Sword Born

EIGHTEEN

Eventually I let Herakleio off the wall to stand on the ground again. He was hot, dusty, sweaty, and immensely frustrated. From time to time he’d muttered to himself, but it was quietly done, and only when he had made certain Del’s attention was focused on her work. When she did glance our way, he stood very straight, shoulders level, arms loose at his sides, head put up with a proud lift.

Oh, he was a good-looking young buck, no question. A veritable godling, as I’d noted before. He was gifted with the tools that could make an expert sword-dancer: the balance, the reach, the grace, the power, the explosive quickness. His body was not built for elegance, for litheness, but it nonetheless understood how to compensate. And it wanted badly to win. The reason it didn’t win was because my body knew how to defeat it.

Looking at Herakleio, understanding completely the needs of a young and vital body hungry for activity and proper focus, I understood at last why the shodo of Alimat, petitioned weekly by anxious boys, had unaccountably accepted as student a former slave in the year he refused to accept anyone else.

Fifteen years, give or take, and the desire to learn. That was what lay between us, the metri’s heir and me. A thin line, I thought, albeit built of tension.

I looked beyond him to Del, raising eyebrows in a silent question. In answer, she came to us and presented me with two practice swords cobbled together from broomsticks, vinewood, and leather. One I handed to Herakleio.

"Now’s your chance," I said. "Have at it."

He stared blankly at the sword, then looked at me. "What?"

"Hit me," I invited. "Beat the hoolies out of me."

"I would like to," he said with cold viciousness, "but —" And broke it off abruptly.

"But?" I prompted.

He slid a glance at Del, firmed his chin, glared back at me. "I am not a fool. I know what you are. I know what you will do."

"And what am I? — besides all the vulgar things you are no doubt calling me inside your head."

"Sword-dancer," he said bitterly.

"Ah." I smiled. "Is that an admission that I might know what I’m doing?"

"That you know how to kill people, yes."

"But killing people, as I explained at dinner, is not what the dance is about."

He sneered. "What else might it be?"

Gently I shook my head. "Some questions are better answered by the student, when he has learned them."

He wanted very badly to throw down the wooden sword. He probably wanted worse to smash it across my face. But Del was with us — and his eyes told me he knew I would win the argument, be it verbal or physical.

"Try," I suggested. "You might get lucky."

He tried for a long time.

He did not get lucky.

Later, much, much later, I soaked the sweat and grit and soreness — and the residual taint of wine — out of a filthy body. I’d excused Herakleio around midday, watched him consider breaking the broomstick "sword" over his knee, watched him eventually decide to simply stomp away. But he took the sword, as I’d told him to.

Now, with Del sitting beside the pool resetting the leather wrappings on my wooden weapon, I dawdled in the water. It was warm, relaxing, and I felt the muscles ease themselves out of knots and stiffness.

Del, hearing my noisy sigh of satisfaction, glanced up from her work. "Tired?"

"He’s strong."

"He never touched you."

"Keeping him from touching me took some effort." I sloshed arms through the water. "And I’m out of shape. Out of practice."

Del was startled. "You admit it?"

"Hoolies, I’ll admit a lot of things, bascha. You just have to make sure I’m either drunk, or wrung out like I am now."

"I will remember that." She paused. "Why did you let him try you so early?"

"Everyone who ever wants to learn a skill wants to learn it yesterday," I explained. "They’re not interested in what comes before. I remember how frustrated I was that I wasn’t even allowed to hold a sword for so many weeks, while I learned footwork. Not even a practice sword."

"So?"

"So I let him hold it. Let him try it, and me. Let him see it’s not so easy as he might think."

"I doubt he thinks it’s easy."

"Kids his age always think it’s easy."

Del averted her gaze. "Sometimes, it is."

"Sometimes. For some people. For specific reasons." I knew what she meant. She’d been an apt pupil of the sword, surpassing most if not all of the ishtoya on Staal-Ysta who had begun before she had. Because she was gifted with the body to be so, but also because she had needed to be better so very badly, to achieve her goal — and to be considered good enough. "Now he understands the fundamentals are imperative. You’d better know how to avoid a blade before you try to use one."

"Defense is much more difficult to learn than offense," Del agreed. "And far more vital in the circle."

I ducked beneath the surface of the water, came up with my head tilted back. Water ran down from my hair.

"So, bascha, who do you think is better? Me, or Abbu Bensir?"

She blinked in surprise. "That is not something I can answer."

"Why not? You know what I’m capable of. You’ve sparred and danced with Abbu. And you saw us dance in Sabra’s circle."

She shook her head. "I can make no answer, Tiger. I think only a dance could settle this."

"But there won’t ever be a dance. Not a proper one." I worked at a tight shoulder, schooling my voice into a bland matter-of-factness I didn’t feel. "No proper dances ever with anyone, only excuses for killing."

She set the sword beside her and turned all her attention to me. "It’s what the metri expects of you, isn’t it? Having to train Herakleio has put you in this mood."

"He could be good."

"But he won’t be."

"He doesn’t want it. Doesn’t need it. But then that’s not the metri’s point."

"No," Del agreed.

