But that evening, as the watch changed, there were fewer crew coming to invade them because the ship had made port, and those on liberty would be slinking into the night streets of the city looking for new conquests. This would be one of her best chances, and she moved quickly, selecting one of the smaller men who came loudly into the cabin. He was an older man with small bones and pinched features, a bald head and eyes that seemed to have a trace of kindness remaining.
She drank with the man and let his bony fingers probe and caress her. She forced herself to hold him, to nuzzle into his neck, to laugh at his attempts at bawdy humor. When he was sufficiently full of wine, she begged him to take her up on deck where she might look upon the majestic lights of Eleusynnia under a quartering moon. The man looked at her oddly, but perhaps he was a bit of a romantic himself, for he nodded his head and laughed as he guided her not too roughly from the stuffy cabin.
Tessa had never killed a man before. It was especially difficult because this one had been as close to kind as anyone she had ever accompanied. As he held her against the gunwale, pressing his thin lips against her, she let her hands drift sensually down the small of his back, touching his belt, feeling the hilt of his knife in her long fingers. The weapon felt hard and smooth; she knew she must move quickly, efficiently.
Twisting her body into his, she gasped loudly as she pulled the knife free from its scabbard, immediately plunging it between the lower ribs of his back. The man tensed, then screamed as she tore the blade through him. Something dark bubbled from his lips and his eyes became glassy, unseeing. There was noise and the clatter of boots on the deck, growing louder. Tessa looked from the crumpled shape at her feet to the approaching figures on the deck, then finally to the shimmering oily surface of the water as it slapped lazily against the hull.
Over the side without thinking, she felt a rush of air and a bracing sting of something far colder than she imagined. Her clothes gathered in the water and weighed her down, causing her to struggle as if in a quagmire. Paddling in half panic away from the ship, she heard the rough voices of the men as they searched for her in the darkness, and suddenly a flare arced gracefully out over the harbor, guiding her way to the nearest wharf and exposing her position to the night-watch of The Silver Girl.
Their firearms started popping and cracking, snitting into the water around her. Once she tried sinking, holding her breath and feigning a hit, but when she was forced finally to the surface, the volley of shots began again. Davits creaked in the distance and she heard a boat being lowered. If she did not reach the wharf, they would overtake her and death would be graciously hers. It seemed unfair, now that she had come so close to freedom, to fail.
The wooden pilings seemed to grow closer, but she could not be sure of this. The flare had died out and another was arcing high above her, casting a horrid orange glow on everything. The longboat had smacked into the water and she could hear the angry shouts of the men as they leaned into the oars.
Then there was a hand grabbing her arm. It was a strong hand which held her like a gentle vise. With a fluid movement, she was being pulled from the water, gliding like a ballet dancer, up and over the edge of the wharf. A tall man with sandy hair and bright blue eyes—they were obviously so, despite the odd illumination of the flares—and dressed in the uniform of a merchant seaman. As he lifted her to her feet with his left hand, he raised a long-barreled pistol in the other.
“Be quiet,” he said. “And get down.”
Moving away from the edge of the dock, Tessa watched the man calmly take aim upon the approaching boat and open fire. The man in the bow arced out of the boat, his forehead blown away. The rest of the crew drew weapons and began firing wildly. Turning, the man grabbed her arm again, firmly yet gently as before, and ran off down the docks toward the closest avenue. They turned a corner and rushed toward the lights of a tavern.
Before they could reach it, however, the remaining trio from the longboat rounded the corner. Her rescuer pushed her into a doorway and turned to face them, firing off another round from his large sidearm.
A second crewman fell, the one with the small-caliber pistol. Before the remaining pair could move, the merchant seaman broke into a run, hurling himself in between them. He dropped his sidearm in favor of his shortsword, which he unsheathed so smoothly and quickly that the two men did not have time to react to it.
Two quick flashes of the blade were all that were required. Varian stood for a moment between the fallen men, ensuring that neither needed further service from his weapon, then turned back to the doorway where Tessa huddled.
“We’ve got to leave this street,” he said. “Come.”
They hugged the shadows of a parallel avenue, and Tessa noticed that the man moved with a confidence which suggested intimate familiarity with the narrow alleys and shaded streets.
After three blocks, he stopped her. “You’re still soaking wet. You have a change of clothes?”
Tessa could only shake her head.
The man smiled. “All right then; if you’ll come with me, I have a friend who might be able to help us.”
An hour later, Tessa was sitting by a warm fireplace, dressed in the clean dry robes of a woman named Alcesa. She was very fat and freckled; her blue eyes were pinched
