Sword Singer-Sword Dancer 2 (23 page)

me to be caught in the middle of an argument between an animal who outweighed me

considerably and a boy who barely came up to my waist. It was, I felt, lacking

in dignity.

"Enough," I said testily. "I know he bit you, Massou, and I'm sorry, but if you

try to punch him again you might get hurt worse."

Massou spat out something angrily in indecipherable Northern, then turned on his

heel and ran. Which left me facing Del.

Warily, I waited.

"I suppose it is too much," she began very quietly, "to expect the horse to have

manners better than the man's."

Hoolies. She was blaming me. "Oh, Del--come on... how was I to know he'd take such a disliking to the boy? He never warns me about these things. He just does

them."

Because she was so calm, the anger was emphasized. "Perhaps we might have been

better off if you had lost the contest."

"Oh, no," I answered instantly. "If I'd lost, the stud would be someone's dinner."

Arched brows and pursed mouth told me that was precisely what she'd meant.

I scowled back as the stud pushed muzzle against spine. "Come on, Del--"

She cut me off easily. "I'm going to go see how Massou is. I don't think the bite was bad, but still--"

I waved a hand. "I know," I said, "I know. No need to say it, bascha."

"Somebody has to." She dumped harness and sheathed sword into my arms and slanted a black look at the stud. "Just keep an eye on your horse."

I sighed deeply as I watched her walk away, pushing the stud's nibbling lips away from a harness strap. "Now you've gone and done it."

The stud chose not to answer.

Someone stopped beside me. "I'd rather keep an eye on her."

It took me a moment to realize he was responding to Del's parting comment.

Which

meant he'd overheard. But since we hadn't been speaking loudly, it meant he'd done more than merely overhear. It meant he'd been listening.

I looked. He was young, male, arrogant, sure of his strength and appeal. The kind of man I hate for a variety of reasons.

He cast me a slanting sideways glance out of pale blue eyes, waiting for my response. Instead, I stared him down.

It amused him. He smiled. The smile was for himself, but directed squarely at me. "Ah," he said with irony, "the Southroner doesn't speak Northern."

He used Borderer speech, not the pure upland dialect, which meant he intended me

to understand him. Which meant he was looking for trouble.

Inwardly I sighed (I wasn't really in the mood), then mimicked his own smile pleasantly, complete with curled lip. "Only when I choose to... or when the company's worth it."

The Northerner's smile froze, flickered, then stretched wide, as pale eyes narrowed appraisingly. I've seen the look before; he wanted to judge my worth before initiating hostilities. "Southron--"

"Save it," I said briefly. "If you want to fight, we'll fight, but we'll do it

in a circle instead of here with words. Insults waste my time, and you're too young to be any good."

He stared back in shock. He was fairer even than Del, which made his hair almost

white, and his eyes were the palest, iciest blue I had ever seen, fringed with

equally frosty lashes. On one hand, it was incongruous; it gave him the look of

youth as yet untested, when obviously he had been. On the other hand, it lent him a transparency that was almost other-worldly.

Of course, the jagged scar across his upper lip did diminish the innocence of his features. It looked like a knife had cut it, and done a long time ago.

He looked at the tangle of leather in my hands. He looked at the sheath and hilt. White brows lifted. "Sword-dancer?"

"Sword-dancer," I agreed. "Do you wish to enter a circle?"

Lids flickered. Pale lashes screened pale eyes. After a moment he spread his hands, smiling to show innocent intent. "I have no sword. My weapon is the knife."

I shrugged, clicking my tongue. "Well, that is too bad. I guess we'll have to be

friends."

He ignored that altogether, jerking his chin in Del's direction. "Is the woman

yours?"

It would have been so simple to answer yes, to stake a claim to Del and warn him

away to another. But I had learned, thanks to Del, that a woman couldn't be claimed; that a woman couldn't be owned, and where she went was of her own free

choice, not dependent upon a man.

It would have been so simple. But it would have been a lie.

"Ask her" I suggested, "but you might not like the answer. She's a sword-dancer,

too."

