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‘No one could hate you,’ Althea assured her, and tried to make her words sound confident.

‘He does want to be somewhere else; there’s no use in my lying to you about that.

So what he hates is not being where he wants to be.

He couldn’t possibly hate you.’ Steeling herself, as if she plunged her hand into fire, she added, ‘You can be his strength, you know. Let him know how much you value him, and what a comfort it is to you that he is aboard. As you once did for me.’ Try as she might, she could not keep her voice from breaking on the last words.

‘But I am a ship, not your child,’ Vivacia replied to Althea’s unvoiced thought rather than her words.

‘You are not giving up a little child with no knowledge of the world. I know in many ways I am naive still, but I have a wealth of memories and information to draw on. I just need to put them in some sort of order, and see how they relate to who I am now. I know you, Althea. I know you did not abandon me by choice. But you also know me. And you must understand how deeply it hurts me when Wintrow is forced to be aboard me, forced to be my companion and heart’s friend when he wishes he were elsewhere.

We are drawn to one another, Wintrow and I.

But his anger at the situation makes him resist that bond.

And it makes me ashamed that I so often reach toward him. ’

The division within the ship’s heart was terrible to feel.

Vivacia battled her own need for Wintrow’s companionship, forcing herself to stand still in a cold isolation that was grey as fog.

Almost Althea could sense it as a terrible place, rainswept and chill and endlessly grey.

It appalled her. As Althea searched for comforting words, a man’s voice rang out loud and commanding over the ordinary dock yells and thuds.

‘You. You there! Get away from the ship! Captain’s orders, you aren’t to come aboard her. ’

Althea tipped her head back, shielding her eyes against the sun’s glare. She stared up at Torg as if she had not recognized his voice. ‘This, sir, is a public dock,’ she pointed out calmly.

‘Well, this ain’t a public ship. So shove off!’

As little as two months ago, Althea would have exploded at him.

But the time she had spent secluded with Vivacia and the events of the last three days had changed her.

It was not that she was a better-tempered person, she decided detachedly.

It was that her anger had learned a terrible patience.

What good was wasting words on a petty and tyrannical second mate?

He was a little yapping dog. She was a tigress.

One did not waste snarls on such a creature.

You waited until you could snap his spine with a single blow.

He had sealed his fate with his mistreatment of Wintrow.

His rudeness to Althea would be redeemed at the same time.

And with a wave of giddiness, Althea realized that while her hand rested on the planking, her thoughts were Vivacia’s and Vivacia’s were hers.

Belatedly she pulled free of the ship, feeling as if she drew her hand out of cold, wrist-deep molasses.

‘No, Vivacia,’ Althea said quietly. ‘Do not let my anger become your own. And leave vengeance to me, do not soil yourself with it. You are too big, too beautiful; it is unworthy of you.’

‘He is unworthy of my deck, then,’ Vivacia replied in a low, bitter voice. ‘Why must I tolerate vermin like him while you are put ashore? You cannot tell me it is the Vestrit way to treat kinsmen so.’

‘No. No, it is not,’ Althea hastily assured her.

‘I said, move on,’ Torg shouted once more from the deck above her. Althea glanced up at him. He was leaning over the railing, shaking his fist at her. ‘Move along, or I’ll have you moved along!’

‘There’s really nothing he can do,’ Althea assured the ship.

But even as she spoke, she heard a muffled cry and then a heavy thud from within Vivacia’s hold.

Someone cursed fluently on the deck, followed by cries for Torg.

A young sailor’s voice floated up clearly.

‘The hoist tackle’s pulled free of the beam, sir!

I’d swear it was set sound enough when we started work. ’

Torg’s head disappeared and Althea heard the sound of his feet running across the deck. The unloading of Vivacia’s cargo ground to a halt as half the crew came to gawk at the smashed pallet and crates and the scattered comfer nuts. ‘That should keep him busy for a time,’ Vivacia observed sweetly.

‘I do have to leave, though,’ Althea hastily decided. If she stayed, she would have to ask the ship if she had had anything to do with the fallen block-and-tackle. ‘Take care of yourself,’ she told Vivacia. ‘And look after Wintrow, too.’

‘Althea! Will you be back?’

‘Of course I will. There are just a few things I need to take care of. But I’ll be back to see you again before you sail.’

‘I can’t imagine sailing without you,’ Vivacia said desolately. The figurehead lifted her eyes to the distant horizon, as if she were already far beyond Bingtown. A stray breeze stirred the heavy locks of her hair.

‘It’s going to be hard to stand here on the docks and watch you go off into the distance. At least you’ll have Wintrow aboard.’

‘Who hates being with me.’ The ship abruptly sounded very young again. And very distressed.

‘Vivacia. You know I can’t stay here. But I will be back. Know that I am working on a way to be with you. It will take me some time, but I will be with you again. Until then, behave yourself.’

‘I suppose so,’ Vivacia sighed.

‘Good. I will see you again soon.’

Althea turned and hastened away. Her insincerity had nearly choked her.

She wondered if the ship had been fooled at all.

She hoped she had, and yet every instinct she had about Vivacia told her that she could not be tricked that easily.

She must know how jealous Althea was of Wintrow’s place aboard her, she must be able to sense her deep, deep anger at how things had turned out.

And yet Althea hoped she did not, hoped that Vivacia had had nothing to do with the fallen hoist, and prayed to Sa fervently that the ship would not attempt to right things on her own.

As she turned to go, she reflected that the ship was both like and unlike what she had expected.

She had dreamed of a ship with all the good qualities of a proud and beautiful woman.

She had not paused to think that Vivacia had inherited not just her father’s experience, but that of her grandfather and great-grandmother as well, to say nothing of what Althea herself had added.

She feared now that the ship would be just as hammer-headed as any other Vestrit, just as slow to forgive, just as intent on having her own way.

If I were aboard, I could guide her, as my father guided me through my stubborn times.

Wintrow will not have the vaguest idea of how to deal with her .

A tiny black thought pushed itself into her mind.

If she kills Kyle, he will have brought it on himself.

A chill of disgust raced through her that she could even harbour such a thought.

She stooped hastily, to rap her knuckles against the wood of the dock, to proof her fate against Vivacia ever doing anything so horrible.

As she straightened up, she felt eyes on her.

She lifted her gaze to find Amber standing, staring at her.

The golden woman was dressed in a long simple robe the colour of a ripe acorn, and her hair was bound down her back in a single shining plait.

The fabric of the robe fell in pleats from her shoulders to the hem, concealing every line of her body.

Her hands were gloved, to conceal the scars and callouses of an artisan’s fingers in the guise of a gentlewoman’s hands.

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the busy dock, she stood still, as unaffected by all of it as if she were enclosed in a glass bubble.

For a second her tawny eyes locked with Althea’s, and Althea’s mouth went dry.

There was something other-worldly about her.

All around her, folk came and went on their business, but where she stood there was stillness and focus.

She wore a necklace of simple wooden beads, gleaming in every tone of brown that wood could be.

Even from where she stood, they caught Althea’s eyes and she felt drawn to them.

She doubted that anyone could look at them and not desire to possess them.