CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

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DREAMS AND
REALITY

“The dream-box is missing.”

Malta looked from one solemn face to the other. Both her mother and grandmother were watching her intently. Her eyes widened in surprise. “How could it be? Are you certain?”

Her mother spoke quietly. “I am very certain.”

Malta came the rest of the way into the room and took her place at the breakfast table. She lifted the cover from the dish in front of her. “Not porridge again? We can’t possibly be this poor! How could the box be missing?”

She looked up to meet their eyes again. Her grandmother’s glance was narrowed as she said, “I thought perhaps you might know.”

“Mother had it last. She didn’t give it to me, she barely let me touch it,” Malta pointed out. “Is there any fruit or preserves to go on this stuff?”

“No. There is not. If we are to pay our debts in a timely fashion, we are going to have to live simply for a while. You have been told that.”

Malta heaved a sigh. “I’m sorry,” she said contritely. “Sometimes I forget. I hope Papa gets home soon. I’ll be so glad when things are as they are supposed to be again.” She looked up at her mother and grandmother again and essayed a smile. “Until then, I suppose we should just be thankful for what we have.” She sat up straight, put an agreeable look on her face, and spooned up some of the porridge.

“So. You have no thoughts on the missing dream-box?” her grandmother pressed.

Malta shook her head and swallowed. “No. Unless … did you ask the servants if they moved it when they tidied? Nana or Rache might know something.”

“I put it away. It was not left out where it might be moved by chance. Someone had to come inside my room, search for it, and then remove it.”

“Is anything else missing?” Malta asked quickly.

“Nothing.”

Malta ate another spoonful of porridge thoughtfully. “Could it have just … disappeared?” she asked with a half-smile. “I know, maybe that is silly. But one hears such extravagant tales of the goods of the Rain Wild. After a time, one almost begins to believe anything is possible.”

“No. It would not have disappeared,” her grandmother said slowly. “Even if it had been opened, it would not disappear.”

“How do you know so much about dream-boxes?” Malta asked curiously. She poured herself a cup of tea and sweetened it well with honey as she waited for a reply.

“A friend of mine was given one once. She opened the box and dreamed the dream. And she accepted the young man’s suit. But he died before they were wed. I believe she married his brother a few years later.”

“Ick,” observed Malta. She took another spoonful of porridge and added, “I can’t imagine marrying a Rain Wilder. Even if they are supposed to be our kin, and all. Can you imagine kissing someone who was all warty? Or having breakfast with him in the morning?”

“There is more to men than how they look,” her grandmother observed coldly. “When you realize that, I may start treating you as a woman.” She turned her disapproving stare on her own daughter now. “Well. What are we going to do?”

Malta’s mother shook her head. “What can we do? Explain, most politely, that somehow the gift was lost before we could return it. But that we still cannot consider the suit, as Malta is far too young.”

“We can’t possibly tell them we lost his gift!” her grandmother exclaimed.

“Then what can we do? Lie? Say we are keeping it but refusing the suit anyway? Pretend we never got it and ignore the situation?” Keffria’s voice was getting more and more sarcastic with each suggestion she made. “We’d only end up looking more foolish. As it was my fault, I shall write the letter, and I shall take the blame. I shall write that I had put it in a place I deemed safe, but it was gone in the morning. I shall offer most sincere apologies and reparation. But I shall also refuse the suit, and most tactfully point out that such a gift so early in a courting is scarcely appropriate …”

“By Rain Wild standards, it is,” Grandmother disagreed. “Especially for the Khuprus family. Their wealth is legendary. The boy probably considered it little more than a trinket.”

“Mm. Maybe we should marry Malta off to him, then,” her mother offered facetiously. “We could certainly use a wealthy relative these days.”

“Mother!” Malta exclaimed in irritation. She hated it when her mother said things like that.

“It was a joke, Malta. Don’t fly into a fit about it.” Keffria stood up from the table. “Well. This is not going to be an easy letter to compose, and I have little time if I am to get it to the Kendry before she sails. I had best get busy.”

“Assure them that if we find the box, it will be returned,” her grandmother suggested.

“Of course. And I do intend to search my room again. But I’d best get this letter written if I am to have anything to send with the Kendry when she sails.” Malta’s mother hastened out of the room.

