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For two breaths, nothing happened. Then a door was slowly opened.

A grey-haired woman peeked out. She squinted in the early morning light as she peered about the yard.

She finally spotted them on the far side of the garden.

She lifted a hand and clutched at her throat, staring wide-eyed.

She made a small sign against wild spirits.

Kennit gave a sigh of exasperation. He began to pick his way through the garden, his crutch and peg awkward in the rows of softened earth. ‘It’s me, Mother. Kennit. Your son.’

As it always had, her caution exasperated him.

He was halfway across the garden before she was all the way out of the door.

She was barefoot, he noted with distaste, and dressed in a cotton tunic and trousers like a peasant.

Her pinned-up hair was the colour of wood-ash.

Never a slender woman, she had thickened with the years.

Her eyes widened as she finally recognized him.

She hurried towards him at an inglorious trot.

He had to suffer the indignity of her squashy embrace.

She was weeping before she even reached him.

Over and over, she pointed at his missing leg, gabbling in sorrow and query.

‘Yes, yes, Mother, it’s all right. Now have done.’ She clutched at him, weeping. He seized her hands firmly and set them back from himself. ‘Have done!’

Years ago, her tongue had been cut out. Although he had had nothing to do with that and had sincerely deplored it at the time, over the years he had come to see it was not an entirely unfortunate incident.

She still talked endlessly, or tried to, but since the event he could steer the conversation as he wished it to go.

He told her when she agreed with him, and when a topic was settled. As now.

‘I can’t stay long, I’m afraid, but I’ve brought you a few things.

’ He turned her determinedly and led his awe-stricken cavalcade towards the intact cottage.

‘The chest has a few gifts for you. Some flower seeds I thought you would like, some cooking spices, some cloth, a tapestry. A bit of this, a bit of that.’

They reached the door of the cottage and went inside.

It was spotlessly tidy. Bare. On the table were smoothed shingles of white pine.

Brushes and dyes were laid out beside them.

So, she still painted. Yesterday’s work still rested on the table, a wildflower done in intricate and realistic detail.

A kettle of water bubbled on the hearth.

Through the door into the second room, he glimpsed the neatly-made bed.

Everywhere he looked, he saw signs of a simple and placid life.

She had always liked things that way. His father had loved opulence and variety.

They had complemented one another well. Now she was like half a person.

The thought suddenly agitated him beyond his self-control.

He paced a turn around the room, then seized Ankle by the shoulders and thrust the girl forward.

‘I’ve thought of you often, Mother. See, this is Ankle.

She’s your servant now. She’s not very bright, but she seems clean and willing.

If she turns out not to be, I’ll kill her when I come back.

’ His mother’s eyes flew wide in horror and the crippled girl crouched down, babbling for mercy.

‘So, for her sake, do try to get along well together,’ he added almost gently.

Already he wished he were back on the deck of his ship.

Things were so much simpler there. He gestured at his prisoner.

‘And this is Captain Haven. Say hello and then goodbye for now. He will be staying, but you needn’t bother much about him.

I’ll be putting him down in the old wine cellar under the big house.

Ankle, you will remember to give him some food and water now and then, won’t you?

At least as often as you were fed and watered aboard the ship, right?

That seems fair to everyone, now doesn’t it?

’ He waited for answers but they were all gaping at him as if he were mad.

All save his mother, who clutched the front of her blouse and wrung the fabric between her hands.

She looked distressed. He thought he knew the problem.

‘Now, remember, I have given my word that he is to be kept safe. So I insist you do just that. I’ll chain him up well, but you must see to the food and water part. Do you understand?’

His mother gabbled frantically at him. He nodded in approval. ‘I knew you wouldn’t mind. Now. What have I forgotten?’

He glanced at the others. ‘Oh, yes. Look, Mother. I’ve brought you a priest, too! I know how you like priests.’ His eyes drilled Sa’Adar. ‘My mother is very devout. Pray for her. Or bless something.’

Sa’Adar’s eyes went wide. ‘You’re mad.’

‘Scarcely. Why do people always accuse me of that when I’m arranging things to my liking instead of theirs?

