FIFTEEN

IT WAS conveyed to us by the kilted servant that the metri would have us all in to dinner. I got the impression this was a rare occurence; not that guests weren't hosted properly, but that two of those guests were renegadas.

Ah well. After my discussion with Herakleio, I was primed for a more interesting atmosphere.

Which is exactly what I got. Del and I were escorted into a large, airy dining chamber already peopled by Prima Rhannet, her first mate, Herakleio, and the metri herself. Who, standing quietly beside the door, greeted me courteously, then smashed the flat of her hand into the side of my face.

The shock of it drove me back a step. Instinct took over instantly, and I trapped her wrist in one hand before she could strike again, though she did not appear to intend it.

I rubbed the knuckles of my other hand against my stinging cheek. "What in hoolies was that for?"

"Punishment," she said crisply, "for striking Herakleio."

"Now, wait just a moment-"

"It was required. I am the metri. Discipline is dictated by me."

"And what about Herakleio trying to strike a guest in the metri's household?"

"Herakleio has been punished as well."

I glanced beyond her to the table. Herakleio glared back at me. Yes, his left cheek bore a ruddy spot high on the bone.

I released her wrist. "If you intend me to make a man of him, it's going to require more than sweet words and soft caresses."

She inclined her head. "I give you leave to do what is required."

"At the risk of getting smacked around by you?" I shook my head. "That's not in the contract."

"We have no contract," she answered at once. "This is a debt, which you intend to discharge." Her eyes glinted. "However, the point has been made and need not be repeated. Now, seat yourselves at my table and enjoy the bounty of the house."

I turned as she moved through the door away from the table. "What about you?"

She paused. "There are things to be settled among you. It were better done without my presence, so you may speak freely."

And then she was gone, leaving Del and me staring in bemusement at the others.

Prima snorted, poured herself wine from ajar. "Neatly done," she said. "Why soil herself by eating in the same room as renegadas?"

"What about me?" Herakleio shot back. "I am left to eat in the same room as renegadas."

"But you are already hopelessly soiled," Prima retorted. "You slept with a renegada."

"You weren't one then!"

"No," she agreed. "I was the daughter of a slaver. Likely the metri believes that every bit as bad." She gulped wine, smiled through glistening droplets painting her wide mouth. "Herak, you are such a child sometimes. But pretty, I will admit."

He recoiled. "Pretty!"

She waved a hand in my direction as Del and I took our seats at the table. "All you Stessoi are pretty. Even the women."

"You would know," he sneered. "Though no Stessa would ever demean herself and dishonor her family by-" A pause. "-cohabiting with such as you."

"Such as I," Prima said silkily, "come from the best families."

"Not yours."

"Oh, mine is a family of slavers. But what of the original Eleven Families? Can you swear there is no other woman such as I, nor a man who might prefer another man in his bed?" She smiled sweetly. "One such as you, perhaps."

Beneath his tan, Herakleio turned pale as bleached linen, then reddened nearly to purple. He was so shocked and outraged he couldn't summon a voice to speak with.

Prima laughed at him. "No, Herak, I do not suggest your taste runs in that direction. Be at ease. I only meant that certain men may desire you even as women do."

Clearly he had never considered that. But then, neither had I. I knew of such men, such interests, of course, but had never really contemplated how I'd feel were I the object of another man's interest.

Prima Rhannet, having plunged both Herakleio and me into mutual black scowls and deep thoughts, grinned at Del. "Men are such fools, sometimes. They think they are that which dangles between their legs." She lifted her cup as if in salute. "While we women know the only truly important part of the body resides within our skulls."

"Perhaps," Del agreed, dipping a chunk of bread into olive oil, "but that need not mean we are better than they."

"Women are better than men."

"Some women are better than some men," Del countered quietly, and filled her mouth with bread.

I had poured myself some wine. Now I stopped the cup halfway to my mouth. "That isn't what you claimed when we first met!"

Del arched brows at me and continued to chew.

"It isn't," I repeated. "You told me men were nothing but beasts driven by lust and violence."

She hitched a shoulder. "The men I knew were. I had gone South, remember?"

"What about me?"

She didn't answer, which was answer in itself.

I set the cup down with a thump. "If I'm that bad-"

"You were," Del said. "But you aren't anymore. I have leavened you-" She grinned. "-like bread."

