Читать книгу The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny - Робин Хобб - Страница 25

BRASHEN AWOKE WITH GRITTY EYES and a crick in his neck. Morning sunlight had penetrated the thick panes of the bay windows that glassed one end of the chamber. It was a thick, murky light, greenish with the dried algae that coated the outside of the windows, but light nonetheless. Enough to alert him that it was daylight and time he was up and about.

He swung out of the hammock to his feet. Guilty. He was guilty of something. Spending all his pay when he had sworn that this time he would be wiser. Yes, but that was a familiar guilt. This was something else, something that bit with sharper teeth. Oh. Althea. The girl had been here last night, begging his advice, or he had dreamed her. And he had given her his bitterest counsels with not a word of hope or an offer of help from him.

He tried to shrug the concern away. After all, what did he owe the girl? Nothing. Not a thing. They hadn’t even really been friends. Too big of a gap in status for that. He had just been the mate on her father’s ship, and she had been the daughter of the captain. No room for a friendship there. And as for the old man, well, yes, Ephron Vestrit had done him a good turn when no one else would, had let him prove himself when no one else would. But the old man was dead now, so that was that.

Besides. Bitter as the advice had been, it was solid. If Brashen could have gone back in time, he would never have quarrelled with his father. He’d have gone to the endless schooling, behaved correctly at the social functions, eschewed drunkenness and cindin, married whoever was chosen for him. And he’d be the heir now to the Trell fortune instead of his little brother.

The thought reminded him that as he was not heir to the Trell fortune and as he had spent the rest of his money last night save for a few odd coins, he had best be worrying more about himself and less about Althea. The girl would have to take care of herself. She’d have to go home. That’s all there was to it. What was the worst that would happen to her, really? They’d marry her off to a suitable man. She’d live in a comfortable home with servants and well prepared food, wear clothing tailored especially for her and go to the endless round of balls and teas and social functions that seemed so essential to Bingtown society and the Traders especially. He snorted softly to himself. He should hope for such a cruel fate to befall him. He scratched at his chest and then his beard. He ran both hands through his hair to smooth it back from his face. Time to find work. He’d best clean himself up and head down to the docks.

‘Good morning,’ he greeted Paragon as he rounded the bow of the ship.

The figurehead looked permanently uncomfortable, fastened to the front of the heavily-leaning ship. Brashen suddenly wondered if it made his back ache, but didn’t have the courage to ask. Paragon had his thickly-muscled arms crossed over his bare chest as he faced out over the glinting water to where other ships came and went from the harbour. He didn’t even turn toward Brashen. ‘Afternoon,’ Paragon corrected him.

‘So it is,’ Brashen agreed. ‘And more than time I got myself down to the docks. Have to look for a new job, you know.’

‘I don’t think she went home,’ Paragon replied. ‘I think that if she went home, she would have gone her old way, up the cliffs and through the woods. Instead, after she said goodbye, I heard her walking away over the beach toward town.’

‘Althea, you mean?’ Brashen asked. He tried to sound unconcerned.

Blind Paragon nodded. ‘She was up at first light.’ The words almost sounded like a reproach. ‘I had just heard the morning birds begin to call when she stirred and came out. Not that she slept much last night.’

‘Well. She had a lot to think about. She may have gone into town this morning, but I’ll wager she goes home before the week is out. After all, where else does she have to go?’

‘Only here, I suppose,’ the ship replied. ‘So. You will seek work today.’

‘If I want to eat, I have to work,’ Brashen agreed. ‘So I’m down to the docks. I think I’ll try the fishing fleet or the slaughter-boats instead of the merchants. I’ve heard a man can rise rapidly aboard one of the whale or dolphin boats. And they hire easy, too. Or so I’ve heard.’

‘Mostly because so many of them die,’ Paragon relentlessly observed. ‘That’s what I heard, back when I was in a position to hear such gossip. That they’re too long at sea and load their ships too heavy, and hire more crew than they need to work the ship because they don’t expect all of them to survive the voyage.’

