“Tell me, in court do they address you as Sir Karigan? Shouldn’t it be Madam Karigan, or some such? Maybe Madam Sir Karigan?”

“Father.” She might be tenacious in her curiosity, but he was exasperating. “This is serious.”

“Yes, yes, of course it is. Very well. I suppose there is no avoiding it.” He paused, turning more reflective, his hands loosely clasped on the tabletop. “As I said, the Gold Hunter was long ago, and I was an ignorant young boy fresh off the island when Captain Ifior’s men snatched me from a tavern and forced me into service.”

“A press gang,” Karigan murmured, a little mollified her father had been taken against his will.

“I didn’t fight it, I will admit.”

“What? Why not?”

“I saw it as an opportunity.”

“Opportunity? A pirate ship?” Ignorant boy, indeed.

“Now, now,” her father said. “The Gold Hunter wasn’t a pirate to begin with, but a privateer with letters of marque to seize ships violating the blockade of the Under Kingdoms.”

“How’d it become a pirate?”

“The embargo was lifted,” he replied, “and Captain Ifior decided to keep taking ships. It was profitable.”

“No doubt.” Karigan’s head throbbed, and she rubbed her temples. She was weary from her long journey through the storm, and it was no easy thing hearing from her father’s own mouth he’d been crew on a pirate ship. All she knew of pirates was that they were unruly, bloodthirsty cutthroats, and she did not want to believe he was of that ilk, no matter how far distant in his past it may have been.

“Kari—”

“So you stayed on even after the captain turned to piracy,” she said.

“Yes. Captain Ifior had a good head for business, and I learned much from him.”

“Like how to steal? And kill?” Karigan winced as soon as the words left her mouth. She hadn’t meant to speak so brashly, but she needed to know. Needed to know who her father really was.

He did not answer, but sat there absolutely still, his expression stony and white-edged. Karigan held her breath, bracing herself for the storm that was certain to come, but he abruptly stood and left the kitchen without a word.

His silence, Karigan thought, was more terrible than any mere eruption of anger could be.

One by one her aunts turned to face her. Cook studiously ignored the scene, keeping busy at the sideboard. Well, she’d done it this time—turned a reunion with her family into a disaster.

“What?” she demanded of her silent and forbidding aunts. “I have a right to know.”

Aunt Stace’s mouth turned to a grim line before she spoke. “Your father talks little of the past, even to us, but we do know he was caught in circumstances not of his devising.”

Karigan could relate to that, but surely her father had more choice than she ever did with the Rider call. “He could have run away when their ship made port.”

“True,” Aunt Brini said, “but he had his reasons for staying. You see, Captain Ifior was more a father to him than our own was. His mentor and guide.”

“Who taught him to kill and steal.”

“Oh, child, you can’t know—”

“I am not a child,” Karigan said. No, not after all she’d experienced in her own life since becoming a Green Rider, but they’d never understand, even if she told them every detail of her exploits. No matter what she did with her life, they’d always see her as their little niece, not mature enough to deal with more adult matters, like her father’s past.

“I suppose you are not,” said Aunt Stace, “but you are acting like one.”

Karigan’s mouth dropped open.

“Only a child would utter whatever came to her mind without thinking first. I should have thought you learned better in the king’s service.”

Karigan sat there stunned that her aunts would take her father’s side in this. It wasn’t her fault he’d been a pirate.

She pushed her chair back and stood. She grabbed her message satchel and left the kitchen, heading for the stairs. She took the steps two at a time, and when she reached her bedchamber, she slammed the door shut behind her.

If her aunts couldn’t handle her asking about the pirate ship, just wait till she brought up the brothel.

ABOUT THE GOLD HUNTER

Karigan couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned beneath her pile of blankets, listening to the wind slam into her window. She’d risen a time or two to stoke the fire, but the cold drove her back beneath the covers, despite the woolens she wore over her nightgown and her heavy stockings.

It wasn’t so much the storm that kept her awake, but thoughts of her father and how the evening ended so badly before it had even begun. She chose to close herself in her room, with Elaine bringing up her supper. Her aunts did not even stop by to wish her a good night.

They’re mad at me, she thought, even though it wasn’t her fault her father had served on that pirate ship. And still, as justified as she felt in her own judgments, she was assailed by a sense of guilt, as if she were the one in the wrong simply because she needed to know the truth of the matter.

Her aunts were right on one point, she admitted after some reflection: her tendency to open her mouth without thinking. She could have approached the whole mess in a more circumspect manner that would have alleviated some of the hurt feelings. But her father had pushed her just a little too hard about her own life, and she had pushed right back.