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‘Would that were all,’ Tenira said fervently.

‘But I fear worse is to come. I got the word in Jamaillia City itself. You know what that fool of a boy Satrap has done now? Hired Chalcedean mercenaries as privateers to patrol the Inside Passage. Word I got is that he’s given them the right to stop in Bingtown for water and supplies.

Free of charge. Says it’s the least Bingtown should be willing to do to help clean out the pirates.

When we left Jamaillia City, his messenger-boat was already two days out.

With papers authorizing the Satrap’s revenue officer to see his Chalcedean hirelings are treated well.

“To collect contributions for their provisioning” was the pretty paper he wrapped it in. ’

‘We’ve never allowed armed Chalcedean ships into Bingtown harbour, only trading-vessels.’ Althea observed quietly.

‘You catch on quick, girl. My guess is that we still won’t. It will be interesting to see how the New Traders ally. I fear more will support the Satrap and his Chalcedean dogs than…’

‘Tomie,’ Ophelia interrupted. ‘Save politics for later. You can bore her to tears with that at every meal from here to Bingtown. But first Athel has to become Althea again.’ Her eyes lifted to Althea’s.

‘Go on, girl, go fetch your things. Grag will see you ashore and safely to the door of the rooming house.’ Her mouth widened in a bawdy grin and she suddenly winked at the mate.

‘And mind you behave yourself, Grag, for Althea will tell me all about it otherwise. Go along now, but be sure you stop at her door.’

Althea found herself more flustered at the ship’s humour than Grag did. He seemed accustomed to it. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she managed to Captain Tenira. ‘I do so appreciate this.’ Then she hastened away where the shadows could hide her face.

When she came back out on deck, Grag was waiting for her by the hatch.

She shouldered her sea-bag, and was relieved when he had the sense not to offer to carry it for her.

She followed him down the gangplank and then up into town.

He set a good pace. She found herself without words, and he seemed as shy.

The night was mild, and the roads lit with the light spilling out from the sailor taverns they passed.

When they came to the door of the rooming house, Grag halted.

‘Well. Here we are,’ he said awkwardly. He hesitated as if about to say more.

Althea resolved to put him at ease. ‘Can I buy you a beer?’ she offered, gesturing to the tavern across the street.

He glanced at it, and his blue eyes were wide as they came back to hers. ‘I don’t think I’d be comfortable,’ he said honestly. ‘Besides. My father would skin me if I took a lady in a place like that.’ After a moment, he added, ‘But thank you.’ He didn’t move.

Althea ducked her head to hide her smile. ‘Well. Goodnight, then.’

‘Yes.’ He shuffled his feet, then hitched up his trousers.

‘Uh, I’m supposed to meet you tomorrow and bring you back to the ship.

As if it’s “by chance” as Ophelia put it.

’ He looked down at his feet. ‘I don’t want to look all over town for you.

Shall we meet somewhere?’ His eyes came up to her face again.

‘That would be a good idea,’ she said quietly. ‘Where do you suggest?’

He looked away. ‘There’s a place just down the street from here.

’ He pointed through the darkness. ‘Eldoy’s They make chowder and fresh bread there.

It’s very good. We could meet there. I’d buy you dinner, and you could tell me your adventures.

Since you left Bingtown.’ His eyes came back to her face and he managed a smile. ‘Or since we last danced together.’

So he had recalled that. She returned his smile.

He had a good face, open and honest. She thought of what she had seen of him, especially he and his father and Ophelia together.

The fondness and ease that existed among them made her suddenly hunger for such things as simple jokes and companionable times.

When she smiled back at him, his grin widened before he looked away.

‘I’ll meet you there tomorrow afternoon,’ she agreed easily.

‘Good. Good, then, that’s settled. Good night, then.

’ Almost hastily, he turned away from her.

He gave another hitch to his trousers and then shifted his cap to the back of his head.

She smiled as she watched him walk away.

He had a jaunty sailor’s roll to his gait.

