It had angered her so much that she did not speak to him again, not even when night fell and he complained endlessly of the dark, the chill and the damp. He had a knack for making every discomfort her fault, or the fault of the Bingtown Traders or the Rain Wild Traders. She had grown tired of his whining. It was more annoying than the shrill humming of the tiny mosquitoes that discovered them as darkness fell and feasted upon their blood.

When dawn had finally come, she had tried to persuade herself that it brought hope. The lone board that she had to use as a paddle lasted less than half the morning. Her efforts to push them out of the main current of the river had been both exhausting and fruitless. It rotted away in her hands, eaten by the water. Now they sat in the boat, as helpless as children while the river carried them farther and farther from Trehaug. Like an uncomfortable and idle child, the Satrap picked at quarrels.

“Why hasn’t anyone come to rescue us yet?” he demanded suddenly.

She spoke over her shoulder. “Why would they look for us here?” she asked dryly.

“But you shouted at them as we floated past Trehaug. We all did.”

“Shouting and being heard are two different things.”

“What will become of us?” Kekki’s words were so soft and thick that Malta could barely make them out. The Companion had opened her eyes and was looking at Malta. Malta wondered if her own eyes were as bloodshot as Kekki’s.

“I’m not sure.” Malta moved her mouth, trying to moisten her tongue enough to talk. “If we are fortunate, we may be carried to one side and caught in a shallows or backwater. If we are very lucky, we may encounter a liveship coming up the river. However, I doubt it. I heard they had all gone out to drive the Chalcedean ships away from Bingtown. Eventually, the river will carry us to the sea. Perhaps we will encounter other vessels there, and be rescued. If our boat holds together that long.” If we live to see it, Malta added to herself.

“We’ll likely die,” the Satrap pointed out ponderously. “The tragedy of my dying so young will be vast. Many, many other deaths will follow mine. For when I am gone, there will be no one to keep peace among my nobles. No one will sit on the Pearl Throne after me, for I die in the flower of my youth, without heirs. All will mourn my passing. Chalced will no longer fear to challenge Jamaillia. The pirates will raid and burn unchecked. All of my vast and beautiful empire will fall into ruin. And all because of a foolish little girl, too ignorantly rustic to know when she was being offered the chance to better herself.”

Malta sat up so fast that the little boat rocked wildly. She ignored Kekki’s frightened moans to turn and face the Satrap Cosgo. He sat in the stern of the boat, his knees drawn up under his chin and his arms wrapped around his legs. He looked like a petulant ten-year-old. His pale skin, sheltered so long from the elements, was doubly ravaged by his exposure to the water and the wind. At the ball in Bingtown, his delicate features and pallid skin had seemed romantic and exotic to Malta. Now he merely looked like a sickly child. She fought a sudden and intense urge to push him overboard.

“But for me, you’d already be dead,” she declared flatly. “You were trapped in a room that was filling with mud and water. Or had you forgotten that?”

“And how did I get there? By the machinations of your people. They assaulted and kidnapped me, and for all I know, they have already sent ransom notes.” He halted abruptly, coughed, and then forced the parched words out. “I never should have come to your ratty little town. What did I discover? Not a place of wonder and wealth as Serilla had led me to believe, but a dirty little harbor town full of greedy merchants and their unmannered, pretentious daughters. Look at you! A moment of beauty, that is all you will ever have known. Any woman is beautiful for a month or so of her life. Well, you are past that brief flowering now, with your dried-up skin and that crusty split down your brow. You should have seized your chance to amuse me. Then I might have taken you back to court, out of pity for you, and you would at least have been able to glimpse what it was like to live graciously. But no. You refused me, and so I was forced to stay overlong at your peasant dance and become a target for ruffians and robbers. All Jamaillia will falter and fall into ruin without me. And all because of your inflated view of yourself.” He coughed again, and his tongue came out in a vain effort to wet his parched lips. “We’re going to die on this river.” He sniffed. A tiny tear formed at the corner of his eye and trickled down beside his nose.

Malta felt an instant of hatred purer than any emotion she had ever felt. “I hope you die first so I can watch,” she croaked at him.