CHAPTER TWELVE

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
PORTRAIT OF VIVACIA

Brashen lounged against the wall in the captain’s cabin, attempting to look both threatening and unconcerned. It was not an easy pose, keeping both his affable smile and his heavy truncheon equally in evidence. Then again, very little about this job had turned out to be as simple and easy as he had expected it to be.

A stream of servants bearing wares flowed through the cabin. They were rapidly transforming Finney’s untidy domain into a showplace for the merchant’s goods. The chart table already had been spread with a length of lush velvet the color of a blue midnight. Arranged against this backdrop and securely stitched to it to prevent theft were an assortment of earrings, necklaces, bracelets and baubles in a variety that indicated their many sources. The gaudy vied with the sophisticated. Every kind of precious stone or metal seemed to be represented. Finney sat at his ease, contemplating this trove. His thick fingers grasped the delicately fluted stem of a wine glass. The merchant-trader, a Durjan named Sincure Faldin, stood respectfully at his shoulder. He called Finney’s attention to each piece of jewelry in turn.

As he gestured at a simple but elegant pearl necklace with matching earrings, he attested, “These, now, these were the property of a nobleman’s daughter. Note the twisting of the gold links between each pearl, as well as their warm luminescence. It is well known that pearls bloom best on those of a passionate nature, and this woman … ah, what can I say of her, save that once she beheld her captors, she had no wish to be ransomed back to her wealthy family. Such pearls, it is said, if given to a cold woman will allow her hidden passions to surface, while if given to a warm-natured woman, well, a man does so at the risk of his own complete exhaustion.”

The trader quirked his eyebrows and grinned broadly. Finney laughed aloud in delight.

The trader had a knack for tales. To hear him tell it, every piece on the table had a history at once romantic and fascinating. Never before had Brashen seen stolen goods so elaborately displayed. Resolutely alert, the mate drew his attention away from the brightly attired Sincure Faldin to keep an eye on his sons who were still bringing aboard and displaying other wares. The whole family seemed to share the father’s flair for showmanship. Each of the three boys was dressed as opulently as his father, in garments fashioned from the same fabrics that one boy was now arranging in a rainbow of swaths unrolled from fat bolts of cloth. An older son had opened the doors of an elaborately carved cabinet he had carried aboard, to display several racks of tiny stoppered bottles. Brashen did not know if they were samples of liquors and wine or oils and perfumes. The third son had spread a white cloth over Captain Finney’s bunk and was setting out a hodge-podge of weaponry, table cutlery, books, scrolls and other items. Even this was not done randomly. The knives were arranged in a fan of blades and hilts, the scrolls and books fixed open to illustrations, and every other item displayed in a way calculated to invite the eye and intrigue the buyer.

This third boy was the one Brashen watched most closely. He doubted they were anything other than diligent and enthusiastic merchants, but he had resolved to be more suspicious since the unfortunate incident ten days ago. It had taken the ship’s boy the better part of a day to holystone that rogue’s bloodstain from the Springeve’s deck. Brashen was still unable to decide how he felt about what he had done. The man had forced him to act; he could not have simply stood by and let him rob the ship, could he? Yet, Brashen could not shake the uneasy notion that he should never have taken this berth. If he had not been here, he would not have had to shed blood.

Where would he have been? He had not known where this job was leading. Nominally, he had been hired on simply as the first mate. The Springeve was a lively little ship, shallow draft and skittish in high winds, but wonderful for negotiating the waterways to the lagoon towns and river settlements she frequented. Nominally, the Springeve was a tramp freighter and trader, hauling and bargaining whatever goods came her way.

The reality was grimmer. Brashen was whatever Captain Finney told him he was: mate, bodyguard, translator or longshoreman. As for Finney himself, Brashen still could not fathom the man. He wasn’t sure if Finney had decided to trust him, or was testing him. The man’s disarming frankness was a guise used to gull the mostly disreputable merchants who traded with him. The stout man could never have survived all his years in this trade if he were actually as trusting and open as he appeared to be. He was a capable man on board his ship, and adept at charming people. However, Brashen suspected that he was capable of near anything for self-survival. At some time, a knife had left a long mark across his belly; the ridged scar was at odds with the man’s seemingly affable nature. Ever since Brashen had seen it, he had found himself watching his captain as closely as he did those whom came aboard to trade.

Now he watched Finney lean forward casually to tap, in swift succession, twelve different pieces of jewelry. “These I wish included in our trade. Take the others away. I have no interest in street vendors’ wares.” The captain never lost his easy smile, but the swiftly tapping finger had unerringly chosen what Brashen also considered the better pieces in Faldin’s collection. Faldin smiled back at him, but Brashen’s eyes caught a flash of unease on the merchant’s face. Brashen’s face remained neutral. Repeatedly, he had seen Finney do this. The man would be as soft and easy as a fat purring cat, but when it came to the bargaining, this Faldin would be lucky to walk off with the shirt still on his back. Brashen himself did not see the advantage to such a tactic. When he had worked for Ephron Vestrit, his captain had told him, “Always leave enough meat on the bones that the other man is also satisfied. Otherwise, you’ll soon have no one willing to trade with you.” Then again, Captain Vestrit had not been trading with pirates and those who disposed of stolen goods for pirates. The rules were bound to be different.

Since they had left Candletown, the Springeve had made a very leisurely trip up the coast of the Cursed Shores. The little craft had nosed up sluggish rivers and tacked into lagoons that were on no charts Brashen had ever seen. The whole section of “coast” known as the Pirate Isles was constantly in flux. Some claimed that the multitude of rivers and streams that dumped into the Inside Passage around the Pirate Isles were actually one great river, eternally shifting in its many-channeled bed. Brashen didn’t much care if the steaming waters that emptied out into the channel were from one river or many. The facts were that although the warm water mellowed the climate of the Pirate Isles, it also stank, fouled boat bottoms at a prodigious rate, weakened ropes and lines and created billowing fogs in every season of the year.

Other ships did not willingly linger there. The air was humid, and what “fresh” water they took on turned green almost overnight. If the Springeve anchored close to shore, insects swarmed to feast on the crew. Strange lights danced often on these waters and sound traveled deceptively. Islands and channels shifted and disappeared as the wandering rivers dumped their silt and sand only to have a storm, rain flood or tide gulp away in a single night all that had been deposited during a month.