Malta scooped up the last spoonful of porridge from her bowl, but she was not quite fast enough.

“Malta,” her grandmother said in a soft but firm voice. “I want to ask you, one last time, if you stole the box from your mother’s room. No, think before you answer. Think what this means to our family honor, to your reputation. Answer truthfully, and I promise not to be angry with you about your first lie.” Her grandmother waited, holding her breath, watching Malta like a snake.

Malta set down her spoon. “I did not steal anything,” she said in a quivering voice. “I don’t know how you can believe such things of me. What have I ever done to you, to deserve these accusations all the time? Oh, I wish my father were here, to see how I am treated while he is away. I am sure this is not the life he intended for his only daughter!”

“No. He’d have auctioned you off like a fat calf by now,” her grandmother said shortly. “Do not flap your emotions at me. You may fool your mother but you don’t fool me. I tell you this plainly. If you have taken the dream-box and opened it, well, that is bad enough a hole for us to dig out of. But if you persist in lying and keep that thing … oh, Malta. You cannot flaunt a courtship from one of the major Trader families of the Rain Wilds. This is not a time for your childish little games. Financially, we are teetering. What has saved us thus far is that we are known for keeping our word. We don’t lie, we don’t cheat, we don’t steal. We pay our debts honestly. But if folk lose faith in that, if they start believing we do not keep our word, then we are lost, Malta. Lost. And young as you are, you will have to help pay the forfeit for that.”

Malta stood slowly. She flung down her spoon so it rang against her plate. “My father will be home soon, with a fat purse from his hard work. And he will pay off your debts and protect us from the ruin your stubbornness has brought us to. We’d have no problems if Grandpa had traded up the Rain Wild River, like any other man with a liveship. If you’d listened to Davad and sold off the bottom land, or at least let him use his slaves to work it for shares, we wouldn’t be in this hole. It’s not my stubbornness that threatens this family, but yours.”

Her grandmother’s face had gone from stern to shock. Now her mouth was pinched white with fury. “Do you listen at doors, sweet granddaughter? To the words of a dying man to his wife? I had thought many things of you, Malta, both good and bad. But I never suspected you of being a prying little eavesdropper.”

Malta wagged her head coldly. She made her voice sweet. “I was told it was how one became accepted as a woman in this family. To know the family holdings and finances, to be aware of both dangers and opportunities. But it seems to me you would rather risk any opportunity for the sake of keeping my father in ignorance. You don’t really see him as a member of this family, do you? Oh, he’s fine for fathering children and keeping my mother content. But you want nothing of him beyond that. Because then he might threaten your own plan. To keep power and control for yourself, even if it means ruin for the family.” Malta had not known the depth of her own anger until she heard it poured out as venom.

Her grandmother’s voice was shaking as she replied. “If your father is ignorant of our ways, it is because he never took the time to learn them. If he had, I would not be so fearful of the power he already wields, Malta.” The woman took a breath. “You show me, here and now, that you have understanding I did not suspect in you. If you had shown us the depth of your understanding before, perhaps your mother and I would have seen you as more adult than child. For now, understand this. When Ephron … when your grandfather died, I could have retained far more control of the family fortune than I did. His wish was that Althea have the ship. Not Keffria and your father. It was I who persuaded him that your father would be a better choice for captain. Would I have done that, if my hope were to keep control for myself? If I opposed your father being a full member of this family? I believed in his stability and wisdom. But he was not content to inherit. He brought too much change, too fast, with no real understanding of what he was changing, or why such change would be bad. He never consulted any of us about it. Suddenly, it was all his own will and what he thought was best. I do not keep him in ignorance, Malta. His ignorance is a fortress he has built himself and defended savagely.”

Malta listened, but it was almost against her will. Her grandmother was too clever for her. She knew there were lies hidden there, she knew the old woman was twisting the truth about her handsome, dashing, bold father. But she wasn’t smart enough to unravel the deception. So she forced a smile to her lips. “Then you won’t mind if I tell him what I know, to dispel his ignorance that offends you so. You won’t mind if I tell him there never were any charts of the Rain Wild River. That the quickened ship is her own guide. Surely I should dispel that ignorance for him.”

