Now the old man examined me to see what kind of sword would serve me well.

After a moment he smiled. He lacked two teeth. Without a word he turned, knelt, and set aside four of the bundles. He pulled out a fifth bundle I hadn't noticed, much narrower than the others and more tightly wrapped, and began to undo knots.

Del seated on the bed, exchanged a glance with me, eyebrows raised. I shrugged, as baffled.

The swordsmith glanced up, saw it as he began to unwrap the bundle. A spark of amus.e.m.e.nt leaped in dark eyes. In a Southron dialect I hadn't heard in well over a year, he said, "It is a waste of time to display my best to undiscerning customers. Then, I begin with the lesser weapons."

"And I'm a discerning one?"

Tufted brows jerked upward into the shadow of the turban. "With a body so carved and cut by blades? Yet still breathing?" He grinned again. "Oh, yes." He opened wrappings reverently, folding back the fabric with great care. Steel glinted like ivory ice in meager, sallow sunlight slanting through narrow windows chopped into mudbrick. He rose and gestured. "Do me the favor of showing me your hands."

Mutely, I put them out. Saw the abrupt widening of his eyes, the startled glance into my face. That he wanted to speak of such things as missing fingers was obvious; that to do so would offend a discerning customer was equally obvious and went against his training as tradesman as well as artisan. After a moment he took my hands into his and began to inspect them, measuring breadth of palm, length of fingers, feeling calluses. He took great care not to so much as brush the stubs.

Then, quietly, he bent, took up a sword, set it into my hands, bowed. And stepped away even as Del moved back on the narrow bed, giving me room to move, to lend life to the sword as I tested its quality.

It took me no longer to judge the blade than it took the sword-smith to judge me. He had selected the one he believed was most appropriate. And indeed it was, in every important way.

It was more than adequate-for a temporary weapon.

But then, that was all I required, until I found Samiel.

The swordsmith's expression was a curious blend of surprise and reconsideration. Though he had correctly surmised I knew how to handle a blade-or had, at one time-it was clear he had been dubious because of the missing fingers. The stumps were still pinkish; anyone familiar with wounds, particularly amputation, would recognize that the loss of the fingers was relatively recent. He paid me tribute by displaying his best to me, but he clearly expected less of me in the handling of the weapon.

Unfortunately, testing a blade and going against another sword-dancer were two very different things.

"It will do," I said, after complimenting him on his art. "What is your price? I will need a sheath and harness as well."

He named an outrageous amount. I praised his skill, the product, but politely refused and offered less. He praised my obvious expertise, my experience, but politely declined my counter.

So went the bargaining until both of us were satisfied.

His eyes glinted briefly. He knelt again and began to rewrap the bundle of his best.

"Wait." When he glanced up, I indicated Del.

At first he did not understand.

"A sword," I explained, "for the lady."

It was fortunate he spoke a dialect Del did not, or she very likely would have tested one of the blades on him. As it was she knew by his tone, his expression, by the stiffness in his body, what he said. She was a woman. Women did not use swords.

"This one does." I said. And then, grateful Del didn't understand, "Indulge me." That, he would accept: that a man might be foolish enough, or l.u.s.t-bound enough, to woo a woman by seemingly giving into her fantasies, however ludicrous they might be. It lessened me in his eyes, but so long as it resulted in the desired end, I didn't care. For this insult to his person, his skill, his Southron sensibilities, he would vastly overcharge, and I would vastly overpay, but Del would have her blade.

She rose from the bed and stood before him in creamy pale leather tunic, legs and arms bare, a plaited rope of fair hair fallen forward over one breast. He shut his eyes a moment, muttered a prayer, and asked to see her hands. As he touched them, his own shook.

Del shot me a look over his bent head. "Since you're the jhihadi," she said pointedly, "why don't you start changing the Southron male's perception of Southron women as inferior beings?" I grinned. "I suspect some things are impossible even for the jhihadi."

"Changing sand to gra.s.s is very dramatic," Del observed, "especially for a desert climate, but changing women to humans in Southron eyes-male Southron eyes-would be far more proof of this jhihadi's omnipotence."

This jhihadi knew better than to travel that road. He smiled blandly and did not reply.

"Coward," she muttered.

Finished with his a.s.sessment, the swordsmith dropped Del's hands with alacrity and turned away from her. With skilled economy he selected a sword, rose with it, then gazed upon it with obvious regret. His beautiful handiwork, intended for a man, would belong to a worthless woman merely playing at men's games.

We needed the sword. Carefully avoiding Del's eyes, I told the swordsmith, in his dialect, "When she's done playing with it in a week or so, I'll sell it back to you. At a reduced price, of course, because of its taint."

That seemed satisfactory. He placed the sword in Del's hands, then moved back to the farthest corner of the room, pressing himself into it. Knowing what she would do to test the weight, balance, response, I moved only so far as I had to. The swordsmith stared at me out of astonished eyes.

I grinned. "Indulge me."

