"You'll have to keep close watch on those two," she said to Shkai'ra. Nodded at the kneeling girl, who glared at her, the boy sullen and afraid at once. "And children?" Seizing children, taking them from their homes...

"I didn't need money."

Megan tossed the apple-core into the harbor, hearing it sink with a splash. "I see." We'll talk about this back at the Vurm, she thought. She walked over to the cloth-hung platform and tore off a section. Piatr looked up from where he still sat on the ground as she dropped the cloth into his lap. She took in the number of old whip and burn scars. Her head swivelled to the two young Thanes and she took a step back towards them, controlling herself with an effort.A lock of Piatr's hair matted with the streaked paint on his face, the black around his eyes running tear-like down his cheeks into the white.

"Piatr, wipe that garbage off." She paused a long moment, then whispered, more to herself than him. "I know. Habiku. I should have known before letting him do this to us." Her eyes settled on the goat foot.

"Their idea of a joke, Captain."

At her wordless sign, he unbuckled the straps and handed it to her. Megan took it and looked at the old brown stains where the ill-fitting thing had chafed raw and her hands tightened, leather and wood creaking under her grip. A muffled yelp came from behind her and she saw Piatr smile. Whirling, she threw the thing into the water with a violence belying her calm face, watching it arc out over the water, sinking with a splash.

"Not the smartest thing I've ever done," she said. "But..."

Megan turned back to Piatr and startled him with a smile.

"You'll have to use my shoulder to get back to the Vurm." Out of the corner of her eyes, she caught a glimpse of Shkai'ra giving the boy a hefty boot in the backside for trying to hit back, missing the wide-eyed look of puzzlement on Piatr's face. "I think Shkai'ra will be awhile."

Shkai'ra watched her companion helping the one-footed man away and shrugged, realizing that Megan would rather be private for a while. This voyage was opening old wounds; she hoped the final revenge would be satisfying enough to soothe them.

Hands on her hips, she surveyed her prizes. Not much of a catch, she thought wryly. The girl was flabby and out of condition; the boy a little better, but soft-handed. And no Kommanz youngster would have lived long with such a glare of open hatred on his face; not that they did not hate their elders, the Warmaster whose pupils did not hate was a failure, but control was part of the training. What possessed me to ask for these two? These whims will be the death of me yet.Wide-eyed, the Thane children stared back at her. They had been pampered, as befitted the offspring of wealth; and they were Thanes, scions of a people who held women of little account beyond childbearing.

"Strip!" she barked. The boy complied; the girl required a slapping cuff and stood shrinking and covering herself with her hands. Shkai'ra snorted with the impatient contempt of a people without a nudity taboo and leered at the two.

"Not to worry, girly; you're too young, and he isn't my type."

The leer grew. "You two have been very unlucky: you've awoken my maternal instincts. I'm going to show you some proper child-raising, the way my people do it. Get the softness out of you, make you of some use. Or kill you." She removed a belt and stood for a moment running the length of supple leather between her fingers. "About time I got some of my own back," she mused in a tongue neither of them knew, thick with clicking gutturals, softly. Then her face contorted in a snarl, followed by a scream. "

Now, to the Kchnotet Vurm. Run! Run!"

She followed, whirling the strap in carefully controlled, stinging blows.

Megan paced the room with angry grace, one hand gripping the other behind her back to prevent the nails from slashing the palms of clenched fists.

"Shkai'ra. I hold no slaves." She stopped with her back to the bed, her face closed in, her posture controlled as a spring wound just a hair too tight. "Especially not children. No. You aren't going to do this to me or to them. I should have stopped you at the dais."

The Kommanza looked up from her cross-legged position on the bed, raised the fletchings of an arrow to the light of the window. "Good, no damage... Kh'eeredo, I'm not doing anything to you. As for the sprats, where I come from we'd have tossed them onto our lancepoints. They're the kin of an enemy, why the concern?" She grinned. "Besides, think for a moment. That crowd, they were spitting and throwing dung on the Schotter's-kin before we were out of the square: Ia, and runningto sack their house, and I didn't see the Watch objecting. Their sire, he's got no gold nor... face, honor, zight, now-nor money.

