'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.
NINETEEN
SUNSET WAS glorious. Even as I prepared to go through the conditioning rituals, I paused to look. From deep in the caldera rose the plume of smoke issued of living islands, the faintest of drifting veils. Wind lifted, bore it, dissipated it with the dying of the day. I felt the sighing against my face, the prickle of it in the hair of my forearms and naked torso. Only the scar from Del's blooding-blade was unaware of its touch.
Born and bred of the South, of the desert and its sands, of relentless heat and merciless sun … and yet something in me answered to this place. To the wind of the afternoon, dying now into night. To the lushness of vegetation fed by ocean moisture, not sucked dry into dessication. To the smell of the soil, the sea, the blossoms; the blinding white of painted dwellings and the brilliance of blue domes, the endless clean horizons that stretched
