A hastily rigged tripod lifted and swung crates from the ship’s deck to the rudimentary dock where men grunted and swore as they caught them and guided them down. She spotted Carson’s silhouette, and Lecter’s, and then saw Sedric among those dragging the crates from the dock to the shore. That made her smile. Alum was there, working alongside Tats, and she suspected she knew why he had volunteered to stay and help with the last of the unloading. Once the crates were off the dock, they were loaded onto barrows and shuttled off to their temporary warehouse. The work proceeded in a steady, orderly fashion, the deck and shore crews moving in their concerted efforts as if in a careful dance.

She caught sight of Thymara working alongside the men, and Nortel. There was Tats, shouting to Davvie to come lend a hand with the final crate he was struggling to shift. It came to her to wonder when a ship had last unloaded supplies for this city. What had this river port looked like in the days of the Elderlings? Too careless a thought. She knew a dizzying moment of double vision and saw a sprawling dock system and a score of vessels moored to it. Lights on tall poles streamed golden rays down on the broad-beamed brightly painted vessels, and all manner of people came and went on the wharves. Some were Elderling by their dress and tall silhouettes, but others seemed to be foreigners to these shores. They wore tall hats and were garbed in long furs. She blinked and then squinted her eyes, willing herself back to the present. The Elderlings faded and the ships became fog until only Tarman rode at anchor on the river’s tugging current.

‘And that’s the last of it, boys!’ Hennesey shouted as four netted casks landed with a thump on the dock. A ragged cheer went up from the crew and the keepers. ‘Still got to get it all under cover, so don’t think the work is all done yet!’ the mate reminded them.

Alise had to agree. It looked like so much cargo, crates and kegs stacked in rows in the street as the keepers struggled to move it to shelter. But when she thought of the long months that remained and all the work that must be done before the keepers could create their own food supplies, her heart sank. Food from Trehaug would still have to be managed carefully, and wild game and forest greens would remain the bulk of their diet.

So much to do, such a long distance to go before the city would function as a real city. Kelsingra needed seed for crops, ploughs to break the meadow soil and horses to draw those ploughs. Most difficult of all was that the keepers would have to learn how to provide for themselves. Sons and daughters of hunters and gatherers, merchants and traders, former residents of a city that had never been able to feed itself, would they adapt to tilling fields and raising kine?

And even if they did, were there enough of them to sustain it? The male-to-female ratio was worrisome and had been from the beginning.

Resolutely, she pushed it all from her thoughts. Not tonight. Tonight was hers, finally. She reached the bottom of the hill and threaded her way through the crates and boxes and out onto the dock. ‘Watch your step!’ Carson cautioned her with a grin. ‘We’ve given these timbers a real test tonight, and some are starting to split. One of the hazards of building with green logs.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ she promised him.

The emptied Tarman rode high, and the taut anchor lines hummed a quiet song of vigilance. She eyed the makeshift gangplank, steep and worn. No. She wouldn’t ask for help. She started up it, her Elderling shoes surprisingly sure on the wet wood, but was scarcely three steps up before Leftrin came leaping down to her. Heedless of the treacherous surface, he seized her in a hug that lifted her off her feet. Close by her ear, his unshaven cheek prickling hers, he told her, ‘I have missed you like I’d miss air in my lungs. I can’t leave you again. Just can’t, my lady.’

‘You won’t,’ she promised him, and in the next gasped breath, demanded, ‘Put me down before we both go overboard!’

‘Not a chance!’ As casually as if she were a child, he swung her up into his arms and in two steps thudded her down on Tarman’s deck. He set her on her feet but did not release her. His embrace warmed her as nothing else could. Perhaps her days in the Elderling city had sensitized her, but she felt Tarman’s welcome of her as a warmth that flowed up from where her feet touched his deck to engulf her whole body.

‘That’s amazing,’ she murmured into Leftrin’s shoulder. She lifted her face slightly to ask him, ‘How do I let him know that it’s mutual?’

‘Oh, he knows, trust me. He knows it just as I know it.’

She could smell his scent. Not cologne such as Hest had often worn, but the scent of a man and the work he had done that day. His hands held her firmly against him; she surrendered to the rush of arousal that suffused her and turned her face up to his to be kissed.