Читать книгу The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny - Робин Хобб - Страница 27

‘WE SAIL TOMORROW MORNING.’ Torg didn’t even try to mask the enjoyment he took from imparting these tidings.

Wintrow refused to look up from his work. The man’s words were neither a question nor an order. He was not required to reply.

‘Yep. We sail from here. Last you’ll see of Bingtown for a time. We’ve got seven ports between here and Jamaillia. First three are in Chalced. Going to get rid of those comfer nuts. I could have told him they wouldn’t sell in Bingtown, but then, no one asked me.’ Torg rolled his shoulders and grinned in self-satisfaction. He seemed to think that his captain’s poor decision proved that Torg was a wiser man. Wintrow saw no such connection.

‘Captain’s going to build up a bit of a cash pot, is what I hear, and have all the more to spend on slaves in Jamaillia. We’ll take on a nice haul of them, boy.’ He licked his lips. ‘Now, that’s what I look forward to, especially as he’ll be listening to my advice once we reach Jamaillia. That’s a market I know. Yeah. I know prime slave-flesh when I see it, and I’ll be holding out for the best. Maybe I’ll even get some skinny little girls for you to fancy. What do you think of that, laddie?’

Questions had to be answered, if one didn’t want a boot in the small of one’s back. ‘I think that slavery is immoral and illegal. And that it isn’t appropriate for us to be discussing the captain’s plans.’ He kept his eyes on his work. It was a pile of old line. His task was to untangle it, salvage what was good, and render the rest down into fibres that could either be re-cycled into line or used as chinking as needed. His hands had become as rough as the hemp he handled. When he looked at them, it was hard to recall they had once been the hands of an artist with a fine touch for glass. Across from him on the foredeck, Mild was working on his side of the pile. He envied the young sailor the agility of his calloused hands. When Mild took up a piece of rope and gave it a shake, it seemed to untangle itself magically. No matter how Wintrow tried to coil a piece of line, it still always wanted to twist in the other direction.

‘Oh, ho. Getting a bit snippy, are we?’ Torg’s heavy boot nudged him painfully. He was still bruised from an earlier kick.

‘No, sir,’ Wintrow answered reflexively. It was getting easier, sometimes, simply to be subservient. When his father had first given him over to this brute, he had tried to speak to the man as if he had a mind. He had rapidly learned that any words Torg didn’t understand he interpreted as mockery, and that explanations were only seen as feeble excuses. The less said, the fewer bruises. Even if it meant agreeing with statements he normally disagreed with. He tried not to see it as an eroding of his dignity and ethics. Survival, he told himself. It was simple survival until he could get away.

He dared to venture a question. ‘What ports shall we be stopping in?’

If there were any on the peninsula of Marrow, he’d be off the ship, somehow. He didn’t care how far he had to walk, or if he had to beg his way across the entire peninsula, he’d get back to his monastery. When he told his tale there, they’d listen to him. They’d change his name and place him elsewhere, where his father could never find him again.

‘Nowhere near Marrow,’ Torg told him with vicious delight. ‘If you want to get back to your priesting, boy, you’re going to have to swim.’ The second mate laughed aloud, and Wintrow saw how he had been set-up to ask that question. It disturbed him that even Torg’s slow wit could know so clearly where his heart was. Did he dream on it too much, did it show in his every action? He had begun to think it was the only way for him to stay sane. He constantly planned ways to slip away from the ship. Every time they latched him into the chain locker for the night, he would wait until the footsteps had died away and then try the door. He wished he had not been so impatient when he first was dragged aboard the ship. His clumsy attempts to leave had alerted both captain and crew to his intent, and Kyle had made it well known that any man who let him leave the ship would pay heavily for it. He was never left alone, and those who worked alongside him resented that they could not trust him, but must guard him as well as work.

Now Torg made a great show of stretching his muscles. He lifted a booted foot to tap Wintrow’s spine again. ‘Got to go, boys. Work to do. Mild, you’re the nanny. See pretty boy here keeps busy.’ With a final painful nudge, Torg lumbered away down the deck. Neither boy looked up to watch him go. But when he was out of earshot, Mild observed calmly, ‘Someone will kill him some day and tip him over the side and no one will be the wiser.’ The young sailor’s hands never paused in their work as he imparted this information to Wintrow. ‘Maybe it will be me,’ he added pleasantly.

The youth’s calm avocation of murder chilled Wintrow. Much as he disliked Torg, as difficult as it was for him not to hate the man, he had never considered killing him. That Mild had was disconcerting. ‘Don’t let someone like Torg distort your life and focus,’ he suggested quietly. ‘Even to think of killing for the sake of vengeance bends the spirit. We cannot know why Sa permits such men as Torg to have power over others, but we can deny him the power to distort our spirits. Yield him obedience where we must, but do not…’

‘I didn’t ask for a sermon,’ Mild protested irritably. He flung down the piece of line he’d been working on in disgust. ‘Who do you think you are? Why should you be telling me how to think or live? Don’t you ever just talk? Try it sometime. Just say out loud, “I’d really love to kill that dog-pronging bastard.” You’d be surprised what a relief it is.’ He turned his face away from Wintrow and spoke aloud in an apparent aside to a mast. ‘Dung. You try to talk to him like he’s a person and he acts like you’re on your knees begging his advice.’

Wintrow felt a moment of outrage, followed by a rush of embarrassment. ‘I didn’t mean it like that…’ He started to say he didn’t think he was any better than Mild, but the lie died on his lips. He forced himself to speak truth. ‘No. I never talk without thinking first. I’ve been schooled to avoid careless words. And in the monastery, if we see or hear someone putting himself on a destructive path, then we speak out to each other. But to help each other, not to…’

‘Well, you’re not in a monastery any more. You’re here. When are you going to get that through your thick head and start acting like a sailor? You know, it’s painful to watch how you let them all push you around. Get some gumption and stand up to them instead of preaching Sa all the time. Take a swing at Torg. Sure, you’ll get a beating for it. But Torg is a bigger coward than you are. If he thinks there’s even a chance you’re going to lay for him with a marlin spike, he’ll back off you. Don’t you see that?’

Wintrow tried for dignity. ‘If he makes me behave like he does, then he’s truly won. Don’t you see that?’

‘No. All I see is that you’re so afraid of a beating you won’t even admit you’re afraid of it. It’s just like your shirt the other day, when Torg put it up the mast to taunt you. You should have known you’d have to go get it yourself, so you should have just done it, instead of waiting until you were forced to do it. That made you lose to him twice, don’t you see?’