‘I’ve heard such things, too,’ Brashen reluctantly admitted. He squatted down on his haunches, then sat in the sand beside the beached ship. ‘But what other choice do I have? I should have listened to Captain Vestrit, all those years. I’d have had some money saved up by now if I had.’ He gave a sound that was not a laugh. ‘I wish someone had told me, all those years ago, that I should just swallow my stupid pride and go home.’

Paragon searched deep in his memory. ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,’ he declared, and then smiled, almost pleased with himself. ‘There’s a thought I haven’t recalled for a long time.’

‘And true as ever it was,’ Brashen said disgruntledly. ‘So I’d best take myself down to the harbour and get myself a job on one of these stinking kill-boats. More butchery than sailor’s work is what I’ve heard of them as well.’

‘And dirty work it is, too,’ Paragon agreed. ‘On an honest merchant vessel, a man gets dirty with tar on his hands, or soaked with cold seawater, it’s true. But on a slaughter-ship, it’s blood and offal and oil. Cut your finger and lose a hand to infection. If you don’t die. And on those that take the meat as well, you’ll spend half your sleeping time packing the flesh in tubs of salt. On the greedy ships the sailors end up sleeping right alongside the stinking cargo.’

‘You’re so encouraging,’ Brashen said bleakly. ‘But what choice do I have? None at all.’

Paragon laughed oddly. ‘How can you say that? You have the choice that eludes me, the choice that all men take for granted so that they cannot even see they have it.’

‘What choice is that?’ Brashen asked uneasily. A wild note had come into the ship’s voice, a reckless tone like that of a boy who fantasizes wildly.

‘Stop.’ Paragon spoke the word with breathless desire. ‘Just stop.’

‘Stop what?’

‘Stop being. You are such a fragile thing. Skin thinner than canvas, bones finer than any yard. Inside you are wet as the sea, and as salt, and it all waits to spill from you any time your skin is opened. It is so easy for you to stop being. Open your skin and let your salt blood flow out, let the sea creatures take away your flesh bite by bite, until you are a handful of green slimed bones held together with lines of nibbled sinew. And you won’t know or feel or think anything any more. You will have stopped. Stopped.’

‘I don’t want to stop,’ Brashen said in a low voice. ‘Not like that. No man wants to stop like that.’

‘No man?’ Paragon laughed again, the sound breaking and going high. ‘Oh, I have known a few that did want to stop. I have known a few that did stop. And it ended the same, whether they wanted to or not.’

‘One appears to have a small flaw.’

‘I am sure you are mistaken,’ Althea replied icily. ‘They are well matched and deep hued and of the finest quality. The setting is gold.’ She met the jeweller’s gaze squarely. ‘My father never gave me a gift that was less than the finest quality.’

The jeweller moved his palm and the two small earrings rolled aimlessly in his hand. In her ear lobes, they had looked subtle and sophisticated. In his palm, they merely looked small and simple. ‘Seventeen,’ he offered.

‘I need twenty-three.’ She tried to conceal her relief. She had decided she would not take less than fifteen before she came into the shop. Still, she would wring every coin she could out of the man. Parting with them was not easy, and she had few other resources.

He shook his head. ‘Nineteen. I could go as high as nineteen, but no more than that.’

‘I could take nineteen,’ Althea began, watching his face carefully. When she saw his eyes brighten she added, ‘if you would include two simple gold hoops to replace these.’

A half hour of bargaining later, she left his shop. Two simple silver hoops had replaced the earrings her father had given her on her thirteenth birthday. She tried not to think of them as anything other than a possession she had sold. She still had the memory of her father giving them to her. She did not need the actual jewellery. They would only have been two more things to worry about.

It was odd, the things one took for granted. Easy enough to buy heavy cotton fabric. But then she had to get needle, thread and palm as well. And shears for cutting the fabric. She resolved to make herself a small canvas bag as well to keep these implements in. If she followed her plan to its end, they would be the first possessions she had bought for her new life.

