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‘You have one other alternative. You and Selden can flee Bingtown. You might be left at peace in Ingleby for a time. Unless someone decided to win favour with Serilla and Caern by hunting you down there.’

Keffria leaned her forehead into her hands. Heedless of how it might look to the others, she rested her elbows on the table. ‘Bingtown is not like that. It won’t come to that.’ She waited for someone to agree, but no one spoke. She lifted her head and looked at the grave faces that confronted her.

Too much was happening too fast. They had allowed her time to bathe, and she was dressed in a fresh gown from one of the Tenira women.

She’d had a simple meal in her room, and then she had been summoned down to this gathering.

She had had little time with her mother.

‘Malta’s dead,’ she had said to her as her mother hugged her in greeting.

Ronica had stiffened in Keffria’s arms and closed her eyes, and when she had opened them, Keffria had seen the grief in her mother’s eyes over the death of her wayward granddaughter.

It glittered there like ice, cold and immutable, too solid for tears.

For a brief time, they shared sorrow, and oddly that had healed much of the rift between them.

But whereas Keffria wanted to huddle somewhere until this incomprehensible pain passed, her mother insisted that they go on living.

For her, that meant fighting as well, fighting for Bingtown and Selden’s future.

Ronica had accompanied her to her room and helped her change into the dry clothes.

While she did so, she spoke hurriedly of Bingtown.

The words had rattled and flown past Keffria’s ears: a breakdown of the Bingtown Council’s ability to rule.

Roed Caern and a handful of other young Traders terrorizing families that did not agree with his ideas.

A need to create a new governing body for Bingtown, one that encompassed all the folk who lived there.

A lecture on politics was the last thing Keffria wanted or needed just now.

She had nodded numbly, repeatedly, until Ronica had departed to confer with Jani Khuprus.

There had been a brief time of peace and solitude.

Then Keffria had descended, Selden at her side, to find this mixed company of folk in the grand hall of the Tenira mansion.

It was an odd gathering around Naria Tenira’s great table.

The Tenira family filled one set of chairs.

Seated next to them, in a row, were representatives from at least six Trader families.

Keffria recognized Devouchet and Risch. The others she did not know by name; the introductions had eluded her weary brain.

Two women and a man with tattooed faces filled the next chairs, and beside them sat four folk who, by their garb, were Three Ships immigrants.

Reyn and Jani Khuprus came next, and completing the circle were the three remaining Vestrits.

Keffria found herself at Naria Tenira’s left hand.

The Liveship Trader had insisted that Selden be seated at the table and admonished the boy to pay great attention.

‘This is your future unfolding, lad. You’ve a right to witness how it comes into being. ’

Initially, Keffria had thought that Naria was merely trying to include the boy and reassure him he was still important.

Since they had left Trehaug, Selden had grown clingy and withdrawn.

He seemed a much younger child than the boy who had swiftly adapted to the treetop city.

Now she wondered if Trader Tenira’s words were not prophetic.

Selden sat listening to it all with a rare concentration.

Keffria looked at her young son as she conceded, ‘I am too tired to run any more. We have to face whatever comes.’

‘You need to do more than face it,’ Naria Tenira corrected her.

‘You need to challenge it. Half of Bingtown is so busy huddling in the ruins that they don’t perceive the power that Serilla and her toady Caern have seized.

We made a fine start of restoring order.

Then, things began to happen. Trader Dwicker called a meeting.

He had heard a rumour that Serilla was treating with the New Traders regarding a truce, bypassing the Bingtown Council completely.

The entire Council condemned it. Caern denied it, on Serilla’s behalf.

That was when we saw how close they had become.

’ She paused and took a breath. ‘Dwicker was found later, so badly beaten that he never spoke again before he died. Another Council head had his barn set on fire. New Traders or slaves were blamed both times, but there are other, darker, rumours about town.’

A slave spoke up. ‘You hear how it affects Bingtown Traders. Worse things have been done to Tattooed families,’ she said grimly.

