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‘I hear you,’ he replied as he gazed sightlessly out over the ocean. He kept all expression out of his voice as he added, ‘Do go on.’

‘I will. Because you should know this, not because I take pleasure in it. So far, the Ludlucks have still refused all offers. I think perhaps they fear what the other Old Traders might think of them, if they sold you and opened up the Rain River trade to the newcomers. Those goods are the last complete bastion of the Bingtown Traders. Or perhaps, despite their neglect of you, there still remains some family feeling. So. I made an offer. Not as great as the others have bid, for I don’t have the wealth they do.

But coupled with my offer was my promise that you would remain intact and unsailed.

For I think the Ludlucks still care about you.

That in an odd way, they keep you here to keep you safe. ’

‘Ah, yes. Chaining up one’s odder relatives and keeping them confined to a garret or cellar or other out of the way place has long been how Bingtown dealt with madness or deformity.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Consider the Rain Wild Traders, for example.’

‘Who?’

‘Exactly. Who? No one hears of them, no one knows of them, no one considers our ancient covenants with them. Least of all me or you. Pray, go on. After you buy me and leave me intact and don’t sail me, what did you have in mind?’

‘Oh, Paragon.’ She sounded completely miserable now.

‘If it were up to me — if I could dream as a child does and believe those dreams could come true — I would say, then, I would have artisans come here, to right you and build a cradle to support you upright. And I would come and live aboard you. On the cliffs above you, I would plant a garden of scent and colour, a bird and butterfly garden, with trailing vines to hang all the way down to the beach and bloom sweetly. And around you I would sculpt stone and create tidepools and populate them with sea stars and sea anemones and those little scarlet crabs.’ As she raved on of this strange vision, her voice grew more and more impassioned.

‘I would live inside you and work inside you and in the evenings I would dine on the deck and we would share our day. And if I dared to dream larger than that, why, then I would dream that someday I could obtain wizardwood and work it wisely enough to restore your eyes and your sight. In the mornings we would look out to the sun rising over the sea, and in the evenings we would look up to it setting over our cliff garden. I would say to the world, do what you will, for I am done with you. Destroy yourself or prosper, it is all one to me, as long as you leave us alone. And we would be happy, the two of us.’

For a time he was at a loss to say anything. The childish fantasy caught him up and wrapped around him and suddenly he was not the ship but a boy who would have run in and out of such a place, pockets full of shiny stones and odd shells, gull’s feathers and…

‘You are not my family, and you can never be my family.’ He dropped the words on the dream like a heavy shoe on a butterfly.

‘I know that,’ she said quietly. ‘I said it was but a dream. It is what I long to do, but in truth, I do not know how long I can remain in Bingtown or with you. But Paragon, it is the only hope I have of saving you. If I go to the Ludlucks, myself, and say that you have said you could be content in such a way, perhaps they might take the lesser offer from me, for the sake of the bond…’ Her voice wisped away as he crossed his arms over the star scar on his broad chest.

‘Save me from what?’ he asked her disdainfully.

‘Such a nursery tale as you can spin, Amber. I confess, it is a charming image. But I am a ship. I was created to be sailed. Do you think I choose to lie here on this beach, idle and near-mad with that idleness? No. If my family chooses to sell me into slavery, let it at least be a familiar slavery. I have no desire to be your playhouse.’ Especially not as she had just admitted that she would eventually leave him, that her friendship with him was only because something else kept her in Bingtown.

Sooner or later, she would leave him, just as all the others had.

Sooner or later, all humans abandoned him.

‘You had best go back to Davad Restart and withdraw your offer,’ he advised her when the silence had grown very long.

‘No.’

‘If you buy me and keep me here, I will hate you for ever, and I will bring you ill luck such as you cannot even imagine.’

Her voice was calm. ‘I don’t believe in luck, Paragon.

I believe in fate, and I believe my fate has more terrible and heart-rending facets to it than even you can imagine.

You, I know, are one of them. So, for the sake of the child who rants and threatens from within the wooden bones of a ship, I will buy you and keep you safe.

Or as safe as fate will allow me.’ There was no fear in her voice.

