“Don't wake him, please.”

Etta's voice was so gentle he almost did not recognize it. He turned his whole body to see her. She was seated in a chair in the corner of the room. There were hollows under her eyes that he had not noticed before. Dark blue fabric overlay her lap while she plied a busy needle. She looked up at him, bit off a thread, turned her work and began a new seam.

“I have to see if he's still bleeding.” His words sounded thick and misshapen to his ears.

“He doesn't seem to be. However, if you disturb the bandages to check the wound, you might start blood flowing. Best to leave well enough alone.”

“Has he awakened at all?” His mind was starting to clear itself.

“Briefly. Right after you . . . brought him back. I gave him water, lots of it. Then he dozed off again. He's slept ever since.”

Wintrow rubbed at his eyes. “How long has that been?”

“Nearly all night,” she told him placidly. “It will be dawn soon.”

He could not fathom her kindly manner toward him. It was not that she looked at him warmly or smiled. Rather something was gone from her voice, an edge of jealousy or distrust that had always been there before now. Wintrow was glad that she didn't seem to hate him anymore, but he wasn't quite sure how to deal with it. “Well,” he said inanely. “I suppose I should go back to sleep for a while then.”

“Sleep where you were,” she suggested. “It's clean and warm in here. You're close to Kennit in case he needs you.”

“Thank you,” he said awkwardly. He was not sure that he wanted to sleep on the deck here. His bed would be the deck no matter where he went on the ship, but the thought of having a stranger watching him while he slept was unnerving. What happened next was even stranger. She shook out the work on her lap, holding it up between them, her eyes going from him to her needlework and back again. It was a pair of trousers, and she was obviously eyeing him to see if they would fit. He felt like he should say something, but he did not know what. She folded it back into her lap without comment. She threaded her needle again and resumed her work.

He returned to his blanket on the floor, rather like a dog returning to its designated spot. He sat but could not bring himself to lie down. Instead, he shawled the blanket over his shoulders. He looked at Etta until she returned his gaze. “How did you become a pirate?” he abruptly asked her. He hadn't realized he was going to speak until the words popped out.

She took a breath, then spoke thoughtfully. There was no trace of regret in her voice. “I worked as a whore in a house in Divvytown. Kennit took a liking to me. One day I helped him kill some men who attacked him there. Afterwards, he took me out of the whorehouse and brought me here. At first, I was not sure why he had brought me to his ship, or what he expected of me. However, after a time, his thought became clear to me. I could be much more than a whore, if I chose to. He was giving me the chance.”

He stared at her. Her words had shocked him. Not her admission that she had killed men for Kennit; he had expected that of this pirate. She had called herself a whore. That was a man's word, a shame-word flung at a woman. But she did not seem ashamed. She wielded the word like a sword, slicing away all his preconceptions of who she was. She had earned her living by her sex, and she did not seem to regret it. It roused a strange shivering of interest in him. She suddenly seemed a more powerful creature than she had just moments ago. “What were you before you were a whore?” Unaccustomed to speaking the word, he put too much emphasis on it. He had not meant it to sound that way, he had not meant to ask that question at all. Had Vivacia nudged him to it?

She frowned at him, thinking he rebuked her. Her eyes were straight and flat as she said, “I was a whore's daughter.” A note of challenge crept into her voice as she asked in turn, “And what were you, before your father made you a slave on his ship?”

“I was a priest of Sa. At least, I was in training to be one.”

She lifted one eyebrow. “Really? I'd rather be a whore.”

Her words ended their conversation irrevocably. There was nothing he could say in reply. He did not feel offended. She had pointed up the vast gulf between them in a way that denied they could communicate at all, let alone offend one another. She went back to her sewing, her head bent over her work. Her face was carefully expressionless. Wintrow felt he had lost a chance. Moments ago, it had seemed that she had opened a door to him. Now the barrier was back, solid as ever. Why should he care, he asked himself, for the depth of his disappointment surprised him. Because she was a back door to influencing Kennit, because he might need her good will someday, the sly part of himself suggested. Wintrow pushed the thought aside. Because she, too, is a creation of Sa, he told himself firmly. I should reach out to befriend her for herself, not for any influence she has with Kennit. Nor because she is unlike any woman I have ever known at all and I cannot resist the puzzle of her.