Del danced. It was a brief but beautiful ritual, the dance against an invisible opponent, intended only to allow one to establish a rapport with one's weapon, to let the hands come to an understanding of the fit of the hilt, how the pommel affected balance, how the blade cut the air.

It lasted moments only, but enough time for him to realize what he was witnessing.

Impossibility.

Del stopped moving. Flipped the braid behind her shoulder. Nodded.

The swordsmith drew in a rasping breath. He named a price.

Knowing there was no room for bargaining under the circ.u.mstances, I accepted. Paid. Saw him to the door.

Del's voice rose behind us. In clear Southron, albeit not his dialect, she said, "I will not dishonor your art."

His eyes flickered. Then his face closed up. With his back to us both, he said fiercely, "Tell no one that sword is mine."

I shut the door behind him, then turned to look at Del. She had sheathed the sword and buckled on the harness, testing the fit. It would require adjustment, but wasn't bad. "Happy now?" She smiled languorously. "With a sword in my hand again, I can indulge even pigs like him."

"Then indulge me, won't you? Let's visit the stud together." I grabbed up my own new harness, slid the sword home. "I may need you to pick up the pieces."

The stud was, predictably, full of p.i.s.s and vinegar. I sighed as the horse-boy led him out of the livery, recognizing the look in the one rolling eye I could see. The pinning of ears, the hard swish of tail, a peculiar stiff readiness in body indicated the stud had an opinion and was prepared to express it.

I didn't really blame him. He'd been cooped up on a ship, nearly drowned in a shipwreck, deserted on an island, refound, then stuck aboard a ship again. Someone had to pay.

I sighed. "Not here in the street," I told the boy. "Someplace where no innocent bystanders might be injured."

He bobbed his black-haired head and led the way through a narrow alley between the livery and another building to a modest stableyard. The earth had been beaten into a fine dust, and the muckers had already shoveled and swept the yard. At least when I came off, I wouldn't land in manure.

Del, following, raised her voice over the thunking of the stud's hooves. "Shall I send boys out to invite wagering?"

The tone was innocent. The intent was not. Del and I had indeed managed to make some money here and there with wagers on who would win the battle-but that was when the stud was well ridden, and I was more likely to stick. Del knew as well as I that this battle would be worse than usual.

"The only wager here is how soon I come off," I said glumly as the boy slipped the reins over the stud's dark-brown neck. Ordinarily his mane was clipped close to his neck, but time on the island had allowed it to grow out. Now it stood straight up in a black hedge the length of my palm. I ran a hand through my own hedge. "I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to be painful."

In deference to the Southron sun if not Southron proprieties, Del had donned a striped gauze burnous before exiting the inn. Now she arranged herself against a whitewashed adobe wall, arms crossed, one leg crooked up so the toe of the sandal was hooked into a rough spot.

The thin, hand-smeared slick coating was crumbling away to display the rough, hand-formed block of gra.s.s-and-mud brick beneath.

She smiled sunnily. "It won't be painful if you stay on."

Despite my desire to discuss things with the stud in private, an audience was already beginning to straggle in. Horse-boys, muckers, even a couple of bowlegged, whip-thin men I suspected were horse-breakers. All watched with rapt attention, murmuring to one another in antic.i.p.ation. It felt rather like a sword-dance, except no circle was in sight. Merely an open-air square, surrounded on three sides by stable blocks and on the fourth by the solid wall of an adjoining building. With a horse as my opponent.

"Don't embarra.s.s me," Del said. "I still need to buy myself a mount, remember?"

"I'll sell you this one cheap."

Her smile was mild. "You're burning daylight, Tiger."

Muttering curses, I stripped out of harness and sword, left them sitting on a bench near Del, and strode across to the stud.

Groundwork was called for, a chance to settle him to some degree before I even mounted by circling him around me at the end of a long rein, by handling head and mouth, by singing his praises in a soothing tone of voice. Actually, it's the tone of voice that counts; I often called him every vulgar name I could think of, but he was never offended because I did it sweetly.

However, I'd had the stud long enough to know groundwork was ineffective. It never seemed to change his mind when he was in the mood for dramatics. Certainly not on the island, when I'd mounted him after months away. That had been a battle.

And now another loomed.

There isn't much to a Southron saddle to begin with, and this one was borrowed from the livery since all of my tack had been lost when the ship sank under me on the way to Skandi.

Supremely simple, it was merely an abbreviated platform of leather with the swelling humps of pommel and cantle front and back atop a couple of blankets, a cinch around the horse's barrel to hold the saddle on, stirrup leathers no wider than a man's belt, and roundish stirrups carved out of wood.

Almost simultaneously I took the woven cotton reins from the boy, grabbed handfuls of overgrown mane, and swung up into the saddle with a burst of nervous agility that put me right where I needed to be, even without benefit of stirrups. I'd done that purposely. It was a shortcut into the saddle and gave me an extra instant to set myself before the stud realized I'd beaten him to the punch.