‘I don’t see how I lost at all. It was a cruel joke, not worthy of men,’ Wintrow replied quietly.

Mild lost his temper for an instant. ‘There. That’s what you do that I hate. You know what I mean, but you try to talk about it a whole different way. It isn’t about what is “worthy of men”. Here and now, it’s about you and Torg. The only way you could have won that round was pretending that you didn’t give a damn, that climbing the mast to get your shirt back wasn’t anything. Instead, you got sunburned sitting around acting too holy to go get your shirt…’ Mild sputtered off into silence, obviously frustrated by Wintrow’s lack of response. He took a breath, tried again. ‘Don’t you get it at all? The worst was him forcing you to climb the mast ahead of him. That was when you really lost. The whole crew thinks you’ve got no spine now. That you’re a coward.’ Mild shook his head in disgust. ‘It’s bad enough you look like a little kid. Do you have to act like one all the time?’

The sailor rose in disgust and stalked away. Wintrow sat staring down at the heap of rope. The other boy’s words had rattled him more than he liked to admit. He had pointed out, too clearly, that Wintrow now lived and moved in a different world. He and Mild were probably of an age, but Mild had taken up this trade, of his own inclination, three years ago. He was a sailor to the bone now, and no longer the ship’s boy since Wintrow had come aboard. No longer a boy at all in appearance. He was hard-muscled and agile. He was a full head taller than Wintrow as well, and the hair on his cheeks was starting to darken into proper whiskers. Wintrow knew that his slight build and boyish appearance were not a fault, were not something he could change even if he saw them as a fault. But somehow it had been easier in the monastery, where one and all agreed that each would grow in his own time and way. Sa’Greb would never be taller than a lad, and his short stocky limbs would have made him the butt of all jokes had he remained in his home village. But in the monastery he was respected for the verses he wrote. No one thought of him as ‘too short’, he was simply Sa’Greb. And the kind of cruel pranks that were the ordinary day-to-day of this ship would never have been expected nor tolerated there. The younger boys teased and shoved one another when they first arrived, but those with a penchant for bullying or cruelty were swiftly returned to their parents. Those attributes had no place among the servants of Sa.

He suddenly missed the monastery with a sharp ache. He forced the pain away before it could bring tears smarting to his eyes. No tears aboard this ship; no sense in letting anyone see what they could only view as a weakness. In his own way, Mild was right. He was trapped aboard Vivacia, either until he could make his escape or until his fifteenth birthday. What would Berandol have counselled him? Why, to make the best of his time here. If sailor he must be, then he were wiser to learn it swiftly. And if he were forced to be a part of this crew for… however long it would be… then he must begin to form alliances at least.

It would help, he reflected, if he had had the vaguest idea of how one made friends with someone one’s own age, but with whom one had next to nothing in common. He took up a worn piece of line and began to pick it apart as he pondered this very thing. From behind him, Vivacia spoke quietly. ‘I thought your words had merit.’

Wonderful. A soulless wooden ship, animated by a force that might or might not be of Sa, found his words inspiring. Almost as soon as he had the unworthy thought, Wintrow suppressed it. But not before he sensed a vibration of pain from the ship. Had not he just been telling himself he needed allies? And here he was viciously turning on the only true ally he had. ‘I am sorry,’ he said quietly, knowing he scarcely needed to speak the words aloud. ‘It is the nature of humans that we tend to pass our pain along. As if we could get rid of it by inflicting an equal hurt on someone else.’

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

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

‘If ever,’ Vivacia said with small hope. ‘There is Vestrit’s Old Crew, and Kyle’s Men and the New Hands. So they seem to think of themselves, and so they behave. I feel… divided against myself. It is hard to trust, hard to relax and give control to… the captain.’ She hesitated on the title, as if she herself did not yet fully recognize Kyle in that position.

Wintrow nodded again, silently. He had felt the tensions himself. Some of the men Kyle had let go had been acrimonious, and at least two others had quit in protest. The latest disturbance had been when Kyle had demanded that one older man who was quitting return to him the gold earring that Captain Vestrit had given him for his long service aboard the Vivacia. The earring was shaped like Vivacia’s figurehead and marked him as a valued member of her crew. The old man had thrown it over the side rather than surrender it to Kyle. Then he had stalked off down the dock, his sea-bag over his bony shoulder. Wintrow had sensed that the old man had little to go to; it would be hard to prove himself on board a new ship, competing with younger, more agile hands.

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

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

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

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

‘What did you do with it?’

She looked uncomfortable for a moment. ‘I did not know what to do with it. But he told me to swallow it. He said that many of the liveships do that. Not commonly, but with tokens that are of great significance. The ships swallow them and thus carry the memory of the man who gave it for as many years as they live.’ She smiled at Wintrow’s astonished look. ‘So I did. It was not hard, although it felt strange. And I am… aware of it, in an odd way. But you know, it felt like the right thing to do.’

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

The evening wind was welcome after the heat of the day. Even the ordinary ships seemed to speak softly to one another as they creaked gently beside the docks. The skies were clear, promising a fine day tomorrow. Althea stood silently in Vivacia’s shadow and waited. She wondered if she were out of her mind, to fix her heart on an impossible goal and then depend on a man’s angry words as a path to it. But what else did she have? Only Kyle’s impulsive oath, and her nephew’s sense of fair-play. Only an idiot would believe those things might be enough. Her mother had tried to seek her out through Vivacia; perhaps that might mean she had an ally at home. Perhaps, but she would not count on it.

She set a hand silently to Vivacia’s silvery hull. ‘Please, Sa,’ she prayed, but had no words to follow those. She had seldom prayed. It was not in her nature to depend on anyone else to give her what she wanted. She wondered if the great Mother of All would even hear the words of one who usually ignored her. Then she felt the warm response from Vivacia through the palm of her hand, and wondered if she had truly prayed to Sa at all. Maybe, like most sailors she knew, she believed more in her ship than in any divine providence.

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

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

She hated sneaking about like this, she hated having brief, clandestine meetings with her ship. But it was her only hope of success. She was sure that if Kyle had any notion of her plans, he’d do anything in his power to thwart her. Yet here she was, about to divulge those plans to Wintrow, and all on the basis of a single look exchanged with him. For a brief moment, she had seen her father’s sense of honour in the boy’s eyes. Now she was going to stake everything on her belief in him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘My Aunt Althea?’ the boy asked in surprise. Althea saw his head appear over the railing above her. She stepped silently from the shadows to look up at him. She could see nothing of his face; he was merely a darker silhouette against the evening sky. ‘Everyone says you just disappeared,’ he observed to her quietly.

