“Steel,” Del said succinctly.
“Bascha, you know why I don’t want—”
“So you don’t have to.” She stripped gaiter free of boot. “So I’ll use Abbu Bensir instead.”
“But he thinks he’s teaching you.”
“He may think whatever he likes.” Del tugged at her boot. “When a man won’t do what you want him to in the way you want him to, you find new names for the same thing. If it satisfies Abbu Bensir’s pride to believe he is teaching the gullible Northern bascha, let him. I will still get my practice. I will still improve my fitness.” She looked at me squarely. “Which is something you need, too.”
I ignored that; we both knew it was true. “How long is this to go on?”
“Until I am fit.”
Frustration boiled up. “He only wants to get you into his bed.”
Del rose, began to unhook her harness. “I am having a bath brought for me. If you truly believe I would be the kind to tease you, you would do well to leave.”
On cue, one of the innkeeper’s sons rolled the cask from out of my room. It was empty, of course, which meant Del had paid extra for clean water. But she had no money.
Frustration rose another notch. “Am I paying for this, too?”
Del nodded.
I glared. “Seems like I’m paying for an awful lot, yet getting nothing for it.”
“Oh?” Pale brows rose. “Is courtesy and generosity dependent upon how soon and how many times I will go to bed with you?”
I moved aside as the boy rolled the cask through the doorway. I waited impatiently for him to drop the cask flat and depart; once he had, I turned back to Del.
I stood directly in front of her now, halting as she turned from the cot to match me stare for stare. Barefoot, she gave up an extra finger’s-worth of height to the five additional I always claimed. But it didn’t diminish her.
I drew in a steadying breath. “You’re not making this any easier.”
Del shut her teeth. “I’m not trying to make it anything. I’m trying to end my song.”
I tried to keep my tone even. “How many men have you killed?”
Del’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know.”
“Ten? Twenty?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess,” I suggested.
She opened her mouth. Shut it. Then gritted between her teeth: “Perhaps twenty or so.”
“How many in a circle?”
“In a circle? None. All have been in defense of myself.” She paused. “Or in defense of others. Even you.”
“And some for plain revenge. Ajani’s men; you’ve killed some of them, haven’t you? A few months ago?”
“Yes.”
“And did each of those deaths require such intense focus?”
Del’s mouth flattened. “I know what you are saying. You are saying I am wrong to require such behavior, such focus; that if I have already killed, one more death will be no less difficult.”
I shook my head. “I’m saying I think you might be punishing yourself. That by demanding such rigorous behavior of yourself, you think you can make up for the deaths of your kinfolk.”
The innkeeper’s son banged the bucket of water as he brought it through the door, slopping water over the rim. Whatever Del might have said died before it was born, and I knew nothing would come of it now. The moment was gone.
“Soak well,” I suggested flatly. “I have to go pay all your debts.”
Mutely, Del watched the boy pour water into the cask. If she looked after me, it was too late. I was out of the room. Out of the inn. And very much out of temper.
It took me three cantinas to find him. Maybe he was embarrassed. Maybe he was shy. Or maybe he just wanted to do his drinking in a quieter, smaller place, lacking the huva stink and clamor of the cantina Kima worked.
But I did find him. And, having found him, I stood in the dimness of dusk inside the door and watched him from afar.
Nabir was, I decided, a handsome, well-set-up boy. In time he would grow into his potential and offer decent skills to anyone in the circle. Probably decent company, too, although at the moment he was plainly black of mood. More out of sorts than I’d been, if caused by the same woman.
He slouched on his stool at a table in the back of the common room, hitched up against the wall. His head was thrown back indolently, but there was nothing indolent about him. He was scowling. Black hair framed a good if unremarkable face; thick black brows met in a self-derisive scowl over the bridge of his nose. It was a straight, narrow nose, with only the suggestion of a hook. More like mine, in fact, than Abbu’s, which displayed—or had once—the characteristic hook of a bird of prey. In some desert tribes, the hook of a man’s nose denotes greater prowess as a warrior; don’t ask me why. One of those fashions, I guess, like the Hanjii with their disfiguring nose-rings, or the Vashni with their necklets of human finger bones.