As she walked through the busy market, she saw it with new eyes. It was no longer merely a matter of what she had the coin to pay for and what she would have marked to her family’s account. Suddenly some goods were far beyond her means. Not just lavish fabrics or rich jewellery, but things as simple as a lovely set of combs. She allowed herself to look at them for a few moments longer, holding them against her hair, as she gazed into the cheap street-booth mirror and imagined how they would have looked in her hair at the Summer Ball. The flowing green silk, trimmed with the cream lace — for an instant she could almost see it, could almost step back into the life that had been hers a few scant days ago.

Then the moment passed. Abruptly Althea Vestrit and the Summer Ball seemed like a story she had made up. She wondered how much time would go by before her family opened her sea-chest, and if they would guess which gifts had been intended for whom. She even indulged herself in wondering if her sister and mother would shed a tear or two over the gifts from the daughter and sister they had allowed to be driven away. She smiled a hard smile and set the combs back on the merchant’s tray. No time for such mawkish daydreams. It didn’t matter, she told herself sternly, if they never opened that trunk at all. What did matter was that she needed to find a way to survive. For, contrary to Brashen Trell’s stupid advice, she was not going to go crawling home again like some helpless spoiled girl. No. That would only prove that everything Kyle had said about her was true.

She straightened her spine and moved with renewed purpose through the market. She bought herself a few simple foodstuffs; plums, a wedge of cheese and some rolls, no more than what she would need for the day. Two cheap candles and a tinderbox with flint and steel completed her purchases.

There was little else she could do in town that day, but she was reluctant to leave. Instead she wandered the market for a time, greeting those who recognized her and accepting their condolences on the loss of her father. It no longer stung when they mentioned him; instead it was a part of the conversation to get past, an awkwardness. She did not want to think of him, nor to discuss with relative strangers the grief she felt at her loss. Least of all did she want to be drawn into any conversation that might mention her rift with her family. She wondered how many folk knew of it. Kyle would not want it trumpeted about, but servants would talk, as they always did. Word would get around. She wanted to be gone before the gossip became widespread.

There were not many in Bingtown who recognized her anyway. For that matter, there were few other than the brokers and merchants her father had done ship’s business with that she recognized. She had withdrawn from Bingtown society gradually over the years without ever realizing it. Any other woman her age would have attended at least six gatherings in the last six months, balls and galas and other festivities. She had not been to even one since, oh, the Harvest Ball. Her sailing schedule had not allowed it. And the balls and dinners had seemed unimportant then, something she could return to whenever she wished. Gone now. Over and gone, dresses sewn for her with slippers to match, painting her lips and scenting her throat. Swallowed up in the sea with her father’s body.

The grief she had thought numbed suddenly clutched at her throat. She turned and hurried off, up one street and down another. She blinked her eyes furiously, refusing to let the tears flow. When she had herself under control, she slowed her step and looked around her.

She looked directly into the window of Amber’s shop.

As before, an odd chill of foreboding raced up her back. She could not think why she should feel threatened by a jeweller, but she did. The woman was not even a Trader, not even a proper jeweller. She carved wood, in Sa’s name. Wood, and sold it as jewellery. In that instant, Althea suddenly decided she would see this woman’s goods for herself. With the same resolution as if grasping a nettle, she pushed open the door and swept into the shop.

It was cooler inside, and almost dark after the brightness of the summer street. As her eyes adjusted, Althea saw the place as polished simplicity. The floor was smoothed pine planking. The shelves, too, were simple wood. Amber’s goods were arranged on plain squares of deep-hued fabric on the shelves. Some of the more elaborate necklaces were displayed on the walls behind her counter. There were also pottery bowls full of loose wooden beads in every colour that wood could be.