Brashen had only hazy memories of this area from the days when he had unwillingly sailed as a pirate. As a ship’s boy, he had been little better than a slave. Weasel, they had called him when he crewed aboard the Hope. He had paid little attention to anything save scrabbling fast to stay ahead of a rope’s end. He recalled the villages as tiny clusters of decaying huts. The only residents had been desperate men who had nowhere else to go. They had not been swaggering pirates, but little more than castaways who lived off whatever trade the true pirates brought to their tiny settlements.

Brashen winced at those memories. Now he had come full circle and could only marvel at how a few clusters of outlaw settlements had apparently grown into a network of towns. When he had been mate on the Vivacia, Brashen had listened skeptically to tales of permanent pirate settlements built on pilings or far up the brackish rivers and lagoons. Since he had begun sailing on the Springeve, he had gradually formed a different picture of these shifting islands and the bustling settlements that clung to their unreliable shores. Some were still little more than places where two ships might stop to trade goods, but others boasted houses with paint on their boards, and little shops along their muddy streets. The slave trade had swelled the population, and widened its variety. Artisans and educated slaves who had escaped Jamaillian owners rubbed elbows with criminals who had fled the Satrap’s justice. Some residents had families. Women and children now formed a minor part of the population. Many of the escaped slaves were obviously trying to re-establish the lives stolen from them. They added a note of desperate civilization to the renegade towns.

Captain Finney seemed to rely solely on his memory to navigate the treacherous channels, tides and currents that brought them to each hamlet. Unerringly he guided the Springeve from town to town. Brashen suspected that he had private charts he consulted, but so far, he had not seen fit to give his mate so much as a glimpse of them. Such a lack of trust, Brashen reflected, as he watched the merchant’s sons through narrowed eyes, almost demanded treachery in return. At least, he suspected that Finney would see the careful inking of shorelines and soundings that Brashen had marked onto the canvas scraps under his bunk as treachery. A good part of Finney’s value as captain depended on his arcane knowledge of the Pirate Isles. He would see Brashen’s careful hoard as a theft of his hard-won knowledge. Brashen saw it as the only long-term benefit he might carry away from this voyage. Money and cindin were all very well, but they were too soon gone. If fortune forced him into this trade, he would not sail as a mate forever.

“Hey. Brash. Over here. What do you think of this?”

He glanced away from the boys to the new selection of merchandise Finney was considering. Finney was holding up an illustrated scroll. Brashen recognized it as a copy of the Contradictions of Sa. The qualities of the parchment made him suspect it was a good one. Too familiar a knowledge of such things might indicate to Finney that he was not illiterate. He gave a shrug. “Lots of pretty colors and fancy birds.”

“What do you think it’s worth?”

Brashen shrugged. “To whom?”

Finney narrowed his eyes. “In a Bingtown shop, say.”

“I’ve seen them there. Never wanted to buy one, myself.”

Sincure Faldin rolled his eyes at the sailor’s ignorance.

“I might take it.” Finney began to rummage through the rest of the goods. “Set it aside for now. What is this?” There was a trace of amused annoyance in Finney’s voice. “It’s broken. You know I trade only in the finest merchandise. Take it away.”

“Only the frame is damaged, no doubt in the haste of, er, salvaging it. The canvas is intact and quite valuable, I am told. It appears to be the work of a noted Bingtown artist. But that is not the only thing that makes it exceedingly valuable.” His voice hinted of a great secret to share.

Finney pretended disinterest. “Oh, very well, I shall look at it. A ship. Now that’s original. A ship under sail on a pretty day. Take it away, Sincure Faldin.”

The merchant continued to hold the painting proudly. “I think you shall regret it if you let this get by you, Captain Finney. It was painted by Pappas. I am told he accepts few commissions, and that all of his canvases go dearly. However, as I told you, this is even more unique. It is a portrait of a liveship. It was taken from a liveship.”

Brashen felt an odd little sideways wrench in his gut. Althea had commissioned a portrait of Vivacia from Pappas. He didn’t want to look. He had to. Foolish not to, it could not be what he feared. No pirate vessel could ever overtake the Vivacia.

It was.

Brashen stared, sickened, at the familiar painting. It had hung in Althea Vestrit’s stateroom on the Vivacia. The lovely rosewood frame was splintered where someone had hastily pried it free from the wall instead of unfastening it. Vivacia as she had been before she was quickened was the subject. In the painting, the figurehead’s features were still, her hair yellow. Her graceful hull cut through the painted waves. The artist’s skill was such that Brashen could almost see the clouds scudding across the sky. The last time he had seen that painting, it had still been securely fastened to a bulkhead. Had Althea left it there when she left the ship? Had it been taken from the ship by pirates, or somehow stolen from the Vestrit family home? The second possibility did not make sense. No thief would steal such a thing in Bingtown and then bring it to the Pirate Isles to sell it. The best prices for art were in Chalced and Jamaillia. Logic told him that the painting had been taken off the Vivacia. Yet, he could not believe pirates could have overtaken the sprightly little liveship. Even before she had quickened, Ephron Vestrit had been able to show her heels to anything that even considered pursuing her. Quickened and willing, nothing should have been able to catch her.

“You know the ship, Brash?” Finney asked in a soft, friendly voice.

The captain had caught him staring at the painting. He tried to make his look of dismay seem one of puzzlement. He knit his brows deeper. “Pappas. I was looking at that name, thinking I knew it. Pappas, Pappas … naw. Pappay. That was the fellow’s name. Terrible cheat at cards, but a good hand aloft.” He gave Finney a shrug and a half-hearted grin. He wondered if he had fooled him.

“It’s a liveship, out of Bingtown. Surely, you know her. Liveships are not that common.” Finney pressed.

Brashen took a step closer, peered at the painting, then shrugged. “They’re not that common, true. But they tie up at a different dock from the common ships. They keep to themselves, and idlers aren’t too welcome there. Traders can be a snooty lot.”

“I thought you were Trader born.” Now both of them were looking at him.

He spat out a laugh. “Even Traders have poor relatives. My third cousin is the real Trader. I’m just a shirt-tail relative, and not a welcome sight on the family’s doorstep. Sorry. What’s her name plate say?”

“Vivacia,” Finney said. “I thought that was a ship you’d served on. Didn’t you say as much to the agent back in Candletown?”

Brashen cursed his cindin-fogged memories of that meeting. He shook his head thoughtfully. “No. I told him I was mate on the Vicious Vixen. She was out of a Six Duchies harbor, not Bingtown. Not a bad vessel, if you like living with a bunch of barbarians who think fish-head stew is a real treat. I didn’t.”

