Sword-Maker(133)

Why wait any longer?

I drew a steadying breath. “Where I come from,” I said quietly, “a man doesn’t name a father unless he’s certain of the truth.”

He started to turn on his stool, swinging around easily. His face was young, open; a bit, as he’d said, on the pretty side. “Oh, but I am certain … I am the Sandtiger’s son—” Dark blue eyes abruptly widened in belated recognition.

“Oh?” I asked softly.

The young man rose in a single smooth movement. I didn’t even see it coming.

“Do you know,” the boy cried, “how long I’ve been waiting for this?”

I am big enough and strong enough to withstand most single punches, especially when they come from a smaller, slighter man. But there was a stool behind me, and as the blow connected with my jaw I spread both feet for balance and promptly fell over the thing.

It wasn’t a graceful fall. It was an embarrassing fall.

And Del was there to see it.

I sat up, dragged my sheathed, harnessed blade into a more comfortable position, sat there swearing. Ignored the staring audience and looked around for the boy, who’d headed for the doorway. He was gone, but she wasn’t.

Del drifted into the cantina. Her arrival did have one advantage: now they gaped at her instead of gaping at me.

“Fatherhood,” she commented, “can be a painful thing.”

I got up, untangling my legs from the stool and kicking the thing aside. “That lying Punja-mite isn’t my son … what he is, is a charlatan!” I scowled at her. “You saw who he was!”

“Yes,” Del agreed.

“I’ll kill him,” I promised.

One of the men spoke up. “You’d kill your own son?”

I glared at him. “He isn’t my own son. He isn’t even Southron.”

The man shrugged a little. “You don’t look Southron, either.” And then reconsidered it. “Maybe a half, or a quarter. But you’re not a full Southroner. There are other things in the stewpot.”

For some reason, it offended me. Usually I don’t much care what I look like, or what people think of me. In my business it doesn’t matter where I was born, or to how many races. Just that I can dance. And win; I’m paid to win.

I glared. “At least I was raised here. The Punja is my home; that boy’s from somewhere else. He’s a lying, scheming foreigner, using my name to gain him one.”

The Southroner shrugged. “No harm in that.”

No harm. No harm. I’d give him “no harm.”

“Tiger,” Del said quietly. “Is it worth fighting over?”

No. Not here. And not him; who I wanted was Bellin the Cat.

“Panjandrum,” I muttered disgustedly, and stalked out of the cantina.





Twelve




Del’s tone was quiet. “Are you angry because he lied? Or because it isn’t true?”

We sat in one of the broken rooms in one of the broken buildings doubling as a cantina. Because there was no proper roof the full moon had free rein, painting the room silver. Dripping candles and smoky lanterns added illumination. There were no proper tables, either, and nothing resembling chairs; merely bits and pieces of odds and ends appropriated for things on which to sit, or on which to put the liquor. It was very much like the cantina in which I’d discovered Bellin.

Masquerading as my son.

I had known all along there was nothing to it. While it wasn’t impossible I’d sired a son of his age, it was a bit unlikely. At least, unlikely that the boy would know enough to tell everyone the Sandtiger had sired him. It seemed more likely that if there was a sandtiger cub wandering about the South, he wouldn’t know who he was.

He wouldn’t know who I was.

I sighed. “I don’t know.”

Del smiled a little. “It bothers you now, doesn’t it? You had begun to think what it might be like to have a son … begun to think how you’d feel, seeing your own immortality; it’s what a child is.” She hunched a shoulder, looking at liquor instead of at me. “I know what it was for me, seeing Kalle, but I knew I had a daughter. For you, it was different.”

Different. One might say so.

I sighed again, sipped slowly, let aqivi slide down my throat. The familiar fire was muted; I was thinking of something else. “He shouldn’t have done it, bascha. That kind of lie is wrong. If he wants so badly to become a man of repute—a panjandrum—he might look for a better way than borrowing someone’s name.”

“Or someone’s other than yours.”

Dull anger stirred. “It took me too long to get it … I won’t share it with anyone, certainly not with a liar.”