‘I’m not afraid of you, Tats, nor of joining myself to you. I’m afraid of getting pregnant. Look at Jerd and how miserable she is. Vomiting every morning. She’s always weepy now, or angry, or both. She barely does any of her duties. I heard her dragon complaining. Sylve actually did some grooming for her the other day, around her eyes. I don’t want to turn into that.’

‘You don’t want children?’ His words seemed almost accusing. She bridled incredulously. ‘What? Now? Of course not! Do you?’

He moved one shoulder. ‘It wouldn’t be so bad.’

‘Not for you, perhaps! But even if my pregnancy were easy, I can’t imagine having a baby now, while we are still trying to find Kelsingra. Have you even thought about what you just said? About nursing a child, or finding something to use for its napkins, or a blanket for it? Where is Jerd going to sleep after the baby is born? Greft still claims her, but spends less and less time with her since she turned him out of her bed. Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s no secret! She sleeps badly and can scarcely keep food down. How would she be interested in sex with him?’

Tats had half-turned from her. ‘It would be different with us. I care about you. If I got you pregnant, I wouldn’t abandon you.’

She spoke with sudden certainty. ‘You’re only saying that because you know how unlikely it is for me to get pregnant. So you’re willing to take a chance.’

‘Well, everyone was shocked when Jerd caught a child. All I’ve heard from everyone is how surprising that is.’

‘Well, if you talked to the girls about it, you’d hear how alarming it is.’ Thymara shook her head and made a sudden decision. ‘Tats, I’m not going to mate with you. Not while we are still journeying like this. I’ She wanted to tell him that she still wanted to be able to kiss him, to touch and be touched by him, but that seemed so unfair. Until he spoke.

‘Then I don’t see how we can go on at all.’ There was hurt in his voice, but also a shadow of a threat. That angered her.

‘Oh. I see.’ She bit the words off sharply. ‘If I let you mate with me and you get me pregnant, you care so much for me that you’ll stay at my side through thick and thin. But apparently you don’t care enough for me to stay with me if I’m not willing to mate with you! Does that makes sense to you?’

For a moment he was silent and uncomfortable. Then, ‘Yes,’ he blustered, `it does. Because it would show that you cared for me as much as I care for you. Right now, what we do, it’s like teasing me. I feel like a fool when you suddenly stop me and say “no” as if I’m a child begging for another sweet. When people love one another, one doesn’t say “no” to the other.’

His absolute certainty took her breath away. ‘Married people say no to each other all the time!’ she insisted, thinking of her parents’ frequent quarrels. Then she stopped, wondering if that was so. Her father and mother had disagreed often, but was that true of other long-married folk?

`I’m tired of you making a fool of me, Thymara.’ Tats turned away from her.

`I’m not trying to make a fool of you,’ she hissed after him. ‘I just don’t want to get pregnant! Can’t you understand that?’

‘I understand that you don’t care enough about me to want to take a chance. We both know it’s very unlikely I’d get you with child. But you don’t care enough about me to risk even that small chance!’

She drew breath to speak, and then wondered what she could say. It was true. He was right. She liked Tats, even loved him a little, and his touch sent her heart racing and warmed every inch of her skin. But when she weighed that pleasure against the chance that she’d get pregnant, her blood cooled and her belly tightened with dread. As it did now. She tried to find something to say, some way to tell him what she felt.

At that moment, a dragon’s roar of outrage pierced the night. Thymara felt the entire ship shudder under her, and heard the querulous sounds of people jolted awake from a sound sleep.

Then the roar was followed by a man’s yell of terror.

She heard the slam of a stateroom door and Leftrin shouted, ‘Hennesey! Swarge! Eider! Lanterns! What’s going on out there?’

There was another roar. This time she recognized the dragon’s voice. It was Kalo’s. She heard a high-pitched scream that wavered in the night, and then the sound of a loud splash not far from the ship. Kalo’s outraged words shocked her. ‘You are no keeper of mine, Greft! Never again will I speak to you, never again will you touch me!’

‘Man overboard!’ shouted Skelly.

‘I’ll get him!’ That was Alum’s voice. Both voices had come from amidships. Thymara shook her head. She wouldn’t be the only one wondering how they both happened to be in the same place at the same time in the middle of the night. She heard a different sort of splash as Alum dove in. A moment later, the kindled lanterns were converging on that side of the ship. Without a word to each other, she and Tats joined the others gathering there.

Swarge lifted high his lantern. In the water, they saw Alum cover the last small distance between him and a floating body. She saw him turn the man over, and heard him gasp out, ‘It’s Greft! Lower a ladder over the side.’

By the time Alum had towed Greft’s limp body back to the side of the barge, Swarge was on the bottom rung of a rope ladder, waiting for him. Together they wrestled his body aboard the ship. ‘Bring him into the galley!’ Leftrin barked. Tats stepped up to catch Greft’s feet as they carried him. Halfway there, he began to struggle. They let him try to stand, and he stepped to the railing, coughing and spitting out water. Swarge waiting patiently, lantern held high. Greft’s shirt was torn and hanging loose in flaps of fabric. Thymara glimpsed two long scrapes on his chest and one on his back.

‘I’m fine,’ he insisted abruptly. ‘I don’t need help. I’m fine.’

‘You’re bleeding,’ Thymara pointed out.

Greft rounded on Thymara, savagely angry, shouting in her face. ‘I’m FINE, I said. Leave me alone!’

Leftrin clapped a hand on his shoulder and abruptly spun him around. He let go of him and Greft nearly fell. Leftrin didn’t care. He barked his words. ‘You’re fine, and I’m captain. And that means you’ll tell me just exactly what happened a few moments ago.’

‘It’s none of your business. It didn’t happen on your ship.’

Leftrin stood absolutely stock still and silent. Thymara wondered if he were shocked, if no one had ever spoken to him like that before. But he did not so much as blink when Eider seized Greft by his shoulders, lifted him off his feet and walked to the railing. With no apparent effort, he held Greft out at arm’s length over the side of the boat. Greft roared in wordless fury and clutched at the big man’s thick wrists. Thymara noticed he didn’t struggle. Like her, she suspected that Eider would simply drop him. Or perhaps he was too battered to offer any resistance.

Leftrin took a small breath and spoke conversationally. ‘You’re not on my ship now. I suppose what happens to you now isn’t my business either.’

‘I went to check on my dragon. He got angry at me, and picked me up and threw me. And I am not Kalo’s keeper any more!’ The last sentence he shouted defiantly into the night. In response, there was a roar of anger from the dragon. The other dragons echoed him, and a muttering of growls followed the exchange.

‘That’s half or less of the truth. What happened?’ Leftrin demanded.

Thymara had never seen the captain look so angry. Alise had appeared, wearing the Elderling gown that Leftrin had given her. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, her eyes frightened. Others of the keepers and crew were gathering around them. The deck was getting crowded.

‘I went to see my dragon.’ Greft was stubborn. His hands were tight on Eider’s wrists. Thymara wondered if the big man was getting tired of holding him out there.