She watched her grandmother’s face closely, to see how she would take Malta knowing this secret. But the old woman’s face did not betray her. She shook her head. “You make a threat, child, and you don’t even know that you threaten yourself. There are both costs and dangers to dealing with the Rain Wild Traders. Our kin they are, and I speak no ill against them. The bargains we have struck with them I will keep. But Ephron and I long ago decided that we would make no new bargains, no new commitments with them. Because we wanted our children and our grandchildren, yes, even you, to make their own decisions. So we lived a harder life than we needed to, and our debts were not paid off as swiftly as they might have been. We did not mind the sacrifice.” Her grandmother’s voice began to quaver wildly. “We sacrificed for you, you spitting little cat. And now I look at you and wonder why. Chalcedean salt water runs in your veins, not Bingtown blood.”

The old woman turned and rushed from the room. There was no dignity and strength in her retreat. Malta knew that meant she had won. She had faced her down, once and for all, and now they all would have to treat Malta differently. She had won, she had proved her will was as strong as her grandmother’s. And she didn’t care, not really, about that last thing her grandmother had said. It was all a lie anyway, about sacrifices made for her. It was all a lie.

A lie. And that was another thing. She hadn’t meant to lie to her about the box. She wouldn’t have done it, if the old woman had not been so sure she had both stolen it and lied about it. If Ronica Vestrit had looked at her and wondered a little if she were innocent, Malta would have told her the truth. But what was the good of telling people the truth when they already believed you were wicked and the truth would just prove it to them? She might just as well lie twice and be the liar and thief that her grandmother not only believed she was, but hoped she was. Yes, that was true, her grandmother wanted her to be bad and wicked, because then she’d feel justified in the horrid way she treated Malta’s father. It was all her grandmother’s own fault. If you treated people badly, then it all just came back on you.

“Malta?” The voice was very soft, very gentle. A hand came to rest tenderly on her shoulder. “Are you all right, my dear?”

Malta whirled, seizing up her porridge bowl and dashing it at the floor at Rache’s feet. “I hate porridge! Don’t serve it to me again! I don’t care what else you have to cook for me, don’t serve me porridge. And don’t touch me! You don’t have the right. Now clean that up and leave me alone!”

She pushed the shocked slave out of the way and stormed out of the room. Slaves. They were so stupid. About everything.

         

“Paragon. There’s something I have to talk to you about.”

Amber had spent the afternoon with him. She’d brought a lantern with her, and explored inside him. She’d walked slowly through his hold, the captain’s chamber, the chart room, every compartment inside his hull. In the course of it, she’d asked many questions, some of which he could answer, others he would not or could not. She’d found the things that Brashen had left and boldly arranged them to suit herself. “Some night I’ll come out here and sleep with you, shall I?” she had proposed. “We’ll stay up late and tell each other stories until dawn.” She’d been intensely interested in every odd bit of junk she found. A bag with dice in it, still tucked up in a crack where some sailor had hidden it so he could game on watch and not be caught. A scratched out message on one bulkhead. “Three days, Sa help us all,” it read, and she had wanted to know who had carved it and why. She had been most curious about the blood stains. She had gone from one to another, counting up to seventeen irregular blotches on his deck and in various holds. She had missed six others, but he didn’t tell her that, nor would he recall for her the day that blood had been shed or the names of those who had fallen. And in the captain’s quarters she had found the locked compartment that should have held his log books, but did not. The lock was long shattered, even the plank door splintered and torn awry. The logs that should have been his memory were gone, all stolen away. Amber had picked at that like a gull at a body. Was that why he would not answer her questions? Did he have to have his logs to remember? Yes? Well, then, how did he remember her visits, or Mingsley’s? He had no log of those things.

He had shrugged. “A dozen years from now, when you have lost interest in me and no longer come to visit, I shall probably have forgotten you as well. You do not stop to think that you are asking me of events that most likely occurred long before you were born. Why don’t you tell me about your childhood. How well do you remember your infancy?”

“Not very well.” She changed the subject abruptly. “Do you know what I did yesterday? I went to Davad Restart and made an offer to buy you.”

Her words jolted him into silence. Then he coldly replied, “Davad Restart cannot sell me. He does not own me. Nor can a liveship be bought and sold at all, save from kin to kin, and then only in dire circumstance.”

