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How could one man command such loyalty from such diverse people?

At the monastery, one oft-repeated old saying was ‘Sa’s hand can fit around any tool’.

It was usually uttered when an unlikely novice suddenly bloomed with talent.

After all, Sa had a purpose for all things.

It was the limit of humanity that those reasons could not always be perceived.

Maybe Kennit truly was a tool of Sa, and was aware of his destiny.

Wintrow supposed that stranger things had happened. He simply could not recall any.

Wintrow rapped once at a freshly restored door, then worked the latch and entered. Despite the sunshine slanting in through the porthole, the chamber seemed dark and close. ‘You should open the window and let in some fresh air,’ he observed. He set down the tray he was carrying.

‘Shut the door,’ his father replied gruffly.

He unfolded his legs, stretched, and then stood.

The rumpled bed behind him retained the imprint of his body.

‘What did you bring me this time? Sawdust cakes full of weevils?’ He glared at the door that still stood open.

In one angry stride he crossed the small room and slammed it shut.

‘Turnip and onion soup and wheat-cakes,’ Wintrow replied evenly. ‘The same food that everyone else got today.’

Kyle Haven grunted in reply. He lifted the bowl of soup, poked it with a finger.

‘It’s cold,’ he complained, and then drank it where he stood.

His whiskery throat moved as he swallowed.

Wintrow wondered when he had last shaved.

When he lowered the bowl, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

He caught his son staring and glared back.

‘Well? What sort of manners do you expect of a man kept like a dog in a kennel?’

‘There are no longer any guards on the door. I asked some days ago if you might be allowed out on deck. Kennit said you could, so long as I was with you and took responsibility for you. It is your own decision to remain in this room as if it were a cell.’

‘I wish there were a mirror in here, so I could see if I look as stupid as you think I am,’ his father retorted sourly.

He snatched up a wheat-cake and wiped out the bowl with it before he bit into it.

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ he muttered around a mouthful of food.

‘You could trot along beside me on deck, and be oh-so-surprised and horrified when some sneaking bastard put a knife in my ribs. Then you would be rid of me once and for all. Don’t think that I don’t know that’s what you want.

That’s what this has all been about. Not that you have the guts to do it yourself.

Oh, no, not the boy in the skirts. He prays to Sa, rolls his big brown eyes, and sets it up for others to do his dirty work. What’s this?’

‘Alde tea. And if I wanted so badly to be rid of you, I’d have poisoned it.’ Wintrow heard with a shock the heartless sarcasm in his own voice.

His father halted with the mug halfway to his lips.

He gave a hoarse bark of laughter. ‘No, you wouldn’t.

Not you. You’d get someone else to poison it, and then you would give it to me, so you could pretend none of it was your doing.

Not my fault, you could whine, and when you crawled home to your mother, she would believe you and let you go back to your monastery. ’

Wintrow pinched his lips together. I am living with a mad man, he reminded himself.

Conversing with him is not going to bring him to his senses.

His mind has turned. Only almighty Sa can cure him and only in his own time.

He found a modicum of patience within himself.

He tried to believe it was not a show of defiance when he crossed the small room and opened the window.

‘Shut that,’ his father growled. ‘Do you think I want to smell that scummy little town out there?’

‘It smells no worse than the stench of your own body that fills this room,’ Wintrow countered.

He walked two steps away from the open window.

At his feet was his own pallet, seldom slept in, and the small bundle of clothes he could call his own.

Nominally, he shared this small room with his father.

The reality was that he slept most nights on the foredeck near Vivacia.

The proximity made him uncomfortably aware of her thoughts, and through her, the presence of Kennit’s dreams. Still, that was preferable to his father’s irascible and critical company.

‘Is he going to ransom us?’ Kyle Haven demanded suddenly.

‘He could get a good price for us. Your mother probably could scrape up a bit, and the Bingtown Traders would come through with more, to get a liveship back. Does he know that? That he could get a good price for us? You should tell him that. Has he sent a ransom note yet?’

