Katryn eyed the tiny, innocuous-looking spill of fresh water that fell from the hole in the cave’s wall. She’d always regarded it as a positive feature of her favorite remote Outer Sea hideaway, as it meant she never had to worry about going thirsty… but if Memnur really was after the gully-girl for some strange reason… well, the governor wasn’t the sort of man who let something he wanted slip out of his grasp. “Who exactly was after you… a slave trader, a couple of soldiers?”
“The whole town, it looked like,” Jace said. “The governor was going to pay Montaldo twelve thousand for her.”
“Montaldo?” Katryn repeated. “And twelve thousand… twelve thousand tetrae? I’m sorry, kid… you two are going to have to get off my boat.”
“Ship,” Loki corrected her.
“Shut up,” Katryn said. “You look like you can take on a little water, but your girl… I’d give you a dinghy if I could spare one…”
“If you had one,” Loki said.
“If I had one to spare,” Katryn said. “I can give you an empty barrel.”
“We have lots of empty barrels, in point of fact” Loki said. “And on that subject, if you’re set on leaving in a hurry, are you sure you can afford to leave these two behind?”
“You can’t leave us!” Jace said.
“Kid, I don’t have enough food for me,” Katryn said.
“So how are you going to get food without me?”
“Listen to him… he makes a persuasive argument,” Loki said.
“How am I supposed to get food with you if you can’t go into town?” Katryn asked.
“Well,” Loki said, “one traditional method…”
“Shut your damned mouth!” Katryn said. She turned to Jace. “Speak persuasively and quickly.”
“I can get fish,” he said. It was true enough… he’d often caught a fish to cook on the beach during his morning swims, and when the rare mood struck him Prit had sometimes sent him to get one.
“Enough for three people?” Katryn asked.
“Four,” he said. “I’m not leaving Sheiral.”
“I figured,” she said. “So can you?”
“Sure,” he said. He’d never caught enough fish for one person to live on, but it seemed to him that if he could catch one fish every so often, he could just keep doing that until he had enough.
“Let’s get underway immediately, then,” Katryn said. She folded up her map and gathered her books and papers and started to head towards the aft of the ship. The deck was slightly raised, and there was a narrow and steep set of stairs leading down into the cabin that was set beneath it. “I want to be a speck in the darkness before anybody spots us, if they do,” she said as she turned around to mount the steps, her papers tucked under her arm. “We’ll sail for Montport… there’s a free harbor there, and that’s where we’ll part ways. Get your friend below deck. If anybody’s watching the wrong part of the coast, we’ll probably end up with pursuit anyway, but if they don’t spot their prize…”
“Can’t we put her in a cabin?” Jace asked.
“There’s only one cabin and neither of you are going near it,” Katryn said. She raised her voice as she dropped down out of sight. “Get her settled down, and then keep out of sight yourself until I get you, you hear?”
She didn’t hear a response, but she didn’t stop to listen for one, instead hurrying to lock her much-scrutinized prizes and a few other loose sheaves in a watertight chest. She turned around to head back on deck and found Loki standing there.
“You know you aren’t supposed to be in my cabin,” she said.
“I can’t not be in your cabin,” he said. “It’s part of the ship, whether I show up here or not.”
“Well, don’t show up here,” Katryn said. “I notice you didn’t have an argument with us bringing them… alive, I mean.”
“Why would I argue? They’ll keep fresh longer this way.”
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