"Thank you for that, bascha!"

"You inspire me." Prima took off a chunk of bread from the loaf in the center of the table and sopped it in olive oil. "The truth is, all men are born fools," she declared, "and if you forget, they remind you."

Nihko was being conspicuously silent. I fixed him with a hard eye. "What have you to say?"

He had bypassed the bread and was serving himself a large fish from the platter. "I? Nothing. I know better."

"He has heard it before," Prima said.

Herakleio's color was high. "And he has little to say for men, anyway. He is missing a significant portion of those parts Prima repudiates so eloquently."

It was purposely cruel. It was also a killing offense, though Nihko simply began stripping meat from the fish.

Prima wasn't smiling or laughing anymore. "He will not provoke," she said. "But I will, Herak."

Herakleio feigned fear, then looked at me. "Did Nihkolara explain why he is-without? How he came to lose that which he most adored, and wielded most assiduously?"

"Enough," Prima said.

"How he alone seemingly intended to people several islands with his byblows," Herakleio continued, "and might well have accomplished it had he kept himself to whores and unmarried women. But he did not. There was the Palomedi metri's daughter, you see-when the metri herself believed he was faithful to her. "

"Recall what he is!" Prima said sharply.

Herakleio filled it with scorn. "Ikepra."

I poured more wine. It was very good. Maybe it wouldn't be so difficult to remain here for a while. "This is what I enjoy most in life," I said lightly, "good food, good wine, good friends."

Del's expression was guileless. "Pity Abbu Bensir isn't present." Before I could say yea or nay, she served me with something from a common dish.

"Who?" Herakleio asked crossly, even as I scowled at Del.

I peered at the food, frowning. It looked like leaves all rolled up into miniature sleeping bundles.

"Abbu Bensir is a sword-dancer," Del answered. "A very good sword-dancer. In fact, he claims to be the best in the South."

"Ah." Prima shot a grin at me. "Surely there are those who disagree."

"Surely there are," Del confirmed demurely.

"What is this?" I poked the rolled plant with a wary finger.

Prima leaned, plucked one bundle from my plate, paused long enough to say "stuffed grape leaves" and bit it in half.

"Stuffed with what?"

"Kill-for-hires," Herakleio said dismissively.

For one bizarre moment I thought he meant that's what was rolled up inside the grape leaves. But no.

Del turned at once to me. "Is that true? That all sword-dancers are hired murderers?"

She could answer as well as I. For some reason she didn't want to. I bestowed upon her a look that promised we'd discuss this later, then glanced at Herakleio.

"I have killed," I said. "But then most men have, in the Punja, because there is often no choice. But that has little to do with being a sword-dancer."

"How not?" Prima asked, having survived the leaf-bundle.

Herakleio snorted disdain, helping himself to the common bowl.

"I dance," I pointed out. "I am hired by tanzeers-our desert princes-to settle disputes in the circle so that men need not die." I shrugged. "Skirmishes, battles, and wars waste men in a hostile land that kills too many by itself. It's simply good sense to save lives by settling disputes in the circle."

"But you say you've killed!"

I picked up one of the leaf-bundles Del had bestowed upon me. "Bandits," I answered. "Borjuni. Slavers. Tanzeers." I bit into the bundle, contemplated its flavor, swallowed. "Sorcerers."

That shocked Herakleio. "Sorcerers!"

"Have you none here?" Del asked.

"loSkandi," Prima said, avoiding Nihko's look.

"Who?" I asked. "What are they, anyway? I've heard the term before." I shot a glance at Nihko. "Though it seems to be a secret."

He smiled enigmatically. "And so it shall remain."

Herakleio turned the topic back upon itself. "This Abbu Bensir," he said. "Is he better than you?"

I opened my mouth to answer, shut it. Was aware of Del's attention though she hid it, and the scrutiny of the others. In the South I might have immediately confirmed my status with dramatic bravado, but I was not in the South. And for some reason, here and now, I felt like telling the truth. "I don't know."

"Have you ever danced against him?"

"Many times."

"Then you should know who is better. Or are you afraid to admit he is?"

"We were trained together, Abbu and I. We sparred many times then, and have since, to test skills and conditioning. But we have met only one time in a circle that would have determined who truly was better."

"And the result?"

I shook my head. "There was none. The dance was never finished."

