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The sailor rose in disgust and stalked away.

Wintrow sat staring down at the heap of rope.

The other boy’s words had rattled him more than he liked to admit.

He had pointed out, too clearly, that Wintrow now lived and moved in a different world.

He and Mild were probably of an age, but Mild had taken up this trade, of his own inclination, three years ago.

He was a sailor to the bone now, and no longer the ship’s boy since Wintrow had come aboard.

No longer a boy at all in appearance. He was hard-muscled and agile.

He was a full head taller than Wintrow as well, and the hair on his cheeks was starting to darken into proper whiskers.

Wintrow knew that his slight build and boyish appearance were not a fault, were not something he could change even if he saw them as a fault.

But somehow it had been easier in the monastery, where one and all agreed that each would grow in his own time and way.

Sa’Greb would never be taller than a lad, and his short stocky limbs would have made him the butt of all jokes had he remained in his home village.

But in the monastery he was respected for the verses he wrote.

No one thought of him as ‘too short’, he was simply Sa’Greb.

And the kind of cruel pranks that were the ordinary day-to-day of this ship would never have been expected nor tolerated there.

The younger boys teased and shoved one another when they first arrived, but those with a penchant for bullying or cruelty were swiftly returned to their parents.

Those attributes had no place among the servants of Sa.

He suddenly missed the monastery with a sharp ache.

He forced the pain away before it could bring tears smarting to his eyes.

No tears aboard this ship; no sense in letting anyone see what they could only view as a weakness.

In his own way, Mild was right. He was trapped aboard Vivacia, either until he could make his escape or until his fifteenth birthday.

What would Berandol have counselled him?

Why, to make the best of his time here. If sailor he must be, then he were wiser to learn it swiftly.

And if he were forced to be a part of this crew for…

however long it would be… then he must begin to form alliances at least.

It would help, he reflected, if he had had the vaguest idea of how one made friends with someone one’s own age, but with whom one had next to nothing in common.

He took up a worn piece of line and began to pick it apart as he pondered this very thing.

From behind him, Vivacia spoke quietly. ‘I thought your words had merit.’

Wonderful. A soulless wooden ship, animated by a force that might or might not be of Sa, found his words inspiring.

Almost as soon as he had the unworthy thought, Wintrow suppressed it.

But not before he sensed a vibration of pain from the ship.

Had not he just been telling himself he needed allies?

And here he was viciously turning on the only true ally he had.

‘I am sorry,’ he said quietly, knowing he scarcely needed to speak the words aloud.

‘It is the nature of humans that we tend to pass our pain along. As if we could get rid of it by inflicting an equal hurt on someone else.’

‘I’ve seen it before,’ Vivacia agreed listlessly. ‘And you are not alone in your bitterness. The whole crew is in turmoil. Scarcely a soul aboard feels content with his lot.’

He nodded to her observation. ‘There has been too much change, too fast. Too many men dismissed, others put on lesser wage because of their age. Too many new hands aboard, trying to discover where they fit into the order of things. It will take time before they feel they are all part of the same crew.’

‘If ever,’ Vivacia said with small hope.

‘There is Vestrit’s Old Crew, and Kyle’s Men and the New Hands.

So they seem to think of themselves, and so they behave.

I feel… divided against myself. It is hard to trust, hard to relax and give control to…

the captain.’ She hesitated on the title, as if she herself did not yet fully recognize Kyle in that position.

Wintrow nodded again, silently. He had felt the tensions himself.

Some of the men Kyle had let go had been acrimonious, and at least two others had quit in protest. The latest disturbance had been when Kyle had demanded that one older man who was quitting return to him the gold earring that Captain Vestrit had given him for his long service aboard the Vivacia.

The earring was shaped like Vivacia’s figurehead and marked him as a valued member of her crew.

The old man had thrown it over the side rather than surrender it to Kyle.

Then he had stalked off down the dock, his sea-bag over his bony shoulder.

Wintrow had sensed that the old man had little to go to; it would be hard to prove himself on board a new ship, competing with younger, more agile hands.

‘He didn’t really throw it into the sea.’ Vivacia’s voice was little more than a whisper.

