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NIGHT CONVERSATIONS

H ER MOTHER brOKE DOWN as soon as they were inside the door, her knees simply folding.

Kyle stood shaking his head, so Keffria saw her mother to bed.

The bedroom she had so long shared with her husband had become a chamber of sickness and dying.

Rather than put her mother on the cot where she had kept watch so many nights, Keffria ordered Rache to make a guest room ready for her.

She sat with her until the bed was ready and the serving woman settled her impassive mother into it.

Then she went to check on Selden. He was crying.

He had wanted his mother and Malta had told him she was busy, too busy for a crying baby.

Then she had left him sitting on the edge of his bed, without so much as calling a servant to see to him.

For an instant Keffria was angry with her daughter; then she reminded herself that Malta was little more than a child herself.

It was not reasonable to expect a twelve year old to care for her seven-year-old brother after a day such as they had just had.

So she soothed the boy and helped him into his night robe and stayed by him until his eyes sagged shut.

When she finally left him to seek her own bed, she was sure that every other soul in the household was already asleep.

The dancing light of the candle as she trod the familiar halls put her in mind of ghosts and spirits.

She suddenly wondered if the anma of her father might not still linger in the chambers where he had suffered so long.

A shiver walked up her spine, standing up the hair on the back of her neck.

A moment later she reproached herself. Her father’s anma was one with the ship now.

And even if it were lingering here, surely her own father would bear her no ill will.

Still, she was glad to slip soundlessly into the chamber where Kyle had already gone to bed.

She blew out the candle lest she disturb him and undressed in the darkness, letting her garments fall as they might.

She found the nightgown Nana had laid out for her and slipped into its coolness.

Then finally, finally, her own bed. She turned back the blanket and linen and eased in beside her slumbering husband.

He opened his arms to welcome her in. He had not slept without her, but had waited for her here.

Despite how long the day had been, despite how weary and sorrowful she was, that gladdened her.

Keffria felt as if Kyle’s touch cut through knots of pain that had been strangling her for days.

For a time he simply held her close. He stroked her hair and rubbed her neck until she relaxed in his arms. Then he made love to her, simply and gently, without words as moonlight spilled into their bedroom from the high windows.

This summer night’s moon was bright enough to lend almost colours to all it touched; the cream-coloured sheets on the bed, Kyle’s hair like ivory, his skin two shades of dull gold where sun had and had not touched it.

Afterwards, as she curved her body against his and rested her head on his shoulder, all was silence for a time.

She listened to the beating of his heart, and the movement of air through his chest and was glad of it, and of his warmth.

Then she suddenly felt selfish and thoughtless, that she could possess all this and enjoy it, on the very night of the day when her mother lost her father, and with him all possibility of physical closeness and this kind of sharing.

Lax and warm from their lovemaking, it suddenly seemed too terrible a loss to exist in any world.

She did not move away from Kyle, but closer as her throat closed painfully and a single hot tear slid across her cheek to drip onto his bare shoulder.

He reached up to touch it, and then her face.

‘Don’t,’ he told her gently. ‘Don’t. There have been enough tears today, and enough mourning. Let it all go, for now. Don’t let there be anything or anyone in this bed save we two.’

She caught a breath. ‘I’ll try. But my mother’s loss… I just truly realized what she lost. All this.’ Her free hand charted the length of him, from shoulder to thigh, before he caught it up and brought it to his mouth for a kiss.

‘I know. I thought of that too, as I was touching you. Wondered if there would be a time I didn’t come back to you, what you would do…’

‘Don’t even speak such an idea!’ she begged him.

She put her palm to his jaw and turned his face to hers in the moonlight.

‘I still don’t know that it was right,’ she suddenly declared in an altered tone.

‘I know we talked about it, that we all agreed it would be for the best, that it would protect everyone. But the look on her face when I put my hand on the peg… and then the way she just stormed off. I never would have believed Althea would do that, just leave the funeral that way. I thought she loved him more than that…’

‘Umh.’ Kyle considered. ‘I hadn’t expected it either.

I thought she loved the ship more than that, if not her father.

I expected a real battle with her, and was just as glad when she gave in easily.

I was sure the whole funeral ceremony would be one bitter scene after another with her.

At least she spared us that. Though I confess I’m uneasy as to where she is right now.

A girl should be at home on the night of her father’s death, not out gallivanting around a wild port like Bingtown.

’ He paused, then added almost cautiously, ‘You know I can’t let her get away with it.

She has to be rebuked; someone has to take a hand with her before she ruins herself entirely. ’

‘Papa always said that Althea ran best under a light hand,’ Keffria ventured. ‘That she had to have room to make her own mistakes, as it seemed they were the only things she could learn from.’

Kyle gave a snort of disgust. ‘Forgive me, my love, but I think he said it to excuse himself from taking a father’s stand with her.

She’s spoiled. She’s been indulged for as long as I’ve known her, and it shows.

She constantly assumes she’s going to get her own way.

It’s made her selfish and thoughtless of others.

But it’s not too late for her. Finding out that was more of a shock to me than you can imagine.

On the way home, when I lost my temper and ordered her into her cabin for the remainder of the voyage, I never dreamed she’d heed me.

I was angry and barked out the words to get her out of my sight before I could really lose my temper with her.

But she obeyed me. And I think she finally had time to do a lot of thinking in that time alone.

You saw how she was when we landed. Quiet and repentant.

She dressed like a lady when we left the ship, or as closely as she knows how to. ’

He paused for a moment. He shook his head, tangling his blond hair against the pillow.

‘I was amazed. I kept waiting for her to try to start up the quarrel again. And then I realized, this was what she has been looking for all along. Someone to draw a line. Someone to finally take charge of her and make her behave as she knows she should. All this time, I think she was just seeing how far she could go before someone took in her sails and dropped anchor.’ He cleared his throat.

‘I respected your father. You know I did. But when it came to Althea, he was… blind. He never forbade her anything, never really told her “no” and enforced it. When I stepped in and did that, well, the difference was amazing. Of course, when she got off the ship and I was no longer in charge, then she started to get a bit wild again.’ He shrugged.

For a time there was silence as he and Keffria considered her sister and her strange ways.

Kyle took a deep breath and sighed it out heavily.

‘I used to think there was no hope for her. That she’d only bring us sorrow and come to a bad end herself.

But today, when she finally saw all of us united in what was best for the family, she didn’t truly oppose us.

Deep inside, she knows what is right. The ship must be worked for the good of the whole family.

You are eldest: it’s only right and just that you inherit the family’s real wealth.

Besides, you’ve children to provide for, and the ship will let us do that.

Who has Althea to provide for? Why, only herself, and I think we can trust ourselves to see that she doesn’t go hungry or naked or roofless.

But if the situation were reversed and the ship had been given over to her, she would have sailed the Vivacia out of the harbour without a backwards glance, and like as not she’d have that ne’er do well Brashen as the captain on her. ’

He stretched slightly, but not enough to dislodge her.

His arm came around her, held her close.

‘No, Keffria, I don’t think you need to question that what we did today was for the best. We know we’ll provide for Althea, and get your mother out of her financial tangle as well.

Could you say for certain that Althea would take care of your mother, let alone us and our children?

I think that toward the end even your father saw the wisdom of bequeathing the ship to you, hard as he found it to hurt his little favourite’s feelings. ’