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

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

She almost laughed at his tone. ‘No. I’m not going to kill your father or anything so rash as that.’ She hesitated, trying to measure what little she knew of the boy. Vivacia had assured her that he was trustworthy. She hoped the young ship was right. ‘I am going to try to out-manoeuvre him, though. But it won’t work if he knows of my plans. So I’m going to ask you to keep my secret.’

‘Why are you telling anyone at all what you plan? A secret is kept best by one,’ he pointed out to her.

That, of course, was the crux of it. She took a breath. ‘Because you are crucial to my plans. Without your promise to aid me, there is no sense in my even acting at all.’

The boy was silent for a time. ‘What you saw, that day, when he hit me. It might make you think I hate him, or wish his downfall. But I don’t.’

‘I’m not going to ask you to do anything wrong, Wintrow,’ Althea replied quickly. ‘Truly. But before I can say any more, I have to ask you to promise to keep my secret.’

It seemed to her that the boy took a very long time considering this. Were all priests so cautious about everything? ‘I will keep your secret,’ he finally said. And she liked that about him. No vows or oaths, just the simple offering of his word. Through the palm of her hand, she felt Vivacia respond with pleasure to her approval of him. Strange, that that should matter to the ship.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. She took her courage in both hands, and hoped he would not think she was a fool. ‘Do you remember that day clearly? The day he knocked you down in the dining room?’

‘Most of it,’ the boy said softly. ‘The parts when I was conscious, anyway.’

‘Do you remember what your father said? He swore by Sa, and said that if but one reputable captain would vouch for my seamanship, he’d give my ship back to me. Do you remember that?’ She held her breath.

‘I do,’ Wintrow said quietly.

She put both hands to the ship’s hull. ‘And would you swear by Sa that you heard him say those words?’

‘No.’

Althea’s dreams crashed down through their straw foundations. She should have known it. How could she ever have thought the boy would stand up to his father in as great a matter as this? How could she have been so stupid?

‘I would vouch that I heard him say it,’ Wintrow went on quietly. ‘But I would not swear. A priest of Sa does not swear by Sa.’

Althea’s heart soared. It would be enough, it would have to be enough. ‘You’d give your word, as a man, as to what he said,’ she pressed.

‘Of course. It’s only the truth. But,’ he shook his head down at her, ‘I don’t think it would do you any good. If my father will not keep his word to Sa to give me up to the priesthood, why should he keep his word on an angrily-sworn oath? After all, this ship is worth much more to him than I am. I am sorry to say this to you, Althea, but I think your hopes of regaining your ship that way are groundless.’

‘You let me worry about that,’ she said in a shaky voice. Relief was flowing through her. She had one witness, and she felt she could rely on him. She would say nothing to the boy of the Traders’ Council and the power it held. She had entrusted him with enough of her secret. She would burden him with no more of it. ‘As long as I know you will vouch for the truth, that your father spoke those words, I have hope.’

He received these words in silence. For a time Althea just stood there, her hands on her silent ship. She could almost feel the boy through the ship. His desolation and loneliness.

‘We sail tomorrow,’ he said finally. There was no joy in his voice.

‘I envy you,’ Althea told him.

‘I know you do. I wish we could change places.’

‘I wish it were that simple.’ Althea tried to set aside her jealousy. ‘Wintrow. Trust the ship. She’ll take care of you, and you take good care of her. I’m counting on both of you to watch out for each other.’ She heard in her own voice the ‘doting relative’ tone that she had always hated when she was young. She pushed it away, and spoke as if he were any young boy setting out on his maiden voyage. ‘I believe you’ll grow to love this life and this ship. It’s in your blood, you know. And if you do,’ these words came harder, ‘if you do, and you are true to our ship, when I take her over, I’ll make sure there’s always a place for you aboard her. That is my promise to you.’

‘Somehow I doubt I’ll ever ask you to keep it. It’s not that I don’t like the ship, it’s just that I can’t imagine—’

‘Who are you talking to, boy?’ Torg demanded. His heavy feet thudded across the deck as Althea melted back into the ship’s shadow. She held her breath. Wintrow wouldn’t lie to Torg. She already knew that about him. And she couldn’t stand by and let the boy take a beating for her, but she also couldn’t risk Torg holding her for Kyle.

‘I believe this is my hour with Wintrow,’ Vivacia cut in sharply. ‘Who do you imagine he would be speaking to?’

‘Is there someone on the docks down there?’ Torg demanded. His bushy head was thrust out over the railing, but both the curve of Vivacia’s hull and the deep shadow protected Althea. She held her breath.

‘Why don’t you haul your fat arse down there and see?’ Vivacia asked nastily. Althea clearly heard Wintrow’s gasp of astonishment. It was all she could do to keep from laughing. She sounded just like their cocky ship’s boy, Mild, in one of his bolder moods.

‘Yea? Well, maybe I’ll just do that.’

‘Don’t trip in the dark,’ Vivacia warned him sweetly. ‘It would be a shame if you went overboard and drowned right here by the dock.’ The liveship’s peaceful rocking suddenly increased by the tiniest of increments. And in that moment her adolescent taunting of the man took on a darker edge that stood the hair up on the back of Althea’s neck.

‘You devil ship!’ Torg hissed at her. ‘You don’t scare me. I’m seeing who’s down there.’ Althea heard the thudding of his feet on the deck, but she couldn’t decide if he hurried toward the gangplank or away from the figurehead.

‘Go now!’ Vivacia hissed to her.

‘I’m going. Good luck. My heart sails with you.’ Althea no more than breathed the words, but she knew the ship did not need to hear her speak so long as she touched her. She slipped away from Vivacia, staying to the deepest shadows as she fled. ‘Sa keep them both safe, especially from themselves,’ she said under her breath, and this time she knew that she uttered a true prayer.

Ronica Vestrit waited alone in the kitchen. Outside the night was full, the summer insects chirring, the stars glinting through the trees. Soon the gong at the edge of the field would sound. The thought filled her stomach with butterflies. No. Moths. Moths were more fitting to the night and the rendezvous she awaited.

