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T HE V ESTRIT MANSION , like the homes of the other Bingtown Traders, was set in the cool and forested foothills that surrounded Bingtown itself.

It was a brief carriage ride from the docks, or a comfortable walk on a pleasant day.

Along the way, one could glimpse other elegant Trader homes set well back from the main road.

She passed flowering hedges and drives lined with trees extravagantly green with spring growth.

Ivy sprawled in a mantle over the Oswells’ stone wall.

Crisp yellow daffodils were showing their first blooms in clumps by their gate.

The spring day was rich with birdcalls and the dappling shade of newly leafed trees and the scents of early flowers.

Never before had it seemed to be such a long walk.

Althea marched on as if going to her death.

She still wore her ship’s boy garb; it had seemed wisest to them all that she retain her disguise as she left the docks.

She wondered how her mother and sister would react to it.

Kyle was not home. Relief at that almost balanced her disappointment that Vivacia was not in the harbour.

At least she did not have to worry about his extreme distaste.

It was not quite a year since she had quarrelled with her brother-in-law and then stormed out of their family home.

She had learned so much since then that it seemed like a decade.

She wanted to have her family recognize how she had grown.

Instead, she feared they would see only her clothes and her oiled plait of hair and judge it all a childish masquerade of defiance.

Her mother had always said she was headstrong; for years, her sister Keffria had believed her capable of disgracing the family name simply for her own pleasure.

How could she go back to them now, dressed this way, and make them believe she had matured and was worthy to claim the captaincy of the family liveship?

How would they greet her return? With anger or cold disdain?

She shook her head furiously to clear it of such thoughts and turned up the long driveway to her home.

She noted with annoyance that the rhododendrons by the gate had not been pinched back.

Last spring’s leggy growth now sported this spring’s swelling buds.

When they were properly cut back, they would lose a whole year of flowers.

She felt a tinge of worry. Col the groundskeeper had always been most particular about those bushes. Had something happened to him?

Her whole journey up the drive spoke to her of the garden’s neglect.

The herbaceous borders swelled and straggled out of their beds.

Bright green leaf buds were unfurling on rose bushes that still bore the winter-blackened stalks of last year’s growth.

A wisteria had fallen off its trellis and now valiantly opened its leaves where it sprawled.

Winter winds had banked last autumn’s fallen leaves wherever they wished; branches broken by storms still littered the grounds.

She almost expected to find the house abandoned to match the neglected grounds.

Instead, the windows were flung open to the spring day and sprightly music of harp and flute cascaded out to greet her.

A few gigs drawn up before the front door told her that a gathering was in progress.

It was a merry one judging by the sudden trill of laughter that mingled for a moment with the music.

Althea diverted her steps to the back entrance, wondering more with every step she took.

Her family had hosted no gatherings since her father fell ill.

Did this party mean that her mother had ended her mourning period already?

That did not seem like her. Nor could Althea imagine her mother allowing the grounds to be neglected while spending coin on parties.

None of this made sense. Foreboding nibbled at her.

The kitchen door stood open and the tantalizing smell of freshly-baked bread and savoury meat wafted out to mingle in the spring sunshine.

Althea’s stomach grumbled appreciatively at the thought of shore-side food: risen bread and fresh meat and vegetables.

She abruptly decided that she was glad to be home, no matter what reception she might get.

She stepped into the kitchen and looked around.

She did not recognize the woman rolling out dough on the tabletop, nor the boy turning the spit at the cook-fire.

That was not unusual. Servants came and went in the Vestrit household.

Trader families regularly ‘stole’ the best cooks, nannies and stewards from one another, coaxing them to change households with offers of better pay and larger quarters.

A serving girl came into the kitchen with an empty tray. She clattered it down and rounded on Althea. ‘What do you want here?’ Her voice was both chill and bored.

For once, Althea’s mind was faster than her mouth.

She made a sketchy bow. ‘I’ve a message from Captain Tenira of the liveship Ophelia for Trader Ronica Vestrit.

It’s important. He asked me to deliver it to her in private.

’ There. That would get her some time alone with her mother.

If there were guests in the house, she didn’t want to be seen by them while she was still dressed as a boy.

The serving girl looked troubled. ‘She is with guests just now, very important ones. It is a farewell gathering. It would be awkward to call her away.’ She bit her lower lip. ‘Can the message wait a bit longer? Perhaps while you ate something?’ The maid smiled as she offered this little bribe.

Althea found herself nodding. The smell of the newly-cooked food was making her mouth water. Why not eat here in the kitchen, and face her mother and sister with a full stomach? ‘The message can wait a bit, I suppose. Mind if I wash my hands first?’ Althea nodded towards the kitchen pump.

‘There’s a pump and trough in the yard,’ the cook pointed out, a sharp reminder of Althea’s supposed status.

Althea grinned to herself, then went outside to wash.

By the time she returned, a plate was ready for her.

They had not given her choice cuts; rather it was the crispy outside end of the pork roast, and the heels of the fresh cooked bread.

There was a slab of yellow cheese with it and a dollop of fresh churned butter for the bread and a spoonful of cherry preserves.

It was served to her on a chipped plate with a stained napkin.

The niceties of cutlery use were supposedly unknown to a ship’s boy, so she made do with her fingers as she perched on a tall stool in the corner of the kitchen.

At first, she ate ravenously, with little thought for anything other than the food before her.

The crust of the roast seemed far richer in flavour than the best cut she had ever enjoyed.

That crispy fat crunched between her teeth.

The new butter melted on the still-warm bread.

She scooped up the tart cherry preserves with folded bits of it.

As her hunger was sated, she became more aware of the kitchen bustle around her.

She looked around the once familiar room with new eyes.

As a child, this room had seemed immense and fascinating, a place she had never been allowed to explore freely.

Because she had gone to sea with her father before she had outgrown that curiosity, the kitchen had always retained an aura of the forbidden for her.

Now she saw it for what it was: a large, busy work area where servants came and went in haste while a cook reigned supreme.

As every servant came in, he or she inevitably gave a brief report on the gathering.

They spoke familiarly and sometimes with contempt of the folk they served.

‘I’ll need another platter of the sausage rolls. Trader Loud-Shirt seems to think we baked them for him alone.’

‘That’s better than doing what that Orpel girl is doing. Look at this plate. Heaped with food we worked all morning to prepare, she’s scarcely nibbled it and then pushed it aside. I suppose she hopes a man will notice her dainty appetite and think she’s an easy keeper.’

‘How’s the empress’s second choice faring?’ the cook asked curiously.

A serving man mimed the tipping of a wineglass. ‘Oh, he drowns his troubles and scowls at his rival and moons at the little empress. Then he does it all over again. All very genteelly, of course. The man should be on a stage.’

‘No, no, she’s the one who should be on a stage.

One moment she’s simpering at Reyn’s veil, but when she dances with him, she looks past his shoulder and flutters her lashes at young Trell.

’ The serving maid who observed this added with a snort of disgust: ‘She has them both stepping to her tune, but I’ll wager she cares not a whit for either of them, but only for what measures she can make them tread. ’

For a brief time, Althea listened with amusement.

Then her ears and cheeks began to burn as she realized that this was how the servants had always spoken of her family.

She ducked her head, kept her eyes on her plate, and slowly began to piece the gossip into a bizarre image of the current state of the Vestrit family fortunes.