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‘I LIKE IT HERE. It’s like living in a tree-house city.’ Selden was sitting on the foot of the divan where she lay. He bounced thoughtfully as he spoke. Where did he get the energy? Malta wished her mother would come in and shoo him away.

‘I always thought you belonged in a tree,’ Malta teased her brother weakly.

‘Why don’t you go and play somewhere?’ He gave her an owly stare, then smiled cautiously.

He looked around the sitting room, then edged closer to her on the divan.

He sat on her foot; she winced and pulled it away. She still ached all over.

Selden leaned too close to her and whispered in her face, ‘Malta? Promise me something?’

She leaned back from him. He’d been eating spiced meat. ‘What?’

He glanced around again. ‘When you and Reyn get married, can I live here with you in Trehaug?’

She didn’t tell him how unlikely it was that she would ever marry Reyn. ‘Why?’ she asked him.

He sat up straight, swinging his feet. ‘I like it here. There are boys to play with, and I get to have my lessons with some of the Khuprus sons. I love the swinging bridges. Mother is always afraid I’ll fall off them, but most of them have nets strung under them as well.

I like watching the fire birds spoon in the shallows of the river.

’ He paused, then added boldly, ‘I like it that not everyone here is so worried all the time.’ He leaned even closer and added, ‘And I like the old city. I sneaked into it last night, with Wilee, after everyone else was asleep. It’s spooky. I loved it.’

‘Were you in the city when it quaked last night?’

‘That was the best part!’ His eyes were alight with the adventure.

‘Well, don’t do it again. And don’t tell Mama,’ she warned him automatically.

‘Do I look stupid?’ he demanded in a superior way.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed.

He grinned. ‘I’m going to go find Wilee. He promised to take me out in one of the thick boats, if we could sneak one.’

‘Watch out, or the river will eat it from under you.’

He gave her a worldly look. ‘That’s a myth.

Oh, if there was a quake and the river ran white, then it might eat it fast. But Wilee says a thick boat will last ten days, sometimes more if the river runs regular.

They last even longer if you pull them out at night, turn them upside down and piss on them. ’

‘Yuck. That is probably another myth, one told to make you look foolish when you repeat it.’

‘No. Wilee and I saw the men pissing on the boats two nights ago.’

‘Go away, dirty boy.’ She tugged her coverlet away from him.

He stood up. ‘Can I live with you, after you marry Reyn? I never want to go back to Bingtown.’

‘We’ll see,’ she said firmly. Go back to Bingtown?

She wondered if there even was a Bingtown.

There had been no word from Grandmother since they arrived, and there wasn’t likely to be.

The only messages the birds carried back and forth had to do with the war.

The Kendry that had ferried them up the river was the only liveship making the run.

The others were all on patrol near the mouth of the river and around Bingtown Harbour, trying to drive off not only Chalcedean galleys but sea serpents as well.

Lately the waters near the river mouth were infested with them.

As abruptly as a bird taking flight, Selden hopped off the divan and left the chamber.

She shook her head as she looked after him.

He had recovered so swiftly. More than recovered; he had suddenly become a person.

Was that what parents meant when they said children grew up so fast?

She felt almost sentimental about her annoying little brother.

She wondered, wryly, if that meant she were growing up, too.

She leaned back on the divan and closed her eyes again. The windows of the chamber were open and the river air flowed in one and out the other. She had almost become accustomed to the smell. Someone scratched lightly at the door, then entered.

‘Well. You look much better today.’ The healer was chronically optimistic.

‘Thank you.’ Malta didn’t open her eyes.

The woman didn’t wear a veil. Her face had the pebbled texture of a muffin.

The skin of her hands was as rough as the pads of a dog’s feet.

It made Malta’s flesh crawl when the woman touched her.

‘I feel sure that all I need is more rest,’ Malta added in the hope of being left alone.

‘To lie still is actually the worst thing for you right now. Your vision has returned to normal, you told me. You no longer see two of everything?’

‘My vision seems fine,’ Malta assured her.

