Usually by this hour, she and Leftrin would be left in relative peace and isolation. Today, the hunter Jess had lingered, a near-silent yet very annoying presence on the barge. No matter where she went, he was nearby. Yesterday, twice she had looked up to find him staring at her. He’d met her gaze and nodded meaningfully, as if there were something they agreed upon. For the life of her, she couldn’t work out what he was about. She’d have discussed it with Leftrin, except that Jess always seemed to be lurking just within earshot.
The hunter made her uncomfortable. She’d become accustomed to how the Rain Wilds had marked Leftrin. She accepted
it as a part of him now and scarcely noticed it except for the moments when a flash of sunlight would strike a gleam from the scaling in his brows. Then it seemed exotic, not repulsive. But Jess was marked in less flattering ways. He reminded her, not of a dragon or even a lizard, but of a snake. His nose was flattening into his face, his nostrils becoming slitlike in the process. His eyes seemed set too far apart, as if they were seeking to be on the sides of his head instead of the front. She’d always taken pride that she didn’t judge folk by their appearances. But she could not look at Jess and feel comfortable, let alone have a real conversation with him.
So in the man’s presence, she kept her discussion to generalities and expected topics. She said brightly, “Well, Sedric seems a bit better today. I did ask him if he’d like to return to Cassarick in one of the small boats, but he said he didn’t. I think he feels the trip would be too dangerous, with the autumn rains coming on.”
Leftrin lifted his eyes to hers. “So you’ll both be continuing with the expedition, no matter how long it takes?” She heard a hundred questions in his voice and tried to answer them all.
“I think we will. I know I want to see this through to the end.”
Jess laughed. He was leaning against the frame of the galley door, apparently looking out over the river. He didn’t turn to either of them and made no other comment. Her glance sought Leftrin’s again. He met her gaze, but gave no sign of a reaction to the man’s odd behavior. Perhaps she was overreacting. She changed the subject.
“You know, until I came for this visit, I never truly understood what the Rain Wilders faced in trying to build settlements here. I suppose I always imagined that in all this vast valley, somewhere they would have found some truly dry ground. But there isn’t, is there?”
“Bog and slough and marsh,” Leftrin confirmed for her. “No other place in the world like it, as far as I know. There are a few charts from the old days when settlers first came here. They tried to explore. Some show a big lake upriver of us, one that
is said to spread as far as the eye can see. Others charted over a hundred tributaries that feed the Rain Wild River, some big, some small. They all wander back and forth in their beds. Some years two become one, and a year later, there are three streams where one tributary used to dump into the river. Two years after that, it’s just all marsh, no defined streams or river at all.
“The forest ground sometimes looks solid, and sometimes folk have found a patch they think is dry and tried to settle on it. But the more traffic there is, the sooner the ‘dry ground’ starts to give way. Pretty soon the groundwater breaks through to the surface and from there, well, it goes marshy pretty fast.”
“But you do think that somewhere upriver there will be an area of truly dry land for the dragons to settle on?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. But I think there must be. Water flows downhill, and all this water comes from somewhere. Trouble is, can we navigate that far, or does it all turn into marsh before we get there? I think we’re about as far upriver as anyone has ever come by ship. Tarman can go where others can’t. But if we hit a place that’s too shallow for Tarman, well, that’s where our journey will end.”
“Well, I hope we at least find a better beach to camp on tonight. Thymara has said that she is worried about the dragons’ feet and claws. The constant immersion is bad for them. She said that one of Sintara’s claws cracked and she had to trim and bind it for her. She said she treated it with tar. Perhaps we should do all the dragons’ claws, to prevent damage.”
Leftrin scowled at the idea. “I don’t have that much tar to spare. I think we’ll just have to hope for a drier camping spot tonight.”
“We should trim their claws,” Jess abruptly announced, pushing his way into both the room and the conversation. He shoved the end bench out from the table and sat down heavily on it. “Think about it, Cap. We dull the dragons’ claws down for them. Cut them a bit, tar them up. Do everybody a world of good, you take my drift.” He looked from Leftrin to Alise and back again, grinning at both of them. He had small teeth, set wide in a generous mouth. It looked like a baby’s innocent smile
set in a man’s face; it was disconcerting, even unsettling to her. So was Leftrin’s reaction to it.