What do you think a port city crowd would do to two little honey-pastries like those?"

"You're trying to justify it. Don't give me the bullshit! You've made them slaves. You've taken them in such a way that their father won't take them back, in public. To everyone in sight, to them, they're your slaves." Her voice sank almost to a whisper. "I was sold when I was twelve. I. Will. Not. Have. ANYTHING. To do with this!"

The Kommanza leaned back and propped herself on her elbows. "Kh'eeredo, I've no intention of selling them to anybody, nia? It was an impulse; always kick an enemy when he's down, as the saying goes. Now, if you really want me to boot them out, I will, it's no great matter to me. Then what? Their family is going to starve; this Schotter seems to have made himself unwelcome everywhere on the Brezhan, from your saying; even his own kindred upriver won't take him back, and he has no gold or skills. These two, Jaiwun bless, they haven't got the sense the gods gave rabbits. Don't know how to squat to shit without a servant to help; and they're the get of a Thane, a Thane the whole city hates. Be lucky to get work emptying slop-pots in a whorehouse, here. Somebody has to feed them and teach them something... You've told me about the kidpacks in F'talezon, how long do you think these two would live on the street?"

She shrugged. "Anyway, your choice. Say the word, and I'll go tell them to lose themselves."

Megan hunched her shoulders. She's right. But so am I. It's still slavery and it's still a stupid thing to have done... impulse she says. We have to do something with them. She took them. I can't tell her to kick them out. That would be killing them.

"I won't condone it. The only way I'll tolerate it is if you ask them what they want. If they say they want out, you are going to have to find a way to apprentice them, if they want it, somewhere upriver."

Shkai'ra blinked, shaking her head in puzzlement. "Ahi-a, allthese years together and you still surprise me. Ask a child about what's to be done?" Another shrug. "As you say." She sighed.

"I'll get them," Megan said, turning her back on the Kommanza. "They'll need a bath."

The Zak closed the door behind herself bewildered. Doesn't she remember being a child no one would ask? Doesn't she remember?

Francosz put his head on his knees and listened to Sova cry.

The walled yard of the Vurm was dark, the lamp by the door blown out by the wind. It was cold, the wind blowing grit over them. The privy stank. Where could we run? he thought. Sova's Just a baby. I've got to think. I've got to look after her. He felt tears choke in his throat and gritted his teeth. I won't cry. I can't.

The door creaked open and one of the servants came out, to the well. He was whistling through his teeth as he passed them, stopping to hawk and spit. The blob of phlegm spattered on the boy's hand and he flinched, started to get up, glaring. The man laughed. "Poor slavey."

"We're not slaves," Francosz retorted. The servant laughed again and fetched the water.

When the door thudded closed behind him, Sova sniffled. He put his arm around her, awkwardly, and patted her shoulder.

"Francosz, what are we going to do? What can we do?"

"Pa and Ma are probl'y already gone. South, I guess. Maybe to Tor Ench. Try and start again. But I don't know. And he gave us away. Sovy, he didn't want us!"

She started crying harder and hugged him. "They-they didn't." Pa pushed me away. He didn't care, as long as that woman didn't ask him for money. She clung to her big brother.

He didn't push her away like he always had; he didn't call her a baby, just a girl. He hugged her.Pa pushed me away. He pulled my hands off his legs like they were dirty. He wouldn't look at me. She shivered. We're slaves.

"Francosz, I want to go home!" Her voice was a thin wail. "I want to go home!"

"We can't." His voice cracked. "There's no home." He patted her shoulder stiffly.

The door opened again, letting out the sound of singing from the taproom. The Zak, Whitlock, looked around the moonlit yard. Francosz pulled Sova under his arm, afraid. What did the witch want?