Finney and Faldin both chuckled dutifully. It wasn’t much of a jest but it was enough to turn the topic. Faldin flourished the painting a final time; Finney dismissed it with a headshake. Faldin made a great show of carefully re-wrapping the painting, as if to emphasize the value that Finney was missing. Finney was already poking through the rest of the scrolls. Brashen tried to resume his watchful air, but he felt sick. The splintered frame indicated the painting had been taken hastily. Had she been sinking as the framed painting was torn off the wall? One of Faldin’s boys, passing near him, shot him a fearful glance. Brashen realized he was glaring at no one, and rearranged his face.

Some of the men he had worked with aboard the Vivacia had been his comrades for years. Their faces rose in his memory: Grig, who could splice line faster than most men could lie, and Comfrey the prankster, and half a dozen others with whom he had shared the forecastle. The ship’s boy, Mild, had had the makings of a top-notch sailor, if his love for mischief hadn’t killed him first. He hoped they had had the good sense to turn pirate when they were offered that option. His need to ask the merchant what he knew of the liveship burned inside him. Was there a way to be curious without betraying himself? Brashen suddenly didn’t care.

“Where did you get the picture of the liveship, anyway?” he asked.

The other two men turned to stare at him.

“Why do you care?” Captain Finney asked. His voice was not casual.

Sincure Faldin broke in, obviously still hoping to dispose of the painting. “The painting comes from the ship herself. Rarely is a liveship ever captured: this authentic memento of such an event is among the rarest of the rare.” As he re-pitched the desirability of the painting, he had snatched it up and was once more freeing it of its shroud.

Brashen shifted the small plug of cindin in his lip. “Don’t believe it, then,” he said gruffly. He met Finney’s eyes. “That’s what was bothering me. If a man has a picture of a ship aboard, it is likely a picture of his own ship. But liveships don’t get caught. Everyone knows that. It’s a fake.” He shifted his gaze, as if by chance, to the merchant. “Oh, I’m not calling you a liar,” he added hastily at the look of outrage on Faldin’s face. “I’m just saying whoever sold it to you was probably gulling you.” He smiled at the man, knowing well that insinuating that a man didn’t know what he was talking about was the best way to get him to share all he knew.

It worked. The trader’s outrage faded to a look that was coldly smug. “I don’t think so. Yet, I can understand why you might believe that was so. The taking of a liveship is not an ordinary feat. An ordinary man did not accomplish it. Captain Kennit did. If you know his name at all, you will not be surprised by it.”

Captain Finney gave a snort of contempt. “That horse’s ass? Is he still alive? I would have bet gold that someone would have spilled his guts by now. He isn’t still spouting that nonsense about becoming the King of the Pirates, is he?”

For the first time, Brashen suspected Sincure Faldin’s affront was genuine. The portly merchant drew himself up and took in a breath. His gaudy shirt filled like a sail bellying with wind. “You speak of a man who is all but engaged to my daughter. I have the highest regard for Captain Kennit, and am honored that he gives me the exclusive privilege of selling his goods. I will hear no disparagement of him.”

Finney rolled his eyes at Brashen. “Then you won’t hear anything from me about him. The man is insane, Sincure. He’s a top-notch captain, and he runs a tight ship. I won’t fault him there. Last year there was all that wild talk about him saying he was destined to be King of the Pirate Isles. Rumor was that he’d gone to the Others Island, and got an oracle to say it was so. Well, you know how much we all want a king. Faugh! Then the next thing I hear about him, he’s running down slaveships just for the sake of freeing the cargo. Not that I don’t feel for those poor clods chained up in Chalcedean holds. I do. I feel for myself, too, when that damn Kennit stirred up enough dust that the boy Satrap thought he needed to send patrols out after pirates. The kid doesn’t even have the sense to keep it a Jamaillian problem, no; he invites in Chalcedean privateers, supposed to clean us out of here. But all they’re really doing is picking off the best cargoes for themselves and leaving us to take the blame.” Finney shook his head. “King of the Pirate Isles. Sure. That’s just about exactly what we’d expected we would get from a king. More dung raining down on us.”

Sincure Faldin crossed his arms stubbornly. “No, no, my dear friend. Far be it from me to disagree with a customer, but you are not seeing the larger picture. Kennit has done great good for us all. The slaves he has freed have joined us, supplying our towns with artisans and craftsmen, not to mention fertile women. Who used to flee to us? Murderers and rapists, thieves and cut-throats. Those few honest men who ended up among us have had to do as you and I have done: devise a way to make an honest living in the midst of disorder. Kennit has changed all that. He swells our towns with folk who ask no more than a chance to live free again. He will make of us a nation rather than a collection of bickering outposts for renegades and refugees. Yes, he stirred the Satrap’s wrath. Those among us so blind as to think we still owed loyalty to a drug-lulled boy who is ruled by his women and advisors now see him for what he truly is. His actions have shattered that sentimental fealty. All of us are coming to realize that we owe no loyalty at all to Jamaillia, that our concerns should be only for ourselves.”

A grudging agreement spread over Finney’s face. “I don’t say he’s all bad. But we don’t need a king. We’ve done fine running things ourselves.”

Brashen dredged up a fragment of half-forgotten gossip. “Kennit. Isn’t he the one who kills everyone aboard a ship when he takes it?”

“Not always!” Faldin objected. “Only on slaveships does he kill the whole crew. But there is a rumor he has spared some of the liveship’s crew, although she was a slaver. The ship was joyous at being rescued. Now she dotes on Captain Kennit.”

“A liveship was being used as a slaver, and when she was captured, she abandoned her loyalty to her family?” Brashen shook his head, amused and disdainful. He spoke to his captain. “I may not know this particular ship, but I know enough of liveships to tell you those two things cannot be true.”

“But they are!” Faldin looked from one man to the other. “You do not have to believe me,” he added in a superior voice. “You are only a day or so from Divvytown. Go there, if you doubt me. The liveship has been there the better part of a month, undergoing repairs. Speak to the slaves, now free folk, delivered by Kennit from her holds. I have not spoken to the ship myself, but those bold enough to do so say that she speaks well of her new captain.”

Brashen’s heart was thundering in his chest. He felt as if he could not get quite enough air. It couldn’t be true. Everything he knew about Vivacia and liveships told him it could not be true. Every scrap of evidence that Sincure Faldin offered him told him that it was. He managed a shrug and then coughed in an attempt to ease the tightness in his throat. “Up to the captain,” he managed to say. He made a great show of shifting the cindin in his mouth. He spoke around the plug. “He makes those decisions. Me?” He shifted the truncheon in his hands. “I do other things.” He grinned at them both, a setting of his teeth.

