"Well, I doubt that is how he envisioned it," Curtil said judiciously. He took a sip of his tea. Althea wondered if that were a delaying tactic, to give him time to think. The old man straightened in his chair as if he'd decided something. "But I do believe he knew his own mind. No one deceived him or coerced him. I would never have been a party to that. Your father wished to see your sister as his sole heir. He did not desire to punish you, but rather to safeguard his entire family."
    "Well, in both of those desires, he failed," Althea said harshly. Then she lowered her face into her hands, ashamed to have spoken so of her father. Curtil let her be. When she lifted her face some time later, she observed, "You must think me a carrion bird. Yesterday my father died, and today I come quarreling for a share of what was his."
    Curtil offered her his handkerchief and she took it gratefully. "No. No, I don't think that. When the mainstay of one's world is taken away, it's only natural to cling to all the rest, to try desperately to keep things as close to the way they were as one can." He shook his head sorrowfully. "But no one can ever go back to yesterday."
    "No. I suppose not." She sighed heavily. She considered her last pathetic straw of hope. "Trader Curtil. By Bingtown law, if a man swears an oath to Sa, cannot he be held to that oath as a legal contract?"
    Curtil's long brow furrowed. "Well. It depends. If in a fit of anger, in a tavern, I say that by Sa, I'm going to kill so-and-so, well, that's not a legal action in the first place, so . . ."
    Althea stopped mincing words. "If Kyle Haven swore before witnesses that if I could produce proof that I was a worthy seaman, he would give Vivacia back to me, if he swore that in Sa's name, could it be enforced?"
    "Well, technically, the ship is your sister's property, not his-"
    "She has ceded control of it over to him," Althea said impatiently. "Is such an oath legally binding?"
    Curtil shrugged. "You'd end up before the Traders' Council, but, yes, I think you'd win. They're conservative, the old customs count for much with them. An oath sworn before Sa would have to be legally honored. You have witnesses to this, at least two?"
    Althea leaned back in her chair with a sigh. "One, perhaps, who would speak up for the truth of what I say. The other two ... I no longer know any more what I could expect of my mother and sister."