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An extremely strange look had come over the pirate’s face.

Kennit stared down at him in a sort of fascination.

For an instant, he seemed to recognize him, and Wintrow, too, felt an uncanny sense of having been here, done this and spoken these words before.

There was something compelling in Kennit’s gaze, something that demanded to be acknowledged.

The silence between them seemed to bind them together.

Wintrow felt a sudden prick against his ribs. The woman with the knife said, ‘Take Kennit gently, Sorcor. Boy, you have missed your chance to die swiftly. All you have bought is that you and your father will die together, each praying to be the first to go.’

‘No. No, Etta, stand aside.’ The pirate managed his pain well, never losing his educated diction.

He still had to take a breath to speak on.

‘What is your bargain, boy? What do you have left to offer? Your ship, freely given?’ Kennit shook his head slowly.

‘I already have her, one way or another. So I am intrigued. Just what do you think you have to trade with?’

‘A life for a life,’ Wintrow offered slowly.

He spoke knowing that what he proposed was likely beyond his skill to perform.

‘I have been trained in healing, for I was once promised to Sa’s priesthood.

’ He glanced down at the pirate’s leg. ‘You need the skills I have. You know you do. I’ll keep you alive. If you allow my father to live.’

‘No doubt you’ll want to cut more of my leg off for such a bet.’ His question was contemptuous.

Wintrow looked up, searching the older man’s eyes for acceptance.

‘You already know that must be done,’ he pointed out to him.

‘You were simply waiting until the pain of the festering would make the pain of the removal seem like a relief.’ He glanced down at the stump again.

‘You have nearly waited too long. But I am still ready to honour the bargain. Your life for my father’s. ’

Kennit swayed in his grasp and Wintrow found himself steadying the man. All about them, men were frozen in a tableau of watching and waiting. The map-faces had his father pressed up against the railing, that he might watch the serpent that waited so impatiently.

‘It’s a poor sort of bet,’ Kennit observed weakly. ‘Up the ante. Your life as well.’ He grinned a sickly grin. ‘So that if I win by dying, we all lose together.’

‘You have a strange idea of winning,’ said Wintrow.

‘Then you include your crew in your wager,’ Vivacia suddenly pointed out. ‘For if you take Wintrow’s life from me, I shall see every one of you to a watery grave.’ She paused. ‘And that is the only bargain I offer to any of you.’

‘High stakes,’ Wintrow observed quietly. ‘Nonetheless, I accept them if you do.’

‘I am scarcely in a position to shake hands upon it,’ the pirate pointed out. His tone was as cool and charming as ever, yet Wintrow could see the man’s strength fading even as they spoke. A small smile bent his lips. ‘You do not try to make me agree that if I live, I give your ship back to you?’

It was Wintrow’s turn to shake his head slowly.

His smile was as small as Kennit’s. ‘You cannot take her from me. Nor could I give her to you. That, I think, is something you must discover for yourself. But your word will suffice to bind me to the rest of our wager. And that of your mate and the woman,’ he added.

He looked past Kennit to the woman as he added, ‘And if my father comes to ill from the slaves aboard this ship, I shall take it to cancel the bet.’

‘There are no slaves aboard this ship!’ Sa’Adar declared pompously.

Wintrow ignored him. He waited until the woman gave a slow nod.

‘If you have my captain’s word, you have my word,’ Sorcor added gruffly.

‘Fine,’ Wintrow declared. He turned his head and looked straight at Sa’Adar as he spoke. ‘Clear the way to my father’s salon. I want the pirate captain in his bed there. And let my father go to Gantry’s cabin and take some rest. I will see to his ribs later.’

For just an instant, Sa’Adar’s eyes narrowed at the boy. Wintrow was not sure what passed through the man’s mind. He knew he could not trust the priest to abide by anyone’s word, not even his own. The man would bear watching.

Slaves milled apart to open a channel to the aftercastle.

Some moved grudgingly and others impassively.

Some few looked at him and seemed to remember a boy with a bucket of water and a cool, moist rag.

Wintrow watched his father led away to Gantry’s cabin.

He never turned to look back at his son, nor spoke a word.

Wintrow decided he should press his power, to see how far it would extend.

He glanced at the map-faces that flanked Sa’Adar.

