chopped into bits.’ An intake of breath. ‘Mingsley, I caution you not to do this. To buy the ship and refit it is one thing. What you are speaking of is something else entirely. None of the Old Traders would deal with you if you did such a thing. As for me, I would be ruined entirely.’
‘Then you must be discreet about that when you make my offer. As I have been discreet about buying this hulk.’ Mingsley sounded condescending. ‘I know the Bingtown Traders have many odd superstitions. And I have no wish to flout them. If my offer is accepted, I will float the ship and tow it off before I dismantle it. Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying is. Does that satisfy you?’
‘I suppose it must,’ the man muttered discontentedly. ‘I suppose it must.’
‘Oh, don’t be so glum. Come. Let us go back to town, and I shall buy you dinner. At Souska’s. Now that’s a handsome offer, you must admit, for I know the prices there, and I’ve seen you eat.’ The younger man laughed appreciatively at his own humour. The older man did not join in. ‘And then this evening you will call on the Ludluck family and “discreetly” present my offer. It’s all to everyone’s good. Money for the Ludlucks, a commission for you, a large supply of rare wood for my backers. Show me the ill fortune in that, Davad.’
‘I cannot,’ the older man said quietly. ‘But I fear you will find it for yourself. Whether he speaks or not, this ship is quickened, and he has a mind of his own. Try to chop him into bits, and I am sure he will not be silent for long.’
The younger man laughed merrily. ‘You but do this to pique my interest, Davad. I know you do. Come. Let’s back to town. And Souska’s. Some of my backers would very much like to meet you.’
‘You promised to be discreet!’ the older man objected.
‘Oh, I have been, I assure you. But you cannot expect men to advance me money on my word alone. They want to know what they are buying, and from whom. But they are discreet men, one and all, I promise you.’
Paragon listened for a long time to their retreating footsteps. Eventually the small sounds of men were swallowed by the more pervasive sounds of the waves and the gulls’ cries.
‘Chopped into bits.’ Paragon tried the phrase out loud. ‘Well, it does not sound pleasant. On the other hand, it would at least be more interesting than lying here. And it might kill me. It might.’
The prospect pleased him. He let his thoughts drift again, toying with this new idea. He had nothing else to occupy his mind.
EPHRON VESTRIT WAS DYING. Ronica looked at her husband’s diminished face and impressed the thought on her mind. Ephron Vestrit was dying. She felt a wave of anger, followed by one of annoyance. How could he do this to her? How could he die now and leave her to handle everything by herself?
Somewhere beneath the tides of those superficial emotions she knew the cold deep current of her grief sought to pull her down and drown her. She fought savagely to be free of it, fought to keep feeling only the anger and irritation. Later, she told herself. Later, when I have pulled through this and have done all the things I must do, then I will stop and feel. Later.
For now she folded her lips tight in exasperation. She dipped a cloth in the warm balsam-scented water, and gently wiped first his face and then his lax hands. He stirred lightly under her ministrations, but did not waken. She had not expected him to. She’d given him the poppy syrup twice today already to try to keep the pain at bay. Perhaps for now, the pain had no control over him. She hoped so.
She wiped gently at his beard again. That clumsy Rache had let him dribble broth all over himself again. It was as if the woman just didn’t care to do things properly. Ronica supposed she should just send her back to Davad Restart; she hated to, for the woman was young and intelligent. Surely she did not deserve to end up as a slave.
Davad had simply brought the woman to her house one day. Ronica had assumed she was a relative or guest of Davad, for when she was not staring sorrowfully at nothing, her genteel diction and manners had suggested she was well born. Ronica had been shocked when Davad had bluntly offered the woman to her as a servant, saying he dared not keep her in his own household. He’d never fully explained that statement, and Rache refused to say anything at all on the topic. Ronica supposed that if she sent Rache back to Davad, he would shrug and send her on to Chalced to be sold as a slave. While she remained in Bingtown, she was nominally an indentured servant. She still had a chance to regain a life of her own, if she would but try. Instead Rache was simply refusing to adapt to her changed status. She obeyed the orders she was given, but not with anything like grace or goodwill. In fact, as the weeks passed, it seemed to Ronica that Rache had become more and more grudging in her duties. Yesterday Ronica had asked her to take charge of Selden for the day, and the woman had looked stricken. Her grandson was only seven, but the woman seemed to have a strange aversion to him. She had shaken her head, fiercely and mutely, her eyes lowered, until Ronica had ordered her off to the kitchen instead. Perhaps she was seeing how far she could push her new mistress before Ronica ordered her punished. Well, she’d find that Ronica Vestrit was not the kind of woman who ordered her servants beaten or their rations reduced. If Rache could not find it within herself to accept living comfortably in a well-appointed house with relatively light duties and a gentle mistress, well then, she would have to go back to Davad, and eventually take her place on the block and see what fate dealt her next. That was all there was to it. A shame, for the woman had promise. A shame, too, that despite Davad’s kindness in offering Rache’s services to her, the Old Trader was perilously close to becoming a slave-dealer. She had never thought to see one of the old family lines enticed into such a scurrilous trade. Ronica shook her head, and put both Rache and Davad out of her mind. She had other, more important things to think of beside Rache’s sour temperament and Davad’s dabbling in semi-legal professions.
After all, Ephron was dying.
The knowledge jabbed at her again. It was like a splinter in the foot that one could not find and dig out. That little knife of knowing stabbed into her at every step.
Ephron was dying. Her big bold husband, her dashing and handsome young sea-captain, the strong father of her children, the mate of her body was suddenly this collapsed flesh that sweated and moaned and whimpered like a child. When they had first been married, her two hands could not span the muscled right arm of her groom. Now that arm was no more than a stick of bone clothed in slack flesh. She looked down into his face. It had lost the weathering of the sea and wind; it was almost the colour of the linen he lay on. His hair was black as ever, but the sheen had fled it, leaving it dull when it was not matted with sweat. No. It was hard to find any trace of the Ephron she had known and loved for thirty-six years.
She set aside her basin and cloth. She knew she should leave him to sleep. It was all she could do for him any more. Keep him clean, dose him against pain, and then leave him to sleep. She thought bitterly of all the plans they had made together, conspiring until dawn as they sprawled together on their big bed, the stifling blankets thrown aside, the windows flung open to the cool night breeze.
‘When the girls are grown,’ he’d promised her, ‘wedded and bedded, with lives of their own, then, my lass, we’ll take up our own life again. I’ve a mind to carry you off with me to the Perfume Isles. Would you fancy that? Twelvemonth of clean salt air and naught to do but be the captain’s lady? And then, when we get there, why, we shall not hurry to take on a cargo. We shall go together, into the Green Mountains. I know a chieftain there who’s often invited me to come and see his village. We could ride those funny little donkeys of theirs, right up to the very edge
