Of course, I didn't believe him. At seventeen (or sixteen, or eighteen; no one knew for certain), after nearly two decades of labor for the Salset, I was more than certain I was fit. After all, I'd survived slavery, had killed a sandtiger for my freedom, had been taken on as a student of Alimat. After I defeated Abbu Bensir, Alimat's best apprentice, I knew my conditioning was superb. Hadn't I nearly killed Abbu?

Well, yes; but accidentally. Killing him wasn't the object. Defeating him was, and that I'd accomplished. Quite unexpectedly.

However, the shodo himself, with unequivocal skill despite his advanced age, soon convinced me that despite the quickness and strength of my young body, and the potential for remarkable power and true talent, I was merely a boy. Not a man. Not a sword-dancer.

It had taken me years to understand the difference. By the time my body was honed the way the rituals of Alimat required, I was nothing like that boy who'd killed the sandtiger-and nearly killed Abbu. I was nothing like the man who moved quickly through the first four levels, followed by three more. I was a child of Alimat: conditioned to codes and rituals and the requirements of the circle.

And now I stood outside of all the circles, self-exiled. But the body remembered. The mind recalled. Reflexes roused, began to seep back despite scrapes and bruises and gouges. I was more than twice the age I'd been when Alimat had accepted me, and I knew intimately the weight of the shodo's wisdom: as a man ages, fitness becomes harder to achieve.

As years in the circle are measured, I was no longer young. I bore scars from all manner of battles and circumstances, owned a knee that complained occasionally, and had noticed of late that my distance vision took a bit longer to focus.

But I was a long way from being old, fat, or slow.

Fortunately for my plan, the captain noticed that.

She leaned her back against the rail, elbows hooked there idly-which, I could not help but notice, enhanced the jut of her impressive breasts. She rode the deck easily, graceful as cat, while wind whipped the red braid across one shoulder like a loop of twisted rope. Where the sun picked out highlights, strands of hair glowed gold as wire.

She smiled. "Do you know, I believe you might match Nihko."

"Who?"

"Nihko," she answered. "My first mate."

"Oh. Blue-head."

The woman laughed. "Is that what you call him? Well, he has a name for you, too."

"He does, does he?" I bent, flattened palms against the deck. "And what would that be?"

"Something vulgar."

I grunted. "Nothing new."

"I imagine not," she agreed. "And I expect your woman calls you something equally vulgar, now."

I straightened. "What 'my woman' calls me is none of your concern. And you of all people should know better than to describe her that way."

A red brow arched in delicate surprise. "What? Is she your woman no longer, now that you have argued?"

"She isn't 'my woman' ever. "

"No?"

"No." I paused. "Not even before we argued."

"Do you not own her?"

I shook out my arms, flexed knees; I was cooling now in the wind, and sweat dried on my flesh. "No one owns her. She isn't a slave."

"But she is bound to you, yes?"

"No."

"Then why would she stay with you?"

I scowled at her. "The reason any woman stays with a man she-admires."

"Admires!"

"Likes," I amended grudgingly.

"Even now, do you think? After you shouted at her?"

I stood at the rail. "She shouted back."

"And now she will leave you?"

"It's a little hard to leave me when we're both stuck on this boat."

"Leave you here." She touched one breast, indicating her heart.

"Ask her," I said grimly.

"Nihko says she refuses to let you die."

I didn't realize they'd overheard quite that much. "Del does what she pleases."

"And if she pleases to keep you alive?"

I shrugged. "A man can find ways to die."

She considered that. "And why should he wish to die?"

He doesn't. But. "There are choices a man makes about the way he lives."

"Ah." She smiled. "And now you have argued together and are in bad temper, like children, because she likes you enough to wish you to survive, even if you wish to die."

"No one should interfere with a personal choice."

"No?"

"No."

"And if her personal choice is to keep you from dying?"

I glowered at the water and offered no reply.

"Would you prevent her from dying?"

That one was easy. "I have."

"And she, you?"

I turned on her then. "What is this about?"

"So, you will not admit a woman may prevent a man from dying? Does it weaken your soul, to know a woman can?"

I set a hip against the rail and folded arms across my chest. "What's my prize, if I answer your questions correctly? And how would you know if I did?"

She laughed at me. "On this ship, there is truth among men and women."

"Truth?"

"I tell you a truth. There is no man of my crew who was born believing a woman could save his life. But they learned it was so, when I saved theirs."

"You saved theirs."

"Oh, yes. I bought them."

I stiffened. "Bought them-"

"Out of slavery," she answered. "All save Nihko. Nihko came to me."

"Why?" I asked sharply.

"Ask Nihko."

"No-I mean, why did you buy them out of slavery?"

"I required loyalty. And that cannot be bought, or beaten into a man."

"Loyalty for what?"

"My ship."

I began to understand. "You couldn't hire a crew."

"Coin does not buy loyalty."

"No men would hire on with you as captain. So you bought yourself a crew another way." I shrugged. "Slave labor."

"I bought them. I freed them. I gave them the choice. Eight of ten sailed with me."

"And the two who did not?"

She hitched a single shoulder. "Free men choose as they will. Those two chose to go elsewhere."

"Loyalty you couldn't buy."

In the sun, her eyes were pale. "They would have left me later. It was better to lose them then."

"And the others?"

"One is dead," she said. "The others are here."

"Still."

"Still." She tilted her head slightly. "The only man who would ask his woman to let him die rather than become a slave is a man who has been a slave."

Anyone who had seen my back knew that. I eyed her up and down. "You seem to have an intimate knowledge of slavery."

She lifted her chin in assent. "My father owned many."

I had been on the verge of assuming she had been one. Or a prostitute, which is, I'd been told by Delilah, a form of slavery. But this was nothing I had expected of the conversation. "And does your father know what his daughter does?"

"What she does. What she is." A strand of sun-coppered hair strayed across her face. She trapped it and pulled it back, tucking it behind a gold-weighted ear. "He is a merchant," she said, "of men. He sells, buys, trades."

"So," I said finally, "you bought these men from your father, freed them-and now you ask them to do to other men what was done to them."

She said matter-of-factly, "Booty is many things."

And the daughter of a slaver would have no trouble finding a market for me. Or Del.

I shook my head. "No."

Small teeth glinted white. Even the rim of her lips was freckled. "She believes you worth saving."

I shrugged. "No accounting for taste."

It startled a laugh from her. I watched her eye me up and down, assessing me; it was what I had hoped to provoke in her, an interest in imagining what might come of intimacy, but now I could not help but wonder if she assessed me as a man who might perform in her bed-or perform as a slave. The chill in my gut expanded.

"So," she said, "you are willing to die for your freedom, as you believe death is better than slavery. I ask you, then, will you live for your freedom? If you were offered the choice?"