Page 342

‘Don’t you touch her!’ Keffria cried, and raced towards the door. But an instant later, Reyn appeared in the doorway. Malta, wrapped in a blanket, was in his arms. She was as white as the bandages that bound her head. Her eyes were closed and her head lolled against him.

‘I’m taking her,’ he said defiantly. ‘The rest of you should come, too. But that’s up to you. I can’t force you to come with me, but I won’t leave Malta here.’

‘You have no right!’ Keffria cried. ‘Is this the way of your folk, to abduct their brides?’

Reyn gave a sudden wild laugh. ‘By Sa, she dreamed true! Yes! I take her now. I have the right. “By blood or gold, the debt is owed.” I claim her.’ He babbled the crazy words. He looked down into her face. ‘She is mine,’ he asserted.

‘You cannot! The payment is not due ’

‘It will be soon, and you cannot possibly amass it. I’m taking her, while she is still alive.

If I must do it this way, then I shall. Come with me, I beg you.

Don’t make it be like this for her.’ He turned to face Keffria.

‘She will need you. And Selden is not safe here, not if the Chalcedeans overrun the town. Would you see your little son with a slave tattoo on his face?’

Keffria’s hands flew up to cover her mouth in horror. She looked at Ronica. ‘Mother?’ she asked through her fingers.

Ronica decided for all of them. ‘Get the boy. Go quickly, take nothing, just go.’

She stood on the porch and watched them ride away. Reyn held Malta bundled before him on the horse. Keffria rode their old mare and a stoic Selden sat his fat old pony. ‘Mother?’ Keffria asked a last time. ‘The horse can carry two of us. It is not so far for her.’

‘Go. Go now,’ Ronica repeated, as she had already said over and over. ‘I’m staying. I have to stay.’

‘I can’t leave you like this!’ Keffria wailed.

‘You must. It is your duty to your family. Now go. Go! Reyn, take them away from here before their only chance is gone.’ Only to herself had she added, ‘If Bingtown is going to end in blood and smoke, I will see it. And I must see to burying Davad.’

Rache stood at her side on the porch. They watched until they were out of sight.

Then Ronica sighed heavily. Everything was suddenly so simple.

Reyn would get them out of the harbour and to safety.

There was only herself to worry about now and she had stopped caring what became of her a long time ago.

She felt a faded smile come to her scratched face.

She turned to the former slave at her side and took her hand.

‘Well. A quiet moment at last. Shall we have a cup of tea?’ she asked her friend.

Someone knocked hard on the cabin door. Althea groaned. She opened one eye. ‘What?’ she demanded from her bunk.

‘Captain wants to see you. Now.’ Clef’s boyish voice, officious with the command, reached through the door.

‘He would,’ she muttered to herself. To the door she announced, ‘I’m coming.’ She clambered stiffly down from her bunk.

It was afternoon, but felt like the middle of the night to her.

She should have been sleeping. She looked around the small room blearily.

Jek was on watch, and it looked as if Amber had stayed with Paragon.

Althea had given up on him, at least for now.

After the incident with the serpent, the ship had ranted for a time, phrases that taunted Althea because they almost made sense.

‘Blood is memory,’ he had proclaimed. ‘You can spill it, you can devour it, but you can never erase what it holds. Blood is memory.’ He had repeated it until she thought she would go crazy, not with the recitation but with her failure to grasp the meaning.

It was at the edge of her understanding.

She picked up her shirt. In some places, it was stiff with her own blood, in others the serpent’s venom had eaten holes.

The thought of pulling the rough cotton on over her blistered and bruised body made her shudder.

With a groan, she crouched down to drag her gearbag out from under Amber’s bunk.

There was a light cotton shirt in there, a ‘town’ shirt.

She dug it out and pulled it on over her sore flesh.

Paragon had finally subsided to confused muttering.

Then he had fallen silent, in that terrible impervious silence that was his retreat from the world.

It had seemed to Althea that there was almost a smile on his mouth, but Amber had been frantic with worry.

