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"Once you explain just why we have to stop first at a cantina, before buying
water or a horse."
"There is a room for rent."
"How long are we staying?"
"Overnight, at least. I want a bath, a good meal, a bed. You may join me, if
you like." I thought it only polite to extend an invitation; Del hates to be
taken for granted.
She slid off the stud. "I thought you wanted to buy a horse."
"First a drink. And a bath. Then food. Then a bed. In the morning comes the
horse." I kicked free of the stirrup and hoisted my fragile knee across the
saddle. "What I want most to do is sit quietly for a while in the shade, out
of the sun, musing contentedly over aqivi--or wine, if there's no aqivi--and
then I'll tend to the rest."
Del smiled as I somewhat gingerly allowed the street to take my weight.
Everything I owned ached. "Go in," she said kindly as I bit my lip on an oath.
"I will see to the stud."
I wasn't about to remonstrate, even if her behavior was out of the ordinary.
Usually she argues against stops at cantinas. "Around there." I flopped a hand
in the proper direction. "It isn't much of a stable, but there's shade and
water."
Del took the reins. "Will I have to pay for it?"
"I told you: I know the owner." I paused. "He only charges me half."
"Half," Del muttered, and led the stud around the corner.
When she came back, I was sitting on a rickety three-legged stool in the
rickety cantina, slumped forward over the rickety table with my chin in
blue-nailed hand, elbow planted so as to prop me up. In my other hand was a
bone-beige, unglazed clay cup of aqivi, mostly drunk. Altogether I
was feeling rather rickety myself, in a numb, groggy, twitchy sort of way.
There was no one else in the cantina. Del, fighting her way through tattered
awning, stopped short upon seeing me--and no one else--and stared musingly
around the room.
"Well," she said finally, "I knew you needed a bath, but maybe I've just
gotten used to you and it's worse than I thought."
"You know," I opined, "you're not particularly good at that."
Pale brows arched. "Good at what?"
"Making up jokes." I hoisted the clay up to my mouth, swallowed more aqivi,
set it down again.
"But then, that's never been a quality I looked for in a woman."
Pale brows came back down. And knitted. "How much have you had?" She moved
carefully through a thicket of rickety stools and tables. "I haven't been gone
that long."
I considered it. "Long enough," I told her eventually. "Long enough for me to
find out Akbar's dead."
She paused at my--our?--table. "Akbar was your friend the owner?"
"Yes." I drank more aqivi.
"I'm sorry," she said inadequately.
"Yes." The cup was empty. I put it down, picked up the ceramic jug--the lip
was chipped and cracked--and splashed liquor in the general vicinity of the
cup. The pungent tang of very young aqivi filled my nose. "Have some aqivi,
bascha."
She glanced around. "Water will be fine ... is there anyone here?"
"Water costs three coppers a cup. Aqivi's cheaper."
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"I don't like aqivi." Still she looked around, peering into the gloom. "Are we
alone here?"
"Akbar's cousin is somewhere in back." I waved a hand.
"Is he that borjuni who charged me ten coppers to stable the stud, then five
more for water?"
"I told you aqivi's cheaper."
"You can hardly give aqivi to a horse." She hooked a stool with a foot and
dragged it out. "Of course, with his temperament, you might as well." She eyed
my jug. "Are you going to drink all of that?"
"Unless you want to help me."
Del assessed me a moment. "Are you all right?"
"I'm tired," I told her. "Tired of finding out my friends are dying. Wondering
if I'm next."
A brief smile curved her mouth, then died away. "I'm sorry your friend is
dead. But I think you're in no danger."
"Oh? Why not? My line of work is rather risky, upon occasion."
She picked at the splintered table with a fingernail cut short for bladework.
"Because you are much like your horse: too stubborn to give up."
"Right now I'm not stubborn. Just a little drunk." I swallowed more aqivi.
"You'll say I should have eaten first, and be right. You'll say I should quit
now, and be right. You'll say I'll feel better in the morning after a good
night's sleep, and be right." I stared balefully at her over the thumb-
printed rim of the clay cup. "Is there anything you're ever wrong about?"
Del stopped picking splinters. "I was wrong about offering your services to
Staal-Ysta."
I brightened. "So you were."
"And wrong about you, period." She eyed the cup darkly, but said nothing about
aqivi souring my temper. Of course, she didn't have to. "When we first met, I
disliked you intensely. And you
deserved it. You were everything I thought you were. A typical Southron male."
Her mouth quirked. "But you improved with time. You're much more bearable
now."
"Thank you."
"Mmm." She glanced around again. "If Akbar's cousin does not arrive very soon,
I'm going to help myself to the water. For free."
She wouldn't. She'd leave the money. "Here." I held out the cup. "It'll wet
your throat."
"I don't want it."
"Have you ever had it?"
"I tried it once."
"A whole cup? Or just a swallow?"
"One swallow was enough."
"You didn't like me either, at first. You just said so."
Del sighed, scratching wearily at a shoulder. "Sit here and drink, if you like
... I think I will gather the botas and fill them."
I waved a hand. "There's a big well in the market square. That way. They'll
charge you."
"Three coppers a cup?" Del rose, kicking back her stool. "And how much for a
bota?"
I thought about it. "Don't know. Prices fluctuate. Depends on how good you are
at dickering." I
eyed her: tall, lean, lovely. And incredibly lethal. "If you went about it
right, you could probably save yourself a few coppers."
"Probably," she said dryly. "But I don't think submerging my dignity for a few
coppers' worth of discount is a fair exchange."
I filled my mouth with aqivi as Del walked out of the cantina. Because I had
no answer.
Sundown. And no candles, lamps, or torches because you had to pay for them. At
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the moment, I
saw no need; orange-pink-purple sunset tinged the lath-screened cantina pale
violet.
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