“If you came to Divvytown, I could show you a much fuller selection of merchandise.” Sincure Faldin had suddenly reverted to being a merchant. His smile returned as he made his spiel. “My warehouse is there. Kennit’s most recent voyage has stocked it well for me, though there is little else that is actually from the liveship. Slaves were the major cargo. Those he has freed. He has chosen to keep the choice appointments of the officers’ quarters intact and otherwise restore the ship. He has not felt well enough yet to welcome visitors, but I am told that the captain’s quarters are very fine, all polished wood and shining brass.”

Captain Finney made a nondescript noise. Brashen kept very still. The glint of interest had kindled in his captain’s eyes. There was the prospect of seeing a captured liveship, perhaps even speaking to her. Given that sort of proof, and Faldin’s assurance that the painting was the only trophy of its taking, he’d probably buy the portrait. Rarity always brought coin. Finney cleared his throat. “Well. Set the picture aside. I have got a bit of space in the hold to fill. Sounds like Divvytown might be the place to do it. If I see this liveship and your tale proves true, I’ll buy the picture. Now. Let’s back to business. Have you got any tapestries like those you sold me last year?”

Hammers rang above a chorus of saws burring. The smell of hardwood sawdust and fresh varnish filled the ship’s companionways. The slaves that had crowded the decks and holds of the Vivacia had been replaced with gangs of carpenters and shipwrights. Wintrow stepped around a man applying varnish to a repaired doorframe, then dodged an apprentice bearing blocks of beeswax. With amazing swiftness, the Vivacia was being restored. The damage she had taken in the slave uprising had nearly been eradicated. Her holds were being cleaned, not just scrubbed but freshened by the careful burning of aromatic herbs. Soon only the stains of spilled blood would remain on her decks. Despite scrubbing, sanding or soaking, the wizardwood refused to forget.

Sorcor was very much in evidence, striding about the ship energetically supervising everyone. His voice carried well and men jumped to obey his orders. Less obvious but no less commanding was Etta. She did not announce her presence with a bellowed command, but her quiet comments served just as well. Deckhands beamed at a word of praise from her. Wintrow had been watching her surreptitiously. He had expected that she would be waspish in her direction, sharply sarcastic. He had felt the razor edge of her tongue so often that he assumed it was her common demeanor. Instead, he discovered that she had a great talent for both charm and persuasion. He also detected the careful line she walked to get tasks accomplished to her satisfaction without interfering with Sorcor’s authority. When the mate and the captain’s woman were in proximity, they displayed both camaraderie and rivalry. It intrigued and puzzled Wintrow. Both their bond and their dispute was Kennit.

How could one man command such loyalty from such diverse people? At the monastery, one oft-repeated old saying was “Sa’s hand can fit around any tool.” It was usually uttered when an unlikely novice suddenly bloomed with talent. After all, Sa had a purpose for all things. It was the limit of humanity that those reasons could not always be perceived. Maybe Kennit truly was a tool of Sa, and was aware of his destiny. Wintrow supposed that stranger things had happened. He simply could not recall any.

Wintrow rapped once at a freshly restored door, then worked the latch and entered. Despite the sunshine slanting in through the porthole, the chamber seemed dark and close. “You should open the window and let in some fresh air,” he observed aloud. He set down the tray he was carrying.

“Shut the door,” his father replied gruffly. He unfolded his legs, stretched, and then stood. The rumpled bed behind him retained the imprint of his body. “What did you bring me this time? Sawdust cakes full of weevils?” He glared at the door that still stood open. In one angry stride he crossed the small room and slammed it shut.

“Turnip and onion soup and wheatcakes,” Wintrow replied evenly. “The same food that everyone else got today.”

Kyle Haven grunted in reply. He lifted the bowl of soup, poked it with a finger. “It’s cold,” he complained, and then drank it where he stood. His whiskery throat moved as he swallowed. Wintrow wondered when he had last shaved. When he lowered the bowl, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He caught his son staring and glared back. “Well? What sort of manners do you expect of a man kept like a dog in a kennel?”

“There are no longer any guards on the door. I asked some days ago if you might be allowed out on deck. Kennit said you could, so long as I was with you and took responsibility for you. It is your own decision to remain in this room as if it were a cell.”

“I wish there were a mirror in here, so I could see if I look as stupid as you think I am,” his father retorted sourly. He snatched up a wheatcake and wiped out the bowl with it before he bit into it. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he muttered around a mouthful of food. “You could trot along beside me on deck, and be oh-so-surprised and horrified when some sneaking bastard put a knife in my ribs. Then you would be rid of me for good and all. Don’t think that I don’t know that’s what you want. That’s what this has all been about. Not that you have the guts to do it yourself. Oh, no, not the boy in the skirts. He prays to Sa, rolls his big brown eyes, and sets it up for others to do his dirty work. What’s this?”

“Alde tea. And if I wanted so badly to be rid of you, I’d have poisoned it.” Wintrow heard with a shock the heartless sarcasm in his own voice.

His father halted with the mug halfway to his lips. He gave a hoarse bark of laughter. “No, you wouldn’t. Not you. You’d get someone else to poison it, and then you would give it to me, so you could pretend none of it was your doing. Not my fault, you could whine, and when you crawled back to your mother, she would believe you and let you go back to your monastery.”

Wintrow pinched his lips together. I am living with a madman, he reminded himself. Conversing with him is not going to bring him to his senses. His mind has turned. Only almighty Sa can cure him and only in his own time. He found a modicum of patience within himself. He tried to believe it was not a show of defiance when he crossed the small room and opened the window.

“Shut that,” his father growled. “Do you think I want to smell that scummy little town out there?”

“It smells no worse than the stench of your own body that fills this room,” Wintrow countered. He walked two steps away from the open window. At his feet was his own pallet, seldom slept in, and the small bundle of clothes he could call his own. Nominally, he shared this small room with his father. The reality was that he slept most nights on the foredeck near Vivacia. The proximity made him uncomfortably aware of her thoughts, and through her, the presence of Kennit’s dreams. Still, that was preferable to his father’s irascible and critical company.

“Is he going to ransom us?” Kyle Haven demanded suddenly. “He could get a good price for us. Your mother probably could scrape up a bit, and the Bingtown Traders would come through with more, to get a liveship back. Does he know that? That he could get a good price for us? You should tell him that. Has he sent a ransom note yet?”

Wintrow sighed. Not this conversation again. He cut swiftly to the meat of it, hoping for a mercifully quick end. “He doesn’t want to ransom the ship, Father. He intends to keep it. That means I have to stay with it. I don’t know what he plans to do with you. I’ve asked him, but he doesn’t answer. I don’t want to make him angry.”

