“You said my scar was beautiful,” Neesha noted to Del.
“Well, that one, yes. The others are inconsequential.”
I lay between them. I felt no urge to speak. In silence, I watched twilight fall, saw the first stars swell into brilliance against the darkening sky. Familiar smells drifted through Marketfield: bread, sausage, roasting meat, onions, beans, potent spices. Familiar sounds—fortunately, the baby had ceased crying. When one has come so close to death, everything in the world seems brighter, richer, more real somehow.
With great care, I arranged my hands against my belly. Aqivi warmed me but did not rid me of pain in the finger stumps.
“Inconsequential,” Neesha muttered.
“Scars are the mark of a sword-dancer,” Del explained. “There is the harness and sword, and the scars. Souvenirs of dances.”
“Souvenirs?” Neesha sounded somewhat aggravated. He was tired, more sore than he let on, and out of sorts. Food and aqivi had not soothed his temper. “Why would I want a scar as a souvenir?”
“As I said: scars are the mark of a sword-dancer. It proves you have danced.”
“And got cut! I’d think that would tell everyone I danced poorly, to get myself cut.”
I couldn’t remain silent. “We all get cut, Neesha. Why in hoolies do you think Del slathered me in ointment and wrapped me up like a corpse?”
He said nothing.
“Ah,” I said. “I see. You believe Rafa is better because he cut me. And that I won merely by happenstance.”
“No, no—”
I cut him off. “If you wish to believe I’m the lesser sword-dancer, go right ahead. But you’re deceiving yourself.”
Anger underlay Del’s tone. “You should be ashamed, Neesha. Tiger won a dance no one else could have. You saw him. You were standing there with your mouth hanging open.”
“You weren’t cut,” Neesha ventured.
“That’s because I disarmed Darrion and shoved him out of the circle before he could bring his sword up from the ground more than two or three inches.”
“And Rafa had his share of cuts and slices before I killed him,” I put in. “You just didn’t see them.”
“And if you don’t want to be cut,” Del said curtly, “then you should go back to the horse farm and stay there.”
Silence replaced conversation. Neesha said nothing for some time. Eventually, in a chastened tone, he apologized. “I didn’t know. About cuts.”
I grunted. “Why do you think these terrible scars of Del’s and mine aid rather than devalue us? Sword-dancers don’t believe we’re weak because of them. They just wonder how in hoolies we survived them, and how in hoolies they can defeat us if we can survive that. If you’re smart, and if the scars are bad enough, you allow them to work for you. As for what you received today, it’s a beginning. Even legends begin as infants.”
He considered that a moment. “Will I ever be good enough to defeat a man like Rafa?”
I stared into the heavens, contemplated lying, thought to say: ‘Yes. Of course. No question of it.’ But I didn’t. I told him the truth. “Maybe. It depends on how much you want to be, and how hard you will work to attain it.”
Eventually Neesha observed, “He’s quite good, is—was—Rafa.”
I closed my eyes. If I lay very still, nothing hurt. “One of the best.”
“But not good enough to defeat the Sandtiger.”
I smiled crookedly. “Not many are.”
“Nor are many as arrogant as the Sandtiger,” Del chided, but I knew she didn’t mean it. We were so different, Delilah and I. She was never arrogant, merely truthful. She never bragged; she let her victories speak for her. I, on the other hand, used the arrogance, the bragging, as weapons to shake my opponent’s confidence, or focus. Often, it worked. But not against a man like Rafa.
“I’m not good enough to be arrogant,” Neesha said.
I opened my eyes. I had not expected such insight in a young man. I smiled into the stars. “I’ll let you know when you are.”
“Foolishness,” Del declared.
“Can I ask another question?” Neesha inquired.
I was puzzled. “When have I ever said you couldn’t? Or shouldn’t?”
“I wanted to help you away from the circle. You wouldn’t let me.”
“It was well-intended,” I told him. “I thank you for that. But when you’re in the midst of convincing other sword-dancers that you are unconquerable—well, that’s what you hope they think—you don’t want anyone helping you from the circle.”
“Ahhhhh.” His tone rose, then dropped low in sudden realization.
“The mind,” I said, “is as important as the skill. The sword is not the only weapon you have.”
“I think I’m beginning to see that.”
I blew out a long breath. I had a belly full of food, and aqivi in my blood. All of me was sore, tired, aching, incapable of movement. The shakes had died away, but the pain in my hands had not. I wasn’t sure which would win throughout a long night: exhaustion or enough pain to keep me from sleep. And without sleep, whatever I felt now would feel worse in the morning.
Del seemed to realize what I was thinking. “More aqivi? For medicinal purposes?”
And for the first time in my adult life, I said no.
Come morning I was close to wishing, though not quite, that Rafa had killed me. Hard-fought dances always set up aches within the bones, complaints from overworked muscles, the occasional sharp stab of a cut stretched and broken open. My skills, my talent, had kept me alive, but my age multiplied every ache and pain. I lay very still on the blanket, debating whether I should even attempt to sit up.
Next to me, Del did so. Neesha, too. She made no complaint; he did. He seemed surprised by the protests of his body; he was young, healthy, fit. But he had never tested his body so much, never fought a sword-dancer as good as Eddrith. Being young did not guarantee a pain-free life.
He glanced down at me, noting I was awake. Noting, too, that I showed no signs of moving. Smiling widely, he kicked my left foot. “Up, old man. We are, as you say, burning daylight.”
“Neesha,” Del said sharply. “Have some respect.”
I saw the bafflement in his eyes, the lack of understanding of what his action had provoked. Certainly he had kick-prodded me before, as I had kicked him. As Del had.
Realizing that, Del softened her tone. “You didn’t know. Nor even now, do you?”
“Know what?”
“That was a death-dance, Neesha.”
Disbelief reigned supreme. “Rafa said it was for Umir’s bounty!”
“Rafa lied,” Del said.
“But—that’s not done. Both of you told me so.” He looked down at me, perplexed. “You taught me so.”
I expelled a long breath. “It’s different with me. I’m not one of them anymore. Any sword-dancer can do anything to me. Lie. Attack without warning. Challenge me outside of a circle. Any sword-dancer may make up their own rules and break them a moment later. There is no binding, Neesha. No oaths, no vows, no codes. Not anymore. I thought you knew that.”
And yet knowing is not always the same as understanding.
“None?” he asked. “None at all?”
“None at all.”
Neesha thought about it. He looked at Del, looked at me, then prodded my foot with far less emphasis than before. It wasn’t so much a kick as a push. “Up. I’ll be gentle with you.”
Del sighed. “Truly your son.”
Neesha bent to extend a hand. “Help, old man? Now that we’re not in front of everyone?”