‘I’ll tell you why,’ he said, pausing to help himself to the vegetables. ‘Not because we’re cruel, or indifferent to her predicament. But because I must hold the reputation of this ship paramount. Our competitors watch us. They may well know that Garval was our last recruit.’

‘And you wouldn’t want them to know that she had failed,’ I said.

Rackamore aimed the tip of his skewer at me. ‘You have the crux of it. News like that would get around quickly. The Monetta’s Mourn is in trouble. Well, I won’t have that. So Garval will remain with us until we are confident that we have new – and righteous – recruits.’

‘Perhaps now we do,’ Mattice said, picking a crumb out of his beard.

‘You think so, Mattice?’ asked Triglav.

‘I do. And I wouldn’t rip the guts of anyone who agreed with me.’

‘We’ll swing by Prevomar soon enough,’ Rackamore said. ‘In the meantime, she’s well cared for. You say you hadn’t heard of the place, Arafura.’

‘There’s an awful lot of worlds, Captain.’

He conceded my point with a dip of his skewer. ‘Too many for all the grey in one head, and that’s the truth.’

‘Girlie says she’s bookish,’ Prozor said.

‘You should try reading a book sometime, Proz,’ Rackamore said, smiling at her. ‘See if you can do it without moving your lips, and you’ll really impress us.’ This got him an extra scowly scowl from Prozor, a laugh from some of the others. But his attention was still fixed on me. ‘You must have seen the Book of Worlds at some point.’

‘Our family had a copy,’ I said, before adding: ‘But not a recent edition.’

‘I have a copy . . . actually several. Different editions. Among other books. When you’re done with Cazaray and his bones, drop by my quarters. You too, Adrana, if this sort of thing spurs you.’

‘It might,’ Adrana said.

Rackamore lifted his tankard in a kind of salute. ‘It ought to. The past is all we have left. The least we can do is make the most of it.’

If you’ve ever tried to sleep in a grumbly old house with pipes that hiss and clank, floors that creak, walls that groan, windows that rattle, you’ve maybe a tenth of an idea what it’s like to try sleeping on a ship like the Monetta’s Mourn. If it wasn’t the restless noises of the ship it was someone barking out an instruction, someone calling the hour of a watch, or a mad woman screaming while bound to a bed.