"Jennifer Roberson - Sword Dancer 6 - Sword-sworn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberson Jennifer)

The arch in the brow flattened. Del still wasn't sure how to take jiokes about my new status.
Hoolies, joking about it was all I could do, since I didn't understand much about the new status
myself.
Del decided to ignore it. "So. A circle."
I felt that was entirely self-evident and thus regarded her in fulsomely patient silence.
Her expression was carefully blanked. "And you're in it."
I nodded gravely. "So is my sword."
Now she was startled. "Sword?"
I hefted it illustatively.
"That's a stick, Tiger."
I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. "And here you've been telling me for
years I have no imagination." I pointed with said stick. "Go get yourself one. I put a few over
there, by that pile of rocks."
Both brows shot up toward her hairline. "You want to spar?"
"I do."
"I thought—" But she broke it off sharply. Then had the grace to blush.
Delilah blushing is not anything approaching ordinary. I was delighted, even though the
reason for it was not particularly complimentary. "What, you thought I was lying to you, or
giving in to wishful thinking? Maybe fooling myself altogether about developing new skills
and moves?"
She did not look away—Del avoids no truths, even the hard ones—but neither did the
blush recede.
I shook my head. "I thought you understood what all the weeks of physical training have
been about."
"Recovery," she said. "Getting fit."
"I have recovered, and I am fit."
She did not demur; it was true. "But you did all that without a circle."
So I had. And then some. Though I had yet to sort out how I had managed it. A man
entering his fourth decade cannot begin to compete with the man in his second. But even my
knees of late had given up complaining.
Maybe it was the ocean air.
Or not.
It was the 'or not' that made me nervous.
Clearing my throat, I declared, "I will dance my own dances, Del."
"But—" Again she silenced herself.
 But. A very heavy word, that 'but,' freighted with all manner of innuendo and implication.
But.
But, she wanted to ask, how does a man properly grip a sword when he's missing the little
fingers on both hands? But, how does he keep that grip if a blade strikes his? But, how can he
hope to overcome an opponent in the circle? How can he win the dance? How can he, who
carries a price on his head, win back his life in the ritualized combat of the South, when he has
been cast out of it by his own volition? When the loss of the fingers precludes all former skill?
But.
I saw the assumption in her eyes, the slight flicker of concern.
"I have every intention of dancing," I said quietly, "and none at all of dying." For as long as
possible.
"Can you?" she asked, frank at last.
"Dance? Yes. Win? Well, we've never properly settled that question, have we? Some days
you'll win, other days I will." I shrugged. How many of those days I had left was open to
interpretation. "As for the others I'll dance with . . . well, we'll just have to wait and see." .