calling out imploringly to each passerby something I assumed was an advertisement of their services-although how one molah might be considered particularly better than another was beyond me; they weren't horses, after all. As Del and I approached, it was no different: we were accosted, surrounded, swarmed by all the men as they competed for our coin.
'Might be a problem,' I muttered to Del.
'What's that?'
'Coin to pay them with.'
'Ah.' It had occured to neither of us; we're used to having coin of some sort, and since our arrival such things as transport and comestibles had been provided. 'I have nothing. Maybe we should walk after all.'
From close up, the trail was a mass of puddles and droppings mashed by feet into a slimy, odoriferous layer of something approaching mud, or heaped cairns of fresh, as yet unmashed muck. Slaves and laborers stolidly stomped their way up and down the track, feet and ankles smeared, as they followed the beasts. No wonder Nihko had been so picky about us getting washed.
'Nah, let's ride,' I said.
'What about coin?'
'Maybe this …' I untied the knot in my necklet, pulled it free of my neck.
'Tiger! You wouldn't!'
'Not the claws …' I worked at thread, finally slid the silver ring free of thong. 'Nihko's little gift.' I held it up so the molah-men could see it clearly in the sunlight, then pointed over the wall. 'Down,' I said, though I doubted any of them understood the word. Shouldn't need to; it seemed pretty obvious what we wanted.
Some of the men shrugged, shook their heads, stepped back, indicating they worked for coin, not barter. A few others stepped forward to inspect the ring more closely-and then surged as one backward into the others, crying out something I couldn't understand. Hands flashed up and made the warding away gestures I'd seen before with the first mate. Gazes were averted, heads lowered, palms put up into the air in unmistakable intent: we were not to come any closer.
Such an innocuous little thing glinting in my fingers. And yet it appeared to mean so much. 'Are you sure?' I asked. 'It's good silver.'
More gestures, more whispered, hissing comments made to one another, and the cluster of molah-men melted away to their animals until Del and I stood in the open with no one near us at all but a single ignorant chicken, pecking in the dirt.
I let the ring slide down out of my fingers into my cupped palm. A small, plain ring about as big around as my forefinger. It wasn't whole, but cut at one point so the filed ends could pierce and be fastened into flesh. No different from what a woman might wear through her ear-lobes, though Nihko wore his-and many more of them-in his eyebrows.
And then I recalled that he'd put it on my necklet to keep me, he'd said, immune to his magic. Or whatever you wanted to call whatever it was about him that made me feel ill.
loSkandi. I'd heard-and still heard-that word said by the men who now stood away from us. I'd heard it used by Nihko, Prima, Herakleio, the metri.
Silently I hooked the brow ring back onto my thong, looped leather around my neck again and knotted it. 'Let's go,' I said curtly to Del. 'We're burning daylight.'
'Wait.' She caught my wrist and halted my forward momentum. 'What is it?'
I stopped short. 'What's what?'
'Something's made you angry.'
'I'm not angry. I'm irritated. '
'Fine.' She had immense patience, did the Northern bascha. 'Why are you irritated?'
'Let's just say I don't like mysteries.'
'And you want to know why they won't take the ring.'
'I know why they won't take the ring. At least, I have an idea.'
'And?'
'Nihko.' I made the sound of it a curse. 'I want to know what all this ioSkandi nonsense is, and what this ring is really supposed to do and mean.'
'Perhaps we should ask him.'
'I intend to-if I can ever get down to the boat.'
She removed her hand from my wrist with alacrity. 'By all means, go.'
I sighed. 'All right…look, bascha, I'm sorry. It's not your fault. But I've had it up to here-' I indicated my eyebrows. '-with all this magical mythical mystery stuff. I don't speak the language, so I haven't got the faintest idea what these people are saying about us; an arrogant old woman who may or may not be my grandmother is pretty much keeping me a prisoner in her house; and a young buck who may or may not be my kinsman, albeit removed umpteen hundred times, is trying to move in on my woman.' I paused, rephrased immediately. 'In on a woman. Whom I happen to care about a great deal.'
'Thank you,' she said gravely. 'But why do you think Herakleio is, as you put it, trying to move in on me?'
'I just know,' I said darkly.
Del is accustomed to my moods. Sometimes she ignores them, other times she provokes them. This was one of the times she wanted an explanation. 'How is it that you know?'
I shook my head. 'I just do.'
'Is it something to do with the code of men?'
'No, it isn't something to do with the code of men. It's something to do with him being young, and you being young, and me being-well, older.'
'I could make a joke of this-' she began.
'You could.'
'-but I won't,' she finished. 'I think this is something you must sort out for yourself.'
Startled, I watched as she strode the last few paces to the head of the trail and took the first step downward. 'Sort out for myself? What do you mean, sort out for myself?' I went after her. 'Can't you at least tell me you don't think I'm old, and that I'm being a fool? Couldn't you even lie, just to make me feel better?'
She slanted me a sidelong glance as she strode down the track. 'Would it be a lie if I said you were being a fool?'
'Oh, Del, come on. Humor me.'
'You're going to believe whatever you decide to believe, no matter what I say.'
'Well, that may be true,' I conceded, 'but you could say it anyway.'
'I'm saving my breath.'
'For what?'
'Getting to the bottom.'
'He is young.'
'Yes.'
'He is good looking.'
'A veritable godling.'
'And I suppose some women might even find his attitude appealing.'
'Some would.'
'He's even rich-or he will be.'
'So he is, and so he shall be.'
'So why would you remain with me if you had a chance to be with him?'
'Possibly because you've never given me an actionable reason to leave you.'
This was a new phrase. ' 'Actionable reason' ?'
'You give me reasons to leave all the time. None of them has been of such magnitude that I acted on it.'
'Oh.' We walked quickly, steadily downcliff, leaving the trailhead behind. 'So, reasons, but no 'actionable' reasons.'
'Until now,' she said with bland clarity.
