He nodded. “Yes.”
“Where are the horses now?”
“In a corral at the livery.” He rose. “I’ll go over there. Once you and Del are ready, we can turn the mares loose and send them out of town. I think they had enough of freedom yesterday. They’ll stay close.”
“Well, if you see Eddrith, tell him we’re leaving town. He’s not going to get his sparring session unless he finds me on the trail. I’m not waiting for him.”
Neesha nodded absently as he stepped off the porch, mind on the horses and the journey.
“Don’t you want breakfast?” I asked.
Neesha’s smile was very faint, but recognizable. “Well, no. I already had breakfast.”
“Elsewhere?”
“Elsewhere.”
“With female companionship?”
“With female companionship.”
I grinned and went back into Tamar’s inn. I remembered my days at Neesha’s age. No responsibilities except in the circle. And women who did not expect you to stay. Though it was best, as Neesha had learned, not to go to bed with married ones.
That is, I hoped he had learned it.
Since I didn’t know Rashida prior to the abduction, I couldn’t compare her behavior now to what it had been. But she walked out of the inn with composure, hair combed and tied back, clothing clean and neat. I’m sure Del had told her all the raiders were dead, so she need not look for them around every corner every moment. I wondered, however, if it was possible not to look. I could not imagine what it was like for any woman, let alone a young girl, to go through what Rashida had.
Tamar gave her some clothing and mentioned in passing that she wore the outfit when she rode many years ago—I had trouble picturing her as a carefree young woman.
Rashida wore a long rusty-brown tunic with split sides, a long skirt also with split sides, and a doubled leather belt, though Tamar said the buckle had broken a long time ago. It was now tied off like a latigo on a saddle. The end dangled to her knees. She was, however, barefoot; Del said no one had any boots or sandals that would fit.
Rashida shrugged. “I’ll ride barefoot. I ride that way around home all the time.”
Then it struck her, as it did us, that she would not be riding around the home she’d known all of her life. And Neesha, who’d been refused several times when wishing to see her, wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. He just hugged her. Hugged and hugged. Rashida clamped her arms around his waist and pressed her head into his chest. She was trembling.
I glanced at Del. I had no idea what had been said among the women yesterday, and I don’t know if Rashida cried then, but she did now, holding onto the only one spared the fire and outrage done to her family. I thought it was probably a very good thing.
When Neesha looked over her shoulder at me, tears were visible on his face. He was not so self-conscious as to try to hide them. “We’ll go see the horses,” he said. “Rasha can pick which she’d like to ride.” Before any of us could say anything, he set her down and turned away from us. With his hand resting gently on the back of her neck, they walked down the street toward the livery.
Watching that, I said grimly, “It’s a good thing those men are already dead. Because I’d kill them again. And more painfully.”
Del met my eyes, understanding completely. Her face was tight, her tone tighter still. “I think we should have done as I suggested. Cut off arms, legs, let them bleed, then take the head.”
This time I didn’t argue her out of it.
Tamar looked at Del’s face, then at mine. Her mouth was compressed, her eyes fierce. “It’s too bad she can’t kill them. The girl.”
Del looked at her sharply, clearly surprised. And in Del’s eyes I saw the memory of what she had experienced; how, after five years of training, she had killed Ajani, the man who had done to her what had been done to Rashida.
Then Tamar smiled thinly. “Take her home.” She nodded at us both, then went inside and shut the door.
Rashida ended up riding her brother’s bay, rather than any of the mares. Del’s idea. When I got the chance, I asked her why.
“Backbone,” Del said quietly, as Rashida and Neesha rode close together a little ahead of us. He was bareback on one of the mares who were not obviously in foal.
“What? What about a backbone?”
Del looked at me a moment, as if trying to find the right words. Finally she said, “She was raped repeatedly. A saddle is…more comfortable.”
Neesha’s saddle wouldn’t fit any of the mares as well as the horse who usually wore it, true. But then I realized what she meant. Oh, hoolies. “You know, I understand a little better now how you dedicated yourself to learning the sword. The oaths you swore. The obsession—yes, bascha, that’s what it was. Don’t look at me like that—you followed through to completion. And I think for Neesha’s sake, it’s good the raiders are dead, too.”
Del thought for a long moment, staring ahead at my son and his sister riding side-by-side. Her expression was strange. Finally she looked at me. “It will make him a better sword-dancer.”
It stunned me. For a moment I couldn’t speak. Then, as I started to, Del cut me off with a gesture.
“I know,” she said levelly. “I know perfectly well what that sounds like and how it would shock others to hear it. I didn’t say it for effect. I said it because that’s what Neesha wants to do with his life. Sometimes it takes the obsession you mentioned, or a potent will to overcome a dangerous and deadly challenge, or just giving oneself over completely to what one most wants to do. I don’t know what the future holds for Neesha, whether he’ll stay with his family or come back to us, but I do know that this will make him a better sword-dancer. It’s difficult to be as good as he wishes when one is not driven by demons. You and I know about those demons. Neesha didn’t; now he does. It just depends on what he wants of life now.”
I held my tongue, thinking all of that through before saying anything. Finally I nodded. “I understand. I don’t want to, but I do. Yet in a way, I wish he could have avoided this. Tempering is difficult. Tempering is painful.”
“Tempering is necessary, Tiger. For us. For people like us. He’s not like us, and he won’t be, I don’t think, but he can’t be a sword-dancer, a true sword-dancer, without understanding how it lives in us. And now a little of it lives in Neesha. Now he must decide.”
Neesha’s decision was to remain with his family. He told me after we’d put the mares back into a corral at Sabir’s and Yahmina’s; after he’d lifted Rashida down from the saddle and walked her into the house. Del and I heard Danika’s cry all the way outside. After a moment, Neesha walked back out and came straight to us.
“I can’t be in two places,” he said evenly. “I have to choose which. It will take my father a long time to heal, and there is a house to rebuild. Mares soon to foal. They need my help. But you—” He looked straight at me. “You don’t need my help. I know you’d say you did, but you don’t. You have plenty of other students. I’ve been with you two years. You’ve taught me so much. But you don’t need me.”
He wasn’t cruel. He didn’t say it to hurt me, to disrespect me, to make me angry. He said what was in his heart at that particular moment. And he was right. They needed his help more than I needed his company.
I managed to summon a faint smile. He believed what he believed. There were all kind of remonstrations I might make, all manner of protestation, but I couldn’t say anything to him. I couldn’t say a word. I let him believe what he believed.