She saw them and beckoned, the lamplight inside glinting on her hair. "Come inside before you freeze to death. We have to talk to you and you need to get cleaned up." She waited until Francosz pulled Sova up and came in, dragging his feet. Sova tried to keep him between her and Megan.

"You-you aren't going to eat us, are you?" the Thane girl whispered. "Please-"

Megan stopped as if the bottom step were a wall. "Eat you?"

she exclaimed. Sova whimpered. "I'm not a cannibal," she said more quietly. "I don't eat people." She sighed. "No matter what Thanes think of Zak. Come on. "

"... so that's your choice," Shkai'ra concluded. Francosz and Sova huddled at the end of the bed, his arm around her shoulder. "I don't give much of a damn. The best you're likely to get is scutwork somewhere. Stay with us, you'll have a berth and enough to eat, and you'll learn something useful." She grinned.

"How to survive, even if I have to kill you to teach you. Put all this kindness down to me going soft in my old age." And...

perhaps I need something to do, she thought.

Megan looked at her. It was better than nothing, but the tall, red-blonde woman obviously didn't understand.

"Your answers now aren't final," the Zak added. "You aren'tslaves." The boy looked at her, fearful, hating. The girl hid her face. At last he stammered, "All-all right."

He doesn't believe me, Megan thought. He's still scared shitless of both of us. "Right. Nikolakiaj has arranged a bath and you two have the room next door. The water's getting cold. We'll see about outfitting the two of you tomorrow." The boy, Francosz, he'll be a while hating us, Megan thought, watching them go. And Sova's too scared to spit. But I thought I saw some hope there. Is that why Kat helped me? Because she couldn't stand to see hopelessness in my eyes?

Shkai'ra reached for her swordbelt. "I'm going down for a game of dice and a drink, coming?"

Megan shook her head. "No. I need to think a bit more." In the dark, Shkai'ra thought.

As the door closed behind the Kommanza, Megan blew out the lamp. It's done, she thought. I can't blame Shkai'ra for not understanding. But I wish she could.

Chapter Six.

BRAHVNIKI, REJINKA, DOCK 6.

TENTH IRON CYCLE, NINTH DAY.

The newly-launched Zingas Vetri swung at her anchor in the fitting-out basin of Brahvniki. The sun had set, but the roofs and towers of the city to the west were still outlined, black against rose, darkening to umber above. They had closed the sterncastle windows of the Captain's cabin. Wood creaked, and the air was full of the warm smell of new seasoned wood and clean cordage; even the bilges had been dried, holystoned and sanded.

The little cabin was lit by a single lantern, casting warm yellow tones over table, chairs, chests and the broad bunk that filled the incurving rear of the room, picking out the bright zigzag patterns woven into the wool of its blankets. Shkai'ra checked the newly installed rack at the base of the transom window that held her knife, bow and saber, then shook out her braids and began running a wide-toothed ivory comb throughher red-blonde hair.

"First night on board," she said, after a moment, bouncing experimentally on the bunk. The straw tick beneath rustled.

"Better than some we've had, nia? Remember that cod-boat we crossed from the Fire Isles on?"

Megan did not look up from her feral pacing. A crackling tension radiated from her, bouncing from the wood and filling the air. Her face was shuttered, impassive, the mouth a drawn straight line beneath eyes coldly dark. Clasped behind her, her taloned fingers flexed and uncurled in ferocious, unconscious impatience.

Shkai'ra sighed and began to undress. "Wet dam' river, isn't it?" she enquired, pulling off her boots. There was no reply; she threw her clothes over a chest and slipped beneath the coverlet.

Stretching, she enjoyed the smooth feel of the brown linen, the cool heaviness of the blankets that was a promise of warmth. It was something to make a pleasure out of the memory of winter bivouacs crouched wet against a muddy saddle.

