Sword Born

SIX

Del, in the tiny cabin we’d been "assigned," swung around as I shut the narrow door behind me. Her expression was pensive; that changed to studied patience as she recognized me.

I cleared my throat. "Well," I began, "it seemed like a good idea. I just didn’t quite figure on this — minor complication."

Blue eyes narrowed; Del knows all my tones and euphemisms. "What minor complication?"

I spread a hand across my chest. "There is, after all, one woman in the world who is not overcome by my manly charms. Only one, mind you — but still. I am crushed. I am undone. I am destroyed. I will undoubtedly never recover."

"You made your move on her." She considered my expression. "I thought you said you weren’t rushing anything."

"I didn’t make any kind of move," I said. "Well — innuendo. But that’s not really a move —"

"Depending on how such things are interpreted."

"— at least, not the sort of thing I really consider as an official move," I finished, ignoring her interruption. "There’s an art to seduction, you know."

"Seduction requires subtlety," Del said. "You have none."

"None?"

"It is one of your charms," she observed, "that there is no guile in you. At least, not when it comes to such base instincts as copulation."

I affected horrified shock. "Hoolies, bascha, why don’t you just take all the romance right out of it!"

"You say what you want, Tiger. I respect that."

I leered at her. "Respect this!"

Del sighed. "As I said, there is no subtlety in you."

"Well, there was," I answered. "At least, I thought I was being pretty subtle. But it’s lost on that woman."

" ’That woman?’ " Del eyed me curiously. "My, this sounds serious."

I began again. "She wounded me. She cut me to the quick. She utterly shattered my spirit —"

"Which will recover," Delilah put in, arid as the Punja, "with liberal applications of my affection and attentions, I assume."

I dropped the pose, took a step forward, hooked an arm around her neck and pulled her close against my chest. Into her hair I said, "Forgive me, bascha."

Her breath was warm on my neck. "For failing to seduce the captain?"

"No. For picking a fight with you. But I couldn’t think of any other way."

Del, chin resting on the top of my shoulder, held her silence.

"You did know," I said, aware of her stiffness. "You realized, didn’t you, what I was doing? Out there on the deck, in front of all the crew?"

After a moment she inhaled. "A man is often the most convincing in what he says when he means what he says."

"Del —"

"That was no lie, Tiger, what you said. That was not for effect. You may have intended to mislead them, but you did not mislead me. I will say it again: you have no subtlety in you. You are honest in all things, even when you lie." She set the flat of her hand against my chest and stepped away so that she could look me in the eye. "You have an honest heart. And that is what you spoke from."

This was not exactly heading in the expected direction. I tried again. "Del —"

"You meant this as much as you meant it when you repudiated all the honor codes of Alimat." Her voice was oddly flat, as if it were hard for her to speak. "When you stepped out of the circle that day before Sabra, before Abbu Bensir and all the other sword-dancers, renouncing —"

"I know what I did," I said sharply, cutting her off.

"You meant that," Del declared, "and you meant this."

I exhaled noisily, expelling all the air from my lungs, then scrubbed the heel of one hand across my forehead. "Yes, well, we all do things we have to. Even if we don’t want to."

Her tone now was almost gentle. "You used me, Tiger."

I didn’t shirk it. "To make them believe. Yes."

Del nodded. "As I used you to buy my way back onto Staal-Ysta."

I blinked. This was an entirely different topic.

"I used you, manipulated you," she said. "Offered you to them, like meat on a platter. I bought my way into a place I could no longer go, because of oaths and codes I once honored."

"To see your daughter." Whom I had not at the time known existed.

"I felt it worth the price," Del agreed. "The — risk. But I was wrong. I never should have used you so poorly."

I shrugged, discomfited as much by her emotions as by such painful recollections. "That’s in the past, bascha."

"You might have left me at any time. No doubt some people would have counseled you to. Some would have named you mad, to stay with me in such circumstances. What I did was — unconscionable. Unforgivable."

I tried to be offhand. "Well, there’s no accounting for a man’s folly when a woman is involved."

Del’s bittersweet smile was of brief duration. "Or a woman’s, when a child is involved."

"So," I said after a moment, "we’re even."

"Are we?"

"We’ve done things to — and for — one another." I hitched my shoulders briefly. "And will, I assume."

"Do things to and for one another?"

"Well, yes. It seems to be our habit."

Del nodded. "And knowing that," she said, "you will perhaps forgive me."

Oh, hoolies… "Wow what have you done?"

"I have undertaken my own seduction."

The first mate? But the captain had said the man lacked testicles!

Del read my expression. "No," she said, "not like that. Why do you assume the obvious?" Then she answered herself immediately and matter-of-factly. "Because you are male." She went on before I could raise a protest beyond opening my mouth. "There is the seduction of the mind as well as of the body. It requires subtlety. It requires duplicity." She pressed both hands against her breast. "And both of those live here."

