She glared at both of us. “Away.”
Neesha and I went to the far side of the spring and sat down to wait. He said, “I don’t understand. He’s a she?”
“I guess Del would know,” I muttered, “she being a woman.”
It didn’t take long. I heard the sounds of silk being torn, low-voiced conversation from Del, muted responses from Dario. He—she—had undergone a tremendous change in attitude.
Well, I might, too, if someone discovered I was a woman. Especially at my age.
“Water the horses,” Del told Dario, and then came over to the well and motioned us a few steps away.
We went. “She’s not hurt?” I asked.
“No. Not hurt.” She was more serious than usual, almost pensive. She hooked sunbleached hair behind one ear. “Dario is not a boy; neither is Dario a girl. Not anymore. Her courses have begun.”
I opened my mouth. Shut it. “Ah,” Neesha and I said in startled discovery at the same time.
Del’s jaw was rigid. “When we get to Hafiz, I’m going with you to see Dario’s father.”
“You can’t, bascha. He doesn’t know you’re a woman.”
Her head came up, and I looked directly into a pair of angry blue eyes. “Do you think I care? His beloved son is a woman, Tiger!”
I glanced over at Dario, patiently holding the bucket for two horses in competition for its contents. But I could tell by the rigidity of her posture that she knew full well we were discussing her. It would be hard not to, in view of Del’s shouting.
I looked back at Del. “You’re sure?”
“What has been done to Dario transcends the need for Southron modesty or beliefs,” Del said flatly. “At least it does for me.”
I sighed. “I know, bascha; me, too.”
Neesha said, “But he—she—seemed willing enough to spout all that nonsense.”
Del’s smile wasn’t one; not really. “Women do—and are made to do—many strange things to survive in a man’s world,” she said.
That he understood. “Like you.”
“Like me.” She unsheathed her sword with a snap of both wrists and automatically I moved back a step. “I want to go with you to see Dario’s father because I intend to put him to the question.”
I looked at the sword uneasily. “With that?”
“If necessary. Right now, I intend only to tell Dario how I learned to kill.”
“Why?” I asked as Del turned away. “So she can learn, too?”
Del’s answer was whipped over her left shoulder. “No. Because she asked.”
Chapter 10
DEL AND NEESHA ACCOMPANIED ME as I took Dario back to her father. I hadn’t bothered to argue the point any longer; Del’s mind was made up. And I was beginning to think she’d made up Dario’s mind for her.
It wasn’t easy getting in, of course. The palace servants were men, naturally. Neesha they didn’t mind. But the sight of Del’s striding defiantly through their halls was enough to make them choke on their prejudice. I imagine the sight of any woman might have done the trick, but Del—beautiful, deadly Del—was enough to fill their khemi nightmares with visions of fair-haired demons.
Dario walked between Del and me. In a complete change of gender allegiance, she’d turned away from me on the ride to Dumaan to give Del her exclusive attention. Poor girclass="underline" all those years spent in a khemi household with no women—no women—present to answer questions.
At first I’d wondered if Dario had even known she was female; when I’d asked the question, she told me only that a sympathetic eunuch had admitted the truth after swearing her to eternal secrecy. It was a khemi rite to expose female children at birth, thus removing all excrescence from the Hamidaa faith.
“But you exist,” I’d protested, “Your father bedded a woman in order to get you!”
“A son. A son.” She’d answered me very quietly. “Once a year a khemi lies with a woman in order to get a son.” Brown eyes had flicked sidelong to mine. “I am my father’s son.”
“And if he knew the truth?”
“I would be taken to the desert. Exposed. Even now.”
I hadn’t said much after that. Dario’s muted dignity moved me. All those years…
Now, as the four of us walked down the corridor toward the audience tent, I knew what Del intended to do. She stood before the enthroned khemi tanzeer of Hafiz—the richest man in this finger of the Southron desert—and told him she was taking his daughter from him.
He flinched. He flinched. And I realized, looking at the expression of abject terror on his face, he’d known all along.
“Why?” I demanded. “Why in the name of all the gods did you never tell Dario you knew?”
He was not old, but neither was he young. I watched his face undergo a transformation: from that of a proud Southron prince with an eagle’s beak of a nose, to that of a tired, aging man surrendering to something he had hidden from for too long.
His hands trembled as he clutched the arms of his throne. “I am khemi,” he said hoarsely. “Hamidaa’n tells us women are abominations, unclean vessels placed upon the earth by demons.” His brown eyes were transfixed by Dario’s ashen face. “They are the excrescence of all our former lives.” His voice was a thread of sound and near to breaking. “I will touch nothing of women, speak to no women, admit nothing of women into my thoughts. I am khemi.” Then he drew himself up and, with an immense dignity, stared directly at Del. “How else am I to cherish a daughter while also remaining constant to my faith?”
Neesha, behind me, leaned close and murmured, “Does Del mean her to come with us?”
All I could do was shrug.
“A faith such as this excrescence does not deserve constancy.” Del’s tone was very cool. “She is a girl, not a boy; a woman, now. No more hiding, tanzeer. No more hiding her. And if you intend to force Dario from her true self, I swear I will take her from you. In the North, we do not give credence to such folly.”
He thrust himself out of the throne. “You will take her nowhere, Northern whore! Dario is mine!”
“Is she?” Del countered. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“Dario!” The tanzeer descended two of the three dais steps. “Dari—surely you know why I never told you. Why I had to keep it secret.” He spread both hands in a gesture of eloquent helplessness. “I had no choice.”
Dario’s thin face was pinched. There were circles under her eyes. “Choices,” she said, “are sometimes difficult to make. And, once made, you must live with them.” She sighed and scrubbed at a grimy cheek, suddenly young again. “You made yours. Now I must make mine.” She looked at Del. “Tell him what you told me—how it is for a woman in the North. A woman who is a sword-dancer.”
Del smiled a little. She faced the tanzeer squarely. Over her left shoulder, rising from her harness, poked the hilt of her sword. “There is freedom,” she said, “and dignity, and the chance to be whatever you wish. I wished to become a sword-dancer, a sword-singer, in order to fulfill a pact I made with the gods. I apprenticed. I studied. I learned. And I discovered that in the circle, in the sword-dance, there was freedom such as no one else can know, and also a terrible power. The power of life, and of death.” Again, she smiled a little. “I learned what it is to make a choice; to choose life or death for the man who dances against me. A man such as the Sandtiger.” She cocked her head briefly in my direction. “I don’t kill needlessly. That is a freedom I do not choose to accept. But at least I know the difference.” She paused. “What does Dario know?”