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On the deck below, the hunters whooped triumphantly and rushed to the side of the ship where the serpent stood on its tail and tried to free itself from the barbed bait it had swallowed.

The chain rattled against its teeth and the kegs bobbed on the water nearby.

Arrows sang and harpoons were flung. Some fell short or went wide of their target, but a handful found their mark.

The serpent trumpeted its agony as it fell back into the water.

It was a shrill sound, more akin to the scream of a woman than the roar of a bull.

It dived again, for the kegs vanished like popping bubbles.

Above Althea, a man cried out more loudly, a loose, wordless sound.

He fell, his body striking a spar near her.

He teetered a moment, and Althea caught the sleeve of his shirt.

But his body overbalanced and the sleeve tattered free in her grip.

She heard him strike the deck far below.

She was left gazing stupidly at the rotted cloth that she clutched.

The serpent’s slime had eaten through the heavy cotton fabric like a horde of moths through woven wool.

She wondered what it was doing to her face. A graver thought than that came to her, and she cried out, ‘The serpent’s slime is eating our canvas!’

Other cries confirmed her. Another man, hands burned and numbed, was clutched by his comrades as they awkwardly worked him down to the deck.

His head lolled on his shoulders and his mouth and nose both leaked fluid.

Althea did not think he was completely aware any more.

It was a terrible sight, but more terrible were the small rips that were appearing in the canvas.

As the wind pressed on the sail, the fabric first holed and then began to split.

The captain watched with a wary eye, measuring the speed the ship was managing to hold against how long it would take to drag up the spare sails and set them.

His plan seemed to be to get as far as he could from the serpent grounds before he paused to replace canvas. Althea agreed with it.

A cry aft turned her head. She did not have a clear view, but the shouts from below told her that the serpent had been sighted again.

‘The bastard’s coming right after us!’ someone yelled, and the captain bellowed for the hunters to go aft, and be ready to drive it off with arrows and harpoons.

Althea, clinging to her perch, caught one clear glimpse of the creature bearing down on them.

Its mouth still gaped wide, the chain dangling from the corner.

Somehow it had severed the heavy hemp line that had attached the barrels to it.

The arrows and harpoons stood out from its throat.

Its immense eyes caught a bit of the first feeble light of dawn and reflected it as red anger.

Never before had Althea seen an emotion shine so fiercely in an animal’s countenance.

Taller and taller it reared up from the water, impossibly tall, much too long to be something alive.

It struck the ship with every bit of force it could muster.

The immense head landed on the afterdeck with a solid smack, like a giant hand upon a table.

The bow of the ship leapt up in response and Althea was nearly thrown clear of the rigging.

She clung there, voicing her terror in a yell that more than one echoed.

She heard the frantic twanging of arrows loosed.

Later, she would hear how the hunters sprung fearlessly forward, to thrust their spears into the creature over and over again.

But their actions were unneeded. It had been dying even as it charged up on them.

It lay lifeless on the deck, wide eyes staring, maw dribbling a milky fluid that smoked where it fell on the wooden deck.

Gradually the weight of its immense body drew its head back and down, to vanish into the dark waters from whence it had sprung.

Half the after-rail went with it. It left a trough of scarred wood smoking in its wake.

Hoarsely the captain ordered the decks doused with seawater.

‘That wasn’t just an animal,’ a voice she recognized as Brashen’s said. There was both awe and fear in his voice. ‘It wanted revenge before it died. And it damned near got it.’

‘Let’s get ourselves out of here,’ the mate suggested.

All over the ship, men sprang to with a will as the grudging sun slowly reached toward them over the sea.

He came to the foredeck in the dead of night on the fourth day of their stay in Jamaillia.

Vivacia was aware of him there, but then, she was aware of him anywhere on board her.

‘What is it?’ she whispered. The rest of the ship was still.

The single sailor on anchor-watch was at the stern, humming an old love song as he gazed at the city’s scattered lights.

A stone’s throw away, a slaver rocked at anchor.

The peace of the scene was spoiled only by the stench of the slave-ship and the low mutter of misery from the chained cargo within it.

‘I’m going,’ he said quietly. ‘I wanted to say goodbye.’

She heard and felt his words, but they made no sense to her. He could not mean what the words seemed to say. Panicky, she reached for him, to grope inside him for understanding, but somehow he held that back from her. Separate.

‘You know I love you,’ he said. ‘More important, perhaps, you know I like you, too. I think we would have been friends even if we had not been who we are, even if you had been a real person, or I just another deckhand—’

‘You are wrong!’ she cried out in a low voice.

Even now, when she sensed his decision to abandon her hovering in the air, she could not bring herself to betray him.

It was not, could not be real. There was no sense in crying an alarm and involving Kyle in this.

She would keep it private, between the two of them.

