Page 51

‘ AT LEAST YOU KEEP A FAIR brIG, ’ SAID KISSEN.

The cell, it seemed, was rarely used for anything other than storage. Their hands and feet were manacled with hard iron, locks, and loose chains. Not, thankfully, tied to the walls.

‘It stinks,’ muttered Lessa.

‘ You can’t smell anything,’ said Kissen.

Lessa had a bloodied nose from fighting back when they had dragged her down, and a purpling bruise on her jaw.

Kissen herself had taken a pounding to the gut and thrown up most of the delicious food she had put in it.

Her nice cloak had been ripped off her neck. That was the sorest loss.

The ship was unmoored: Kissen could tell by the way it rocked.

It must be nearing dawn, which meant the tide would be high enough to cross the harbour sandbar.

There were boots on the boards above, and chattering, whispering, shouting as the crew had returned, and, apparently, accepted the fresh change of control.

The only person that had come down to them was Sallath, who was standing guard.

‘I’ve smelled worse anyway,’ Kissen added.

‘You smelled worse when I first met you,’ Lessa muttered.

‘Aye, well, that wind’s arsehole Faer thought it was funny to throw me in a pigsty.’

Sallath glowered at them, sliding a whetstone down his blade. ‘You bicker like an old wed couple,’ he said.

‘I have a skill of bickering with anyone,’ said Kissen. She was standing, leaning back against the cell wall by the bar, absently flexing her right leg.

‘And I don’t listen to mutinous traitors,’ spat Lessa. She sat with her arms on her knees, her fine dress torn.

‘Don’t tell me you’re surprised, highborn?

’ said Sallath. ‘Those Restish bluffers offered more than a loser’s fight.

Free trade in the eastern seas, and through to the west when your Middren falls apart.

Clemency, too, for being part of Commander Samin’s fleet. Then a good box of gold to sweeten it.’

‘All for sad little Sallath the Scrawny?’ said Lessa, her mouth curved in a bitter smile.

Sallath scowled. ‘Some of it. Lady. ’

‘How old were you,’ said Lessa, ‘when I lifted you from the gutters of Belhaven?’ Sallath straightened, baring his teeth. ‘Six? You didn’t know for sure, since you’d been left to starve by your sisters.’

‘I owe you nothing,’ he snarled. ‘You worked me to the bone. And your own precious daughter-child has soft hands and softer clothes. I wonder how soft they’ll find her when they sit her as a prisoner on a throne.’

Lessa lunged for him, but her hands met air as the pirate stepped aside, laughing. ‘You think I’m an idiot?’ he said.

Lessa smiled. ‘Yes.’

Sallath had stepped closer to Kissen, who reached out, grabbed him by the shirt and slammed his head once against the bars, then again, knocking him out cold.