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The carpenter’s odd eyes had taken on a dreaming quality. Their colour seemed to shift between dark gold and pale brown. It sent a chill up his back, yet he was oddly comforted by it. He could not share her equanimity, but he could not doubt her, either.

‘There. You see. Your faith is stronger than your doubts.’ Amber smiled at him. In a less mystical voice she asked, ‘Has Kyle told you anything useful?’

Brashen shook his head sourly. ‘To listen to him wearies me. A hundred times, he has detailed how both Vivacia and Wintrow betrayed him. It is the only thing he willingly discusses. I think he must have lived it repeatedly the whole time he was chained in that cellar. He speaks only evil of them both. It is harder to control my temper when he says Althea brought all her troubles on herself and should be left to face them the same way. He urges us to return immediately to Bingtown, to forget Althea, his son, the family ship, all of it. And when I say I will not, he curses me. The last time I spoke to him, he slyly asked if Althea and I had not been in league with Wintrow from the beginning. He hints that he knows we have all plotted against him.’ Brashen shook his head bitterly.

‘You have heard his tale of how Wintrow seized the ship from him, only to give it to Kennit. Does any of that sound possible to you?’

Amber gave a tiny shrug. ‘I do not know Wintrow.

But this I do know. When circumstances are right, unlikely people do extraordinary things.

When the weight of the world is behind them, the push of events and time itself will align to make incredible things happen.

Look around you, Brashen. You skirt the centre of the vortex, so close you do not see how wondrous are the circumstances surrounding us.

We are being swept towards a climax in time, a critical choice-point where all the future must go one way, or another.

‘Liveships are wakening to their true pasts. Serpents, reputed to be myths when you were a boy, are now accepted as natural. The serpents speak, Brashen, to Paragon, and Paragon speaks to us. When last did humanity concede intelligence to another race of creatures? What will it mean to your children and your grandchildren? You are caught up in a grand sweep of events, culminating in the changing of the course of the world.’ She lowered her voice and a smile touched her mouth.

‘Yet all you can perceive is that you are separated from Althea. A man’s loss of his mate may be the essential trigger that determines all events from henceforth.

Do you not see how strange and wonderful that is?

That all history balances on an affair of the human heart? ’

He looked at the odd woman and shook his head. ‘That isn’t how I see it, Amber. That isn’t how I see it at all. It’s just my life, and now that I have finally discovered what I must have to be happy, I’m willing to lay down my life for it. That’s all.’

She smiled. ‘That is all . You are right. And that is all that All ever is.’

Brashen drew a shuddering breath. Her words were edged with mystery and fraught with import. He shook his head. ‘I’m just a simple sailor.’

Mother had been watching the interchange intently.

Now she smiled, a smile at once beatific in its peacefulness and terrifying in its acceptance.

The expression was like a confirmation of all Amber had said.

Brashen felt suddenly cornered by the two women, compelled towards he knew not what.

He fixed his gaze on Mother. ‘You know your son. Do you think there is any chance we will succeed?’

She smiled, but sorrow edged it. She lifted her shoulders in an old woman’s shrug.

Paragon spoke. ‘She thinks you will succeed. But whether you will know you have succeeded, or if the success will be the one you would have chosen for yourself, well, those are things no one can say now. But she knows you will succeed at whatever you are meant to do.’

For a moment, he tried to unknot the ship’s words. Then Brashen sighed. ‘Now don’t you start with me, too,’ he warned the ship.

Malta sat at the captain’s table, her fingers steepled before her. ‘This is a fair offer, one that benefits all. I cannot see any reason why you would refuse it.’ She smiled charmingly over her hands at Captain Red. The Satrap, impassively silent, sat beside her.

Captain Red looked shocked. The others at the table were equally stunned.

Malta had chosen her time well. The most difficult part had been persuading the Satrap to do it her way.

She had dressed and groomed him carefully, and by dint of badgering and begging, convinced him to come to dinner at the captain’s table.

She had dictated his manner to him as well, and he had complied, being courteous but not affable, and more silent than talkative.