Minutes stretched, and the Kommanza lay on her side, one hand propping her chin. Heavy, fine and straight, the hair lay against the milk-white skin of her breasts, where the sun had not reached. Muscle played lightly under the taunt surface of her arm; that was browned, the hairs faded white against it.

"Megan." There was no reply. "Megan!" Shkai'ra paused, pursed her lips, and shouted.

"Habiku's here!"

Megan whirled, half-lunged, her fingers curling up ready to tear. For a moment rage looked into the Kommanzas grin.

"Kh'eeredo, you've been a fighter long enough to know the waiting wears harder than bladeplay. Your guts can digest themselves, if you let them. We'll go upriver, we'll kill him or he'll kill us, as luck will have it. In the meantime, come to bed for the sake of each and every god." She held the blankets open. "You're going to need your rest."Megan looked at the inviting warmth of the bed and her shaking hands, raising them to scrub across her face, pulling her hair loose. "I... will come," she husked, looking around the cabin, not seeing the furnishings she'd placed just the day or so ago.

"So many ships..." She sat down slowly and pulled off her boots and breeches, shucking her clothing as if it suddenly restricted her. "I still have to remind myself it's my ship." Her hands curled tightly shut and Shkai'ra frowned when she did not flinch at what her claws must be doing to her palms. Megan opened one hand and ran it down the old scar on her lower abdomen. "What you say is true... but hate and fear are such good friends of mine-the smell of even my ship brings them back." She crossed to the bunk and slid under the blankets, her skin icy against Shkai'ra's; muscles quivering with the need to move, she stared at the ceiling and one hand sought out Shkai'ra's. Grasping the fingers hard, she shuddered as she forced relaxation on herself and turned to bury her face against Shkai'ra's warmth, lying very still.

The tall woman ran a hand over her back and shoulders.

"Tense as iron," she muttered, and began kneading with impersonal skill. "Megan, try to relax a little." After a moment: "Coming back here... it's like the end of a holiday, in a way, isn't it?"

"Iron is needed here," Megan said quietly and gasped as the Kommanza's thumbs dug into a knot in the shoulder muscle. "I was a fool to think I could come home, just take up the old ways." She flipped around suddenly and grasped Shkai'ra's wrists lightly. "I'm sorry." She rubbed her hands along the red-blonde woman's forearms, and reached up to touch her face.

There was a sudden thump on the blanket between them. The black tomcat stretched, his tail high in the air, yawned pinkly and walked across Megan's face to reach the windowledge, settling into a pool of furred midnight and purring.

Shkai'ra inclined her face into the stroking hand. "No need for apologies," she said, shrugging. "I'm no more an exile here than I was in Illizbuah, across the Lannic." She closed her eyes, for a moment smelling wildflowers on the spring steppe andwatching geese rising thousand-winged from the prairie marshes. "It's just... in Fehinna, you were a stranger too. Here, old hates, old loves: a web of them, and I'm the new thread that stands out."

She bit the other's hand gently, on the fleshy part just below the thumb, and worked her way down the arm to her mouth.

They kissed with the comfortable familiarity of long experience; after a minute Shkai'ra drew back and continued: "As for your old ways, you're not the same person, really. I've watched you change. Just one thing; when we met, I doubt if you smiled from week to week... These folk here, they've had only their memories of you for near three years. More startling for them, I'd think."

"Hm." Megan buried her face in the other's shoulder, drawing a deep breath. "I, I don't know how I feel anymore. I want..." One hand grasped for something in the air and her eyes clenched shut as old memories blew through her mind. "I keep swearing not to let any of it touch me... why do I feel like howling like a child?" She could feel tears hovering, hot behind her eyes, and suppressed them. "My vision of what I am and what the world is, has changed..."

"You move through the world, your point-of-seeing changes; the world changes, everything you knew looks different."

Shkai'ra paused. "Harder to do things twice, to have to go back.

You came up from nothing, killed the ones who'd hurt you, made yourself a power here on the river where you'd been a slave. Now you have to do it all again, with a new enemy. It makes something in your mind feel... put back in the prison you thought you were out of." Shkai'ra cupped a hand under her chin and brought her face up.

