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‘No!’ she cried wildly. She tried to scrabble away, but he seized her ankle and casually jerked her back.

Other men were standing up to get a better view.

As he exposed himself to Malta, Kekki’s words rushed back to her.

‘ Fa-chejy kol! ’ she blurted. ‘ Fa-chejy kol! ’ He looked startled.

She pushed her hair back from her face. He recoiled suddenly in horror, uttering an exclamation of disgust. She did not care.

It had worked. She jerked away from him, managed to stand, raced the last few strides to shelter, flung herself through the door flap, and collapsed on the floor.

Her breath sobbed in and out of her. Her elbows stung.

She blinked something wet from her eye, then wiped at it.

Blood. The fall had opened her scar again.

The Satrap did not even lift his head from his pillow. ‘Where is my book?’ he demanded.

Malta gasped a breath. ‘I don’t think he has any,’ she managed to say. Calm words. Steady voice. Do not let him know how scared you are. ‘I said the words you told me. He just pointed at the door.’

‘How annoying. I fear I shall die of boredom on this boat. Come and rub my feet. Perhaps I will doze off. There is certainly nothing else to do.’

No choice, Malta told herself. Her heart was still thundering in her chest, her mouth so dry she could scarcely breathe through it.

No choice, except painful death. Her elbows and knees stung; they were skinned raw.

She pulled a splinter from her palm, then crossed the tiny room to sit on the floor by his feet.

He glanced at her, then jerked his feet away from her touch.

‘What is the matter with you? What is that?’ He stared at her brow.

‘I fell. I opened the cut again,’ she said simply.

She lifted her hand to touch it gingerly.

Her fingers came away sticky with blood and a thick, white pus.

Malta stared at it in horror. She picked up one of Kekki’s rags and dabbed at her brow.

It did not hurt much, but more of the stuff soaked the rag.

Malta began to shake as she looked at it. What was it, what did it mean?

There was no mirror to consult. She had avoided touching the scar on her forehead.

She had not wanted to remind herself it was there.

Now she let her fingers walk over it. It hurt, but not as much as it seemed it should for all the blood and discharge.

She forced herself to explore it. It was as long as her forefinger and stood up in a thick ridge as wide as two of her fingers.

The scar felt knobby and ridged and gristly like the end of a chicken bone.

A shudder ran over her. She wanted to vomit.

She lifted her face to the Satrap. ‘What does it look like?’ she demanded quietly.

He did not seem to hear her. ‘Don’t touch me. Go clean yourself, and bind something across that. Feh! I cannot look at that. Get away.’

She turned away from him, refolded the rag and held it against her brow.

It grew heavy and wet. Pink fluid trickled down her wrist to her elbow.

It wasn’t stopping. She scooted over to sit by Kekki, seeking any kind of companionship.

She was now too frightened even to cry. ‘What if I’m dying from this?

’ she whimpered. Kekki did not respond. Malta looked at her, and then stared.

The Companion was dead.

Out on the deck, a sailor shouted something excitedly.

Others took up the cry. The Satrap sat up suddenly on his pallet.

‘The ship! They’re hailing the ship! Perhaps now there will be decent food and wine.

Malta, fetch my … oh, now what ails you?

’ He glared at her irritably, and then followed her gaze to Kekki’s corpse.

He sighed. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘What a nuisance.’

Serilla had ordered that her luncheon be brought to the library. She sat awaiting it with an anticipation that had nothing to do with hunger. The tattooed serving woman who set it before her moved with precise courtesy that grated on Serilla’s nerves.

‘Never mind that,’ she said, almost sharply, as the woman began to pour her tea for her. ‘I’ll do the rest for myself. You can go now. Please remember that I am not to be disturbed.’

‘Yes, lady.’ The stoic woman bobbed her head and retreated to the door.

Serilla forced herself to sit still at the table until she heard the door shut firmly behind her.

Then she rose swiftly, cat-footed across the room and eased the latch into place.

A servant had opened the drapes to the wet wintry day outside.

