Begasti gave him a flat and ugly look. He turned his back on Arich and began to dig in one of the baskets near the door. “And you will wait until the shops are open and go in to make your little purchase and then come back here for what must be done? Don’t be a fool. Go and get what we need, however you must. Then pay a visit to our dear friend Trader Candral. Tell him he is to arrange transport for you, on a swift ship bound downriver, one with an enclosed cabin we can share. Do not tell him I am leaving with you. Let him think that I remain here in Cassarick and that the threat still dangles over him. By the time he realizes we are both gone, it will be too late for him to betray us.”

Arich shook his head angrily. “And while I am doing all these dangerous things, what will you be doing?”

Through slitted eyes, Malta saw Begasti tilt his head toward her. “Preparing the shipment,” he said flatly, and Arich had the small decency to pale.

“I am gone,” Arich announced and reached for the door.

“You have the stomach of a rabbit,” Begasti announced disdainfully. “See that you do your part and quickly. We have many tasks to do before the sun rises.”

Child and afterbirth were now clear of her body and still the baby had not made a sound. Malta tented her knees protectively over him and moaned and panted wildly as if still in the throes of labor. The men ignored her as Arich angrily arranged his hooded cloak and then left. Her scrabbling fingers had gradually drawn the hem of her tunic from under her motionless child so that when she got to her feet she would not tumble him to the floor. She tried not to think of her precious newborn, still birth-wet, lying on the filthy floor of a brothel. Rolling her head to one side, she moaned and gauged the distance to the dirty knife that rested by the plate and spilled flagon.

She’d waited too long. “Time to be quieter,” Begasti said. The coldness of his words snapped her gaze up. He loomed over her, a loop of fine line in his hands. A bootlace? She met his eyes and saw in them both determination and disgust for what he had to do.

Malta lifted her feet from the floor and shot them out at him, catching him in the midriff. He oofed out air and staggered back. She rolled away from her baby, crying out with the effort, and grabbed the knife with one hand and the sticky flagon with the other. The Chalcedean was already back on his feet and coming at her. She swung the flagon in a wide arc and it cracked against his jaw. She followed it with a wild thrust of the knife.