"Gee," I marveled, "I've never had quite that effect on anyone before."
Del scowled. "Are you happy now?"
I grinned. "Yep." Particularly since it's hard for anyone, even a pretty kid like Nayyib, to look particularly attractive to a woman while he's bringing up the inside of his belly.
She picked up an empty bucket and slung it at me. "Go fill this up. The horses need more water."
I caught it, laughing, and took it and my sword with me to the spring, whistling all the way.
TWENTY-EIGHT
SOME WHILE LATER, Nayyib presented himself to me. He had washed, dusted himself off, neatened his hair. His eyes looked better, and his color was also improved. I had readied the stud and now occupied myself with splitting alia leaves and applying a new coating of oil, waiting for Del to finish tacking out and loading the gelding. It was taking a suspiciously long time, and when Nayyib stopped in front of me and drew himself up, I knew why.
I sighed and assumed a patient expression.
He didn't beat around the bush. "I would like to come with you."
I smoothed oil across the back of my neck. "We've had this conversation before."
"And you have never given me a definitive answer."
"No isn't definitive?"
"You haven't said 'no.' You have made objections. There's a difference."
Well, yes, there was. "You're absolutely certain you want me to teach you to be a sword-dancer."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Something in his eyes flickered briefly. It was neither doubt that he could answer nor fear that he'd answer wrong. Maybe it was merely a question he'd never expected of me.
The stud nosed my shoulder. I patted his muzzle, then eased his head away. "Well?"
"It's what I've wanted to be since I was very young."
I wiped alia oil across my abdomen between harness straps and began working it in. "Why?"
"My sister and I …" A quick smile curved his lips as he thought of her. "We made swords out of sticks. Drew circles in the sand. Eventually my mother made her spend more time in the house, so I had to dance alone. But my sister knew, and I knew, that someday it would come to this."
"What made you choose me?"
A muscle jumped in his jaw. "I didn't, at first. There was a sword-dancer in the village, on his way to Iskandar. For the dances there two years ago." His eyes flickered again. "Do you recall?"
Did I recall? Oh, yes. With infinite clarity. Del did too; it was where she'd killed Ajani.
I tossed used leaves aside, worked at splitting a new one. "So this sword-dancer rode through your village, and you asked him for lessons?"
"Yes.
"Did he give them to you?"
"Yes. He needed money, and I offered to pay him."
I nodded, bending to work oil into thighs. "And you decided by the time he left that you wanted to challenge me."
Once again color warmed the dusky tan of his face. "I didn't mean it as a challenge. I just wanted to step into the circle with you. I knew I would lose."
I grinned lopsidedly. "Not necessarily."
"Against you? Of course."
"Nayyib, the first time I stepped into a circle against a legendary sword-dancer, I won."
"But you're you."
I straightened up. "I wasn't me then," I said in exasperation "I was just a gangly seventeen-year-old kid with hands and feet too big for his body, who was underestimated by a man who should have known better. Complacence in the circle is dangerous—it nearly got him killed, and I had only a wooden sparring blade, not live steel." I shook my head, remembering Abbu's shock. I waved a depleted leaf at him. "And there, Neesha, is another lesson."
His mouth twitched in a half-smile. "Will you give me more? It would be my honor—and I have the money to pay you, too."
I laughed, tossing aside the leaf. I was aware of Del moving even more slowly as she prepared the gelding. Nayyib's horse was already tacked out and loaded, ground-tied some distance away. "Look …" I paused, thought about it briefly, gave it up. "I have every intention of reopening the school at Alimat, but not quite yet. There are a few things to settle first. If you truly want to learn—if you haven't lost interest or gotten distracted by something else by then, like a woman—come find me then."
His jaw tightened. There was nothing puppy-doggish about his eyes now; he was angry, but he was suppressing it with unexpected self-control. Some of the boyishness faded behind a harder veneer. Suddenly he wasn't a kid at all, but a man. His voice was very quiet. "What would it take?" "Time." And then I heard my shodo's words come out of my mouth. "There are seven levels. But there is no prescribed length of time required to reach any of those levels. It may take two years to reach the first level. You may leave after you reach it, if that is your choice—but to leave before you can walk means you'll be killed before you can even dream of running." "And to achieve seven levels?"
I shrugged. "Few men last that long. They leave to make a living."
"You are a seventh-level sword-dancer." "I was. I'm not anything now, other than outcast." "Elaii-ali-ma," he said. "Rafiq told me, when I asked." "Time and oaths," I told him. "It's a demanding service, the circle. Too many believe it's about glory. Rafiq does, and it's why he'll never survive. In truth, it's mostly about honor, and oaths, and service. The elegance of the dance, the beauty of live steel. Glory comes, if you win enough, well enough—but that's not the point. It only seems like it to young men who don't want to stay in the village, get married, and father babies on the first village girl they bed."
He had controlled the anger. His voice was steady. "And if I choose to achieve the seventh level, as you did?"
"Can you afford ten years?"
He blinked. "It took you ten years?"
I bent to apply oil to my calves and shins. "No, it took me seven. But I was the first to do it that fast."
Nayyib nodded once. "Seven levels. If it requires twelve years, then I will give you twelve."
Del led the gelding around in front of the stud. Waited, saying nothing.
"Don't swear any oaths just yet, Nayyib," I suggested. "Not until you know what they are. Because at Alimat, the oaths you swear are for life."
He didn't shy from it, was not afraid of me. "You broke yours."
"And every sword-dancer in the South is trying to kill me."
His glance slid to Del. Quietly, he said, "There are times when certain oaths must be broken, if to keep them breaks oaths you have made to others."
So. She'd told him. It seemed the Northern bascha had been doing quite a bit of talking to the Southron boy.
Who wasn't really a boy. Just considerably younger than I.
Like Del.
He was still gazing at her. She didn't avoid it. I saw a look pass between them, though I couldn't interpret it.
Something pinched deep in my gut. Jealousy? No, not really. But an awareness that things were changing; that they would continue to change.
And Del knew nothing about my limited time. Her life would change, too.
I looked back at Nayyib. He said he'd give me twelve years. In twelve years, or possibly ten, I would be dead.
Abruptly I tossed away the rest of the leaf. Turned and mounted the stud. I reined him in and looked down at Nayyib waiting for my answer. "You can come with us as far as Julah. We'll spar there, and then I'll decide."
The stud has a very comfortable long-walk, once he consents to settle into the gait. Too often he has a burr under his blanket, or a bee up his butt—figuratively speaking, of course—and takes it out on me. But for now he was content to just walk on, head bobbing lazily at the end of his neck. I very nearly fell asleep, until Del's voice woke me up.