They searched all around the coach. Neither of them spoke of what they were really doing. They searched the ground for Malta's body, feeling about in the dark. After a time, Keffria said, “She might have been trapped inside the coach.”

The coach lay on its side on the steep slope, with its roof pointing downhill. The coachman's booted feet stuck out from under it. Ronica and Keffria both noticed them, but neither pointed them out to the other. Selden had seen enough tonight. He did not need to be shown that. He did not need to wonder, as they did, if Malta's body was under there, too. Ronica guessed that the coach had rolled at least twice before coming to rest. Even now, it did not look stable. “Be careful,” she cautioned her daughter in a low voice. “It may slide further down the hill.”

“I'll be careful,” Keffria promised uselessly. Then she clambered slowly up the undercarriage of the coach. She gasped once as her injured hand slipped. She lay on the side of the vehicle, looking in the window. “I can't see a thing,” she called down to them. “I'll have to climb down inside it.”

Ronica listened to her wrestle with the door. She managed to drag it open. Then she sat on the edge of the opening for a moment, before lowering herself inside. Ronica heard her sharp exclamation of horror. “I stepped on her,” Keffria wailed. “Oh, my baby, my baby.”

The silence stretched all the way to the stars and back. Then Keffria began to sob. “Oh, Mother, she's breathing! She's alive, Malta's alive!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - Proofs

IT WAS ALMOST DAWN WHEN SHE SLIPPED QUIETLY INTO HIS CABIN. NO doubt, she thought he was asleep.

Kennit was not. When they had first returned to the ship, Etta had assisted him through a hot bath and into clean clothing. Then he had shooed her out of his cabin, and spread out the plans for Divvytown on the chart table. He set out his straight-edge, dividers and pens, and considered his previous effort with a scowl. He had been working from memory when he created it. Today, as he painstakingly stumped over the areas in question, he swiftly saw that some of his ideas were unworkable. He set out a new sheet of vellum and began work afresh.

He had always loved this type of work. It was like creating his own world, a tidy and orderly world where things made sense and were arranged to their best advantage. It took him back to the days of his very early boyhood, when he had played on the floor beside his father's desk. The floor had been earth in that first home he remembered. When his father was sober, he worked on his plans for Key Island. It was not only his own grand manor house that he drew. He inked in the cottages in a row where the servants would live, designating how large the garden plots for each would be, and even calculating how much space each crop would need. He had sketched out the stable and the barn, the pens for the sheep, arranging them so that the manure piles would be handy to the garden plots. He had planned a bunkhouse for the ship's crew members should they want to sleep ashore. He set each structure in place so that the roads might run straight and level. It was the plan for a perfect little world on a hidden island. Often he had taken young Kennit on his lap, to show him his dream. He had told him tales of how they would all be happy here. All had been laid out so well. For a brief time, the dream had prospered.

Until Igrot came.

He had pushed that thought away, shoved it down to the back of his mind as he worked. He was working on the layout for the shelter at the base of the watchtower when the charm suddenly spoke. “What is the purpose of this?” it demanded.

Kennit scowled at the squiggle of ink his start had caused. He blotted it carefully away. It would still leave a mark. He would have to sand it out of the vellum. He frowned as he leaned to the work again. “The purpose of this design,” he said, more to himself than to the insolent charm, “is that this structure can double as a safe haven in case of attack, as well as a temporary shelter until their homes are rebuilt. If they put a well here, inside, and fortify the outside structure, then-”

“Then they could starve to death instead of being carted off for slaves,” the charm observed brightly.

“Raiding ships don't have that type of patience, usually. They are after a quick, easy capture of plunder and slaves. They are not likely to besiege a fortified town.”

“But what is the purpose of these plans? Why do you take such an interest in creating a better town for folk you secretly despise?”

For a moment, the question stymied him. He looked down at his plans. The folk of Divvytown were truly not worthy to live in such an orderly place. It did not matter, he discovered. “It will be better,” he said stubbornly. “It will be tidier.”