‘Penhold,’ he corrected her. He had not even spared a look at her companions. ‘What is it, fishwife?’

‘I have a gift for you,’ Cynthaen told him. ‘Your luck has come in with the tide this morning.’

The dark man scowled at her. ‘Make sense,’ he said.

‘I bring three new members for your household,’ she told him. ‘Rejoice, therefore.’

He stared at her, and the boy wanted to feel sorry for him, but the fact that he himself was being palmed off onto this huge stranger, who obviously bore Cynthaen no love, eclipsed all other considerations.

‘Who…?’ Penhold glanced past the woman, to see the two Dart-kinden, and then the boy. His face froze, hiding anything that might move behind it. ‘Since when did the Mantis-kinden traffic in people?’ he enquired slowly, but it was clear that his mind was more concerned with the problem of what this boy and his escort might be.

‘You will take them in,’ Cynthaen told him. ‘Give them a home. Feed them. Work them, if you will. The two tall ones look like they could carry a load.’

The Dart-kinden bristled at that comment, but even Marcantor could tell how everything now hung in the balance.

‘And why should I do so?’ the big man asked.

‘Because I shall bring to you four swords, Panhandle, Mantis-forged rapiers, no less. I know what riches that can bring you.’

Panhandle, or Penhold, stared at her. ‘You have no four swords.’

‘I will have.’

‘You are a catcher of fish.’

‘I am a warrior.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Six.’

‘Four.’

‘Five.’

‘Four. Of the very best.’

His eyes flicked again to the boy and the two warriors, as though weighing their worth, and then back to Cynthaen. Something passed between them, some familiarity that made the boy realize that their sparring words hid a longer association than he had guessed.