Page 417

The pirate seated on the deck stared ahead stolidly. He didn’t speak a word.

‘Let me have a go, Captain,’ Lavoy begged, and Brashen did not forbid it. The brawny first mate crouched down beside the man, seized the hair on top of his head and forced him to meet his gaze.

‘It’s this way, bonny boy,’ Lavoy growled. His grin was worse than a snarl. ‘You can be useful and talk to us. Or you can go over the side. Which is it?’

The pirate took a short breath. ‘Whether I talk or not, I go over the side.’ There was half a sob to his words, and he suddenly looked younger to Althea.

But his response roused cruelty rather than pity in Lavoy. ‘Talk, then. No one will know you did, and maybe I’ll knock you over the head before I let you sink. Where’s this Kennit? That’s all we want to know. That’s his emblem you’re wearing. You got to know where he docks.’

Althea shot Brashen an incredulous look.

There was substantially more that she wanted to know.

Had any of Vivacia’s crew survived? How fared Vivacia?

Were there any hopes of ransoming her? But Brashen spoke not a word.

The bound man shook his head. Lavoy slapped him, not hard, but the open-handed cuff was enough to knock the prisoner over.

Before he could right himself, Lavoy seized him by the hair and dragged him back to a sitting position. ‘I didn’t hear you,’ he sneered at him.

‘Are you going to –’ Amber began furiously, but Brashen cut her off with an abrupt, ‘Enough!’ Brashen advanced to stand over the prisoner. ‘Talk to us,’ he suggested. ‘Tell us what we need to know, and maybe you don’t have to die.’

The pirate took a ragged breath. ‘I’d rather die than betray Kennit,’ he said defiantly. A sudden shake of his head ripped it from Lavoy’s grip.

‘If he’d rather die,’ Paragon suddenly offered, ‘I can assist him with that.’ His voice boomed suddenly louder. The malice in it stood up the hair on the back of Althea’s neck. ‘Throw him to me, Lavoy. He’ll talk before I give him to the sea.’

‘Enough!’ Althea heard herself echo Brashen’s word.

She advanced to the prisoner and crouched down to be on eye level with him. ‘I’m not asking you to be disloyal to Kennit.’ She spoke softly.

‘What do you think you’re do––’ Lavoy began in disgust, but Brashen cut him off.

‘Step back, Lavoy. This is Althea’s right.’

‘Her right?’ The first mate was both incredulous and furious.

‘Shut up or leave the foredeck.’ Brashen’s voice was flat.

Lavoy subsided, but his colour remained high.

Althea didn’t spare either of them a glance. She stared at the prisoner until he lifted his eyes to meet hers. ‘Tell me about the liveship Kennit took. Vivacia.’

For a time, the man just looked at her. Then his nostrils narrowed and the skin around his mouth pinched white.

‘I know who you are.’ He spat out the words.

‘You’ve the look of the priest-boy. You could be his twin.

’ He turned his head and spat on the deck.

‘You’re a damn Haven. I tell you nothing. ’

‘I’m a Vestrit, not a damn Haven,’ Althea replied indignantly. ‘And the Vivacia is our family ship. You spoke of Wintrow, my nephew. He lives, then?’

‘Wintrow. That was his name.’ The man’s eyes glinted fiercely.

‘I hope he is dead. He deserves death and not a swift one. Oh, he pretended to kindness. Bringing us a bucket of saltwater and a rag, crawling amongst the filthy hold as if he was one of us. But it was all an act. All the time, he was the captain’s son.

Many of the slaves said we should be grateful to him, that he done for us what he could, and that when we did break loose, it was because of him.

But I think he was a damn spy all along.

Otherwise, how could he have looked at us and left us chained down there that long? You tell me that.’

‘You were a slave aboard the Vivacia,’ Althea said quietly. That was all. No questions, no contradictions. The man was talking, and telling her more than he realized.

‘I was a slave on your family ship. Yes.’ He gave his head a shake to fling the hair back from his eyes.

‘You know that. Don’t tell me you don’t recognize your own family’s tattoo.

’ Unwillingly she studied his face. The last tattoo on his cheek was a clenched fist. That would suit Kyle.

Althea took a breath and spoke softly. ‘I own no slaves. Neither did my father. He brought me up to believe slavery was wrong. There is no Vestrit tattoo, and there are no Vestrit slaves. What was done to you was done by Kyle Haven, not my family.’

