As if to confirm both gratitude and loyalty, he felt the ship pick up speed. Back on the tiller, he heard Swarge chortle and mutter, “Well, what’s the hurry now?” as the polemen picked up their pace to match the ship’s. Leftrin took his hands from the railing and leaned back against the deckhouse, hands in pockets, to give his crew room to work. He said nothing to any of them, and they knew better than to speak to the captain when he stood thus, deep in thought. He had a problem. He’d settle it without help from any of them. That was what captains did.

Leftrin dug his pipe out of one pocket and his tobacco out of the other, and then stuffed them both back as he realized he couldn’t go back into the galley to light it. He sighed. He was a Trader in the tradition of the Rain Wild Traders. Profit was all-important. But so was loyalty. And humanity. The Chalcedeans had approached him with a scheme that could make him a wealthy man. As long as he was willing to betray the Rain Wilds and butcher a sentient creature as if it were an animal, he could have a fortune. They’d made their offer in the guise of a threat; such a typically Chalcedean way to invite a man to do business. First there had been the “grain merchant,” bullying his way aboard the Tarman at the mouth of the Rain Wild River. Sinad Arich had spoken as plainly as a Chalcedean could. The Duke of Chalced was holding his family hostage; the merchant would do whatever he had to do to obtain dragon parts for the ailing old man.

Leftrin had thought he’d seen the last of the man when he set him ashore in Trehaug, thought that the threat to himself and his ship was over. But it wasn’t. Once a Chalcedean had a hold on you, he never let go. Back in Cassarick, right before they left, someone had come on board and left a tiny scroll outside his door. The clandestine note told him to expect a collaborator on board his ship. If he complied with their agent, they’d pay him well. If he didn’t, they’d betray what he had done with the wizardwood. That would ruin him, as a man, as a ship owner, as a Trader. He was not sure if it would lower him in Alise’s esteem.