The deck crew were going about their work in dogged silence, exhausted with the pumps and the endless sail trimming needed to keep the Chamberlain slanting across the wind. Meanwhile, the whaleboat skidded into the lee of the frigate, throwing a fine plume of spray off her bow. The sail and mast came down, the oars unshipped, and she came in under the anchor chains, fending off as the middie in command came up a line, as matter-of-factly as climbing the stairs in her own home.

"Permission to come aboard?"

"Granted," the OOD said; the middie saluted the quarterdeck and came up to salute again and remove her billed cap from short sun-streaked brown hair.

"Ma'am, it's a bay, all right. Narrow entrance, headland to the south and a sandspit to the north."

"A bar, Ms. Harnish?"

"Yes, ma'am, but deep-twelve feet at low tide, something like twenty-two, twenty-three at high. I think it's been scouring lately. Here's the drawing, ma'am."

She handed it over, and at Marian's gesture Swindapa, Jenkins, and a few others came to peer over her shoulder as she spread it against the compass binnacle. The bay within was liver-shaped, with two streams running into its southern portion. The middie had marked broad areas of marsh and tidal mud; beyond that, brush and dense forest of tropical hardwoods came down almost to the shore.

"Durban," Marian said. Not very much like what the twentieth-century charts showed, but they were used to that.

"No lack of timber, ma'am," the officer-candidate said. "A lot of them a hundred, hundred and twenty feet to the first branch. But we wouldn't be the first there."

"Locals?"

"No, ma'am. Found some marks of big fires on the beach, piled wood, and this."

The chunk of square-sawn wood was about a foot long, obviously broken off from a larger timber. Through it was a short piece of iron bolt. That brought whistles from the spectators. Alston brought it close and tilted it to catch the sun, brushing off a crust of rust with her thumb.

"Hammer-stipples on the bolthead," she said grimly. "Not Nantucket Shipyard work, or any of the contractors."

They machined their bolts; the only thing formed by lathe on this was the actual screw thread. King Isketerol's artificers were still short of machine tools, although from the reports of Ian's agents they were making up the lack with shocking speed; Well, scratch that thought of a signal fire, she decided. The cannon and gear on the Chamberlain would be a prize beyond price in Isketerol's kingdom; no sense in putting temptation in their way.

"Tartessian," Lieutenant Jenkins said, wincing slightly as someone jostled his slung and splintered left arm. "Well, they've got the ships and the maps-I suppose we should expect they'd be snooping around the Indian Ocean too."

Marian made a noncommittal sound and closed her eyes in pure concentration for a moment. "We'll do it."

"Ah… ma'am, twenty-two feet's chancy, with the ship this heavy."

"We'll have to lighten outside the bar, of course," she said and cocked an eye at the sky. And pray for good weather while we do it, went unspoken. Not to mention that our Tartessian friends don't show up while we're hauled down. The Republic and the Kingdom of Tartessos were formally at peace; that didn't mean that the Iberians wouldn't do their best to stick a thumb in the Islanders' eye if they thought it could be done quietly.

"Dispatch," the messenger wheezed, obviously having run all the way from the communications ready room. "Sir."

"Stand easy, Marine," Colonel Hollard said, looking up from his desk and putting down the cup of coffee.

The evening was cool and dark outside the slit window, an hour before the rise of the moon, the stars a thick frosting across the desert sky. From outside there was a low murmur of voices, the neigh of a horse in the distance, the burbling moan of a camel-they were finally getting some of them in from the southern deserts. He took the transcript of the radio message and read quickly, whistling silently under his breath.

"Thank you, corporal-and this had better not leak," he said. "Dismissed."

He swept aside the duty rosters and stores reports and opened a folder of maps that Intelligence had put together in the two months since their arrival. Hmmm.

I need to talk to Kat about this, he thought. His second-in-command would probably be in her quarters; she'd been out on a field problem for the last two days-forced marches, among other things, getting the troops used to moving in this heat.

He left his office, returning the salute of the sentries, and walked briskly across the lane behind the praetorium headquarters-Officer Country was a row of cottages behind the central square where the routes from the main gates met; the design was based on a Roman legionary marching camp.

"Kat!" he said, walking into the sitting room. "News from-ooops."

Major Hollard couldn't actually shoot to her feet; not with the Babylonian woman on her lap clinging so hard and facing away from the door. She did manage to disengage, rise, and brace to attention, flushing visibly even in the light of the single dim lamp and making an abortive effort to button her shirt. There was a flask of the local wine on the low table beside them, and two cups.

Hollard's eyebrows shot up; the local woman was one of the ex-slaves King Shuriash had sent as part of his gift to the Islanders. Then further. You know, I could have sworn to God Kat was straight as a yardstick, he thought, shaken. Not that I mind, but it's a bit of a shock. And…

"I presume this isn't a violation of Article Seven, Major," he said coldly.

A blow to his chest startled him. It was the Babylonian; she'd slugged him at eye level to her, she being about five nothing and wearing neither shoes nor anything else except sweat and a few hickies. This close, he was suddenly aware of her scent, a musky smell that made him momentarily but acutely conscious of how long he'd been celibate. She had probably hurt her fist a lot more than she had hurt him, but she was winding up to try again; a plumply pretty young woman, round-faced and olive-skinned, her blue-black hair falling to the small of her back.

"Whoa!" he said, holding up his hands. This time she punched him in the stomach; her small, hard knuckles rebounded off the muscle.

"Stop that," he went on, remembering to use Akkadian. Kat cleared her throat and seconded him, and the woman…

"What's your name?" he asked. That seemed to surprise her, at least enough to stop her hitting him.

"Sin-ina-mati, lord," she said automatically.

"Sin-ina-mati, do not strike me," he said. "Instead, explain why you are here with this officer. You do understand that you need not lie with anyone you would not?"

Sin-ina-mati looked as if she was going to hit him again. "I am here because the good Kat'ryn praised my beauty and my singing, and gave me sweet wine to drink, and talked to me! All my life lords have said, 'Woman, come here!' or 'Slave, bring me this!' You looked upon her with the eyes of wrath; you will not harm her. I say it, Sin-ina-mati!"

Well, I guess the self-esteem classes paid off, Hollard thought.

"Ah, assuredly, I shall not harm her," he went on aloud. "Yet we have business of war to attend to. Perhaps you should leave."

The Babylonian seemed to shrink a little as her eyes lost the brilliance of exaltation and she realized what she'd done. She gave a quick bow, scooped up her robe, and left-into the other room, he noted, not into the street.

"Sorry, Kat," Hollard said. "I just lost my temper-too many goddam Article Sevens. And… ah, I was a bit surprised."

"Well, so was I," she said frankly, buttoning her shirt and tucking it in. "I just got so damned horny, and there isn't anyone else here of my rank, and… Mati's a sweetie, though. This is business, I presume?"