‘Slide away from it, right? Like your little priest-boy. He had to know what was being done to us. That damn Torg. He’d come amongst us at night and rape the women right in front of us.

Killed one of them. She started screaming and he stuffed a rag in her mouth.

She died while he was fucking her. And he just laughed.

Just stood up and walked away and left her there, chained just two men down from me.

There wasn’t a damn thing that any of us could do.

The next day the crew came and hauled her away and fed her to the serpents.

’ The man’s eyes narrowed. He ran his eyes over her.

‘It should have been you, spread out and choked. Just once, it should have been one of you.’

Althea closed her eyes for an instant. The image was too vivid. By the railing, Amber suddenly turned to stare off over the sea.

‘Don’t speak to her like that,’ Brashen said roughly. ‘Or I’ll throw you overboard myself.’

‘I don’t care,’ Althea interrupted him. ‘I understand why he says that. Let him talk.’ She focused herself at the man.

‘What Kyle Haven did with our family ship was wrong. I acknowledge that.’ She forced herself to meet the man’s hawkish gaze with one of her own.

‘I want Vivacia back, and when I get her, no man will ever be a slave on her. That’s all.

Tell us where we can find Kennit. We’ll ransom the ship back.

That’s all I want. Just the ship. And those of her crew that still live. ’

‘Damn few of those.’ Her words had not changed the man’s heart.

Instead, he seemed to sense her vulnerability and to be eager to hurt her.

He stared at her as he spoke. ‘Most of ’em was dead before Kennit even stepped aboard.

I done two of them myself. It was a fine day when he came aboard.

His men spent quite a time pitching bodies to the serpents.

And oh, didn’t the ship scream while they did it. ’

His eyes locked with Althea’s, trying to see if he had wounded her.

She did not try to pretend otherwise. Instead, she slowly sat back on her heels.

It would have to be faced, all of it. She was not a Haven, but the ship was her family ship.

Family money had paid for the slaves, and her father’s crew had been the ones to chain them up in the dark.

What she felt was not guilt; guilt she reserved for her own wrongdoing.

Instead, she felt a terrible responsibility.

She should have stayed and fought Kyle to the bitter end.

She should never have let Vivacia depart Bingtown on such a dirty errand.

‘Where can we find Kennit?’

The man licked his lips. ‘You want your ship? You ain’t going to get her.

Kennit took her because he wanted her. And she wants him.

She’d lick his boots if she could reach them.

He sweet-talks her like a cheap whore and she just laps it up.

I heard him talk to her one night, cosying up to her about turning pirate.

She went willing. She’ll never come back to you.

She got a gutfull of being a slaver; she pirates for Kennit now.

She wears his colours, same as me.’ His eyes measured the impact of his words.

‘Ship hated being a slaver. She was grateful to Kennit for freeing her. She’ll never want to come back to you.

Nor would Kennit ransom her to you. He likes her.

Says he always wanted a liveship. Now he has one. ’

‘Liar!’ The roar burst out, not from Althea, but Paragon. ‘You lying sack of guts! Give him to me! I’ll wring the truth out of him.’

Paragon’s words were another buffet against her.

Sickened, Althea stood slowly. Her head spun with the impact of the man’s words.

It touched a deeply hidden fear. She had known that Vivacia’s experiences as a slaver must change her.

Could it change her this much? So much that she would turn against her own family and strike out on her own with someone else?

Why not?

Hadn’t Althea also turned away from her family, with far less provocation?

A horrible mixture of jealousy, disappointment and betrayal swept through her.

So must a wife feel who discovers her husband’s unfaithfulness.

So must a parent feel when a daughter becomes a whore.

How could Vivacia have done so? And how could Althea have failed her so badly?

What would become of her beautiful misguided ship now?

Could they ever be as they were before, one heart, one spirit, moving over the sea before the wind?

Paragon ranted on, threats to the pirate and pleas that they give him the prisoner, he would wring the truth out of him, yes, he’d make him speak true of that bastard Kennit.

Althea scarcely heard him. Brashen took her elbow.

‘You look as if you will faint,’ he said in a low voice.

‘Can you walk away? Keep your dignity in front of the crew?’

His words were her final undoing. She wrenched free of him.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she snarled low. Dignity , she cautioned herself, dignity , but it was all she could do to keep from shrieking at him like a fishwife.

He stepped back from her, appalled, and she saw the briefest flash of anger deep in his dark eyes.

She drew herself up, fighting for control.