The charm pursed his lips at him. “Because I can. I am probably the only one in the whole world who can torment the great Captain Kennit. The Liberator. The would-be King of the Pirate Isles.” The little face snickered and added snidely, “Brave Serpent-Bait of the Inside Passage. Tell me. What do you want of the boy-priest? Do you desire him? He stirs in your fever dreams memories of what you were. Would you do as you were done by?”

“No. I was never . . .”

“What, never?” The wizardwood charm snickered cruelly. “Do you truly believe you can lie to me, bonded as we are? I know everything about you. Everything.”

“I made you to help me, not to torment me! Why have you turned on me?”

“Because I hate what you are,” the charm replied savagely. “I hate that I am becoming a part of you, aiding you in what you do.”

Kennit drew a ragged breath. “What do you want from me?” he demanded. It was a cry of surrender, a plea for mercy or pity.

“Now there's a question you never thought of before this. What do I want from you?” The charm drew the question out, savoring it. “Maybe I want you to suffer. Maybe I enjoy tormenting you. Maybe . . .”

Footsteps sounded outside the door. Etta's boots and the light scuff of bare feet.

“Be kind to Etta,” the charm demanded hastily. “And perhaps I will-”

As the door opened, the face fell silent. It was once more still and silent, a wooden bead on a bracelet on a sick man's wrist. Wintrow came in, followed by the whore. “Kennit, I've brought him,” Etta announced as she shut the door behind them.

“Good. Leave us.” If the damn charm thought it could force him into anything, it was wrong.

Etta looked stricken. “Kennit ... do you think that's wise?”

“No. I think it is stupid. That's why I told you to do it, because I delight in stupidity.” His voice was low as he flung the words at her. He watched the face at his wrist for some sort of reaction. It was motionless, but its tiny eyes glittered. Probably it plotted revenge. He didn't care. While he could breathe, he would not cower before a bit of wood.

“Get out,” he repeated. “Leave the boy to me.”

Her back was very straight as she marched out. She shut the door firmly behind her, not quite slamming it. The moment she was outside, Kennit dragged himself into a sitting position. “Come here,” he told Wintrow. As the boy approached the bed, Kennit seized the corner of the sheet and flung it aside. It exposed his shortened leg in all its putrescent glory. “There it is,” Kennit told him in disgust. “What can you do for me?”

The boy blanched at the sight of it. Kennit knew he steeled himself to approach the bedside and look more closely at his leg. He wrinkled his nose against the smell. Then he lifted his dark eyes to Kennit's and spoke simply and honestly. “I don't know. It's very bad.” His glance darted back to Kennit's leg then met his eyes again. “Let's approach it this way. If we do not attempt to take off your leg, you will die. What have we to lose by trying?”

The pirate forced a stiff grin to his face. “I? Very little, it seems. You have still your own life and your father's on the scale.”

Wintrow gave a short, mirthless laugh. “I well know that my life is forfeit if you die, with or without my efforts.” He made a tiny motion with his head toward the door. “She would never suffer me to survive you.”

“You fear the woman, do you?” Kennit permitted his grin to widen. “You should. So. What do you propose?” He tried to keep up his bravado with casual words.

The boy looked back at his leg. He furrowed his brow and pondered. The intensity of his concentration only made his youth more apparent.

Kennit glanced down once at his decaying stump. After that, he preferred to watch Wintrow's face. The pirate winced involuntarily as the boy extended his hands toward his leg. “I won't touch it,” Wintrow promised. His voice was almost a whisper. “But I need to discover where the soundness stops and the foulness begins.” He cupped his hands together, as if to capture something under them. He began at the injury and slowly moved his hands up towards Kennit's thigh. Wintrow's eyes were closed to slits and his head was cocked as if he listened intently to something. Kennit watched his moving hands. What did he sense? Warmth, or something subtler, like the slow working of poison? The boy's hands were weathered from hard work, but retained the languid grace of an artisan's.

“You have only nine fingers,” Kennit observed. “What happened to the other one?”