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.'
