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If there had been some sort of a signal, it had escaped Kennit.

But the timing was too exquisite to be coincidental.

Sincura Faldin and two young women entered the room bearing trays of fruit and bread and smoked meats and cheese.

Faldin’s features in feminine were plainly marked on the two girls.

His daughters. His bargaining chips on the board, the passcards to respectability.

They were not Divvytown sluts. Neither dared to look at Kennit, but one sent Sorcor a shy smile and a glance from beneath lowered lashes.

They were, Kennit surmised, probably even virgins, never allowed to walk on the streets of Divvytown unless Mama’s watchful eyes were upon them.

Nor were they bad-looking. Durja still spoke in their pale skin and honey hair, but their eyes were almond-shaped and hazel.

Both were plump as ripe fruit, their bared arms round and white.

They set out food and drink for each man and for their mama.

Sorcor had lowered his eyes to his plate, but was sucking speculatively on his lower lip.

He suddenly lifted his glance and boldly stared at one of the sisters.

A blush raced up her cheeks at his glance.

She did not meet his eyes, but she did not turn aside from his stare either.

The younger girl could have been no more than fifteen, her sister at most seventeen.

Smooth and unscarred they were, a man’s transport into a gentle world where women were soft and quiet and saw willingly to their husbands’ needs.

A world many men probably dreamed about, Kennit thought, and Sorcor was most likely one of them.

What other prize could be farther from the grasp of the scarred and tattooed pirate than the willing embrace of a pale virgin?

That which was most unattainable was always most desirable.

Faldin pretended not to notice the pirate’s ogling of his daughter.

Instead he exclaimed, ‘Ah, refreshment. Let us take a moment from our business. Gentlemen, I welcome you to the hospitality of my home. I believe you’ve met Sincura Faldin.

These two are my daughters, Alyssum and Lily.

’ Each girl nodded her head in turn, then took her place between their mother and father.

And these two, Kennit reflected, were but the first offer from Divvytown.

Not necessarily the best. Nor did this ‘respectability’ have to come from Divvytown.

There were other pirate towns on other islands, and merchants more wealthy than Faldin.

There was no need to be hasty in choosing. No need at all.

The sun had tracked much of the sky before Kennit and Sorcor emerged from Sincure Faldin’s premises.

Kennit had disposed of his cargo profitably; more, he had done so without fully committing himself to a permanent alliance with Faldin.

After his daughters and lady had left the room, Kennit had taken the tack that while the value of a business association with Faldin could not be doubted, no one could be so heartless as to hasten into any other aspects of such an ‘alliance’.

He had left Faldin with the dubious security of knowing that he would be allowed to show his goodwill by offering the first bid on any goods the Marietta brought into Divvytown.

The man was merchant enough to know it was a poor offer, and wise enough to know it was the best he would get at this time. So he smiled stiffly and accepted it.

‘I could almost see him ciphering the numbers on the back of his tongue. How much would he have to overpay us for our next three cargoes to assure us of his goodwill?’ Kennit offered the jest wryly to Sorcor.

‘The younger one… was she Alyssum, or Lily?’ Sorcor asked cautiously.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Kennit suggested callously.

‘I am sure that if you don’t fancy her name, Faldin will allow you to change it.

Here.’ He handed Sorcor the tally-sticks they had negotiated so easily.

‘I’ll trust these to you. Don’t let them deliver less coin than was promised before you allow him to unload. You’ll take the ship’s watch tonight?’

‘Of course,’ the burly pirate replied distractedly.

Kennit did not know whether to frown or smile.

So easily could the man be bought with the offer of unsullied flesh.

Kennit scratched his chin. He watched Sorcor turn toward the docks and swagger off into the gathering autumn twilight.

He gave his head a minute shake. ‘Whores,’ he congratulated himself quietly.

‘Whores make it all so much simpler.’ A wind had come up.

Winter was no further away than a new moon, or a few days’ sail to the north.

‘I’ve never cared for the cold,’ he said softly to himself.

‘No one does,’ a small voice commiserated. ‘Not even whores.’