‘You are eating well, and your food agrees with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your dizziness has gone?’

‘It only bothers me if I move suddenly.’

‘Then you should be up and about.’ The woman cleared her throat, a wet sound.

Malta tried not to flinch. The healer snorted loudly, as if catching her breath, then went on.

‘You’ve no broken bones that we can find.

You need to get up and move about, to remind your limbs of how to work.

If you lie still too long, the body forgets. You may cripple yourself.’

A sour reply would only make the woman more insistent. ‘Perhaps I shall feel up to it this afternoon.’

‘Sooner than that. I will send someone to walk you. It is what you need, in order to heal. I have done my part. Now you must do yours.’

‘Thank you,’ Malta said distantly. The healer was singularly unsympathetic for one of her profession.

Malta would be asleep when the healer’s assistant arrived.

She doubted anyone would disturb her. That had been her injury’s sole benefit; since then, she had been able to sleep free of dreams. Sleep was escape once more.

In sleep, she could forget Reyn’s distrust of her, her father’s captivity or death, even the smell of Bingtown burning.

She could forget that she and her family were paupers now, herself forfeit to a bargain made before she was born. She could hide from her failures.

She listened to the scuff of the healer’s retreating footsteps.

She tried to will herself down into sleep, but her peace had been broken too thoroughly.

First, her mother had come this morning, heavy with grief and worry, but acting as if Malta were her only concern.

Then Selden and then the healer. Sleep had fled.

She gave in and opened her eyes. She stared at the domed ceiling.

The wickerwork reminded her of a basket.

Trehaug was certainly not what she had expected.

She had envisioned a grand marble mansion for the Khuprus family in a city of fine buildings and wide roads.

She had expected ornate chambers decorated with dark wood and stone, lofty ballrooms and long galleries.

Instead, it was just what Selden had said it was: a tree-house city.

Airy little chambers balanced in the upper limbs of the great trees along the river.

Swaying bridges connected them. Everything in the sunny upper reaches of the trees was built as lightly as possible.

Some of the smaller chambers were little more than very large wickerwork baskets that swung like birdcages when the wind blew.

Children slept in hammocks and sat in slings.

Anything that could be woven of grass or sticks was.

The upper reaches of the city were insubstantial, a ghost of the ancient city they plundered.

As one descended into the depths of Trehaug, that image changed.

Or so Selden told her. Malta had not ventured from her chamber since she had awakened here.

Sunny chambers like hers were high in the treetops, while close to the base of the trees, workshops, taverns, warehouses and shops existed in a perpetual shady twilight.

In between were the more substantial rooms of the Rain Wild Traders’ homes, the dining rooms, kitchens and gathering halls.

These were built of plank and beam. Keffria had told her that they were palatial rooms, some spanning several trees, and as fine as any grand Bingtown mansion could have offered.

Here the wealth of the Rain Wild Traders was showcased, not only in the old city’s treasures but in all the luxuries that their exotic trade had bought them.

Keffria had tried to lure Malta from her bed with tales of the art and beauty to be seen there.

Malta had not been tempted. Having lost all, she had no wish to admire the wealth of others.

Trehaug swung and hung over the banks of the Rain Wild River, adjacent to the open channel.

But the river had no true shores. Swamp, muck, and shifting bogs extended back from the open river far under the trees.

The corrosive waters of the river ruled the world, and flowed where they wished.

A patch of ground that was solid for a week could suddenly begin to bubble and then sink away into muck.

No one trusted the ground underfoot. Pilings driven into it were either eaten away or slowly toppled over.

Only the far-reaching roots of the Rain Wild trees seemed able to grip some stability there.

Never had Malta seen or imagined such trees.

The one time she had ventured to her window and peered down, she could not see the ground.

Foliage and bridges obscured the view. Her chamber perched in the forked branch of a tree.

A walkway over the limb protected its bark from foot traffic.

The branch was wide enough for two men to walk abreast on it, and it led to a spiralling staircase that wound down the trunk.

The staircase reminded Malta of a busy street, even to the vendors who frequented the landings.