It was Amber’s turn to be silent. “Somehow, I thought you would know of these things. Well. If you do not, then you should, for they concern you. Paragon, among the New Traders, there have been rumors for months that you are for sale. Davad is acting as the intermediary. At first, your family was stipulating that you must not be used as a ship any longer because they … they didn’t want to be held responsible for any deaths …” Her voice trailed off. “Paragon. How frankly can I speak to you? Sometimes you are so thoughtful and wise. Other times …”

“So you offered to buy me? Why? What will you make from my body? Beads? Furniture?” His edge of control was very thin, his words sharp with sarcasm. How dare she!

“No,” she said with a heavy sigh. Almost to herself she muttered, “I feared this.” She took a deep breath. “I would keep you as you are and where you are. Those were the terms of my offer.”

“Chained here? Beached forever? For seagulls to shit on, and crabs to scuttle beneath? Beached here until all of me that is not wizardwood rots away and I fall apart into screaming pieces?”

“Paragon!” She cried out the word, in a voice between pain and anger. “Stop this. Stop it now! You must know I would never let that befall you. You have to listen to me, you have to let me talk until you’ve heard it all. Because I think I will need your help. If you go off now into wild accusations and suspicions, I cannot help you. And more than anything, I want to help you.” Her voice went lower and softer on those words. She drew another deep breath. “So. Can you listen to me? Will you give me at least a chance to explain myself?”

“Explain,” he said coldly. Lie and make excuses. Deceive and betray. He’d listen. He’d listen and gather what weapons he could to defend himself against all of them.

“Oh, Paragon,” she said hoarsely. She put a palm flat to his hull. He tried to ignore this touch, to ignore the deep feeling that thrummed through her. “The Ludluck family, your family, has come on hard times. Very hard times. It is the same for many of the Old Trader families. There are many factors: slave labor, the wars in the north … but that doesn’t matter to us. What matters is that your family needs money now, the New Traders know that, and they seek to buy you. Do not think ill of the Ludlucks. They resisted many offers. But when finally the money offered was very high, then they specified that they could not sell to anyone who wished to actually use you as a ship.” He could almost feel her shake her head. “To the New Traders, that simply meant that your family wanted more money, much more money, before they would sell you as a working ship.”

She took a deep breath and tried to go on more calmly. “Now, about then, I began to hear rumors that the only ship that can go up the Rain Wild River and come back intact is a liveship. Something about your wizardwood being impervious to the caustic white floods that sometimes come down the river. Which makes sense in light of how long you have rested here and not rotted, and it makes me understand why families would go into debt for generations to possess a ship like you. It is the only way to participate in the trade on the Rain Wild River. So now, as that rumor has crept about, the offers have risen. The New Traders who bid on you promise they will blame no one if you roll, and bid against each other.” She paused. “Paragon, do you hear me?” she asked quietly.

“I hear you,” he replied as he gazed out sightlessly over the ocean. He kept all expression out of his voice as he added, “Do go on.”

“I will. Because you should know this, not because I take pleasure in it. So far, the Ludlucks have still refused all offers. I think perhaps they fear what the other Old Traders might think of them, if they sold you and opened up the Rain Wild River trade to the newcomers. Those goods are the last complete bastion of the Bingtown Traders. Or perhaps, despite their neglect of you, there still remains some family feeling. So. I made an offer. Not as great as the others have bid, for I don’t have the wealth they do. But coupled with my offer was my promise that you would remain intact and unsailed. For I think the Ludlucks still care about you. That in an odd way, they keep you here to keep you safe.”

“Ah, yes. Chaining up one’s odder relatives and keeping them confined to a garret or cellar or other out of the way place has long been how Bingtown dealt with madness or deformity.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Consider the Rain Wild Traders, for example.”

“Who?”

“Exactly. Who? No one hears of them, no one knows of them, no one considers our ancient convenants with them. Least of all me or you. Pray, go on. After you buy me and leave me intact and don’t sail me, what did you have in mind?”