Pale brows rose consideringly. He stared after Del, though she was gone, then narrowed icy eyes and glanced again at me. What he thought was plain: my disclaimer made me a fool.

The stud nuzzled my shoulder. Remembering Massou's experience, I shoved mouth away from flesh.

It made the Northerner smile. "I won coin on you."

I blinked. "You bet on me to win?"

"I know horses." The smile was secretive. "Perhaps better than the horse-master

who was so willing to give this one up. It is my trade, if after a different fashion." The smile widened a little and twisted the upper lip. The scar didn't

entirely ruin his looks, but did draw attention. And I think it pleased him instead of warping his nature. (I know a little about scars.) "I would have tried him myself, but you spoke before I could."

"That doesn't tell me why you bet on me."

He rubbed an idle forefinger across the twisted lip. "The horse knew you," he said finally. "There is a language private to horses, but I know how to speak it." He shrugged. "Not in words or thoughts, but in feelings. This one knew you

well, so I knew you would win the contest."

I grunted. "You might have told me first and saved me a bloody nose."

He grinned, which stripped away the arrogance and replaced it with genuine amusement. "But I wanted to win. The odds were in my favor, because everyone else bet against you."

I appraised him much as he had appraised me. Tall, but lacking bulk, though not

as tall as me. Graceful even in stillness; the boy knew how to move. He wore wool and leather as I did, cross-tied at calves and forearms, but his pale hair

was very long and divided into two braids, one for either shoulder. He knotted

them with leather thongs adangle with beads of blue and silver. They rattled when he moved.

"Then I think you owe me a drink."

He blinked. Then smiled. "Are we to be friends, then? Or enemies over the woman?"

"Oh, we can be either; that depends on you. But if you're still here when Del comes around, you'll see it doesn't matter."

He laughed. Inclined his head. And, in fluent Southron, invited me to his camp.

I agreed. Drinking a man's liquor is better than fighting him.

Unless you can do both.

He spoke Southron as well as other languages, although mostly he kept to the Borderer mix even I could understand. His name, he said, was Garrod, and he was

a horse-speaker. When I asked the difference between horse-speaker and horse-master, he said the second was a misnomer, that no man could master a horse. I thought one name as good as another, and told him so.

Garrod sat on the ground on a blue-and-gray woven blanket, leaning against a convenient tree stump. It was a tiny little one-man camp, consisting of a fire

circle filled with ash, a jumble of leather tack, and five magnificent horses.

He tilted his head a little. Braid beads rattled. "As much difference," he said

quietly, "as between stallion and mare."

I snorted my response, enjoying the pleasant glow of Northern liquor as I sat on

Garrod's blanket and drank Garrod's amnit. "You came to sell your horses, didn't

you? It sounds the same to me."

"Horses, to me, are more than things to be sold. More than merely animals who have been trained to carry or pull." His icy eyes were oddly unfocused as he looked at his string of five, staked out in lush green grass. "Horses are my magic."

I was his guest, and there are rules; I refrained from laughing outright.

Instead, I held out the bota. "Have another drink."

Solemnly he took it, drank, smiled companionably back at me, "I could have ridden your horse. I could have made him mine."

"By talking to him, I gather."

He gazed at me thoughtfully. His expression told me nothing, other than he appraised. And then Garrod smiled, twisting the scarred upper lip. "It would have saved you a bloody nose."

I took the bota back. "I need to buy a horse."

"For the woman, or for yourself?"

"For her. For Del. Depending, of course, on price."

Garrod shrugged indifferently. "I would need to see her. To let them see her."

"Who? The horses?" Incredulously, I stared at the five grazing mounts. "Do you

mean to tell me you ask them their opinion?"

His tone was one of infinite patience; he'd met disbelief before. "Men choose horses for wrong reasons. They think of themselves, not of the animal. They buy

or trade stupidly, and often the horse suffers for it." He smiled. "Or the rider

does."

"You mean me."

