closed in again, kicking and punching at a struggling figure on the deck.
“Stand fast!” Vaelin barked, pushing his way through the knot of men. All but one responded immediately, moving back, heads lowered in the face of the Tower Lord’s ire. The man with the bloodied face, however, continued to drive his boot into the belly of the figure on the deck. Vaelin stepped forward to pull him away, then halted as a swift shape emerged from the shadows beyond the prone man to drive a punch into the face of his assailant. The sailor staggered from the blow, remaining upright and licking at the blood streaming from his nose until the figure from the shadows delivered another blow to his temple that left him senseless on the boards.
“That’s enough!” Vaelin met Ellese’s gaze as she moved towards the man she had knocked to the deck, knife in hand.
“Filthy bastard put his hands on me,” she hissed, drawing the knife back for a thrust. Vaelin stepped between her and the fallen sailor, snaring her arm in a tight grip.
“I said, that’s enough.”
“I’m fine, incidentally,” Nortah groaned from the deck, wincing and holding his stomach as he sat up.
“He tried to keep them off me,” Ellese said. “This lot”—her voice took on a snarl as she regarded the other sailors—“thought they could have their way.”
“She’s a stowaway, my lord,” one of the sailors said. Vaelin found he didn’t like the resentful defensiveness in the man’s bearing as he shot Ellese a dark glare. “Stowaways got no rights. It’s tradition . . .”
His words died as Vaelin delivered a hard backhand cuff to his jaw, sending him reeling. “Get yourselves up top,” he told the sailors, jabbing the toe of his boot against the skull of their unconscious shipmate. “And take this one with you.”
They possessed enough wisdom to mute any grumbling as they gathered up the fallen man and climbed the steps to the upper deck. “Can you stand?” Vaelin asked, stooping to take hold of Nortah’s arm. He jerked it away and got slowly to his feet.
“Had to hide in the rum store, didn’t you?” he asked Ellese before shaking his head and stumbling off into the gloomy recesses of the hold.
Vaelin turned to Ellese. Her body seemed to thrum with frustrated anger and she met his gaze with an unrepentant stare. “How?” he asked simply.
“Swam the harbour from the northern mole and climbed the anchor chain when you were saying your goodbyes.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t difficult.”
So much like Reva, he thought. But not entirely. “Your mother would have killed at least two before I got here,” he told her.
Her stare turned into something more guarded. “I’m stiff from crouching behind barrels for three days.”
No, he decided, studying her face carefully. You knew I’d stop you. “Did Lord Nortah partake of any rum?”
She shook her head. “He was about to, sure enough. Tried tapping a spile into one of the small barrels and knocked it onto my foot. That lot heard us arguing.” She hesitated. “Are you going to hang them?”
“Do you want me to?”
She was calmer now, the anger leeched away into a nervous uncertainty. “They were a bit free with their hands, but I doubt they were really going to do anything. If that matters.”
“They outraged the person of my niece, who also happens to be the heir to the Fiefdom of Cumbrael. It can’t go unanswered. But neither can your disobedience.”
She gave a derisive snort. “Going to flog me, are you, Uncle?”
He stared at her wordlessly until the grin slipped from her lips and she began to fidget as he let the silence stretch. “I’ve been indulging you, up until now,” he told her, hoping she heard the soft sincerity in his voice. “Because of the love I bear for your mother. I have tried to be gentler in your education than my masters were in mine. I used to see their harshness as cruelty, an unnecessary adjunct to the wisdom they imparted. Now, I see I was mistaken. You have learned nothing from me, because I have not taught you properly.”
He stepped closer to her, keeping her eyes trapped in his. “So I will give you a choice. Submit to my training or don’t. If you don’t, you will be confined on this ship and returned to the Reaches once I have disembarked in the Far West. You will return to your mother, explaining my failure to teach you. Or”—he stepped closer still, lowering his