sent back from foreign parts. Since his duties left him no chance to travel overseas, her father liked to line his workroom with exotica.
Her father might be annoyed to find the Xanamwiinik dueling sword gone, but surely he’d understand why she had carried it with her across the sea.
The blade was long and heavy and bright. The Wasp’s sailmaker had shown her how to keep it from rusting during those months at sea.
And he’d shown her how to use it, as well. His legs being as they were, he could no longer enact the moves, but by Ahkin, he could make Ixkaab dance! Up and down the deck, ’til the strange grip felt normal in her hand and the weight of the sword on her arm. And then its silver tip up and down the mast-that-was-her-enemy, until Kaab was sure her enemy stood no chance. But when the sailmaker lifted a marlinespike, and showed her what a clever blade could do to dance around her like a dragonfly in heat—Kaab smiled at the memory. It wasn’t a toy, after all.
She was glad the Local sword hung at her hip now. There were very few people on the street, although it was nearly midday. But they had to be somewhere. Indoors, maybe? Few of the cunning, twisted chimneys gave forth smoke.
The Riverside stone still exuded coldness from the night; and judging by how the houses nearly met across the narrow, filthy streets, the sun probably never reached between them long enough to warm them. On one street Kaab went down, most of the houses looked abandoned: wooden doors rotted, shutters and glass gone from the windows. Ancient staircases up to nowhere.
Kaab headed for a street where she could see wash lines hung across the road between houses. The sheets on them were yellowed, the underwear torn—but between them were bursts of color, like parrots roosting in a tree: a bright scarf, a frilled skirt, a stripy stocking . . . Poor people. But ones who liked some flash and dazzle.
Ixkaab counted dozens of mangy cats on the streets, the roofs, the doorways, cats of all sizes and colors—some new to her—all of them scrawny, many of them patchy and bitten; but she didn’t see a lot of rats. Good for you, kitties! she thought.
I know my love by his way of walking
And I know my love by his way of talking
And I know my love by his steel so true
And if one love leaves me, I’ll seek a new!
A woman was singing vigorously to herself, loud enough to be heard around the corner. Kaab slowed and took the side of a house, to see before she was seen.
The woman was leaning against a wall, catching a bit of sun on her pale, pale face. But her hair was aglow already. Kaab blinked. It was no trick of the light: the woman’s hair was the color of clouds at sunset, of a good ripe mango, of a hunter’s fire. If not for her face, she would be a creature of fire—but no: The woman heaved a long sigh, and her bosom rose like Ixel’s pale twin moons from the top of her gown.
Kaab let her breath out slowly. Was this a Riverside prostitute, waiting for customers? Was her song some kind of signal to let people know? If so, where were they all? Why weren’t the streets lined up five deep to taste the nectar of this woman’s lips, bright and pink as the blush on her pale cheeks . . . to unbind those twin moons and let them sail the skies of pleasure . . .
“I’m going to kill you, Ben!” the street goddess yelled up at a window above her.
A bright head popped out of it. “Not if I kill you first!” A young man’s face, pretty and delicate as Chamwiinik porcelain, capped with tousled golden hair that just had to be fake. “You’ve hidden my best striped jacket!”
“I’ve pawned your ugly jacket!” Her hands on her hips, her head tilted up to the window, the sun-haired, moon-bosomed woman turned her back to Kaab. Her buttocks . . . well, there might be some padding under that skirt. Against the cold, maybe. But then, there might not.
“It wasn’t funny the first time, Tess, and it isn’t funny now! Come up and get me my goddamned jacket! Or I swear I’ll—”
“Get it yourself,” she sang. “It’s under the bed, where you flung it last night sometime between when you got that message from your father, and when you finally stopped drinking.”
“Very funny.” But his head ducked back inside. The words wafted faintly out: “I looked under the— Oh.”
“Oh.” The woman Tess smiled to herself with those ripe guava lips. She leaned back against the wall, picked up a skein of her glorious hair, and started braiding it into tiny braids.
Kaab murmured a Tullan verse to herself: “If I were your sweet sister, I would braid your night hair into as many strands as there are stars in the sky . . . and if it took all night, and the next night after that, then who could fault or interrupt us?”
The door sprang open, revealing the gold-haired Ben in a fine, bold jacket of green and red stripes, buckling on a sword. At last! Kaab thought. Some clothes with color! But any approval she had for this Ben vanished when he seized Tess roughly by the arm.
“Let go of me, you sot!” she said.
Of course! He must be the man who sold her love, to pay for his vainglorious jackets. Pimp, that was the word. Local custom or not, Kaab couldn’t stand it. And hadn’t he also just threatened to kill this glorious woman? She had come to Riverside to try her sword, and this was her perfect chance.
She stepped forth from the shadows.
“The brightest of mornings to the one of you, and a heap of trouble to the other.” Kaab didn’t know how these people issued a challenge, but he could hardly mistake her meaning.
The pimp stared at her. And then he laughed. “Nice outfit, sister,” he said, “but the Riverboaters’ Masquerade was last month.”
Masquerade? Oh, he meant her clothes. Kaab tightened her woven sash ostentatiously, and showed him the scabbard at her side. “I do not joke.”
“I do not care,” he mocked.
“Shhh!” Tess pulled at his sleeve. “Ben, she’s one of those chocolate people!”
He grinned. “Chocolate, huh? And does your rich Trader mama know you’re out here in big bad Riverside, little girl?”
Kaab breathed in slowly through her nose. She had no trouble understanding Ben’s language. His accent was like the sailmaker’s, and he spoke as loud as a village priest.
“I will be clear,” she said distinctly. “You trouble this lady. You insult my people, my mother, and my dress. You have a sword. I have a sword. Is more clearness needed?”
“‘Is more clearness needed?’” He seemed to be mocking her accent. “Well, that depends.” He put his hand on his hilt. At last. “I might need to see what color your blood is.”
“Ben!” The glorious Tess was actually pulling on his arm. “That cart won’t wait forever! Do you want to see your father before he dies, or not?”
“This won’t take long.” He shook his woman off.
Decency required that Kaab just let him go to attend his father’s deathbed—but her liver-spirit was too stirred up to care. If he’d rather fight her, let him. She’d make short work of him and his insults. She drew her blade, all thoughts of formal challenge gone. And Ben drew his.
Like buzzards scenting meat, people were flocking to the space around them, making a rough circle for them to fight in, shouting incomprehensible things. It was crude, it was bizarre, it was outlandish—and Ixkaab Balam felt alive, for the first time in weeks.
Ben lunged at her at once—in a hurry to catch his cart, no doubt—but she knew this one; the sailmaker had taught her. Her wrist moved, and his blade slipped off hers with a grinding noise that made her grin. Take that, you mangy little pimp!
“She knows what she’s doing, Ben!” Tess cried. “For godsakes, stop!”
Kaab’s wrist finished the move, twirling her point