Chapter 37

He watched her as if he were in a trance, even as his own ship slowed in anticipation of a boarding. The Vivarrian men dropped their oars with heavy thuds. A plank was dropped onto the Iosian one—a sign of submission, all normal procedure when entering foreign waters. The Iosian captain stepped onto his ship with a solemn look in her eyes. From the looks of the stitches in her arm, still red from the injury, she had recently been engaged in battle, though it was difficult to ascertain whether she had walked away victorious or not. She held none of the stiff decorum Marcus had seen in his own captains; instead, she seemed relaxed, her movements languid. To any of his men she might appear undisciplined, and yet her crew seemed obedient, their hands already on the pommels of their swords. Marcus had no doubt they would be prepared to invade their ship if she ordered them to do so.