It was not to be, of course. She could hide here in Hierosol with people who spoke her language, or she could go back to Xis and die. What other choices were there?

Pigeon was tugging at her arm; she was suddenly reminded that her own life was not her only responsibility.

Freedom. Sometimes it seemed that the more of it she had, the more she lacked.

Nikos had pretended to bump against her for the fifth or sixth time, and this time had actually managed to put his hand on her rump and give it a squeeze before she could slap it away, when she decided to turn back to the captain’s house. Her privacy stolen, her thoughts dragged down by Nikos’ innocently stupid questions and less innocent attempts to paw her, she knew the best of the day was over. Qinnitan sighed. Time to go back to Tedora and that laugh of hers like the cry of an irritated goat, to the thick smoke in the air and the endless noise and the jumble of screeching children. She couldn’t blame Nikos for wanting to spend time out of doors, she just wished he would spend it somewhere other than in her vicinity.

She put her arm around Pigeon, who pressed against her happily—he, at least, seemed quite content with their new life, and played with the younger children as comfortably as if they were his own brothers and sisters—then pulled her hood a little closer around her face, as she always did when she walked through the neighborhood around the captain’s house, where nearly half the people seemed to come from Xis and many of them were sailors who shipped back and forth across the Osteian Sea several times a year. The house seemed oddly quiet as they walked down the long path: she could hear one of the younger children talking cheerful nonsense, but not much else.

The captain’s wife Tedora looked up from her stool by the table. She had started her day of drinking wine early that morning—part of the reason Qinnitan had left the house—and judging by the jug and cup set beside her, not to mention the blurry, sly look on her seamed face, she had not slackened her pace in Qinnitan’s absence.

She must have been pretty once, Qinnitan often thought. Pretty enough to catch a captain, no small trick in Onir Soteros. The bones were still good, but Tedora’s skin was as cracked as old leather, her fingers knobby with age and hard work—not that Qinnitan had seen her do much of that.

“He’s waiting for you.” Tedora gestured to the bedroom, a sour smile flitting across her face. “Dorza. He wants to see you.”

“What?” For a moment Qinnitan could make no sense of it. Was Tedora sending her in to become the master’s concubine? Then she realized that, of course, in a house so small, the single bedroom would be the only place to carry on a private conversation—she had seen Dorza take some of his crewmen back to talk about matters of the ship and of their involuntary exile from Xis.