horses, beggars would ride,’ he declared, and then smiled, almost pleased with himself. ‘There’s a thought I haven’t recalled for a long time.’
‘And true as ever it was,’ Brashen said disgruntledly. ‘So I’d best take myself down to the harbour and get myself a job on one of these stinking kill-boats. More butchery than sailor’s work is what I’ve heard of them as well.’
‘And dirty work it is, too,’ Paragon agreed. ‘On an honest merchant vessel, a man gets dirty with tar on his hands, or soaked with cold seawater, it’s true. But on a slaughter-ship, it’s blood and offal and oil. Cut your finger and lose a hand to infection. If you don’t die. And on those that take the meat as well, you’ll spend half your sleeping time packing the flesh in tubs of salt. On the greedy ships the sailors end up sleeping right alongside the stinking cargo.’
‘You’re so encouraging,’ Brashen said bleakly. ‘But what choice do I have? None at all.’
Paragon laughed oddly. ‘How can you say that? You have the choice that eludes me, the choice that all men take for granted so that they cannot even see they have it.’
‘What choice is that?’ Brashen asked uneasily. A wild note had come into the ship’s voice, a reckless tone like that of a boy who fantasizes wildly.
‘Stop.’ Paragon spoke the word with breathless desire. ‘Just stop.’
‘Stop what?’
‘Stop being. You are such a fragile thing. Skin thinner than canvas, bones finer than any yard. Inside you are wet as the sea, and as salt, and it all waits to spill from you any time your skin is opened. It is so easy for you to stop being. Open your skin and let your salt blood flow out, let the sea creatures take away your flesh bite by bite, until you are a handful of green slimed bones held together with lines of nibbled sinew. And you won’t know or feel or think anything any more. You will have stopped. Stopped.’
‘I don’t want to stop,’ Brashen said in a low voice. ‘Not like that. No man wants to stop like that.’
‘No man?’ Paragon laughed again, the sound breaking and going high. ‘Oh, I have known a few that did want to stop. I have known a few that did stop. And it ended the same, whether they wanted to or not.’
‘One appears to have a small flaw.’
‘I am sure you are mistaken,’ Althea replied icily. ‘They are well matched and deep hued and of the finest quality. The setting is gold.’ She met the jeweller’s gaze squarely. ‘My father never gave me a gift that was less than the finest quality.’
The jeweller moved his palm and the two small earrings rolled aimlessly in his hand. In her ear lobes, they had looked subtle and sophisticated. In his palm, they merely looked small and simple. ‘Seventeen,’ he offered.
‘I need twenty-three.’ She tried to conceal her relief. She had decided she would not take less than fifteen before she came into the shop. Still, she would wring every coin she could out of the man. Parting with them was not easy, and she had few other resources.
He shook his head. ‘Nineteen. I could go as high as nineteen, but no more than that.’
‘I could take nineteen,’ Althea began, watching his face carefully. When she saw his eyes brighten she added, ‘if you would include two simple gold hoops to replace these.’
A half hour of bargaining later, she left his shop. Two simple silver hoops had replaced the earrings her father had given her on her thirteenth birthday. She tried not to think of them as anything other than a possession she had sold. She still had the memory of her father giving them to her. She did not need the actual jewellery. They would only have been two more things to worry about.
It was odd, the things one took for granted. Easy enough to buy heavy cotton fabric. But then she had to get needle, thread and palm as well. And shears for cutting the fabric. She resolved to make herself a small canvas bag as well to keep these implements in. If she followed her plan to its end, they would be the first possessions she had bought for her new life.
As she walked through the busy market, she saw it with new eyes. It was no longer merely a matter of what she had the coin to pay for and what she would have marked to her family’s account. Suddenly some goods were far beyond her means. Not just lavish fabrics or rich jewellery, but things as simple as a lovely set of combs. She allowed herself to look at them for a few moments longer, holding them against her hair, as she gazed into the cheap street-booth mirror and imagined how they would have looked in her hair at the Summer Ball. The flowing green silk, trimmed with the cream lace — for an instant she could almost see it, could almost step back into the life that had been hers a few scant days ago.
Then the moment passed. Abruptly Althea Vestrit and the Summer Ball seemed like a story she had made up. She wondered how much time would go by before her family opened her sea-chest, and if they would guess which gifts had been intended for whom. She even indulged herself in wondering if her sister and mother would shed a tear or two over the gifts from the daughter and sister they had allowed to be driven away. She smiled a hard smile and set the combs back on the merchant’s tray. No time for such mawkish daydreams. It didn’t matter, she told herself sternly, if they never opened that trunk at all. What did matter was that she needed to find a way to survive. For, contrary to Brashen Trell’s stupid advice, she was not going to go crawling home again like some helpless spoiled girl. No. That would only prove that everything Kyle had said about her was true.
She straightened her spine and moved with renewed purpose through the market. She bought herself a few simple foodstuffs; plums, a wedge of cheese and some rolls, no more than what she would need for the day. Two cheap candles and a tinderbox with flint and steel completed her purchases.
There was little else she could do in town that day, but she was reluctant to leave. Instead she wandered the market for a time, greeting those who recognized her and accepting their condolences on the loss of her father. It no longer stung when they mentioned him; instead it was a part of the conversation to get past, an awkwardness. She did not want to think of him, nor to discuss with relative strangers the grief she felt at her loss. Least of all did she want to be drawn into any conversation that might mention her rift with her family. She wondered how many folk knew of it. Kyle would not want it trumpeted about, but servants would talk, as they always did. Word would get around. She wanted to be gone before the gossip became widespread.
There were not many in Bingtown who recognized her anyway. For that matter, there were few other than the brokers and merchants her father had done ship’s business with that she recognized. She had withdrawn from Bingtown society gradually over the years without ever realizing it. Any other woman her age would have attended at least six gatherings in the last six months, balls and galas and other festivities. She had not been to even one since, oh, the Harvest Ball. Her sailing schedule had not allowed it. And the balls and dinners had seemed unimportant then, something she could return to whenever she wished. Gone now. Over and gone, dresses sewn for her with slippers to match, painting her lips and scenting her throat. Swallowed up in the sea with her father’s body.
The grief she had thought numbed suddenly clutched at her throat. She turned and hurried off, up one street and down another. She blinked her eyes furiously, refusing to let the tears flow. When she had herself under control, she slowed her step and looked around her.
She looked directly into the window of Amber’s shop.
As before, an odd chill of foreboding raced up her back. She could not think why she should feel threatened by a jeweller, but she did. The woman was not even a Trader,
