The circle was finished. I considered stepping up beside Del to tell her she was being a silly, sandsick fool; decided against it when I realized it might throw off her concentration and contribute to her loss, if she lost. And she might. No matter how much she crowed—albeit quietly—about youth being an advantage in the healing process, she still wasn’t completely recovered from the wound I’d dealt her. Hoolies, her conditioning was terrible! She’d be fortunate if she lasted long enough to put on a decent showing.
Then again, she wasn’t precisely on her own. She did have Boreal.
Someone moved close beside me. Male. In harness: sword-dancer. Smelling of huva weed and aqivi; also a satisfactory visit to Kima’s bed, or to another very like hers.
“So, Sandtiger,” he said, “have you come to see the debacle?”
I knew him by his voice. Low, raspy, half-throttled, catching at odd times and on odd consonants. It wasn’t affectation. Abbu Bensir had no choice in the matter of his voice, since a sword-shaped piece of wood had nearly crushed his throat twenty-some-odd years before. He had lived only because his shodo—sword-master—had cut open flesh and windpipe to let air into his lungs.
While that same shodo’s newest apprentice looked on in horror at what he’d done to a sixth-level sword-dancer.
“Which debacle?” I asked. “The one about to begin in the circle, or the dance you’ll ask of me?”
Abbu grinned. “Are you so certain I will ask you?”
“Eventually,” I answered. “Your throat may have recovered—mostly—but your pride never will. It was your own fault I nearly killed you—the shodo warned you I was awkward—but you ignored him. All you wanted to do was knock the former chula on his buttocks so he’d remember what he’d been.”
“What he was,” Abbu said plainly. “You were a chula still, Sandtiger … why deny it? It took you all of your seven years to rid yourself of the shame—if you’ve managed it yet.” He pursed weed-stained lips. “I hear you got caught by slavers last year and thrown into a tanzeer’s mine … has that worn off yet?”
I kept my tone even. “Did you come to watch this dance, or simply to breathe huva stink in my face?”
“Oh, to watch the dance … to see the boy humiliate the woman who has no place in a Southron circle.” He shrugged, folding arms across a black-swathed chest. “She is magnificent to look at—she would fill a man’s bed—but to pick up a man’s weapon and enter a man’s circle is sheerest folly. The Northern bascha will lose—not too badly, I hope; I would not want to see her cut—and then I will commiserate with her.” He grinned at me, dark brows arching suggestively. “I will show her a few tricks with the sword—in bed and out.”
I had been in the North four, maybe five months. I’d also spent a year or so with Del. Enough time to discover I’d learned a thing or two about myself. Enough time to realize I didn’t much like the ignorance of Southron men. More than enough time to feel my own share of disbelief at Abbu’s bland certainty that a woman good enough for bedding wasn’t good enough for the circle.
Then again, not every woman was Del. No other woman was Del. She’d chosen the circle and the sword for things other than equality.
Which didn’t make her wrong.
I looked out at Del. She wasn’t fit. Wasn’t ready. But she was still distinctly Del.
I glanced sidelong at Abbu Bensir. “Care to make a little wager?”
“On this?” He stared at me in unfeigned disbelief, then narrowed pale brown eyes. “What do you know about the boy? Is he that good?—or that bad?”
No question regarding the woman. Good enough for the wager.
I lifted a single shoulder. “He came to me this morning and begged a dance. I refused; he accepted the woman instead. That’s all I know.”
Abbu frowned. “A woman in place of the Sandtiger …” Then he shook his head. “It makes no difference. Yes, I will wager on this. What do you offer?”
“Everything in this.” I tapped the coin-pouch dangling from my belt. “But you’ve caught me between jobs, Abbu. There isn’t much left.”
“Enough to equal a Hanjii nose-ring?” Abbu reached into his own pouch and drew forth a ring of pure Southron gold, hammered flat into a circular plate.
It brought back memories: Del and I, in a circle, but only to the win. We’d danced in front of the Hanjii, a tribe who believed in eating the flesh of enemies. Also a tribe which placed great emphasis on male pride and honor; Del’s subsequent defeat of me—thanks to a well-placed knee in a very vulnerable area—had resulted in the two of us becoming guests of honor in a religious ritual called the Sun Sacrifice. Left in the Punja without food, water or mounts, we’d very nearly died.