“She’s gone to her quarters. We launch soon. You’d better round up your gear if you want it to go ashore with you.” Leftrin kept his voice flat.
The Bingtown man stopped and stared at him. He didn’t quite grind his teeth, but he clenched them for a moment. “I won’t be going ashore,” he grated. He turned away from Leftrin and said meaningfully over his shoulder, “I wouldn’t leave Alise alone on this barge.”
With you, Leftrin mentally added to his words, and fought to keep from grinning. That slimy little bugger wanted to say he wouldn’t leave Alise alone with me, but he didn’t quite have the spine. Aloud, he said, “She’d scarcely be alone, you know. She’d come to no harm with us.”
Sedric glanced back at him. “She’s my responsibility,” he said flatly. Then he opened the door of his small cabin and vanished inside it, shutting it nearly as firmly as Alise had done. Leftrin tried to push aside his disappointment.
“Doesn’t bark too loud for a watchdog,” Carson observed slyly. When Leftrin scowled at him, he only grinned wider and added, “I don’t think he has his heart in what he’s guarding. Appears to me he might have other things on his mind.”
“Get your gear off my deck. I don’t have time for you now. I got a boat to get back in the water.”
“Indeed you do,” Carson agreed. “Indeed you do.”
IT WAS STUFFY in the cabin and dim. Alise sat on the floor and stared up at the rough ceiling. Lighting a candle was too much trouble, and climbing into her hammock too much of a challenge. The little room that had earlier felt cozy and boldly quaint now seemed like a child’s treehouse. And she felt like a child, hiding from discipline that must sooner or later descend on her.
Why had she defied Sedric? Where did those bursts of audacious bravery come from, and why did she keep yielding to them when she knew she could not back up her threats? She’d go without him. Oh, of course she would! Off, up the river, on a ship full of sailors and other rough folk, headed no one knew where. And when she came back, what then? Then Leftrin would discover that Hest would not cover the debts she had run up while defying her chaperone, and even if she’d gained any knowledge, she’d be disgraced in Bingtown and Trehaug. She would no longer have any home to go to. She thought of what Hest would probably do to her study and her papers when he discovered she’d run away. He’d destroy them. She knew how spiteful he could be. He’d sell the valuable old scrolls, probably in Chalced. And he’d burn her translations. No, she suddenly thought bitterly. He’d auction them along with the scrolls. No matter how angry Hest might be, he never passed up the opportunity to make a profit.
She clenched her teeth in frustration, and tears stung her eyes. She wondered if he would find out then how valuable her studies and notes were. Or would some collector just acquire her treasures and hide them away in his library, unaware of what he had? Worse, would someone else claim her work as his own? Use what she had painstakingly learned of Elderlings and dragons for his own profit?
The thought was unbearable. She couldn’t let her work come to such an end. She couldn’t ruin her life in such a headstrong, childish way. She had to go home. That was all there was to it.
The thought strangled her, and for a time she gave way to wild weeping. She cried as she had not cried in years, letting the deep sobs rise and choke her as they passed through her. The world rocked with her anguish. When finally the fury passed, she felt as if she’d been the victim of a terrible physical mishap, a hard fall or a beating. Sweat had plastered the hair to her head, and her nose was running. Her head spun with dizziness. In the darkness she rose, her body aching. She groped around until she found one of her shirts in the wardrobe, pulled it out, and wiped her face on it, not caring how she soiled it. What did it matter anymore? What did anything matter? She wiped her face again on a dry spot and then sullenly threw the shirt to the floor. She heaved a great sigh. The tears were gone, used up with as little result as they ever had. It was time to surrender.
There was a timid knock at her door. Her hands flew to her face. Reflexively she patted her cheeks and smoothed her hair. She must not be seen like this. She cleared her throat and attempted to sound sleepy. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Sedric. Alise, may I have a word with you?”
“No. Not now.” The refusal was out of her mouth before she thought about it. Her deep sadness blazed up and was suddenly heedless fury again. Another wave of vertigo swept over her. She put out a hand and steadied herself on the desk she would never use. For a time, a frozen silence held outside the door. Then Sedric’s voice came again, stiffly correct.
