"You see," Brashen confirmed quietly. He had been watching her face. She lowered her eyes from his gaze, suddenly embarrassed that he could read her thoughts so easily. "Sooner or later, it must come down to blood. We could take down a small slaver. We don't have to kill the crew. If they surrendered, we could put them adrift in the ship's boats. Then we could take the ship into a pirate town and free her cargo, just as Kennit does. It might win us the confidence of the folk in the Pirate Isles. It might buy us the knowledge we need to go after the Vivacia." He sounded suddenly uncertain. The dark eyes that regarded her were almost tormented.

She was puzzled. "Are you asking my permission?"

He frowned. It was a moment before he spoke. "It's awkward," he admitted softly. "I am the captain of the Paragon. But Vivacia is your family ship. Your family financed this expedition. I feel that, in some decisions, you have the right to be heard as more than the second mate." He sat back in his chair and gnawed at his knuckle for a moment. Then he looked up at her again. "So, Althea. What do you think?"

The way he spoke her first name suddenly changed the whole tenor of the conversation. He gestured to a chair and she sat down in it slowly. He himself rose and crossed the room. When he returned to the table, he carried a bottle of rum and two glasses. He poured a short jot into each glass. He looked across at her and smiled as he took his chair. He set a glass before her. As she watched his clean hands, she tried to keep her mind on the conversation. What did she think? She answered slowly.

"I don't know what I think. I suppose I've been trusting it all to you. You are the captain, you know, not me." She tried to make the remark lightly, but it came out almost an accusation. She took a sip of her rum.

He crossed his arms on his chest and leaned back slightly in his chair. "Oh, how very well I know that," he murmured. He lifted his glass.

She turned the conversation. "And there's Paragon to consider. We know his aversion to pirates. How would he feel about it?"

Brashen made a low noise in his throat and abruptly set down his rum. "That's the strangest twist of all. Lavoy claims the ship would welcome it."

Althea was incredulous. "How could he know that? Has he already spoken to Paragon about this?" Anger flared in her. "How dare he? The last thing we need is him planting such ideas in Paragon's head."

He leaned across the table toward her. "His claim was that Paragon spoke to him about it. He says he was having a pipe up on the bow one evening, and that the figurehead spoke to him, asking him if he'd ever considered turning pirate. From there, the idea came up that to be a pirate vessel would be the safest way to get into a pirate harbor. And Paragon bragged that he knew many secret ways of the Pirate Isles. Or so Lavoy says."

"Have you asked Paragon about it?"

Brashen shook his head. "I was afraid to bring it up to him; he might think that meant I approved it. Then he would fix all his energy on it. Or that I didn't approve of it, in which case he might decide to insist on it just to prove he could. You know how he can be. I didn't want to present the idea unless we were all behind it. Any mention of it from me, and he might set his mind on piracy as the only correct course of action."

"I wonder if that damage isn't already done," Althea speculated. The rum was making a small warm spot in her belly. "Paragon has been very strange of late."

"And when has that not been true of him?" Brashen asked wryly.

"This is different. He is strange in an ominous way. He speaks of us encountering Kennit as our destiny. And says nothing must keep us from that end."

"And you don't agree with that?" Brashen probed.

"I don't know about the destiny part. Brashen, if we could come upon Vivacia when she had only an anchor watch aboard her and steal her back, I would be content. All I want is my ship, and her crew if any have survived. I have no desire for any more battle or blood than there must be."

"Nor have I," Brashen said quietly. He added another jot of rum to each glass. "But I do not think we will recover Vivacia without both. We must harden ourselves to that now."

"I know," she conceded reluctantly. But she wondered if she did. She had never been in any kind of battle. A couple of tavern scuffles were the extent of her brawling experience. She could not picture herself with a sword in her hand, fighting to free the Vivacia. If someone attacked her, she could fight back. She knew that about herself. But could she leap onto another deck, blade swinging, killing men she had never even seen before? Sitting here with Brashen in a warm and comfortable cabin, she doubted it. It wasn't the Trader way. She had been raised to negotiate for whatever she wanted. However, she did know one thing. She wanted Vivacia back. She wanted that savagely. Perhaps when she saw her beloved ship in foreign hands, anger and fury would wake in her. Perhaps she could kill then.

"Well?" Brashen asked her, and she realized she had been staring past him, out the stern window, at their lace-edged wake. She brought her eyes back to his. Her fingers toyed with her glass as she asked, "Well what?"

"Do we become pirates? Or at least put on the countenances of pirates?"

Her mind raced in hopeless circles. "You're the captain," she said at last. "I think you must decide."

He was silent for a moment. Then, he grinned. "I confess, on some level, it appeals to me. I've given it some thought. For our flag, how about a scarlet sea serpent on a blue background?"

Althea grimaced. "Sounds unlucky. But frightening."

"Frightening is what we want to be. And that was the scariest emblem I could think of, straight from my worst nightmares. As to the luck, I'm afraid we'll have to make that for ourselves."

"As we always have. We'd go after slavers only?"

His face grew grave for a moment. Then a touch of his old grin lightened his eyes. "Maybe we wouldn't have to go after anything. Maybe we could just make it look like we had… or that we intend to. How about a bit of playacting? I think I'd have to be a dissatisfied younger son from Bingtown, something of a fop, perhaps. A gentleman come south to dabble in piracy and politics. What do you think?"

Althea laughed aloud. The rum was uncoiling in her belly, sending tendrils of warmth throughout her body. "I think you could come to enjoy this too much, Brashen. But what about me? How would you explain female crew aboard a Bingtown vessel?"

"You could be my lovely captive, like in a minstrel's tale. The daughter of a Trader, taken hostage and held for ransom." He gave her a sideways glance. "That might help establish my reputation as a daring pirate. We could say the Paragon was your family ship, to explain away the liveship."

"That's a bit overly dramatic," she demurred softly. There was a brighter spark in his eyes. The rum was reaching them both, she decided. Just as she feared that her heart would overpower her head, his face turned suddenly grim.

"Would that we could play-act such a romantic farce and win Vivacia back. The reality of playing pirate would be far more bloody and ruthless. My fear is that I won't enjoy it nearly as much as Lavoy. Or Paragon." He shook his head. "Both of them have a streak of-what shall I call it? Just plain meanness, I sometimes think. If either one were allowed complete indulgence of it, I suspect they would sink to a savagery that you or I would find unthinkable."

"Paragon?" Althea asked. There was skepticism in her voice, but a little shiver of certainty ran up her spine.

"Paragon," Brashen confirmed. "He and Lavoy may be a very bad mix. I'd like to keep them from becoming close, if such a thing is possible."

A sudden knock at the door made them both jump. "Who is it?" Brashen demanded roughly.