"I mean you." Garrod sat upright, shifted his position, leaned back again, tugging left braid from under an armpit. "You and your horse could be better friends if the partnership was equal. You spend too much time telling him you are the master, while he tells you the same thing." He shrugged a little, rattling beads in thick pale plaits. "He is happy enough, and so are you, but you both could be happier."

I've heard of strange things before, but never of a man who could talk to horses. Or of horses who would listen. "Garrod--"

"Let them see her," he said. "I will sell you the one who is best for her."

I thought about Del's response. "She might not like any of them."

Garrod smiled. "She's Northern, isn't she?"

"Del? Hoolies yes... nearly as fair as you."

"Then she will understand."

Garrod and I shared the rest of the bota, trading stories full of truths and falsehoods, and generally enjoyed a pleasant afternoon. Once I'd had to tie up

the stud again, since he'd pulled free of the treelimb I'd tethered him to, but

I caught him before he could do any damage to Garrod's horses and made sure my

knot was tight.

Since then he'd done little more than stare morosely at the others, or shred thick-woven turf and spit out globs of muddy roots.

Garrod looked up at the sky. "Sun's going down."

About this time Del arrived. "I've been looking all over for you."

I shrugged, content on Garrod's blanket. "You said it wouldn't be hard to find

me."

"I thought not," she agreed, "but then I foolishly neglected to remember that you'd most likely drink yourself into a stupor."

I raised my brows. "Had a bad afternoon, did we?"

Garrod smiled and tossed her the bota. "We saved a swallow or two for you,"

Del caught the bota but did not drink, appraising each of us in silence. Her gaze stayed on Garrod longer, giving nothing away; even I couldn't tell what she

thought. But I didn't think she was pleased.

"Massou is all right," she said finally. "The bite will bruise, but nothing more."

"Could have told you that." I gestured toward my host. "Name's Garrod.

Horse-speaker, he says."

"Horse-speaker?" Del frowned, looking more closely at the young man I judged her

own age. "You are young for it."

"True talent doesn't wait on age," Garrod answered. "But I could say the same of

you, couldn't I? He says you are a sword-dancer." He paused pointedly a moment.

"Not to mention you're a woman."

Uh-oh. Not a good beginning.

Del stared him down. Then dismissed him with surpassing speed, turning to look

at me. "We have made a camp, and Adara has cooked a meal."

I sighed, recalling Massou's temper and Adara's weary depression. "How much longer are we to nursemaid them?"

A fleeting expression told me she was as weary of it, though she said nothing to

give the thought away. "One more night," she answered quietly. "We'll buy them a

horse and wagon in the morning, and then we are free to go-"

Clearly, she was ready; I saw the subtle signs of tension in her face.

Garrod shifted against his stump, rubbing at his knife-scarred lip. "He says you

need a horse."

Del's face masked itself. "And you have one to sell."

He waved a negligent hand over his shoulder. "I have five to sell."

Del looked at the horses. Quietly they grazed, staked out like dogs on a lead.

Big, sturdy horses, fuzzy from winter hair. Two bays, two sorrels, a gray.

They

looked content enough with their lot; considerably more so than the stud. But then that wasn't saying much.

She flicked a glance at me. I shrugged a very little, lifting one shoulder almost imperceptibly. She was asking me what I thought of Garrod and his claim

of equine magic; frankly, I didn't know what I thought.

Del's mouth tightened, twisted faintly, loosened. "I think not," she said,

"for

now. Perhaps in the morning."

Garrod's smile was slow. "By morning they may not be here."

Horse-speaker or not, this language even I understood very well. Horse trading

and haggling are as old as time itself.

"By morning," Del suggested, "you may want a lower price."

The Northerner grinned. "By morning they may cost more."

"All right, all right." I was tired of the game. "Let's go get some food, bascha--we'll hunt a horse in the morning."

She cast Garrod a sideways glance of cool dismissal and turned on her heel to leave. Loose blonde hair swung against her back, hiding much of the harness and

sheath.

But it didn't block the silver hilt, which rose above her left shoulder.

Garrod looked up at me as I got to my feet. "A word of advice, friend Tiger: never trust a woman with a sword. Her tongue is bad enough."