It was only when the meal was nearly over that he had cleared his throat and addressed the captain.

‘Captain Red, please attend Malta Vestrit as she presents a negotiation on my behalf.’

Captain Red, too startled to do otherwise, had nodded.

Then, in a speech she had practised endlessly before the little looking-glass in her chamber, she had presented the Satrap’s offer.

She pointed out that monetary wealth was not the essence of the Satrapy; power was.

The Satrap would not offer coin for his release, nor would he petition his nobles to do so.

Instead, he would negotiate the terms himself.

Speaking concisely, she outlined his offer: recognition of Kennit as King of the Pirate Isles, an end to slave raids in the Isles and the removal of the Chalcedean patrol vessels.

The finer points of this would, of course, have to be negotiated more thoroughly with King Kennit.

Perhaps they might include trade agreements; perhaps they might include pardons for those in exile who wished to return to Jamaillia.

Malta had deliberately presented the offer while many still lingered at the table.

In her conversations with the crew, she had gleaned the concerns dearest to them.

She had gathered their fears that they might return to Divvytown or Bull Creek and find their homes burned, alongside their longing to see friends and family in Jamaillia City, to perform once again in the grand theatres of the capital.

She had distilled their desires into this offer.

His silence was eloquent. He rubbed his chin, and swept a glance around the table.

Then he leaned towards the Satrap. ‘You’re right.

I thought only of coin. But this –’ He stared at him almost suspiciously.

‘You’re truly ready to offer us these sorts of terms? ’

The Satrap spoke with quiet dignity. ‘I’d be a fool to let Malta say such things if I had not well considered them.’

‘Why? Why now?’

That was not a question Malta had prepared him for. She held her smile on her lips. They had agreed he would defer such queries to her. Yet, she was not surprised as he calmly ignored their agreement.

‘Because I am a man who can learn from his errors,’ he announced.

Those words alone would have stunned her to silence, but what followed nearly made her gape.

‘Coming away from Jamaillia City and travelling through my domain has opened my eyes and my ears to facts that my advisors either hid from me, or were ignorant of themselves. My bold journey has borne fruit. My “foolishness” in leaving the capital will now shine forth as true wisdom.’ He smiled graciously round the table.

‘My advisors and nobles often underestimated my intelligence. It was a grave error on their part.’

He had them in the palm of his hand. Everyone at the table waited for his next words. The Satrap leaned forwards slightly. He tapped his finger on the table as he made each point. Malta was entranced. She had never seen this man.

‘I find myself in the company of pirates, of men and women tattooed with the shame of slavery. Yet you are not what I was told you were. I do not find ignorance or stupidity amongst you, nor yet barbarism and savagery.

‘I have seen the patrol vessels negotiated by treaty with Chalced. Yet I see far too many of them in my waters. They wallow with the wealth they have taken. Clearly, I have put my trust in the wrong allies. Jamaillia City stands vulnerable to attack by the ships of Chalced. I would be wise to seek truer allies. Who better than those who already have learned to do battle with Chalcedeans?’

‘Who better indeed?’ Captain Red asked those at his table.

He grinned broadly, but then brought his smile under control as he added, ‘Of course, King Kennit will make all final decisions. But I suspect we are bringing him a prize far weightier than all the gold we have ever shared with him. We are only a few days out of Divvytown. A bird shall be sent at once to alert Kennit to what we bring.’ He lifted his glass in a toast. ‘Here’s to ransoms paid in more than coin or blood! ’

As all lifted their glasses and joined in, Malta heard the lookout’s cry of ‘Sail!’

The men at the table exchanged wary looks. Chalcedean ships were to be avoided, now that the Motley was fully loaded. There was a rap at the door. ‘Enter!’ Captain Red conceded, annoyance in his voice. The man detested anything that disrupted his meals, let alone a dramatic moment.

The door opened. The ship’s boy stood there, his cheeks pink with excitement. With a broad grin he announced, ‘Sir, we’ve sighted the Vivacia, and the Marietta .’