I wore soft Skandic boots instead of sandals, the latter not being particularly helpful atop a recalcitrant horse, and the crimson silks bestowed weeks before on the island. Waiting back at the room was more appropriate Southron garb, but I'd opted to try the stud in clothing I could afford to have ruined. In the whitewashed stable yard, beneath the Southron sun, I must have glowed like a blood-slicked lantern as I eased boots into the stirrups.

Then the stud blew up, and I didn't have time for imagery.

Unless he falls over backward-on purpose or not-riding a rearing horse is not particularly difficult. It's a matter of reflexes and balance. Which is not to say a rearing horse can't do damage even if you survive the dramatics; if you're caught unaware, there is the very real possibility that the horse's head or neck will collide with your face. Trust me, the nose and teeth lose when this happens. And I'm not talking about the horse's.

A bucking horse is tougher to ride, because unless the horse gets into a predictable rhythm, which then becomes a matter of timing to ride out, a jolting, jouncing, twisting and repet.i.tive rear elevation can not only hurl you over the horse's head and eventually into the ground, but can also shorten your spine by a good three inches. And turn your neck into a noodle.

Then, of course, there are the horses that can contort themselves into a posture known as "breaking in two," where they suddenly become hinged in the middle of their spines, drop head and b.u.t.t so that the body forms an inverted V, and proceed to levitate across the ground in abrupt, stiff-legged, impressively vertical bounds.

Naturally, my horse was supremely talented. He could rear, buck, and break in two practically simultaneously.

The stud is not a particularly tall horse. Southron mounts aren't, for the most part. But he was all tight-knit, compact, rock-hard muscle, which is usually tougher to ride than a big, rawboned animal, and, being a stallion, he packed on extra heft. He was broad in the b.u.t.t, round in the barrel, wide in the chest, and had the typically heavy stallion neck, crest, and jaw.

It made it much more difficult for me to get any leverage with his mouth and head.

Which he delighted in demonstrating.

After I dragged myself out of the dirt for the fourth time, I noted a subtle change in the stud's posture. The tail no longer swished hard enough to lash eyeb.a.l.l.s out of a skull. Ears no longer pinned back swiveled freely in all directions. He swung his head to peer at me quizzically through dangling forelock, examined me (maybe looking for blood?), then shook very hard from head to toe as if to say he was done with his morning warmup, and nosed again at the dirt in idle unconcern.

I slapped dust out of silks. Pulled the tunic into such order as was possible when seams are torn. Made certain the drawstring of my baggy Skandic trousers was still knotted. Managed to stand up straight and stride across to the stud. He stood quietly enough. I mounted, settled myself in the saddle, walked him out enough to know he was done with the battle.

Applause, whistles, and cheering rang out. Coin changed hands as wagers were paid off.

But I knew better than to count it a victory, no matter what the crowd believed. The stud had merely gotten bored.

I dismounted and walked back over to Del with said stud in tow, supressing a limp. Her expression was sublimely noncom-mital.

In a pinched voice, I said, "Remember how just the other day I said I felt younger?"

Del raised brows.

"Add about two hundred years to the total."

One of the horse-boys came up, offering to strip down the stud and walk him. It was a warm day and all the excitement and exertion had resulted in sweat and lather. He needed cooling. I needed cooling. I wanted water, ale, and a bath. In that particular order.

Oh, and a new spine.

But of course under the eyes of the audience, many of whom had wandered in from the street when they heard the commotion, I stood straight and tall, saluted them, and strolled casually toward the alleyway leading to the street, pausing only to ask Del if she were coming, since she showed no signs of it.

"And stop laughing," I admonished.

"I'm not laughing. I'm smiling."

"You're laughing inside."

"My insides are mine," she observed, "to do with as I please."

"Are you coming?"

"I'll stay here and buy a horse, I think. And tack for both mounts. I'll meet you back at the inn."

I opened my mouth to oppose Del's foray into shopping without my presence, then thought better of it. She was a woman, and it was the South, but Del had proved many times over that only the rare man got the better of her.

That rare man being me, of course.

I gathered up harness and sword and took myself off to the inn. And ale. And a hot bath.

THREE.

FLESH has turned to leather beneath the merciless sun. Eye sockets are scoured clean.

Teeth shine in an ivory rictus. Wind, sand, and time have stripped away the clothing. She wears bone, now, little more, scrubbed to match the Punja's crystalline pallor. Modesty lies in rills of sand blown in drifts across her torso- I woke up with a start as Del came into the room, creaking the door. Completely disoriented from the dream fragment, I stared at her blankly, slowly piecing back awareness, the recognition that I was still in the half-cask I'd ordered brought up and filled with hot water.

That the water had cooled. That there was a real possibility I might never move again.

Del's expression was quizzical as she shut the door. Her arms were full of bundles. "I can think of more comfortable places to sleep-and positions to sleep in."

With care I pulled myself upright, spine sc.r.a.ping against rough wood. In an hour or so I might manage to stand. Scowling, asked if she'd spent every last coin we claimed.