These men were the scum of the crew, and Lustgrader must have been aware of that.

As Banstel was about to climb up the ladder again, Fels loosened his hold on the steps, and the lad fell back into the boat, cracking his elbow on the gunwale.

"Get on to that tiller, Banstel, you scut," Fels growled. "You're allus telling us you know how to sail, so show us! Head across wind, thataway," he added, pointing in the direction he meant. "Let's see some seamanship, or you'll be on scrubbing duty every day we're in port."

As far as Sorrel could tell, Banstel appeared to know what he was doing, but even so the two men taunted him about his skills as he took hold of the tiller and swung the boat away from Spice Winds. The sail filled and the boat emerged from the protection of the larger ship into a sea now chopped by the wind into white-capped waves.

The man with the scarred face was soon blocked from Sorrel's view by the sail. Fels was busy with the sheet, feeding the line through the cleat to keep the sail trimmed. He said, with a grin in her direction, "Your fancy factor's been taken care of, he has. Not coming to your rescue, pretty henny."

She sat straight and met his stare with one of her own as she clutched Piper. "I have no idea what you mean. If you have something to tell me, then say it, otherwise keep your mouth shut. If you want to scare me you'll have to do better than that." It was a lie of course; her heart was thudding under her ribs, each beat hammering home her fear. She sat rigidly still, rubbing Piper's back, thoughts jumbling.

Ardhi will make sure Saker doesn't come to any harm. Or the dagger will. And we'll be all right, Piper. I'll go to Lord Juster. He'll help us... You won't be hungry for a few hours and I'm sure I can buy a goat or two on an island like this. I'll get milk for you, I promise, and if I can't, well, you're almost old enough to make do on solid food.

She breathed deeply, seeking a calm place within herself. Glancing back over her shoulder at the shoreline, she studied the port, wondering if there was a jetty or a dock. It was hard to see much because there were so many small boats and barges dodging between larger ships and the shore, blocking her view.

Don't panic. Think about something else until you are in control of your fear. She'd never expected so many large trading vessels. Pashali, most of them, she guessed. But why did she have to look past Banstel's shoulder to see the port? Her heart flipped uncomfortably in her chest.

They were heading the wrong way.

She tried to convince herself there was a logical reason. Reefs they had to circumvent, perhaps. But no, she'd seen the bumboats take direct routes. So, maybe something to do with the wind. The breeze was stiff, but boats zigzagged, didn't they? Pickle it, I wish I knew more about sailing.

"Where are we going?" she asked, furious with herself because her voice wavered.

Fels pointed. "That island there. That's where."

She looked straight ahead. When they'd sailed past the outer islands on their way towards the port the day before, she'd been up on deck. Uninhabited, they were all little more than inhospitable humps emerging steep-sided from the sea, laden with thick green blankets of rampaging vegetation on top, decorated around the base with the occasional half-moon beach tucked in between the jagged teeth of a rocky shore.

"Why there?" she asked, fixing Fels with what she hoped was a steely glare. Her heart thumped painfully. "What are your orders?"

The man grinned at her. "The captain paid us to get rid of you and the babe. He didn't say how. Reckon he meant get out of sight and then toss you overboard, but me and Voster there, we reckoned we could have a bit o' fun first."

Banstel gasped, and his hand jerked on the tiller. The boat yawed and Fels cursed as he adjusted the sail to compensate. "Watch it, you misbegotten lout!"

"You're going to murder me?" Sorrel asked.

"We're going to dump you on a beach of that island ahead of us. And just mayhap we'll enjoy a little playtime with our maypoles first, eh, Voster?"

"Me nuggins are aching fit to burst."

Repulsed, striving to contain her fury, she shouted at them. "Marooned there with a baby and no goat to feed her milk, how long do you think she'll live? That's fobbing murder!" But her rage jostled with rampant terror, and she strove to quell the fear. I will not let you do this. Pus and pustules, if you touch Piper, it will be over my dead body!

Fob it. That's what they want.

Fels gave an indifferent shrug. "What does it matter to me? I do as I'm bid. If I don't, I get whipped, till me back's raw. And then I might die of the putrid rot. I'd rather get rid of the likes of you." His tone changed, hardening. "Us tars down there on the lower deck, we reckon you and the brat are no good. Things ain't been right since you've been on board. The captain ain't been right in the head. Reckon you're no loss."

"Dead right," Voster said in agreement.

"Well, blister that for an idea!" she snapped. "Listen, you turn this boat around and sail to that Ardronese vessel in the bay. I know the captain. For my safety he'll pay you more money in your pocket than you've ever seen."