She kept her words soft. ‘Wintrow. Yes, in any form we would be friends, though it cuts me to the quick when you seem to say I am not a real person. But what is between us, ship and man, oh, that could never be with any other! Do not deceive yourself that it could. Don’t salve your conscience that if you leave me I can simply start chatting with Mild or share my opinions with Gantry.

They are good men, but they are not you. I need you, Wintrow. Wintrow? Wintrow?’

She had twisted about to watch him, but he stood just out of her eye-shot. When he stepped up to her, he was stripped to his underwear. He had a very small bundle, something wadded up inside an oilskin and tied tight. Probably his priest’s robe, she thought angrily to herself.

‘You’re right,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s what I’m taking, and nothing else.

The only thing of mine I ever brought aboard with me.

Vivacia. I don’t know what else I can say to you.

I have to go, I must, before I cannot leave you.

Before my father has changed me so greatly I won’t know myself at all. ’

She struggled to be rational, to sway him with logic.

‘But where will you go? What will you do? Your monastery is far from here. You have no money, no friends. Wintrow, this is insanity. If you must do this, plan it. Wait until we are closer to Marrow, lull them into thinking you’ve given up and then… ’

‘I think if I don’t do this now, I will never do it at all.’ His voice was quietly determined.

‘I can stop you right now,’ she warned him in a hoarse whisper. ‘All I have to do is sound the alarm. One shout from me and I can have every man aboard this vessel after you. Don’t you know that?’

‘I know that.’ He shut his eyes for a moment and then reached out to touch her. His fingertips brushed a lock of her hair. ‘But I don’t think you will. I don’t think you would do that to me.’

That brief touch and then he straightened up. He tied his bundle to his waist with a long string. Then he clambered awkwardly over the side and down the anchor chain.

‘Wintrow. You must not. There are serpents in the harbour, they may…’

‘You’ve never lied to me,’ he rebuked her quietly. ‘Don’t do it now to keep me by you.’

Shocked, she opened her mouth, but no words came.

He reached the cold, cold water and plunged one bare foot and leg into it.

‘Sa preserve me,’ he gasped, and then resolutely lowered himself into the water.

She heard him catch his breath hoarsely in its chill embrace.

Then he let go of the chain and paddled awkwardly away.

His tied bundle bobbed in his wake. He swam like a dog.

Wintrow, she screamed. Wintrow, Wintrow, Wintrow.

Soundless screams, waterless tears. But she kept still, and not just because she feared her cries would rouse the serpents.

A terrible loyalty to him and to herself silenced her.

He could not mean it. He could not do it.

He was a Vestrit, she was his family ship.

He could not leave her, not for long. He’d get ashore and go up into the dark town.

He’d stay there, an hour, a day, a week, men did such things, they went ashore, but they always came back.

Of his own free will, he’d come back to her and acknowledge that she was his destiny.

She hugged herself tightly and clenched her teeth shut.

She would not cry out. She could wait, until he saw for himself and came back on his own.

She’d trust that she truly knew his heart.

‘It’s nearly dawn.’

Kennit’s voice was so soft, Etta was scarcely sure she had heard it.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed very quietly. She lay alongside his back, her body not quite touching his.

If he was talking in his sleep, she did not wish to wake him.

It was seldom that he fell asleep while she was still in the bed, seldom that she was allowed to share his bedding and pillows and the warmth of his lean body for more than an hour or two.

He spoke again, less than a whisper. ‘Do you know this piece? “When I am parted from you, The dawn light touches my face with your hands.”’

‘I don’t know,’ Etta breathed hesitantly. ‘It sounds like a bit of a poem, perhaps… I never had much time for the learning of poetry.’

‘You have no need to learn what you already are,’ he said quietly.

He did not try to disguise the fondness in his voice.

Etta’s heart near stood still. She dared not breathe.

‘The poem is called, From Kytris To His Mistress. Older than Jamaillia, from the days of the Old Empire.’ Again there was a pause.

‘Ever since I met you, it has made me think of you. Especially the part that says, “Words are not cupped deeply enough to hold my fondness. I bite my tongue and scowl my love, lest passion make me slave.’” A pause.

‘Another man’s words, from another man’s lips. I wish they were my own.’

Etta let the silence follow his words, savoured them as she committed them to memory.

In the absence of his breathless whisper, she heard the deep rhythm of his breathing in harmony with the splash and gurgle of the waves against the ship’s bow.

It was a music that moved through her with the beating of her blood.

She drew a breath and summoned all her courage.

‘Sweet as your words are, I do not need them. I have never needed them.’

‘Then in silence, let us bide. Lie still beside me, until morning turns us out.’

‘I shall,’ she breathed. As gentle as a drifting feather alighting, she laid her hand on his hip.

He did not stir, nor turn to her. She did not mind.

She did not need him to. Having lived for so long with so little, the words he had spoken to her now would be enough to last her a life.

When she closed her eyes, a single tear slid forth from beneath her lashes.

In the dimness of the captain’s cabin, a tiny smile curved his wooden features.