‘Fault is not the issue at hand. I intend no ill by your father, and I certainly never meant to tangle myself up in Mazarile family law. There’s promise in both of you – tremendous promise. But now I wonder if I’d be better divesting myself of you before I deepen my troubles.’

I swallowed. ‘Me, sir . . . or both of us?’

‘I wouldn’t separate you. Ordinarily – given that we’re under full sail, with an itinerary ahead of us – it would be quite beyond my ability to return you home.’ He nodded at the sweeper. ‘Do you see that return?’

‘That big shape, sir?’

‘No, that’s our own shadow. The sweeper projects from the hull, and it can’t see beyond our own sails. That’s a quarter of the sky lost to us, but it doesn’t really matter when most of the things we’d need to worry about would come from behind, not ahead.’ The springs squeaked under his fingers, making the muscles jump out along the line of his arm.

‘Things, sir?’

He touched a finger to the edge of the scope. ‘That distant smudge is a long-range echo from the Iron Courtesan.’

‘Is that trouble?’

‘Hardly. I know Jastrabarsk well enough, and stealing another crew’s prize isn’t the way he does business. Still, being polite, he’ll come no closer than that. But there’s an opportunity here. The Courtesan’s just completed a sweep of baubles, and she’ll be on her way back to Trevenza Reach much sooner than us. It’d cost us both time, but if I felt it were the right thing to do, I could arrange for a rendezvous so you could be transferred to the other vessel. From Trevenza Reach you wouldn’t have long to wait for another ship back to Mazarile, and I’d make sure you had the funds to cover the passage.’

‘But we’ve only just joined the crew. We were just starting to settle in . . .’

He looked at me with a touch of scepticism. ‘Really?’

‘Well enough, sir. I know it’s early days.’

‘It is. And as a rule they won’t start warming to you until you start cooking for them. Even Prozor generally comes round in the end, once she’s got something in her belly. We’re not monsters, as I hope you’ll have decided by now.’

‘I never thought you were monsters, sir.’

‘I hear a but.’

‘It’s true that you have to make some hard decisions now and then, isn’t it? Like with Garval, and not taking her home, even though she’s so unwell?’

‘I suppose you think me indifferent to her.’

I bit my tongue, deciding I’d already said more than I should have. ‘It’s not my position to say, sir.’