She had given the servants the night off, and finally told Rache pointedly that she wished to be alone. The slave woman had been so grateful to her lately that it was difficult to be rid of her sad-eyed company. Keffria had her teaching Malta to dance now, and how to hold a fan and even how to discourse with men. Ronica found it appalling that she would entrust her daughter’s instruction in such things to a relative stranger, but understood also that lately Keffria and Malta had not been on the best of terms. She was not informed as to the full extent of their quarrelling, and fervently hoped she would not be. She had problems enough of her own, real and serious problems, without listening to her daughter’s squabbles with her grand-daughter. At least Malta was keeping Rache busy and out from under foot. Most of the time. Twice now Davad had hinted he’d like the slave to be returned to him. Each time Keffria had thanked him so profusely for all Rache’s help, all the while exclaiming that she didn’t know how she’d get along without her, that there had been no gracious way for Davad to simply ask for her back. Ronica wondered how long that tactic would suffice, and what she would do when it did not. Buy the girl? Become a slave-owner herself? The thought made her squeamish. But it was also endlessly aggravating that the poor woman had so attached herself to her. At any time when she was not busy with something else, Rache would be lurking outside whatever chamber Ronica was in, looking for an opportunity to leap forth and be of some service to her. She devoutly wished the woman would find some sort of life for herself. One to replace the one that her slavery had stolen from her? she asked herself wryly.

In the distance, a gong rang, soft as a chime.

She arose nervously and paced around the kitchen, only to come back to the table. She had set it and arranged it herself. There were two tall white candles of finest beeswax to honour her guest. The best china and her finest silver decked the table upon a cloth of heavy cream lacework. Trays of dainty tarts vied with platters of subtly smoked oysters and fresh herbs in bitter sauce. A fine old bottle of wine awaited as well. The grandness of the food was to indicate how she respected her guest, while secrecy and the kitchen setting reminded them both of the old agreements to both protect and defend one another. Nervously Ronica pushed the silver spoons into a minutely improved alignment. Silliness. This was not the first time that she had received a delegate from the Rain Wild Traders. Twice a year since she had been married to Ephron they had come. It was only the first time she had received one since his death. And the first time she had not been able to amass the full payment due.

The small but weighty casket of gold was two measures light. Two measures. Ronica intended to admit it, to bring it up herself before embarrassing questions could be asked. To admit it, and offer an increase in interest on the next payment. What else, after all, could she do? Or the delegate? A partial payment was better than none, and the River Wild folk needed her gold far more than anything else she could offer them. Or so she hoped.

Despite her anticipation, she still startled when the light tap came on the door. ‘Welcome!’ she called without moving to open the door. Quickly she blew out the branch of candles that had illuminated the room. She saved but one, to light the two tall beeswax tapers before she extinguished it. Ornamental hoods of beaten brass with decorative shapes cut out of them were then carefully lowered over the tapers. Now the room was lit only by a scattering of leaf-shaped bits of light. Ronica nodded approval to herself at the effect, and then stepped quickly to open the door herself.

‘I bid you welcome to my home. Enter, and be at home also.’ The words were the old formality, but Ronica’s voice was warm with genuine feeling.

‘Thank you,’ the Rain Wild woman replied. She came in, glanced about to nod her approval at the privacy and the lowered lights. She ungloved her hands, passing the soft leather garments to Ronica and then pushed back the cowl that had sheltered her face and hair. Ronica held herself steady, and met the woman’s eyes with her own. She did not permit her expression to change at all.

‘I have prepared refreshment for you, after your long journey. Will you be seated at my table?’

‘Most gratefully,’ her companion replied.

The two women curtseyed to one another. ‘I, Ronica Vestrit, of the Vestrit family of the Bingtown Traders, make you welcome to my table and my home. I recall all our most ancient pledges to one another, Bingtown to Rain Wilds, and also our private agreement regarding the liveship Vivacia, the product of both our families.’

‘I, Caolwn Festrew, of the Festrew family of the Rain Wild Traders, accept your hospitality of home and table. I recall all our most ancient pledges to one another, Rain Wilds to Bingtown, and also our private agreement regarding the liveship Vivacia, the product of both our families.’

Both women straightened and Caolwn gave a mock sigh of relief that the formalities were over. Ronica was privately relieved that the ceremony was a tradition. Without it, she would never have recognized Caolwn. ‘It’s a lovely table you’ve set, Ronica. But then, in all the years we have met, it has never been anything else.’

‘Thank you, Caolwn.’ Ronica hesitated, but not to have asked would have been the false reticence of pity. ‘I had expected Nelyn this year.’

‘My daughter is no more.’ Caolwn spoke the words quietly.

‘I am sorry to hear that.’ Ronica’s sympathy was genuine.

‘The Rain Wilds are hard on women. Not that they are easy on men.’

‘To outlive your daughter… that must be bitter.’

‘It is. And yet Nelyn gifted us with three children before she went. She will be long remembered for that, and long honoured.’

Ronica nodded slowly. Nelyn had been an only child. Most Rain Wild women considered themselves lucky if they bore one child that lived. For Nelyn to have borne three would indeed make her memory shine. ‘I had taken out the wine for Nelyn,’ Ronica said quietly. ‘You, as I recall, prefer tea. Let me put the kettle on to boil and set aside the wine for you to take back with you.’

‘That is too kind of you.’

‘No. Not at all. When it is drunk, please have all who share it remember Nelyn and how she enjoyed wine.’

Caolwn suddenly lowered her face. The sagging growths on her face bobbed as she did so, but it did not distract Ronica from the tears that shone suddenly in the other woman’s violet eyes. Caolwn shook her head and then heaved a heavy sigh. ‘For so many, Ronica, the formalities are only that. The welcome is forced, the hospitality uncomfortable. But ever since you became a Vestrit and took on the duties of the visit, you have made us feel truly welcome. How can I thank you for that?’

Another woman might have been tempted to tell Caolwn then that the measure of the gold was short. Another woman might not have believed in the sacredness of the old promises and pacts. Ronica did. ‘No thanks are needed. I give you no more than is due you,’ she said, and added, because the words sounded cold, ‘but ceremony or no, pact or no, I believe we would have been friends, we two.’

‘As do I.’

‘So. Let me put on the kettle for tea, then.’ Ronica rose and instantly felt more comfortable in the homely task. As she poured the water into the kettle and blew on the embers in the hearth, she added, ‘Do not wait for me. Tell me, what do you think of the smoked oysters? I got them from Slek, as we always have done, but he has turned the smoking over to his son this year. He was quite critical of the boy, but I believe I like them better.’

