Annie would have preferred to be in the boat King was in, but as they'd prepared to push the craft into the surf, her father had made it obvious that that wasn't [i]his[/i] thinking. She went along without argument, taking her place fore of Paul, who took their boats tiller; she was already in deep shit with her father over what she'd done back in the quarantine hut, something of which Paul was, so far, unaware. 

Occasionally, Annie caught King glancing toward her boat or – more specifically – toward her. She would smile, then quickly divert her eyes elsewhere; she knew that both her father and Paul would be watching her at times, and she really didn't want to make the situation worse with obvious [i]flirting[/i].

They sailed north by northeast for several hours without hardly a word spoken between Annie and the others; she had nothing to speak about with Paul unless it had to do with the boat’s navigation. The two boats more often than not tacked with each other, keeping their distance from one another to less than a hundred meters. 

The same couldn't be said about conversation in the other boat though. Bran had a great deal to ask off King, about the world from which he'd hailed and more: he wanted to know if King might know who the woman they were looking for was and, if he did, what his relationship to her was; he wanted more specifics on the boat King had been tossed from, including more on the passengers, crew, and cargo; and beyond that topic, Bran wanted to know King's thinking on Annie. 

“My daughter is an [i]uskyldig[/i],” Bran said, translating, “an innocent. She's never been with a man. She will come of age soon, at which point she will be matched with a man with whom she will make a healthy child.”

Bran paused for a moment, looking to each of the occupants of the other boat before continuing. “Tyka chose Paul for that honor. He is a good candidate … a good choice. He will give me a strong, courageous grandson … or a beautiful, smart granddaughter.”

Again, Bran paused, then finished, “[i]If[/i] my daughter will consent to lie with him … which was questionable [i]before[/i] your arrival … and is less likely with each passing day.”