Fels said, "Now that's right tempting, but fiddle me witless, it sounds more like a sea-monkey tale tole by a Pashali trader than the honeyed truth, don't you reckon Voster? Besides, what use is coin if Cap'n Lustgrader knows? And you reckon he won't know? The watch has got the spyglass on us, likely! Forget it, woman. There's no changing aught. Mayhap your luck'll be good, an' a passing boat'll pick you up. Afterwards." He grinned.

He turned his attention forward once more, so she glanced at Banstel. He stared back, white-faced. Obviously he hadn't known the orders and was horrified by them. Besides Ardhi, he was the only other member of the crew she'd ever spoken to on board and he adored Piper, saying she reminded him of a baby sister who'd died of the meazle.

Neither of them spoke, and he looked away.

Could she trust him? Banstel was only a lad, and he'd be scared witless of disobeying Lustgrader.

Once Piper stopped crying, Sorrel wrapped her up and wedged her under the seat with her head peeping out and her hands free. Banstel picked up a stray seagull feather from the bottom of the boat and gave it to her. She gurgled her joy and Sorrel turned her attention to the boat's pair of oars shipped under the seats.

Please be still, Piper. Your life may depend on it.

She sat upright again, to glance at Fels. He was watching the island, adjusting the sail and pointing whenever he wanted Banstel to change direction. He and Voster had to duck under the bottom of the sail whenever the boom swung over.

Sweet Va, protect us both. I've killed before. I can do it again. For a child. For this child, this time.

Under the protection of the glamour of her non-existent dress, she reached out one foot and used it to edge one of the oars towards her.

"I can't let you do this to us," she said.

Fels laughed without looking at her. "You think you can stop us?"

"Of course I can! Come now, think, you foolish malt-heads. I'm a woman who persuaded Captain Lustgrader, against his own wishes, to take me and my babe on board his precious shipis such a person helpless? I have powers that can persuade. I can make you jump overboard and drown yourself. Can you swim, Seaman Fels? I've heard many sailors never learn because they think it better to die quickly if shipwrecked."

He glanced back at her. For the first time he looked uncertain and exchanged a doubtful look with Voster.

Banstel spoke up then, horrified. "I doan want nobody dead! That's a babewho wants to kill a babe? Captain Lustgrader wouldn't do that! He's a Va-fearing man, he is. On his knees every night come night watch; I seen him, all the time. And the mistress and the factor, they ain't done naught to hurt nobody!"

Fels turned on him. "You calling us liars, you bilge-rat? Keep a quiet tongue behind your teeth, lad, or we'll toss you to the fish."

Banstel, thinking the man was about to leap at him, jerked backwards and the boat yawed again before he was able to steady the tiller. The boom swung as the wind spilled out of the sail, and Fels turned to haul in the sheet.

With the attention of both men elsewhere, Sorrel quickly slipped the oar wholly free and leant it against her body, glamouring her nonexistent skirts wide to block any view of it. Banstel, his attention fixed on Fels, didn't notice. Fels was looking ahead and Voster couldn't see her because of the position of the sail.

"Your last chance, Fels," she said. "You either set course for that Ardronese ship, or you die, right here on the sea in this Va-less land. Your choice."

Fels looked over his shoulder at her, and smirked. "You ain't got neither the brawn nor the brav'ry."

She looked up at the sail, watching for the right moment. "You're prepared to risk that? You wouldn't be the first man I've killed." Va guide me...

"What you goin' to do? Knock us senseless with your wit?"

"Fels, come on," Banstel protested. "You're talking murder. I didn't sign up for no murder."

She gripped the oar tight with both hands. The wind gusted, ruffling the surface in scurries, and filled the sail. The boat heeled in answer. Fels, gripping the sheet, leaned outwards over the gunwale to balance himself against the pull.

Sorrel stood, feet wide. She dropped the glamour of her dress and poured her witchery into an image of her face. Not a woman now, but a monster of teeth and tongue, maw dripping saliva, eyes bulging and hair a twist of hissing snakes. And she swung the oar with all her strength.

Fels never saw it coming. He glimpsed her movement and turned to look, but then his horrified gaze never shifted from her face. His jaw dropped; he leaned away, the beginnings of a scream starting in his throat. That was when the paddle struck him full in the face, smashing his nose and breaking his teeth. He dropped the sheet, the line spun loose and the sail whipped free. The boom swung across the boat. Sorrel didn't see it crack Voster on the side of the head, but she heard the sickening sound of it. Fels, his balance upset, toppled over the gunwale into the water without the scream ever breaking free.