‘Folk have been beaten, simply for going out to barter or buy food. Families have been burned out. We are blamed for every crime in Bingtown, and given no chance to prove innocence. Caern and his cohorts are known and feared by all. New Trader families who are less able to defend themselves have been attacked in their homes. Fires are set in the night, and the fleeing folk, even children, are ambushed. A cowardly, sneaky way to wage a war. We have no love for the New Traders who enslaved us, but neither do we wish to be a party to the slaughter of children.’ She met the eyes of the Traders at the table.

‘If Bingtown cannot bring Caern and his thugs under control soon, you will lose all opportunity to ally with the Tattooed. The rumours we hear are that the Bingtown Council supports Caern. That once Bingtown Traders are in full command of the town, we will be shipped out with the New Traders, driven forth from Bingtown and back into slavery.’

Ronica shook her head. ‘We have become a ghost town ruled by rumours. The latest rumour is that Serilla has appointed Roed as the head of a new Bingtown Guard and that he has called a secret meeting with the remaining leaders of the Bingtown Traders’ Council.

Tonight. If we reach consensus today, we will all be there, to put an end to such nonsense, and an end to Caern’s brutality.

When have secret meetings ever been part of Bingtown’s government? ’

The red-bearded Three Ships man spoke up. ‘All the doings of the Bingtown Traders’ Council have always been secret from us.’

Keffria looked at him, puzzled. ‘That is how it has always been. Trader business is for Traders,’ she explained simply.

His ruddy colour heightened. ‘But running the whole town is what you claim as Trader business. That’s what forces Three Ships folk to the edge, and keeps us there.’ He shook his head. ‘If you want us on your side, then it has to be by your side. Not outside a wall, nor on a leash.’

She stared at him, uncomprehending. A deep unrest was building in her.

Bingtown as she had known it was being dismantled, and the folk in this room seemed intent on speeding the process along.

Had her mother and Jani Khuprus gone mad?

Would they save Bingtown by destroying it?

Were they seriously considering sharing power with former slaves and fishermen?

Jani Khuprus spoke quietly. ‘I know my friend Ronica Vestrit shares your feelings. She has told me that the folk of Bingtown with similar goals must ally, regardless of whether they are Trader or not.’ She paused, turning her veiled face to survey all the folk at the table.

‘With great respect for those here, and for the opinions of dear friends, I do not know if that is possible. The bonds between the Bingtown Traders and the Rain Wild Traders are old and secured with blood.’ She paused.

Her shoulders rose and fell in an eloquent shrug.

‘How can we offer that loyalty to others? Can we demand it in return? Are your groups willing to forge that strong a bond and abide by it as we have, not just binding ourselves, but binding our children’s children’s children? ’

‘That depends.’ Sparse Kelter, that was the bearded man’s name, Keffria suddenly recalled.

He glanced at the slaves at the table as if this was something they had already discussed.

‘We would make demands in return for our loyalty. I may as well lay them on the table now. They’re simple, and you folks can say yea or nay.

If the answer is nay, there’s no sense my wasting a tide’s fishing here. ’

Keffria was suddenly reminded of her own father, and his reluctance to waste time on mincing words.

Kelter waited and when no one opposed him, he spoke.

‘Land for everyone. A man should own the spot his house stands on, and I’m not talking a patch of beach barely out of the tide’s reach.

Three Ships folk are sea folk. We don’t ask much more than enough space for a proper house, some ground for a chicken to scratch in and some greens to sprout, and a place to mend our nets.

But those that have a bent to farming or beasts will need more than that. ’

He was still looking around the table to see how this would be received when a Tattooed woman spoke.

‘No slavery,’ she said huskily. ‘Let Bingtown become a place slaves can flee to, and not fear being turned back to their masters. No slavery, and land for those of us who are already here.’ The woman hesitated, then surged on determinedly.

‘And each family gets a vote in the Bingtown Council.’

‘Council votes have always gone with land ownership,’ Naria Tenira pointed out.

‘But where did that bring us? To here, to this mess. When the New Traders claimed votes based on land they’d purchased from financially wounded Traders, we were foolish enough to grant them.

If it hadn’t been for the Traders’ Council, they’d be running Bingtown already.

’ Devouchet’s soft deep voice somehow kept his words from sounding offensive.