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Aristocrats. Aristocrats and their games of intrigue.”
    “We’re fortunate the king thinks highly enough of your service to the realm that he’s dropping the matter,” Karigan said. “But if Mirwell, or someone else, decides to make public accusations, it could be embarrassing. I destroyed the crew list, but it could still look bad even without the proof.”
    “I see.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry you learned about it this way. I should have told you.”
    “I wish you had,” Karigan murmured.
    “At least you know now,” he said.
    “Yes, but none of the details.”
    “It was a long time ago.”
    “Then you should have no trouble telling me all about it now.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “I see knighthood has done little to gentle your tenacious curiosity.”
    “Father.”
    “Tell me, in court do they address you as Sir Karigan? Shouldn’t it be Madam Karigan, or some such? Maybe Madam Sir Karigan?”
    “Father.” She might be tenacious in her curiosity, but he was exasperating. “This is serious. ”
    “Yes, yes, of course it is. Very well. I suppose there is no avoiding it.” He paused, turning more reflective, his hands loosely clasped on the tabletop. “As I said, the Gold Hunter was long ago, and I was an ignorant young boy fresh off the island when Captain Ifior’s men snatched me from a tavern and forced me into service.”
    “A press gang,” Karigan murmured, a little mollified her father had been taken against his will.
    “I didn’t fight it, I will admit.”
    “What? Why not?”
    “I saw it as an opportunity.”
    “Opportunity? A pirate ship?” Ignorant boy, indeed.
    “Now, now,” her father said. “The Gold Hunter wasn’t a pirate to begin with, but a privateer with letters of marque to seize ships violating the blockade of the Under Kingdoms.”
    “How’d it become a pirate?”
    “The embargo was lifted,” he replied, “and Captain Ifior decided to keep taking ships. It was profitable.”
    “No doubt.” Karigan’s head throbbed, and she rubbed her temples. She was weary from her long journey through the storm, and it was no easy thing hearing from her father’s own mouth he’d been crew on a pirate ship. All she knew of pirates was that they were unruly, bloodthirsty cutthroats, and she did not want to believe he was of that ilk, no matter how far distant in his past it may have been.
    “Kari—”
    “So you stayed on even after the captain turned to piracy,” she said.
    “Yes. Captain Ifior had a good head for business, and I learned much from him.”
    “Like how to steal? And kill?” Karigan winced as soon as the words left her mouth. She hadn’t meant to speak so brashly, but she needed to know. Needed to know who her father really was.
    He did not answer, but sat there absolutely still, his expression stony and white-edged. Karigan held her breath, bracing herself for the storm that was certain to come, but he abruptly stood and left the kitchen without a word.
    His silence, Karigan thought, was more terrible than any mere eruption of anger could be.
    One by one her aunts turned to face her. Cook studiously ignored the scene, keeping busy at the sideboard. Well, she’d done it this time—turned a reunion with her family into a disaster.
    “What?” she demanded of her silent and forbidding aunts. “I have a right to know.”
    Aunt Stace’s mouth turned to a grim line before she spoke. “Your father talks little of the past, even to us, but we do know he was caught in circumstances not of his devising.”
    Karigan could relate to that, but surely her father had more choice than she ever did with the Rider call. “He could have run away when their ship made port.”
    “True,” Aunt Brini said, “but he had his reasons for staying. You see, Captain Ifior was more a father to him than our own was. His mentor and guide.”
    “Who taught him to kill and steal.”
    “Oh, child, you can’t know—”
    “I am not a child,” Karigan said. No, not