When Althea had left her, the bead-maker had been sitting out on the bowsprit, playing her pipes.

Nursery tunes, she called them, but they were no songs Althea had ever known.

Althea had passed the work crews that were scrubbing the venom and blood from Paragon’s pitted decks.

She had paused to marvel at the damage done so swiftly to the iron-hard wood.

It had melted gouges and dips into the deck.

Then she had come back to her cabin and crawled into her bunk.

How long ago had that been? Not long enough.

And now Brashen had sent Clef to roust her out.

He probably wanted to tell her how she should have handled it.

Well, that was the captain’s prerogative.

She just hoped he talked fast, or she’d fall asleep in his face.

She belted up her trousers and went to face her doom.

At the door of his cabin, she smoothed her hair back from her face and tucked in her shirt.

She wished vainly that she’d stopped to wash up after the fight and before she’d gone to bed.

At the time, it had seemed too much trouble.

Too late now. She rapped smartly at the door and waited for Brashen’s ‘Enter.’

She shut the door behind her and then stared. Forgetting herself, she cried out, ‘Oh, Brashen!’

His dark eyes were shocking in his scarlet face.

Huge watery blisters stood up on his cheeks and brow like a Rain Wilder’s warts.

The tattered remains of the shirt he had been wearing hung across the back of a chair.

He wore his fresh shirt loosely, as if he could scarcely bear the touch of it against his skin.

He showed his teeth in a grimace meant to be a smile.

‘You look no better,’ he offered her. He made a small gesture at the washbasin in his room.

‘I’ve left you some warm water in the pitcher. ’

‘Thank you,’ she said awkwardly. He turned his back to her as she took him up on his courtesy. She hissed when she first lowered her bruised hands into the basin; then as the stinging eased, she thought she had never felt anything so good.

‘Haff’s going to be all right. He got it worse than either of us.

I had the cook wash him down with fresh water.

Poor bastard could hardly stand it. He’s got blood blisters all over.

It ate the clothes right off his body, and still did that to him.

That handsome face will bear some scars, I suspect.

’ He paused, then pointed out, ‘He disobeyed your order as well as mine.’

Althea lifted the warm washrag to her face. Brashen had a mirror fixed to the wall, but she hadn’t dared look in it yet. ‘I doubt that he remembers that right now.’

‘Perhaps not now. But as soon as he’s out of bed, I’ll see that he does.

If he’d left the damn serpent alone, it might have stopped begging and gone away.

His actions endangered the whole ship and crew.

He seems to think he knows better than mate or captain what to do.

He discounts your experience and mine. He wants a bit of stepping on. ’

‘But he is a good hand,’ Althea pointed out reluctantly.

Brashen did not falter. ‘When I’ve finished stepping on him, he’ll be a better hand. One that obeys.’

She supposed there was a small rebuke for herself in there, in that she hadn’t taught Haff that lesson herself.

She bit her tongue and looked at herself in the mirror.

Her face looked scalded. She ran her fingers lightly over it; it was pebbled stiff with tiny blisters.

Like the serpent’s scales, she thought, and snagged for a moment in the memory of its beauty.

‘I’m taking Artu off your watch, and putting him on Lavoy’s,’ Brashen went on.

Althea stiffened where she stood. Her father’s eyes, black with anger, stared back at her from the mirror. She kept her voice cold. ‘I don’t think that’s fair. Sir.’ She ground the last word out between her teeth.

‘Neither do I,’ Brashen agreed easily. ‘But he begged Lavoy on his knees, and the man finally gave in to be rid of him. Lavoy promised him every dirty duty he could find on the ship, and Artu wept tears of gratitude. What on earth did you do to him?’

Althea bent over the washbasin and lifted a double handful of water to her face.

She rubbed it gently over her face. It dripped red-tinged back into the basin.

She examined the cut at her hairline; she’d done that on Artu’s teeth.

She spoke through clenched teeth as she washed it out more thoroughly.

