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Vivacia stared across the bright water to the white walls and towers of Jamaillia.

In hours, it had not been that long since Wintrow left.

Yet it seemed lifetimes had passed since he had clambered down the anchor chain and swum away.

The other ships had obscured her view of him.

She could not even be absolutely certain he had reached the beach safely.

A day ago, she would have insisted that if something had happened to him, she would have felt it.

But a day ago, she would have sworn that she knew him better than he did himself, and that he could never simply leave her. What a fool she had been.

‘You must have known when he left! Why didn’t you give an alarm? Where did he go?’

Wood, she told herself. I am only wood. Wood need not hear, wood need not answer.

Wood should not have to feel. She stared up at the city. Somewhere up there, Wintrow walked. Free of his father, free of her. How could he so easily sever that bond? A bitter smile curved her lips. Perhaps it was a Vestrit thing. Had not Althea walked away from her in much the same way?

‘Answer me!’ Kyle demanded of her.

Torg spoke quietly to his captain. ‘I’m so sorry, sir.

I should have kept a closer watch on the boy.

But who could have predicted this? Why would he run, after all you’ve done for him, all you wanted to give him?

Makes no sense to a man like me. Ingratitude like that’s enough to break a father’s heart.

’ The words were spoken as if to comfort, but Vivacia knew that every sentence of Torg’s commiseration only deepened Kyle’s fury with Wintrow. And with her.

‘Where did he go and when? Damn you, answer me!’ Kyle raged. He leaned over the railing. He dared to seize a heavy lock of her hair and pull it.

Swift as a snake, she pivoted. Her open hand slapped him away like a man swipes at an annoying cat.

He went sprawling on the deck. His eyes went wide in sudden fear and shock.

Torg fled, tripping in his fear and then scrabbling away on all fours.

‘Gantry!’ he called out wildly. ‘Gantry, get up here!’ He scurried off to find the first mate.

‘Damn you, Kyle Haven,’ she said in a quiet vicious voice.

She did not know where the tone or the words came from.

‘Damn you to the bottom of the briny deep. One by one, you’ve driven them away.

You took my captain’s place. You drove his daughter, the companion of my sleeping days, from my decks.

And now your own son has fled your tyranny and left me friendless. Damn you.’

He stood slowly. Every muscle in his body was knotted. ‘You’ll be sorry —’ Kyle began in a voice that shook with fear and fury, but she cut him off with a wild laugh.

‘Sorry? How can you make me sorrier than I already am? What deeper misery can you visit upon me than to drive from me those of my own blood? You are false, Kyle Haven. And I owe you nothing, nothing, and nothing is what you shall have from me.’

‘Sir.’ Gantry’s voice came in a low respectful tone.

He stood on the main deck, a safe distance from both man and figurehead as he spoke.

Torg hovered behind him, both savouring and fearing the conflict.

Gantry himself stood straight, but his tanned face had gone sallow.

‘I respectfully suggest you come away from there. You can do no good, and, I fear, much harm. Our best efforts should be made to search for the lad now, before he goes too far and hides too deep. He has no money, nor friends here that we know of. We should be in Jamaillia City right now, putting out word that we are seeking him. And offer a reward. Times are hard for many folk in Jamaillia. Like as not, a few coins will have him back on board before sunset.’

Kyle made a show of considering Gantry’s words.

Vivacia knew that he stood where he was, almost within her reach, as a show of boldness.

She was aware, too, of Torg watching them, an almost avid look on his face.

It disgusted her that he relished this quarrel between them.

Abruptly she didn’t care. Kyle wasn’t Wintrow, he wasn’t kin to her. He was nothing.

Kyle nodded to Gantry, but his eyes never left her.

‘Your suggestion has merit. Direct all crew members who have shore time to put out the word that we’ll give a gold piece for the boy returned safe and sound.

Half a gold piece in any other condition.

A silver for word of where he is, if such words helps us take him ourselves.

’ Kyle paused. ‘I’ll be taking Torg and heading down to the slave-markets.

The damned boy’s desertion has cost me an early start this day.

No doubt the best stock will be taken already.