“Oh, Paragon.” She sounded completely miserable now. “If it were up to me—if I could dream as a child does and believe those dreams could come true—I would say, then, I would have artisans come here, to right you and build a cradle to support you upright. And I would come and live aboard you. On the cliffs above you, I would plant a garden of scent and color, a bird-and-butterfly garden, with trailing vines to hang all the way down to the beach and bloom sweetly. And around you I would sculpt stone and create tidepools and populate them with sea stars and sea anemones and those little scarlet crabs.” As she raved on of this strange vision, her voice grew more and more impassioned. “I would live inside you and work inside you and in the evening I would dine on the deck and we would share our day. And if I dared to dream larger than that, why, then I would dream that someday I could obtain wizardwood and work it wisely enough to restore your eyes and your sight. In the mornings we would look out to the sun rising over the sea, and in the evenings we would look up to it setting over our cliff garden. I would say to the world, do what you will, for I am done with you. Destroy yourself or prosper, it is all one to me, as long as you leave us alone. And we would be happy, the two of us.”

For a time he was at a loss to say anything. The childish fantasy caught him up and wrapped around him and suddenly he was not the ship but a boy who would have run in and out of such a place, pockets full of shiny stones and odd shells, gulls’ feathers and …

“You are not my family, and you can never be my family.” He dropped the words on the dream like a heavy shoe on a butterfly.

“I know that,” she said quietly. “I said it was but a dream. It is what I long to do, but in truth, I do not know how long I can remain in Bingtown or with you. But Paragon, it is the only hope I have of saving you. If I go to the Ludlucks, myself, and say that you have said you could be content in such a way, perhaps they might take the lesser offer from me, for the sake of the bond …” Her voice wisped away as he crossed his arms over the star scar on his broad chest.

“Save me from what?” he asked her disdainfully. “Such a nursery tale as you can spin, Amber. I confess, it is a charming image. But I am a ship. I was created to be sailed. Do you think I choose to lie here on this beach, idle, and near mad with that idleness? No. If my family chooses to sell me into slavery, let it at least be a familiar slavery. I have no desire to be your playhouse.” Especially not as she had just admitted that she would eventually leave him, that her friendship with him was only because something else kept her in Bingtown. Sooner or later, she would leave him, just as all the others had. Sooner or later, all humans abandoned him.

“You had best go back to Davad Restart and withdraw your offer,” he advised her when the silence had grown very long.

“No.”

“If you buy me and keep me here, I will hate you forever, and I will bring you ill luck such as you cannot even imagine.”

Her voice was calm. “I don’t believe in luck, Paragon. I believe in fate, and I believe my fate has more terrible and heart-rending facets to it than even you can imagine. You, I know, are one of them. So, for the sake of the child who rants and threatens from within the wooden bones of a ship, I will buy you and keep you safe. Or as safe as fate will allow me.” There was no fear in her voice. Only an odd tenderness as she reached up to set her palm flat to his planking.

         

“Just wrap it up,” he told her brusquely. “it will heal.”

Etta shook her head. Her voice was very soft as she told him, “Kennit, it is not healing.” She set her hand gently to the flesh above his injury. “Your skin is hot and tender. I see you wince at every touch. These fluids that drain do not look to me like the liquids of healing but the—”

“Shut up,” he ordered her. “I’m a strong man, not some sniveling whore in your care. I will heal, and all will be well once more. Wrap it for me, or do not, I scarcely care. I can bandage it myself, or Sorcor can. I have no time to sit here and listen to you wish bad luck on me.” A sudden pain, sharp as any toothache, rushed up his leg. He gasped before he could stop himself, then gripped the edges of his bunk hard to keep from screaming.

“Kennit. You know what needs to be done.” She was pleading with him.

He had to wait until he had breath to speak. “What needs to be done is feed you to a serpent so I can have a measure of peace in my life again. Go, get out of here, and send Sorcor to me. There are plans to be made, and I don’t have time for your fretting.”

She gathered up the sodden bandaging into a basket and left the room without another word. Good. Kennit reached for the sturdy crutch that leaned against his bunk. He had had Sorcor fashion it for him. He hated the thing, and when the deck pitched at all, it was virtually useless. But with it, on a calm day at anchor like today, he could get from his bunk to his chart table. He hopped there, in short painful hops that seared his stump with every jolt. He was sweating by the time he reached the table. He leaned forward over his charts, resting his weight on the edge of the table.

There was a tap at the door.

