He cut another forkful of the tart. Crisp flaky crust and tender spiced fruit within. He scooped up cream with it, and chewed it slowly. After he had swallowed, he asked her, “Do you imagine I care what you fear, or think?”

Her eyes almost met his. “I think you would care if I were not here now. As I cared when you were not here before.”

He finished another bite of the tart. “This is a stupid conversation. I do not care to continue it.”

“Aye,” she said, and he did not know if she were accepting his command, or agreeing with him. It didn't matter. She was silent as he finished the tart. He poured another glass of the wine and leaned back with it. His mind roved back over the last few weeks, assessing all he had done. He'd been a fool, he decided. He should have put off going to the Others' Island, and when he'd had the Other's oracle, he'd been a fool to spout off his ambitions to his crew. Idiot. Dolt. By now he was the laughing-stock of Divvytown. He could imagine their mockery in the taverns and inns. ‘King of the Pirates,’ they'd say. ‘As if we want or need a king. As if we'd have him as king, if we did want or need one.’ And they'd laugh.

Shame rose up to engulf him. He'd humiliated himself yet again, and as always it was his own fault. He was stupid, stupid, stupid, and his only hope of surviving was in not letting anyone else know how stupid he was. He sat twisting his ring on his finger and staring into the fire. He glanced once at the wizardwood charm strapped to his wrist. His own sardonic smile mocked him. Had it ever moved at all, or had it only been another trick of the Others' magic? Going to the Others' Island at all had been a mistake. No doubt his crew were talking that up as well, their captain seeking an oracle as if he were a barren woman or a god-struck fanatic. Why did his highest hopes always have to turn to his deepest humiliations?

“Shall I come and rub your shoulders, Kennit?”

He turned to glare at her. Who did she think she was, to interrupt his thoughts?

“Why do you think I'd welcome that?” he demanded coldly.

Her voice had no inflection as she observed, “You looked troubled. Weary and tense.”

“You think you can know those things by looking at me, whore?”

Her dark eyes dared to meet his. “A woman knows these things by looking at a man when she has looked at him often over three years.” She rose and came to stand behind him, naked still. She set her long narrow hands to his shoulders and worked at his muscles through the thin silk of the robe. It felt so good. For a time he sat still and tolerated her touch on him. But then she began to speak as she kneaded at his knotted muscles.

“I miss you when you are gone on these longer voyages. I wonder if you are all right. Sometimes I wonder if you are coming back at all. After all, what ties you to Divvytown? I know you care little for me. Only that I be here and behave as you wish me to. I think Bettel only keeps me on because of your preference for me. I am not… what most men would wish for. Do you see how important that makes you in my life? Without you, Bettel would turn me out of the house and I'd have to work as a freegirl. But you come here, and you ask for me by my name, and you take the finest chamber in the house for our use, and always pay in true gold. Do you know what the others here call me? Kennit's whore.” She gave a brief snort of bitter laughter. “Once I would have been shamed by that. Now I like the sound of it.”

“Why are you talking?” Kennit's voice cut her musings as harshly as a blunt knife. “Do you think I pay to hear you talk?”

It was a question. She knew she was allowed to answer. “No,” she replied in a low voice. “But I think that with the gold you pay Bettel, I could rent a small house for us. I would keep it tidy and clean. It would always be there for you to come home to, and I would always be ready and clean for you. I vow there would never be the smell of another man upon me.”

“And you think I would like that?” he scoffed.

“I do not know,” she said quietly. “I know that I would like that. That's all.”

“I care not at all what you would like or not like,” he told her. He reached back to lift her hands from his shoulders. The fire had heated her skin. He rose from the chair and turned to face her. He ran a hand over her bared skin, fascinated for a time with the feel of the fire-warmed flesh. It roused him again. But when he lifted his eyes to her face, he was shocked to find tears on her cheeks. It was intolerable.

“Go back to the bed,” he commanded her in disgust, and she went, obedient as ever. He stood facing the fire, recalling sleek skin under his fingers and wanting to use her again, but dismayed at the thought of her wet face and teary eyes. This was not why he bought a whore. He bought a whore to avoid all this. Damn it, he had paid. He did not look at the bed as he commanded her suddenly, “Lie on your belly. Face down.”

He heard her shift in the sheets. He went to her quickly across the darkened room. He mounted her that way, face down like a boy, but he took her as a woman. Let no one, not even a whore, say that Kennit did not know the difference between the two.

He knew he was not unduly rough, but still she wept, even after he rolled off her. Somehow the near-noiseless weeping of the woman beside him troubled him. The disturbance he felt at it combined with his earlier shame and self-disgust. What was the matter with her? He paid her, didn't he? What right did she have to expect any more than that from him? She was, after all, just a whore. It was the deal they had made.

Abruptly he rose and began pulling on his clothes. After a time, her weeping stopped. She turned over suddenly in the bedding. “Please,” she whispered hoarsely. “Please don't go. I'm sorry I displeased you. I'll be still now. I promise.”

The hopelessness in her voice rang against the hopelessness in his heart, steel against steel. He should kill her. He should just kill her rather than let her say such words to him. Instead, he thrust his hand into his coat pocket. “Here, this is for you,” he said, groping for some small coin to give her. Money would remind them both of why they were here together in this room. But fate had betrayed him, for there was nothing in his pocket. He'd left the ship in that much haste. He'd have to go back to the Marietta to get money to pay Bettel. It was all damnably embarrassing. He knew the whore was looking at him, waiting. What could be more humiliating than to stand penniless before the whore one had already used?

But there, in the smallest corner of his pocket he felt something, something tiny that jabbed him under the fingernail. He picked it loose in annoyance, a thorn or a stray pebble, and drew forth instead the tiny jeweled earring from the blue kitten's ear. The ruby winked at him. He had never cared for rubies. It would do for Etta. “Here,” he said, pushing it into her hand. He added, “Don't leave the room — keep it until tomorrow night. I'll be back.” He left the room before she could speak. It irked him, for he suspected Bettel would demand a small king's ransom for keeping both room and girl occupied a full night and a day besides. Well, let her demand, he knew what he'd pay. And it would keep him from having to admit to Bettel that he had not the money to pay her tonight. At least he could avoid that shame.

He rattled down the stairs and out the door. “I want the room and girl kept for me, as they are,” he informed Bettel as he passed. Another time, he might almost have enjoyed the look of consternation that brought to her face. He was well down the street before he felt his purse thudding against his left pocket. Ridiculous. He never kept it there. He thought of going back and paying Bettel off right now, but decided against it. He'd only look like a fool if he went back now saying he'd changed his mind. A fool. The word burned in his mind.