beyond the island to places unknown to me.
I smiled into the sunset, watching the colors change, then bent my mind and focus upon the slow, graceful, meticulous positioning of flesh and bone and muscle, answering with a contentment verging on bliss the blessed familiarity of ritualized movements I'd learned so many years before from the shodo of Alimat, who understood the needs of the soul as well as of the body.
The metri's servant found me there some while later. Sweat sheened me, but did not run my flesh; the breath moved freely in my lungs and did not catch; the protest of muscles left too long to ships and happenstance was fading. It would require dedicated daily practice before true fitness returned, but I was already looser than I had been since we'd left the South.
Simonides waited until I broke the pattern of the ritual. Diffidently he took up the cloth I'd draped over the courtyard wall and handed it to me. I patted myself dry even as he spoke. 'The metri sends to say Herakleio has gone into the city.'
It was the longest sentence I'd heard from him. His words were heavily accented, but decipherable. Still, the topic baffled me. 'And?' I prompted.
'The metri sends to say this is your responsibility.'
'Is it?'
'The metri sends to say you will find him in a wine-house with other young men of his age, consorting with women.'
'Ah.' Of course.
'The metri sends to say this is your responsibility.'
'That he drinks and consorts with women?'
'The metri sends to say-'
I cut him off with a gesture. 'And what do you say?'
It startled him. He blinked. 'I?'
'You.'
'I say?'
'You say.'
He opened his mouth. Shut it. Thought thoughts. Eventually opened his mouth again. 'I say the metri expects you to bring him home.'
'That's obvious, Simonides. What I'm wondering is, why?'
'Your debt.'
'My debt doesn't include playing nursemaid.'
For the briefest of moments a hint of amusement seasoned the quiet courtesy of his eyes. 'The metri sends to say it does.'
'How can the metri send to say something in answer to a statement she hasn't heard me make?'
'The metri sends to say I am, in her absence, her eyes and ears.'
'And what do you say, O Eyes and Ears?'
Simonides folded his hands together primly at the belt atop his kilt. 'I, who as the eyes and ears of the Stessoi have seen and heard this before, say he will make a drunken fool of himself at the winehouses, provoke battles of wit and words and, eventually, provoke battles of the body as well, which other men will answer. Many songs will be sung. Much damage will be done. Much coin will be spent to set the winehouse to rights.'
I grinned. 'The metri's coin.'
'Herakleio has only what the metri gives him.'
That explained a lot. 'She treats him like a child, yet expects me to make him a man?'
'Here in Skandi,' he said, 'the mother raises the child. When the child is of age, the father raises him. The infant becomes a man. But Herakleio has only the metri, who is not his mother.'
'And I'm not his father, Simonides. Send to say to the metri that I say that.'
'But kinsman,' he rebuked gently.
I looked at him sharply. His expression was guileless, arranged in the bland mask of trusted servants. There was no fear, only acceptance. This was his place. He would do it no harm, nor his people. 'You truly believe that?'
His gaze was level. 'I have seen all of the pretenders come before the metri. And I have seen you.'
'I didn't come,' I countered. 'I was brought. And I had no choice.'
'I have seen all of the pretenders come before the metri. And I have seen you.'
I understood him then. He made a clear delineation between pretenders, and me. For some inexplicable reason, it sent an icy prickle down my spine. As if such belief were a harbinger of-something. Something dangerous.
To be someone's heir.
I sat down abruptly upon the wall. Simonides smiled.
'How old are you?' I asked.
'I have sixty-two years.'
'How long have you served the Stessas?'
'Sixty-two years.'
'Since birth? '
He had the grace to gesture acknowledgment of my incredulity. 'It is true I did not begin to serve until I had five years. But I was born into this household.'
Five years. And every year since in service to the Stessas-Stessoi-to the metri. I said, 'You know what I was.'
He inclined his head slightly; a slave always knows another.
'And that I am free now, and have been.'
Another slight nod.
'And yet you believe I am not a pretender hoping to gain wealth?'
'What you pretend,' he replied simply, 'is that you can be nothing others expect of you.'
After a lengthy moment I managed an answer. 'That is about the most convoluted piece of nonsense I've ever heard.'
With utmost sincerity he demurred. 'Surely you have heard better.'
I eyed the metri's servant. Simonides had a sense of humor after all. 'You're being obscure. On purpose.'
His expression betrayed no inkling of his thoughts. 'The expectations of others,' he said quietly, 'can cause the bravest men to tremble.'
I assessed his overly bland expression. 'And what do you expect of me?'
Simonides smiled. 'To go and fetch Herakleio home before he embarrasses the metri's name-and the metri's purse.'
'I'm trembling,' I said dryly.
Simonides bowed.
I looked down at myself. Baggy trousers, barefoot. 'It would probably be better if I had a shirt, then, yes? And shoes?'
Simonides bowed again, then took himself away.
Well, hoolies. I wasn't ready for bed yet anyway.
Del was more than a little surprised when I stopped by our room to tell her where I was bound. 'You?'
'Me.'
'Tiger…' She sat up from an ungainly sprawl across the bed. 'Sending you to retrieve Herakleio from a wine-house is not unlike asking the hawk to ward the rabbit.'
'But hawks know all the secret ways into the hutch.' I now wore a tunic over my trousers, and sandals. 'Want to come along?'
She frowned. 'You don't know these people, Tiger …what if it's a trap?'
My eyebrows shot up. 'Why would it be a trap?'
'Why wouldn't it be?'
