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gods?"
His eyes flickered. Those liquid, melting, honey-brown eyes, set beneath
mobile eyebrows.
"I don't know what I expected."
"Oh, I think maybe you do."
He met the challenge. "All right. I dared to hope, once or twice, that you
might be pleased."
I was completely, tactlessly honest with him. "I'm not certain that's possible
at this particular moment."
It shocked him. Shook him. Then he put on a mask, hiding his feelings. "Now
what?"
"Now you go back to Mehmet's little village."
"What about you?"
"Oh, I'm going to go sit in the dark for a while and think about things."
He opened his mouth. Then shut it. No doubt there were all manner of things he
wish to say, of questions he wished to ask, but he had the sense to realize
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now was not after all the best of times to say or ask any of them.
He turned to go.
Went.
I walked unsteadily back into darkness, gripping my jivatma.
When I came down from what remained of Beit al'Shahar, Del was waiting. She
sat beside the stream on the far side, watching idly as I made my way across
the stepping stones. By the time I got there, arms outstretched for balance,
she was standing.
She smiled, lifting her voice over the rushing of the water. "You look as if
someone hit you over the head with a cantina stool."
Since she had seen me be the victim of that very occurence, she knew what she
was talking about. "Someone did."
She looked more closely. "Are you all right?"
"For someone who's been hit over the head with a cantina stool." I was still
trying to reconcile emotions. "I just can't make my brain understand it. It
heard the words, even understands them, but refuses to acknowledge that they
apply to me. I mean, I know he told me the truth "
"Do you?"
I looked at her. "Yes."
"Do you?"
I released a long breath. "Yes."
"But you didn't feel inclined to fall at his feet and praise the gods."
I winced. "He told you."
"I believe he got hit with the same cantina stool."
"Hoolies, Del, I didn't mean it to come out like that. But he wanted me to say
I was pleased, and how could I? I'm too confused to be pleased!"
"Are you displeased?"
"No! I'm too confused to be anything." I stared at her pleadingly. "Don't you
understand?
It's not something I ever contemplated. Not once."
Her chin lifted. "Nor ever wanted?"
I flung out a hand. "Look at what happened to me! I was born as my mother lay
dying in the middle of the Punja. I survived only because the Salset came
along and they made me a slave!
Salset slaves don't have children. They may sire some, or bear some, but they
aren't allowed to keep them. Then for twenty-three years I've been a
sword-dancer, never sticking anywhere. It's no kind of life for a woman " I
saw the flicker in her eyes but didn't retreat. " who wants to
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have her man nearby, and a family. I can't be that kind of a man for that kind
of a woman. So I
never thought about it, until that foolish foreign kid with the axes went
around telling everyone he was mine, knowing full well he wasn't."
"Neesha isn't that foolish foreign kid. He is your son."
"I know. I know." I shook my head. "I just can't think, bascha. There's too
much in my head.
I need time to work through all of it."
"Why? You don't have to raise him. He's a grown man. All you have to do is
acknowledge
him."
That stung. "I didn't say he wasn't my son!"
"But you told him you weren't pleased."
"Because I wasn't! I wasn't anything. Hoolies, I was lucky I could find the
words to say anything at all."
Del smiled faintly. "The Sandtiger speechless. Truly a miracle."
I had to make her understand. "There is nothing, nothing in this world that
could have stunned me more than what that kid told me. I don't know how else I
could have reacted under the circumstances. I did the best I could. Maybe it
wasn't enough, maybe it wasn't what he wanted, but it was all I had in me
right then." I shook my head, still lacking words. "I've never claimed to be a
perfect man, and I sure as hoolies wouldn't claim to be a perfect father.
Especially when I didn't know I was a father at all."
I must have made some headway; her tone was kinder. "I did warn him not to
have expectations."
"Well, I think he did!"
"Hopes, perhaps. How could he not? He has known since childhood you were his
father.
He's heard all the stories of the legendary Sandtiger. He has wanted to find
you for all of those years. But he was afraid."
"Afraid?"
"That you would disbelieve."
"I did not tell him I disbelieved him."
"Nor did you welcome him." She put up a hand to halt more protestations. "It [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]