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"Other Del," she said bitterly. "That soft, kind-hearted fool... the sweet,
gentle soul so many men desire their women to be."
"Some, yes. Maybe a lot. Down South, yes. And there are times when I wonder
what life would be like if you were another kind of woman." I shrugged. "But I
don't want to change you, Del. Not completely. Maybe just a little... maybe
just enough so that horse can unbow his neck and be a horse again." Now I did
touch her. I reached out and put a hand on her right shoulder, closing my
fingers on the too-rigid tendons beneath her clothes. "I don't want you soft.
But I don't want you this hard. It's tearing you apart."
Del was shaking, a little. "You don't know--you don't understand--you can't
know what it's like--" She checked, shut her eyes a moment, dismissed the
incoherence. "No man, especially a Southroner, can know how hard it is."
"No."
"No man can understand what it is to be a woman who doesn't belong because of
her sex, and yet belongs because of her skill."
"No, bascha. He can't."
"No man can know what it's like to watch mother, father, uncles, aunts,
sisters and brothers killed... and then be raped and humiliated, made to feel
like a thing, stripped of name, of soul, of self--" She checked again, still
shaking.
"You don't understand what it is," she said, "to know almost every man who
sees you wants you--not you, not really you, just that body, because it
pleases him... you don't know, Tiger, what it is to have men rape you with
their eyes when they can't do it with their bodies... and then you go away and
vomit."
It took all I had to speak. "No," I said, "I can't. But what I do know is that
if you carry that guilt and grief forever, it'll make you into a monster.
It'll strip you of humanity. You'll become Ajani's triumph."
Del's smile returned. "But I won't," she said in amusement. "I won't carry it
forever. Only until I kill him. Until Ajani's dead."
In silence, not daring to speak, I stroked back a strand of pale hair.
Thinking to myself: Oh, my poor Delilah... you have so much to learn.
Twenty-eight
I heard Garrod before I saw him because his braid beads rattled as he
approached. I turned from Del, frowned a little, saw his expression matched
mine.
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"Your horse is upset," Garrod said.
I scratched stubble. "He told you that, I suppose."
"Not in so many words, no." Garrod was unamused, distracted by something else.
"But he is bothered by something here."
Del shook her head. "Tiger's stud is always bothered. It's part of his--" she
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paused, "--charm."
Garrod shrugged. "I can't say what he's like the rest of the time, but
something has made him uneasy for now. He wants to leave this place."
"Oh, I see." I nodded sagely. "What I don't understand is, if he tells you
this much, why doesn't he tell you why?"
The horse-speaker sighed. "It would be easier if you respected my profession
as much as I respect yours."
"Horse stealing is not necessarily the sort of profession anyone respects," I
retorted.
"I'm not a--"
"Are you not?" Del interrupted. "No, perhaps not--you only accept the horses
other people steal."
Garrod answered her in a dialect I didn't know at all. But whatever he said
went home, because I saw Del's color go bad again. She answered sharply, and
her fingers twitched as if she meant to draw her sword.
"Now, wait--" I began, and then suddenly the others were among us.
Adara's green eyes glinted. "Are they going to fight?"
"No," I told her flatly.
"Are you going to fight?"
"None of us is going to fight, and I thought I told all of you to wait in the
cave while Del and I talk to the Canteada."
Cipriana shrugged ingenuously. "We heard you arguing."
Massou's blue eyes were wide beneath a shock of ragged blond hair. "We had to
come out," he said.
Del's patience quite clearly was at an end. "This is private," she snapped.
"This is private, and requires none of your attention. Has no one taught you
manners? Has no one taught you respect?"
Massou's fingers plucked at her arm. "Are you going to invite the
horse-speaker into a circle?"
Bloodthirsty little brat. "No," I said, "she's not. But even if she were, it's
none of your concern."
Massou glared at me. "I was asking her."
Rude little brat, too. "I think it would be best--"
In the distance, the stud nickered uneasily.
"See?" Garrod asked.
Massou gazed at Del. "I think you should fight him."
"I don't." Her tone was very clipped. "I think we should recall where we are.
I
think we should mend our manners. I think--" She broke it off. "It doesn't
matter what I think." Abruptly, she turned and left.
"Angry," Adara said.
Cipriana nodded. "Lately, Del is always angry. Angry deep inside."
"And frightened," agreed Massou. "I can feel her fear."
It was, I thought, an altogether unnecessary conversation, and quickly going
nowhere. "What Del is, is tired of playing herd dog to your flock of sheep," I
told them bluntly. "We have business of our own, serious business, and you've
slowed us down. We're running out of time; Del has that to think of."
"What about us?" Massou demanded. "Are you just going to leave us here?"
"No." I gritted it out between my teeth. "I wouldn't do that to the Canteada."
Garrod laughed softly, said something in uplander, then bent down and entered
the tunnel. Leaving us to our argument.
I tried to step around them all, but Cipriana was in the way. "Are you going
after her?"
"Cip--"
"Are you?" She moved closer. "Do you always trail after her like a dog who's
been abused, but comes back begging for more?" Closer yet. "You shouldn't. You
shouldn't. You don't need her, Tiger. You don't need a woman like that; a
woman
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