Caolwn tasted and agreed with Ronica. Ronica made the tea and brought the kettle to the table and set out two teacups. They sat together and ate and drank and spoke in generalities. Of simple things like their gardens and the weather, of things hard and personal like Ephron’s and Nelyn’s death, and of things that boded ill for them all, such as the current Satrap’s debaucheries and the burgeoning slave-trade that might or might not be related to his head tax on the sale of slaves. There was long and fond reminiscence of their families, and deep discussion of Vivacia and her quickening, as if the ship were a shared grandchild. There was quiet discussion, too, of the influx of new folk to Bingtown, and the lands they were claiming and their efforts to gain seats on the Bingtown Council. This last threatened not only the Bingtown Traders, but the old compact between Bingtown and the Rain Wild Traders that kept them both safe.

The compact was a thing seldom spoken of. It was not discussed, in the same way that neither breathing nor death are topics for conversation. Such things are ever-present and inevitable. In a similar way, Caolwn did not speak to Ronica of the way grief had lined her face and silvered her hair, nor how the years had drawn down the flesh from her high cheekbones and tissued the soft flesh of her throat. Ronica forbore to stare at the scaly growths that threatened Caolwn’s eyesight, nor at the lumpy flesh that was visible even in the parting of her thick bronze hair. The kindness of the dimmed candles could soften but not obscure these scars. Like the pact, these were the visible wounds they bore simply by virtue of who they were.

They shared the steaming cups of tea and the savoury foods. The heavy silver implements ticked against the fine china whilst outside the summer’s night breeze stirred Ronica’s wind chimes to a silvery counterpoint to their conversation. For the space of the meal, they were neighbours sharing a genteel evening of fine food and intelligent conversation. For this, too, was a part of the pact. Despite the miles and differences that separated the two groups of settlers, both Bingtown Traders and Rain Wild Traders would remember that they had come to the Cursed Shore together, partners and friends and kin. And so they would remain.

So it was not until the food was finished and the women were sharing the last cup of cooled tea in the pot, not until the social conversation had died to a natural silence that the time came to discuss the final purpose of Caolwn’s visit. Caolwn took a deep breath and began the formality of the discussion. Long ago the Bingtown Traders had discovered that this was one way to separate business from pleasure. The change in language did not negate the friendship the women shared, but it recognized that in manners of business, different rules applied and must be observed by all. It was a safeguard for a small society in which friends and relatives were also one’s business contacts. ‘The liveship Vivacia has quickened. Is she all that was promised?’

Despite her recent grief, Ronica felt a genuine smile rise onto her face. ‘She is all that was promised, and freely do we acknowledge that.’

‘Then we are pleased to accept that which was promised for her.’

‘As we are pleased to tender it.’ Ronica took a breath and abruptly wished she had brought up the short measure earlier. But it would not have been correct nor fair to make that a part of their friendship. Hard as it was for her to speak it, this was the correct time. She groped for words for this unusual situation. ‘We acknowledge also that we owe you more at this time than we have been able to gather.’ Ronica forced herself to sit straight and meet the surprise in Caolwn’s lavender eyes. ‘We are a full two measures short. We would ask that this additional amount be carried until our next meeting, at which time I assure you we shall pay all that we owe then, and the two additional measures, plus one-quarter measure of additional interest.’

A long silence followed as Caolwn pondered. They both knew the full weight of Bingtown law gave her much leeway in what she could demand as interest for Ronica’s failed payment. Ronica was prepared to hear her demand as much as a full additional two measures. She hoped they would settle between a half and one measure. Even to come up with that much was going to tax her ingenuity to its limits. But when Caolwn did speak, the soft words chilled Ronica’s blood. ‘Blood or gold, the debt is owed,’ Caolwn invoked.

Ronica’s heart skipped in her chest. Who could she mean? None of the answers that came to her pleased her. She tried to keep the quaver out of her voice, she sternly reminded herself that a bargain was a bargain, but one could always try to better the terms. She took the least likely stance. ‘I am but newly widowed,’ she pointed out. ‘And even if I had had the time to complete my mourning, I am scarcely suitable to the pledge. I am too old to bear healthy children to anyone, Caolwn. It has been years since I even hoped I would bear another son to Ephron.’

‘You have daughters,’ Caolwn pointed out carefully.

‘One wed, one missing,’ Ronica quickly agreed. ‘How can I promise you that which I do not have the possession of?’

‘Althea is missing?’

Ronica nodded, feeling again that stab of pain. Not knowing. The greatest dread that any sea-going family had for its members. That some day one would simply disappear, and those at home would never know what became of them…

‘I must ask this,’ Caolwn almost apologized. ‘It is required of me, in duty to my family. Althea would not… hide herself, or flee, to avoid the terms of our bargain?’

‘You have to ask that, and so I take no offence.’ Nonetheless, Ronica was hard put to keep the chill from her voice. ‘Althea is Bingtown to the bone. She would die rather than betray her family’s word on this. Wherever she is, if she still lives, she is bound, and knows she is bound. If you choose to call in our debt, and she knows of it, she will come to answer for it.’

‘I thought as much,’ Caolwn acknowledged warmly. But she still went on implacably, ‘But you have a grand-daughter and grandsons as well, and they are as firmly bound as she. I have two grandsons and a grand-daughter. All approach marriageable age.’

Ronica shook her head, managed a snort of forced laughter. ‘My grandchildren are children still, not ready for marriage for years yet. The only one who is close to that age has sailed off with his father. And he is pledged to Sa’s priesthood,’ she added. ‘It is as I have told you. I cannot pledge you that which I do not possess.’

‘A moment ago, you were willing to pledge gold you did not yet possess,’ Caolwn countered. ‘Gold or blood, it is all a matter of time for the debt to be paid, Ronica. And if we are willing to wait and let you set the time to pay it, perhaps you should be more willing to let us determine the coin of payment.’

Ronica picked up her teacup and found it empty. She stood hastily. ‘Shall I put on the kettle for more tea?’ she inquired politely.

‘Only if it will boil swiftly,’ Caolwn replied. ‘Night will not linger for us to barter, Ronica. The bargain must be set soon. I am reluctant to be found walking about Bingtown by day. There are far too many ignorant folk, unmindful of the ancient bargains that bind us all.’

