'Oh, come on. Do you blame me?' I dodged a molah and rider making their jouncing way up the track. 'Hoolies, I'm not exactly what I was at seventeen, or even what he is at twenty-four.'
'More.'
'More? More what?'
'More than you were at seventeen. More than he is at twenty-four.'
'In what way?'
'For one thing,' she said, 'he doesn't doubt himself.'
'That's one way of putting it!'
'And I doubt he questions his appeal to women.'
'I'll go that.'
'And I don't doubt he thinks he could have me if he wanted me.'
'No kidding!'
'But it really doesn't matter what he thinks, Tiger. About me or anything else.'
'No?'
'What matters is what I think.'
'Well, of course it does-' I stopped short to avoid a laborer whose load was tipping precariously, made my way carefully around him.
Del marched on. 'And if I were attracted to him to the degree that you seem to think I could be, or should be, enough that I'd rather be with him than with you, I would make it plain to you.'
I caught up. 'You would.'
She stopped and turned to me, which necessitated me stopping. Again. 'I promise,' Del said. 'I vow to you here and now, on this filthy trail with muck nearly to my knees, that if I decide to leave you, if the day comes when I feel I must leave you, for another man or simply to go, you will be the first to know.'
Transfixed, I stared back at her. 'Is that in the code of women?'
Del's mouth twitched. 'I can't tell you.'
'Oh, well, all right. I understand about codes.' I looked down at my muck-splashed legs. 'This is disgusting.'
'Yes,' she agreed, 'it is. And the sooner we get to the bottom, the sooner we can wash everything off.'
'Race you,' I offered.
But Del was not sufficiently intrigued by that suggestion to agree, so we proceeded to traverse the balance of the track at a much more decorous pace.
Which meant we were even more disgusting by the time we reached the bottom.
A s might be expected, Del and I headed straight toward the harbor once we hit the docks, intending to dunk ourselves up to the knees in seawater. I was thinking about finding a good stout rope to hang onto since too deep a dunk might result in me drowning, and was thus more than a little startled when a cluster of shouting men came running up to us. Not for the one hundredth time I wished I had a sword; by Del's posture, so did she. But we had no weapons, not even a knife between us. Which reminded me all over again that Del's suggestion to the metri that she hire her to dance with me in the circle was done for a purpose, not to upset me.
Meanwhile, we found ourselves as surrounded by men vying for our attention and custom as we had been at the trailhead. Except this time what they wanted us to buy was water from pottery bottles hung over their shoulders on rope, and their washing services. Rainwater, I was assuming, gathered in the many rooftop cisterns, tubs, and bowls, since Skandi, I'd been told, had no springs, lakes, or rivers. And even the rain was scarce, and thus hoarded, and thus worth selling to people who wanted to wash molah muck off legs and feet.
I glanced around. None of the laborers and slaves and others afoot were cleaning themselves off in the harbor. In fact, none of them were cleaning themselves off at all. Apparently they figured they'd just get filthy again walking back up the track, so they didn't bother. I guess Del and I looked like strangers. Soft touches.
They weren't wrong, either. I would have paid for the rainwater and the drying cloths draped over their arms, had I any coin.
Inspiration mingled with curiosity. I untied the thong, pinched the silver ring between precise fingers, and held it toward the nearest man.
He looked, examined, then backed off jerkily. I saw the now-familiar gesture, heard the now-familiar hissing and whispering commingled with blurted invocations against-something. To a man they stumbled over one another to distance themselves from us.
I knotted the claw-weighted thong around my neck again. 'Let's find us a ship with a blue-headed first mate, shall we?'
This time was different. Instead of wobbling my way down the plank from ship to shore, I marched up the plank and planted my feet at the top of it. Yes, it was a precarious position; all anyone had to do to knock me off into the water was to tip me over the edge, but I was angry enough that I didn't care.
Besides, Del was there to make sure that if I got knocked in, she'd fish me out again.
A familiar face-and the body to go with it-met me there. Not the first mate, but one of the crew. He was mildly startled to see us. But his expression smoothed into cool assessment when I said a single word: 'Nihkolara.'
Nihko was fetched. His expression also reflected surprise, though it was replaced a moment later by a mask of blandness. He folded his arms against his chest and neither invited us aboard, nor told us to leave.
'All right,' I said, 'I give up. You said something to me once about when I got tired of heaving my belly up, I was to come see you. Well, I haven't heaved my belly up ever since you put this ring on my necklet, and I want to know why.'
Nihko Blue-head smiled.
'I also want to know why it is that every time I try to use this ring as payment, they all break out in a rash of warding signs, babbling to one another words I can only assume are prayers, or curses; or, for all I know, proposals of marriage.'
Nihko Blue-head stopped smiling. 'You used the ring as coin? '
'Attempted to,' I clarified. 'We've got nothing else. It's good silver; where I come from, silver in any shape is worth something.'
'Oh, that brow ring is worth a lot more than something, ' he retorted. 'No one on this island will accept it in payment, or as promise of payment, or anything at all other than what it is.'
'And what is that, Nihkolara?'
'Mine,' he said crisply.
'Cut the mystery,' I snapped. 'We're sick of it. Give me some straight answers.'
'You have your answer, be it straight, crooked, or tied in knots. That is not coin. It buys nothing any man or woman on Skandi will give you. It buys only a degree of peace for you, in your body and your mind.'
I jerked the ring from the thong and held it up. It glinted in the sunlight. 'And if I gave it back?'
'You are certainly free to do so,' Nihko answered evenly.
'And?'
He was guileless. 'Your luck will turn bad.'
I flicked it in a flashing arc toward the water. 'Really?'
Nihko flung out a hand and snatched the ring from the air-'Fool!'-then mimicked my flicking gesture with deft fingers.
Something slammed into my breastbone. I folded, empty of breath, of sense, and tumbled backward into Del. She yelped once as I came down on a foot, grabbed for air, caught me, and then somehow the plank was no longer beneath either of us.
Not again … I twisted in midair, grabbed for the edge, caught. Clutched wood, digging fingers in so deep the pads of my fingertips flattened until nails cracked to the quick. I hung a moment, dangling over water; heard the splash as Del went in. Then I jerked myself up even as Nihko set foot on the plank to check his handiwork.
Breath screamed in my lungs. It wasn't fear of drowning; I had no time for that. It was pain, it was burning, it was absence of self-control over that most primitive function: the ability to breathe without conscious effort.
My chin was even with the plank. I caught movement from the corner of my eye. Nihko realized now I