Sorrel herself had tumbled between the seats, dropping the oar. She was an arm's length from Voster. He was flat on his back in the bottom of the boat, blood streaming down his face. She knelt, checked to see that he was unconscious, then looked up at Banstel. He was still seated, hand still on the tiller, gaping at her, even though she'd dropped all pretence of her glamour. His face was so white, she thought he might faint. The dinghy was tossing in the waves, the sail hanging loose.

"I'm no monster, Banstel. It's all just a Va-bestowed glamour witchery."

He didn't move, didn't acknowledge her words.

She turned her attention back to Voster. Dump him over the side?

That would be murder. Another murder.

But if she didn't do anything and he recovered consciousness, he could easily overpower her and kill her and Piper. She vacillated, feeling ill.

I am not supposed to misuse my witchery...

Just then the boat rocked violently, knocking her off balance again. She sat down hard, landing in the water sloshing along the hull under the seats.

She looked around wildly. The portside gunwale dipped low, shipping still more seawater on board. She tumbled towards that side as the boat tipped. Piper, unsettled, began to scream. Hands grasped the gunwale and then a leg and an elbow appeared.

Sweet acorns, Fels is still alive- He was intent on climbing back into the dinghy.

Scrambling up, she reached for the bloodstained oar. The boat pitched still more, and she went down on one knee fighting to keep her balance. Fels' head appeared over the edge. She aimed a blow at him, but the blade slammed into the gunwale instead.

Precariously balanced half in and half out, he grabbed at it. They battled, pulling in opposite directions. Piper screamed.

Sorrel let go of the shaft. Taken by surprise, Fels slipped backwards into the water, but kept one arm hooked over the gunwale. She snatched up the second oar and stood balanced, one foot braced on the seat amidships, and leaned over the side of the boat to jab at his face with the blade, not once, but repeatedly, thrusting it downwards with a savagery she had not known that she possessed.

The first oar drifted away, but he gripped tightly to the boat with one hand while his other made ineffective grabs for the oar she was wielding. Frantic, beyond thought, she hammered him with the edge of the blade. His nose and mouth poured blood, then his cheekbone caved under her blow. Her next strike slammed into his eye socket. When she withdrew the blade, an eye hung loose on his cheek. He tried to shout, to scream, but his swollen lips, blood-filled mouth and broken teeth only allowed spluttered gurgles.

She stopped, exhausted. Dropping the oar, she knelt and stared at the battered remains of his face. Only then did she realise he was unconsciousor perhaps dead. One hand was still gripping the gunwale, fingernails hooked underneath the edge. She began to shake uncontrollably. Slumping back into the boat, she stared at Banstel. He still held the tiller, petrified with shock. Or perhaps terror. Fear of her, of what she might do.

Dear Va, am I a monster?

Piper's screaming finally penetrated their consciousness. She reached for the baby, but Banstel was closer. He let go of the tiller and, crooning, picked up the baby to cradle her in his arms where she began to quieten.

Sorrel turned back to Fels and unhooked his fingers, one by one, until his body slipped into the water and drifted away, face down. She clambered over to Voster and touched him. He was still breathing, still unconscious. Only then did she look back at Banstel.

"Wh-who are you? he asked, his face ashen.

She shook her head. She no longer knew. Her whole body was shaking. Her stomach heaved and she emptied her breakfast over the edge of the boat.

18.

Imprisoned

The ship's brig was not designed for comfort or any possibility of escape. It was little more than an iron cage built on the orlop, the deck immediately above the hold. In addition to the brig, the orlop was where the ship's stores and extra sails were kept, an area of the ship out of bounds to anyone without a specific reason for being there. It was cut off from the decks above by a bolted hatch cover, its contents the responsibility of the ship's constable.

Saker had hidden in the galley, sufficiently worried not to sleep, but his wakefulness had not helped him in the end. When he heard the ship's constable and four able seamen searching for him in the galley's larder he did have time to slip out through the rubbish hatch, but elected instead to climb across the still-warm top of the galley stove into the seaman's mess. Once there, still undetected, he headed for Sorrel's cuddy. Four more swabbies, waiting for him at the foot of the companionway, nabbed him after a short and brutal fight in the confined space. He emerged with a bloodied nose, bruised ribs and the ignominy of being relieved of his dagger, sword and shoes. More disastrously, they'd also found the picklocks he kept in a hidden pocket of his trouser leg. They then escorted him to the brig and left him there. No one had bothered to tell him why he was incarceratedor for how long.