She recalled now that he’d been a very good dancer.

‘You know something?’ Tarlock queried drunkenly. ‘I know you. I’m sure I know you.’

‘Not surprising. I’m only the mate on your ship,’ Brashen told him disgustedly. He swivelled in his seat so he didn’t have to face the seaman. Tarlock didn’t take the hint.

‘No. No, I mean, yeah, that’s true. That’s true, you’re mate on the Springeve. But I knew you before that. Way before that.’ With elaborate care, he sat down beside Brashen. His mug sloshed a bit over the lip as he set it down.

Brashen didn’t turn to face him. Instead he lifted his own mug and drank from it as if he hadn’t noticed Tarlock had joined him.

He’d been alone at the tavern table before the grizzled old sot had sought him out.

He’d wanted to be alone. This was the first port the Springeve had made since they’d left Candletown, and Brashen had wanted time to think.

His job was pretty much what he’d expected it to be.

The day-to-day running of the shallow-draught vessel was not a large strain on his abilities.

Most of the crew aboard her had been with her for some time and knew their tasks well enough.

He’d had to back up his bark with his fists a few times, especially when he first came aboard, but that was something he’d expected.

Men were bound to challenge a new mate, regardless of whether he came aboard fresh or rose up through their ranks.

It was just how sailors were. That wasn’t the problem.

It was his off-ship tasks that were bothering him.

Initially the ship had followed the coast of Jamaillia north, skipping along its increasingly broken shoreline.

Now it ventured from island to island, skirting and sometimes venturing into what was acknowledged as pirate territory.

This little town was typical. It was little more than a wharf and a handful of warehouses on a scummy slough.

A couple of taverns housed a few rundown whores.

A scatter of hovels marred the hillside behind the taverns.

The town had no reason to exist that Brashen could see.

Yet he’d spent the whole afternoon with a sword hanging at his belt and a truncheon in his hand.

He’d been watching his captain’s back, standing guard behind him as he sat at a table in one of those warehouses.

Between his captain’s feet was a chest of coins.

Three of the most suspicious sea-dogs Brashen had ever encountered brought out merchandise samples, a bit at a time, and prices were negotiated.

The variety and condition betrayed the source of their wares.

Brashen had felt a surge of disgust with himself when the captain had turned to ask his opinion on some blood-spattered but heavily illustrated manuscripts.

‘How much are they worth?’ Captain Finny had demanded.

Brashen had pushed aside a squirming memory.

‘Not worth dying for,’ he’d said dryly. Finny had laughed and named a price.

When Brashen nodded, the pirates selling their loot had consulted one another briefly, then accepted it.

He’d felt soiled by the transaction. He’d suspected from the start that the Springeve would be trading in such goods.

He just hadn’t imagined himself inspecting merchandise with a dead man’s blood on it.

‘Tell ya what,’ Tarlock offered slyly. ‘I’ll just say a name. You recall it, you tip me a wink and we’ll say no more about it. No more at all.’

Brashen spoke softly over his shoulder. ‘How about you shut up right now and stop bothering me, and I don’t black both your eyes?’

‘Now is that any way to talk to an old-shipmate?’ Tarlock whined.

The man was too drunk for his own good. Too drunk to be effectively threatened.

Not drunk enough to pass out. But that, perhaps, Brashen could remedy.

He changed tactics and turned back to face him.

He forced a smile to his face. ‘You know, you’re right.

Now I don’t recall that I’ve shipped with you before, but what difference need that make?

As we’re shipmates now, let’s have a drink together.

Boy! Let’s have some rum here, the good dark stuff, not this piss-thin beer you’ve been serving us. ’

Tarlock’s demeanour brightened considerably.

‘Well. That’s a bit more like it,’ he observed approvingly.

He raised his mug and hastily drank his beer down to be ready for the rum when it arrived.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and grinned at Brashen, displaying what remained of his teeth.

‘Thought I recognized you when you first come aboard, I did. Been a long time, though. What’s it been, let’s see.

