Serilla felt as if she had been slapped. “How dare you!” she began, and then her eyes widened even more. “Where did you get that shawl?” she demanded. Serilla knew she had seen it in Davad’s bedroom, flung over the arm of a chair. How presumptuous of the woman to help herself to it!

For an instant, Ronica’s eyes went wide and dark, as if Serilla had caused her pain. Then her face softened. She reached up to stroke the soft fabric draped across her shoulders. “I made it,” she said quietly. “Years ago, when Dorill was pregnant with her first child. I dyed the wool and wove it myself to be a special gift from one young wife to another. I knew she loved it, but it was touching to find that of all her things, this was what Davad had kept close by him to remember her. She was my friend. I don’t need your permission to borrow her things. You are the one who is a looter and an intruder here, not I.”

Serilla stared at her, speechless with fury. A petty vengeance occurred to her. She wouldn’t look at the woman’s feeble evidence. She would not give her the satisfaction. She gritted her teeth and turned away from her. The fire was dying. That was why she felt suddenly chilled. Were there no decent servants anywhere in Bingtown? Angrily Serilla picked up the poker herself to try to stir the coals and logs back to life.

“Are you going to look at this ledger with me, or not?” Ronica demanded. She stood, her finger pointing at some entry as if it were of vast importance.

Serilla let her anger boil over. “What makes you think I have time for this? Do you think I have nothing better to do than strain my eyes over a dead man’s spidery handwriting? Open your eyes, old woman, and see what confronts all of Bingtown instead of dwelling on your private obsession. Your city is dying, and your people do not have the backbone to fight its death. Despite my orders, gangs of slaves continue to loot and steal. I have commanded that they be captured and forced to serve in an army to defend the city, but nothing has been done. The roads are blocked with debris, but no one has moved to clear them. Businesses are closed and folk huddle behind the doors of their homes like rabbits.” She whacked a log with the poker, sending a stream of sparks flying up the chimney.

Ronica crossed the room and knelt down by the hearth. “Give me that thing!” she exclaimed in disgust. Serilla dropped the poker disdainfully beside her. The Bingtown Trader ignored the insult. Picking it up, she began to lever the ends of the half-burned logs back into the center of the fire. “You are looking at Bingtown from the wrong vantage. Our harbor is what we must hold, first. As for the looting and disorder-I blame you as much as my fellow Traders. They sit about like a great flock of boobies, half of them waiting for you to tell them what to do and the other half waiting for someone else to do it. You have brought division amongst us. But for you proclaiming that you speak with the Satrap’s authority, the Bingtown Council would have taken charge as we always have before. Now some of the Traders say they must listen to you, and some say they must take care of themselves first, and others, wisely I think, say we should simply convene all the like-minded folk in the town and get to work on things. What does it matter now if we are Old Traders or New Traders or Three Ships people or just plain immigrants? Our city is a shambles, our trade is ruined, the Chalcedeans pluck all who venture out of Trader Bay, while we squabble amongst ourselves.” She rocked back on her heels, and looked in satisfaction at the recovering fire. “Tonight, perhaps, we shall finally act on some of that.”

A terrible suspicion was forming in Serilla’s mind. The woman intended to steal her plans and present them as her own! “Do you spy upon me?” she demanded. “How is it that you know so much of what is said about the city?”

Ronica gave a snort of contempt. She rose slowly to her feet, her knees cracking as she stood. “I have eyes and ears of my own. And this city is my city, and I know it better than you ever could.”

AS RONICA HEFTED THE COLD WEIGHT OF THE POKER IN HER HAND, SHE watched the Companion’s eyes. There it was again, that flash of fear in the woman’s face. Ronica suddenly knew that the right choice of words and threats could reduce this woman to a sniveling child. Whoever had broken her had broken her completely. She was a hollow shell of authority concealing an abyss of fear. Sometimes the Trader felt sorry for her. It was almost too easy to bully her. Yet, when such thoughts came to her, she hardened her heart. Serilla’s fear made her dangerous. She saw everyone as a threat. The Companion would rather strike first and be mistaken than suffer the possibility someone might act against her. Davad’s death proved that. This woman had claimed an authority over Bingtown that Ronica did not believe anyone, even the Satrap, possessed. Worse, her attempts to wield the power she claimed were fragmenting what remained of Bingtown’s ability to govern itself. Ronica would use whatever tactics came to hand to try to move Bingtown back toward peace and self-government. Only if there was peace was there any hope of Ronica recovering her family, or indeed, finding out if any of them had survived.