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That puzzled him, did it? Well, let the old man focus on that.

‘To the tavern, then!’ Brashen agreed heartily.

He sat back in the stern and rode into town like a king, escorted by Divvytown’s constabulary.

Half a dozen curious onlookers were huddled on the dock, shoulders hunched to the cold rain.

Maystar preceded Brashen up the ladder. By the time he reached the top, Maystar was already the centre of a hail of questions.

Brashen shifted all attention to himself when he proclaimed, ‘Gentlemen! Won’t someone guide us to the tavern?

’ He beamed at the gathered crowd. From the corner of one eye, he noticed Jek’s smiling appraisal of the men.

The grins she was getting in response could not hurt his cause.

As his crew joined him on the dock, the onlookers relaxed.

These were not raiders, but honest freebooters like themselves.

‘The tavern’s this way,’ Maystar told him grumpily.

Perhaps he was jealous of his importance.

Brashen immediately targeted him. ‘Please, lead on,’ he told him.

As they trailed Maystar, Brashen noticed that their following had already diminished.

That suited him well. He wanted to gather information, not enthral the whole town.

He noted that Althea had positioned herself to his left and one step behind him.

It was good to know someone was there with a ready knife if the Divvytown folk did decide to turn on him.

Cypros and Kert were right behind him. Harg and Kitl, the two tattooed ones that Althea had chosen, followed them.

Jek had dropped back to the end of their group and had already struck up a conversation with a handsome young man.

He caught a word or two; she was asking him if he thought they’d be given the run of the town, and if so, what entertainment he recommended for a lonely sailor on her first night in port.

Brashen gripped his smile with his teeth.

Well, he’d asked her to be friendly and gather information.

The interior of the tavern was dim. Most of the warmth came from body heat rather than from the blazing fire in the hearth.

The smells of damp wool, sweat, smoke and cooking lingered in the air.

Althea loosened her coat but didn’t take it off.

If they had to get out of here fast, she didn’t want it left behind. She looked about her curiously.

The building was fairly new, but the walls had already begun to discolour with smoke.

It had a plank floor, strewn with sand to make each night’s sweeping out easier.

A window at one end faced the sea. Brashen led them towards the hearth end of the open chamber.

Plank tables and long benches supported a variety of eaters, drinkers and talkers.

Evidently the oncoming storm kept folk in today.

They were regarded with varying degrees of curiosity, but no outright animosity.

Brashen just might dance through the deception without missing a step.

Brashen clapped a friendly hand on Maystar’s shoulder as they seated themselves at the table, and before he could say a word, bellowed out an order for brandy for the harbourmaster and himself, and ale all round for his crew.

A bottle was swiftly brought and opened, and two clay noggins set out.

As the tavern boy began to load a tray with foaming mugs, Brashen turned to Maystar.

‘Well, much has changed in Divvytown. New buildings and a welcoming party for my ship are the least of it. I’ve never seen the harbour so deserted.

Tell me. What has befallen the place since last I was here? ’

For an instant, the old man looked puzzled.

Althea wondered if he even remembered that he was supposed to be the one asking the questions.

But Brashen had pegged his garrulous nature well.

He probably didn’t often get the chance to hold forth as an expert for so long.

Brashen became the most attentive and flattering of audiences as Maystar told in lurid detail of the slaver’s raid that had changed forever not just the layout but the very nature of Divvytown.

As he spoke on, at great length, Althea began to grasp that this Kennit was no ordinary pirate.

Maystar spoke of him with admiration and pride.

Others added their own stories of things Kennit had said, or done, or caused to be done.

One of the speakers was a man of obvious learning.

The tattoo on his cheek wrinkled as he scowlingly recounted his days below deck in a slaveship before Kennit had freed him.

They spoke of the man as if they were telling hero-tales, Althea realized uneasily.

The stories made her grudgingly admire the pirate, even as they chilled her heart.

A man like that, bold and sage and noble, would not easily give up a ship like Vivacia.