"Now, bascha, I don’t think that’s an accurate summation of —"

"Take pride in that you were convincing," she said. "I believed you. That’s what you wanted — needed — so the others would believe as well. And so I do believe, and now so do they."

"But it was only to make the captain think we were fighting. So that it might seem more likely I’d look to her, to make you jealous."

"That would be a logical assumption, yes," Del agreed, "but I have said she is not a stupid woman. She will not be taken in by ordinary means."

"You calling me ordinary?"

"Surely the gods would curse me if I said such of a jhihadi." She doesn’t miss anything, this woman. "So of course I will never do so. Ordinary you are not." Her mouth tensed into a flat, thin line as she thought of something, then relaxed. "And I have taken pains to make certain the first mate knows it."

Alarmed now, I blurted it. "What have you done, Del?"

"Undertaken to tell him the truth of you."

"The — truth?"

"So far as we know it." Pale brows arched. "We have established that truth is much more convincing."

"What truth?"

"That you may be Skandic. That we believe you are. That a man appeared to believe you were, when he saw you. That we are — were — sailing to Skandi to investigate."

None of it sounded terribly fascinating. "Why would the first mate care about any of this?"

"Because he said so."

I thought that over, weighing scenarios. "In what way?"

"In the way of a man who desires coin."

"Now wait a minute, bascha. Apart from making some coin off me in the slave markets — and you’d probably bring more — there’re not many options."

"He came to me, Tiger. He asked questions about you. Because I was angry, I answered them."

"Angry." One should always be careful when Del admits to anger. "In what way were you angry, what questions did he ask, and how did you answer them?" Better to string the whole thing together, or this might take all day. "And what did he say once you had answered them?"

"He was — unsurprised."

That made me uneasy. "Unsurprised about what? Me? You?" I raised a silencing hand. "Never mind that. Let’s go back to the questions before that one. The ones about you being angry, what he asked, and what you said."

"I was angry in just the way you intended me to be, when you made that scene on the deck," she said simply. "He asked who you were, where you were from, who your parents were —"

I interrupted sharply. "And did you tell him I don’t know?"

"I told him the truth, Tiger. As I had decided — but also because I had no choice."

"What do you mean, no choice?"

"It was the only way I could think of to keep you alive."

I growled frustration. "What in hoolies —"

She continued steadily. "He says there is no doubt you are indeed Skandic — ioSkandic, he called you — and that he will speak to his captain about taking you there."

This sounded suspicious. "Just like that?"

"Well, no," she confessed. "They are renegadas, after all."

"Ah." It made more sense now. "For a price."

"But you do not have to pay it."

"Well, that’s a relief! Seeing as how I have nothing to pay it with!" I scowled at her. "Spill it, bascha. What in hoolies is going on?"

Del hitched her shoulders. "He said they would make a plan, he and his captain, and then they would tell us."

"Oh, that sounds promising!" I caught the string of sandtiger claws tied around my neck and yanked it straight; one of the curved claws had caught in my hair. "Did he tell you her father is a slaver?"

"This has nothing to do with slavery," Del said gently. "It has to do with a boychild born in the Southron desert of parents he never knew, who grew to become a man who grew to become a jhihadi — and who apparently looks enough like a man from Skandi that others speak to him in that language."

"But we don’t know that I —"

"He says you are. And I believe him."

"Why? What has he done to earn your trust?"

"I don’t trust him," she explained coolly. "I said I believed him. And it is for what he is, rather than what he says." Del smiled a little, studying me. "You see a bald man with rings in his eyebrows and blue tattoos on his head."

"That pretty much sums him up, I’d say."

"But I see a man who is of the same bone, the same body, even the same eyes. With hair, Tiger, he could be you." She paused. "Though he is older than you, and the hair might show more silver."

"Oh, thanks." I glared at her, thinking about the silvering strands she’d begun finding in mine. "You think we’re long-lost brothers, or something?"

She made a dismissive gesture. "No, no, of course not. That would be too much like a tale told around the fire-cairn."

"No kidding!"

She looked straight at me. "I said there was no telling who you might be related to. Kings even. Or queens."

"What, no godlings? I’m a messiah, after all."

Del smiled blandly.

"In the name of —" But I broke off as the door opened. Del looked over my shoulder. I swung in place, badly wishing I had my sword. I felt naked without it.

Blue-headed Nihko stood in the doorway. With him was the captain. "Come out," she said. "We have decided what it is we shall do with you."

"Feeding me would be nice."

"Oh, no." The red-haired woman smiled, glanced pointedly at my waist. "Best you lose the extra flesh."

I swore as Del — thank you, bascha — smothered a laugh.

"Come out," the captain repeated. "Or shall I have Nihko fetch you out?"

Nihko and I eyed one another. We had history now. I’d upended him on the island, he’d laid hands on me. We were, as Del and the captain had noted, similar in size, in bone, in strength. It would undoubtedly be a vicious — and very long — fight.

Or else a very short one, equally devastating.

