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She felt a pleasant anticipation at the thought of seeing Grag.

She enjoyed sitting and talking with him.

There was a gratifying little tension of awareness between them.

Grag found her attractive and was undaunted by her competency.

He seemed impressed by it. It was a new and flattering experience for Althea.

She wished she could be certain that was all she felt.

Despite her fling with Brashen, and despite living aboard ship with men for years, in some areas she was very inexperienced.

She was not sure if she was attracted to Grag for himself, or simply because he seemed to be fascinated with her.

Surely, this was just a harmless flirtation between them.

What more could it be, between two strangers flung together by chance?

She took a breath and knocked.

‘Enter.’ Grag’s voice was muffled.

She found him sitting up on his bunk, his face swathed in bandaging.

There was a strong scent of cloves in the air.

At the sight of her, a welcoming glint came into his blue eyes.

As she shut the door behind her, he pulled the wrappings off his jaw and let them drop gratefully.

The pretence of the bandages had left his hair tousled like a boy’s.

She grinned at him. ‘So. How’s the toothache? ’

‘Convenient.’ He stretched, rolling his wide shoulders, then made a show of flinging himself back on his bunk. ‘I can’t remember when I last had this much time to myself.’ He swung his legs up onto his bunk and crossed them at the ankle.

‘You’re not getting bored?’

‘No. For any sailor, idle time is too much of a novelty. We always find a way to fill it.’ He fished around at the edge of his bunk and came up with a handful of ropework.

He unrolled it on his lap to reveal a fancifully knotted mat.

The intricate pattern had created a lacy effect from the stout twine he had used to create it.

It was hard to believe such a delicate design came from his work-scarred fingers.

Althea touched the edge of it. ‘Beautiful.’ Her fingers traced the pattern of knotted twine.

‘My father could take an empty wine bottle, and some twine, and create this wonderful pattern of knots over the glass. It looked like flowers, or snowflakes…He always promised he’d teach me how to do it, but we never found the time.

’ The gaping sense of loss that she had believed she had mastered overwhelmed her again.

She turned away from him abruptly and stared at the wall.

Grag was silent for a moment. Then he offered quietly, ‘I could teach you, if you wanted.’

‘Thanks, but it wouldn’t be the same.’ She was surprised by the brusqueness in her own voice.

She shook her head, embarrassed by the sudden tears that brimmed in her eyes.

She hoped he had not seen them. They made her vulnerable.

Grag and his father had already done so much for her.

She did not want them to see her as weak and needy, but as a strong person who would make the best of her opportunities.

She drew in a long breath and squared her shoulders.

‘I’m all right now,’ she said in answer to his unspoken question.

‘Sometimes I miss him so badly. There’s a part of me that can’t accept that he’s dead, that I’ll never see him again. ’

‘Althea…I know that perhaps this is a cruel question, but I’ve wondered. Why?’

‘Why did he take the ship I’d worked on for so many years and will it to my sister instead?

’ She glanced over at Grag to see his quick nod.

She shrugged. ‘He never told me. The closest he came to a reason was to say something about providing for my sister and her children. On good days, I tell myself that that meant he knew I could provide for myself and he was not afraid for me. On bad days, I wonder if he thought that I was selfish, if he feared that I would take Vivacia and care nothing for their welfare.’ She lifted her shoulders again.

She caught a glimpse of herself in Grag’s shaving mirror.

For an eerie instant, her father looked out at her.

She had his wiry black hair and dark eyes, but not his size.

She was small, like her mother. Nevertheless, the resemblance to her father was still strong, in the set of her jaw and the way her brows drew together when she was troubled.

‘My mother said that it was her idea and she talked him into it. She felt the estate had to be kept intact, the liveship inherited with the land holdings, so that the income from the one would go on supporting the other until all the debts were paid.’ She rubbed at her brow.

‘I suppose that makes sense. When Father decided that we would no longer trade up the Rain River, he doomed us to a much lower income. The goods he brought back from the southlands were exotic, but nothing like the magic goods from the Rain Wilds. Our land holdings yielded well, but we could not compete with Chalced’s slave-tended grain and fruit.