‘The captain should never be too interested in that sort of thing.’

Brashen gave a soft snort of laughter. ‘That’s funny.

Clef came running to get me, and I came, my heart in my throat.

Clef said Paragon was shouting that you were being killed.

Then I came along, and there you were, hauling Artu along on a freight hook.

I looked at that, and I thought to myself, “Sa’s breath, what would Captain Vestrit say to me if he could see her now? ”’

She could see the back of his head in the mirror.

She scowled at it. Would he ever understand that she could take care of herself?

She remembered that Artu had bitten her arm.

She folded back her sleeve, and cursed silently at the uneven row of tooth marks.

She dipped her fingers into Brashen’s soap, and rubbed at them.

It stung. She would rather that a rat had bitten her.

He went off in a softer voice. ‘All that came to mind was Ephron Vestrit’s voice saying, “If the mate is handling it, the captain shouldn’t see it.” He was right. He never interfered with me when I was settling small matters aboard the Vivacia. Even Lavoy knew that. I shouldn’t have said a word.’

It was almost an apology. ‘Lavoy’s not so bad,’ Althea offered in return.

‘He’s coming around,’ Brashen agreed sagely. He suddenly crossed his arms on his chest. ‘I’ll leave, if you’d like to make fuller use of that water.’

‘No, thank you. Sleep is what I need most. I do appreciate the offer. I don’t smell that bad, do I?’ The unfortunate words were out before she recalled how he might take them.

A little silence stood like a wall. She’d overstepped the bounds.

‘You never did,’ he admitted quietly. ‘I was just angry. And hurt.’ He was still facing away from her, but she saw his shrug in the mirror. ‘I had thought there was something between us. Something that —’

‘We’re better as we are now,’ Althea broke in quickly.

‘Undoubtedly,’ he said dryly.

The silence stretched out. She looked at her battered hands.

Every knuckle was swollen. When she flexed the fingers on her right hand, it felt like there was sand in the joints.

Still, they moved. More to break the silence than to ask, she queried, ‘If you can move your fingers, that means nothing is broken, right?’

‘It means nothing is badly broken,’ Brashen corrected her. ‘Let me see.’

Knowing it was a mistake, she still turned and held out her hands to him.

He came to her and took both of her hands in his.

He moved her fingers and felt the bones of her hands.

He shook his head over her knuckles, and winced when he saw the teeth marks on her wrist. He released one of her hands and lifted her chin.

He looked at her face critically. She found herself examining his face in return.

Even his eyelids showed blisters, but his dark eyes were clear.

It was a miracle he hadn’t lost his sight.

The open collar of his shirt exposed standing welts on his chest. ‘You’re going to be all right,’ he told her.

He cocked his head and nodded to himself. ‘You’re a tough woman.’

‘You probably saved my life when you distracted that thing with the oar,’ she suddenly remembered.

‘Yes. I’m a dangerous man with an oar.’ He still held her hand. Without warning, he drew her closer. When he leaned down to kiss her, she did not step away. She lifted her face to his. His mouth was gentle on hers. She closed her eyes to it and refused to be wise. She refused to think at all.

He broke the kiss. He drew her closer but did not embrace her. For just an instant, he rested his chin upon her head. His voice was deep. ‘You’re right. I know you’re right. We’re better as we are.’ He sighed heavily. ‘That doesn’t make it any easier for me.’ He released her hand.

She could not think of anything to say to that. It was not easy for her, either, but to tell him that would only make it harder for both of them. He’d said she was a tough woman. She proved it by walking to the door. ‘Thank you,’ she said softly at the door. He made no reply and she went out.

She passed Clef standing in the companionway. He was kicking one bare heel against the wall and chewing his lower lip. She frowned at his idleness. ‘Peeking at keyholes isn’t right,’ she told him severely as she passed.

‘Neither is kiss’n’ ther cap’n,’ he replied insolently. With a grin and a flash of dirty soles, he was gone.