Serilla drew them closed and surreptitiously checked to be sure the edges overlapped.

When she was certain that no one could enter the room nor spy on her, she went back to the table.

Ignoring the food, she took up the napkin and shook it hopefully.

Nothing fell out.

Disappointment squeezed her. Last time, the note had been folded discreetly within the napkin.

She had no idea how Mingsley had managed it, but she had hoped he would contact her again.

She had replied to his overture with a note of her own, left at his suggestion under a flowerpot in the disused herb garden behind the house.

When she checked on it later, the note was gone. He should have replied by now.

Unless this was all a trick and the note had been a test of Roed’s devising.

Roed suspected everything and everyone. He had discovered the power of cruelty, and it was corrupting him swiftly.

He could not keep a secret, yet accused everyone around him of being the source of the rumours that plagued and terrorized Bingtown.

He bragged to her of what happened to those who spoke out against him, though he never admitted to having a direct hand in any of it.

‘Dwicker’s had a good beating for his insolence.

Justice has been done.’ Perhaps he had intended that such talk would keep her bound to him.

It had had the reverse effect. She had felt so chilled and sickened that she was now willing to risk everything to break free of him.

When the first note had come from Mingsley, offering an alliance, she had been shocked at his boldness.

It had slipped out of her napkin onto her lap while she was dining with the heads of the Bingtown Council, but if one of them had been instrumental in delivering the note, she saw no sign of it.

It must have been one of the servants. Servants were easily bribed to such tasks.

She had agonized over replying. It had taken her a day to decide, and when she had finally set her note out, she had wondered if it would be too late. She knew her note had been taken. Why hadn’t he replied?

Had she been too conservative in her own note?

Mingsley had not been. The bargain that he had bluntly proposed had so stunned her she had barely been able to converse for the rest of the evening.

Mingsley first proclaimed his own loyalty to her and to the Satrap she represented.

He then plunged into accusations against those who were not so loyal.

He minced no words in revealing that ‘traitorous New Traders’ had intended to seize the Satrap from Davad’s house, and even that they had received support from nobles in Jamaillia and Chalcedean mercenaries in their pay.

But the plan had soured. The Chalcedeans who had raided Bingtown had betrayed the alliance for the sake of quick plunder.

The Jamaillian nobles who had backed them were plunged into civil unrest of their own.

Some traitorous fools claimed the Jamaillian conspirators would raise a fleet to aid them and enforce their control of Bingtown.

Mingsley believed it unlikely. The Traditionalists in Jamaillia City were more powerful than the conspirators had believed.

The conspiracy had failed miserably, both in Bingtown and Jamaillia, thanks to her intervention.

All had heard how she had boldly snatched the Satrap.

Rumour suggested that the Satrap was now under the safe wing of the Vestrit family.

In a finely penned and closely worded missive, Mingsley went on to declare that he and other honest New Traders were most anxious to clear their own names and salvage their investments in Bingtown.

Her bold declaration that Davad Restart was innocent of treachery against the Satrapy of Jamaillia had heartened them.

Simple logic showed that if Davad were innocent, then so were his former trading partners.

These honest but misjudged New Traders were most anxious to negotiate a peace with the Bingtown Traders, and to establish their clear loyalty to the Satrapy.

He then stated his bargain. The ‘loyalist’ New Traders wanted Serilla to intercede for them with the Bingtown Council, but first she must divest herself of ‘the hot-headed, bloody-handed’ Roed Caern.

Only then would they treat with her. In return for this sacrifice, Mingsley and the other loyal New Traders would furnish her with a list of those New Traders who had plotted against the Satrap.

The list would include the names of highly-placed Jamaillian conspirators, as well as the Chalcedean lords who had been involved.

He not-so-subtly pointed out that such a list, kept secret, was worth a great deal of coin.

A woman possessing such information could live well and independently the rest of her life, whether she chose to remain in Bingtown or return to Jamaillia.

Someone had informed Mingsley very well about her.