Sedric glanced back, a bit uneasily, to watch the barge shrinking behind them. The boat had become the one point of safety in his life. It ran counter to all his instincts to be moving away from it in this tiny vessel, even with Carson guiding their way. A flash of silver caught his eye. ‘Your dragon is following us, I think.’

Carson lifted his head for a moment. Then, without turning to look, he gave a tight nod. ‘That he is.’

‘Why?’

‘Who knows why a dragon does anything?’ he muttered, but there was amusement in his voice. Spit was a difficult dragon, cantankerous and sometimes obtuse to the point of stupidity. Even knowing why the hunter had stepped forward to being Spit’s keeper, Sedric still wondered at it. He and Carson had not made any promises to one another. Carson hadn’t seemed to think they were necessary. Yet he held nothing back. He’d spoken only once of a concern that Sedric might ‘outgrow or outlive’ him. Sedric had dismissed it as pillow talk. Yet when the opportunity arose for the hunter to follow Sedric into a transformation that no human could control, he hadn’t hesitated. He’d stepped forward to become Spit’s keeper, a spontaneous offering of changing his entire life for the sake of being with Sedric. Never had he imagined that any man would make such a concession to him. It reminded him shamefully of how quickly he had discarded his old life and even shredded his family ties to be with Hest. He suspected that Carson was far more aware of what he had done than Sedric had been when he gave up his world to be with his lover. Yet Carson had not once mentioned it as a sacrifice. When the man gave, he gave with an open heart. He watched the man in front of him, saw the shifting of his muscles as he used the paddle, and wondered what he would look like a year or a decade from now.

Spit hadn’t yet offered blood to Carson, but Sedric did not doubt that he would. The hunter tended the unpredictable little dragon with not only devotion but a deep understanding of animals and their bodies. The first day that he’d been keeper to Spit, he’d gone over the small silver dragon with an attention to every detail of his health that had sent every other keeper scampering to be sure he hadn’t neglected his own beast.

Not many of them had been as bold as Carson. He’d spent over an hour inside the dragon’s mouth, removing a wad of sinew that had wrapped around one of his shearing teeth and was causing him a great deal of pain. ‘Not a waste of my time,’ he’d gently rebuked Sedric later. ‘Sooner or later, it would have rotted away. But by removing it now, I gave him one more reason to appreciate me. And one less reason to be irritable all the time.’

‘What are we going to do when we find Greft?’ Sedric asked Carson after a while. It was an obvious question, one of the many that he hadn’t had time to ask before they departed from the barge.

‘We bring him and the boat back to the barge. That’s our only task.’

‘What if he resists?’

Carson’s shrug was minute. ‘We bring him back. One way or another. Leftrin can’t let him get away with that theft. So far, despite the shortages, there hasn’t been any pilferage or hoarding. Food that is gathered or hunted is shared. You and Alise set an example when you divvied out your extra clothing. You can’t imagine how relieved Leftrin was when you did that. He was surprised you’d do that. I told him I wasn’t.’ He turned his head and gifted Sedric with a grin that parted his ruddy lips and showed his teeth. Who smiled like that? Not the sophisticated and urbane Traders who had once been Sedric’s companions. They muted their expressions, never laughing too loud, hiding smiles behind well-tended hands. Appearing to be disaffected or cynical was stylish. Why had he thought that was attractive and civilized? A ghost of Hest’s sneering smile came to his mind. He banished it, and it went much more easily than it had a month ago.

‘I love your smile.’ He spoke the honest compliment aloud. It made him feel silly and giddy at the same time. He would never have dared to voice such a simple thing to Hest. The man would have ridiculed him for a month. He watched as Carson silently took two more strokes with his paddle and then carefully shipped it. The little boat rocked as the hunter turned on the seat and then carefully moved through the boat until he crouched in front of Sedric. He cupped the back of Sedric’s head with one hand and kissed him carefully and thoroughly.

His voice was hoarse when he spoke. ‘I’ve never done this in a boat before. It might be tricky’

‘Tricky can be good,’ Sedric responded breathlessly.

‘Something is wrong.’ Jerd’s voice was tight and scared and her grip on Thymara’s upper arm was painful. Thymara had been sitting on the deck, trying to untangle a long fishing line with multiple hooks when Jerd had sought her out.

‘What?’ Thymara demanded, trying to pull back from her. Jerd was uncomfortably close as she crouched over her and the fear in her voice was unnerving.

‘I’m bleeding. A little bit. And I keep feeling— OH.’ She leaned on Thymara abruptly and her free hand went to her belly. To Thymara’s horror, a few drops of blood-tinged liquid spattered onto Tarman’s deck.

‘Oh no!’ Thymara gasped. All knew that blood should never be spilled on a liveship’s deck. She felt Tarman’s suddenly heightened awareness. An instant later, she heard Leftrin shout, ‘Swarge, is there a problem?’

‘None I see, Cap!’ the tillerman shouted back.

‘Quickly, stoop down and let me use the hem of your nightgown to wipe that up.’

‘That’s disgusting.’ Jerd was wearing one of Alise’s nightrobes to accommodate her modestly swelling belly.

Her cramp must have passed, Thymara thought, grimacing with distaste, for her to be too fastidious to deal with the mess she had made. She stooped and used the ragged sleeve of her own shirt, but some of the bloody water had already soaked into the deck. Not good. ‘We need to take you down to the bunks, I think. Jerd, why did you come to me? Why didn’t you talk to Bellin?’

‘She’s mean. And she doesn’t like me.’

‘She’s not mean. She’s just a woman who has been trying to get with child for years, and here you do it within months of your first mating, without even intending to. She’s bound to resent you a little. Come on. Walk.’

Jerd leaned on her heavily. Despite her whispering and the furtive way she had come to find her, Thymara suspected she was enjoying the attention they attracted as they made their slow way to the deckhouse and entered it. Davvie and Lecter were in the galley. ‘Go get Bellin, please,’ Thymara said, and something in her voice sent them scrabbling to obey her.

‘And Sylve,’ Jerd called faintly after them. ‘I need women to attend me.’

Thymara shut her teeth sharply on a hard-hearted reply to that. Jerd was enjoying the drama now, but Thymara had a feeling that bad things were about to happen. She helped Jerd sit down on one of the lower bunks.

Bellin arrived with not only Sylve but Skelly. The woman’s voice was hard but not without sympathy. ‘I felt blood on the deck from Tarman. You’re losing the baby, then?’

‘What?’ Jerd was astounded.

Thymara exchanged a disbelieving glance with Sylve, but neither girl said anything. Skelly merely looked baffled.

Bellin spoke heavily. ‘If you’re seeping blood and having cramps, then you’re having a miscarriage. The baby is likely already dead inside you and your body is pushing it out. Or the poor little thing will emerge far too early and die. Worst will be if this stops in a little while. Because I can tell you from experience that it will just start up again, a day or a week or even a couple of months from now when you’ve convinced yourself that everything is fine even if you still haven’t felt the child move.’

‘NO!’ Jerd shrieked, and then dissolved into wailing and tears. Bellin turned her back on her. At first Thymara thought her attitude was harsh. Then she saw a tear track down the woman’s weathered cheek.