such as she with you,' she said. 'A woman who chooses to be with you, because it is what she wants. There is honor in making such a choice, if that choice agrees with your soul. It is no diminishment for a woman to be with a man, to want to be with a man-but neither is it diminishment for a woman to want to be with a woman.'
Put that way, well, I guess not. It was the other side of the mirror, the reflection reversed. So long as both sides of the couple were happy, with needs met, honor respected, no one forced or harmed, did it matter if the couple was comprised of two women, or two men?
Maybe not. Probably not. But it was hard to think of it in those terms. It made me uncomfortable. It was too new, too different.
More questions occurred. Should a woman be with a man because she was expected to? Because she was made to? Was it not akin to slavery to be forced to do and be what others insisted you do and be?
I had been what the Salset had made me. Prima Rhannet had apparently tried to be what she was expected to be, and found it slavery of the soul. For Del, raped repeatedly by a man who murdered her family, it might be simpler to avoid men altogether. She hadn't. She'd sought and found me, because she needed my help. But that time was long past, that life concluded.
The captain was right: Del had chosen to be with me. Such choices, freely made, were framed on personal integrity, not on expectations. That satisfaction of the soul was paramount.
With quiet fierceness Prima went on. 'Men do not believe women have honor. They are threatened by such things in us, because they fear our strength. Better to discount it, to ridicule it, to diminish it, before we recognize and acknowledge our worth. Because then their lives would change. They would no longer be comfortable in their own hearts, and skins.'
I knew that in the South, what she said was true. 'And yet here in Skandi, women rule the households, the family business ventures.' I paused. 'Even the lines of inheritance.'
'But such things are expected of women,' Prima countered. 'I speak of the things women are not believed capable of doing.'
I couldn't help it: I was relieved to be back on ground made familiar by discussions with Del. Many discussions with Del. 'Such as captaining a ship?'
'Women,' she said, 'should be permitted to do anything. And accorded honor for it.'
I smiled. 'Even if they choose to remain in the household doing those very things expected of women.'
Prima opened her mouth to argue. Shut it. Glared into her cup.
I provoked intentionally. 'Women should be accorded the same choices, no?'
She was crisp and concise. 'Yes.'
'But not every woman wishes to captain a ship.'
'No.'
'And if she chooses not to do so, women who choose to do so should not discount it, ridicule them for it, or diminish it.'
She continued to glare, mouth hard and taut.
'The blade cuts two ways, captain.'
'Yes,' she said finally. 'But there should be a choice. Too often there is not.' Then, challenging me, 'And would you have argued that before you met your Delilah?'
I smiled. 'It's Del who put the other edge on that blade, captain. Before then I would have vowed no blade had more than one.'
'So.'
'So.'
'You are a better man because of her.'
'I am a better man because of her.'
She nodded. 'So.'
'So.'
Prima drank long and deeply, stared broodingly at the wall, then abruptly changed topics. 'Herak,' she said, 'has ambitions to exceed Nihko's legend.'
'Nihko's? ' In the sudden switch, all I could think of was what he now lacked.
She waved a hand. 'Not because of that. Because of what he was. Before.' Prima drank. 'Nihko was the son of the Lasos metri's sister. And women wanted him.'
'I take it he wanted them back.'
'Oh, indeed. And got them.'
'And paid the price.'
'Oh, indeed. He paid it.' Prima sounded tired. 'Herak, at least, keeps himself from married women, and metris, and metris' daughters.'
I shifted my legs a little, cleared my throat, tried to wipe out of my mind the vivid imagery. The ultimate punishment for a man who loved women too much, as well as the wrong ones.
'Why do you care?' she asked. 'Why ask me about Herak?'
I smiled. 'A dance is undertaken inside the head as much as with the body.'
It mystified her.
'Tomorrow I invite Herakleio into his first circle. I like to know a man's vices before I use them against him.'
Prima Rhannet pondered that. Then she smiled in delight. 'You think like a woman.'
'Flattery,' I said comfortably, and grabbed the wine-jar back.
Del awoke in the darkness as I slipped into bed beside her. She didn't turn to me even as I fit my body to hers, snugging one arm over and around her waist. 'Wine,' she said disapprovingly.
It was, I thought, self-evident. I buried my face in her hair, inhaling the clean scent.
'Who with?' she asked. Then, thinking she knew, 'Did you drink the boy insensible?'
I bestirred myself to answer. 'Not the boy. The captain.'
Del went stiff.
'What's wrong, bascha?'
'Why her?'
'She had the wine.'
'Why her? '
'I had questions.'
Del did not relax. 'And curiosity?'
Yawning, I offered, 'Curiosity is generally the father of questions.'
'Did she answer them?'
'Those she could. And raised some others.' I tightened my arm at her waist, settled closer. 'Go back to sleep, bascha.'
'Why?' she asked. 'Are you sated?'
My eyes sprang open. I lifted my face from her hair. 'Am I what? '
'In curiosity. In body.'
'Hoolies, Del, you think I slept with her?'
For a moment there was silence. 'I think you might want to.'
'What in hoolies for? She doesn't like men, remember?'
'To prove to her she's wrong.'
I was so muddled by then I couldn't even dredge up a comment.
'To change her mind.'
I snorted. 'As if I could!'
'But wouldn't you wish to try?' Del's tone went dry. 'Surely you could rise to the challenge, Tiger.'
I laughed then, letting the wine overrule my better judgment. My breath stirred her hair.
In the voice of confession, she said, 'I don't understand men.'
I was fading. 'Oh, I think you understand men all too well, bascha.' I yawned again. 'Beasts driven by lust and violence.'
'I was driven,' she said, 'by lust for violence.'