I might have had a whole company of singers and musicians, if I had been down there early on the morning we arrived.

Have you any idea what Jamaillian singers and musicians would have been worth in Chalced?

’ He spoke as bitterly as if it were Gantry’s failure.

He shook his head in disgust. ‘You stay here and see to the modifications in the hold. That needs to be completed as swiftly as possible, for I intend to sail as soon as we have both boy and cargo on board.’

Gantry was nodding to his captain’s words, but several times Vivacia felt his eyes on her.

She twisted as much as she could to stare coldly at the three men.

Kyle would not look at her, but Gantry’s uneasy glance met her eyes once.

He made a tiny motion with his hand, intended for her, she was sure, but she could not decide what it meant.

They left the foredeck and both went down into the hold.

Some time later she was aware of both Torg and Kyle leaving.

And good riddance to them both, she told herself.

Again her eyes wandered the white city cloaked in the faint steaming of the Warm River.

A city veiled in cloud. Did she hope they would find Wintrow and drag him back to her, or did she hope he would escape his father and be happy?

She did not know. She remembered a hope that he would come back to her of his own will. It seemed childish and foolish now.

‘Ship? Vivacia?’ Gantry had not ventured onto the foredeck. Instead he stood on the short ladder and called to her in a quiet voice.

‘You needn’t be afraid to approach me,’ she told him sulkily. Despite being one of Kyle’s men, he was a good sailor. She felt oddly ashamed to have him fear her.

‘I but wanted to ask, is there anything I can do for you? To… ease you?’

He meant to calm her down. ‘No,’ she replied shortly. ‘No, there is nothing. Unless you wish to lead a mutiny.’ She stretched her lips in a semblance of a smile, to show him she was not serious in her request. At least, not quite yet.

‘Can’t do that,’ he replied, quite solemnly. ‘But if there’s anything you need, let me know.’

‘Need. Wood has no needs.’

He went away as softly as he had come, but in a short time, Findow appeared, to sit on the edge of the foredeck and play his fiddle.

He played none of the lively tunes he used to set the pace for the crew when they were working the capstan.

Instead he played soothingly, tunes with more than a tinge of sadness to them.

They were in keeping with her mood, but somehow the simple sound of the fiddle-strings echoing her melancholy lifted her spirits and lessened her pain.

Salt tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at Jamaillia.

She had never wept before. She had supposed that tears themselves would be painful, but instead they seemed to ease the terrible tightness inside her.

Deep inside her, she felt the men working.

Drills twisted into her timbers, followed by heavy eye-bolts.

Lengths of chain were measured across her and then secured to stanchions or heavy staples.

Oncoming supplies were mostly water and hard-tack and chains.

For the slaves. Slaves. She tried the word on her tongue.

Wintrow had believed slavery to be one of the greatest evils that existed in the world, but when he had tried to explain it to her, she could not see much difference between the life of a slave and the life of a sailor.

All, it seemed to her, were owned by a master and made to work for as long and hard as that master saw fit.

Sailors had very little say about their lives.

How could it be much worse to be a slave?

She had not been able to grasp it. Perhaps that was why Wintrow had been able to leave her so easily.

Because she was stupid. Because she was not, after all, a human being.

Tears welled afresh into her eyes, and the slaver Vivacia wept.

Even before they could see the ship itself, Sorcor declared he knew she was a slaver by the tallness of her masts. They were visible through the trees as she came around the island.

‘More sail to run faster, to deliver “fresh” cargo,’ he observed sarcastically.

Then he shot Kennit a pleased grin. ‘Or perhaps the slavers are learning they have something to fear. Well, run as they may, they won’t outdistance us.

If we put on some sail now, we’ll be on her as soon as she rounds the point. ’

Kennit shook his head. ‘The shoals are rocky there.’ He considered a moment.

‘Run up a Trader flag and drag some rope to make us appear heavy-laden. We’ll just be a fat little merchant-vessel ourselves, shall we?

Hang off and don’t approach too close until she’s going into Rickert’s Channel.

There’s a nice sandy shoal just past there.

If we have to run her aground to take her, I don’t want to hole her. ’