Only an odd tenderness as she reached up to set her palm flat to his planking.

‘Just wrap it up,’ he told her brusquely. ‘It will heal.’

Etta shook her head. Her voice was very soft as she told him, ‘Kennit, it is not healing.’ She set her hand gently to the flesh above his injury. ‘Your skin is hot and tender. I see you wince at every touch. These fluids that drain do not look to me like the liquids of healing but the—’

‘Shut up,’ he ordered her. ‘I’m a strong man, not some snivelling whore in your care.

I will heal, and all will be well once more.

Wrap it for me, or do not, I scarcely care.

I can bandage it myself, or Sorcor can. I have no time to sit here and listen to you wish bad luck on me.

’ A sudden pain, sharp as any toothache, rushed up his leg.

He gasped before he could stop himself, then gripped the edges of his bunk hard to keep from screaming.

‘Kennit. You know what needs to be done.’ She was pleading with him.

He had to wait until he had breath to speak. ‘What needs to be done is feed you to a serpent so I can have a measure of peace in my life again. Go, get out of here, and send Sorcor to me. There are plans to be made, and I don’t have time for your fretting.’

She gathered up the sodden bandaging into a basket and left the room without another word.

Good. Kennit reached for the sturdy crutch that leaned against his bunk.

He had had Sorcor fashion it for him. He hated the thing, and when the deck pitched at all, it was virtually useless.

But with it, on a calm day at anchor like today, he could get from his bunk to his chart table.

He hopped there, in short painful hops that seared his stump with every jolt.

He was sweating by the time he reached the table.

He leaned forwards over his charts, resting his weight on the edge of the table.

There was a tap at the door.

‘Sorcor? Come in.’

The mate stuck his head around the edge of the door.

His eyes were anxious. But at the sight of his captain standing at his chart table, he beamed like a child offered sweets.

He ventured into the room. Kennit noted he had yet another new vest, one with even more embroidery.

‘That healer did you some good, then,’ he greeted Kennit as he came in the door.

‘I thought he might. Those other two, I didn’t think much of them.

If you’re going to have someone work on you, get an old man, someone who’s been around a bit and… ’

‘Shut up, Sorcor,’ Kennit said pleasantly.

‘He was no more useful than the other two. The custom in Bull Creek seems to be that if you cannot cure an injury, you create a different one to distract your victim from your incompetence. Why, I asked him, did he think he could heal a new slice to my leg if he could not cure the one I had? He had no answer to that.’ Kennit shrugged elaborately.

‘I am tired of these backwater healers. Like as not, I shall heal just as fast without their leeches and potions.’

The smile faded from Sorcor’s face as he came slowly into the captain’s room. ‘Like as not,’ he agreed dully.

‘This last one as much as said so himself,’ Kennit asserted.

‘Only because you threatened him until he agreed with you,’ Etta pointed out bitterly from the doorway. ‘Sorcor, stand up to him. Tell him he must let them cut the leg higher, above the foulness. He will listen to you, he respects you.’

‘Etta. Get out.’

‘I have nowhere to go.’

‘Go buy something in town. Sorcor, give her some money.’

‘I don’t need money. All in Bull Creek know I am your woman, if I so much as look at anything, they push it into my arms and beg me to take it. But there is nothing I truly want, anywhere, save that you should get better.’

Kennit sighed heavily. ‘Sorcor. Please shut the door. With the woman on the other side of it.’

‘No, I promise, please Kennit, I’ll be quiet. Let me stay. You talk to him, then, Sorcor, reason with him, he’ll listen to you…’

She kept it up like a whining dog and all the while Sorcor was quite gently pushing her out of the room and latching the door behind her.

Kennit would not have been so gentle if he’d been able to deal with her himself.

That, of course, was the whole problem. She saw him as weak, now, and would try to get her will in everything.

Ever since she’d tortured his prisoners, he’d suspected she enjoyed the idea of cutting up helpless men.

He wondered if there were some way he could leave her in Bull Creek.

‘And how are things in town?’ Kennit asked Sorcor pleasantly as if he had just entered.