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about two weeks after he fed. He’d taken passage on a vessel that had several ports of call. He must do what must be done onshore, not in the narrow and too-public confines of the ship.
    He leaned over the rail, one boot on the hammock netting, staring out to sea. His thoughts strayed to the strange girl who’d been so incensed when he had not believed her wild theory about the Sphinx. Such a bluestocking—no address, odd-looking. He was surprised she was English with her outlandish looks. He was not surprised she’d tried to assert that dominance females always craved. She’d been determined to prove his ignorance. He admitted grudgingly he might have given her provocation with his derision. She was direct; he’d give her that.
    His mind contracted. There were even more direct ways of gaining dominance than that poor girl could comprehendin her small world. He straightened and took in a breath of the salt air. He would not think of that or of her . He would think of the brown bird of a girl. He’d seen the carapace that covered her uncertainty about herself as she struck out at him over her precious theories. Whatever would she do in England? They valued everything she did not possess and nothing of what she did. He couldn’t help noticing how wistfully she gazed after Tripoli. She was right. She would be better off there. Impossible, of course, without husband, father, brother.
    The sea was quiet. The wind had died. That boded ill for a quick journey west down the Med. It had been just such weather when his ship was taken off the Barbary Coast two years ago.
    He wouldn’t think about that. He skipped over the roar of the guns blasting away at the fragile wooden sides of the ships at close range, the smoke, the smell of blood, the roar of the barbarous bastards as they came over the side. The damned Captain hadn’t even put up a good fight. He’d asked for quarter as soon as it got down to hand combat.
    He stared at the scars around his wrists. He didn’t bother to pull down his cuffs—no one was about to see them. They were the beginning. And then he couldn’t skip over it anymore. Shame suffused him as he remembered the foul creatures stripping him of everything—boots, belt, coat, waistcoat, shirt, watch and fob, seal ring, even his stockings. Then had come the first of many bindings, cruel hemp around his wrists. Wearing only his breeches, he was thrown into the hold with the other able-bodied. A saber cut or two still qualified him as healthy.
    The foul water in the belly of the ship was a foot deep. Those who could stand, did so. Those who couldn’t . . .
    A rat swam by. He could not suppress a shudder .
    “You’ll thank God for the rats soon enough.” The voice came from about the point of Ian’s thigh. The man must be sitting in the water. They were almost touching in the pitch dark of the hold. “We’ll end eating them. These Barbary bastards won’t waste rations on slaves.”
    “Slaves?”
    “We’re for market sure, maybe Algiers.”
    “I thought the Navy cleared the Med of pirates,” Ian protested, half-dazed by the quickness of the whole action and the throb of his wounds .
    “Mostly. But mostly don’t appear to be good enough.” The man coughed .
    “Hope they don’t try to convert us,” an old salt rasped. “I cain’t take torture at my age.”
    Ian shrank inside. He’d heard of the hot irons and knives that compelled a man to renounce Christ. The damned infidels thought they were saving souls. The stench of tar and fetid water was overwhelming. He breathed through his mouth, but that only made his throat close .
    “I heard they cut your bollocks off,” a young voice trembled .
    “Sometimes. But the black ones, they cuts their balls and dicks clean off, too, so they dribble all over themselves. Bring ’em up from beyond the desert, in great long caravans. Arabs has always kept slaves. In droves, they keeps them.” The fount of information sputtered to a stop .
    “I read