Sword-Maker(26)

“Yes,” Del agreed. “It is difficult to accept the second soul—especially when that soul was once cat, not man. But you will.” She smiled; a bit smugly, I thought, which was altogether unnecessary as well as unappreciated. “It knows you, now. It has told you what it must be. What it wants most of all.”

“To kill,” I muttered.

Del’s tone was even. “Isn’t that what you do? Isn’t that what you are?”

I stared at the blade. The runes remained. Familiar shapes. But nothing I could read.

I looked away from the sword into Del’s face. “Samiel,” I told her.

Del drew in a startled breath.

“Samiel,” I repeated. “You couldn’t hear me the first time. Now you can. Now you know what it is.”

I saw her mouth the name. I saw her look at my sword. I saw her think of her own; of what the “honor” entailed.

She turned her horse and rode on.

At sundown, Del watched pensively as I tended the stud, feeding him handfuls of grain and talking to him quietly. I didn’t think anything of it; people riding alone often talk to their horses. And she’d seen me do it before, though admittedly not as much. She had talked to her silly speckledy gelding during the ride north; now she had the blue roan, but I doubted she’d change her ways.

She handed me the bota when I returned to the cairn and arranged myself on my bedding, wrapping myself in cloak and pelts. Quietly, she said, “You care for him very much.”

I sucked amnit, swallowed, shrugged. “He’s a horse. Good as any other, better than most. He’ll do in a pinch.”

“Why have you never named him?”

I tossed the bota back. “Waste of time, names.”

“You named your sword. Both of them; your Southron sword, Singlestroke, and then your Northern sword.” But she didn’t say the name. “And you have a name yourself, honorably won. After years of having none.”

I shrugged. “Just never got around to it. It seemed sort of silly, somehow. Sort of—womanish.” I grinned at her expression. “He doesn’t really need one. He knows what I mean.”

“Or is it a reminder?”

She asked it mildly enough, implying nothing by it other than genuine curiosity; Del isn’t one to purposely ask for hostilities, in words or with weapons. But it seemed an odd question.

I frowned. “No. I have a couple of good reminders: these scars and my necklet.” I pulled the leather cord from beneath the woolen tunic and rattled curving claws. “Besides, I got him years later, long after I was free.”

Del looked at her gelding, tied a prudent distance from the stud. “They gave him to me,” she said, “to encourage a swifter departure.”

Her tone was even enough, but I’ve learned how to read the nuances. More than the wound hadn’t healed, and wouldn’t for a while.

I let my necklet drop. “You did the right thing.”

“Did I?” Now bitterness was plain. “I deserted my daughter, Tiger.”

I saw no sense in diplomacy. “You did that five years ago.”

It snapped her head around. She stared at me angrily. “What right have you—”

“The one you gave me,” I told her evenly, “when you pledged me to Staal-Ysta—without my permission, remember?—to buy time with Kalle. Even though you’d given her up five years before.”

I didn’t intend to criticize her for it; it had been her decision. But by now she was so defensive she considered any comment at all a questioning of her motives. Which meant, as before, she was questioning them herself.

It is not something Del likes to do.

“I had no choice.” Her tone was implacable. “I had made oaths. Blood oaths. All oaths should be honored.”

“Maybe so,” I agreed patiently, “and you’re doing a fine job … but losing Kalle was the price. It was the choice you made.”

Del turned her head and looked at me. “Another thing,” she said quietly, “worth killing Ajani for.”

I think there is no way a man can fully share or understand a woman’s feelings for her child; we are too different. Not being a father—at least, not as far as I know—I couldn’t even imagine what she felt. But I had been a child without kin of any kind, trapped in namelessness and slavery, feeling myself unwhole. Del’s daughter had a family, even if not of her blood, and I thought that relationship justified the price.

Even if the mother did not.

“It’s done,” I said quietly. “You’ve been exiled from Staal-Ysta. But at least you’re alive.”

Del stared hard into darkness. “I lost Jamail,” she said, “when he chose to stay with the Vashni. And now I have lost Kalle. Now I have no one at all.”