The waves surged. His raft pitched, but rode the swell.

Beneath the lashing roar of the storm, waves crashed. Cheek to the wet wood, he listened, concentrating, and confirmed that the waves were smashing against something nearby.

The ship was, he thought, wallowing in the unrelieved blackness to his right. Breaking up. Sinking. Given how he and the assassins had been flung, the impact must have been midship. Whipping up his failing strength, he lifted his head, searched, saw debris but no bodies-no other survivors-but only he and the assassins had been so far forward in the prow.

Lightning cracked again, and showed him the ship’s bare masts silhouetted against the inky sky.

As the simultaneous clap of thunder faded, he heard a sucking, rushing sound. Recognizing the portent, he peered at the ship.

The listing, tipping, capsizing ship.

Out of the night, the main mast came swinging down…

He didn’t even have time to swear before the top of the mast thumped down across him and the world went black.

“Linnet! Linnet!Come quickly! Come see!”

Linnet Trevission looked up from the old flagstones of the path that ran from the stable to the kitchen door. She’d left the stable and was nearing the kichen garden; directly ahead, the solid bulk of her home, Mon Coeur, sat snug and serene, anchored within the protective embrace of stands of elm and fir bent and twisted into outlandish shapes by the incessant sea winds.

At present, however, in the aftermath of the storm that had raged for half the night, the winds were mild, coyly coquettish, the winter sun casting a honey glow over the house’s pale stone.