She watched him set off, softly gasping as he loped into a steady jog once clear of the rocks. For the first time she became truly frightened of Baudin. He’s been hoarding food –he has a hidden skin of water – there’s no other way he could still have such reserves. She scrambled to her feet and rushed over to the other pack.

The tents had been raised, the bedrolls set out within them. The pack sat in a deflated heap close by. Left in it was a wrapped pouch that she recognized as containing their first-aid supplies, a battered flint and tinder box that she’d not seen before – Baudin’s own – and, beneath a flap sewn along one edge at the bottom of the pack, a small, flat packet of deer hide.

No skin of water, no hidden pockets of food. Unaccountably, her fear of the man deepened.

Felisin sat down in the soft sand beside the pack. After a moment she reached to the hide packet, loosened its drawstrings and unfolded it to reveal a set of fine thief’s tools – an assortment of picks, minute saws and files, knobs of wax, a small sack of finely ground flour, and two dismantled stilettos, the needlelike blades deeply blued and exuding a bitter, caustic smell, the bone hafts polished and dark-stained, the small hilts in pieces that hinged together to form an X-shaped guard, and holed and weighted pommels of iron wrapped around lead cores. Throwing weapons. An assassin’s weapons. The last item in the packet was tucked into a leather loop: the talon of some large cat, amber-coloured and smooth. She wondered if it held poison, painted invisibly on its surface. The item was ominous in its mystery.

Felisin rewrapped the packet, returning it and everything else to the pack. She heard heavy footsteps approach from the east and straightened.

Baudin appeared from between the limestone projections, the pack on his shoulders and Heboric in his arms.

The thug was not even out of breath.

‘He needs water,’ Baudin said as he strode into the camp and laid the unconscious man down on the soft sand. ‘In this pack, lass, quickly—’

Felisin did not move. ‘Why? We need it more, Baudin.’

The man paused for a heartbeat, then slipped his arms free of the pack and dragged it around. ‘Would you want him saying the same, if you were the one lying here? Soon as we get off this island, we can go our separate ways. But for now, we need each other, girl.’

‘He’s dying. Admit it.’

‘We’re all dying.’ He unstoppered the bladder and eased it between Heboric’s cracked lips. ‘Drink, old man. Swallow it down.’

‘Those are your rations you’re giving him,’ Felisin said. ‘Not mine.’

‘Well,’ he said with a cold grin, ‘no-one would think you anything but noble-born. Mind you, opening your legs for anyone and everyone back in Skullcup was proof enough, I suppose.’