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we saw our boat was still moored up. Looking back over the spires and pinnacles of the close-pitched roofs we could see no sign of smoke. Murkizon expressed himself forcibly on the subject of fires, and when, icily, Pompino requested that he make himself plain, the bluff captain shut up.
    But we knew what he was on about. Pompino had set the fires. We had all seen them burning, beginning to ease their way aloft. Why, then, had the godforsaken building not burned down?
    Not until we had pulled almost up to
Tuscurs Maiden
and the watch, hailing us, prepared to receive us aboard, could the first wafts of smoke be seen over the city.
    Pompino merely gave the smoke a single significant glance, and leaped up onto the deck. That glance spoke more eloquently than any “I told you so!”
    Standing on the deck I said to Pompino: “I know a man, a fellow by the name of Norhan the Flame. His hobby is throwing pots of blazing combustibles about.”
    “Aye, Jak. A handy fellow to have along now.”
    “Down in Hyrklana, though — I think, for he was moving around the last I heard.”
    “Don’t we all?”
    The breeze indicated a fair passage, the vessel was in good heart, if a trifle stormbeaten, and she’d been careened and scraped at Pomdermam. Over on the shore the smoke lifted and people moved about on the jetty. Two other argenters like
Tuscurs Maiden
lay moored up. Well, being North Pandahem craft they were not quite exactly the same as our vessel which hailed from South Pandahem.
    “It is reasonably doubtful, Pompino. But there is a chance we were observed. Therefore we may be followed.”
    “We may, indeed.”
    Climbing onto the quarterdeck Pompino radiated energy.
    “Captain Linson,” he said to the master. “While I do not profess to understand the tides and the winds as sailors do, and while it is true that I merely own the ship, I would like you to take us to sea and toward the west at this very moment.”
    Pompino, it seemed, had been learning that owners could not order their ships to perform evolutions like soldiers on a parade ground. His heavy-handed way with Linson, who was sharp, cutting, and with every instinct set on making a fortune from the sea, simply made the master even more indifferent. Linson was a fine sailor, knew his own mind, took enormous delight from tormenting Captain Murkizon, and was prepared to obey orders if they did not conflict too much with his own desires.
    “We are able to sail at once, Horter Pompino. I made certain arrangements when I — ah — observed the smoke.”
    “Did you now, by Pandrite!”
    As Cap’n Murkizon and I sailed as supernumeraries, we had no direct part to play in getting the ship to sea, apart from hauling on and slacking off and running. This sailor activity pleased me for reasons Murkizon, who had been born on Kregen as had everyone else as far as I knew, could never understand. As for Murkizon, that barrel of blow-hard toughness ached to eradicate the imagined slight upon his honor.
    The Lady Nalfi and the children, escorted below, were safely out of it. I caught Pompino’s eye as the canvas bellied and was sheeted home, and the ship began to come alive.
    “Linson could see the smoke before we could, as he was higher.”
    “Aye. Devilish smart is our master, Captain Linson.”
    “Aye.”
    Tuscurs Maiden
heeled, took the breeze, and in a comfortable depth of water headed out past the Pharos. A few small craft bobbed here and there. The lookout sang out.
    We rushed to the aftercastle.
    “May Armipand the Misshapen take them!” burst out Pompino.
    With shining oars rising and falling like the fabled wings of a bird of prey, wedge-prowed, hard, a swordship pulled after us, her bronze ram bursting the sea into foam.

Chapter three
    We sail for Bormark
    We stared aft as that cruel bronze rostrum smashed through spray after us. The oars rose and fell, rose and fell, beautiful in their way, derisive of the agony entailed in their hauling. Pompino stamped a