"02 - Sword Singer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberson Jennifer)

sword, a Southron sword, something I can trust."
"Trust that one," she told me calmly. "Never doubt it, or yourself; in your
hands, it knows no magic. With Theron dead, it's only a sword. You know that.
I've told you."
Told me, yes, because she knew how I felt about it. About the loss of
Singlestroke. To a sword-dancer, a man who makes his living with the sword, a
good blade is more than just a piece of steel. It's an extension of himself, as
much a part of him as hand or foot, though decidedly deadlier. Your weapon
lives, breathes, takes precedence over so much, because without it you are
nothing.
For me, it was less than nothing; Singlestroke had given me freedom.
Theron's sword, I knew, was not precisely dead, but neither did it live. Not as
Del's blade did. But there was something about it, something odd; when I put my
hands upon the twisted hilt, I always felt a stranger, a usurper, little better
than a thief. And I always felt a funny little twitch in the hilt, a recoiling,
as if the sword, too, was startled by my touch. As if it expected another's
flesh touching its own in that odd intercourse of man and sword. More than once
I'd wanted to mention it to Del, but I never had. Something kept me from it.
Pride, maybe. Or maybe just an unwillingness to admit I felt anything; I am not
a man who puts much stock in magic, and the last one to admit I sensed such
power in a sword. Even if it was mostly dissipated. For one, she might tell me I
was imagining things.
For another, she might tell me I wasn't.
Del understands swords. Like me, she is a sword-dancer, improbable as it sounds.
(Hoolies, it had taken me long enough to admit it; even now I still flinch a
little when she steps into the circle to spar with me. I'm just not used to
facing a woman--at least, not in the circle.) Our customs are so different, too
different here in the South, where the sun and sand hold dominance. Del had done
her best to alter my perceptions (and continues to alter them on a daily basis),
but parts of me still view her as a woman, not a sword-dancer.
Of course just about the last thing a man might want of Del is a sword-dance.
Dancing, yes, but not in the circle. Not with a steel blade... or whatever other
kind of metal the jivatma was.
In the South, a woman has nothing to do with weapons of any kind. She tends the
house, the hyort, the wagon; tends the children, the chickens, the goats; tends
the man who calls her his.
But Del is Northern, not Southron. Del has no house or hyort or wagon, no
children, chickens or goats. And she does not, most emphatically, have a man who
calls her his, because Del belongs solely to Delilah.
Of course, I know better than to try.
I know better. But I try.
I looked at Del, knowing better than most what lay under the burnous; beneath
the sleeveless, thigh-length, rune-stitched leather tunic hidden by glossy silk.
She is tall. Slender, but sinewy. Narrow-waisted, but wide-shouldered. Tough.
Fit. Far stronger than an ordinary woman. There is nothing at all of fragility
about Del, though she is all female, and all the pieces are quite distinctly in
the proper places.
Blue-eyed, fair-haired, fair-skinned bascha, although after a few years under
the Southron sun the hair is nearly white and the skin a tawny, creamy gold.
We are so different, Delilah and I. I am a true son of the desert: skin burned