“It won’t come to that,” he assured her immediately. “And if it does, it will be the doing of their own folk, not us. If they force us to it… but you know they will not.” He spoke too quickly. Did he seek to reassure her, or himself?

She tried to find the courage to tell him how foolish he was. He was a large boy spouting violent nonsense. She’d been a fool ever to rely on him for anything. Too late she had found that this tool had sharp edges. She must discard him before he did any more damage. Yet she could not. He stood before her, nostrils flared, fists knotted at his sides, and she could sense the anger seething behind his calm mask, the anger that powered his so-righteous hatred. If she spoke against him, he might turn that anger on her. The only thing she could think of to do was to flee.

She stood slowly, trying to appear calm. “Thank you for bringing me this news, Roed. Now I must take some time to myself to think it through.” She inclined her head to him gravely, hoping he would bow in his turn and then depart.

Instead, he shook his head. “You have no time to debate with yourself on this, Companion. Circumstances force us to act now. Compose the letters summoning the Council heads here. Then summon a servant to deliver your messages. I myself will take the Vestrit woman into custody. Tell me which room is hers.” A sudden frown divided his brows. “Or has she swayed you to her cause? Do you think you would gain more power if you allied with the New Trader conspiracy?”

Of course. Any opposition to him would prompt him to classify her as an enemy. Then he would be just as ruthless with her as he was prepared to be with Ronica. The Vestrit woman had made him afraid when she stood up to him.

Had it been Ronica in the hall? Had she heard the warning and understood it? Had the old woman had time to flee? Had Serilla done anything to save her, or was she sacrificing her to save herself?

Roed’s fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides restlessly. Too clearly, she could imagine his brutal clasp on the Trader woman’s thin wrist. Yet she could not stop him. He would only hurt her if she tried: he was too large and too strong, too fearsomely male. She could not think with him in the room, and this errand would make him go away for a time. It would not be her fault, any more than Davad Restart’s death had been her fault. She had done what she could, hadn’t she? But what if the shadow at the door had not been anyone at all? What if the old woman still slept? Her mouth had gone dry, but a stranger spoke the horrifying words. “Top of the stairs. The fourth door on the left. Davad’s room.”

Roed left, his boots clacking purposefully as he strode away from her.

Serilla watched him go. After he was out of sight, she curled forward, her head in her hands. It wasn’t her fault, she tried to console herself. No one could have come through what she had experienced unscathed. It wasn’t her fault. Like a rebuking ghost, Ronica’s words came to her: “That is the challenge, Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it, instead of being trapped by it.”

TO KNOW THE LAYOUT OF BINGTOWN, RONICA REFLECTED BITTERLY, WAS NOT the same as knowing its geography. With a tearless sob, she caught her breath at the sight of the deep ravine that cut her path. She had chosen to lead Rache this way, through the woods behind Davad’s house. She knew that if they hiked straight through the woods to the sea, they would come to the humble section of Bingtown where the Three Ships families made their homes. She had seen it often on the map in Ephron’s study. But the map had not shown this ravine winding through the woods, nor the marshy trickle of water at the bottom of it. She halted, staring down at it. “Perhaps we should have gone by the road,” she offered Rache miserably. She wrapped her dripping shawl more closely about her shoulders.

“By the road, they’d have ridden us down in no time. No. You were wise to come this way.” The serving woman took Ronica’s hand suddenly, set it on her arm and patted it comfortingly. “Let’s follow the flow of the water. Either we will come to a place where animals cross this, or it will lead us to the beach. From the beach, we can always follow the shoreline to where the fishing boats are hauled out.”

Rache led the way and Ronica followed her gratefully. Twiggy bushes, bare of leaves, caught at their skirts and shawls, but Rache pushed gamely onward through sword ferns and dripping salal. Cedars towered overhead, catching most of the rain, but an occasional low bough dumped its load on them. They carried nothing. There had been no time to pack anything. If the Three Ships folk turned them away, they’d be sleeping outdoors tonight with no more shelter than their own skins.