Slowly, as if the token were an insect that might take flight if startled, Kennit raised his wrist. He glanced about the street, then feigned refastening a cuff-link. ‘And why do you speak to me this time?’ he demanded softly.

‘Your pardon.’ The tiny smile was mocking as his own. ‘I thought you had spoken to me first. I was just agreeing.’

‘There is no strange weight, then, to be put on your words?’

The tiny wizardwood charm pursed its lips as if considering.

‘No more than I might put to yours,’ the face suggested.

He gave his master a pitying look. ‘I know no more than you know, sirrah. The only difference between us is that I admit more easily what I know. Try it yourself. Say this aloud: But in the long run, a whore can cost one more than the most wastrel wife.’

‘What?’

‘Eh?’ An old man passing in the street turned back to him. ‘You spoke to me?’

‘No. Nothing.’

The old man peered at him closer. ‘You’re Captain Kennit, h’ain’t you? From the Marietta? . Goes around freeing slaves and telling them to be pirates?’ His coat was fraying at the cuffs, and one boot was split along the seam. But he carried himself as if he were a man of consequence.

Kennit had nodded twice. To the last he replied, ‘Well, so some say of me.’

The old man coughed wheezily, and then spat to one side.

‘Well, some also say they don’t like the idea.

They say you’re getting too full of yourself.

Too many pirates means the pickings get slimmer.

And too many pirates preying on slave-ships can irritate the Satrap to where he sends his galleys up our way.

Knocking off fat merchant-ships, well, that’s one thing, laddie.

But the Satrap gets a cut of those slave-sales.

We don’t want to be digging in the pockets of the man what funds the warships, if you get my drift. ’

‘I do,’ Kennit said stiffly. He considered killing the old man.

The geezer wheezed and then spat again. ‘But what I say,’ he continued in a creakier voice.

‘Is more power to you. You put it to him, laddie, and give him a couple thrusts for me as well. Time someone showed him that blue ink on a man’s face don’t mean he’s not a man any more.

Not that I’d say that to just anyone around here.

There’s some as would think I needed shutting up, if they heard me speak so.

But, seeing as how it was you, I thought I’d tell you this: not everyone that keeps silent is against you.

That’s all. That’s all.’ He went off into his wheezing cough again. It sounded painful.

Kennit was amused to find himself rummaging in his pocket. He came up with a silver coin and passed it to the man. ‘Try a bit of brandy for that cough, sir. And good evening to you.’

The old man looked at the coin in amazement. Then he held it up and shook it after Kennit as he strode away. ‘I’ll drink your health, sir, that I will!’

‘To my health,’ Kennit muttered to himself.

Having begun talking to himself, it now seemed he could not stop.

Perhaps it was a side-effect of random philanthropy.

Did not most madnesses occur in pairs? He pushed the thought aside.

Too much thinking led only to bleakness and despair.

Better not to think, better to be a man like Sorcor, who was probably even now imagining a blushing virgin in his bed.

He’d be better off simply buying a woman who could blush and squeak convincingly, if that was what appealed to him.

He was still distracted when he strode up to Bettel’s bagnio.

For such a chill evening, there were more idlers outside her door than he would have expected.

Two of them were her regular toughs, cocky and grinning as usual.

Some day, he promised himself, he’d do something permanent to their smirks.

‘Evening, Captain Kennit,’ one dared to address him lazily.

‘Good evening.’ He enunciated the reply, freighting it with a different meaning entirely.

One of the idlers abruptly brayed aloud, a whisky-laugh that sent his fellows off into sniggering laughter.

Brainless. He took the steps briskly, thinking that the music sounded louder tonight, the notes more brittle.

Within, he endured the services of the serving boy, nodding perfunctorily that he was satisfied before passing into the inner chamber.

There, finally, there were enough things out of routine that he was moved to lightly touch the hilt of the sword at his belt.

Too many folk were in this room. Customers did not linger here.

Bettel did not permit it. If a man came to pay for a whore, then he could take his purchase to a private room to enjoy as he pleased.

This was not some cheap sailors’ whorehouse, where the wares could be fondled and sampled before one bought.

Bettel ran a proper house, discreet and dignified.