‘Papa always said that Althea ran best under a light hand,’ Keffria ventured. ‘That she had to have room to make her own mistakes, as it seemed they were the only things she could learn from.’
Kyle gave a snort of disgust. ‘Forgive me, my love, but I think he said it to excuse himself from taking a father’s stand with her. She’s spoiled. She’s been indulged for as long as I’ve known her, and it shows. She constantly assumes she’s going to get her own way. It’s made her selfish and thoughtless of others. But it’s not too late for her. Finding out that was more of a shock to me than you can imagine. On the way home, when I lost my temper and ordered her into her cabin for the remainder of the voyage, I never dreamed she’d heed me. I was angry and barked out the words to get her out of my sight before I could really lose my temper with her. But she obeyed me. And I think she finally had time to do a lot of thinking in that time alone. You saw how she was when we landed. Quiet and repentant. She dressed like a lady when we left the ship, or as closely as she knows how to.’
He paused for a moment. He shook his head, tangling his blond hair against the pillow. ‘I was amazed. I kept waiting for her to try to start up the quarrel again. And then I realized, this was what she has been looking for all along. Someone to draw a line. Someone to finally take charge of her and make her behave as she knows she should. All this time, I think she was just seeing how far she could go before someone took in her sails and dropped anchor.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I respected your father. You know I did. But when it came to Althea, he was… blind. He never forbade her anything, never really told her “no” and enforced it. When I stepped in and did that, well, the difference was amazing. Of course, when she got off the ship and I was no longer in charge, then she started to get a bit wild again.’ He shrugged. For a time there was silence as he and Keffria considered her sister and her strange ways.
Kyle took a deep breath and sighed it out heavily. ‘I used to think there was no hope for her. That she’d only bring us sorrow and come to a bad end herself. But today, when she finally saw all of us united in what was best for the family, she didn’t truly oppose us. Deep inside, she knows what is right. The ship must be worked for the good of the whole family. You are eldest: it’s only right and just that you inherit the family’s real wealth. Besides, you’ve children to provide for, and the ship will let us do that. Who has Althea to provide for? Why, only herself, and I think we can trust ourselves to see that she doesn’t go hungry or naked or roofless. But if the situation were reversed and the ship had been given over to her, she would have sailed the Vivacia out of the harbour without a backwards glance, and like as not she’d have that ne’er do well Brashen as the captain on her.’
He stretched slightly, but not enough to dislodge her. His arm came around her, held her close. ‘No, Keffria, I don’t think you need to question that what we did today was for the best. We know we’ll provide for Althea, and get your mother out of her financial tangle as well. Could you say for certain that Althea would take care of your mother, let alone us and our children? I think that toward the end even your father saw the wisdom of bequeathing the ship to you, hard as he found it to hurt his little favourite’s feelings.’
Keffria heaved a sigh and settled closer against him. Every word he said made sense. That was one of the reasons she had married him; his ability to think things through so carefully and logically had made her feel so safe. That was one thing she had been certain of when she wed; that she did not want to live her life tied to a man as impulsive and fanciful as her father had been. She had seen what it had done to her mother, how it had aged her far beyond her years. Other Trader matrons lived sedate lives of ease, tending their rose gardens and grand-babies, while her own mother had each day arisen to face a man’s load of decisions and work. It was not just the accounts and the laborious working out of agreements with fellow Traders. Often as not her mother had been out on the fields on horseback, checking for herself that what her overseers said was true.
Ever since Keffria could remember, she had hated the season of the mafe harvest. When she was tiny, all she had known was that it meant her mother was already gone when she awakened, and that she might see her for an hour before bedtime, or not at all that day. As she grew older, there had been a few years when her mother had insistently dragged her along to the hot fields and the long rows of prickly dark green bushes heavy with ripening beans. She had forced her to learn how the beans were harvested, what the pests that plagued them looked like, and which diseased bushes must be pulled up immediately and burned and which must be painstakingly doused with a strong tea made from leaf mould and horse manure. Keffria had hated it. As soon as she was old enough to be concerned with her hair and skin, she had rebelled and refused to be tormented any longer. That, she recalled, was the same year that she resolved she would never marry a man who would go to sea and leave her with such burdens. She would find a man willing to fulfil a man’s role, to take care of her and keep her safe and defend their door from all troubles and worries. ‘And then I went and married a sailor,’ she said aloud. The fondness in her voice made it a compliment.
‘Um?’ The sleepy question came from deep within his chest. She set a hand on its paleness in the moonlight, enjoyed the contrast of her olive skin against his whiteness.
‘I just wish you weren’t gone so much,’ she said softly. ‘Now that Papa is dead, you’re the man of our family. If you’re not around…’
‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve thought of that, I’ve worried about that. Why else do you think I must insist I take Wintrow on the ship with me? It’s time he stepped forward as a man of this family, and took on his share of the responsibilities.’
‘But… his priesthood,’ Keffria objected in a tiny voice. It was very hard for her to disagree with her husband, but in this one area, he had always before let her have her way. She could scarcely grasp that he might change his mind now.
‘You know I never approved of that nonsense,’ he said quietly as if in answer to her thought. ‘Offering our first-born son to the service of Sa… that’s a fine thing for the rich folk of Jamaillia to do. Shows off their wealth, that they can offer up the labour of a son and think nothing of it. That’s not the case with us, dear. But I knew you wanted it, and I tried to let you have it. We sent the boy off to the monastery. And if your father had lived for another handful of years, they could have kept him. But he didn’t. Selden’s too young to sail. The plain and simple truth of it is that this family needs Wintrow a lot more than some monastery in Jamaillia. Sa provides, you always say. Well, look at it this way. He provided us with a son, thirteen years ago. And now we need him.’
‘But we promised him,’ she said in a small voice. Inside her was a sort of agony. It had meant so much to her that Wintrow was a priest, offered up to Sa. Not all boys who were offered were accepted. Some were returned to their parents with the thanks of the monastery, but a polite letter explaining their sons were not truly suitable for the priesthood. Wintrow had not been returned. No, he had been cherished from the very beginning, advancing swiftly to his novice’s brown robe, transferred from the outlying monastery at Kall to Kelpiton monastery on the Marrow peninsula. The priests did not often send reports, but those she had received had been glowing. She kept them, tied with the gilt ribbons that had originally bound them, in the corner of her clothing chest.
‘You promised him,’ Kyle pointed out. ‘Not I. Here. Let me up.’ He disentangled himself from her arms and bedding to rise. His body was like carved ivory in the moonlight. He groped at the foot of the bed for his night robe and then dragged it on over his head.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked quietly. She knew her comment had displeased him, but he had never left her bed to sleep elsewhere before.
He knew her so well. As if sensing her worry, he reached down to smooth her hair back from her face. ‘I’ll be back. I’m just going to go check Althea’s room, and see if she’s in yet.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe