He did not know his way around the small galley. Moving carefully in the dimness, he found mugs hanging on hooks and plates stored vertically in a rack. He filled a mug with some dubious coffee, and finally found a stack of bowls on a shelf with a railing. He took one down, ladled soup into it and got a round of ship’s bread from the sack. He could not find spoons or forks. He sat down at the small galley table alone and took a sip of the coffee.

Weak and bitter but coffee all the same. He lifted the bowl of soup with both hands and sipped from the edge. The flavour was strongly fishy with overtones of garlic. He swallowed and felt warmth and strength funnelling down his throat. It was good. Not delicious or even tasty but good. He suddenly understood the copper eating the rotted elk. On a basic level, when a man or a dragon was hungry enough, any food was good.

He was eating the soft chunks of fish and vegetable from the bottom of the bowl, scooping them up with his fingers, when the door of the deckhouse opened. He froze, hoping that whoever it was would walk past to the bunk room. Instead, she came into the galley.

Alise looked at him, hunched over his food, and without a word, opened a cupboard and reached into a bin. She took out a spoon and set it on the table for him.

Still silent, she poured herself a mug of the horrid coffee and stood, holding it in her hands. In the gloom, he was not sure if she was staring at him or not. Then she sighed, came to the table and sat down opposite him. ‘I hated and despised you for several hours today,’ she said conversationally.

He nodded, accepting the judgment. He wondered if she could see his face in the dark.

‘I’m over it now’ Her voice was not gentle but resigned, ‘I don’t hate you, Sedric. I don’t even blame you.’

He found his voice, ‘I wish I could say the same.’

‘I’ve grown so accustomed to your witty remarks over the years.’ Dead. That was how her voice sounded. Dead. ‘Somehow they are not as amusing as they once were.’

‘I mean it, Alise. I’m ashamed of myself.’

‘Only now.’

‘You sound as if you are still angry.’

‘Yes. I’m still angry. I don’t hate you; I’ve decided that. But I’m angry in a way I’ve never been angry before. I think that if I hated you, I’d just hate you. But once I realized that only someone I loved could hurt me this badly, I realized I didn’t hate you. And that is why I’m so angry.’

‘I’m sorry, Alise.’

‘I know. It doesn’t really help, but I know you’re sorry. Now.’

‘I’ve been sorry about it for a long time, actually. Almost from the beginning.’

She flapped a hand at him, as if to shoo his excuses away. She sipped her coffee and seemed to debate something with herself. He waited. Finally, she spoke, in an almost normal voice. ‘I have to know this. Before I can go on with anything, before I can make any decisions, I have to know. Did you and Hest, did you make fun of me? Laugh at how gullible I was, how sheltered that I never even suspected? Did Hest’s other friends know? Were there people I knew, people I thought were my friends, who knew how stupid I was? How deceived I was?’

He was silent. He thought of small dinner parties, held late in the evening, in the private upper rooms of inns in Bingtown. Brandy after dinner in Hest’s den with some of their circle, and merriment that went on long after Alise had tapped on the door to wish them goodnight and retired to her bed.

‘I have to know, Sedric.’ Her words called him back to the cramped and grubby galley. She was watching him, her face pale in the dimness. Waiting for the truth.

In her position, he would have felt the same way. The need to know how foolish he had appeared, how many people had known. ‘Yes,’ he said. The word cut his mouth. ‘But I didn’t laugh, Alise. Sometimes I spoke out for you.’

‘And sometimes you didn’t,’ she added ruthlessly. She sighed and set her mug down on the table. It was a small sound in the quiet room. She lifted her hands and hid her face in them. He feared she was crying. If she was, he knew he should comfort her, but he would have felt like a fraud doing it. He had been a party to creating this humiliation for her. How could he offer the comfort of a friend? He sat still, not speaking, waiting for her to make a sound.

But when she lowered her hands from her face, she only sighed heavily. She picked up her mug and took a sip of her coffee. ‘How many?’ she asked conversationally. ‘How many people in Bingtown knew what a fool I was?’

‘You weren’t a fool, Alise.’

‘How many, Sedric?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘More than ten?’ She was relentless.

‘Yes.’

‘More than twenty?’

‘I think so.’

‘More than thirty?’

‘Possibly.’ He took a breath. ‘Probably.’

She laughed bitterly. ‘So you were not very discreet in your indiscretion, were you? Was I the only one who didn’t know?’

‘Alise … you don’t understand. Men like us, we have our own society, one that is mostly invisible to Bingtown society at large. We create our own world. We have to, because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be allowed … You are not the only wife who has no idea of her husband’s preferences. There are other wives in Bingtown who do know, and just accept it. My sister believes you are one of them, from something she once said to me. Some of those husbands are fathers, some of them do love their wifes, in their own ways. It’s just that … well …’

She had clenched her hands into fists. ‘Sophie knew?’

‘Yes. Sophie knows. The way she spoke, she believes you knew and agreed to it. For a time I hoped you did. Then I mentioned it to Hest one day, and he laughed at me.’

Her brows were knit as she puzzled over this. Then she asked abruptly, ‘How did Sophie know? Did you tell her?’

‘I didn’t have to. She’s my sister. She just knew.’ He paused to think about that. ‘She always knew,’ he added quietly.

Alise drew a small breath, sighed it out. ‘I don’t know which would be more humiliating, really. To have your sister think I was a deceived fool, or to think I was a party to your arrangement.’ She looked aside from him. ‘At least Hest didn’t pretend he cared for me. Looking back, I suppose that he did offer me a strange sort of honesty. I knew he didn’t want me, that he came to my bed only because he must, to make a child. I supposed he had another woman or women somewhere; I could never understand why he hadn’t married someone he actually liked. But now I know. He couldn’t.’

He bowed his head to her cold reasoning.

‘When I try to imagine you and him together, when I think of you embracing him, kissing his mouth, and him holding you tight …  In the very house where we lived. Both of you coming down to breakfast with me after a night together, both of you planning …’

He was appalled. ‘Please don’t, Alise. I don’t want to talk about that.’

‘Was he tender to you, Sedric? Did he say he loved you, bring you small gifts? Remember what scents you liked, what sort of sweets?’

She wasn’t going to let it go. Did he owe this to her? Did he have to endure this? He took a breath and admitted it. ‘No. That was how I was to him. He was never that way to me.’

‘Then how was he?’ There was an edge of tears in her voice. ‘What did he do to make you love him?’

He stopped to think about it. It hurt. ‘He was Hest. You’ve seen him. It was easy to fall in love with him. He’s handsome and well dressed. Graceful on the dance floor. Charming. When he wants to, he can put his attention on you and make you the most important person in the world. He was strong. I felt … protected. Lifted up by him. I couldn’t believe he wanted me, that he’d chosen me. He was so beautiful that just to have him notice me was all the gift I could imagine. I was dazzled. He did buy me gifts. Clothing. Pipes. A horse. I look back and I think now, those things were not really for me. They were things he gave me so that I would look how he wanted me to look. So I would not shame him with my shabby clothing or my poor taste in horseflesh. I was like … like cloth. Like something he had cut and sewn into a garment that suited him.’