“If we were going to get rid of him,” said Marric bluntly, “we’d have done better not to have paid his passage at all. Have a bit of sense, we’ll get the money back now in any case, and maybe a good bit over.”

“How do you make that out?”

“Well, if the boy has got information, Ambrosius’ll pay the passage, you can be sure of that. Then if it turns out he is the bastard—and I’m certain he is—there might be extra in it for us. Kings’ sons—or grandsons—come in useful, as who should know better than Ambrosius?”

“Ambrosius must know the boy’s useless as a hostage.” Hanno sounded sullen.

“Who’s to tell? And if he’s no use either way to Ambrosius, then we keep the boy and sell him and split the proceeds. So leave it be, I tell you. Alive, he might be worth something; dead, he’s worth nothing at all, and we might find ourselves out of pocket over his passage.”

I felt Hanno’s toe prodding me, not gently. “Doesn’t look worth much either way at the moment. Ever know anyone so sick? He must have a stomach like a girl. Do you even suppose he can walk?”

“We can find out,” said Marric, and shook me. “Here, boy, get up.”

I groaned, rolled over slowly, and showed them what I hoped was a wretchedly pale face. “What is it? Are we there?” I asked it in Welsh.

“Yes, we’re there. Come on now, get to your feet, we’re going ashore.”

I groaned again, more dismally than before, and clutched my belly. “Oh, God, no, leave me alone.”

“A bucket of sea water,” suggested Hanno.

Marric straightened. “There’s hardly time.” He spoke in Breton again. “He looks as if we’ll have to carry him. No, we’ll have to leave him; we’ve got to get straight to the Count. It’s the night of the meeting, remember? He’ll already know the ship’s docked, and he’ll be expecting to see us before he has to leave. We’d better get the report straight to him, or there’ll be trouble. We’ll leave the boy here for the time being. We can lock him up, and tell the watch to keep an eye on him. We can be back well before midnight.”

“You can, you mean,” said Hanno sourly. “I’ve got something that won’t wait.”

“Ambrosius won’t wait, either, so if you want the money for that, you’d better come. They’ve half finished unloading already. Who’s on watch?”