advantage.
And I'm not a madman, either.
TWENTY-FIVE
BEFORE DEL and I had even reached the gate of the front courtyard entrance-the one where the metri had suggested Herakleio and I, wearing plaster and nothing else, should stand on display-Simonides met us. His expression was stern as stone as he put up a hand in a gesture that could be interpreted no other way save stop.
We stopped.
Whereupon men arrived from all corners of the courtyard, swarming into industry. A mat was laid down first, then a fine-loomed carpet was unrolled atop it. As men labored to do that, others came to Del and me with amphora, soaps, oil, and linen cloths. Another man, shaven-headed but bearing no tattoos or rings in his flesh-thus not mad, I assumed, only holy; though in my opinion a certain emphatic degree of holiness bears its own weight of madness-waited in the shade of a tree. Other men brought stools upon which Del and I were directed to sit.
We sat.
As Simonides looked on in meticulous supervision; as the priest beneath the tree murmured softly to himself; as Del and I stared at one another in baffled astonishment, we were scrubbed nearly raw from the knees down, with particular attention given to the soles of our feet. A harsh soap first, followed by scented; followed by clean rinse water; followed by oil that was, I assumed, blessed, as the oil-men first glanced to the murmuring priest for a nod of permission before pouring.
It wasn't entirely unpleasant, having rich oil worked into my flesh, except as the man's hands rose toward my knees I stiffened a little. A sidelong glance at Del showed me a bemused expression, but she did not appear entirely discontent with the direction of her oil-man's hands.
Perhaps it was time I bought my own bottle of oil.
Once that ritual was completed, we were gestured to rise and stand upon the carpet that was layered over the mat. Simonides escorted us with grave deliberation toward the recessed doorway. I glanced over my shoulder as we stepped out of sunlight into shade, saw the carpet-and mat-men rolling everything away; and then the priest came out from beneath the tree to begin his ritual.
'So,' I said to Simonides, 'this is why you didn't want us to walk.'
Simonides said nothing, simply opened the door and stepped away, gesturing for us to enter.
'Well, look,' I told him as I passed into the household, 'at least we gave everyone something to do with their afternoon.'
Del produced an elegant little snicker of amusement. Simonides bestowed upon me an almost mournful expression. 'The metri sends to say you are to attend her in her bedroom.'
That stopped me. 'Her bedroom?'
'She is abed.'
'That's a little redundant,' I told the servant. 'Why is she abed, and why am I expected to attend her while she's abed?'
'She has sent to say to me she wishes me to send to say to you-'
Exasperated by the circuitous manner of speech, I cut him off rudely. 'Save your breath, Simonides-just point me in the right direction.'
Quietly, he said, 'She wishes to see her grandson.'
The simplicity of the statement rocked me. Even Del marked the implications, glancing to me immediately. I nodded, offering neither commentary nor expression. Simonides led me into the depths of the household even as Del murmured tactfully of a desire to nap, and eventually I was given entry into the metri's private quarters.
She was indeed abed, propped into a sitting position by a generous arrangement of embroidered cushions. Silvering hair had been taken from its multiple plaits and loops, freed of decorative baubles, so that it streamed down across the cushions, her shoulders, and the coverlet. It softened the severity of her features. For the first time I saw beyond the metri, beyond the self-proclaimed gods-descended woman born of and into the Eleven Families who ruled in its entirety the wine trade of Skandi, and who needed so desperately to keep every facet of her empire under control, even an individual who merely might be her relative. She was in this moment simply an aging woman who walked the road toward death, and knew the distance left her was shorter than for others.
'Am I so cruel,' she asked, 'that you feel you must leave?'
Not the beginning I expected. In bed with her hair loose, with her body swathed in a coverlet and linens, I had expected to hear a voice to match the impression of weakness. But her voice was the same, her tone identical to the one she used habitually: firm, clear, meticulous in its delicacy of emphasis.
She was not unlike many of the tanzeers who'd hired me to dance for them. Stern, hard, proud, possessive, but also realistic; what was undertaken was from necessity, not whim. But she was as unlike them as could be: a woman, and possibly my mother's mother. She was a stranger to me in spirit, in the large and small aspects of the heart, but potentially a woman whose bone was my bone, whose blood was my blood.
This woman had had no shaping of me, not in the smallest degree, but she could very well be in me. If so, I was as much of her as I was of the Salset. And without the shaping the tribe had given me, I would not stand here today to have this woman speak to me of needs and expectations.
If I left her, if I left here, I left myself as well.
Without accusation, I said, 'You have no intention of naming me your heir.'
One eyebrow twitched. 'Have I not?'
'I am a tool. An adze to shape the boy you will name your heir.'
She smiled faintly. 'Or perhaps a lance point, to jab him where he is most soft.'
'You admit it?'
'I admit nothing,' the metri said, 'beyond a promise that I will do what I have always done: whatever I perceive is required for the task.'
'And Herakleio is my task.'
'Herakleio is the task I have selected for you, as you have selected none for yourself.'
That stung, as no doubt she intended it to. 'Excuse me?'
'What are you but a man whose home is what he builds of a circle drawn in the sand? No mortar, no bricks, only air. And dreams.'
'And skill.'
'Oh, yes, there is skill; and I believe it not so different from the skill I employ each day for the betterment of my Name.'
'Well, then we share a goal,' I threw back at her. 'I have a name of my own.'
'Chula,' she said gently.
Had I not already been standing, I'd have leaped to my feet. As it was, all I could do was contain the shame, the shock and outrage her tone and the word engendered by standing excruciatingly still. Because if I moved, if I spoke, if I so much as blinked…
She gave me no time to respond with anything other than quivering silence. 'You are indeed skilled,' the metri declared with a quietude that in no way diminished the power of personality, 'and it is a skill few men have, the ability to build walls merely of the air and to abide within them, defending those walls against every enemy.' One hand moved slightly on the coverlet; fingers spasmed, clenched briefly. 'I asked you what you were. I have said what you are, and I will say this as well: you have not been given, nor have you taken, responsibility beyond what is required to keep yourself-and your woman-alive.'
I gifted her with a ghastly grin. 'Good enough for me!'
'But that you have taken no more does not mean you cannot accept more. And so I give you Herakleio, that both of you learn the requirements of responsibility. Because recognizing, acknowledging, and accepting responsibility is the hallmark of adulthood.'
