chairs. 'Do sit down,' the woman invited them. 'And take your wet things off. Da isn't here just now, but I expect him back soon. Tea?'
'I would be so grateful,' Ronica told her.
Ekke dipped water from a barrel into a kettle. As she put it on the hearth to boil, she looked over her shoulder at them. 'You look all done in. There's a bit of the morning's porridge left-sticky-thick, but filling all the same. Can I warm it for you?'
'Please,' Rache replied when Ronica could not find words. The girl's simple, open hospitality to two strangers brought tears to her eyes, even as she realized how bedraggled she must look to merit such charity. It humbled her to know she had come to this: begging at a Three Ships door. What would Ephron have thought of her now?
The leftover porridge was indeed sticky and thick. Ronica devoured her share with a hot cup of a reddish tea, pleasantly spiced with cardamom in the Three Ships fashion. Ekke seemed to sense they were both famished and exhausted. She let them eat and made all the conversation herself, chatting of changing winter weather, of nets to be mended, and the quantity of salt they must buy somewhere to have enough to make 'keeping fish' for the stormy season. To all of this, Ronica and Rache nodded as they chewed.
When they had finished the porridge, Ekke clattered their bowls away. She refilled their cups with the steaming, fragrant tea. Then, for the first time, she sat down at the table with a cup of her own. 'So. You're the women who've talked with Da before, aren't you? You've come to talk with him about the Bingtown situation, eh?'
Ronica appreciated her forthright approach, and reciprocated it. 'Not exactly. I have spoken with your father twice before about the need for all the folk of Bingtown to unify and treat for peace. Things cannot continue as they are. If they do, the Chalcedeans need do no more than sit outside our harbor and wait until we peck each other to bits. As it is, when our patrol ships come back in, they have difficulty finding fresh supplies. Not to mention that it is hard for fathers and brothers to leave homes to drive off the Chalcedeans, if they must worry about their families unprotected at home.'
A line divided Ekke's brow as she nodded to all this. Rache suddenly cut in smoothly, 'But that is not why we are here, now. Ronica and I must seek asylum, with Three Ships folk if we can. Our lives are in danger.'
Too dramatic, Ronica thought woefully to herself as she saw the Three Ships woman narrow her eyes. An instant later, there was the scuff of boots on the porch outside, and the door opened to admit Sparse Kelter. He was, as Rache had once described him, a barrel of a man, with more red hair to his beard and arms than to the crown of his head. He stopped in consternation, then shut the door behind him and stood scratching his beard in perplexity. He glanced from his daughter to the two women at table with her.
He took a sudden breath as if he had just recalled his manners. But his greeting was as blunt as his daughter's had been, 'And what brings Trader Vestrit to my door and table?'
Ronica stood quickly. 'Hard necessity, Sparse Kelter. My own folk have turned on me. I am called traitor, and accused of plotting, though in truth I have done neither.'
'And you've come to take shelter with me and my kin,' Kelter observed heavily.
Ronica bowed her head in acknowledgment. They both knew she brought trouble, and that it could fall most heavily on Sparse and his daughter. She didn't need to put that into words. 'It's Trader trouble, and there is no justice in me asking you to take it on. I shall not ask that you shelter me here: only that you send word to another Trader, one that I trust. If I write a message and you can find someone to carry it for me to Grag Tenira of the Bingtown Traders, and then allow me to wait here until he replies… that is all I ask.'
Into their silence she added, 'And I know that's a large enough favor to ask, from a man I've spoken to only twice before.'
'But each time, you spoke fairly. Of things dear to me, of peace in Bingtown, a peace that Three Ships folk could have a voice in. And the name Tenira is not unknown to me. I've sold them salt fish many a time for ship provisions. They raise straight men in that house, they do.' Sparse pursed his lips, and then made a sucking noise as he considered it. 'I'll do it,' he said with finality.
'I've no way of repaying you,' Ronica pointed out quickly.
