Neesha was totally baffled. “Eddrith helped you?”
“I didn’t believe he meant it at first, but he did indeed help us.”
“Why?” he asked bluntly. “Why would he want to?”
“To spar with me.” I shrugged. “We came to an agreement. If he helped, I’d spar with him.”
Neesha was shaking his head vehemently from side to side. “You can’t.”
I raised a brow. “Why can’t I?”
“He defeated me. Shouldn’t you support me? Your son?”
“That has nothing to do with this. Or this has nothing to do with that. Whichever way you like it.”
Neesha scowled at me. “It matters.”
I drank more ale. Neesha waited for an answer. Wiping at foam again, I said, “I agreed. I won’t go back on my word.”
Tight as drawn wire, he stared hard at me. He did not drink again. He was very, very angry, and I knew it had nothing to do with my agreeing to spar with Eddrith. Well, almost nothing. He did care about that. What he wanted was to put things back the way they had been. No attack on the farm, no father seriously injured, no mother raped, no sister abducted and violated. He’d killed one of the raiders, but it wasn’t enough. There wasn’t enough in the world. It was grief, for the loss of what he’d known. Grief for his family. Grief, though he didn’t know it yet, for the young man who would never be the same. The light-hearted, cheerful young man whose life had been so undemanding, had finally come up against a painful hardship.
Neesha abruptly pushed his mug toward me. “I don’t want this.” He stood up, scraping his bench away from the table. “I’m going to see my sister.”
“Neesha—”
“No.” He leaned down, planted his hands on the table top. He stared hard at me. “No more from you. You are not her father to say what she needs. I’m her blood kin. I say what I do when it concerns her. You have no say.” He pushed himself straight. “No say at all.”
I watched him walk to the door. Watched him walk out. Made no move to go after him. I knew very well that he’d left something unsaid. I was his father, his blood kin, but I had no say over him any more than over Rashida. I hadn’t earned it.
It hurt, knowing that. But I couldn’t fault his feelings. I knew what he was thinking: This journey, which he himself had suggested, was no longer an adventure.
When I departed after several mugs of superior ale, I discovered Del’s white gelding tied just outside the tavern. In fact, not paying any attention, I nearly ran into him. I went over him with eyes and hands as best as I could in dying light, and he seemed fine. I wondered why Darrion hadn’t come in to tell me. But I untied him, led him down to the livery, and did not find the smith there. I thought about it a moment, then walked the horse into the barn, figuring I’d pay the smith in the morning. I was greeted by a series of very loud snorts, a demanding nicker that contained all the arrogance in the world, and repeated thumpings against the wall, thanks to shod hoof connecting with wood.
“Hey, old son.” I should have expected it. Neesha had found Rashida at Mahmood’s, aboard the stud. He would have tended him. I unsaddled, unbridled Del’s horse, turned him in, fed and watered him, then stepped next door to the stud’s stall. He promptly turned his back on me and stood with his head in the corner, one hind hoof cocked up as if he meant to kick me, were I foolish enough to enter the stall. I was not. “I knew you’d take care of her. Did she give you a good ride? She’s Neesha’s sister, and I know you like Neesha.”
He refused to talk to me. He had water and hay, so I picked up saddle, bridle, halter, and blanket and hauled everything inside. Unsurprisingly, Tamar met me at the door. “What are you doing with that? Do you think you’re bringing it inside? Gods only know where it’s been!”
“On Del’s horse. And I don’t trust the smith. Since I didn’t see the stud’s tack anywhere, I’m assuming Del brought it in?”
Her lips compressed. “Very well. But you and the boy will share that small room. Del and Rashida will have the larger one.”
“Well, all right.” It didn’t sound promising to me. That room was too small for two grown men. Then again, Neesha might spend the night elsewhere. Maybe he was paying attention when one of the sisters laid down the rules, and sought a woman in another tavern. “Oh, and it was quite a nice tavern, as you said. I met the young women but not their father.”
The faintest of spasms ran across Tamar’s face. “He’s very ill. The healer says it’s only a matter of time. Sometimes he stays in the common room for a bit; the rest of the time he rests in bed while the girls run the tavern.”
“Well, one of them made it very clear that we should go elsewhere if we wanted more than food and drink. But ale was all I wanted anyway. Neesha left; I don’t know if he’s coming back tonight, or not.”
She sniffed eloquently. “Fools, those young men. They’d do better to keep themselves away from whores.”
It shocked the hoolies out of me that she used the word. And Tamar clearly saw it, because color crept into her face.
I broke out into a wide smile. “I finally outgrew it,” I told her. “Eventually. I have to think my son will also.”
“I lock my door at nine of the clock,” she said. “If he’s not back by then, he’ll have to sleep elsewhere.”
A vision of Neesha bedding down in the livery amused me. Besides, it left me more room if he stayed out all night. But the amusement spilled away. “How is Rashida?”
Tamar’s face tightened. “She’s had a scrubbing with soap and water. Actually, three scrubbings; she says she can’t get clean. But that will pass in good time. Del is helping her a great deal. No false sympathy because she doesn’t—can’t—understand. Just matter-of-fact tending with the occasional kindness.”
“That’s because Del does understand.” Tamar looked at me sharply, and then shocked realization flared in her widening eyes. To change the subject, I said, “We’ll go tomorrow. Then Rashida will be with her parents. That should help.”
Tamar’s shock dissipated. “Not necessarily if she goes right back to where the raiders abducted her!”
“No,” I said. “No, we won’t do that. There’s nothing left but a heap of burned timber.”
She shook her head. “I’ll pray those raiders will be caught and given their own just desserts, but all the men in town are afraid to take them on.”
“No worry,” I said. “Zayid—the red-head—is dead, and so are his five men. Several of us played cat and undertook the job of getting rid of the vermin permanently.”
She was startled. “You did?”
“Me, Del, Neesha, with help from Eddrith and Darrion.”
Her voice climbed to a new register. “Darrion? Darrion helped?”
“He did.”
She shook her head, eyes glistening. “Well, perhaps my grandson will come to something after all.”
I stared at her in surprise, then smiled widely. “He did well.”
She flapped her hand at me. “Go to bed. Go on.”
“Blue curtain?”
“Blue curtain.”
I hitched up the saddle and tack once more and walked on down the hall. Maybe Del would sneak into my room again.
I had long since given up on Del’s coming to my room, and when she did I was so sound asleep my heart nearly burst out of my chest from surprise. “Stop doing that, bascha!”