‘Of course.’ Ronica sat down hastily. She was rattled. She abruptly and vindictively wished that Keffria were here. By all rights, Keffria should be here; the family fortunes were hers to control now, not Ronica’s. Let her face something like this and see how well she would deal with it. A new chill went up Ronica’s spine; she feared she knew how Keffria would deal with it. She’d turn it over to Kyle, who had no inkling of all that was at stake here. He had no concept of what the old covenants were; she doubted that even if he were told, he’d adhere to them. No. He’d see this as a cold business deal. He’d be like those ones who had come to despise the Rain Wild folk, who dealt with them only for the profit involved, with no idea of all Bingtown owed to them. Keffria would surrender the fate of her whole family to Kyle, and he would treat it as if he were buying merchandise.

In the moment of realizing that, Ronica crossed a line. It was not easily done, for it involved sacrificing her honour. But what was honour compared to protecting one’s family and one’s word? If deceptions must be made and lies must be told, then so be it. She could not recall that she had ever in her life decided so coldly to do what she had always perceived as wrong. But then again, she could not recall that she had ever faced so desperate a set of choices before. For one black moment, her soul wailed out to Ephron, to the man who had always stood behind her and supported her in her decisions, and by his trust in her decisions given her faith in herself. She sorely missed that backing just now.

She lifted her eyes and met Caolwn’s hooded gaze. ‘Will you give me some leeway?’ she asked simply. She hesitated a moment, then set the stakes high in order to tempt the other woman. ‘The next payment is due in mid-winter, correct?’

Caolwn nodded.

‘I will owe you twelve measures of gold, for the regular payment.’

Again the woman nodded. This was one of Ephron’s tricks in striking a bargain. Get them agreeing with you, set up a pattern of agreement, and sometimes the competitor could be led into agreeing to a term before he had given it thought.

‘And I will also owe you the two measures of gold I am short this time, plus an additional two measures of gold to make up for the lateness of the payment.’ Ronica tried to keep her voice steady and casual as she named the princely sum. She smiled at Caolwn.

Caolwn smiled in return. ‘And if you do not have it, we shall adhere to our family’s original pledge. In blood or gold, the debt is owed. You shall forfeit a daughter or a grandchild to my family.’

There was no negotiating that. It had been pledged years ago, by Ephron’s grandmother. No Trader family would dream of going back on the given pledge of an ancestor. The nod she gave was a very stiff one, and the words she spoke she said carefully, binding the other woman with them. ‘But if I have for you a full sixteen measures of gold, then you will accept it as payment.’

Caolwn held out a bare hand in token of agreement. The lumps and wattles of flesh that depended from the fingers and knobbed the back of it were rubbery in Ronica’s grip as their handshake sealed them both to this new term. Caolwn stood.

‘Once more, Ronica of the Trader family Vestrit, I thank you for your trade. And for your hospitality.’

‘And once more, Caolwn of the Rain Wild family Festrew, I am pleased to have welcomed you and dealt with you. Family to family, blood to blood. Until we meet again, fare well.’

‘Family to family, blood to blood. May you fare well also.’

The formality of the words closed both their negotiations and the visit. Caolwn donned once more the summer cloak she had set aside. She pulled the hood up and well forward until all that remained of her features were the pale lavender lights of her eyes. A veil of lace was drawn down to cover them as well. As she drew on her loose gloves over her misshapen hands, she broke tradition. She looked down as she spoke. ‘It would not be so ill a fate as many think it, Ronica. Any Vestrit who joined our household I would treasure, as I have treasured our friendship. I was born in Bingtown, you know. And if I am no longer a woman that a man of your people could look upon without shuddering, know that I have not been unhappy. I have had a husband who treasured me, and borne a child, and seen her bear three healthy grandchildren to me. This flesh, the deformities… other women who stay in Bingtown perhaps pay a higher price for smooth skin and eyes and hair of normal hues. If all does not go as you pray it will, if next winter I take from you one of your blood… know that he or she will be cherished and loved. As much because that one comes of honourable stock and is a true Vestrit as because of the fresh blood he or she would bring to our folk.’

‘Thank you, Caolwn.’ The words almost choked Ronica. Sincere as the woman’s words might be, could she ever guess how they turned her bowels to ice inside her? Perhaps she did, for the lambent stare from within the hood blinked twice before Caolwn turned to the door. She took up the heavy wooden box of gold that awaited her by the threshold. Ronica unlatched the door for her. She knew better than to offer lantern or candle. The Rain Wild folk had no need of light on a summer’s night.

Ronica stood in her open doorway and watched Caolwn walk off into the darkness. A Rain Wild man shambled out from the shadows to join her. He took the wooden casket of gold and tucked it effortlessly under his arm. They both lifted a hand in farewell to her. She waved in return. She knew that on the beach there would be a small boat awaiting them, and farther out in the harbour a ship that bore but a single light. She wished them well, and hoped they would have a good journey. And she prayed fervently to Sa that she would never stand thus and watch one of her own walk off into darkness with them.

In the darkness, Keffria tried once again. ‘Kyle?’

‘Um?’ His voice was warm and deep, sweet with satiation.

She fitted her body closely to his. Her flesh was warm where they touched, chilled to delicious goosebumps where the summer breeze from the open window flowed over them. He smelled good, of sex and maleness, and the solid reality of his muscle and strength were a bulwark against all night fears. Why, she demanded silently of Sa, why couldn’t it all be this simple and good? He had come home this evening to say farewell to her, they had dined well and enjoyed wine together and then come together in both passion and love here. Tomorrow he would sail and be gone for however long it took him to make a trade circuit. Why did she have to spoil it with yet another discussion of Malta? Because, she told herself firmly, it had to be settled. She had to make him agree with her before he left. She would not go behind his back while he was gone. To do so would chip away the trust that had always bonded them.

So she took a deep breath and spoke the words they were both tired of hearing. ‘About Malta…’ she began.

He groaned. ‘No. Please, Keffria, no. In but a few hours I will have to rise and go. Let us have these last few hours together in peace.’

‘We haven’t that luxury. Malta knows we are at odds about this. She will use that as a lever on me the whole time you are gone. Whatever she wants that I forbid, she will reply, “But Papa said I am a woman now…” It will be torture for me.’

With a long-suffering sigh, he rolled away from her. The bed was suddenly a cooler place than it had been, uncomfortably cool. ‘So. I should take back my promise to her simply so you won’t be squabbling with her? Keffria. What will she think of me? Is this really so great a difficulty as you are making it out to be? Let her go to the one gathering in a pretty dress. That’s all it is.’