It didn't matter; he knew why. Sorrel had been right: Lustgrader had realised how to rid himself of his compulsion and now he was about to exact his revenge on the man who had laid it on him.

I suppose I ought to be flattered that he sent so many men to arrest me.

Once he'd tested the lock and all the ironwork and was sure there was no way out of the brig without his picklocks, he settled down to wait. And wait. He castigated himself for not doing something, anything, after Sorrel had told him about the captain's trip to the galleon, but even now he wasn't sure what he could have done. There had been no possibility of stealing a boat undetectedand how could he have ever left her to attempt the long swim to shore?

Time passed slowly in the dark.

He could hear many of the normal sounds of a ship at anchor, but no light penetrated to his prison. If he sat still, the rats grew bold, so he stood and kept moving in order to keep them at bay. Not that it was hard to stay awake; the turmoil of his thoughts precluded any temptation to doze. Sorrel and Piper... Involved in this mess because of him and Ardhi. Not to mention that wretched, Va-forsaken dagger, pox on't!

At last, the dawning day was heralded by the ship's constable opening the hatch for the cook's boy to enter so he could fetch breakfast supplies from the barrels housed on the orlop. This morning it was pickled herrings. The constable supervised, ordering the boy not to talk to Saker.

"What's going to happen to me?" Saker asked.

"Nothing you'll enjoy," the man replied. "Wouldn't expect no ease into death, if I were you. The captain's plenty angry."

With that pessimistic opinion, he left with the lad, and Saker settled down to wait some more.

Patience and I, he thought disgustedly, have never been at ease with each other. Neither did he favour being dependent on others for rescue, and yet he suspected his only hope was Ardhi. A lascar was right at the bottom in the hierarchy of the ship's command, but that was an advantage Ardhi often exploited. Everyone overlooked a lascar. His shipmates treated him as if he were an exceptionally stupid child and not even the fact that he was teaching the factors the basics of the Pashali language altered their erroneous perception. Deceived by his apparent lack of skill at speaking the tongue of the Va-cherished, unfeigned when Ardhi had first left Chenderawasi, they were unaware that his linguistic stumbling was mostly now all an act. His accent might still be thick, but his comprehension was excellent.

Ardhi, I hope you can see a way out of this for me because, by the sweet oak, I can't see any other solution that's going to help me out of this one.

When the constable returned with other crew members to open the brig and escort Saker to the quarterdeck, the ship's bell was ringing, telling him it was only halfway through the forenoon watch. He was still blinking in the light when they came to a halt outside the captain's stateroom, where one of the guards tied his hands behind his back with a piece of cord.

A wise precaution: one of his half-formed plans had been to seize Lustgrader as a hostage for his own release. Instead, a moment later, he was pushed down to his knees in front of the captain's desk by the same tar.

Lustgrader looked up from the flintlock pistol he was holding, then laid it carefully down on the desk next to its ramrod and powder flask. "You may go," he told the guards, brushing a few specks of gunpowder from his fingers while he waited for them to leave.

Consign you to a choiceless hell, Saker thought. I hate theatricals. Nonetheless, he silently cursed the stench of cockroaches and rats clinging to his clothes in a foul perfume, exacerbating his irritation at appearing unkempt and barefoot before a man who wore starched white collar and cuffs.

"Well," he drawled, after noting Lustgrader's nose wrinkling with distaste, "you should have let me have a wash before desecrating your private quarters with the disgusting smell of the ship's brig. Of course, you could also have sent your sailors to scrub the place out from time to time. Oh, and if you don't deal with the rats soon, you might have a problem with your food supplies by the time you get to the Spicerie."

Lustgrader gave him a look designed to shrivel the spirit of a crewman, but Saker chose to ignore it. "Would I be right," he asked instead, "if I assumed you worked out how to free yourself of the power of the golden plume?"

"You are scum beyond contempt," Lustgrader said, his fury contorting his face. "What kind of a man chooses to serve the evil of A'Va and that vile feather? You brought Va-forsaken sorcery on board my ship! You are a traitor to our nation and a traitor to our faith. There is no fate too terrible for a leprous wretch like you."

A pox on our labels, he thought. We're the ones who named half the world "Va-forsaken" in our unthinking hubris. We dismissed an entire hemisphere without even knowing its truths. We showed our contempt for all who live there with those words.

Briefly he contemplated pointing out that Lustgrader now had power to coerce someone too, but decided the captain might not be aware that giving the plume away not only freed him, but also enthralled another. If so, it was probably better that he didn't know.