“Sorcor? Come in.”

The mate stuck his head around the edge of the door. His eyes were anxious. But at the sight of his captain standing at his chart table, he beamed like a child offered sweets. He ventured into the room. Kennit noted he had yet another new vest, one with even more embroidery. “That healer did you some good, then,” he greeted Kennit as he came in the door. “I thought he might. Those other two, I didn’t think much of them. If you’re going to have someone work on you, get an old man, someone who’s been around a bit and …”

“Shut up, Sorcor,” Kennit said pleasantly. “He was no more useful than the other two. The custom in Bull Creek seems to be that if you cannot cure an injury, you create a different one to distract your victim from your incompetency. Why, I asked him, did he think he could heal a new slice to my leg if he could not cure the one I had? He had no answer to that.” Kennit shrugged elaborately. “I am tired of these backwater healers. Like as not, I shall heal just as fast without their leeches and potions.”

The smile faded from Sorcor’s face as he came slowly into the captain’s room. “Like as not,” he agreed dully.

“This last one as much as said so himself,” Kennit asserted.

“Only because you threatened him until he agreed with you,” Etta pointed out bitterly from the doorway. “Sorcor, stand up to him. Tell him he must let them cut the leg higher, above the foulness. He will listen to you, he respects you.”

“Etta. Get out.”

“I have nowhere to go.”

“Go buy something in town. Sorcor, give her some money.”

“I don’t need money. All in Bull Creek know I am your woman, if I so much as look at anything, they push it into my arms and beg me to take it. But there is nothing I truly want, anywhere, save that you should get better.”

Kennit sighed heavily. “Sorcor. Please shut the door. With the woman on the other side of it.”

“No, I promise, please Kennit, I’ll be quiet. Let me stay. You talk to him, then, Sorcor, reason with him, he’ll listen to you …”

She kept it up like a whining dog and all the while Sorcor was quite gently pushing her out of the room and latching the door behind her. Kennit would not have been so gentle if he’d been able to deal with her himself. That, of course, was the whole problem. She saw him as weak, now, and would try to get her will in everything. Ever since she’d tortured his prisoners, he’d suspected she enjoyed the idea of cutting up helpless men. He wondered if there were some way he could leave her in Bull Creek.

“And how are things in town?” Kennit asked Sorcor pleasantly as if he had just entered.

Sorcor just stared at him for a moment. Then he seemed to decide to humor Kennit. “Couldn’t be better. Unless you’d come ashore and talk to the merchants yourself. They’ve all but begged that you come and be their guest. I already told you once. They saw our Raven flag coming into the harbor and turned out the whole town for us. Little boys were shouting your name from the docks, ‘Captain Kennit, Captain Kennit.’ I heard one tell another that when it came to pirates, you were better than Igrot the Terrible.”

Kennit startled, then made a sour face. “I knew Igrot when I was a lad. His reputation exaggerates him,” he said quietly.

“Still, that’s something, when folk compare you to the man that burned twenty towns and—”

“Enough of my fame,” Kennit cut him off. “What of our business?”

“They’ve re-supplied us handsomely, and the Sicerna is already hove down for repair.” The burly pirate shook his head. “There’s a lot of rot in her hull. I’m surprised the Satrap would entrust a gift’s delivery to a rotten tub like that.”

“I doubt he inspected her hull,” Kennit suggested drily. “And they welcomed the new population we brought them?”

“With open arms. Last slave raid carried off the best smith in town. We’ve brought them two new ones. And the musicians and such are all the talk of the place. Three times now they acted out The Liberation of the Sicerna. Got a right handsome lad being you, and a great worm made of paper and silk and barrel hoops that comes right up …” Sorcor’s voice died away abruptly. “It’s a real fancy show, sir. I don’t think there’s anyone in town who hasn’t seen it.”

“Well. I am glad that the loss of my leg proved entertaining for so many.”

“Now that’s not it, sir,” Sorcor began hastily, but Kennit waved him to silence.

“My liveship,” he announced.

“Oh, Sar,” Sorcor groaned.

“Did we not have an agreement?” Kennit asked him. “I believe we’ve just captured and liberated a slaveship. As I recall, it is now my turn to go after a liveship.”