‘No.’ It took all her courage to contradict him directly. But he didn’t know what he was talking about, she told herself frantically. He didn’t understand, and she’d left it too late to explain it all to him tonight. She had to make him give in to her, just this once. ‘It’s far more than dancing with a man in a pretty dress. She’s having dance lessons from Rache. I want to tell her that she must be content with that for now, that she must spend at least a year preparing to be seen as a woman in Bingtown society before she can go out as one. And I want to tell her that you and I are united in this. That you thought it over and changed your mind about letting her go.’

‘But I didn’t,’ Kyle pointed out stubbornly. He was on his back now, staring up at the ceiling. He had lifted his hands and laced the fingers behind his head. Were he standing up, she thought, he’d have his arms crossed on his chest. ‘I think you are making much of a small thing. And… I don’t say this to hurt you, but because I see it more and more in you… I think you simply do not wish to give up any control of Malta, that you wish to keep her a little girl at your side. I sense it almost as a jealousy in you, dear. That she vies for my attention, as well as the attentions of young men. I’ve seen it before; no mother wishes to be eclipsed by her daughter. A grown daughter must always be a reminder to a woman that she is not young anymore. But I think it is unworthy of you, Keffria. Let your daughter grow up and be both an ornament and a credit to you. You cannot keep her in short skirts and plaited hair for ever.’

Perhaps he took her furious and affronted silence for something else, for he turned slightly toward her as he said, ‘We should be grateful she is so unlike Wintrow. Look at him. He not only looks and sounds like a boy, but longs to continue being one. Just the other day, aboard the ship, I came upon him working shirtless in the sun. His back was red as a lobster and he was sulking as furiously as a five year old. Some of the men, as a bit of a jest, had taken his shirts and pegged them up at the top of the rigging. And he feared to go up to get them back. I called him to my chamber and tried to explain to him, privately, that if he did not go up after them, the rest of the crew would think him a coward. He claimed it was not fear that kept him from going after his shirt but dignity. Standing there like a righteous little prig of a preacher! And he tried to make some moral point of it, that it was neither courage nor cowardice, but that he would not risk himself for their amusement. I told him there was very little risk to it, did he but heed what he’d been taught, and again he came back at me with some cant about no man should put another man even to a small risk simply for his own amusement. Finally, I lost patience with him and called Torg and told him to see the boy up the mast and back to get his shirt. I fear he lost a great deal of the crew’s respect over that…’

‘Why do you allow your crew to play boy’s pranks when they ought to be about their work?’ Keffria demanded. Her heart bled for Wintrow even as she fervently wished her son had simply gone after his own shirt. If he’d but risen to their challenge, they would have seen him as one of their own. Now they would see him as an outsider to torment. She knew it instinctively, and wondered that he had not.

‘You’ve fair ruined the lad by sending him off to the priests.’ Kyle sounded almost satisfied as he said this, and she suddenly realized how completely he had changed the topic.

‘We were discussing, not Wintrow, but Malta.’ A new tack suddenly occurred to her. ‘As you have insisted that only you know the correct way to raise our son in the ways of men, perhaps you should concede that only a woman can know the best way to guide Malta into womanhood.’

Even in the darkness, she could see the surprise that crossed his face at the tartness of her tone. It was, she suddenly knew, the wrong way to approach him if she wanted to win him to her side. But the words had been said and she was suddenly too angry to take them back. Too angry to try to cajole and coax him to her way of thinking.

‘If you were a different type of woman, I might concede the right of that,’ he said coldly. ‘But I recall you as you were when you were a girl. And your own mother kept you tethered to her skirts much as you seek to restrain Malta. Consider how long it took me to awaken you to a woman’s feelings. Not all men have that patience. I would not see Malta grow up as backward and shy as you were.’

The cruelty of his words took her breath away. Their slow courtship, her deliciously gradual hope and then certainty of Kyle’s interest in her were some of her sweetest memories. He had snatched that away in a moment, turned her months of shy anticipation into some exercise of bored patience on his part, made his awakening of her feelings an educational service he had performed for her. She turned her head and stared at this sudden stranger in her bed. She wanted to deny that he had ever spoken such words, wanted to pretend that they did not truly reflect his feelings but had been said out of some kind of spite. Coldness welled up from within her now. Spite words or true, did not it come to the same thing? He was not the man she had always believed him to be. All these years, she had been married to a fantasy, not a real person. She had imagined a husband to herself, a tender, loving, laughing man who only stayed away so many months because he must, and she had put Kyle’s face on her creation. Easy enough to ignore or excuse a few flaws or even a dozen when he made one of his brief stops at home. She had always been able to pretend he was tired, that the voyage had been both long and hard, that they were simply getting readjusted to one another. Despite all the things he had said and done in the weeks since her father’s death, she had continued to treat him and react to him as if he were the man she had created in her mind. The truth was that he had never been the romantic figure her fancies had made him. He was just a man, like any other man. No. He was stupider than most.

He was stupid enough to think she had to obey him. Even when she knew better, even when he was not around to oppose her. Realizing this was like opening her eyes to the sun’s rising. How had it never occurred to her before?

Perhaps Kyle sensed that he had pushed her a bit too far. He rolled towards her, reached out across the glacial sheets to touch her shoulder. ‘Come here,’ he bade her in a comforting voice. ‘Don’t be sulky. Not on my last night at home. Trust me. If all goes as it should on this voyage, I’ll be able to stay home for a while next time we dock. I’ll be here, to take all this off your shoulders. Malta, Selden, the ship, the holdings… I’ll put all in order and run them as they should always have been run. You have always been shy and backward… I should not say that to you as if it were a thing you could change in yourself. I just want to let you know that I know how hard you have tried to manage things in spite of that. If anyone is at fault, it is I, to have let these concerns have been your task all these years.’

Numbed, she let him draw her near to him, let him settle against her to sleep. What had been his warmth was suddenly a burdensome weight against her. The promises he had just made to reassure her instead echoed in her mind like a threat.

Ronica Vestrit opened her eyes to the shadowy bedroom. Her window was open, the gauzy curtains moving softly with the night wind. I sleep like an old woman now, she thought to herself. In fits and starts. It isn’t sleeping and it isn’t waking and it isn’t rest. She let her eyes close again. Maybe it was from all those months spent by Ephron’s bedside, when she didn’t dare sleep too deeply, when if he stirred at all she was instantly alert. Maybe, as the empty lonely months passed, she’d be able to unlearn it and sleep deep and sound again. Somehow she doubted it.