‘This deck is still a shambles,’ he observed quietly.

‘I want the canvas and line cleared from it, and all mess scrubbed away. Then begin belowdecks. Free men have no excuse to live in squalor.’

The map-faces looked from him to Sa’Adar and back again.

Sorcor broke the impasse. ‘You can obey the boy when he tells you to do it, or you can obey me. The point is, it gets done and promptly.’ He looked away from them to his own crew.

The map-faces slowly moved away from Sa’Adar, to take up their directed tasks.

The priest remained standing as he was. Sorcor was giving commands.

‘…and Cory on the wheel, Brig running the deck. I want anchor up and sail on as soon as you see the Marietta start to move. We’ll all be heading back to Bull Creek.

Move lively, now, show them how a sailor does his work.

’ He glanced again at the slowly dispersing map-faces and included the priest who stood with his arms crossed on his chest. ‘Lively. There’s work for all of you. Don’t make Brig find it for you.’

Two steps brought him to Wintrow’s side, where the boy now more held than threatened the man.

As gently as if he were picking up a sleeping infant, the burly mate eased his arms about his captain.

The smile he gave Wintrow showed him more teeth than a bulldog’s snarl.

‘You lived through laying hands on the captain once. It won’t happen again. ’

‘No. I trust it won’t need to,’ Wintrow replied, but it was the woman’s cold black eyes on his back that made his belly cold.

‘I’ll see you to your room, sir,’ Sorcor suggested.

‘After I have presented myself to the ship,’ Kennit countered. The man actually tried to smooth his shirt front.

Wintrow smiled. ‘I’ll be pleased to introduce you to the Vivacia.’

The methodical slowness with which Kennit worked his way across the deck made Wintrow’s heart sink.

He was a man held together by sheer will and sense of self.

Should either falter, he would die. As long as he was determined to live, Wintrow had a powerful ally in curing him.

But if he gave it up, all the skill in the world would not prevail against the spreading infection.

The ladder to the foredeck was a major obstacle.

Sorcor did his best to maintain Kennit’s dignity as he helped him up it, while Etta, who had preceded them, turned to glare down at the gawking slaves.

‘Have you nothing better to do than stare?’ she demanded of them, and then to Brig she suggested, ‘There are sick slaves below, no doubt. These ones could be employed in bringing them up for air.’ A moment later Kennit gained the foredeck.

She tried to take his arm, but he waved her away.

By the time Wintrow had gained the foredeck, Kennit had used his crutch to make his painful way to the bow.

Vivacia turned to look over her shoulder. Her eyes travelled up and down him before she said in a quietly reserved voice, ‘Captain Kennit.’

‘My lady Vivacia.’ He bowed to her, not as deeply as a healthy man might have, but more than a nod.

When he straightened, he returned her inspection.

Wintrow watched uneasily, for the man’s nostrils widened and the smile that curved his mouth was both approval and avarice.

His frank appraisal flustered Vivacia. In an almost girlish response, she drew back and lifted her arms to cross her wrists over her breasts.

Kennit’s smile only widened. Vivacia’s eyes went very wide, but could not seem to stop the smile that crept to her own face.

She broke the silence first. ‘I do not know what you want of me. Why have you attempted to claim me this way?’

Kennit took a step closer. ‘Ah, my lady of wood and wind, my swift one, my beauty. What I want could not be plainer. I wish to make you my own. So my first question must be, what do you wish of me? What must I do to win you?’

‘I do not… No one has ever…’ Obviously flustered, she turned to Wintrow. ‘Wintrow is mine and I am his. We have both discovered that nothing can change that. Certainly you cannot come between us.’

‘Can’t I? So says the girl who speaks fondly of her brother, until her lover steals her heart away.’

Wintrow found himself speechless. Perhaps the only other person as flabbergasted at this interplay was the woman who had come aboard with Kennit.

Her eyes were narrowed, like a cat’s when she stares down a hostile dog.

Jealous, Wintrow thought. She is jealous of his sweet words to the ship.

As I, he admitted to himself, am jealous at Vivacia’s confusion and pleasure.

The fine grain of her cheeks had taken on a pink blush. The breath that moved her bare breasts behind her arms came more swiftly. ‘I am a ship, not a woman,’ she pointed out to him. ‘You cannot be my lover.’