She raised the wineskin and daintily directed a jet of a dark, resinous wine into her mouth, licking her lips most carefully when she finished. She passed the skin to Hereward, who took the merest swig. He was watching the horribly mutilated little man who was crawling across the deck. The pirate’s skin was so heavily and completely tattooed that it took a moment to realize he was an albino. He had only his left hand, his right arm ending at the wrist. Both of his legs were gone from the knee, and he scuttled on his stumps like a tricorn beetle.

“M’ steward,” said Fury, as the fellow left. She took another long drink. “Excellent cook.”

Hereward nodded grimly. He had recognized some of the tattoos on the man, which identified him as a member of one of the cannibal societies that infested the decaying city of Coradon, far to the south.

“I’d invite you to take nuncheon with me,” said Fury, with a sly look. “But most folk don’t share my tastes.”

Hereward nodded. He had in fact eaten human flesh, when driven to extremity in the long retreat from Jeminero. It was not something he wished to partake of again, should there be any alternative sustenance.

“We are all but meat and water, in the end,” said Fury. “Saving your presence, puppet.”

“It is a philosophic position that I find unsurprising in one of your past life,” said Fitz. “I, for one, do not think it strange for you to eat dead folk, particularly when there is always a shortage of fresh meat at sea.”

“What do you know of my ‘past life’?” asked Fury, and she smiled just a little, so her sharp eye teeth protruded over her lower lip.

“Only what I observe,” remarked Fitz. “Though the mark is faded, I perceive a Lurquist slave brand in that quarter of the skin above your left breast and below your shoulder. You also have the characteristic scar of a Nagolon manacle on your right wrist. These things indicate you have been a slave at least twice, and so must have freed yourself or been freed, also twice. The Nagolon cook the flesh of their dead rowers to provide for the living, hence your taste—”