Sorcor scratched at his beard. “That weren’t quite the agreement, sir. It was that if we saw a slaver, we went after her. And then the next liveship we saw, we’d go after. But you’re talking about hunting a liveship, or laying in wait for one.”

“It all amounts to the same thing,” Kennit dismissed his objection.

“No, begging your pardon, sir, but it don’t. I’ve been giving it some thought, sir. Maybe we ought to lay off both for a time. Just go back to pirating like we used to. Go after some fat merchant ships, like we used to do. Get us some money, have some good times. Stay away from slavers and serpents for a while.” Sorcor’s thick fingers fumbled with the gilt buttons on his vest as he offered this. “You’ve shown me life can be different than what I thought. For both of us. You got yourself a nice woman. She makes a real difference around here. I see now what you were trying to get me to understand. If we went back to Divvytown with a good haul, well, like Sincure Faldin was saying about being respectable and settled and all …”

“Once we have a liveship under us, you can have your choice of virgins, Sorcor,” Kennit promised him. “A new one each week, if that is what pleases you. But first, my liveship. Now. If we can assume that anything we learned from the Sicerna’s crew is true, then it is likely we still have at least one liveship south of us still. Come and look at the chart with me. It seems to me that luck has placed us in a fine position. To the south of us, here, we have Hawser Channel. A nasty bit of water at any time, but especially at the change of tides. Any ship going north has to go through it. Do you see?”

“I see,” Sorcor conceded grudgingly.

Kennit ignored his reluctance. “Now, in Hawser Channel we have Crooked Island. The good passage is to the east of the island. It’s shallow in a few spots, but the shoals don’t shift much. To the west of the island is a different story. The current runs strong, especially at the tide changes. Close to the island we have shoals that constantly form and reform. To the west we have the aptly named Damned Rocks.” He paused. “Do you recall them?”

Sorcor frowned. “I’ll never forget them. You took us in there that one time the Satrap’s galley got after us. Current caught us and we shot through there like an arrow. Took me three days to believe I came out of it alive.”

“Exactly,” Kennit concurred. “A much swifter passage than if we had gone to the east of Crooked Island.”

“So?” Sorcor asked warily.

“So? So we anchor here. A beautiful view of the approach to Hawser Channel. Once we see the liveship enter the channel, we take the west passage. As the liveship emerges, there we are, waiting for her, anchored in mid-channel. The east passage still has a respectable current. The liveship will have no choice but to run aground in the shoal here.” He lifted his eyes from the chart to meet Sorcor’s solemn look with a grin. “And she is ours. With minimum damage, if any.”

“Unless she simply rams us,” Sorcor pointed out sourly.

“Oh, she won’t,” Kennit assured him. “Even if she did, we’d still just board her and take her anyway.”

“And lose the Marietta?” Sorcor was horrified.

“And gain a liveship!”

“This is not a good idea. A hundred things could go wrong,” Sorcor objected. “We could be smashed to bits on the Damned Rocks. That’s not a piece of water I’d ever willingly run again. Or if her draft is shallower than ours, we might take all those risks and she might still just slip past us quick-like while we were still anchored. Or …”

He meant it. He actually meant it, he wasn’t going to go along with the idea. How dare he? He’d be nothing without Kennit. Nothing at all. A moment before, he’d been swearing he owed all he was to his captain, and now he would deny him his chance at a liveship.

A sudden change in tactics occurred to Kennit.

He lifted a hand to stem the mate’s words. “Sorcor. Do you care for me at all?” he asked with disarming directness.

That stopped his words, as Kennit had known it would. The man almost blushed. He opened his mouth and then stammered, “Well, Captain, we’ve sailed together for a time now. And I can’t recall a man who’s treated me fairer, or been more …”

Kennit shook his head and turned aside from him as if moved. “No one else is going to help me with this, Sorcor. There’s no one I trust as I do you. Since I was a boy, I’ve dreamed of a liveship. I always believed that someday I’d walk the deck of one, and she’d be mine. And—” He shook his head and let his voice thicken. “Sometimes a man fears he may see the end sooner than he’d believed. This leg … if what they say is true for me …” He turned back to Sorcor, opened his blue eyes wide to meet Sorcor’s dark ones. “This may be my last chance,” he said simply.