“Why? You never feared to make me angry!”

Wintrow sighed. “Because he is an unpredictable man. If I push him, he may take … rash action. To demonstrate his power. I think it is wiser to wait for him to see he has nothing to gain from holding you. As he heals, he seems more reasonable. In time—”

“In time I shall be little more than a living corpse, shut up in here, taunted and mocked and despised by all on this ship. He seeks to break me with darkness and poor food and no company save that of my idiot son!”

His father had finished eating. Without a word, Wintrow picked up the tray and turned to go. “That’s right, run away! Hide from the truth.” When Wintrow made no reply as he opened the door, his father bellowed after him, “Make sure you take the chamberpot and empty it! It stinks.”

“Do it yourself.” Wintrow’s voice came out flat and ugly. “No one will stop you.”

He shut the door behind himself. His grip on the tray was so tight his knuckles were white. His molars hurt where his teeth were clenched together. “Why?” he asked aloud of no one. More quietly, he added to himself, “How could that man be my father? I feel no bond to him at all.”

He felt a faint tremor of sympathy from the ship.

Just before he reached the galley door, Sa’Adar caught up with him. Wintrow had been aware of him following him since he left his father’s room, but he had hoped to elude him. The priest became more frightening with every passing day. He had all but disappeared for a time, after Etta had marked him with her knife. Like some parasitic creature, he had burrowed deep into the holds of the ship, to work his poison silently among the freed men and women. There were fewer discontents as the days passed. Kennit and his crew treated them even-handedly. They were fed as well as any crew member, and the same level of effort was expected from them in caring for the ship.

When they reached Divvytown, it was announced to the former slaves that any who wished to disembark might take their freedom and go. Captain Kennit wished them well and hoped they would enjoy their new lives. Those who desired could request to stay aboard as crew, but they would have to prove themselves worthy and loyal sailors to Kennit. Wintrow had seen the wisdom in that; Kennit had effectively pulled Sa’Adar’s teeth. Any slave who truly desired a life of piracy and had the skill to compete could claim one. The others had their freedom. Not many had taken the road to piracy.

The taller, older man stepped abruptly around Wintrow. Sa’Adar stood before him, blocking his passage. Wintrow glanced past him. He was alone. He wondered if his map-face guards had forsaken him to regain lives of their own. Wintrow had to turn his eyes up to look at Sa’Adar. The man’s face was graven with discontent and fanaticism. His unkempt hair spilled onto his forehead; his clothes had not been washed in days. His eyes burned as he accused, “I saw you leave your father’s room.”

Wintrow spoke civilly and ignored the question. “I’m surprised you are still aboard. I am sure there is much work for a priest of Sa in a place like Divvytown. The freed slaves would surely appreciate your assistance in beginning new lives there.”

Sa’Adar narrowed his dark eyes at Wintrow. “You mock me. You mock my priesthood, and in doing so you mock yourself and Sa.” His hand snaked out to seize Wintrow’s shoulder. The boy still gripped his father’s breakfast tray. He clutched it tightly to keep from spilling the crockery on the deck, but he stood his ground. “You forsake your priesthood and Sa in what you do here. This is a ship built of death, speaking with death’s tongue. A follower of the Life God should not be servant to it. But it is not too late for you, lad. Recall who you are. Align yourself once more with life and right. You know this ship belongs by right to those who seized it for themselves. This vessel of cruelty and bondage could become a ship of freedom and righteousness.”

“Let me go,” Wintrow said quietly. He tried to squirm out of the madman’s grip.

“This is my last warning to you.” Sa’Adar came very close to him, his breath hot and rancid in Wintrow’s face. “It is your last chance to redeem yourself from your past errors and put your feet on the true path to glory. Your father must be delivered to judgment. If you are the instrument of that, your own part in the transgressions can be forgiven. I myself will judge it is so. Then this ship must be surrendered to those who rightfully claim her. Make Kennit see that. He is a sick man. He cannot withstand us. We rose and unseated one despot. Does he believe we cannot do it again?”

“I believe that if I spoke such words to him, it would be death for you. Death for myself as well. Sa’Adar. Be content with what he has given you: a new chance at life. Seize it and go on.” Wintrow tried to writhe away, but the man only tightened his grip. He bared his teeth in a snarl. Wintrow felt his self-control slipping. “Now get your hands off me and let me go.” Suddenly, vividly, he was recalling this man in the hold of the Vivacia. Freed of his chains, his first act had been to take Gantry’s life. Gantry had been a good man, in his way. A better man than Sa’Adar had ever shown himself to Wintrow.

“I warn you—” the erstwhile priest of Sa began, but Wintrow’s pent grief and banked anger suddenly overwhelmed him. He shoved the wooden tray hard into the man’s gut. Taken by surprise, Sa’Adar staggered back, gasping for air. A part of Wintrow knew it was enough. He could have walked away. He was shocked when he dropped the tray, to drive two more blows into the man’s chest. In detachment, he saw his right, and then his left fist connect. They were body punches, connecting with satisfyingly solid sounds. Even so, Wintrow was amazed to see the taller man give ground, stumbling back against the wall and sliding partially down it. It shocked him to discover his own physical strength. Worse, it felt good to knock the man down. He gritted his teeth, resisting the impulse to kick him.

“Leave me alone,” he warned Sa’Adar in a low growl. “Don’t talk to me again or I’ll kill you.”

The shaken man coughed as he clambered up the wall. Puffing, he pointed a finger at Wintrow. “See what you’ve become! It’s the voice of this unnatural ship, using you as mouthpiece! Break free, boy, before you are damned forever!”

Wintrow turned on his heel and strode away. He left the tray and crockery where it had fallen. It was the first time in his life he had fled from the truth.

Kennit shifted in his bedding. He was damnably tired of being confined to his bunk, but both Wintrow and Etta had convinced him that he must endure it a bit longer. He frowned at himself in a bedside mirror, then set his razor aside. His freshly trimmed mustache and beard improved his appearance, but the swarthiness of his skin had turned sallow and the flesh had fallen away from his cheeks. He practiced his hard stare at the mirror. “I look cadaverous,” he said aloud to the empty room. Even his voice sounded hollow. He set the mirror aside with a sharp clack. The action focused his attention on his hands. Veins and tendons stood out on their backs in sharp relief. When he turned them over, the palms looked soft as tallow. He made a fist and gave a snort of disdain at the result. It looked like a knot tied in a piece of old string. The wizardwood talisman, once strapped tightly to his pulse point, now dangled about his wrist. The silvery wood had gone gray and checked as if it, too, suffered from his lack of vitality. Kennit’s lips tightened in a bare smile. Good. It should have brought him luck and instead it had served him this. Let the charm share his fate. He tapped at it with his fingernail. “Nothing to say?” he jeered at it. It was impassive.

