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admiring gaze.
    “Do you…are you…?”
    “Shhh,” Lorn whispered, and bent his head.
     
    Paole woke in the predawn to gentle kisses, and went to wrap his arms more closely around his companion. But the boy pulled away, though with one last kiss to Paole’s cheek.
    “No, I have to go. My parents return today.” Lorn yanked his boots on.
    Paole sat up and pulled his shirt closed. “Thank you…for the bread.”
    Lorn turned and smiled. “Maybe I’ll bring you some more next time you come through the village.” He leaned over and kissed Paole on the lips. “Until then, Master Paole.”
    Paole felt cold and a little empty when the boy had gone, like a wisp of mist burnt off by the rising sun. The sex had been fine. The companionship had been what he craved. One sweet night left that craving unsatisfied, sharper than before.
    Now he understood why Mathias had bought him as a slave. Until the last two years of his life, the old man could manage his practice perfectly well on his own, though Paole made it easier, no doubt. But Mathias had been lonely. It was no life for a wife, and a servant could leave for another employer any time they wanted. A slave, though, had to stay. Guaranteed company, for a price.
    The only problem, it was a one-sided arrangement, though Mathias had been as kind and generous a master as any slave could hope for. But no slave really wanted a master at all, and good-hearted as he was, Mathias had never once asked Paole what he truly desired from life. Now he had the freedom he’d always longed for, but it hadn’t given him the satisfaction he’d thought it would.
    For a few brief moments, with his arms around the beautiful boy, Paole thought he’d found that, but it had been an illusion. If he could find it for real, then maybe his freedom would bring him the happiness he’d always hoped for.

Chapter Five
     
    Two days later, just as Sorke had Seen, help arrived, attracted by the pillar of smoke from the fires the survivors had kept burning day and night, and by the wreck slowly breaking apart out on the rocks. Tribal Uemiriens, fisherfolk and scavengers, tall, thin people with the tow-coloured hair so common among their race, come to see what pickings they could glean. Finding so many survivors surprised them, but left them untroubled. They hunkered down readily and shared their food, telling Sorke where fresh water could be had a little way inland, and how to fashion water bottles to carry it.
    Though the sailors had done pretty well in keeping the survivors alive and in good shape, the arrival of the tribesman lifted everyone’s spirits. It meant a way off the beach and back to civilisation. To the crew, it also meant confirmation that their fellow sailors were lost, for the tribesmen had found and buried the bodies of the nine missing people on the shore north of them. Time now to move on.
    The tribesmen refused to lead anyone directly to Karvis, but they could take a few men to the nearest settlement some twenty kilometres farther south along the coast, and from there, transport could be arranged to the border and to a telegraph station. With luck, the survivors could be picked up within a week.
    But Yveni had no intention of going with them, and once four men—two sailors, two passengers—had left with some of the tribesmen, he went in search of Kafoe, one of the older fishermen. Yveni had become friendly with many of their clan, who’d been intrigued by a youth who spoke their tongue like one of their own, and by his knowledge of their land from Gil’s stories.
    He found the old man sitting cross-legged on a boulder, plaiting grass to make a water bottle.
    “Young Gaelin, just when I need a helper. Hold this.”
    Yveni held the plait in place while Kafoe made an intricate adjustment to his weaving. “Kafoe, I need your help too.”
    Kafoe cocked his head. “Tell on, boy.”
    “I need to go to Horches. Karvis is no friend to me. I can’t go there.”
    “Horches is too far