“No.” He spoke the word flatly. “No, Jess. And that’s my last word. Don’t push it. Not here, not now. Not with the keepers, either.” He narrowed his eyes meaningfully.
Jess leaned back, bracing his back against the wall and swinging his boots up onto the bench in front of him. “Superstitious?” he asked Leftrin with a knowing grin. “I’d have pegged you for a man of the world, Cap. Not someone trapped in all those old Rain Wild notions. It’s awfully provincial of you. Those keepers, some of them recognize that sometimes we need to make new rules to make the best of a situation.”
Leftrin slowly stood, leaned both his fists on the table, knuckles down and shoulders tensed as he put his face close to the hunter’s. He spoke in a low voice. “You’re an ass, Jess. An ass and a fool. You don’t even know what you’re suggesting. Why don’t you go do what you were paid to do?”
The way Leftrin’s body blocked Jess’s access to her suggested he was protecting her. She wasn’t sure from what but felt profoundly grateful he was there. Alise had never seen the captain so clearly enraged and yet so controlled. It frightened her, and at the same time it spurred a powerful surge of attraction toward him. This, she suddenly knew, was the sort of man she wanted in her life.
Yet despite Leftrin’s intensity, Jess seemed unfazed. “Go do what I was ‘paid’ to do? Isn’t that exactly what we’re talking about here, Captain? Getting paid. And sooner rather than later. Perhaps we should all sit down and have a chat about the best way to make that happen.” He leaned around Leftrin to shoot Alise a knowing grin. She was appalled. What was he talking about?
“There is nothing to discuss!” Leftrin’s voice rattled the windows.
Jess’s gaze went back to Leftrin. His voice lowered suddenly, taking the note of a warning snarl. “I’m not going to be cheated out of this, Leftrin. If she wants a share, she’ll have to go through me. I’m not going to stand by and watch you take a
new partner and cut me out for the sake of making a sweet little deal for yourself.”
“Get out.” From a roar, Leftrin’s voice had dropped to a near whisper. “Get out now, Jess. Go hunting.”
Perhaps he knew he’d pushed Leftrin to his limit. The captain hadn’t verbalized a threat, but killing hung in the air. Every beat of her thundering heart seemed to shake Alise. She couldn’t draw a breath. She was terrified of what might happen next.
Jess swung his feet to the floor so that his boots landed on the deck with a thump. He stood, taking his time, like a cat that stretches before it turns its back on a slavering dog. “I’ll go,” he offered lightly. “Until another time,” he said as he walked out the door. Around the corner but still within hearing, he added, “We all know there will be another time.”
Leftrin leaned across the table to reach the door’s edge. He slammed it so hard that every cup on the table jumped. “That bastard,” he snarled. “That traitorous bastard.”
Alise found she was hugging herself and trembling. Her voice shook as she said, “I don’t understand. What was he talking about? What does he want to discuss with me?”
L
EFTRIN WAS AS
angry as he’d ever been in his life, and by his fury, he knew that the damn hunter had woken fear in him as well. It wasn’t just that the man was misjudging Alise in such a base way. It was that his assumptions threatened to ruin Leftrin’s good image in her eyes.
The questions he didn’t dare answer hung in the air between them, razor-edged knives that would cut them both to pieces. He took the only safe course. He lied to her. “It’s all right, Alise. Everything will be fine.”
Then, before she could ask what was all right and what would be fine, he silenced her in the only way he could, drawing her to her feet and folding her into his arms. He held her firm against him, his head bent over hers. Everything about it was wrong; he could see her small fine hands against the rough, grimy weave of his shirt. Her hair smelled like perfume, and it was so fine
and soft it tangled against his unshaven chin. He could feel how small she was, how delicate. Her blouse was soft under his hands, and the warmth of her skin seeped right through it. She was the opposite of him in every way, and he had no right to touch her, none at all. Even if she hadn’t been a married lady, even if she hadn’t been educated and refined, it still would have been wrong for two such different people to come together.
And yet she did not struggle or shriek for help. Her hands didn’t pound against his chest; instead they gripped the rough fabric of his shirt and pulled him tighter, fitting herself against him, and again, they were opposite of each other in every way, and each way was wonderful. For a long moment he just held her in silence, and in that brief instant he forgot Jess’s treachery, and his vulnerability and the danger awaiting all of them. No matter how complicated the rest of it was, this was simple and perfect. He wished he could stay in this moment, not moving on, not even thinking of all the complications that threatened him.