’ He dismissed the priest. ‘Now, these two, Mother, are going to be your neighbours. They have a baby on the way, they’ve told me.

I’m sure you’ll like having a little one around, won’t you?

They’re both handy at heavy work. Perhaps the next time I come to visit, I’ll find things in better repair.

Perhaps you’ll be living in the big house again? ’

The old woman shook her head so violently that her grey hair flew free of its pinning.

Her eyes went wide with some remembered pain.

She opened her mouth in a quavering cry.

It revealed the stump of her tongue. Kennit looked aside in distaste.

‘This cottage does seem quite cosy,’ he amended.

‘Perhaps you are better off here. But that doesn’t mean we should stand by and let the big house fall down.

’ He glanced at the map-face couple. ‘You two may choose one of the cottages for yourself. As may the priest. Keep him well away from the captain. I promised Wintrow that his father would be kept somewhere, intact, where the boy no longer needed to worry about him or deal with him.’

For the first time, Kyle Haven spoke. His jaw dropped and his mouth gaped for a moment.

He strangled, and then the furious words roared out of him.

‘This is Wintrow’s doing? My son did this to me?

’ His blue eyes flew wide in hurt and justified hatred.

‘I knew it. I knew it all along! The treacherous little viper! The cur!’

Kennit’s mother cowered from his vehemence.

Kennit casually backhanded Haven across his mouth.

Even supporting himself on his crutch, Kennit managed sufficient force that the captain staggered backward.

‘You’re upsetting my mother,’ he pointed out coolly.

He gave a short sigh of exasperation. ‘I suppose it’s time I put you away.

Come along, then. You two bring him.’ This he addressed to his map-faces.

Turning to the girl, he commanded her, ‘Make some food. Mother, you show her where the supplies are. Priest, stay here. Pray or something. Do whatever my mother wishes you to do.’

The map-faces hustled Captain Haven out of the door. As Kennit followed, Sa’Adar announced, ‘You can’t command what I do. You can’t make me your slave.’

Kennit glanced back at him. He gave him a small smile. ‘Perhaps not. However, I can make you dead. It’s an interesting choice, don’t you think?’ He turned and left without a backwards glance.

The map-faces awaited him outside. Haven sagged between the well-muscled pair. Disbelief warred with despair in his face. ‘You can’t do this. You can’t abandon me here.’

Kennit merely shook his head to himself.

He was so weary of people telling him that he could not do what he obviously could.

He did not bother to look at his followers as he led the way to the big house.

The pebbled path was overgrown, the flowerbeds long gone to weed and ruin.

He pointed it out to the map-faces. ‘I’d like this tidied.

If you don’t know anything about gardening, ask my mother for direction.

She knows a great deal about it.’ As they came around the front of the house, he did not look at the remains of the other structures.

There was no sense in dwelling on the past. Grass and creeping vines had long ago overpowered and cloaked the burnt remains. Let it lie so.

Even the big house had taken some damage in that raid.

There were scorch marks on the planked walls where the flames from the neighbouring structures had threatened to set it ablaze as well.

Such a night of flames and screams that had been, as the supposed allies revealed their true intent.

Such an orgy of cruelty as Igrot indulged to his sensual limits.

The smells of smoke and blood were forever intermingled in his memories of that night.

He climbed the steps. The front door was not locked.

It had never been locked. His father had not believed in locks.

He opened the door and strode in. For an instant, his memory leaped and showed him the interior as it once had been.

Education and travel had sharpened his tastes since then, but when he was a child, he had found the hodge-podge of tapestries and rugs and statuary luxurious and rich.

Now he would have scoffed at such a mish-mash of trash and treasures, but then his father had revelled in it and the boy Kennit with him.

‘You’ll live like a king, laddie,’ his father would say.

‘No. Better yet, you’ll be a king. King Kennit of Key Island!

Now doesn’t that have a fine ring? King Kennit, King Kennit, King Kennit!

’ Singing that refrain, his father would scoop him up and swing him wildly about, capering drunkenly around the room. King Kennit.