"Discipline," I said crisply, lending to my words the tone and enunciation of lecture. "Adherence to the requirements of responsibility. A mature understanding of how mind and body is bent to the will of the task. I am to teach him what she can’t, so he will be what she needs. What the family needs." I grinned at Del. "Isn’t that about the stupidest thing you ever heard? Me teaching this kid about responsibility?"

Del didn’t smile. "I think it’s very wise."

"Come now, bascha. You’ve spent three years chiding me about things I’ve said and done, my refusal to accept responsibility… my affection for aqivi."

She tilted her head in acquiescence. "If I felt explanation was appropriate, so you might better understand how such ideas can offend, or when I felt you should accept responsibility. Yes. I’ve chided."

Clutching a ball of soap, I lathered my chest vigorously. "I’m always offending someone."

"Sometimes intentionally. But it is those times when it is not intentional, when it is merely a reflection of ignorance —"

"Like believing women are mostly suited for bedding?"

"That," Del confirmed. "And other things."

"Like believing a woman can’t handle a sword the way a man can?"

"And other things."

"Like believing —"

"Tiger, if it has taken three years to train you out of such things, it will surely take three additional years to declare them!"

I grinned. "This seems a good place to spend three years."

She went very still. "Do you want that? To stay?"

"Don’t you mean do I want to knock Herakleio out of the running and let the metri name me heir?" I scratched at the skin beneath chest hair. "It’s an idea."

Del clearly did not know how to answer.

"But then there’s you," I said.

"Me?"

"What do you want to do?"

"Me," she said again.

I waited.

"I don’t know," she answered eventually.

"Stay?" I asked. "Go?"

"I don’t know."

"But you have that choice, Del."

"Yes," she said, frowning.

"You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to."

"I know that."

"Which means you could go down to the dock and take ship today, if you wanted to."

"I have no coin."

"Oh, let’s not be practical," I said severely. "We’re discussing the heart, here, not the head."

"We are?"

"And the heart is never practical."

"It isn’t."

"The heart, in fact, is a rather perverse part of the body, when you think about it. A heart wants to do all manner of things the head doesn’t want any part of."

"It does."

"My heart, just now, isn’t sure what it wants. It’s in conflict."

"It is?"

"In fact, it’s very curious as to what your heart wants."

"My heart," she said faintly.

I very nearly laughed at the expression on her face. "Del, what do you want to do?"

"Until we know —"

"Not ’we,’ " I interrupted. "You."

She was getting exasperated. "What do you want me to say?"

"No, no." I waved a finger at her. "That’s not it, bascha. This is about what you want. This is not about what I want, or what I want you to say — which, for the sake of argument, is to decide for yourself."

Del’s brows locked together. "Who have you been talking to?"

"Are you suggesting I can’t come up with such questions on my own?"

"The captain," she said suspiciously. "You drank wine together, and discussed — me?"

"We discussed all manner of things, the captain and I. Men, women, you, me, Nihko, Herakleio." I gestured. "She mentioned you were sisters of the soul."

"In some things, yes. We believe in freedom of choice, regardless of whether we are male or female. The freedom to follow our hearts."

"Yes!" I nodded vigorously. "That’s what I’m talking about. And I want to know what your choice is. What your heart wants."

Del eyed me closely. "Did Herakleio hit you in the head when I wasn’t looking?"

"Can’t you just answer the question?"

She opened her mouth. Shut it. Scowled at me and mutinously held her silence.

"Del," I said gently, "you’re different now."

The flesh of her face startled into hardness. "What do you mean?"

"You’re not the same woman I met three years ago."

"Nor are you the same man."

"But we’re not talking about me."

She thought about not responding. But did it anyway. "I do feel — different. But what do you mean by it?"

"Not as driven." I raised my hand. "I don’t mean you’ve gotten soft, bascha. The edge is there when you need it, when you summon it… I only mean that you seem less —" I hesitated, said it anyway. "— obsessed. Than you were even two months ago."

Del looked into the depths of the water. "My song is done."

So the captain had said. "All of it?"

"Oh, there is more song yet to be sung. The undiscovered song, made as we move. But — what I was, the song I sang all those years I honed my body and mind and swordskill, is finished."

"And?"

"And," she said, "I am learning what it is I am to be. Who I am to be."

"You are you, Delilah. Always."

"More," she said. "And less. Depending on the day."

"Today?"

"Today," she said tartly, "I am somewhat confused by your mood."

I grinned. Then asked, "Why is it that you can admit to Prima Rhannet how you feel and what you want, but you can’t admit it to me?"

Color crept into her face. When she is angry or embarrassed, her fair skin often betrays her, despite her best efforts to lock away her feelings so no one else can read them.

Eventually Del said, "Sisters of the soul."

"Is that different from being bedmates?"

"Oh, yes," she answered at once, so easily that I knew it was the unadorned truth. "Women can — talk."

"And men and women can’t? Isn’t that a bit unfair, telling things to women you won’t tell to men?"

"Don’t men tell men things they won’t tell women?"

"Almost never, bascha. But that’s because men don’t generally talk much to one another about anything serious."

