"No man I ever saw, " she amended.

"It takes less time to look and ask if I don't drink."

"That is true-but truth never stopped you before." She picked her way around a pile of broken pottery. "Could it be that you're taking your task seriously?"

"Which task is that?"

"To teach Herakleio."

I ruminated over that a moment. "I don't really care about Herakleio. But the metri… well, I do owe her a debt."

"Especially if she is your grandmother."

"Of course I could argue that you owe her the coin."

"Why?"

"It was you her coin bought free."

"I thought it was you her coin bought free."

"She could have refused to pay Captain Rhannet and her first mate anything. I'd have still been a guest in the household-or perhaps a despicable interloper sent swiftly on my way-but you would have remained a prisoner on the boat."

"Ship. And since the captain asked me to join her crew, I'm not so certain I'd have continued being a prisoner."

"You? A pirate?"

"Certain of my skills appear to be better suited for such a role than, say, a wife."

"Stealing from innocent people?"

"They stole from us," Del observed. "Coin, swords, the wherewithal to earn and buy more. There are those in this world who would claim we lost our innocence many years ago."

I would not debate that. "But you don't steal, Del."

"There are those in this world who would claim I steal lives from others."

"You don't steal anything but men's peace of mind."

"I refuse to accept responsibility for what you say I do to men's minds," she declared testily. "And if men thought with their minds more often than that-"

"-which dangles between our legs," I finished for her. "But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about how you challenge entrenched customs, ways of thinking. I was perfectly content to go on about my business as a Southron man before you came along."

"And now?"

"Now I can't help but think about how unfair a lot of Southron men are where women are concerned."

"Oh, truly you are ruined," she mourned dolefully.

"Surely the men of the South will exile you from the ranks of manhood for thinking fair and decent thoughts about women."

"Surely they will," I agreed gloomily. "It's hard to be good when everyone else is bad."

"Good is relative," she returned. "But you are better. "

"And what about you?"

"What about me?"

"You don't often have anything good to say about men in general, or me specifically."

"There could be a reason for that."

"See? That's what I'm talking about."

She considered it. "You may be right," she said at last, if grudgingly. "It's very easy to say things about men."

"Unfair things," I specified. "And you do."

"I suppose that yes, it could be said I am occasionally unfair. Occasionally."

"Does that make unfairness fair?"

"When the tally-sticks are counted, it's obvious who wins the unfairness competition. By a very large margin."

"Does that make it right?"

Del cast me a sidelong scowl, mouth sealed shut.

"Point made," I announced cheerfully; another notch in my favor for the tally-stick. Then, "Would you really consider being a renegada?"

"When one has no coin, and no obvious means to make any, one considers many opportunities."

"Ah-hah!" I stopped so short Del had to step back to avoid running into me. "That's the first sign of sense you've shown, bascha."

"It is?"

"You always were so hoolies-bent on doing things your way no matter what that you never stopped to consider the reason a lot of people do things in this world is because they have no other choice."

"What are you talking about, Tiger?"

"I'm talking about how often you suggest my plans and ideas are not the best alternatives to the plans and ideas you believe are best."

"Because mine are."

"Sometimes."

"Usually."

"Occasionally."

"Frequently."

"You are a mere child," I explained with pronounced precision, "when it comes to judging opportunities and alternatives."

"I am?"

"You are."

"Why is that?"

"You're twenty-two, bascha-"

"Twenty-three."

"-and for most of those twenty-three years you never had to think even once about how best to win a sword-dance, or beat off a Punja beast, survive simooms, droughts, assassins-"

"Kill a man?"

"-kill a man, and so forth." I shrugged. "Whereas I, on the other hand, have pretty much done everything in this world there is to do."

"But that's not because you're better, Tiger."

"No?"

"It's because you're old."

Even as I turned to face her, to explain in eloquent terms that being older was not necessarily old, a body came flying out of the nearest winehouse door. It collided with me, carried me into the track, flattened me there. With effort I heaved the sprawled body off me and sat up, spitting grit from my mouth even as I became aware that most of my clothes were now soaked. Even my face was damp; I wiped it off, grimacing, then caught a good whiff of the offending substance.

"Horse piss?" Del inquired, noting my expression.

No. Molah. I got up from the puddle, grabbed hold of the body that had knocked me into it, preceded to introduce his face to the puddle.

Of course, he wasn't conscious, so he didn't notice.

"Oh, hello," Del said brightly. "We were looking for you."

I turned then, straightened, saw him standing there in the doorway, looking big, young, strong, insufferably arrogant, and only the tiniest bit wrinkled.

"Ah," I said. "About time. Come along home, Herakleio, like a good little boy."

The good little boy displayed an impressive array of teeth. "Make me," he invited.

"Uh-oh," Del murmured, and moved.

"Feeble," I retorted.

Herakleio raised eyebrows. "Yes. You are."

"Oh, my." Del again.

"No," I said. "Your attempt at banter. And unoriginal to boot."

"Unoriginal?"

"It's my line."

"Well? Are you even going to try?"

"I never try, Herakleio."

"No?"

"I only do. "

He laughed. "Then let's see you do it."

So I waded into the middle of him.

Oh, yes: big, young, strong. But completely unversed in the ultimate truth of a street fight.

Survival. No matter the means.

He expected to punch. He did punch. One or two blows even landed-I think-but after that it was all me swarming him, using the tricks I knew. I caught him in the doorway, trapped him, lifted him, upended him over a shoulder using all the leverage I had, and dumped him on top of the body in the puddle.

The body meanwhile was attempting to get up and wasn't completely prepared for the addition of two hundred pounds-plus. Both of them went sprawling.

"Well," Del commented as, fight over, I nursed a strained thumb.

Herakleio was not unconscious, though I wasn't sure the same could be said of the body beneath him. He was, however, now somewhat more wrinkled-and furious.

"Shall we go?" I asked. "The molah-man awaits."

He stopped swearing. The sound issuing from his mouth went from growl to roar. He lunged to his feet and hurled himself at me. All two hundred pounds-plus of him.

I expected to collide with the wall even as he smashed into me. But either Herakleio was a smarter fighter than I'd given him credit for, or he was lucky. Whatever the answer, I missed the wall entirely, which would have provided some measure of support, and flew backward into the deep-set doorway.

The door was open. Thus unimpeded, Herakleio carried me on through and into the winehouse. Somewhere along the line we made close acquaintanceship with a table, which collapsed beneath our combined weights, and landed on beaten earth hard as stone.

From there it devolved into mass confusion, as cantina battles usually do. I was no longer concerned with making Herakleio accompany us back to Akritara and the metri, but with keeping breath in my lungs, teeth in my mouth, eyes in their sockets, brains in my skull, and dinner in my belly.