But there were others on deck to spoil the image. Most of the slaves had survived the rebellion. Freed of their chains, they were still recovering, the aspects of full humanity. The marks of manacles were yet on their flesh and the slave tattoos on their faces. Their clothes were ragged, and the bodies that showed through the rents were pale and bony. There were far too many of them for Vivacia's size. Although they now occupied the open decks as well as the holds below, they still had the crowded look of cattle being transported. They stood idly in small groups on the busy decks, moving only when the crew gestured them out of the way. Some of the healthier ones worked dispiritedly with rags and buckets, cleaning Vivacia's decks and holds. Dissatisfaction showed on many faces. Wintrow wondered uneasily if they would act on it.

He wondered what he felt about them. Before their uprising, Wintrow had tended them belowdecks. His heart had rung with pity for them, then. True, he had had small comfort to offer them: the dubious relief of salt water and a washing rag seemed a false mercy now. He had tried to do a priest's duties for them, but there had simply been too many. Now whenever he looked at them, instead of recalling his compassion for them, he remembered the screams and the blood as they had killed all his shipmates. He could not name the emotion that now swept through him when he considered the former slaves. Compounded of fear and anger, disgust and sympathy, it wrenched his soul with shame at feeling it. It was not a worthy emotion for a priest of Sa to experience. So he chose his other option. He felt nothing.

Some of the sailors, perhaps, had deserved their violent deaths, as men judged such things. But what of Mild, who had befriended Wintrow, and the fiddler Findow and fun-loving Comfrey and the other good men? Surely, they had merited a kinder end. The Vivacia had not been a slaver when they signed aboard. They had remained aboard her when Kyle had decided to put her to that use. Sa'Adar, the slave priest freed in the rebellion, believed that all who had died had deserved it. He preached that by working as crew on a slaveship, they had become the enemies of all just men. Wintrow felt himself deeply divided on that. He clung to the comforting idea that Sa did not demand he judge others. He told himself that Sa reserved all judging for himself, for only the creator had the wisdom to be judge.

The slaves on board did not share Wintrow's opinion. Some looked at him and seemed to recall a soft-spoken voice in the darkness and hands with a cool damp rag. Others saw him as a sham, as the captain's son playing at mercy but doing little to free them until they had taken matters into their own hands. One and all, they avoided him. He could not fault them. He avoided them as well, choosing to spend most of his time on the foredeck near Vivacia. The pirate crew members came there only when the operation of the ship demanded it. Otherwise, they avoided it as superstitiously as the slaves did. The living, speaking figurehead frightened them. If their shunning of her bothered Vivacia, she gave no sign of it. For Wintrow's part, he was glad there was still one place aboard ship where he could be relatively alone. He leaned his head back against her railing and tried to find a thought that wasn't painful.

At home, it would almost be spring. The buds would be swelling in the monastery orchards. He wondered how Berandol was doing with his own studies, if his tutor ever missed him. He wondered with deep regret what he would be studying now if he were there. He looked down at his hands. Once they had transcribed manuscripts and shaped stained-glass windows. They had been a boy's hands, agile but still tender. Callus coated his palms now, and a finger was missing from one hand. They were the rough hands of a sailor. His finger would never wear a priest's ring.

Here it was a different kind of spring. The canvas snapped in the brisk chill wind. Migrating flocks of birds passed overhead with their haunting cries. The islands to either side of the channel had become even more lush, green and alive with shorebirds arguing about nesting space.

Something tugged at him.

“Your father calls for you,” Vivacia said quietly.

Of course. He had sensed it through her. Their journey through the storm had affirmed and strengthened the bond of mind and spirit between the ship and himself. He did not resent it as he once had and he sensed that Vivacia did not cherish it as dearly as she once had. Perhaps in this, at least, their feelings were meeting in the middle. Since the storm, she had been kind to him, but no more than that. Like a preoccupied parent with a demanding child, he thought to himself.

“In some ways, we have exchanged roles since our journey began,” she observed aloud.

He nodded, having neither spirit nor energy to deny the truth. Then he straightened his shoulders, ran a hand through his hair and set his jaw more firmly. He would not let his father see how uncertain he felt.