Again. Ever.'
'Well,' she said musingly, 'I thought this might be the easiest way to get swords. On an island where there don't appear to be any.'
'Which makes a whole lot of sense! It's a little difficult to undertake a sword-dance when there are no swords.'
'Exactly,' Del said.
'Then we can't dance.'
'That's true.'
'Which means nothing can be settled.'
'That's also true.'
'So why did you accept when the metri offered the dance?'
'She didn't offer the dance. I suggested it to her as a means of settling the question of extended service.'
'You suggested it? Why?'
Del smiled a little. 'Swords.'
'Yes, but we don't have any…' And then I ran out of fuel altogether. My face got warm all at once and, I didn't doubt, red as a Southron sunset. I said something self-castigatory in succinct and vulgar Desert, the tongue of my youth, and plopped myself down on the wall. After a moment I cleared my throat. 'Was there any particular reason you allowed me to make such a fool of myself?'
'You were having such a grand time getting all hot and bothered that I didn't dare stop you.' She paused. 'Besides, you do it so well.'
'And did you find it amusing?'
Del grinned. 'Yes.'
I sighed, shuffled callused feet against grit-free stone. 'So.'
'So.'
'So the metri will find us swords.'
'So the metri will.'
'Thereby saving us coin we don't have.'
'And time, and effort.'
I squinted into the morning sun. 'I knew there was a reason for keeping you around.'
Del made an exceptionally noncommittal noise.
'So,' I said again, 'now that we've figured out how we're to get ourselves swords-' As expected, she cast me a pointed sidelong glance. '-there's something else we have to do.'
'What is that?'
I caught her hand, pulled her up from the wall. 'Go see a man about a horse. Or, in this case, a woman about a ship.'
'Why?'
'To test a theory.'
'What theory?'
'The one that says the metri can't sink every ship.' I tugged. 'Come on.'
Del resisted. 'What are you talking about? Why would she sink every ship? Why would she sink any ship?'
'It's a figure of speech,' I said. 'Will you come?'
'I've already been aboard one ship that sank out from under me,' Del said darkly, arm tensed against my grasp. 'I'm not interested in repeating the experience.'
'Our ship is fine. It's Herakleio's that's sinking. Bascha-will you come on? '
Reluctantly she allowed me to pull her up and toward the nearest narrow stairway leading into the house. 'Tiger, whenever you get cryptic, it means there's trouble on the horizon.'
'Not this time. I just want to see if there's a ship on the horizon.'
'And if there is?'
'See what it would cost to sail on it.'
'Last time it cost us everything we had.'
'She owes me,' I explained, 'for that and other things. It's her fault I'm in this mess.'
'That won't convince her to do anything.'
'Oh, I'll think of something.'
Whatever Del said by way of observation was declared in idiomatic Northern, and I didn't understand a word. Which was probably for the best, being as how the bascha has as great a gift for malediction and vilification as I do.
TWENTY-TWO
WHEN IT became clear Prima Rhannet was not in the household, I dug up Simonides and asked where she was. He responded by asking what I wanted her for; possibly he could help me instead.
Since I knew very well he could not and would not give me any kind of answer that might permit Del and me to hire the renegada captain to sail us away from Skandi-and by default away from the metri and her spoiled godling-I simply said I needed to ask Prima Rhannet a question.
Whereupon Simonides, with unctuous courtesy, said perhaps I might ask him the question, as perhaps he might know the answer.
Impasse. We exchanged a long, speaking look, measuring one another's determination not to say what each of us wanted to say, and our respective experiences with outwaiting others in identical situations. Whereupon Del sighed dramatically and inquired as to how old we were to be before the verbal dance was settled. Which reminded me all over again that the metri expected Del and me to dance with swords to settle the question of my 'term of service,' which in turn made me anxious to be going.
'Never mind,' I said. 'We can walk.'
Simonides' expression transformed itself from confident servitude to startiement, followed rapidly by mounting alarm. 'Walk?'
'One step after another all strung together until you get somewhere else,' I clarified. Then added, 'Somewhere you want to be.'
'You cannot walk,' he said severely.
I smiled cheerfully. 'Actually, I learned a long time ago.'
He waved a hand dismissively, familiarly; clearly he had accepted me as someone who required his very special attention and personal guidence. His version of Herakleio, maybe. 'You cannot walk,' he repeated. 'That is what molah-men are for.'
'Fine. Can we borrow one?'
His expression was infinitely bland. 'In order for me to summon a molah-man and his cart, I must know where you are going.'
'Nice try,' I said dryly. 'But all you really have to do is summon him. You don't have to tell him a thing. Which means you don't have to know where we're going, and I don't have to tell you.'
Simonides inclined his head the tiniest degree. 'You do not speak Skandic.' Clearly he believed he'd won.
'I speak enough,' I said, dashing his hopes. 'All I have to do is say 'Skandi.' I think he'll catch my drift.'
'Where in Skandi?' Simonides inquired diffidently.
'We could be there and back by now,' Del observed.
Simonides switched his attention to her. 'Be where and back again?'
