetties if he didn’t quiet down; meanwhile, I tried to interpret his signs of unease.

It wasn’t just the gelding. The stud didn’t like him, but he tolerated him well enough. He’d learned to over the weeks. And I doubted it was the packhorse belonging to Alric, an old, quiet mare. He’d already proved uninterested in her, which meant it was something else entirely. Something I couldn’t see.

Wind scraped through the broken wall, spitting dust and bits of grit. The stud laid back his ears.

I put a soothing hand on his neck. “Take it easy, old son. It’s just a little wind. And the wall’s breaking most of it; let’s hear no complaints out of you.”

There was, in the dimness, the faint shine of a single eye. Ears remained pinned.

I thought briefly of Garrod. He’d tell me he knew what it was just by “talking” with the stud.

Who wasn’t talking to me.

Then again, he was. He stomped a foreleg smartly and came very close to my toes.

“Hey. Watch yourself, old man, or I will cut off—”

A quick sideways twist of his head and he shut teeth upon my finger.

I swore. Punched him in the eye to make sure I had his attention; he’d ignore me otherwise, and I might lose the finger. Then, when he paid attention, I retrieved my hand from his mouth.

And began to swear in earnest.

I backed up a prudent step, out of the stud’s reach, and squinted at the finger. It was ugly.

I swore some more, gritting the words in my teeth, and then proceeded to hold the entire hand out—torn finger included—and tell myself, repeatedly, it didn’t hurt at all.

I wrung the hand a little. The finger didn’t like it.

I walked around in a jerky circle, thinking mean thoughts about the stud. Wished briefly I was a woman so tears wouldn’t be disapproved of; I didn’t cry, of course, but thought it might be nice to have that kind of release. But a man, with others near, doesn’t show that much of himself.