Sword-Maker(13)

Well, she might have thought twice. But she’d still offered easily enough without even consulting me.

And it rankled. Oh, it rankled.

I sat on my bedding by the cairn, scratching, drinking, staring. Waiting for Delilah.

She puttered with her gelding, unsaddling him, wiping him down, talking softly, settling him for the night. Wasting time? Stalling? Maybe. But probably not; Del knows what she does and why, and spends no time on what-might-have-beens after the fact.

I watched her: white wraith in the cairnglow, white specter against black trees; so white-on-white, Delilah: tunic, trews, hair, except for flashing silver. Bosses on belt and bracers. Two heavy cloak brooches weighting each wool-swathed shoulder.

And the twisted sword hilt, slashed across her back.

Hoolies, what do I do?

Hoolies, what don’t I do?

Having no answer for either, I sat by the cairn and sucked amnit, waiting for Delilah.

Eventually, she came. With arms full of gear and bedding, she came at last toward the cairn. Toward me. And at last I could tell her.

“No,” I said calmly.

In mid-step, she hesitated. Then halted altogether. “No?” she echoed blankly, clearly confused. Thinking about something else.

“You asked me to dance with you. Well, I can give it to you in Southron, in Desert, in Northern. Even in uplander.” Humorlessly, I smiled. “Which ‘no’ do you want? Which one will you believe?”

Her face was white as ice. Only her eyes were black.

With exquisite care, I set aside my bota. “Did you think I was so well-trained that I’d lie down and show you my belly so you could feel good again?”

She stood very still, clutching blankets.

I kept my tone even. Perfectly expressionless, so she would know what it was like. “You came fully expecting me to agree. Not to ask, not to request—to tell. ‘Dance with me, Sandtiger. Step into the circle.’” Slowly I shook my head. “I don’t disagree with your reasons for wanting Ajani dead. I understand revenge as well as or better than anyone. But you forfeited your right to expect me to do anything just for the asking. You forfeited the asking.”

Del said nothing at all for a very long moment. The meager light from the cairn carved lines into her face, but showed me no expression. No expression at all.

I waited. The circle teaches patience, many kinds of patience. But never have I felt the waiting so intensely. Never have I wanted it to end so badly. And afraid to know the answer, to know how the ending would be.

Her voice was very low. “Do you want me to leave?”

Yes. No. I don’t know.

I swallowed painfully. “You were wrong,” I told her.

Del clutched bedding.

“Wrong,” I repeated softly. “And until you can see it, until you can admit it, I don’t think I can help you. I don’t want to help you.”

Breath rushed out of her mouth. With it, her answer. Her explanation. Her excuse, for something requiring none because none could be enough. “It was for Kalle—”

“It was for you.”

“It was for kin—”

“It was for you.”

A painful desperation: “It was for honor, Tiger—”

“It was for you, Delilah.”

The full name made her flinch. The movement made her wince. Her defenses were coming down: against pain, against truth, against me. The latter, I thought, was what counted. It might yet make her whole.

“Pride,” I said, “is powerful. You threw mine away very easily. Will you do the same with your own?”

Her face was slack with shock. “How did I throw away your pride?”

I was on my feet, oblivious to the pain of a wrenched abdomen. Yanking her out of the saddle had taken its toll on us both. “Hoolies, Del, have you forgotten entirely? I was a slave for half my life! Not an innocent young Northern girl playing at swords and knives, well-loved by her kin, but a human beast of burden. A chula. A thing. Something with no name, no identity, no reason for being alive except to serve others. Except to service others—what do you think I did at night in the hyorts with the women?”

I saw the shock in her face, but it hardly slowed me down. “Do you think it was always for pleasure? Do you think it was always merely a man using a woman?” I shook hair out of my eyes. “Let me tell you, Delilah, it isn’t always a woman who gets used … it isn’t always a woman who feels dirty and used and without value other than what she offers in bed. It isn’t always a woman—”

Oh, hoolies, I hadn’t meant to say so much, or so brutally. But I finished it anyway, since it was begging to be said; since it had to be said, if we were ever to recover even a trace of the old relationship. Even that of the circle.