"But your finger..."

"It'll mend. My Sara and the wee ones can't eat stones and air, outlander. I lose this post, and there's a dozen wharf rats waiting to take me place. No. Long as skipper doesn't spot it for a few days I'll manage fine. I'd hoped we'd not be aloft so soon to test it. If she..." His voice faded as Pyra Quadde strode out from the aft companionway, standing with legs apart, braced against the roll of the ship, eyes raking the assembled crew.

"What would she have done?" Ryan whispered.

Flynn touched his finger to his lips. "Don't let her see thee blabber. First couple of days of voyage are worst. Hasn't had it in a long time. Restless and mean. Looks for a man she can..."

The wind whipped away the rest of the words. Since Flynn's lips hardly moved as he spoke, Ryan couldn't even be sure that there'd been any other words. But Pyra Quadde's words came ringing clear enough above the storm.

"Slow, ye salt-ducking dogs of yellow-hearted bastards. I'd have done better to get a dozen deaf and dumb pot girls from the taverns of Claggartville! Better babes in arms than ye sluggard crew of cockless bastards! Ye're fit only to lick out the gaudy privies, aren't ye?"

There was a high-pitched giggle from Ryan's right, where he saw the tall figure of crazed Jehu. Water streamed off his tiny cannonball of a head, running into his slack lips. "Good, Captain!" he squawked. "Better'n the traveling quack show! Give us more oft!"

"Shut the dullard up," the woman called, but there was no anger in her voice. The men on either side of Jehu nudged him in the ribs, and he closed his mouth again.

"I'll say no more," Captain Quadde continued. "Next time aloft and ye'll be kissing the whip. Or I'll find ye all better to kiss than that."

Cyrus Ogg took a hesitant step forward, raising a hand to attract her attention. She beckoned him to her and he stood close, whispering in her ear. She listened to him, face showing no emotion, though her eyes roamed along the line of men until they settled on Ryan Cawdor, where they stayed while the first mate continued talking to her.

"Someone's for it," Flynn hissed. Standing close to the sailor, Ryan could feel his body begin to tremble.

Ryan didn't dare to reply, with the woman's piggy eyes staring at him. Ogg glanced around and then spoke again, using his hands to gesture to something. Something that was down below? He smacked a clenched fist into the palm of his other hand, all the while Pyra Quadde's gaze never moving from Ryan's face.

The wind seemed to be easing, and the storm was blowing away toward the west. The chem clouds were shifting and breaking, and the spray no longer blew across the deck. A few stray beams of fiery sunlight, low on the horizon, were breaking through. The first day at sea was nearly over. As Ogg finished speaking to his captain, Ryan wondered whether it would also be his last day at sea.

The first mate resumed his position in the front row of men, and Pyra Quadde stood still a moment, tapping her cane pensively on the deck. Finally she nodded to herself as if she'd reached a decision.

"I'm told hard news," she grated. "News that is sad for one man of this crew." She took three steps forward, which brought her close to Ryan. "To one man," she repeated, cane darting out and pointing.

"Outlander Cawdor," she said, smiling.

Chapter Twenty

Ryan didn't move. There was nothing he could do, nowhere he could go. He felt the short hairs lift at the back of his neck at the chilling malevolence in the woman's crooked smile. The spears of crimson sun struck her face, making it seem as if the filed bone teeth were painted with fresh-spilled blood.

The tip of the stick pointed unwaveringly between his eyes.

"Outlander Cawdor," she repeated, "I have an order for thee."

"I'm listening, ma'am," he eventually managed to say, though his tongue was reluctant to free itself from the roof of his mouth.

"Good, good, cully. First mate here, Mr. Ogg, has been telling me of a step across the line. A man doing that which he should not do. And not doing that which he should do."

"And there is no health in us!" Jehu yelled. "Amen. Ah, women. Ah, there she blows. Hallelujah and praise the blessed Pyra Quadde!"

Nobody moved or spoke. Ryan could feel a trickle of sweat down the small of his back, though he was stone cold.

"Where is Kenny Hill?" the captain asked in a voice as cold as a flooded grave.

Everyone turned and looked along the lines. Ryan and Donfil didn't bother. Since they didn't know who Kenny Hill was or what he looked like, they wouldn't know if he was there or not.

"He is not here," she continued. "Mr. Ogg tells me that the sniveling coward hides in the fo'c'sle. Scared to take his place and work with us. A man might die so that Hill can live. I will not have this."

Ryan sensed a murmuring of approval among the crew, and having been aloft in a storm he realized how one man's desertion could cause the death of another among the singing spars and rigging.

"Bring him here, Outlander Cawdor," she ordered, the half smile back in place.

Ryan sensed both her power and her evil. She had deliberately tried to frighten him, and she had succeeded, knowing he would imagine that the warrant for death was his own. His hatred for her grew even stronger at that moment.

"Quickly, man, or it'll be the worse for thee."

"Aye, ma'am."

He walked quickly to the companionway leading to their living quarters, already finding it easy to balance automatically against the rolling of the vessel. The second mate, Walsh, called after him. "Take a knife, outlander. Kenny Hill's quick with a blade."

Ryan ignored him, ducking, boots clattering on the worn threads. The whole ship, though it was trim and clean, was extremely old, and exuded a sense of frailty.

Ryan guessed that parts of it certainly dated from well before the long winters.

Behind him, Ryan heard the splintering voice of Captain Quadde. "Thou hast just two minutes, outlander. Then I come down and ye're both done."

The low-ceilinged forecastle was cluttered with bedding and discarded clothes. A single oil lamp turned on gimbals in the middle of the room, and at first glance Ryan couldn't see anyone.

"Hill?"

No answer. Ryan took his feet off the bottom step and looked more carefully. If the sailor had really taken refuge down here, then there weren't many places for him to be hiding.

"Don't fuck me around, Hill. She'll use this to chill us both."

"Don't wanna die."

"Nobody does." Now that he'd heard the voice, he'd also spotted where the man was lurking — in the corner behind one of the tables. Ryan wasn't sure, but he thought he detected the gold gleam of light off the steel of a knife.

"She'll kill me. I was frightened. Been aloft too many times too many storms. Wanted to jump ship this time, but she wouldn't let me. Had me down there, chained, all the time in Claggartville. Help me. Thou art an outlander. She won't kill thee."

"No. I'm her friend, Hill. She said to tell you not to worry. Come up and she'll tell you herself."

"Liar!" Ryan heard the haunted tone of someone who knew the words were lies, but desperately wanted to think that they weren't.

"Double-truth."

"No."

Time was passing. Ryan could hear it, with the beating of the pulse in his own skull. "I'm telling you the truth. On my brother's life." Such as it had been. "Trust me, Hill. What do you have to lose? What? Nothing."

"I'll slit thy throat if thou liest to me, outlander. I swear I will."

"I got no blade." He held his arms spread out sideways, fingers wide.

Ryan's eyes were accustomed to the poor light, and he walked across the forecastle, reaching out with his right hand in a gesture that was transparently friendly. He stooped toward the crouched figure of Kenny Hill.