“No!” Keffria started up with a shriek. “I can't stand this! Don't talk about things like that. Kyle, you mustn't go up the Rain Wild River. Slaves are far better, trade in slaves, and take Wintrow with you if you must, but you mustn't go up the Rain Wild River!” She looked at them both pleadingly. “He would never come back. We both know that. Papa's only just died and now you're talking about letting Kyle get himself killed.”

“Keffria. You're over-wrought, and over-reacting to everything.” The look Kyle shot Ronica suggested it was her fault for playing upon her daughter's imagination. A tiny spark of anger kindled in Ronica's heart, but she doused it firmly, for her daughter was looking at her husband with eyes full of hurt. Opportunity, she breathed to herself. Opportunity.

“Let me take care of her,” she suggested smoothly to Kyle. “I'm sure you have so much to do to ready the ship. Come, Keffria. Let's go to my sitting room. I'll have Rache bring us some tea. In truth, I feel a bit over-wrought myself. Come. Let's leave things to Kyle for a while.”

She stood and slipped an arm around Keffria and led her from the room. Salvage, she silently whispered to Ephron. I'll salvage what I can of what you left me, my dear. At least one daughter I shall keep safe by me.

CHAPTER ELEVEN - CONSEQUENCES AND REFLECTIONS

AND IF I WISHED TO DISPUTE THESE DOCUMENTS?" ALTHEA ASKED SLOWLY. SHE TRIED TO MAKE HER VOICE impartially calm, but inside she was quivering with both anger and hurt.

Curtil scratched reluctantly at what was left of his graying hair. “That is specifically provided for. Anyone who disputes this last testament is automatically excluded from benefitting from it.” He shook his head, almost apologetically. “It's a standard thing,” he told her gently. “It's not as if your father was thinking specifically of you when we wrote it.”

She looked up from her tangled hands and met his eyes firmly. “And you believe this is actually what he wished? That Kyle take over Vivacia, and I be dependent on my sister's charity?”

“Well, I doubt that is how he envisioned it,” Curtil said judiciously. He took a sip of his tea. Althea wondered if that were a delaying tactic, to give him time to think. The old man straightened in his chair as if he'd decided something. “But I do believe he knew his own mind. No one deceived him or coerced him. I would never have been a party to that. Your father wished to see your sister as his sole heir. He did not desire to punish you, but rather to safeguard his entire family.”

“Well, in both of those desires, he failed,” Althea said harshly. Then she lowered her face into her hands, ashamed to have spoken so of her father. Curtil let her be. When she lifted her face some time later, she observed, “You must think me a carrion bird. Yesterday my father died, and today I come quarreling for a share of what was his.”

Curtil offered her his handkerchief and she took it gratefully. “No. No, I don't think that. When the mainstay of one's world is taken away, it's only natural to cling to all the rest, to try desperately to keep things as close to the way they were as one can.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “But no one can ever go back to yesterday.”

“No. I suppose not.” She sighed heavily. She considered her last pathetic straw of hope. “Trader Curtil. By Bingtown law, if a man swears an oath to Sa, cannot he be held to that oath as a legal contract?”

Curtil's long brow furrowed. “Well. It depends. If in a fit of anger, in a tavern, I say that by Sa, I'm going to kill so-and-so, well, that's not a legal action in the first place, so . . .”

Althea stopped mincing words. “If Kyle Haven swore before witnesses that if I could produce proof that I was a worthy seaman, he would give Vivacia back to me, if he swore that in Sa's name, could it be enforced?”

“Well, technically, the ship is your sister's property, not his-”

“She has ceded control of it over to him,” Althea said impatiently. “Is such an oath legally binding?”

Curtil shrugged. “You'd end up before the Traders' Council, but, yes, I think you'd win. They're conservative, the old customs count for much with them. An oath sworn before Sa would have to be legally honored. You have witnesses to this, at least two?”

Althea leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “One, perhaps, who would speak up for the truth of what I say. The other two ... I no longer know any more what I could expect of my mother and sister.”

Curtil shook his head. “Family disputes such as these are such messy things. I counsel you not to pursue this, Althea. It can only lead to even worse rifts.”