“Do you understand me?” Kyle demanded, as if shouting louder at the boy would make his words more comprehensible. Dazed as he was, Wintrow still managed a nod. Kyle let go of his shirt front. The boy staggered, then caught at the table's edge. He stood, head hanging.

“Now means now!” Kyle barked in angry triumph. His head swiveled to the door and a gaping serving man there. “You! Welf! Stop your gawking and escort my son down to the Vivacia. See that he packs and takes everything he came here with, for he'll be living on the ship from now on.”

As Welf hastened into the room to take Wintrow's arm and lead him out of the room, Kyle rounded on Althea. His success at bullying his son seemed to have bolstered his courage, for he challenged her with, “Are you wise enough to take a lesson from this, sister?”

Althea kept her voice even and low. “I'd be very surprised if we had not all learned something about you today, Kyle. Chiefly that there is very little you won't do in your ambition to control the Vestrit family.”

“Control?” Kyle stared at her incredulously, and then turned to the other two women to see if they were as astonished as he was. But Ronica met his gaze with a black stare, while Keffria sobbed against her shoulder. “Is that what you think this is about? Control?” He shook his head and gave a brittle laugh. “This is about salvage. Damn me, I don't know why I try. You all look at me as if I were a criminal, when all I'm trying to do is keep this family afloat. Keffria! You know what this is about. We've talked about this.”

He turned towards his wife. She finally lifted her tear-stained face to meet his gaze, but there was no understanding in her eyes. He shook his head in disbelief. “What am I supposed to do?” he asked of them all. “Our holdings are losing money every day, we've a liveship we're still paying the money lenders for, our creditors are threatening to start confiscating our holdings, and you all seem to think we should genteelly ignore it and take tea together. No, I take that back. Althea seems to think she should hasten our progress toward ruin by keeping the liveship as a toy for herself, while she spends her evenings getting drunk with the local water rats and having a bit of slap and tickle on the side.”

“Stop it, Kyle,” Ronica warned him in a low voice.

“Stop what? Telling you what you already know but refuse to recognize? Listen to me, all of you, just for a few moments.” He paused and took a deep breath, as if trying to set aside his anger and frustration. “I have my children to think of, Selden and Malta. Just like Ephron, I, too, will die someday. And I don't intend for them to inherit naught but a mass of debts and a bad name. Ephron left you no sons to protect you, Ronica, no men to take over the running of the holdings. So I step up, as a dutiful son-in-law, to do what must be done, however painful. I've given it a lot of thought these last few months, and I believe I can get us back on our feet. I've established a number of contacts in Chalced, ready to deal with us. It is not really that unusual a plan: we must work the ship, and work her hard, running the most profitable cargoes as swiftly as we can transport them. In the meanwhile, we must evaluate all our holdings, without sentiment, and keep only those that can actually give us a profit this year. But even more important, we must not panic our creditors. If we sell things off wildly, they will think we are going under, and will close in on us, to get a share of what is left before it is gone. And, quite frankly, if they see Althea out drinking and carousing with lowlifes, as if there is no hope nor pride left in the family, that, too, will have its effect. Blacken your name, Althea, and you blacken my daughter's with yours. Someday I hope to see Malta make a good marriage. She will not ever receive the attention of honorable men if you have established yourself as a drunk and a slattern.”

“How dare you-” Althea growled.

“I dare much, for my children. I'll see Wintrow hammered into a man, even if he grows up thinking he hates me for it. I'll see a sturdy financial basis back under this family, even if I have to work that liveship as you never could to do it. If you cared for your own kin even half as much as I do, you'd be straightening yourself up and presenting yourself as a lady and trying to make an acceptable marriage to shore up the family fortunes.”

A cold fury now possessed Althea. “So I should whore myself out to the highest bidder, so long as he'll call me wife and offer a good bride price?”

“Better than to the lowest bidder, as you seemed so intent on doing last night.” Kyle replied as coldly.

Althea drew breath, swelling like an angry cat, but her mother's cold voice cut across her quarrel with Kyle.