“Marry her!”
“That’s what I said.” I stuffed silk, gauze, bota, and practice sword beneath arms and turned toward Harquhal. “But she’s his first girl, and he fancies himself in love.” I grinned as Nabir departed at a trot. “Why is it so many boys and girls fall in love with the first one who takes them to bed?”
Del’s tone was deadly. “I didn’t.”
No. Not with Ajani.
“Come on, bascha,” I sighed. “You need a drink, too.”
The cantina was crowded and noisy. Greenish-gray huva smoke eddied in the beamwork, trailing malodorous tails. The place also stank of sour wine, pungent aqivi, mutton stew, and spiced kheshi, all bound together with the acrid tang of Southron sand, dusty bodies; a trace of cheap perfume. The place was packed with men, making the cantina girls happy. Also overworked—in both modes of employment.
Every table was filled shoulder-to-shoulder by burnous-clad men. I saw swords hanging from belts, swords hanging from baldrics, swords strapped on by harness. If a tanzeer desired an army, he need go no farther than here.
“No room,” Del murmured.
“There’s room. Just no tables.” I pushed through a knot of men next to the door, aiming for a deep-cut window. They ignored me mostly, moving apart only slightly, but when Del started through I heard silence abruptly descend. Not over the entire room—it was too packed for that—but the group by the door most decidedly stopped talking.
I shot a glance over my shoulder. Sure enough, five mouths hung open inelegantly. And then closed, smiling broadly, as Del slid through the stirring knot.
You’d have thought they’d step aside. Southroners have some manners—only apparently this bunch didn’t. As Del arrived in their midst, on the way to me, they closed ranks around her.
Oh, hoolies, bascha, can’t you go anywhere?
I doubt they intended much. Maybe a pinch here, a tweak there; a stroke or a fondle or two. But whatever it was they expected to receive in return, Del didn’t offer. She had something else in mind.
I heard, in the blink of an eye, several curses, a blurt or two of pain, a breathy hiss of shock. And then Del was through. She joined me at the window.
I noted the merest glint of steel as she returned her knife to its sheath. Beyond her, two of the men bent to rub shins. One inspected sandal-bared toes; Del was wearing boots. All of them glared at her.
“Here?” Del asked at the window.
“Deep ledge.” I stuffed clothing, bota, and wooden sword back into the space. “We can use it for a table.”
We could. The adobe walls of the cantina were nearly a man-length thick, with the windows cut into the slabs. As deep as the ledge was, a man could sit on it.
Del glanced around at the crowd. “We should have gotten food and drink up front. Now we have to fight our way through again.”
“No, we don’t. This little girl will be glad to help us out.” I caught the elbow of a cantina girl perching on someone’s knee, dragged her up, pulled her over. “Aqivi,” I said succinctly. “Also kheshi and mutton stew.” I glanced at Del. “And wine for the lady; she has refined tastes.” Before the girl could protest, I slapped her on the rump and sent her off through the crowd.
Del’s expression was curiously bland. “If you ever do that again, I’ll send you to stand with the others.”
“What others?”
“The men by the door.”
I glanced over, saw she meant the men who’d accosted her, scowled. “What did I do?”
“You treated her like dirt.”
I nearly gaped. “All I did was send her to do her job. One of them, anyway.”
Del’s mouth was hard. “There are ways of doing the same without degrading the girl.”
“Oh, Del, come on—”
“Perhaps this will make more sense: you treated her like a slave.”
It got my back up; after all, I’d been a slave. “I did no such—”
“Yes, you did,” she said. “And if you can’t see it, you’re blind.”
“All I did was—” But I never got to finish. Someone came up behind me and slapped me on the back.
“Sandtiger!” he cried. “When did you get in?”
Hoolies, that hurt. I turned to scowl at him, then blinked in astonishment. “I thought you were dead.”
“Hoolies, no,” he said, “though it felt like it, even to me.” He grinned, glanced past me at Del, elbowed me in the ribs. “I’d show you the scar, Sandtiger, but the bascha might be offended.”
“I’d probably even swoon.” Del’s tone was perfectly bland.