“I know you wouldn’t stand for a civilian life. Planning men’s schedules and processing men’s accounts and doing all the Republic’s thinking while the men go out and act. I want to help the navy. So do you.”

“You wanted to help Ormsment ‘protect’ her tax ships, too. I was there when you had dinner on her flagship.”

“No, you weren’t. I would’ve noticed you.”

“Oh,” Shao Lune said, archly, “why’s that?”

“I remember arrogant women,” Baru purred, low in her throat, just like Tain Hu. “I like to humble them.”

“You’re the one crawling up to me in filth.”

Out of gleeful irritation Baru splashed a handful of bilgewater on the Staff Captain’s face. She spat and thrashed. “Listen,” Baru hissed, “listen, there’s worse than pirates and Parliaments to fear. If you want to save your navy and your matrons, you’d better tell me what you know. I can help you. No one else can.”

“You sound like a whore. A kneeling Souswardi whore.” Shao Lune smirked at her. “Oh, oh, listen, I can do whatever you need.”

Baru seized Lune’s chain and she whipped the iron links once, twice, up under Lune’s left armpit and around the right side of her throat. She yanked the chain tight. Shao Lune fell down with her head snapped down against her shoulder and her eyes dimmed by blood-lack.

How queasily satisfying to see the proud Staff Captain forced to kneel. Baru smiled at her. “Did Ormsment act alone?”

“I know nothing. I take and execute my orders.”

“Are there other admirals who would mutiny, given the chance?”

“I know nothing.”

“If I threatened to reveal Ormsment’s mutiny to Parliament, would the other admirals sit down and bargain with me?”

Shao smiled. It was the vigorous, appetitive expression of a woman surprised by an unexpected delight. “Ah,” Baru said, smiling, too. “I thought so.”

She left the Staff Captain panting in the muck with her chain still coiled around her. Light-headed and dizzy, she stumbled back to the main stairs.

Gods of stone and fire. How she hated to love this work.

A golden specter waited in the lamplight by the stairs. A little to Baru’s right, so she did not at first notice the woman: her thoughts turned to hard sweat-slick flesh and long easy power, and then with a gasp she was face-to-face with the reality. Iscend Comprine in an athletic strophium and a diver’s skirtwrap, coming back above-decks from her exercises, which she conducted in the ship’s hold so the slam of the weights wouldn’t trouble sleeping sailors.

The woman’s bound chest swelled and settled. She smiled at Baru, her incredible alpine-fox cheekbones conjuring thoughts of abstract geometry and Hu’s lowered head. Baru froze: Iscend could provoke her with small signals, Iscend could read her reactions from her face, Iscend saw too much—

“I heard you,” Iscend said.