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She sniffed, then sighed heavily. She almost wiped her eyes on her sleeve, then remembered herself. She groped for her handkerchief. Instead, he pressed his into her hands. It was damp from his tears. She wiped her own eyes on it. ‘Where is my mother?’ she asked wearily.

‘With my mother. And some of our Council. They are talking about what is to be done.’

‘My mother?’

‘Trader Vestrit of the Bingtown Traders has as much a right to speak as any other Trader. And she has some brilliant ideas. She suggested thick, greenwood buckets of Rain Wild River water might be employed as a weapon against the galleys. Load them in catapults to break apart on their decks. The damage might not be immediate, but over time their ships would start to weaken and come apart, not to mention scalding their rowers.’

‘Unless they knew to piss on the decks,’ she muttered.

Reyn gave an involuntary laugh. His arms tightened around her. ‘Malta Vestrit, the things you know astonish me. How did you learn that secret?’

‘Selden told me. Children can find out anything.’

‘That is true,’ he replied thoughtfully. ‘Children and servants are near invisible. Much of our information before the riots came from Amber’s net of slaves.’

She leaned her head on his shoulder. He put both his arms around her and held her. It wasn’t romantic. Nothing was romantic anymore. Only tired. ‘Amber? The bead-maker?’ she asked. ‘What had she to do with the slaves?’

‘She talked to them. A lot. I gather that she marked her face and masqueraded as a slave at the water well, and the washing fountains and places where slaves gathered to do their work. At first, she gathered knowledge just from their gossip, but eventually she enlisted some of the slaves themselves to help her. She opened that net to the Tenira family. Grag and his father made good use of it.’

‘What kind of knowledge?’ she asked dully. She didn’t know why she cared. It all came down to one thing. War. People killing each other and destroying things.

‘The latest gossip from Jamaillia. Which nobles are allied with each other, which ones have substantial interests in Chalced. It was all information that we needed, to make our case in Jamaillia. We are not a rebel province, not really. What we do is in the interest of the Satrapy. There is a group of Jamaillian nobles who would overthrow the Satrap and seize his power for themselves. They encouraged him to come to Bingtown, in the hopes of exactly what happened. Riots. Attempts on the Satrap’s life.

’ Almost reluctantly, he admitted, ‘Trader Restart was not a traitor. His pushiness when the Chalcedean fleet arrived actually put the traitors’ plans awry, for the Satrap ended up at his home instead of in their power.

But for his intervention, the assault on Bingtown would have begun much sooner. ’

‘Why is any of that important?’ she asked flatly.

‘It’s a complicated situation. Essentially, it is Jamaillia’s civil war, not ours.

They’ve just decided to hold it in our territories.

Some of the Jamaillian nobles are willing to give Bingtown over to Chalced, in return for favourable trading treaties, a chunk of what the Satrap has always claimed for himself, and more power for themselves in Jamaillia.

They’ve gone to great lengths to establish their families and claims in Bingtown.

Now they’ve made it look like the Bingtown Traders have rebelled against the Satrapy.

But it’s all a mask for their own plots to overthrow an incompetent Satrap and steal the throne’s power for themselves. Do you understand?’

‘No. And I don’t care. Reyn, I just want my father back. I want to go home. I want it all to be like it was before.’

He dropped his head forward so that his forehead rested on her shoulder. ‘Someday,’ he said in a muffled voice, ‘you will want something I can give you. At least, so I pray to Sa.’

For a time, they just sat together in silence.

A scratch came at the door. Reyn jumped, but he couldn’t very well dump her out of his arms. The door opened and the Rain Wild woman framed in it looked completely scandalized.

Her mouth actually hung open. She took a gasp of air, then blurted, ‘I came to assist Malta Vestrit. The healer advised she should get up and do some walking.’

‘I’ll see to it myself,’ Reyn announced calmly, as if he had a perfect right to be alone with her in her chamber holding her in his arms. Malta looked down at her hands clasped in her lap. She could not control the blush that heated her cheeks.

‘I…that is…’

‘You may tell the healer I’ve seen to it,’ he instructed her firmly.

As the woman darted away, leaving the door ajar, he added in an undertone, ‘And my mother. And my brother. And anyone else you meet on the way to tattle on me.’ He shook his head and the fabric of his veil whispered against her hair.

‘I shall hear about this. For hours.’ His arms tightened briefly around her, then released her.