Wintrow sighed. Not this conversation again.

He cut swiftly to the meat of it, hoping for a mercifully quick end.

‘He doesn’t want to ransom the ship, Father.

He intends to keep it. That means I have to stay with it.

I don’t know what he plans to do with you.

I’ve asked him, but he doesn’t answer. I don’t want to make him angry. ’

‘Why? You never feared to make me angry!’

Wintrow sighed. ‘Because he is an unpredictable man. If I push him, he may take…rash action. To demonstrate his power. I think it is wiser to wait for him to see he has nothing to gain from holding you. As he heals, he seems more reasonable. In time ’

‘In time I shall be little more than a living corpse, shut up in here, taunted and mocked and despised by all on this ship. He seeks to break me with darkness and poor food and no company save that of my idiot son!’

His father had finished eating. Without a word, Wintrow picked up the tray and turned to go. ‘That’s right, run away! Hide from the truth.’ When Wintrow made no reply as he opened the door, his father bellowed after him, ‘Make sure you take the chamber-pot and empty it! It stinks.’

‘Do it yourself.’ Wintrow’s voice came out flat and ugly. ‘No one will stop you.’

He shut the door behind himself. His grip on the tray was so tight his knuckles were white. His molars hurt where his teeth were clenched together. ‘Why?’ he asked aloud of no one. More quietly, he added to himself, ‘How could that man be my father? I feel no bond to him at all.’

He felt a faint tremor of sympathy from the ship.

Just before he reached the galley door, Sa’Adar caught up with him.

Wintrow had been aware of him following him since he left his father’s room, but he had hoped to elude him.

The priest became more frightening with every passing day.

He had all but disappeared for a time, after Etta had marked him with her knife.

Like some parasitic creature, he had burrowed deep into the holds of the ship, to work his poison silently among the freed men and women.

There were fewer discontents as the days passed.

Kennit and his crew treated them even-handedly.

They were fed as well as any crewmember, and the same level of effort was expected from them in caring for the ship.

When they reached Divvytown, it was announced to the former slaves that any who wished to disembark might take their freedom and go.

Captain Kennit wished them well and hoped they would enjoy their new lives.

Those who desired could request to stay aboard as crew, but they would have to prove themselves worthy and loyal sailors to Kennit.

Wintrow had seen the wisdom in that; Kennit had effectively pulled Sa’Adar’s teeth.

Any slave who truly desired a life of piracy and had the skill to compete could claim one.

The others had their freedom. Not many had taken the road to piracy.

The taller, older man stepped abruptly around Wintrow.

Sa’Adar stood before him, blocking his passage.

Wintrow glanced past him. He was alone. He wondered if his map-face guards had forsaken him to regain lives of their own.

Wintrow had to turn his eyes up to look at Sa’Adar.

The man’s face was graven with discontent and fanaticism.

His unkempt hair spilled onto his forehead; his clothes had not been washed in days.

His eyes burned as he accused, ‘I saw you leave your father’s room. ’

Wintrow spoke civilly and ignored the question. ‘I’m surprised you are still aboard. I am sure there is much work for a priest of Sa in a place like Divvytown. The freed slaves would surely appreciate your assistance in beginning new lives there.’

Sa’Adar narrowed his dark eyes at Wintrow.

‘You mock me. You mock my priesthood, and in doing so you mock yourself and Sa.’ His hand snaked out to seize Wintrow’s shoulder.

The boy still gripped his father’s breakfast tray.

He clutched it tightly to keep from spilling the crockery on the deck, but he stood his ground.

‘You forsake your priesthood and Sa in what you do here. This is a ship built of death, speaking with death’s tongue.

A follower of the Life God should not be servant to it.

But it is not too late for you, lad. Recall who you are.

Align yourself once more with life and right.

You know this ship belongs by right to those who seized it for themselves.

This vessel of cruelty and bondage could become a ship of freedom and righteousness. ’

‘Let me go,’ Wintrow said quietly. He tried to squirm out of the madman’s grip.