Her goods were not just jewellery, either. There were simple bowls and platters, carved with rare grace and attention to grain; wooden goblets that could have honoured a king’s table; hair combs carved of scented wood. Nothing had been made of pieces fastened together. In each case, shapes had been discovered in the wood and called forth whole, brought to brilliance by carving and polishing. In one case a chair had been created from a huge wood bole; it was unlike any seat Althea had ever seen before, lacking legs but possessing a smoothed hollow that a slight person could curl into. Ensconced on it, knees folded beside her, sandalled feet peeping from beneath the hem of her robe, was Amber.

It jolted Althea that for an instant she had looked right at Amber and not seen her. It was her skin and hair and eyes, she decided. The woman was all the same colour, even to her clothing and that colour was identical to the honey-toned wood of the chair. She raised one eyebrow quizzically at Althea.

‘You wished to see me?’ she asked quietly.

‘No,’ Althea exclaimed both truthfully and reflexively. Then she made an effort to recover, saying haughtily, ‘I was but curious to see this wooden jewellery that I had heard so much about.’

‘You being such a connoisseur of fine wood,’ Amber nodded.

There was almost no inflection to Amber’s words. A threat. A sarcasm. A simple observation. Althea could not decide. And suddenly it was too much that this woodworker, this artisan, would dare to speak to her so. She was, by Sa, the daughter of a Bingtown Trader, a Bingtown Trader herself by right, and this woman, this upstart, was no more than a newcomer to their settlement who had dared to claim a spot for herself on Rain Wild Street. All Althea’s frustration and anger of the past week suddenly had a target. ‘You refer to my liveship,’ Althea rejoined. It was all in the tone, the challenge as to what right this woman had to speak of her ship at all.

‘Have they legalized slavery here in Bingtown?’ Again there was no real expression to read in that fine featured face. Amber asked the question as if it flowed naturally from Althea’s last words.

‘Of course not! Let the Chalcedeans keep their base customs. Bingtown will never acknowledge them as right.’

‘Ah. But then… ’ the briefest of pauses, ‘you did refer to the liveship as yours? Can you own another living intelligent creature?’

‘Vivacia is mine, as I speak of my sister as mine. Family.’ Althea threw down the words. She could not have said why she suddenly felt so angry.

‘Family. I see.’ Amber flowed upright. She was taller than Althea had expected. Not pretty, much less beautiful, there was still something arresting about her. Her clothing was demure, her carriage graceful. The finely-pleated fabric of her robe echoed the fine plaits of her hair. Her appearance shared her carvings’ simplicity and elegance. Her eyes met Althea’s and held them. ‘You claim sisterhood with wood.’ A smile touched the corners of her lips, making Amber’s mouth suddenly mobile, generous. ‘Perhaps we have more in common than I had dared to hope.’

Even that tiny show of friendliness increased Althea’s wariness. ‘You hoped?’ she said coolly. ‘Why should you hope that we had anything in common at all?’

The smile widened fractionally. ‘Because it would make things easier for both of us.’

Althea refused to be baited into another question.

After a time, Amber sighed a small sigh. ‘Such a stubborn girl. Yet I find myself admiring even that about you.’

‘Did you follow me the other day… the day I saw you down at the docks, near Vivacia?’ Althea’s words came out almost as an accusation, but Amber seemed to take no offence.

‘I could scarcely have followed you,’ she pointed out, ‘since I was there before you. I confess, it crossed my mind when I first saw you that perhaps you were following me…’

‘But the way you were looking at me… ’ Althea objected unwillingly. ‘I do not say that you lie. But you seemed to be looking for me. Watching me.’

Amber nodded slowly, more to herself than to the girl. ‘So it seemed to me, also. And yet it was not you at all that I went seeking.’ She toyed with her earrings, setting first the dragon and then the serpent to swinging. ‘I went to the docks looking for a nine-fingered slave boy, if you can credit that.’ She smiled oddly. ‘You were what found me instead. There is coincidence, and there is fate. I am more than willing to argue with coincidence. But the few times I have argued with fate, I have lost. Badly.’ She shook her head, setting all four of her mismatched earrings to swaying. Her eyes seemed to look inward, recalling other times. Then she looked up and met Althea’s curious gaze, and once more her smile softened her face. ‘But that is not true for all folk. Some folk are meant to argue with fate. And win.’