‘Come. At least don’t make me a liar as well as a sneak.

Get up and walk with me.’ He lifted her off his lap.

She stood, and handed him her coverlet. She wore a house robe, a modest enough garment, but not one in which a young lady should be seen by those outside her household.

She lifted a hand to her hair. As she pushed it back from her forehead, her fingers grazed the scar there. She winced.

‘Does it still hurt?’ Reyn asked immediately.

‘Not much. It still surprises me that it is there. I must look a fright. I haven’t combed my hair today…Reyn, they won’t give me a looking glass. Is it bad?’

He tilted his head to look at her. ‘You would say yes. I say no. It is livid now, and swollen, but time will fade it.’ He shook his veiled face. ‘But it will never fade from my memory that I put it there…’

‘Reyn. Don’t,’ Malta begged him.

He took a breath. ‘You don’t look a fright. You look like a tousled kitten.’ His gloved hand thumbed a last tear from her face.

She walked stiffly to a little table where her toiletries were.

The hairbrush on it was unfamiliar. No doubt, Reyn’s family had provided it, as they did the room where she slept and the food she ate and the clothes she wore.

Her family had come away from Bingtown with nothing.

Nothing. They had lived on charity since they arrived here.

‘Let me,’ Reyn begged. He took the brush from her hand.

She stared out the window as he drew it gently through her hair.

‘It’s so thick. Like strands of heavy silk, and so black.

How do you manage it? My mother always complained of my hair when I was a boy, yet I think long straight hair would be harder to manage than curls. ’

‘You have curly hair?’ Malta asked him idly.

‘Like fraying knots, my older sister tells me. When she had to comb it for me when I was small, I swear she ripped out as much as she left on my head.’

She turned to him abruptly. ‘Let me see you.’

He went down suddenly on one knee before her, hairbrush in hand. ‘Malta Vestrit, will you marry me?’

It shocked her. ‘Do I have a choice?’ she demanded.

‘Of course.’ He didn’t move from where he knelt.

She took a breath. ‘I can’t, Reyn. Not yet.’

He stood easily. Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her away from him. He drew the brush smoothly through her hair again. If she had hurt him, it didn’t sound in his voice. ‘Then you can’t see my face.’

‘Is that a Rain Wild custom?’

‘No. It’s Reyn Khuprus’ custom regarding Malta Vestrit. You can see me when you say you’ll marry me.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ she protested.

‘No. It’s crazy. Just ask my mother or my brother. They’ll tell you I’m crazy.’

‘Too late. That was more news my little brother brought me. Reyn Khuprus is crazy from spending too much time in the city. You drowned in memories.’

She had spoken the words lightly, as a jest. It shocked her when he dropped the hairbrush and stood stock-still. After a moment, he asked in hushed horror, ‘Do they really say that of me?’

‘Reyn, I jested.’ She turned to face him, but he walked swiftly away from her to stare out the window.

‘Drowned in memories. You can’t have made that up, Malta Vestrit. It’s a Rain Wild phrase. They do say that of me, don’t they?’

‘One little boy speaking to another…you know how children tell tales to impress one another, how they exaggerate —’

‘How they repeat what they’ve heard their elders say,’ he finished dully.

‘I thought it was just a…Is it truly that serious? To drown in memories?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes it is. When you become dangerous, they generally give you a very gentle poison. You die in your sleep. If you are still able to sleep. Sometimes, I can still sleep. Not often, and not for long, but it makes true sleep all the sweeter.’

‘The dragon,’ Malta confirmed softly.

He started as if stabbed and turned to stare at her.

‘From our dream,’ she went on softly. How long ago that seemed.

‘She threatened she would go after you, but I thought it was an idle boast.’ He sounded ill.

‘She ’Malta started to tell how the dragon had tormented her. Then she stopped. ‘She hasn’t bothered me since I was hurt. She’s gone.’

He was silent for a time. ‘I suppose when you were unconscious, she lost her link with you.’

‘Can that happen?’

‘I don’t know. I know very little about her. Except that no one else believes in her. They all think I’m crazy.’ He laughed tremulously.

She held out her hand. ‘Come. Let’s walk. You promised me once to show me your city.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘I’m not supposed to go there anymore. Not unless my brother or mother deems it necessary. I promised.’ There was deep loss in his voice.

‘Why? Whatever for?’