I gifted her with my finest, fiercest sandtiger's glare. "So, you want me to hide up here in this pisshole while you go hunting a swordsmith in a town you don't know?"

She was not impressed by the glare. "You don't know it much better. And I can ask directions."

"A lone woman? In the South? Looking for a swordsmith?"

Del opened her mouth, then closed it.

"Yes," I said. "We're in the South again." Which was very different from the North, where women had more freedom, and very much different from Skandi, where women ran things altogether.

'I could," she said, but there wasn't much challenge in it. Del was stubborn, but she understood reality. Even when it wasn't fair.

(Once upon a time she ignored reality, but time—and, dare I admit it, my influence—had changed her.)

'Tell you what, bascha. I'll compromise."

With excess drama, "You?"

I ignored that. "We'll send a boy out to the best swordsmith in Haziz and have him come here."

Del considered. "Fair enough."

"And after that," I said, wincing, "I'll have to pay a visit to the stud."

"Ah, yes," she agreed, nodding. "Maybe he'll save the sword-dancers some trouble and kill you himself."

"Well, since you're so all-fired ready to protect me, why don't you ride him first?"

Del scowled. Grinning, I exited the room to scare up a likely boy to run the message summoning a swordsmith.

The swordsmith's two servants delivered several bulky wrapped bundles to our room as well as a selection of harnesses, swordbelts, and sheaths. Then they bowed themselves out to permit their employer to conduct business. That employer was an older man in black robes and turban, gray of hair and beard but hardly frail because of it. Anyone who spends years pounding metal to fold it multitudinous times trains his body into fitness. A different kind from mine, perhaps, because of different needs, but age had not weakened him. Nor his assessment of customers.

After formal pleasantries that included small cups of astringent tea, he had me stand before him, then looked at me and saw everything Del had described earlier, cataloging details. All of them mattered in such things as selecting a weapon. Most tall men had long legs but short to medium torsos; shorter men gained what height they had in a long torso. I, on the other hand, was balanced. My height came from neither, but from both. I had discovered that in Skandi mine was the normal build. Here in the South, it was not. Southroners were shorter, more slender but wiry, very quick, and markedly agile.

Fortunately, I had been gifted with speed despite my size, and superior strength. Both had served me well.

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 amusement 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 lust-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 grass 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 assessment, 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.