We reached the same conclusion at the same time. And offered one another faint smiles of acknowledgment as well as unspoken promise.

The captain shot an amused glance at Del. "I might pay to see it. Would you?"

"No," Del answered promptly. "But I would collect the coin — and a portion of the wagers — for allowing others to."

"Nah," I retorted. "It would be over before anyone could pay."

Nihko smiled blandly. "Likely so. You would be too busy losing the contents of your belly to offer a decent fight."

I scowled at him blackly, mostly because I was feeling a trifle queasy. Again.

"Out," the captain said crisply. "Up on deck. Now."

Up on deck, now, in the clean, salt-laden air, I could breathe again. A stiff breeze whipped hair into my eyes. I crossed my arms and leaned my spine against the rail, affecting a nonchalance I didn’t really feel, especially with the deck heaving beneath us and the rail creaking a protest under my weight. But such poses are necessary; and either they believe you, or they know exactly what you’re about.

Nihko and his captain knew exactly what I was about. But they let me have the moment regardless. "So?" I began. "What is it you plan to do with us?"

The woman’s pale eyes glinted. "I told you to find a way to buy your freedom."

"You did."

She glanced briefly at Del, as if seeking an indication I’d told her what the captain had said about being interested in my companion rather than in me. Del, who didn’t know any such thing — we hadn’t gotten that far, and I wasn’t certain I’d have told her anyway — merely looked back. Waiting. Which she does very well.

After a moment the captain smiled a little and met my eyes. "And so this woman has done it for you."

I didn’t know if that was for my benefit, or the truth. She knew I knew what she meant, even if Del didn’t; if Del did, well, it made for an interesting little tangle.

I refused to play. Besides, as far as she knew, Del and I weren’t on friendly terms. "Whatever the woman offered was without my knowledge."

"Men do precisely that for women often enough." But the captain indicated the first mate with a tilt of her head. "Nihko says you are Skandic."

"I might be. But Nihko doesn’t know that I am. No one does, including me."

"That does not matter. Explain it, Nihko."

Blue-head explained it.

By the time he finished, I was shaking my head. "It’ll never work. It couldn’t work. Not possible."

"Everything is possible." The captain was unperturbed by my refusal. "Certainly this is. Because it might be true." She smiled, eyes bright with laughter. "A man with no past could be anything at all."

"Or nothing." I shook my head again. "I’m not a mummer. I could never pull this off."

She captured whipping hair, pulled it forward over a shoulder and began to braid it into control. "There is no mummery involved. We are not asking you to be — or to behave as — something you are not."

"That’s exactly what you’re asking."

"You present yourself as what you are." The captain paused in her braiding to meet my eyes. "Or, rather, we present you as what you are."

"Your captive?"

Unprovoked, she went back to braiding hair. "I am known in the city."

I made it into an insult. "Undoubtedly."

She continued serenely. "I am known for precisely what I am. It would be accepted by all the families as truth: Prima Rhannet seeks to spit in her father’s eye by parading herself, her crew, and her lifestyle throughout the city: an ungrateful, unnatural, outcast daughter who ignores custom to present herself to one of the finest families of the city."

"That’s you," I said. "What about me?"

"Who presents herself to one of the finest families of the city in order to reap a reward of such incredible value that in one undertaking the ungrateful unnatural outcast daughter outdoes her father." She did something with the end of the braid to keep it intact — how women do that is beyond me — and waited for me to respond.

I nodded, understanding. "This is personal."

"It is many things," she — Prima — said. "It is a means to make coin; the reward would be incalculable. It is a means to spit in my father’s eye; because no matter that I was so crassly rewarded, I would still be acknowledged as the woman who returned to the Stessa family something of great value: the means to continue the line."

"A line near extinction, as you have explained it." I shook my head. "It will never work" I glanced at Del. "Tell her."

"But it might," Del said mildly.

So much for help from that quarter.

"Nothing need ’work,’ " Prima elucidated. "It need only be believed."

"For how long?"

"Long enough for us to receive the reward, accept the public gratitude of the Stessa metri, to hear of my father’s resentment, to resupply the ship…" She made a graceful gesture with one hand. "… and sail away again."

"Leaving me behind?"

"Leaving you behind with a dying old woman — a dying old rich and powerful woman — whose only goal now is to find a legitimate way to continue the family line. If you see no advantage in that, you are truly a fool."

I shook my head definitively. "Never work. I won’t do it."

Prima Rhannet arched sun-gilded brows. "No?"

"No."

Nihko promptly hooked my feet out from under me and heaved me over the rail.

Water is hard. It felt like a sheet of hardpacked dirt when I landed, smashing into it flat on my back. For a moment nothing in my brain or body worked. I was so shocked I didn’t even breathe — and then I realized I couldn’t.

Water is hard. And when you land in — or on — it the way I did, taken completely unaware and utterly inexperienced with such things as flying followed by swimming, you get the air knocked right out of your lungs.

Then, of course, I sank.