'I don't recall that I asked any payment.' Sparse was gruff, but not unkind. He added matter-of-factly, 'I can't think of any payment that would be worth my risking my daughter. Save my own sense of what I ought to do, no matter the risk to us.'
'I don't mind, Da,' Ekke broke in quietly. 'Let the lady write her note. I'll carry it to Tenira myself.'
An odd smile twisted Sparse's wide features. 'I thought you might want to, at that,' he said. Ronica noted that she had suddenly become 'the lady' to Ekke. Oddly, she felt diminished by it.
'I have not even a scrap of paper nor a dab of ink to call my own,' she pointed out quietly.
'We have both. Just because we are Three Ships does not mean we don't have our letters,' Ekke said. A tart note had come into her voice. She rose briskly to bring Ronica a sheet of serviceable paper, a quill and ink.
Ronica took up the quill, dipped it and paused. Speaking as much to herself as to Rache, she said, 'I must pen this carefully. I need not only to ask his aid, but to tell him tidings that concern all of Bingtown, tidings that need to reach many ears quickly.'
'Yet I noticed you haven't offered to share them here,' Ekke observed.
'You are right,' Ronica agreed humbly. She set her pen aside and lifted her eyes to Ekke's. 'I scarcely know what my news will mean, but I fear it will affect us all. The Satrap is missing. He had been taken upriver, into the Rain Wilds, for safety. All know none but a liveship can go up that river. There, it seemed, he would be safe from any treachery from New Traders or Chalcedeans.'
'Indeed. Only a Bingtown Trader could get to him there.'
'Ekke!' her father rebuked her. To Ronica he said with a frown, 'Tell on.'
'There was an earthquake. I know little more than that it did great damage, and for a time he was missing. Now the word is that he was seen in a boat going down the river. With my young granddaughter, Malta.' The next words came hard. 'Some fear that she has turned him against the Old Traders. That she is a traitor, and has convinced him that he must flee his sanctuary to be safe.'
'And what is the truth?' Sparse demanded.
Ronica shook her head. 'I don't know. The words I overheard were not meant for me; I could not ask questions. They spoke something about a threatened attack by a Jamaillian fleet, but said too little for me to know if the threat is real or only suspected. As for my granddaughter…' For an instant, her throat closed. The fear she had refused suddenly swamped her. She forced a breath past the lump in her throat, and spoke with a calmness she did not feel. 'It is uncertain if the Satrap and those with him survived. The river might have eaten their boat, or they may have capsized. No one knows where they are. And if the Satrap is lost, regardless of the circumstances, I fear it will plunge us into war. With Jamaillia, and perhaps Chalced. Or just a civil war here, Old Trader against New.'
'And Three Ships caught in the middle, as usual,' Ekke commented sourly. 'Well, it is as it is. Pen your letter, lady, and I shall carry it. This is news, it seems to me, that it is safer spread than kept secret.'
'You see quickly to the heart of it,' Ronica agreed. She took up the quill and dipped it once more. But as she set tip to paper, she was not only thinking of what words would bring Grag here most swiftly, but of how difficult it was going to be to forge a lasting peace in Bingtown. Far more difficult than she had first perceived. The quill tip scratched as it moved swiftly across the coarse paper.
CHAPTER ELEVEN – Bodies and Souls
THE DAWN SUNLIGHT GLINTED FAR TOO BRIGHTLY OFF THE WATER. THE COARSE fabric of Wintrow's trousers chafed his raw skin. He could not bear a shirt. He could stand and walk alone now, but became giddy if he taxed himself at all. Even limping to the foredeck was making his heart pound. As he made his slow journey, working crewmen slowed to stare at him, then, with false heartiness, congratulated him on his recovery. Scarred enough to make a pirate flinch, he told himself caustically. The crewmen were sincere in their good wishes to him. He was truly one of their own now.
He ascended the short ladder to the foredeck, two feet to each step. He dreaded confronting the gray and