Now she was perplexed. "Why?"

"Men just don’t."

"But they could."

"Sure they could. They don’t." I shrugged. "Usually."

"Sometimes?"

"Maybe a little. But not very much. Not very often."

"But — you talk to me, Tiger."

This time it was my truth, and as unadorned. "You make me want to."

Del understood that truth, the emotion that prompted it. I saw the quick-springing sheen of tears in her eyes, though they were hastily blinked away. "It should be so," she said firmly. "Between men and women. Always the truth. Always the wanting to say what is in the heart."

I stood now at the side of the pool, hands gripping the lip of stone. "Then let me tell you what’s in mine."

"Wait —" she blurted, as if abruptly afraid to hear such honesty.

"I want you with me," I said simply, "wherever I go. But not if the cost is the loss of your freedom."

"Tiger —"

"Do what you wish to do. Go where you wish to go. Be what you wish to be."

"With you," she said quietly. "With you, of you. As much as I have ever wanted anything."

It was more than I expected to hear from her. Ever. It shocked me. Shook me.

"That," I said lightly, unable to show her how profound the relief, "doesn’t sound very practical to me."

"Practicality has nothing to do with the heart," she countered loftily, taking up the wooden sword. Del’s eyes were bright as she smacked me lightly atop the skull. "And now you will tell me what prompted such serious talk."

"Herakleio."

"Herakleio?"

"And vanity. Age." I shrugged as she rested the blade on my shoulder. "I look at him and see what I was. What I can never be again."

"Tiger, you are hardly old!"

"Older," I said. "In horse parlance, I’ve been ridden hard and put away wet."

Del stared searchingly at my face, into my eyes. Then in one smooth motion she flipped the wooden sword aside and stretched out upon the stone, fingers curled over the edge. I could feel her breath upon my face. "I’ll ride you hard," she declared, and pulled herself off the stone into my arms.

Air-billowed linen skirts floated to the surface and proved to be no impediment.

When Herakleio came into the bathing chamber, Del — fortunately — had gone. I was out of the pool but not yet dry, dripping onto pale stone. I slicked hair back out of my eyes and over my skull, paused to note the intensity of his interest in my body. After talking with Prima Rhannet about such things, I couldn’t help the question. "Is there something you’d like to tell me?"

He put his chin up, eyes glittering. "She said you have no keraka."

It took me a moment to sort out the who and the what: the metri and her examination of me the first night of my arrival. "No, no keraka. Whatever this keraka is."

"We have it, each of us." He paused pointedly. "Those who are Stessoi, and thus gods-descended. From the gods’ —" he paused, translating. "— caress, bestowed upon us before birth."

I sighed. "Herak, I don’t even know what this mark is supposed to look like —"

"A stain in the flesh," he answered. "As of old blood, or very old wine. But it never washes away."

I grinned. "Well, my flesh has been stained plenty of times with blood and wine, but it always washes away." I bent to grab a towel.

"Wait." His tone was a snap of sound, so evocative of the Salset that I did as he commanded. Before I could banish the response, he was beside me. "This," he said, and displayed the back of his left elbow.

It did indeed resemble a stain, of wine or old blood. Ruddy as a new bruise, and the size of a thumbnail. A keraka, "caress"— which I supposed was as good a description as any.

I shook my head. "Nope."

"It need not be where mine is, nor shaped like this."

"Nope. Nothing. Not anywhere."

Triumph lighted his eyes. "All Stessoi have it."

"Then I guess I’m not a Stessa." I caught up the towel.

"Wait," he said again.

"I’m done waiting, Herak."

"She said — she said it could be that a scar has removed the keraka."

I said nothing, simply began toweling myself off. I’m not modest; nudity doesn’t bother me. Though I confess I wasn’t much on close scrutiny such as this: front, back, and sideways. I considered inviting him to inspect that portion of my anatomy men value above all others, but restrained myself. No matter what Prima said about his taste for women, I didn’t know Herakleio. He might do it.

Abruptly Herakleio turned and strode away. Then stopped and swung back awkwardly. I was dry. Had donned the baggy trousers. Half of me was covered. Half of me was not. He was looking again at the big fist-sized pile of scar tissue that surrounded the hollowed flesh below the ribs on the left side of my chest.

"Why didn’t you die?" he asked.

That I hadn’t expected. After a moment I hitched a shoulder. "Too far from my heart to kill me."

"The others — the whip weals, the blade cuts…" He shook his head. "None of them is enough to kill a man. But that one… that one was. It should have."

"Why does it matter to you?"

Though he didn’t avoid my eyes, his odd manner was lacking in belligerence or confrontation. "Because of Nihko. What he said."

"What did Nihko say?"

Now his eyes slid away. "loSkandic."

I grunted. "Nihko says that a lot." I flung the damp towel over my shoulder and proceeded past Herak.

The belligerence was back. His raised voice echoed in the chamber. "What did you do to the woman?"

It brought me up short. I turned. "What?"

"You said a woman did that."

"One did."

"What did you do to her? To make her take up a sword against you? To make her do that?"

"Danced," I told him simply, and walked out of the chamber.