Kennit snatched up the mirror again and peered into it. His leg was healing; they all told him he would live. What was the good of that if he could no longer command respect from his crew? He had become a withered scarecrow of a man. His haggard reflection reminded himself of a street beggar in Divvytown.

He slammed the mirror down again on the bedside table, half daring himself to break it. The ornate frame and heavy glass defied him. He flung the covers back from his legs and glared down at his stump. It lay on the creamy linen like a badly stuffed sausage, slightly withered at the end. He poked it savagely with a finger. The pain had receded substantially, leaving behind an obnoxious sensation between a tingle and an itch. He lifted it from the bed. It looked ridiculous, a seal’s flipper, not a man’s leg. Total despair washed over him. He imagined drawing cold salt water into his mouth and nose, pulling icy death into him, refusing to choke or splutter. It would be quick.

The passion of his despair retreated abruptly, stranding him in helplessness. He did not even have the wherewithal to take his own life. Long before he managed to drag himself to the ship’s railing, Etta would clutch at him, whining and imploring and bearing him back to this bed. Perhaps that had always been her aim in maiming him. Yes. She had chopped off his leg and fed it to the sea serpent so that she could finally master him. She intended to keep him here as her pet while she secretly undermined his command and became the true captain of the ship. Teeth clenched, fists knotted, the anger that rushed through him was intoxicating in its fierceness. He tried to feed on it, imagining in detail how she had probably planned it for months. Her eventual goal was to keep the liveship for herself, of course. Sorcor was probably involved in it as well. He would have to be very careful to conceal from them that he suspected. If they knew, they’d—

Ridiculous. It was ridiculous and silly, the product of his long convalescence. Such thoughts were unworthy of him. If he must put such intensity of feeling into something, then let him put it into regaining his health. Etta might be lacking in many things, including breeding and courtesy, but she was certainly not plotting against him. If he was tired of his bed, he should tell them so. It was a fine spring day. He could be assisted to the foredeck. She would love to see his face again. It had been so long since they had talked.

Kennit had dim, resentful memories of his mother’s gentle hands carefully unfolding his chubby fingers from some forbidden object he had managed to possess. So had she spoken to him then, softly and reasonably as she took the gleaming wood and shining metal of the knife away. He recalled he had not succumbed to her gentleness but had screamed his displeasure. He felt the same defiance now. He did not want to be reasonable, he did not want to be consoled with something else. He wanted his fury to be justified and proven.

But Vivacia was inside him, weaving herself through his being. He was too weakened to resist her as she took his angry suspicions and set them out of his reach. He was left with a sourceless dissatisfaction that made his head ache. He blinked the sting of tears from his eyes. Weepy, like a woman, he jeered at himself.

Someone tapped at his door. He took his hands away from his face. He flipped the blankets back over the remains of his legs. A moment, to compose himself. He cleared his throat. “Enter.”

He had expected Etta. Instead, it was the boy. He stood uncertainly in the door. The dim companionway framed him and the light from the stern windows fell on his face. His tattoo was hidden in shadow. His face was unflawed and open. “Captain Kennit?” he queried in a low voice. “Did I wake you?”

“Not at all. Come in.” He could not say why the sight of Wintrow was like balm to his spirit. Perhaps it had to do with the ship’s feelings. The boy’s appearance had improved since he had been in Kennit’s care. He smiled at the youth as he approached the bed, and had the pleasure of seeing the boy shyly return it. His coarse black hair was sleeked back from his face and bound into the traditional seaman’s queue. The clothing Etta had sewn suited him well. The loose white shirt, a bit large for him, was tucked into his dark blue trousers. He was small for his age, a lean and supple youth. Wind and sun had weathered the boy’s face. The warm color of his skin, his white teeth and dark eyes, the dark trousers merging into the darkness of the corridor behind him: it was all a chance composition of perfect light and shadow. Even the hesitant, questioning look on his face was perfect as he emerged from dimness into the muted light of the chamber.

Another step carried Wintrow further into the room. The tattoo on his face was suddenly not only visible; it was an indelible flaw, a stain on the boy’s innocence. The pirate could see the torment in the boy’s eyes, and sensed a misery in him. Kennit knew a moment of rage. “Why?” he demanded suddenly. “Why were you marked like that? What possible excuse did he have?”

The boy’s hand flew to his cheek. A flickering show of emotions rushed across his face: shame, anger, confusion, and then impassivity. His voice was even and low. “I suppose he thought it would teach me something. Perhaps it was his revenge because I had not been the son he wished me to be. Perhaps it was his way of repairing that. He made me a slave instead of his son. Or … it could have been something else. He was, I think, jealous of my bond with the ship. When he marked my face with hers, it was his way of saying we were welcome to one another, because we had rejected him. Maybe.”

It was enlightening to watch Wintrow’s face as he spoke. The careful words could not completely disguise the pain. The boy’s floundering attempts at an explanation revealed that it was a question he had agonized over often. Kennit suspected that none of the possible answers satisfied him. It was obvious his father had never bothered to explain it. The boy advanced to his bedside. “I need to look at your stump now,” he said. Blunt, this boy was. He didn’t call it a leg, or an injury. It was a stump and that was what he called it. He didn’t mince his way past Kennit’s feelings. That integrity was oddly comforting. The boy would not lie to him.

“You say you had rejected your father. Is that how you still feel about him?” Kennit could not say why the boy’s answer would be so important to him.

A shadow crossed the boy’s face. For a moment, Kennit thought Wintrow would lie to him. But the hopelessness of truth was in his voice when he spoke. “He is my father.” The words were almost a cry of protest. “I owe him the duty of a son. Sa commands us to respect our parents and exult over any goodness we find in them. But in truth, I wish—” His voice dropped lower as if to speak the thought shamed him. “I wish he were out of my life. Not dead, no, I don’t wish that,” he added hastily as he met Kennit’s intent stare. “I just wish he were somewhere else. Somewhere safe but,” his voice faltered guiltily, “where I just didn’t have to deal with him anymore,” he finished in a near whisper. “Where I didn’t have to feel diminished each time he looked at me.”

“I can arrange that,” Kennit answered him easily. The stricken look on the boy’s face plainly wondered what wish he had just been granted. He started to speak, then apparently decided that keeping silent was safer.

