'"The first time ever I...'"

A woman's voice. Now he could see the stocky shape, kneeling near the man, doing something in the shadows that Ryan couldn't see.

"'...rose, in your eyes..."'

Pyra Quadde stood up, and Ryan saw the flash of white flesh as she lifted her skirt, tucking it into her belt.

Then, like a great vampire bat settling on its victim, she lowered herself, booted legs astride, onto Kenny Hill.

Rising and falling, faster. Ryan heard the distinctive sound of a hard hand slapping a face. Repeated two more times.

The song changed to a children's rhyme that he recalled from his own youth in the Shens.

"When they were upthey were up, and when they were downthey were down..."

The voice becoming harsher, the breath panting in the woman's throat.

Sickened to his stomach, Ryan turned away and left the woman to her perverted pleasures, realizing now that Hill's punishment was indeed more harsh than he'd suspected. He went back to his bunk, but found sleep difficult to reach.

Ryan was woken by Donfil's hand, gripping his shoulder. He blinked his eye open, seeing the lean face close to his.

"What?"

"On deck."

"What is?"

The Apache backed away, keeping his head bowed to avoid cracking his skull on the low timbers of the celling.

"Come and see. Just been up to relieve myself and I saw it."

Ryan pulled on the heavy seaboots. He glanced around the dimly lit room and saw that nobody else was stirring. There was a chink of light all around the hatch onto the deck, showing it was close to dawn.

"Show me," he directed.

The deck was deserted as they stepped out into the misty morning. Visibility around the Salvationwas less than a hundred paces in any direction. There was a pallid, opalescent quality to the glowing false dawning.

"Where?"

The Indian hesitated a moment, before shooting out his long arm. "There. Bottom of the mast. Look at him."

"Kenny Hill, d'you mean, Donfil? I can see him. What about?.. Ah..."

Death, once seen, could never be mistaken. It was like a poor imitation of sleep. Even at a distance of several yards, Ryan knew that the bound and naked seaman was dead.

"Best report it to one of the mates," he said. "If we get caught with this, we might go over the side with him tied around our necks."

Donfil shook his head. "Mebbe best we don't say a word, Ryan. Just leave him. Let someone else find the corpse."

"Suppose the slut bitch is watching us? No! Don't look around. Suppose she sees us and wants us to sneak away?"

The Indian nodded. "Could be, brother. Could be. I guess he died of the cold during the night."

Ryan remembered the dark figure, folding itself over the helpless victim. But he kept his own counsel.

Their dilemma was solved by the noise of feet behind them. A couple of the crew emerged, yawning, onto the deck, behind the tryworks. Immediately both saw the lolling body, but neither of them seemed surprised. One called down to wake the rest of the men; the other wandered casually to stand by the spread feet of the dead man, spitting beyond the side of the vessel.

"Flukes over, matey," he said.

The body was pale, the marks of the ropes and the gagging livid on the skin. The eyes were wide open, staring intently into the far-off mystery of his own passing.

"Froze, likely," the sailor pronounced.

Donfil stooped, peered at the neck of the corpse and glanced up at Ryan, who quickly shook his head to prevent him from speaking.

"First mate's on his way," said the other sailor, reappearing from belowdecks. "Someone's gone to wake up Captain Quadde."

"Likely she's sleeping sound this morning." The first seaman grinned.

"Likely thou might be taking 'is place tonight if thou dost not watch thy tongue, Ned," said the other man, glaring.

While they waited for authority to arrive, Ryan pondered on the corpse — on the ragged scratches, edged with dried blood, around the genitals, and on the dark bruises around the neck, looking as though he'd been strangled by someone with iron fingers.

But Ryan kept silent.

Chapter Twenty-One

"Lord, let this Thy seaman depart now in peace from this world."

As has always been the right of sea captains the world over, Pyra Quadde was reading the funeral service over Ordinary Seaman Kenneth Hill, before committing his tortured and mutilated body to the waiting deep waters.

"Though he has been a sinner, now are his sins washed whiter than snow and he is truly clad in the garments of the Lamb."

The gray dawn had finally broken, but the pale mist still lingered over the slate-dull Lantic. The crew was lined up on both sides of the main deck, bareheaded, to pay their last respects to their fallen companion.

The sails, still close-reefed, barely filled with enough wind to give the ship any forward way, and the sound of the water rippling under the stem was clearly audible.

"Now we render this body to Thy hands, in the sure and certain hope of eternal life to come. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. If Jesus don't get thee then Satan must." The service was concluded on a throaty chuckle of spluttering laughter.

The body lay on a wide plank, wrists tied across the front of the chest, giving the false impression of someone at his devotions. Hill hadn't even been given the minimal dignity of a length of old canvas for a shroud. Not even a shackle of anchor chain to weight the corpse down. In the shimmering light, the dark bruises and scratches cried out from the pallid flesh, the marks of the throttling clear and unmistakable.

"Is he ready?" the captain asked, folding her arms across her bosom against the chill of the dawning. "Standby."

Ryan was in the front row, and he studied the woman's face, seeing the smug lines of satisfied cruelty, like a spoiled cat that has caught itself a helpless sparrow. She licked her lips contentedly while he watched her.

"Tip the bastard in!" she called.

Four of the sailors stood steadying the funeral chute, two at each side. At Quadde's shouted command, they lifted the board, shaking it to shift the stubborn body, until it flipped loose and fell in a clumsy tangle of arms and legs. It hit the sea with an almost soundless splash.

The captain smiled. "Always a good diver, our Kenny. Used to love diving in... everywhere you can think of."

She turned on her heel and stamped off to her quarters, stick rattling a merry tattoo on the planks of the deck. Cyrus Ogg quietly dismissed the rest of the crew and ordered them about their business.

Jehu, the only man on the ship whose height approached Donfil's seven feet, was standing next to the Apache and Ryan.

"A maimed, unwilling sacrifice," he said, voice lower than the usual high-pitched babbling.

"What's that?" Ryan asked.

"We shall give, as need arise... Once the first price be paid, then there needs be no other. Not until the hunger moves again."

"What're you talking about?"

"Always the way. Short straw for Kenny there. And his lay to be split 'mongst the rest of us. One man poorer an' all of us the richer. Always the way on the Salvation"

He moved away from the two outlanders.

Ryan shook his head and went to the very stern of the slow-moving ship. He leaned on the rail above the helmsman's shelter, staring out along the disintegrating wake.

"Fireblast!"

"What is it, brother?"

"Look!"

He pointed out behind them, only about fifty yards astern, where the corpse of Kenny Hill bobbed and danced, upright in the water, looking as though it were calmly watching them sail away. Even as the two companions stared, a large gull came circling down and perched neatly on the thinning, plastered hair. Peering down, it delicately plucked out both of the staring eyes, tossing its head back as it swallowed them.