Sword-Maker(96)

Rhashad had been explicit in his instructions, but it wasn’t necessary. It was easy to see the way. Easy to see the people leaving Harquhal behind on the way to Iskandar. Harder to avoid them.

We avoided them eventually by riding off the track. It was dusk, growing chilly, and my belly was complaining. Del and I went over a hill and found a private place for a campsite, not desirous of company. On the road you can never be sure.

“No fire,” I suggested as I climbed down from the stud.

Del, saying nothing, nodded. She pulled off saddle, pad, pouches, the roll of pelt and blankets. Dumped everything in one spot and went back to tend the roan.

It took no time at all. We settled mounts, spread bedrolls, ate a journey-meal out of our pouches and drank water out of botas. By the time the sun was down there was nothing left but bed. But neither of us sought it.

In the white light of a full moon I sat on my pelt, blankets draped around my knees, working oil into my harness. The leather was stiff from newness and needed softening. In time the oil, my sweat, and the shape of my body would coerce the harness to fit. Until then, I’d tend it every night. It was ritual.

Del performed her own even as I completed mine. But it was not her harness she tended. It was Boreal’s blade. Whetstone, oil, cloth. And exquisitely tender care.

She had braided back her hair. It left most of her face bare. In the moonlight, the angles were harsh. The planes were cut from glass.

Down the blade and back again: seductive sibilance. Then the whisper of silk on steel.

Her head was bent, and tilted, as she looked down the length of blade. White-lashed lids were lowered, hiding the eyes from me. Thick, pale braid fell over a silk-clad shoulder, swinging with her motion. Down the blade, then back again: slow, subtle seduction.

Abruptly I had to know. “What are you thinking about?”

Del twitched minutely. She had been very far away.

Quietly I repeated it: “What are you thinking, bascha?”

The mouth warped briefly. Then regained its shape. “Jamail,” she said softly. “Remembering what he was like.”

I’d only seen him once. Never as she had.

“He was—a boy,” she said. “No different from any other. He was the youngest of us all, at ten—five years younger than me. Trying so hard to be a man when we wanted to keep him a boy.”

I smiled, seeing it. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“He thought so. He would look at my father, my uncles, my brothers, then look at me. And swear he was as brave … swear he was as strong … swear he was as capable as any man full-grown.”

I had not had a normal boyhood. I couldn’t say how it should have been. Couldn’t feel what Jamail had felt. Couldn’t say the words I might have said if I had been Jamail, wanting to soothe my sister.

“They took us together,” she said. “We hid beneath the wagon, trying to make ourselves small, but the borjuni fired the wagon. There was no place left to hide. We ran—Jamail’s clothing caught fire—” She broke off a moment, face twisted oddly. “They caught fire, but he wouldn’t scream. He just stuffed his fists in his mouth and bit them until they bled. I had to throw him down. I had to trip him and throw him down so I could smother the flames … and that was when they caught us.”

My hands stilled on the harness. Del’s continued to work her blade. I doubt she even knew it.

“He was burned,” she said. “They didn’t care. He was alive, he would mend; he would still bring a pretty price. That was all they thought of: what the Southron slavers would pay.”

No, it was not all they thought of. There was Delilah as well—fifteen-year-old Northern beauty—but Del wasn’t speaking of her. Jamail was the topic. Jamail was all that counted, and the fate of her family.

Del didn’t count herself worthy enough to warrant the obsession.

Oh, bascha. Bascha. If only you knew.

“But he survived it,” she said. “More than I, surely: slavery, castration, losing a tongue. He survived all of that only to fall to the Vashni.” Del drew in a breath. “So now I am left to sit here, wondering if he’s dead.”

“You don’t know that he is.”

“No. No, I don’t. Not knowing is what hurts.”

Her hand continued its task, never faltering in its stroke. Boreal sang a song, a song of promises.

“Don’t borrow grief,” I told her. “Jamail could be perfectly safe with the Vashni.”

“They’re killing foreigners. He’s all too obviously Northern.”

“Is he? Was he?” I shrugged as she glanced up. “By the time we found him, he’d spent five years in the South. Two years with the Vashni. For all we know, they might consider him one of their own. The old man loved him; that should carry some weight.”