'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?'
