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    “Indeed,” said the captain. “Keep them out of trouble. And yes.” He stared at Conall, “We’ll take you to Svalbard, provided you behave, work hard, you’re honest, and you don’t go near my daughter.”  
    Jonah pushed the two boys towards the door. “Thank you sir, you won’t regret this,” Faro said.  
    “See that I don’t.”  
    Conall paused at the door. “My binoculars? Can I have them?”
    The captain opened a drawer and took out the glasses. He inspected them, pursing his lips in approval. “I’ll use them, if I may. And return them to you, safe and sound, when we reach Svalbard, providing your behaviour is acceptable. One more way you’ll pay for your passage. Agreed?”  
    Conall nodded. He couldn’t argue. Jonah pushed him through the door. “You boys need to learn when to keep your mouths shut,” he muttered. “Come on, let’s put you to work.”  

Chapter Five
B ERGEN

    Jonah Argent was good as his word. He put them to work, had them scrubbing decks and hauling on rope alongside the regular sailors, treated as part of the crew. They scrambled up ropes, and Conall learnt to cope with the height and movement of the ship, the wind and swells of the sea, how to make himself safe a hundred feet above deck, and how to look tough even when terrified, knowing the sailors were watching and would mark any weakness.  
    He and Faro battled to outdo each other: to be tougher and leaner and more daring. They carried stores and fetched supplies, tied ropes and retied them and did the job again, and again, until Jonah was happy they’d got it right. He made them work at a task until it became second nature. Conall understood what the man was about, making the tasks so ingrained he could trust them to do it right even in the highest winds or the fiercest storms. Because on a ship such as this even the smallest thing done wrong could make the difference between life and death.  
    Conall got plenty of things wrong at first, but kept going, kept learning. After six hours of work they were led to the crew room on the middle deck, sat down among a group of the sailors, and told to eat. They wolfed the food down, grabbing at chunks of bread, potatoes and stew as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks.  
    “They’re starved dogs,” the cook said as he came round with his pot.  
    Only then did Conall remember Rufus, still shut in the brig, with no water or food. He leapt up to go but Jonah’s hand on his shoulder held him down.  
    “Your terrier’s in good hands. Captain’s daughter’s looking after him. She’s got a way with animals. He’ll be spoiled rotten, I reckon, living better than the rest of us. Soon as you’ve finished, back on duty.”  
    Argent made them wash the deck by hand while he stood over them, giving a lesson in finding their way around a sailing ship. He reeled off names of sails and lines and stays. He talked of mizzen and fore masts, shrouds and backstays, topgallants and bowsprits, ladders and jibs and booms. Deadeyes and lanyards, bottle-screws and turnbuckles, belaying pins and ratlines. He tied knots, made them copy, made them remember the names. Then he tested them on the names and cursed every time they got one wrong. They went over and over, and soon he was cursing if they so much as paused.  
    “Need to know this, every bit of it,” Argent said. “You offered to work your passage. Well this is work.”  
    Staggering with tiredness, muscles aching and howling for rest, Conall and Faro kept going. They mucked out the animals on the middle deck while the captain’s wife stood in the doorway watching. She was a handsome woman, with brown hair tied up, wearing long cotton pants and a shirt with sleeves to her wrists. She carried a hat in her hands, to keep the sun off her face while on deck. On her feet she wore leather boots that clomped on the wooden boards and didn’t seem right for a ship. Conall guessed she was most at home in the fields with her animals,