Wintrow was instantly curious. ‘He didn’t? How do you know?’ He stood and went to the railing to look down at the figurehead. She smiled up at him.

‘Because he came back later that night and gave it to me. He said we had been so long together, if he could not die aboard my decks, he wished me to have at least a token of his years.’

Wintrow felt himself suddenly deeply moved. The old sailor had given back to the ship what was surely a valuable piece of jewellery, as gold alone. Given it freely.

‘What did you do with it?’

She looked uncomfortable for a moment. ‘I did not know what to do with it. But he told me to swallow it. He said that many of the liveships do that. Not commonly, but with tokens that are of great significance. The ships swallow them and thus carry the memory of the man who gave it for as many years as they live.’ She smiled at Wintrow’s astonished look.

‘So I did. It was not hard, although it felt strange. And I am… aware of it, in an odd way. But you know, it felt like the right thing to do.’

‘I am sure it was,’ Wintrow replied. And wondered why he was so sure.

The evening wind was welcome after the heat of the day.

Even the ordinary ships seemed to speak softly to one another as they creaked gently beside the docks.

The skies were clear, promising a fine day tomorrow.

Althea stood silently in Vivacia’s shadow and waited.

She wondered if she were out of her mind, to fix her heart on an impossible goal and then depend on a man’s angry words as a path to it.

But what else did she have? Only Kyle’s impulsive oath, and her nephew’s sense of fair-play.

Only an idiot would believe those things might be enough.

Her mother had tried to seek her out through Vivacia; perhaps that might mean she had an ally at home. Perhaps, but she would not count on it.

She set a hand silently to Vivacia’s silvery hull.

‘Please, Sa,’ she prayed, but had no words to follow those.

She had seldom prayed. It was not in her nature to depend on anyone else to give her what she wanted.

She wondered if the great Mother of All would even hear the words of one who usually ignored her.

Then she felt the warm response from Vivacia through the palm of her hand, and wondered if she had truly prayed to Sa at all.

Maybe, like most sailors she knew, she believed more in her ship than in any divine providence.

‘He’s coming,’ Vivacia breathed softly to her.

Althea moved a step deeper into her ship’s shadow and waited.

She hated sneaking about like this, she hated having brief, clandestine meetings with her ship.

But it was her only hope of success. She was sure that if Kyle had any notion of her plans, he’d do anything in his power to thwart her.

Yet here she was, about to divulge those plans to Wintrow, and all on the basis of a single look exchanged with him.

For a brief moment, she had seen her father’s sense of honour in the boy’s eyes.

Now she was going to stake everything on her belief in him.

‘Remember, boy, I’m watching you,’ Torg’s voice boomed nastily in the stillness. When only silence greeted this announcement, he barked, ‘Answer me, boy!’

‘You didn’t ask me a question,’ Wintrow pointed out quietly. On the docks below, Althea gave the boy marks for guts, if not wisdom.

‘You even try to jump ship tonight, and I’ll kick your arse until your backbone splits,’ Torg threatened him. ‘You understand me?’

‘I understand you,’ Wintrow’s slight voice replied wearily. He sounded very young and very tired. Althea heard the slight scuff of bare feet, and then the sound of someone settling wearily to the deck. ‘I am too tired to think, let alone talk,’ the boy said.

‘Are you too tired to listen?’ the ship asked him gently.

Althea heard the indistinct sounds of a yawn. ‘Only if you don’t mind if I fall asleep in the middle of whatever you want to tell me.’

‘I’m not the one who wishes you to listen,’ Vivacia said quietly. ‘Althea Vestrit waits on the docks below. She is the one with something to say to you.’

‘My Aunt Althea?’ the boy asked in surprise.

Althea saw his head appear over the railing above her.

She stepped silently from the shadows to look up at him.

She could see nothing of his face; he was merely a darker silhouette against the evening sky.

‘Everyone says you just disappeared,’ he observed to her quietly.

‘Yes. I did,’ she admitted to him. She took a deep breath and her first risk. ‘Wintrow. If I speak frankly with you of what I plan to do, can you keep those plans a secret?’

He asked her a priest’s question in reply. ‘Are you planning on doing something… wrong?’