“It’s his choice, Tiger. He came looking for you. He’s taken lessons from both of us for the last two years. If he discovered he wanted otherwise, he’d have left by now.”
“But now we ride back to what he knew. Where he lived for very nearly all of his life.” I watched him. “You see how he is with that horse. How he is with all horses. That’s a gift.”
“Do you remember,” she began, almost gently, “that this prophecy my brother spouted was that the jhihadi was a ‘man of many parts’?”
I hadn’t thought of that for a very long time. “Oh. Yes. Now that you mention it.”
“Neesha, too, is a man of many parts. Horses. Dancing. Even women; he takes after you in that respect.” She met my eyes and smiled. “There is no reason to believe he must surrender one gift to express the other.”
I slid an arm around her waist. “You are so much wiser than I.”
As expected, she said, “Of course.”
I sighed, pulled her tightly against my side, took care not to wince as the cut stung. “I miss her, bascha. Our little girl who thinks playing in the dirt and mud—and dog piss—is the most enjoyable thing in the world.”
Del leaned her head on my shoulder. “Oh, Tiger—more than either of us expected.”
Neesha trotted the mare in a large figure eight. As she settled, he asked her to lope the same pattern. She did, making lead changes with a silky fluidity. I was a good rider. Del was a good rider. But Neesha had the gift.
I leaned my cheek against Del’s head. “You’re sure you prefer me to him?”
A quiet, single blurt of laughter issued from her throat. “Most of the time.”
Mahmood shouted, “Do you intend to help?”
I planted a kiss on the side of Del’s head. “Apparently the ‘man of many parts’ must also be a cook.”
Unexpectedly, Neesha had taken my throwaway comment about hunting coneys literally and provided one for dinner. Mahmood, as usual, ate with his drivers, though I caught him glancing over at me and Del now and again, his expression thoughtful. I think he was still ruminating over the idea that a man and woman could dance against one another without the woman being immediately and utterly overcome; that, and the idea that we had each done serious damage to the other. It wasn’t a subject I thought about much, because it still hurt. We had each nearly died; in fact, Del was injured so badly that I was certain she would die and couldn’t bear being there to see it. I’d left Staal-Ysta, the Northern equivalent of Alimat, in anguish, guilt, and almost paralyzing grief. What I had felt when I discovered Del survived was indescribable.
Neesha, after dinner, was patently, if quietly, troubled by something. It was like an itch with him, waxing and waning. Though dusk was coming on, he said he was going to work again with the roan mare. As he left, Del and I exchanged a look of agreement, and I got up and followed.
He had picketed her some distance from the tree, since the stud was showing an annoying inclination to court her. Neesha used a folded piece of rough sacking and scrubbed her all over with it, then began to use long, soothing strokes all over her body even as he sang to her very softly. Clearly she enjoyed it; if he stopped, she looked around at him as if to ask what the problem was.
Well, that was my feeling, too: wondering what the problem was. “Maybe you ought to use the sacking on yourself, Neesha—get rid of the tension in your body.” I waited a moment. “What is it?”
He leaned his head against the mare a moment then lifted it and turned to me. “I don’t know that I could ever do it.”
“Do what?”
“Kill a man in the circle.”
“Only outside of it?”
He was too serious to respond to a feeble joke. “It was different, killing that borjuni. He deserved it; he meant to kill me and anyone else he could. But this…it never crossed my mind. I mean, I knew there were death-dances. But I always thought only about defeating an opponent, not killing him.”
I grinned. “Neesha, it’s extremely unlikely you’ll ever be involved in a death-dance. They are very rare to begin with—well, except for the many who challenge me, that is—and I find it impossible to believe you would ever put yourself in the position to accept such challenge. Or to have anyone make it to start with. I know you’d never initiate it yourself.”
“No.” He sighed again. “I just…well…I know you have to do it because of elaii-ali-ma.”
Even now I felt a twinge. So much lost in breaking all my oaths. “A death-dance is nothing I’d ever seek out,” I told him. “It’s nothing I enjoy.”
“Could you have turned down this challenge?” he asked, patting the mare’s sinewy neck.
My turn to sigh. “It’s difficult to explain. First, he wouldn’t hear of it. But also, I declared elaii-ali-ma for the only reason that matters: to save Del’s life. I’d do it twenty times over. Thirty. I knowingly and willingly broke the codes. But I would like to think there remains a little piece of me who can adhere to what the shodo taught me. Odd as it sounds, it’s sort of my own self-imposed code. To accept it.”
“It’s penance,” Neesha said in tones of discovery. “Isn’t it? Punishment. And an oath you won’t break: to accept such challenges.”
I’d come over to sort out what was in Neesha’s head. I hadn’t expected we’d be discussing what was in mine. I’d never actively thought about penance and punishment, but perhaps he was right. Nonetheless, I was uncomfortable with the idea and turned the conversation back to him.
“I’m a shodo of sorts,” I said. “But Beit al’Shahar is not Alimat. I don’t ask for oaths. All I do is teach. Students may take what they wish from the training, but I expect nothing of them other than that they fight with honor and integrity, and even then I can’t control it once they leave. But if there are no oaths, you can’t break them.”
“No codes. No elaii-ali-ma, then, at Beit al-’Shahar.”
“Not ever.”
He was quiet a moment, seemingly studying one or both of his feet, then shook his head and met my eyes. “I will never be what you are.”
I smiled. “Possibly that is a good thing. No—probably that is a good thing. You see, I found a life at Alimat. I wasn’t a slave. I wasn’t a possession. You were never a chula, as I was with the Salset, and have always had a life because your mother and father made certain you did.”
“It’s all I ever wanted. To be a sword-dancer.”
“And so you are one, Neesha. No, you aren’t a seventh-level sword-dancer, but, to tell you the truth, few are. Certainly the man I killed wasn’t. But he would have made a good student.”
Neesha stared into my eyes, then shook his head. “They’ll all die. All those men who challenge you.”
I smiled crookedly. “The alternative does not appeal.”
“I wonder if they know it. That they’ll die.”
After a moment, I shrugged. “If you think you might die, you’re half dead already.”
He spoke earnestly. “But it’s your choice to kill them or let them live. Like with Khalid. I heard about what you did. What you said. But you didn’t do it with this man, today.”
“I knew Khalid would never challenge me to a death-dance again. This man would have. Again and again and again. Perseverance may be admirable in most cases but not in this one.” I paused. “I did give him the opportunity to ride away.”
“Do they ever do it?”
He cared very deeply. I realized my answer mattered a great deal to him. “I do offer, Neesha. That’s the best I can do. Some, such as this man, refuse to accept another way. In which case, all I can do is defend myself.”