‘Mother.’

A whisper light as a wraith’s sigh. ‘Yes, dear. Mother’s here.’ Ronica replied to it as quietly. She did not open her eyes. She knew these voices, had known them for years. Her little sons still sometimes came, to call to her in the darkness. Painful as such fancies were, she would not open her eyes and disperse them. One held on to what comforts one had, even if they had sharp edges.

‘Mother, I’ve come to ask your help.’

Ronica opened her eyes slowly. ‘Althea?’ she whispered to the darkness. Was there a figure just outside the window, behind the blowing curtains. Or was this just another of her night fancies?

A hand reached to pull the curtain out of the way. Althea leaned in on the sill.

‘Oh, thank Sa you’re safe!’

Ronica rolled hastily from her bed, but as she stood up, Althea retreated from the window. ‘If you call Kyle, I’ll never come back again,’ she warned her mother in a low, rough voice.

Ronica came to the window. ‘I wasn’t even thinking of calling Kyle,’ she said softly. ‘Come back. We have to talk. Everything’s gone wrong. Nothing’s turned out the way it was supposed to.’

‘That’s hardly news,’ Althea muttered darkly. She ventured closer to the window. Ronica met her gaze, and for an instant she looked down into naked hurt. Then Althea looked away from her. ‘Mother… maybe I’m a fool to ask this. But I have to, I have to know before I begin. Do you recall what Kyle said, when… the last time we were all together?’ Her daughter’s voice was strangely urgent.

Ronica sighed heavily. ‘Kyle said a great many things. Most of which I wish I could forget, but they seem graven in my memory. Which one are you talking about?’

‘He swore by Sa that if even one reputable captain would vouch for my competency, he’d give my ship back to me. Do you remember that he said that?’

‘I do,’ Ronica admitted. ‘But I doubt that he meant it. It’s just his way, to throw such things about when he is angry.’

‘But you do remember him saying it?’ Althea pressed.

‘Yes. Yes, I remember he said that. Althea, we have much more important things to discuss than this. Please. Come in. Come back home, we need to…’

‘No. Nothing is more important than what I just asked you. Mother, I’ve never known you to lie. Not when it was important. The time will come when I’ll be counting on you to tell the truth.’ Incredibly, her daughter was walking away, speaking over her shoulder as she went. For one frightening instant, she looked so like her father as a young man. She wore the striped shirt and black trousers of a sailor on shore. She even walked as he had, that roll to her gait, and the long dark queue of hair down her back.

‘Wait!’ Ronica called to her. She sat down on the window sill and swung her legs over it. ‘Althea, wait!’ she cried out, and jumped down into the garden. She landed badly, her bare feet protesting the rocky walk under her window. She nearly fell, but managed to catch herself. She hastened across a sward of green to the thick laurel hedge that bounded it. But when she reached it, Althea was already gone. Ronica set her hands to that dense, leafy barrier and tried to push through it. It yielded, but only a little and scratchily. The leaves were wet with dew.

She stepped back from it and looked around the night garden. All was silence and stillness. Her daughter was gone again. If she had ever really been here at all.

Sessurea was the one the tangle chose to confront Maulkin. It both angered and wounded Shreever that they had so obviously been conferring amongst themselves. If one had a doubt, why had not that one come to speak of it to Maulkin himself, rather than sharing the poisonous idea with the others? Now they were all crazed with it, as if they had partaken of tainted meat. The foolishness was most strong in Sessurea, for as he whipped himself into position to challenge Maulkin, his orange mane was already erect and toxic.

‘You lead us awry!’ he trumpeted. ‘Daily the Plenty grows shallower and warmer, and the salts of it more strange. You lead us where prey is scarce and then give us scant time to feed. I scent no other tangles, for no others have come this way. You lead us not to rebirth but to death.’

Shreever shook out her ruff, arching her neck to release her poisons. If Maulkin were attacked by the others, she vowed he would not fight alone. But Maulkin did not even erect his ruff. As lazily as weed in the tides, he wove a slow pattern in the Plenty. It carried him over and then under Sessurea, who twined his own head about in an effort to keep his gaze upon Maulkin. Before the whole tangle, he changed Sessurea’s challenge into a graceful dance in which Maulkin led.

His wisdom was as entwining as his movement when he addressed Sessurea. ‘If you scent no other tangle, it is because I follow the scent of those who passed here an age ago. But if you opened wide your gills, you would scent others, and not so far ahead of us. You fear the warmth of this Plenty, and yet you were among those who first protested when I led you from warmth to coolness. You taste the strangeness of the salts and think we have gone awry. Foolish serpent! If all were familiar, then we would be swimming back into yesterday. Follow me, and do not doubt any longer. For I lead you, not into your own familiar yesterday, but into tomorrow, and the yesterday of your ancestors. Doubt no longer, but swallow my truth!’

So close had Maulkin come to Sessurea as he wove his dance and wisdom that when he lifted his mane and released his toxins, Sessurea breathed them in. His great green eyes spun as he tasted the echo of death and the truth that hides in it. He faltered in his defence, going limp, and would have sunk to the bottom had not Maulkin wrapped his length with his own. Yet even as he bore up the one who would have denied him, the tangle cried out in unease. For above the Plenty and yet in it, and below the Lack and yet in it, a great darkness moved. Its shadow passed over them soundlessly save for the rush of its finless body.

Yet when the rest of the tangle would have fled back into the depths, Maulkin upheld Sessurea and pursued the shape. ‘Come!’ he trumpeted back to them all. ‘Follow! Follow without fear, and I promise you both food and rebirth when the time for the gathering is upon us!’

Shreever mastered her fear only with her loyalty to Maulkin. Of all the tangle, she first uncoiled herself to flow through the Plenty and follow their leader. She watched the first shivering of awareness come back to Sessurea, and marked how gently he parted himself from Maulkin. ‘I saw this,’ he called back to the others who still lagged and hesitated. ‘This is right, Maulkin is right! I have seen this in his memories, and now we live it again. Come. Come.’

At that acknowledgement, there came forth from the shape food, prey that neither struggled nor swam, but drifted down to be seized and consumed by all.

‘We shall not starve,’ Maulkin assured his followers quietly. ‘Nor shall we need to delay our journey for fishing. Set aside your doubts and reach for your deepest memories. Follow.’