Ten years? Ten years ago aboard the Hope? ’

The Despair. Brashen took a pull from his own mug and appeared to consider. ‘Me, you mean? Ten years ago? You’re mistaken, man, ten years ago I was just a lad. Just a lad.’

‘Right. That you were. That’s what made me uncertain, at first. You didn’t have a whisker to your chin, then.’

‘No, that I didn’t,’ Brashen agreed affably.

The serving boy came with the bottle and two glasses.

Brashen clenched his teeth and paid for the liquor.

He grinned at Tarlock and elbowed the small glass aside.

The rum gurgled happily as Brashen poured it into the sailor’s emptied beer mug.

Tarlock beamed. Brashen tipped a bit into his own glass, then lifted it in salute. ‘So here’s to shipmates, old and new.’

They drank together. Tarlock took a hefty slug of the rum, gasped, then leaned back with a sigh. He scratched his nose and whiskery chin energetically. Then he pointed a single thick finger at Brashen. ‘Child of the Wind,’ he said, and grinned his gap-toothed smile. ‘I’m right, ain’t I?’

‘About what?’ Brashen asked him lazily. He watched the man through narrowed eyes as he took a slow sip of his own rum. Tarlock followed his example with another swallow of his.

‘Aw, come on,’ Tarlock wheezed after a moment. ‘You were on Child of the Wind when we overtook her. Little whip of a kid you was, spitting and scratching like a cat when we hauled you out of the rigging. Didn’t have so much as a knife to defend yourself, but you fought right up until you dropped.’

‘Child of the Wind. Can’t say as I recall her, Tarlock.’ Brashen put a note of warning in his voice. ‘You’re not going to tell me you were a pirate, are you?’

The man was either too stupid or too drunk to deny it.

Instead he spewed a rummy laugh into his own mug and then sat back, to wipe his chin with his wrist. ‘Hey! Weren’t we all?

Look around you, man. Think there’s a man in this room hasn’t freebooted a bit?

Naw!’ He leaned forward across the table, suddenly confidential.

‘You wasn’t too slow to sign the articles, once you had a blade at your ribs.

’ He leaned back again. ‘But as I recall, the name you went by wasn’t Brashen Trell of Bingtown.

’ He rubbed his reddened nose, considering.

‘I bin trine to member,’ he slurred. He leaned heavily on the table, then set his head down on one of his arms. ‘Can’t remember what you say’d it was.

But I recall what we called you.’ Again the thick finger lifted, just from the table top, to wag at Brashen.

‘Weasel. Cuz you was so skinny and so fast.’ The man’s eyes sagged shut.

He drew a deep, heavy breath that emerged as a snore.

Brashen stood quietly. The merchandise would be nearly loaded by now.

It wouldn’t take much to speed up their departure.

Perhaps when Tarlock awoke, he’d find his ship had sailed without him.

He wouldn’t be the first sailor to get drunk and be left behind.

He looked down at the snoring Tarlock. The years had not been kind to him since the Child of the Wind.

Brashen would never have recognized him if he hadn’t revealed himself.

He lifted the bottle of rum, then in a spirit of largesse, he re-corked it and nestled it in the crook of the old pirate’s elbow.

If he woke up too soon, he’d likely delay himself with another drink or two.

And if he woke up too late, perhaps the rum would console him.

He really had nothing against the man, except that he reminded Brashen of a time he’d sooner forget.

Weasel , he thought to himself as he left the tavern and emerged into the chill fog of the early evening.

I’m not Weasel any more. As if to convince himself, he took a stick of cindin from his pocket and snapped the end off in his mouth.

As he tucked it in his cheek, the sharp bitterness of it almost made his eyes water.

It was probably the best quality cindin he’d ever known, and it had been a parting goodwill gift to him from the freebooters they’d dealt with earlier in the day. Free.

No, he wasn’t Weasel any more, he reflected wryly as he headed back toward the dock and the Springeve. Poor Weasel never had cindin like this.