Rache stood at her side on the porch. They watched until they were out of sight. Then Ronica sighed heavily. Everything was suddenly so simple. Reyn would get them out of the harbor and to safety. There was only herself to worry about now and she had stopped caring what became of her a long time ago. She felt a faded smile come to her scratched face. She turned to the former slave at her side and took her hand.

“Well. A quiet moment at last. Shall we have a cup of tea?” she asked her friend.

SOMEONE KNOCKED HARD ON THE CABIN DOOR. ALTHEA GROANED. SHE opened one eye. “What?” she demanded from her bunk.

“Captain wants to see you. Now.” Clefs boyish voice, officious with the command, reached through the door.

“He would,” she muttered to herself. To the door she announced, “I'm coming.” She clambered stiffly down from her bunk.

It was afternoon, but felt like the middle of the night to her. She should have been sleeping. She looked around the small room blearily. Jek was on watch, and it looked as if Amber had stayed with Paragon. Althea had given up on him, at least for now. After the incident with the serpent, the ship had ranted for a time, phrases that taunted Althea because they almost made sense. “Blood is memory,” he had proclaimed. “You can spill it, you can devour it, but you can never erase what it holds. Blood is memory.” He had repeated it until she thought she would go crazy, not with the recitation but with her failure to grasp the meaning. It was at the edge of her understanding.

She picked up her shirt. In some places, it was stiff with her own blood, in others the serpent's venom had eaten holes. The thought of pulling the rough cotton on over her blistered and bruised body made her shudder. With a groan, she crouched down to drag her gear bag out from under Amber's bunk. There was a light cotton shirt in there, a “town” shirt. She dug it out and pulled it on over her sore flesh.

Paragon had finally subsided to confused muttering. Then he had fallen silent, in that terrible impervious silence that was his retreat from the world. It had seemed to Althea that there was almost a smile on his mouth, but Amber had been frantic with worry. When Althea had left her, the bead-maker had been sitting out on the bowsprit, playing her pipes. Nursery tunes, she called them, but they were no songs Althea had ever known. Althea had passed the work crews that were scrubbing the venom and blood from Paragon's pitted decks. She had paused to marvel at the damage done so swiftly to the iron-hard wood. It had melted gouges and dips into the deck. Then she had come back to her cabin and crawled into her bunk.

How long ago had that been? Not long enough. And now Brashen had sent Clef to roust her out. He probably wanted to tell her how she should have handled it. Well, that was the captain's prerogative. She just hoped he talked fast, or she'd fall asleep in his face. She belted up her trousers and went to face her doom.

At the door of his cabin, she smoothed her hair back from her face and tucked in her shirt. She wished vainly that she'd stopped to wash up after the fight and before she'd gone to bed. At the time, it had seemed too much trouble. Too late now. She rapped smartly at the door and waited for Brashen's “Enter.”

She shut the door behind her and then stared. Forgetting herself, she cried out, “Oh, Brashen!”

His dark eyes were shocking in his scarlet face. Huge watery blisters stood up on his cheeks and brow like a Rain Wilder's warts. The tattered remains of the shirt he had been wearing hung across the back of a chair. He wore his fresh shirt loosely, as if he could scarcely bear the touch of it against his skin. He showed his teeth in a grimace meant to be a smile. “You look no better,” he offered her. He made a small gesture at the washbasin in his room. “I've left you some warm water in the pitcher.”

“Thank you,” she said awkwardly. He turned his back to her as she took him up on his courtesy. She hissed when she first lowered her bruised hands into the basin; then as the stinging eased, she thought she had never felt anything so good.

“Haff's going to be all right. He got it worse than either of us. I had the cook wash him down with fresh -water. Poor bastard could hardly stand it. He's all over blood blisters. It ate the clothes right off his body, and still did that to him. That handsome face will bear some scars, I suspect.” He paused, then pointed out, “He disobeyed your order as well as mine.”

Althea lifted the warm washrag to her face. Brashen had a mirror fixed to the wall, but she hadn't dared look in it yet. “I doubt that he remembers that right now.”

“Perhaps not now. But as soon as he's out of bed, I'll see that he does. If he'd left the damn serpent alone, it might have gone away. His actions endangered the whole ship and crew. He seems to think he knows better than mate or captain what to do. He discounts your experience and mine. He wants a bit of stepping on.”