“Does the tattoo bother you?” he heard himself ask as Wintrow turned the blankets back. The boy-priest bent over Kennit’s leg, his hands hovering above the stump. Kennit could almost feel a tickling ghost-touch on his flesh.

“A moment,” Wintrow requested quietly. “Let me try this.”

Kennit waited expectantly for him to do something. Instead, Wintrow became absolutely still. He held his hands fractionally above Kennit’s stump, so close he could feel the warmth of the boy’s palms. The gaze of his eyes was focused on the backs of his own hands. The tip of his tongue crept out of his mouth and he bit it in his concentration. His breath moved in and out of him so silently, it was as if he did not breathe at all. The pupils of his eyes grew large, almost erasing the color. His hands trembled slightly as in vast effort.

After a few moments, the boy drew a sharp breath in. He lifted his eyes to give Kennit a dazed glance and shrugged in disappointment. He sighed. “I suppose I’m doing it wrong. You should have felt something.” He frowned to himself, then remembered Kennit’s question about his tattoo. He answered as if they were discussing the weather. “When I think of it. I wish it were not there. However, it is there, and will be there the rest of my life. The sooner I accept it as part of my face, the wiser I will be.”

“Wiser how?” Kennit pressed him.

Wintrow smiled, thinly at first, but as he spoke it grew more genuine. “It was said often at my monastery, ‘The wise man takes the shortest path to peace with himself.’ Acceptance of what is, that is the shortest path.” As he spoke the final words, his hands came to rest on Kennit’s stump in a light but firm grip. “Does this hurt?”

Warmth started at the boy’s hands and shot out from them. A jolt of heat went up Kennit’s spine. The pirate was struck dumb. Wintrow’s words seemed to echo through his bones. Acceptance of what is. That is the shortest path to peace with yourself. This is wisdom. Does it hurt? Does wisdom hurt? Does peace hurt? Does acceptance hurt? His skin tightened and tingled all over his body. Kennit gasped for breath. He could not answer. He was suffused with the boy’s simple faith. It rushed through him, warm and reassuring. Of course, he was right. Acceptance. He could not doubt or deny it. What had he been thinking? Whence the weakness that had made him falter? His earlier thoughts of drowning himself were suddenly abhorrent, the self-pitying whining of a weakling. He was meant to go on, he was destined to go on. His luck had not failed him when the serpent took his leg. His luck had sustained him; his leg was all it had taken.

Wintrow took his hands away. “Are you all right?” he asked worriedly. The words seemed unnaturally loud to Kennit’s renewed senses.

“You’ve healed me,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I’m healed.” He dragged himself to a sitting position. He looked down at his leg, almost expecting to find it restored. It was not, it was a stump, and there was still a pang of loss at beholding it. But that was all. The shape of his body had changed. Once he had been young and beardless, and now he was not. Once he had walked upon two legs; now he would learn to get about on one. That was all. A change. To be accepted.

Quick as a cat’s pounce, he seized the boy by his shoulders and jerked him near. Wintrow cried out and braced his hands on the bunk to keep from falling. Kennit captured the boy’s head between his hands. For an instant, Wintrow struggled. Then his eyes locked with Kennit’s. He stared, his gaze going wider and wider. Kennit smiled at him. He smoothed one long thumb across the boy’s tattoo. “Wipe it away,” he commanded him. “On your face, it goes no deeper than your skin. You do not need to bear it on your soul.” For five breaths more Kennit held him, until he saw a sort of wonder cross Wintrow’s features. Kennit placed a kiss on his brow, then released him. As Wintrow drew back, Kennit sat all the way up. He swung his leg off the bed.

“I’m tired of lying here. I need to be up and about. Look at me. I’m wasted to a shadow of myself. I need wind in my face, and plenty of food and drink. I need to command on my own deck again. Most of all, I need to discover what I can and cannot do. Sorcor made me a crutch. Is it still about?”

Wintrow had staggered back from the bedside. He looked shocked at the change in the man. “I … I believe it is,” he stuttered.

“Good. Lay out some clothes for me and help me dress. No. Lay out clothes for me and leave me to dress myself while you go to the galley. Bring me back a proper meal. If Etta is about, send her to me. She can fetch me bathing water. Be quick, now. The day is half spent as it is.”

It brought him great satisfaction to see Wintrow hasten to obey his commands. The boy knew how to take an order; now, that was a useful thing in a pretty lad, and no mistake. He did not know his way about Kennit’s possessions. Etta was better at matching up his clothes, but what Wintrow had set out was serviceable enough. There would be plenty of time to educate his eye for dress.

When Wintrow had bowed his way out of the room, Kennit turned his attention to educating himself. His shirt was not too difficult, but it displeased him to see how his chest and arms had dwindled. He refused to dwell on it. The trousers were more of a challenge. Even standing on his leg and leaning on the bed, it was awkward. The fabric hung up on his stump and rubbed against the new skin unpleasantly. He told himself he would soon build a callus. The empty pant leg flapped in a ghastly way; Etta would have to pin that for him, or better yet, sew it. The leg was gone. There was little sense in pretending otherwise.

He grinned wryly as he struggled with a single stocking and boot. Why should half as much work take twice as long? His body kept overbalancing and teetering on the edge of the bed. He was just finishing when Etta entered the room. She gave a start at the sight of him sitting jauntily on the edge of the bed. Her gaze turned reproachful. “I would have helped you with all that.” She set a basin and a jug of hot water down on the stand by his bed. The scarlet blouse she wore picked up the red of her lips. Her skirts were black silk and shifted with her hips, rustling invitingly when she walked.

“I didn’t need help,” he retorted. “Save with this pant leg. You should have sewn them up for me. I intend to be out of bed today. Do you know where my crutch is?”

“I think you are rushing yourself,” she complained. She frowned at him. “Only the night before last, you still had a touch of fever. You probably feel better, Kennit, but you are far from healthy. Your bed is the place where you belong, for a time yet.” She came to the bed and began to fuss with his pillows, as if she would make him lie down again. How dare she? Had she completely forgotten who he was and what she was?

“My bed is my place?” His hand shot out, to trap her wrist. Before she could react, he jerked her close to him, his other hand seizing her jaw. He turned her face to meet his eyes. “Don’t ever tell me what I am healthy enough to do!” he reminded her severely. The closeness of her, her quick breath against his face and her wide eyes, suddenly stirred him. She took in a quick fearful breath and triumph coursed through him. This was right. Before he could take command on his deck again, he’d have to take command in his own chamber. This woman must not be allowed to think she was in charge. He hooked one arm about her waist and pulled her close. With his free hand, he seized the front of her skirt and hiked it up. She gasped as he pulled her against him. “My bed is where you belong, wench,” he told her in a voice suddenly gone husky.

