Page 467 of The Liveship Traders Trilogy

STRATEGIES

T HE FOG AND mists were relentless. Even on days when it did not rain, everything dripped with the constant condensation.

Garments hung in the galley to dry merely became steamy.

The clothes in in her duffel bag were as damp as the wool blanket she took from her bunk.

Everything smelled green and sour. She half-expected to comb moss from her hair in the mornings.

Well, at least they would all have a bit more room now.

She’d cleared Lavoy’s things from the first mate’s cabin and was moving her gear in today.

The promotion was traditional and hers by right.

Brashen had moved Haff up to second. He seemed very pleased with his new rank; an even better sign was that the crew in general approved of his promotion.

‘Do the rain and the fogs never cease in these wretched islands?’ Amber demanded as she came into the tiny cabin. Moisture had beaded on her hair and eyelashes. Water dripped from the cuffs of her shirt.

‘In summer,’ Althea offered her. ‘But for now, this is the weather. Unless it rains hard enough to clear the air.’

‘That would almost be preferable to this constant dripping. I climbed the mast to see what I could see. I’d have been as wise to stuff my head in my duffel bag. How do the pirates move about on days like these? There’s neither sun nor star to steer by.’

‘Let’s hope they don’t. I’d hate to have one run us down in the fog. Try to think of it as concealing us from hostile eyes.’

‘But it conceals them from us just as effectively. How will we know when Kennit returns to Divvytown if we can’t even see the island?’

They had been anchored for the last day and a night in a small, sheltered inlet.

Althea knew what others did not. They anchored here, not in wait for Kennit, but to try to salvage some sort of plan.

Last night, sequestered together in Brashen’s cabin, they had considered options.

Brashen had not been optimistic. ‘It’s all gone down to the bottom,’ he said bleakly.

He stared up at the ceiling above his bunk.

‘I should have foreseen that Lavoy would do something like that. He’s destroyed any hope of surprise that we ever had.

Someone will send word to Kennit and at first sight of us, he’ll surely attack.

Damn Lavoy. When I first suspected him of talking mutiny, I should have keel-hauled him. ’

‘That would have been good for morale,’ Althea had murmured from the shelter of his arm.

She lay in his bunk beside him. The length of his naked body was warm against hers and her head was pillowed on his shoulder.

The mellow lantern light made shifting shadows on the wall, tempting her to simply clasp Brashen close and fall asleep beside him.

Her fingers idly walked the long seam down his ribs that was the track of the pirate’s sword.

‘Don’t,’ he had muttered irritably, twitching away from her. ‘Stop distracting me and help me think.’

She had breathed out a long sigh. ‘You should have said that before you bedded me. I know I should be putting all my wits to regaining Vivacia from Kennit, but somehow, here with you…’ She had smoothed a hand down his chest to his belly, and let his thoughts follow it.

He had rolled towards her. ‘So. Do you just want to give it all up? Go back to Bingtown, and leave things as they are?’

‘I’ve thought about it,’ she had admitted.

‘But I can’t. I’d always thought that Vivacia would be our major ally in reclaiming her from Kennit.

I’d counted on the ship defying him to turn battle in our favour.

Now that we know that Wintrow is alive and well aboard her, and that they both seem content with Kennit, I don’t know what to think.

But I can’t just walk away from her, Brash.

They’re my family. Vivacia is my ship, in a way she can never belong to anyone else.

To give her up to Kennit would be like giving up a child to him.

She may be satisfied with Kennit now, but in the end, she’ll want to come home to Bingtown.

So will Wintrow. Then where will they be?

Outcasts and pirates. Their lives will be ruined. ’

‘How can you know that?’ Brashen had protested.

A smile curved his lips and he raised his brows as he asked her, ‘Would Keffria say this was where you belonged? Wouldn’t she say the same things, that eventually you will want to come home and that I’m ruining you?

Would you welcome her trying to rescue you from me? ’

She had kissed the corner of his mouth. ‘Perhaps I’m the one ruining you.

I don’t intend to let you go, even when we do go back home.

But we are both adults, aware of what this decision may cost us.

’ In a lower voice she added, ‘We are both prepared to pay that cost, and count it still a good bargain. But Wintrow is scarcely more than a boy, and the ship had barely wakened to life before she left Bingtown. I can’t let them go.

I have to at least see them, speak to them, know how they are. ’

‘Yes, I’m sure Captain Kennit would find time for us to visit them,’ Brashen had replied dryly. ‘Perhaps we should return to Divvytown and leave calling cards, asking when he is at home.’

‘I know it sounds ridiculous.’

‘What if we did return to Bingtown?’ Brashen had asked, suddenly serious.

‘We have Paragon, and he’s a fine ship. The Vestrits would still have a liveship, one that is paid for.

You and I would stand shoulder to shoulder and refuse to be parted.

We’d be married, with a proper wedding, in the Traders’ Concourse.

And if the Traders wouldn’t allow that, well, to the bottom with them, and we’d sail up to the Six Duchies and make our promises to one of their black rocks. ’

She had to smile. He kissed her and went on, ‘We’d sail Paragon together, everywhere, up the Rain Wild River and down past Jamaillia to the islands your father knew so well, and trade where he did.

We’d trade well, make lots of money, and pay off your family’s debt to the Rain Wilds.

Malta wouldn’t have to marry anyone she didn’t want to.

Kyle’s dead, we know that, so we can’t rescue him.

Wintrow and Vivacia don’t seem to want to be rescued.

Don’t you see, Althea? You and I could just take our lives and live them.

We don’t need much, and we’ve already got it.

A good ship and a good crew. You beside me.

That’s all I’m asking of life. Fate has handed it all to me, and damn it, I want to keep it.

’ His arms suddenly closed around her. ‘Just say yes to me,’ he had urged her sweetly, his soft breath warm on her ear and neck.

‘Just say yes and I’ll never let you go. ’

Broken glass in her heart. ‘No,’ she had said quietly. ‘I have to try, Brashen. I have to.’

‘I knew you’d say that,’ he had groaned.

He loosened his arms and fell back from her.

He gave her a weary smile. ‘So, my love, what do you propose we do? Approach Kennit under a truce flag? Creep up on him by night? Challenge him on the open sea? Or just sail back into Divvytown and wait for him there?’

‘I don’t know,’ she had admitted. ‘All of those sound suicidal.’ She paused.

‘All save the truce flag. No, don’t stare at me like that.

I’m not crazy. Listen. Brashen, think of all we heard in Divvytown.

The folk there don’t speak of him as a tyrant they fear.

He is a beloved ruler, who has put the best interests of his people first. He frees slaves that he could just as easily sell.

He is open-handed in sharing the booty he takes.

He sounds like an intelligent, rational man.

If we went to him under a truce flag, he’d know the most sensible course was to hear us out.

What could he gain by attacking us before he’d talked to us?

We could offer him ransom money, but more than that, we could offer him the good-will of at least one Bingtown Trader family.

If he genuinely wants to make a kingdom of the Pirate Isles, eventually he will have to seek legitimate trade.

Why not with Bingtown? Why not with the Vestrits? ’

Brashen had leaned back on his pillow. ‘To make it convincing, you’d have to have it all written out.

Not some verbal agreement, but a binding contract.

What little ransom we offer him now would be just the opening.

The trade agreements would be the real bait.

’ He rolled his head on the pillow to meet her eyes.

‘You know that some folk in Bingtown will call you a traitor. Can you bind your family to an agreement with outlaws like these?’