Then came the voices: many voices whispering as one.

"Pay us our bounty or we shall first take your ships, and then your bodies."

Almost immediately Twenty-Nine could hear desperate, tormented cries from above. Then everything became eerily silent again. The ship continued to sit motionless, but at last the fog still surrounding them began to thin, and he could see the terrified faces of his fellow oarsmen.

Craning his neck, Twenty-Nine saw that the sun shone brightly once more. Then the splashing noises began.

Instinctively, he started counting them. As he watched through the narrow slit, he could see the occasional bloodied body plunging into the sea. There were forty splashes in all.

Then he heard snuffling, snarling, grunting sounds. They reminded him of one time he and his father had been ocean fishing. Twenty-Nine had been young, and had made the mistake of accidentally tipping an entire bucket of bloody fish offal overboard. Sharks had swarmed.

As had happened then, eventually all went quiet. Straining to get the best possible view, Twenty-Nine could see the red, spreading stain of blood as it stretched across the surface of the impossibly placid sea.

Then the topside deck hatch opened noisily again, and the Harlequin reappeared. Blood dripped from the hem of his doublet. Gently wiping it off with an embroidered handkerchief, he descended the stairs and walked to the master bleeder.

"Fill the vacant seats with replacements from below," he said casually. "Talis only. And be quick about it."

Several bleeders moved aside the oars and unlocked the grates in the aisle floor, then descended into the darkness. Soon the replacements came up and out, furiously blinking their eyes in the brighter light of the oar deck. They were assigned to their stations and roughly chained into place.