“If you say so,” she murmured submissively. Her eyes were black and huge. Her breath was coming very fast. He could almost hear the rapid beating of her heart. There was no resistance left in her as he yarded her onto the bunk and pushed her down.

The sun was just going down as the Springeve sailed into Divvytown’s so-called harbor. Brashen looked at the sprawling settlement with amazement. When he had been here last, years ago, there had been a few huts, a wharf and some shacks that passed for taverns. Now candlelight shone through dozens of windows, and the brackish anchorage boasted a small forest of masts. Even the smells of squalor that hung in the air had become thicker. If all the scattered pirate settlements he had seen were gathered into one place, they would equal or possibly exceed the population of Bingtown. They were growing, too. If they were mustered under one leader, they would be a force to reckon with. Brashen wondered if that was the potential this Kennit, would-be King of the Pirates, also saw. If he gained such power, what would he do with it? Captain Finney had seemed to think him mostly a braggart; Brashen fervently hoped it was so.

Then, as they passed slowly down the long line of anchored vessels, Brashen saw a familiar profile limned against the setting sun. His heart turned over in his chest then sank inside him. The Vivacia rocked at anchor there. At her masthead, the Raven flag fluttered fitfully in the evening breeze. Brashen tried to convince himself that it was only a ship similarly outfitted and with a similar figurehead. Abruptly Vivacia gave her head a shake, then reached up to smooth her hair. It was a liveship all right, and she was unmistakably Vivacia. This Kennit had captured her. If the rumors were true, that meant that every one of her crewmen had been slaughtered. He squinted at the silhouetted ship, trying to make out more detail. A skeleton crew moved leisurely about on her decks. He did not recognize anyone; would he have recognized any of them, in this light, at this distance? He did not know. Then he spotted a small slender figure coming onto the foredeck. The figurehead turned to exchange greetings. He knit his brow. The way the sailor moved seemed familiar. Althea! No, he told himself. It could not be. He had last seen Althea in Candletown. She had declared she would find work on a Bingtown-bound ship. Vivacia had not been in the harbor. She could not be on the ship. It was impossible. Save that he was familiar with the strange ways of winds, tides and ships, and how unlikely paths always seemed to cross in the strangest ways.

He watched the slender figure come to the bow rail and lean on it. He stared, hoping for some gesture, some sign that would let him know it was or was not Althea. He got none. Instead, the longer he watched the more convinced he became that it was she. So did Althea cock her head when she listened to the ship. Thus did she lift her face to the wind. Who else would converse so familiarly with the figurehead? By what chance, he knew not, but the figure on the foredeck was Althea.

Brashen’s emotions churned. What should he do? He was one man alone. He had no way to make his presence known to her or the ship. Anything he tried now would likely just get him killed, and no one in Bingtown would ever know what had become of any of them. His dull fingernails bit right through his callused palms. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to think what, if anything, he could do.

Captain Finney spoke softly from close behind him. “Sure you don’t know her?”

Brashen managed a shrug. His voice was too tight. “I could have seen her before … I don’t know. I was just marveling. A liveship, taken by a pirate. That’s a first.”

“No, it ain’t.” Finney spat over the side. “Legend says that Igrot the Bold took a liveship and used it for years. That’s how he managed to take the Satrap’s treasure ship. Fleet as it was, it couldn’t outrun a liveship. After that, Igrot lived like a gentleman. The best of everything for himself, women, wine, servants, clothes. Lived very elegant, they say. He had an estate in Chalced and a palace in the Jade Islands. It has been said that when Igrot knew he was dying, he hid his treasure and scuttled his liveship. If he couldn’t take the damn thing with him, he was going to be sure no one else got it.”

“I’ve never heard that before.”

“Probably not. It’s not a commonly told tale. They say he kept it painted and made it keep still so no one would know what he had.”

Brashen shrugged stiffly. “Sounds to me like he had a regular ship, but just lied about it to make people think it was a liveship. Maybe,” he added in a more conciliatory tone. He glanced about the deck to be sure they were alone, then shifted the conversation abruptly. “Cap. Remember what we talked about, months ago? About how maybe you’d like to make a little side run into Bingtown if I knew of anyone who could make you a good price on some choice bits?”

Finney gave a short, guarded nod.

“Well, I’ve just been thinking. If you were to buy that portrait from Faldin, well, the place it would sell best is Bingtown. That’s where folk would know what it was and how much it was worth.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the railing. He tried to look like a man well pleased with himself.

“And that’s also where a man could get into the hottest water, selling such a thing,” Finney pointed out suspiciously.

Brashen affected a casualness he did not feel. “Not if you knew the right people and pitched it the right way. Now, if you came to town, and I hooked you up with the right go-between, why, you could make it seem like you were doing a good deed. Just bringing the portrait home, with a sad tale of what you knew. Leave it to the go-between that such a kind-hearted trader captain deserved a hefty reward for such a turn.”

Finney moved a quid of cindin in his lip. “Maybe. But the trip wouldn’t be worth it just to unload one piece.”

“Of course not! I’m just betting that would be the plum piece of the deal. It might bring you a lot more than you’d imagine.”

“Maybe a lot more trouble than I’d imagined, too.” Finney scowled into the sunset. After a time, he asked, “What else do you suppose might go there?”

Brashen shrugged. “Anything Bingtown can’t make for itself or get from further north. Think spices, teas … Jamaillian spirits and wines. Exotic stuff from the southlands, or good Jamaillian antiques. That sort of thing.”

“You know of someone who would be the go-between?”

Brashen tilted his head. “I’ve thought of a likely candidate.” He gave a brief chuckle. “If all else failed, I suppose I could try doing it myself.”

Finney wordlessly held out his hand. Brashen took it and in the clasp the deal was sealed. He felt a deep sense of relief. He had a way to carry word back to Bingtown. Surely Ronica Vestrit would have the wherewithal to rescue both her daughter and her ship from these pirates. He glanced back at the Vivacia and Althea apologetically. This flimsy plan was the best rescue effort he could offer. He prayed Althea and the ship would both be well until then.

He swore suddenly and vehemently.

“What’s the matter?” Finney demanded.

“Nothing. Just got a splinter under my nail. I’ll put the boys to sanding this railing tomorrow.” He turned away from his captain and made a pretense of examining his hand.

In the distance, the slim silhouette urinated off the side of the Vivacia.