I wanted to smirk, but didn't; she was deadly serious, and I owed her that much. 'Is it?'
'And because the boy I have given over to you as your task may well be your kinsman.'
I studied her expression very closely. 'You admit I am a tool-and seemingly an irresponsible one at that-yet insist I may still be a Stessa? Why? What do you gain?'
'Leverage,' she answered simply.
Well, that was truth. 'Herakleio doesn't believe any more than you do that I'm your grandson.'
'It doesn't matter what he believes. All that matters is what I do.'
'But naming a stranger, a foreigner, as heir to the Stessa fortune is not a possibility.'
She shook her head. 'You still do not understand.'
'Explain it to me, then.'
'You may indeed not be my grandson. You are a stranger, a foreigner in everything save, perhaps, blood. But neither precludes you from inheriting.'
I blinked. 'You're right. I don't understand.'
Her eyes were fixed on mine. 'I am required only to name an heir. The heir is heir. It is the naming that matters.'
I shook my head slowly. 'We know very well what I am, you and I. A Southron barbarian who makes a living in the circle with a sword … a man who builds a home with walls of air. That makes me fit to dance for you, but not to run your household, the vineyards, or the economics of the Stessas-Stessos-which affect the economics of Skandi.'
The metri smiled. 'A man who understands the mechanics of ambition is fit to do whatever he wishes to do. He finds ways to deal with such things as he does not know, and learns from those who do.'
'And?'
'And,' she continued pleasantly, 'so I am moved to ask you if I am so cruel that you feel you must leave a place in my household, a position for which you are as fit as any man I know, who will learn because it is in him to learn, and who wishes to pay his debts.'
I put a finger into the air. 'You're forgetting: I was just down at the docks checking on the possibility of convincing Prima Rhannet to sail us away from here. Since you so kindly explained how it is no one else on the island will.'
'There is nothing you may offer Prima Rhannet that will convince her of such an undertaking, when I can convince her against it.' Her eyes were very calm. 'Unless it is your woman.'
'Del is not an issue in this!'
'Coin is minted in many shapes,' she said, 'not the least of which is knowledge of what another will accept. You owe me a debt; I have said you may discharge it by teaching Herakleio what it is to be a man. But you have nothing in the world Prima Rhannet will accept, except the companionship of your woman.'
I shook my head again, shoving down the anger so I could be very plain. 'Del is not coin. Del is not barter. Del is not in any way an object, nor available for trade.'
The metri's smile did not reach her eyes. 'Whatever it is someone else wants very badly is indeed coin, barter, and object. Availability is the only factor remaining open to negotiation, and subsequent arrangement.'
'I don't accept that.'
'You may reject the truth as it pleases you to do so. But it alters no part of it.'
I backed away, displaying both palms in a gesture of abject refusal. 'This conversation is over.'
She waited until I reached the door. 'And so is this test.'
I froze, then swung back sharply even as I released the latch. 'This was a test? '
'All things are tests,' the metri said obliquely. 'Each day as I rise, offering thanks to the gods for the day, I understand that the hours left to me before I retire again are tests of themselves, of my strength, of my loyalty and devotion, of my will to make certain the Stessa name survives as it was meant to survive: a piece of the gods themselves, made flesh. For they placed here upon the island a woman who was delivered of a child who in turn bore her own, and in turn another was born of that woman, until the day came that I was born to do my mother's work. It is heritage. It is legacy. It is responsibility: to see that one small piece of the gods, made flesh, remains whole in the world, and alive, lest that world become a lesser place for its loss.' She leaned forward then, toward me, away from the cushions. Intently she asked, 'Who is to say that if a single candle is blown out, the remainder of the world does not go dark as well?'
'But …' But. It was a debate in which I was ill-equipped to participate. And yet the argument existed of itself because it could exist.
No one knew.
Each time I shut my eyes on the verge of sleep, I gave myself over to trust that I'd awaken again. Because I had awakened each and every day.
But who was to say I would tomorrow?
Could you put coin on it?
No. Only belief in it. Only trust.
Only faith.
She leaned back again, abruptly ashen. One hand was pressed to her chest as she labored to breathe. Her lips and nails were blue-tinged. This was not a woman feigning illness or weakness to gain my sympathy. I had seen that look before in men with weak hearts.
'I'll call Simonides,' I said sharply, and made a hasty departure.
Herakleio found me out on the terrace, moving through ritual movements designed to condition both body and mind. I had anticipated his arrival, and the accusations. I let him make them without a word spoken to stop him, because he needed to make them. And I, in his place, might well make them, too.
When he ran out of breath and I was cooling down, I finally addressed him directly. 'You've said she isn't in immediate danger.'
'Yes, I said that.' He nearly spat the sibilants. 'And no, she is not in immediate danger, so the physician says; she should live for another year or more. But she is clearly ill, and weakening.'
'Which is why you've come to me now: you view me as a threat. And now a more immediate threat.'
He glared. 'And so you are.'
'Unless she has already declared me her heir, I am no threat at all.' I was loose, relaxed, sweat drying as the wind snapped against my flesh. 'Has she?'
He remained hostile, if somewhat mollified. 'She has not.'
I took up the cloth draped over the low wall and scrubbed at my face, speaking through it. 'Then you're safe. Akritara, the vineyards, the power and wealth … all of it is still meant to be yours.'
He looked away from me then, staring hard across the land that fell away against the horizon, rushing toward the cliff face miles away. 'I want it,' he said tightly, 'but I want her alive, more.'
Prima Rhannet had said it one night in her cups: there was sunlight in him, and stone. She had not said there were tears.
I flipped the cloth over one shoulder and sat down on the wall. 'Truth, Herakleio, in the name of an old woman we both of us respect: my coming here had nothing to do with hoping to replace you as heir. I knew nothing about Skandi at all, let alone that there were Stessoi, or metris, or even vineyards and wealth to inherit.'
He didn't look at me, nor did he pull wind-tossed hair from his face because such a gesture would remove the shield. 'Then why did you come?'
'To find out…' I let it go, thought it through, began again. 'To find out if there was a home in my life where the walls were built of brick and mortar instead of air.'
Herakleio turned sharply into the wind to look at me. 'I have heard her say that!'
I nodded. 'She said it to me earlier today, before she became ill.'
He flung out an encompassing hand. 'And so you came and found that these walls were made of more than brick and mortar, but also coin and power!'
'But I didn't necessarily find my home,' I said. 'I found a home. Her home. Your home.'
He shook his head vigorously. 'But you want it. Now that you know it, you want it.'
I drew in a deep breath, let it fill my chest, then pushed it out again in a noisy sigh of surrender. 'There is a part of me that wishes to be of it. Yes.'
'You see!'