"But you're stronger now; wiser, more skilled. And I'm here,"

she whispered.

Megan gazed at her, unblinking. "Truth. But fear does strange things." She tapped one finger on her lip, chewing at the edge of one of her nails. "Three years ago... this," the words came hard and falteringly, "this closeness would have driven me into akilling frenzy to escape." She closed her eyes and listened to the purring cat. "And to admit to anyone... that I was afraid..."

Shkai'ra opened her mouth, then closed it as the Zak continued in a whisper. "Had I ever, ever hinted that I was afraid, I would have died, no quicker than that monk trapped on the snow ledge in the Hal'en range last year, the one we couldn't reach...

Slow-or perhaps if I was lucky, I would have died quickly, but I would have died." She twisted closer to Shkai'ra. "But as you say, you are at my back. I don't have to watch so hard. She smiled, her head down, where the Kommanz could not see her face. "I'm glad that trust is an emotion that can be learned."

The blonde woman ran her fingers through the other's hair, lifting the heavy mass of it. "You never explained exactly how Habiku got close enough to betray you."

"From the first... I thought he was a plant. From the Red Brotherhood, the ones my beloved aunt," her voice grew ironic, "brewed her poisons for. Like a fool I thought that if I knew, then I could play with fire. He was good at what he did. A ship was his third arm. For a year or so I kept him, telling myself I'd kill him next time he plotted against me. But I'd end up killing or flogging the poor dupes he'd talked into rebellion, they didn't call him 'Smoothtongue' for nothing, he'd give me that damned smile of his... he, he was the first male that I could stand near me."

She stopped for a second, and her voice took on a bitter self-accusation. "Too complacent. Ah, Lady. Habiku brewing another plot I have to crush. Then I woke up chained in the slaver's hold. " Why didn't he kill me? He wanted me so much. It was almost as if he were courting me. "I still don't know why he didn't just cut my throat. He always was greedy." She spoke dispassionately, but Shkai'ra could feel the muscles of her back beginning to tense up again. "Sheer, unutterable stupidity, on my part," the dark woman continued. "Inexcusable and...

unforgivable. "

"Well, I forgive you," Shkai'ra said, stroking her back.

"Someday I'll tell you how I nearly got fed to a forest demon because I was too trusting... In the meantime, enough ofmemories. We're here, we're now... and how does this feel? And this?"

"Good, very good. " Megan ran her hands down Shkai'ra's body, feeling satin-smooth skin under her hands; she tried to let the sensations drown the voice in the back of her mind. You forgive me, but can I forgive myself? She responded to Shkai'ra's hands and lips with desperate urgency.

Late that night, in the cabin that was close with body heat and the smell of new things, Shkai'ra woke to feel the space beside her empty and heard the soft pad of bare feet on the deck above... back and forth, back and forth; knowing new aloneness, staring up at the wooden ceiling that carried the sound of the quiet footfalls so clearly.

A groan went up from the dockside challenge-ring as the Aenir woman went down on her face for the second time. She raised herself to hands and knees, shaking a face rubbed raw on one side against the rough planks of the pier. Looking up, she saw faces, amused, eager, some sorrowful as they paid over their bets.

Megan circled into her sight. But she is so small, the would-be crewmember thought dazedly.

"You want to continue?" the Zak asked politely. The other woman shook her head, and reached for the helping that the Captain extended. That let her gather her feet beneath her; she tightened her grip and jerked backward, locking the arm and pivoting the smaller figure around and down; her foot lashed out for the armpit to stun and hold.

As her foot came off the ground the Zak twisted in her grasp, foot slamming through to connect with the supporting knee. The Aenir woman tried to let go, regain balance, felt herself falling, held fast by the hand she no longer wanted: and found herself on her back, staring unfocused at the rough, red knuckles just touching the bridge of her nose.