Page 24 of Silk & Sand
For once, Raider wasn’t pleased to see the Curator. He had hoped Gangi would invite him to lunch with the family so Raider could share the salted pork he’d brought. As charity, Gangi would refuse the meat, but he’d accept it as a host gift. Rather, his wife would, and Raider wouldn’t mind a bowl of the woman’s fantastic tabbouleh.
“My traveling partner,” Raider informed Gangi, who handed him the pipe again.
“Ah. Is it true he’s a barbarian?”
“Who said that?” Raider took a deep draw of the dokka. Barbarian tended to be a catchall term for ‘not from here,’ but the way Gangi said it attached a less flattering meaning.
“Four different people. They say he has a very big sword.”
Raider choked on the smoke. As he started hacking, Gangi rescued the pipe from his jerking hand and slapped him (unhelpfully) on the back.
By the time Raider was scrubbing his streaming eyes against his kaftan sleeve, mostly recovered, Seth was striding across Gangi’s yard. Squawking chickens fled in every direction.
“Well,” Raider drawled, eyes flicking from the sword pommel jutting above Seth’s right shoulder to the man’s groin. “If four people said it, I will dare hope it’s true.”
Now it was Gangi’s turn to choke. As the man hacked smoke from his lungs, Raider gave him the same unhelpful pat that he had received.
“So this is what you’re doing,” Seth accused as he came to a halt in Gangi’s yard, planting his fists on his hips, somehow fitting them amid the clutter of gear and weapons on his utility belt. “Smoking.”
Had a word ever been laced with such contempt?
Raider was so torn between amusement and annoyance that he decided to keep to himself why he’d come to see Gangi. Let the man stew. He deserved it.
Eyeing Seth warily, Gangi climbed to his feet, dispelling Raider’s last, faint hope of a lunch invitation.
“First light?” Gangi asked.
Refusing to get up just yet, Raider said, “Thank you, my friend.”
Gangi hustled away on bare feet, robes flapping around his skinny legs as he ducked around the side of the house and out of sight.
“Must you be such a brute?” Raider asked lightly, hoping to see those green eyes spark with that delicious temper. (He would definitely take the temper over this steely judgment.)
Instead, Seth’s gaze went flat. “I don’t have time for games—”
“Or manners, apparently.”
“—because I am on a schedule,” Seth went on relentlessly, “which means that you are on a schedule.”
Climbing to his feet, Raider let out a dramatic sigh designed to annoy Seth. “Back to work, it seems.”
As Raider headed toward Gangi’s fig tree to collect Umae, Seth bit out, “I need to speak with you.”
Raider could guess why, and he didn’t want to get into it here. He knew Seth’s flat tone for what it was: the calm before a storm. He’d heard it yesterday in Ahmet’s courtyard. He’d eased up on Seth then, had let him off easy. Raider wouldn’t be so nice again.
But Gangi’s yard wasn’t the place for them to … well, who knew? Fighting seemed most likely, but there were other possibilities.
“I need to take Umae back to the stables,” Raider said as he untied the sleek chestnut mare and led her clear of the tree. “If you’re fast enough, you can catch me there. If not, I’d try the tavern.”
“Raider—”
He swung onto Umae’s bare back, touched his heels to her sides, and enjoyed the look of blazing frustration on Seth’s face as the mare leaped into a canter. Raider sent a parting grin over his shoulder.
***
In Ahmet’s (second best) room, Raider was packing a few final items into his saddlebags when the approaching tromp of heavy boots had his grin returning. He straightened as Seth whipped the doorway curtain aside and ducked inside.
Between the mattress on the floor, the washbasin, and Raider’s strewn belongings, the cubby-like room offered little space for two men, especially when one was bristling with weapons.