Consequently, our debt for the ship is still substantial.

Moreover, it is secured with our land holdings.

If we fail to keep our promise to repay it, we could lose both ship and family land. ’

‘And you are hostage for that debt as well.’ Grag pointed the fact out quietly.

As a member of a Bingtown Trader family that owned a liveship, he was well aware of the standard terms for such a bargain.

Liveships were rare and costly. Just as it took three generations for a liveship to quicken and come to cognisance, so it also took generations to pay for one.

Only the Rain Wild Traders knew the source of the wizardwood lumber that made up the liveship hulls and figureheads.

Only in a ship constructed of wizardwood could one safely negotiate the Rain River and participate in the trade of their near magical goods.

Their value was such that families pledged their fortunes for them.

‘In blood or gold, the debt is owed,’ Grag added quietly.

If the Vestrit family could not pay for the ship with coin, then a daughter or son of the family could be claimed.

Althea nodded slowly. Odd. She had known the terms of the bargain ever since she was old enough to be considered a woman, but somehow she had never applied it to herself.

Her father had been a wonderful trader; he had always seen that there was money in the household to discharge their just debts.

Now that her brother-in-law Kyle was in charge of the family’s liveship and finances, who could say how things would go?

Her sister’s husband had never liked her.

The last time they had been in the same room, in that final, spectacular family argument, he had said it was her duty to marry well and stop being a burden on the family.

Perhaps that was exactly what he had been hinting: that if she went willingly to a Rain Wild man, the family could enjoy a lessening of their debt.

Ever since she was a tiny child, her duties to her family’s honour had been impressed upon her.

A Bingtown Trader paid his debts and kept his word.

No matter what their personal disagreements might be, when threatened by outsiders the Traders closed ranks and endured.

Those ties of kinship and duty included the Traders who had chosen to remain behind in the Rain Wilds and settle there.

Distance and years might have separated them, but the Rain Wild Traders were still kin to the Bingtown Traders.

Contracts with them were honoured, and the duties of family were respected.

She felt something inside her go hard and cold with purpose.

If Kyle failed in the Vestrit family obligations, it would be her duty to offer herself.

Fecundity was the one treasure the Rain Wild folk lacked.

She would have to go to the Rain Wilds, take a husband there and bear children to him.

It was what her forebears had promised, so long ago.

Not to do so would be unthinkable. Nevertheless, to be forced into it by Kyle’s malice or ineptitude was intolerable.

‘Althea? Are you all right?’

Grag’s voice broke in on her thoughts and brought her back to herself.

She realized she was glaring at a bulkhead.

She gave a small shake and turned to face him.

‘I came to ask your advice, actually. I’m having a bit of trouble with one of the deckhands.

I can’t decide if I should take it personally or not. ’

The concerned look on Grag’s face deepened. ‘Which one?’

‘Feff.’ Althea shook her head in mock frustration. ‘One moment he listens and steps lively when I give an order. The next, he’ll look me straight in the face and stand there with a silly grin on his face. I don’t know if he’s mocking me, or…’

‘Ah!’ Grag grinned. ‘Feff’s deaf. In his left ear.

Oh, he will not admit it to anyone. It happened when he fell from the mast about two years ago.

He hit the deck hard, and for a day or so, we thought he wasn’t going to live.

Eventually, he came out of it. He’s a bit slower about some things than he used to be, and I don’t send him aloft unless I have to.

He doesn’t seem to have the balance he once did.

He can’t always hear what you say, especially if he’s to the right of you.

Sometimes if the wind is blowing strong, he can’t hear at all.

He doesn’t mean to be insubordinate…that’s what the silly smile is about.

Other than that, he’s a good man, and he’s been with the ship a long time.

It wouldn’t be right to tie him up for that. ’

‘Ah.’ Althea nodded to herself. ‘I wish someone had told me sooner,’ she said a bit crossly.

‘It’s one of those things Da and I don’t even think about any more. It’s just how the ship is. No one meant to make your job harder.’