"Ah." Herakleio smiled as if he knew why. "And so the true answer must wait for another time, another circle, and another dance."

"No," I said.

"What, then? Is he dead?"

"He was very much alive the last time we saw him."

"Then why will you never settle things?" Herakleio demanded. "Are you afraid?"

The food was suddenly tasteless in my mouth. "There are rituals. Honor codes, oaths, things that bind those of us who are trained by swordmasters such as I was, and Abbu. In the circle dishonor is not tolerated, nor broken oaths. Not among true sword-dancers; there are men who fancy themselves sword-dancers, who attempt to act the part, but they aren't. They just want the glory without the years, the work."

"Or the oaths," Del said softly.

I shrugged. "Abbu and I might meet again someday, but it won't be to settle who is better. It will be a death-dance, to punish a man who broke all the codes and honor of Alimat."

"Why?" Herakleio demanded.

"Elaii-ali-ma, " I answered. Then phrased it in a word they'd understand, as I looked at Nihkolara. "I'm ikepra, too."

The muscles of his face stilled. His hands stopped moving. Even his eyes, fixed on me, were hard as stone.

Among dangerous men there are two kinds of quietude of the body: when he is at ease, and when he wishes to attack. The latter is not the same as being prepared to fight or to defend, though it can be mistaken as such by the inexperienced. The latter is neither bluster nor challenge, but the willingness and the wish to tear into pieces the offending party.

And not doing it.

Beside me, Del, too, stilled. Prima Rhannet had stopped breathing. Only Herakleio, blind to the tensions, was relaxed. And smiling, as if pleased by my answer. I had, after all, confessed my unworthiness in terms he understood.

Nihkolara rose. His hands at his side trembled minutely, as if he could not bear the demands of his body. He had not reacted when Herakleio disdained his manhood, but for some inexplicable reason, my casting myself into his place stirred in him some deep response.

"Nihko," Prima said softly.

He did not look at her, but only at me. With effort he moved his jaws. "A man living in darkness," he said, "has not known the light and thus may not repudiate it, nor hold common cause with one who has."

With immense self-control and no little dignity, he walked from the chamber.

Prima was unsmiling as she looked at me. "That was ill done."

"Was it?" Del inquired with a softness I recognized. "Tiger is what he is, and may confess it freely to anyone he wishes."

Prima, who did not recognize such softness, began with some heat. "Nihko is what he is-"

"And has the freedom to be so," Del interrupted. "So do we all: man, woman, renegada, sword-dancer. Skandic or Southron."

"But is he a man?" Herakleio, of course, was focused on insults. "Nihko no longer claims the part of-"

"Stop," I said, so coldly that he obeyed me. "There is more to manhood, as Captain Rhannet put it so eloquently, than that which dangles between our legs."

Herakleio laughed. "The willingness to use it?"

Prima ignored the comment, ignored Herakleio, and stared searchingly at me a long moment. Her expression was unfathomable. Then her mouth twisted, and she looked at Del. "You do have him trained."

Del neither smiled nor replied. This time, Prima recognized the softness in the Northern woman that had nothing to do with weakness of will, and everything to do with strength of purpose. And her eyes shied away.

"The metri," I said as I picked up my wine, "is a very wise woman."

"For avoiding this?" Herakleio suggested.

"For allowing it," Del answered.

Prima didn't much like what that implied. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she contemplated the idea. She shook her head slightly, then downed her wine as if to gulp it might wash away her suspicion.

I looked at Herakleio. "Among the powerful," I said, "there are reasons for everything. And results wrung from those reasons."

Clearly puzzled and irritated by it, Herakleio made a curt, dismissive gesture. "That makes no sense."

"The metri knows it does," I said. "And for some inexplicable reason, she seems to think I can teach you to understand."

Herakleio favored me with a withering glance. "A waste of time."

I grinned at him. "Yours? Or mine?" Prima laughed. "It might be worth watching." Herakleio glared at her. "Do you think to live here?"

"My ship is my home," Prima replied. "But the metri has said she will receive me here before the other families." She paused. "Formally."

At that Herakleio stood up, stiffly affronted. "You soil this household," he announced, and took himself out of the chamber with definitive eloquence.

The captain grinned a slow, malicious grin, then cut her eyes at me as she poured her cup full once again.

"Good food, good wine… good friends."

I smiled back in kind. "Or interesting enemies."