“Leftrin.” She spoke his name against his chest.
In another time and another place, it would have been permission. In this time and place, it broke the spell. That simple moment, their brief embrace, was over. It was as much as he would ever taste of that other life. He tipped his head just slightly and let his mouth brush her hair. Then, with a heavy sigh, he set her back from him. “Sorry,” he muttered, even though he was not. “Sorry, Alise. I don’t know what came over me. Guess I should not let Jess rile me up like that.”
She gripped his shirt still, two small tight handfuls of fabric. Her brow pressed against his chest. He knew she didn’t want him to step away from her. She didn’t want him to stop what had begun. It was like peeling a clingy kitten from himself to ease free of her grip, and all the harder because he didn’t want to do so. He had never imagined that he would be the one to gently push a woman away “for her own good.” But he’d never imagined that he would find himself in such a precarious position. Until he could deal with Jess in a way that solved his problem permanently, he couldn’t allow Alise to do
anything that might make her more of a weapon to be used against him.
“Feels like the current is getting tricky. I need a word with Swarge,” he lied. It would take him out of the galley and away from her so she couldn’t ask the questions that Jess had stirred up. And it would give him a chance to make sure that Jess had actually left the barge and gone hunting.
As he set her gently away from him, she looked up at him with utter bewilderment. “Leftrin, I—”
“I won’t be gone long,” he promised and turned away from her.
“But—” he heard her say, and then he closed the door gently on her words and hurried aft. Out of sight of the galley windows, he halted and walked to the railing. He didn’t need to talk to Swarge or anyone else. He didn’t want any of his crew to know what a situation he’d put them all in. Damn Jess and his sly threats, and damn that Chalcedean merchant and damn the wood carvers who couldn’t keep their mouths shut. And damn himself for getting them all into this mess. When he had first found the wizardwood, he had known it could bring him trouble. Why hadn’t he left it alone? Or spoken of it to the dragons and the Council and let them worry about it? He knew it was now forbidden for anyone to take it and make use of it. But he had. Because he loved his ship.
He felt a thrum of anxiety through Tarman’s railing. He gripped the wood soothingly and spoke aloud but softly to the liveship. “No. I regret nothing. It was no less than you deserved. I took what you needed, and I don’t really care if anyone else can understand or excuse that. I just wish it hadn’t brought trouble down on us. That’s all. But I’ll find a way to solve it. You can count on that.”
As if to confirm both gratitude and loyalty, he felt the ship pick up speed. Back on the tiller, he heard Swarge chortle and mutter, “Well, what’s the hurry now?” as the polemen picked up their pace to match the ship’s. Leftrin took his hands from the railing and leaned back against the deckhouse, hands in pockets, to give his crew room to work. He said nothing to any of them, and they knew better than to speak to the captain when he stood
thus, deep in thought. He had a problem. He’d settle it without help from any of them. That was what captains did.
Leftrin dug his pipe out of one pocket and his tobacco out of the other, and then stuffed them both back as he realized he couldn’t go back into the galley to light it. He sighed. He was a Trader in the tradition of the Rain Wild Traders. Profit was all-important. But so was loyalty. And humanity. The Chalcedeans had approached him with a scheme that could make him a wealthy man. As long as he was willing to betray the Rain Wilds and butcher a sentient creature as if it were an animal, he could have a fortune. They’d made their offer in the guise of a threat; such a typically Chalcedean way to invite a man to do business. First there had been the “grain merchant,” bullying his way aboard the
Tarman
at the mouth of the Rain Wild River. Sinad Arich had spoken as plainly as a Chalcedean could. The Duke of Chalced was holding his family hostage; the merchant would do whatever he had to do to obtain dragon parts for the ailing old man.
Leftrin had thought he’d seen the last of the man when he set him ashore in Trehaug, thought that the threat to himself and his ship was over. But it wasn’t. Once a Chalcedean had a hold on you, he never let go. Back in Cassarick, right before they left, someone had come on board and left a tiny scroll outside his door. The clandestine note told him to expect a collaborator on board his ship. If he complied with their agent, they’d pay him well. If he didn’t, they’d betray what he had done with the wizardwood. That would ruin him, as a man, as a ship owner, as a Trader. He was not sure if it would lower him in Alise’s esteem.