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day of my exile moved back twelve months. I will pay for it."
"Why?" Stigand demanded.
"I have a child." Del looked straight back at him. "I'd like to be a mother,
if for only a year."
Telek shut his eyes.
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Stigand was shaking his head. "This isn't acceptable. You gave the girl up--"
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"--because I had no other choice." Her voice was quiet, but the underlying
passion carried as clearly as a shout. "What manner of mother would I be
without honor? What life could I offer a child? None. And so I swore my oaths
and gave her up so I could collect the blood-debt to regain my family's
honor... to give
Kalle some honor." She looked squarely at Telek. "I don't mean to take her
from you. I mean only to share her for a year--and then she will be yours
forever, undivided, while I spend my life in other lands." Bitterness crept
in. "Is that so much to ask? One year in exchange for a lifetime?"
Oh, hoolies, bascha. This wasn't part of the deal.
Stigand didn't look worried, though Telek's face was gray. The old man merely
smiled. "You said you would buy back the year. With what? You must pay
swordgild to Staal-Ysta... what is left to spend?"
"Blood-gift," she said steadily, "for the space of that year."
Stigand's voice was gentle; he was certain of the outcome. "I say again: what?
Do you mean to give up your jivatma?"
"No," Del answered quietly. "I give you a new an-ishtoya. I give you the
Sandtiger."
Thirty-eight
Noise. Everyone was talking to me, talking at me: Stigand, Telek, other
members of the voca, other Northerners. But it was all just noise, all of it;
I walked away from it easily, pushing through the throng, and finally reached
Del.
I reached out, caught one arm above the elbow, pulled her close. "We have to
have a talk."
The voca had uncaged her, each man pulling his sword from the ground and
sheathing it, denoting acceptance of her proposition. All but two, that is;
neither Stigand nor Telek had been satisfied, but they were soundly defeated
by a distinct majority, and so eventually they had plucked their swords from
the ground. Del had purchased her year.
She tried once to disengage her arm from my hand, failed, gave in. Allowed me
to physically escort her away from the commotion, back through the trees to
the shore to where the boat was anchored.
I released her arm, knowing I'd undoubtedly left red fingermarks in her flesh
that would by morning turn blue; Del is that fair.
She stood stiffly, almost awkwardly, staring resolutely across the lake to
where mountains bumped the sky. Water carries sound; I heard horses in the
distance. I
thought I heard the stud.
Slowly I pointed to the boat. "What," I began quietly, "prevents me from
getting in that boat and leaving?"
Del's tone was flat. "You don't know how to row."
"Oh, I learn pretty fast... and you have given me more than enough provocation
to get in there now and do it."
"Then go," she said tonelessly.
I caught her arm again, swung her around to face me. "You know perfectly well
I
can't! You saw to that, didn't you? You knew once I agreed to abide by the
voca's sentence I'd be trapped by my own words, and you could do whatever you
felt like doing, regardless of what I wanted."
"You have a choice," she said curtly. "You aren't a prisoner. You're a
student, just like all the others... no one will keep you here against your
will. No one will chain you up or lock you into a lodge. At worst they'll give
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you a jivatma!"
"I don't want one!" I shouted. "What I want is to get in that boat--with
you--and go back across the lake, where we can collect the stud and get the
hoolies out of here, right now!"
"I have a year," she said grimly. "Duly purchased and paid for."
"With my freedom, Del!" I stared at her, astonished at the depth of her
resolution; her lack of compassion for me, whom she had dispensed with so
readily. "You didn't even ask me!"
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She swung to face me squarely. "And if I had come to you and said, so
prettily:
'Please, Tiger, will you do this for me; Tiger, will you give me a year of
your life?' " She shook her head. "Why should I waste my breath? I knew what
you would have said."
"No you don't. You haven't the faintest idea. Because you're so wrapped up in
yourself and your own needs right now, you're totally blind to mine."
"Not blind!" she cried. "I see you! But I also see Kalle. I also see my
daughter--"
"--whom you gave up the day after she was born."
"Because I had to--"
"Don't give me that goat dung, Del. You didn't have to do anything of the
sort.
No one forced you to. No one snatched that child away from you and said you
couldn't see her again until you'd avenged your family. That was you. That was
you--"
"What do you know about it?" she cried. "What do you know about love and honor
within a family... what do you know about responsibility to one's kin...
you've never accepted any responsibility in your entire life!"
It hurt. "And how responsible were you to Kalle when you gave her up? Were you
satisfying her needs, or your own?"
Del's eyes were blazing. "It was something--"
"--you had to do, I know." I shook my head. "You have every right to make
harsh decisions for yourself, Del, even wrong ones, but you have no right at
all to decide how others will live their lives."
"Kalle is mine."
"You gave up your rights to her."
"No."
"Yes." I sighed heavily and scratched at the clawmarks in my beard, trying to
maintain patience and temper, and being hardpressed. "She has a good life with
Telek and Hana--you said so yourself--why destroy it now?"
"I'm destroying nothing. I'm sharing her for a year." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]