“The real mutiny will be against his murderer.”

T’heonax leaped.

“What do you mean?” he shouted. “Who’s a murderer?”

“You are.” Rodonis pushed it out between her teeth. “You have poisoned your father.”

She waited then, through a time which stretched close to breaking. She could not tell if the notoriously violent male she faced would kill her for uttering those words.

Almost, he did. He drew back from her when his knife touched her throat. His jaws clashed shut again, he leaped onto his couch and stood there on all fours with back arched, tail rigid and wings rising.

“Go on,” he hissed. “Say your lies. I know well enough how you hate my whole family, because of that worthless husband of yours. All the Fleet knows. Do you expect them to believe your naked word?”

“I never hated your father,” said Rodonis, not quite steadily; death had brushed very close. “He condemned Delp, yes. I thought he did wrongly, but he did it for the Fleet, and I… I am of officer kindred myself. You recall, on the day after the raid I asked him to dine with me, as a token to all that the Drak’honai must close ranks.”

“So you did,” sneered T’heonax. “A pretty gesture. I remember how hotly spiced all the guests said the food was. And the little keepsake you gave him, that shining disk from the Eart’ho possessions. Touching! As if it were yours to give. Everything of theirs belongs to the Admiralty.”

“Well, the fat Eart’ho had given it to me himself,” said Rodonis. She was deliberately leading the conversation into irrelevant channels, seeking to calm them both. “He had recovered it from his baggage, he said. He called it a coin… an article of trade among his people… thought I might like it to remember him by. That was just after the… the riot… and just before he and his companions were removed from the Gerunis to that other raft.”

“It was a miser’s gift,” said T’heonax. “The disk was quite worn out of shape — Bah!” His muscles bunched again. “Come. Accuse me further, if you dare.”

“I have not been altogether a fool,” said Rodonis. “I have left letters, to be opened by certain friends if I do not return. But consider the facts, T’heonax. You are an ambitious male, and one of whom most persons are willing to think the worst. Your father’s death will make you Admiral, the virtual owner of the Fleet — how long you must have chafed, waiting for this! Your father is dying, stricken by a malady unlike any known to our chirurgeons: not even like any known poison, so wildly does it destroy him. Now it is known to many that the raiders did not manage to carry off every bit of the Eart’ho food: three small packets were left behind. The Eart’honai frequently and publicly warned us against eating any of their rations. And you have had charge of all the Eart’ho things!”

T’heonax gasped.

“It’s a lie!” he chattered. “I don’t know… I haven’t… I never — Will anyone believe I, anyone, could do such a thing… poison… to his own father?”

“Of you they will believe it,” said Rodonis.

“I swear by the Lodestar — !”

“The Lodestar will not give luck to a Fleet commanded by a parricide. There will be mutiny on that account alone, T’heonax.”

He glared at her, wild and panting. “What do you want?” he croaked.

Rodonis looked at him with the coldest gaze he had ever met. “I will burn those letters,” she said, “and will keep silence forever. I will even join my denials to yours, should the same thoughts occur to someone else. But Delp must have immediate, total amnesty.”

T’heonax bristled and snarled at her.

“I could fight you,” he growled. “I could have you arrested for treasonable talk, and kill anyone who dared—”

“Perhaps,” said Rodonis. “But is it worth it? You might split the Fleet open and leave us all a prey to the Lannach’honai. All I ask is my husband back.”

“For that you would threaten to ruin the Fleet?”

“Yes,” she said.

And after a moment: “You do not understand. You males make the nations and wars and songs and science, all the little things. You imagine you are the strong, practical sex. But a female goes again and yet again under death’s shadow, to bring forth another life. We are the hard ones. We have to be.”

T’heonax huddled back, shivering.

“Yes,” he whispered at last, “yes, curse you, shrivel you, yes, you can have him. I’ll give you an order now, this instant. Get his rotten feet off my raft before dawn, d’you hear? But I did not poison my father.” His wings beat thunderous, until he lifted up under the ceiling and threshed there, trapped and screaming. “I didn’t!”

Rodonis waited.

Presently she took the written order, and left him, and went to the brig, where they cut the ropes that bound Delp hyr Orikan. He lay in her arms and sobbed. “I will keep my wings, I will keep my wings—”

Rodonis sa Axollon stroked his crest, murmured to him, crooned to him, told him all would be well now, they were going home again, and wept a little because she loved him.

Inwardly she held a chill memory, how old Van Rijn had given her the coin but warned her against… what had he said?… heavy metal poisoning. “To you, iron, copper, tin is unknown stuffs. I am not a chemist, me; chemists I hire when chemicking is needful; but I think better I eat a shovelful arsenic than one of your cubs try teething on this piece money, by damn!”

And she remembered sitting up in the dark, with a stone in her hand, grinding and grinding the coin, until there was seasoning for the unbendable admiral’ s dinner.

Afterward she recollected that the Eart’ho was not supposed to have such mastery of her language. It occurred to her now, like a shudder, that he could very well have left that deadly food behind on purpose, in hopes it might cause trouble. But how closely had he foreseen the event?

Guntra of the Enklann sept came in through the door. Eric Wace looked wearily up. Behind him, hugely shadowed between rush lights, the mill was a mumble of toiling forms.

“Yes?” he sighed.

Guntra held out a broad shield, two meters long, a light sturdy construction of wicker on a wooden frame. For many ten-days she had supervised hundreds of females and cubs as they gathered and split and dried the reeds, formed the wood, wove the fabric, assembled the unit. She had not been so tired since homecoming. Nevertheless, a small victory dwelt in her voice: “This is the four thousandth, Councilor.” It was not his title, but the Lannacha mind could hardly imagine anyone without definite rank inside the Flock organization. Considering the authority granted the wingless creatures, it fell most naturally to call them Councilors.

“Good.” He hefted the object in hands grown calloused. “A strong piece of work. Four thousand are more than enough; your task is done, Guntra.”

“Thank you.” She looked curiously about the transformed mill. Hard to remember that not so long ago it had existed chiefly to grind food.

Angrek of the Trekkans came up with a block of wood in his grasp. “Councilor,” he began, “I—” He stopped. His gaze had fallen on Guntra, who was still in her early middle years and had always been considered handsome.

Her eyes met his. A common smokiness lit them. His wings spread and he took a stiff step toward her.

With a gasp, almost a sob, Guntra turned and fled. Angrek stared after her, then threw his block to the floor and cursed.

“What the devil?” said Wace.

Angrek beat a fist into his palm. “Ghosts,” he muttered. “It must be ghosts… unrestful spirits of all the evildoers who ever lived… possessing the Drakska, and now come to plague us!”

Another pair of bodies darkened the door, which stood open to the short pale night of early summer. Nicholas van Rijn and Tolk the Herald entered.