And if half the tales told of him were true, perhaps the ship had given her heart to him. Then what?

Althea fought to keep the smile on her face and to nod to Maystar’s tales as she pondered it.

She had been thinking of Vivacia as a stolen family treasure, or as a kidnapped child.

What if she was more like a headstrong girl who had eloped with the love of her life?

The others were all laughing at some witticism.

Althea chuckled dutifully. Did she have the right to take Vivacia away from Kennit, if the ship had truly bonded to him?

What was her duty, to her family, to the liveship?

Brashen leaned over to reach the brandy bottle.

It was a pretence, to bring his leg into contact with hers.

She felt the steady warm pressure of his knee against hers, and realized that he saw her dilemma.

His brief glance spoke volumes. Worry later.

Pay attention now, and later they would consider all the implications of what they had heard.

She finished her mug of ale and held it aloft for a refill.

Her eyes met those of the stranger across the table.

He was watching her intently; Althea hoped her earlier thoughtfulness had not made him too curious.

At the far end of the table, Jek was engaged in arm wrestling with the man she had targeted earlier.

Althea judged that she was letting him win.

The man across the table followed her gaze, and then his eyes came back to hers.

Merriment danced in them. He was a comely man, his looks spoiled only by a trail of tattoos across his cheek.

In a lull in Maystar’s explanations, she asked him, ‘Why is the harbour so empty? I saw but three ships where several dozen could easily anchor.’

His eyes lit at her question, and he grinned more broadly.

He leaned across the table to speak more confidentially.

‘You’re new to this trade, then,’ he told her.

‘Don’t you know that this is the harvest season in the Pirate Isles?

All the ships are out reaping our winter livelihood.

The weather is our ally, for a ship from Jamaillia may have been running three days in a storm, its crew weary and careless, when we step out from our doorsteps to stop it.

We let winter do our harrying for us. This time of year, the cargoes are fatter, for the fruits of the harvest are now in transit.

’ His grin faded as he added, ‘It is also the worst time of year for those taken by slaveships. The weather is rough, and the seas run cold. The poor bastards are chained below in damp holds, in irons so cold they bite the flesh from your bones. This time of year, slaveships are often little more than floating cemeteries.’ He grinned again, fierceness lighting his face now.

‘But there is sport this year, as well. The Inside Passage swarms with Chalcedean galleys. They hoist a flag and proclaim they are the Satrap’s own, but it is all a sham to pick off the fattest hogs for themselves.

They think themselves so sly. Captain Brig, Kennit’s own man, has taught us the game of it.

Let the galleys prey and fight and glut themselves with wealth.

When their ships ride heavy, the harvest is ripe for gathering.

We go in, and in one battle, we harvest the cream of many ships they’ve taken. ’

He sat back on the bench, laughing aloud at Althea’s incredulous look, then seized his mug and banged it on the table to attract the serving boy’s attention. After the boy brought him a fresh mug, he asked, ‘How came you to this life?’

‘By as crooked a road as your own, I’ll wager,’ she returned. She cocked her head and looked at him curiously. ‘That’s not Jamaillia I hear in your accent.’

The ruse worked. He launched into his life history.

Indeed, a convoluted path had brought him to Divvytown and piracy.

There was tragedy in his tale, as well as pathos, and he told it well.

Unwillingly, she began to like him. He told of the raid that ended his parents’ lives and of a sister vanished forever.

Carried off from his family’s sheep farm in some little seacoast town far to the north, he passed through a succession of Chalcedean masters, some cruel, others merely callous, before he found himself on a ship southbound, sent off with half a dozen other slaves as a wedding gift. Kennit had stopped the ship.

And there it was again. His story challenged not just her idea of who and what Kennit was, but her notion of what slavery meant and who became slaves.

Pirates were not what she had expected them to be.

The greedy immoral cutthroats she had heard tales of were suddenly men pushed to the edge, clawing their way out of slavery, stealing back a portion of what had been stolen from them.