“Oh, sir, don’t talk like that!” Tears actually started to the scarred mate’s eyes. Kennit bit his lip hard to keep the grin away. He leaned closer to the chart table to hide his face. It was a mistake, for his crutch slipped. He caught at the table edge, but the tip of his rotten stump still touched the floor. He cried out with the agony of it and would have fallen if Sorcor had not caught him.

“Easy. I’ve got you. Easy now.”

“Sorcor,” he said faintly. He regained his grip on the chart table, and leaned hard on his arms to keep from collapsing. “Can you do this for me?” He lifted his head. He was shaking now, he could feel it. It was the strain of standing on one leg. He wasn’t accustomed to it, that was all. He didn’t truly believe he’d die of this. He’d heal, he always healed, no matter how badly he was injured. He could do nothing about the grimace of pain that twisted his face or the sweat that had started fresh on his face. Use it. “Can you give me this last chance at it?”

“I can do it, sir.” The dumb faith vied with heartbreak in Sorcor’s eyes. “I’ll get your liveship for you. You’ll walk her decks. Trust me,” he begged Kennit.

Despite his pain, Kennit laughed in his throat. He changed it to a cough. Trust him. “What choice do I have?” he asked himself bitterly. Somehow the words slipped out aloud. He swung his gaze to where Sorcor regarded him worriedly. He forced a sick smile to his lips, warmth to his voice. He shook his head at himself. “All these years, Sorcor, who else have I ever trusted? I have no choice but to put the burden once more upon our friendship.”

He reached for his crutch. He took hold of it, but realized he did not have the strength to hold it firmly. The healing of his stump was drawing off every bit of strength he had. He blinked his heavy eyes. “I shall have to ask for your help to reach my bed as well. My strength deserts me.”

“Captain,” Sorcor said. The groveling affection of a dog was in the word. Kennit stored the thought away to consider when he felt better. Somehow asking Sorcor’s aid had made the man more dependent on his approval than ever. He had chosen his first mate well, he decided. Were he in Sorcor’s position, he would have instinctively grasped that now was his best opportunity to seize full power. Luckily for Kennit, Sorcor was slower-witted than he.

Sorcor stooped awkwardly and actually lifted Kennit bodily to carry him back to his bed. The abrupt movement stirred his pain to a new intensity. Kennit clutched at Sorcor’s shoulders and his brain swam dizzily. For an instant he was overwhelmed by an ancient memory of his father: black whiskers and whiskey breath and sailor stink, whirling and laughing in a drunken dance with the boy Kennit in his arms. A time both terrifying and happy. Sorcor set him down gently on his bunk. “I’ll send Etta in, shall I?”

Kennit nodded feebly. He reached after the memory of his father, but the chimera danced and mocked him from his shadowy childhood. Instead another face smiled down on him, sardonic and elegant. “A likely urchin. Perhaps something useful can be made of him.” He tossed his head against his pillow, shaking the memory from his mind. The door closed behind the first mate.

“You don’t deserve these people,” a small voice said quietly. “Why they love you is beyond me. I would tell you that I would rejoice in your downfall the day they find you out, save that is also the day their hearts will break. By what luck do you deserve the loyalty of such folk?”

Wearily he lifted his wrist. The little face, strapped so tightly over his pulse point, glared up at him. He snorted a brief laugh at its indignant expression. “By my luck. By the luck in my name and the luck in my blood, I deserve them.” Then he laughed again, this time at himself. “The loyalty of a whore and a brigand. Such wealth.”

“Your leg is rotting,” the little face said with sudden malignance. “Rotting up the bone. It will stink and drip and burn the life from your flesh. Because you lack the courage to cut your own foulness from your body.” It sneered a grin at him. “Do you wit my parable, Kennit?”

“Shut up,” he said heavily. He had begun to sweat again. Sweating in his nice clean shirt, in his fresh clean bed. Sweating like a stinking old drunk. “If I am evil, what shall we say of you? You are part and parcel of me.”

“This piece of wood had a great heart once,” the charm declared. “You have put your face upon me and your voice comes from my mouth. I am bound to you. But wood remembers. I am not you, Kennit. And I swear I shall not become you.”

“No one … asked you … to.” His breath was coming harder. He closed his eyes and sank away.