as swiftly as we can transport them. In the meanwhile, we must evaluate all our holdings, without sentiment, and keep only those that can actually give us a profit this year. But even more important, we must not panic our creditors. If we sell things off wildly, they will think we are going under, and will close in on us, to get a share of what is left before it is gone. And, quite frankly, if they see Althea out drinking and carousing with lowlifes, as if there is no hope nor pride left in the family, that too will have its effect. Blacken your name, Althea, and you blacken my daughter’s with yours. Someday I hope to see Malta make a good marriage. She will not ever receive the attention of honourable men if you have established yourself as a drunk and a slattern.’
‘How dare you —’ Althea growled.
‘I dare much, for my children. I’ll see Wintrow hammered into a man, even if he grows up thinking he hates me for it. I’ll see a sturdy financial basis back under this family, even if I have to work that liveship as you never could to do it. If you cared for your own kin even half as much as I do, you’d be straightening yourself up and presenting yourself as a lady and trying to make an acceptable marriage to shore up the family fortunes.’
A cold fury now possessed Althea. ‘So I should whore myself out to the highest bidder, so long as he’ll call me wife and offer a good bride-price?’
‘Better than to the lowest bidder, as you seemed so intent on doing last night,’ Kyle replied as coldly.
Althea drew breath, swelling like an angry cat, but her mother’s cold voice cut across her quarrel with Kyle.
‘Enough.’
It was a single word, quietly spoken. As if she were setting down an armful of bedding, she moved Keffria to a nearby chair and deposited her in it. Something in the finality of her tone had silenced them all. Even Keffria’s sobs were stilled. Her small, dark mother seemed even smaller in her dark mourning garments, but when she imposed herself between Althea and Kyle, they both stepped back. ‘I am not going to shout,’ she told them both. ‘Nor am I going to repeat myself. So I suggest you both pay attention, and commit to memory what I am going to tell you. Althea. I address you first, because I have not had the opportunity to truly speak to you since you landed. Kyle, do not even think of interrupting, not even to agree with me. Now.’
She drew a breath and showed an instant of uncertainty. She approached Althea and took both her unresisting hands in hers. ‘My daughter. I know you feel yourself wronged. You expected to inherit the ship. It was your father’s plan for you. He is gone, and though it pains me, I will speak plainly of such things. He always treated you as if you were one of the sons we lost. If your brothers had survived the plague… but they did not. But, back when the boys were alive, he always said the land would go to his daughters, the ship to his sons. And although he never said so plainly, after our boys died, I believe that he intended Keffria to inherit the land holdings, and you the ship. But he also intended to live until he was an old man, to see the debt on the ship and the notes against our holdings paid off, and to see you married to a man who would sail the Vivacia for you. No. Be quiet!’ she said harshly as Althea opened her mouth to object.
‘It is hard enough to say these things. If I am interrupted, we shall never get this over with,’ she went on in a softer voice. She lifted her head up straight and met her daughter’s eyes firmly. ‘If you wish to blame someone for your disappointment, blame me. For when I could no longer deny that your father was dying, I sent for Curtil, our old adviser. And between us, we set on paper what I believed best, and I persuaded your father to set his sign to it. I persuaded him, Althea, I did not deceive him. Even your father finally saw the wisdom of what we had to do. If the family fortunes were divided now, none of us would survive. As Keffria is elder with children to provide for, I did as tradition decreed and made her the sole heir.’ Ronica Vestrit looked away from Althea’s shocked stare to her other daughter. Keffria still sat on the bench, her head on the table, but her weeping was stilled. Kyle moved to set a hand on his wife’s shoulder. Althea could not decide if he were comforting her or claiming her. Her mother spoke on. ‘Keffria knew of her inheritance. She also knows that the document states plainly that she must continue to provide for her sister’s maintenance until such time as Althea makes an appropriate marriage, at which time Althea is to be dowered with a goodly sum. So Keffria is bound, not only by blood but by written word, to do well by you.’
Althea’s gaze of dismay had not changed. ‘Althea,’ her mother pleaded. ‘Please try to see it impartially. I have been as fair as I could. If the ship had been left to you, you would have barely enough to operate her. It takes coin to provision a ship and hire a crew and maintain and refit her, and a profitable voyage might still leave you scrambling to make a payment on the note and still have enough money to sail again. And if you did not show a profit, then what? The note on the ship is secured also with the land holdings. There was no way to sensibly divide the inheritance. It must be used together to pull itself out of debt.’
‘So I have nothing,’ Althea said quietly.
‘Althea, your sister would never let you lack —’ her mother began, but Althea shocked her by blurting out, ‘I don’t care. I don’t care, really, if I am a pauper or not. Yes, I dreamed that Vivacia would be mine. Because she is mine, Mother, in a way that I cannot make you understand. In the same way that Seddon Dib’s carriage-horses pull his carriage, but all know their hearts belong to his stable-boy. Vivacia’s heart is mine, and I am hers. I look forward to no better marriage than that. Keep whatever coin she brings in, let all say she belongs to Keffria. Just let me sail her. That’s all I’m asking, Mother, Keffria. Just let me sail her and I’ll be no trouble to you, I won’t dispute your will in all else.’ Her desperate eyes besought first her mother’s face and then the tear-stained visage that Keffria lifted to her. ‘Please,’ she breathed, ‘please.’
‘No.’ It was Kyle who spoke. ‘No. I’ve already given orders that you are not to be allowed on the ship, and I won’t change them. You see how she is,’ he announced, turning to Ronica and Keffria. ‘She has not a practical notion in her head. All she wishes is to have her own way, to continue as she always has. She would remain her father’s wilful daughter, living aboard ship, taking no responsibility beyond playing sailor, and coming home to stroll through the shops, picking out whatever she fancies and have it set to her father’s account. Only now it would be her sister’s and hence, mine. No, Althea. Your childhood is over with your father’s death. It is time you started behaving as befits a daughter of this family.’
‘I am not talking to you!’ Althea flared. ‘You have no concept of what I am speaking of. To you Vivacia is no more than a ship, even if she speaks aloud to you. To me she is a member of my family, closer to me than a sister. She needs me to be aboard her, and I need to sail her. She would sail for me as she never will for you, with her own heart as the wind.’
‘Girlish fancies,’ Kyle scoffed. ‘Tripe. You walked away from her in anger on the day she was quickened, leaving Wintrow to spend the first night with her. If you’d had all these great feelings for her, you could not have done that. She seems to like him well enough, and he’ll be aboard to keep her company or whatever it is. And he’ll be learning to work as a true sailor, not mooning about the ship or getting drunk in foreign ports. No, Althea. There’s no fitting place aboard the Vivacia for you, and I won’t have you sowing discord or setting up a rivalry with Wintrow for the ship’s favour.’
‘Mother?’ Althea pleaded desperately.
Her mother looked grieved. ‘Had I not seen you last night, drunk and bedraggled, I would oppose Kyle in this. I would believe he was being far too harsh.’ She sighed heavily. ‘But I can’t deny what I’ve seen with my own eyes. Althea, I know you love the Vivacia. If your father had lived… there’s no use in wondering about that, I suppose. Instead, it is time, perhaps, for you to let her go. I have seen that Wintrow