Althea could think of no reply to that, so held her silence. After a moment, the woman moved to one of her shelves, and took down a basket. At least, at first glance it had appeared to be a basket. As she approached, Althea could see that it had been wrought from a single piece of wood, all excess carved away to leave a lattice of woven strands. Amber shook it as she came nearer, and the contents clicked and rattled pleasantly against one another.

‘Choose one,’ she invited Althea, extending the basket to her. ‘I’d like to make you a gift.’

Within the basket were beads. One glimpse of them, and Althea’s impulse to haughtily refuse the largesse died. Something in the variety of colour and shape caught the eyes and demanded to be touched. Once touched, they pleased the hand. Such a variety of colour and grain and texture. They were all large beads, as big around as Althea’s thumb. Each appeared to be unique. Some were simple abstract designs, others were animals, or flowers. Leaves, birds, a loaf of bread, fish, a tortoise… Althea found she had accepted the basket and was sifting through the contents while Amber watched her with strangely avid eyes. A spider, a twining worm, a ship, a wolf, a berry, an eye, a pudgy baby. Every bead in the basket was desirable, and Althea suddenly understood the charm of the woman’s wares. They were gems of wood and creativity. Another artisan could surely carve as well, wood as fine could be bought, but never before had Althea seen such craft applied to such wood with such precision. The leaping dolphin bead could only have been a dolphin: there was no berry, no cat, no apple hiding in that bit of wood. Only the dolphin had been there, and only Amber could have found it and brought it out of concealment.

Althea could not choose, and yet she kept looking through the beads. Searching for the one that was most perfect. ‘Why do you want to give me a gift?’ she asked suddenly. Her quick glance caught Amber’s pride in her handiwork. She gloried in Althea’s absorption in her beads. The woman’s sallow cheeks were almost warm, her golden eyes glowing like a cat’s before a fire.

When she spoke the warmth rode her words as well. ‘I would like to make you my friend.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I can see that you go through life athwart it. You see the flow of events, you are able to tell how you could most easily fit yourself into it. But you dare to oppose it. And why? Simply because you look at it and say, “this fate does not suit me. I will not allow it to befall me.”’ Amber shook her head, but her small smile made it an affirmation. ‘I have always admired people who can do that. So few do. Many, of course, will rant and rave against the garment fate has woven for them, but they pick it up and don it all the same, and most wear it to the end of their days. You… you would rather go naked into the storm.’ Again the smile, fading as quickly as it blossomed. ‘I cannot abide that you should do that. So I offer you a bead to wear.’

‘You sound like a fortune teller,’ Althea complained, and then her finger touched something in the bottom of the basket. She knew the bead was hers before she gripped it between thumb and forefinger and brought it to the top of the hoard. Yet when she lifted it, she could not say why she had chosen it. An egg. A simple wooden egg, pierced to be worn on a string on her wrist or neck. It was a warm brown, a wood Althea did not know, and the grain of the wood ran around it rather than from end to end. It was plain compared to the other treasures in the basket, and yet it fit perfectly in the hollow of her hand when she closed her fingers about it. It was pleasant to hold, as a kitten is pleasant to stroke. ‘Might I have this one?’ she asked softly and held her breath.

‘The egg.’ Amber’s smile came and stayed. ‘The serpent’s egg. Yes, you might have that. You might indeed.’

‘Are you sure you wish nothing in return?’ Althea asked baldly. She knew it was an awkward question, but something about Amber cautioned her that it was wiser to ask her a rude question than to blunder about with the wrong assumption.

‘In return,’ Amber answered smoothly. ‘I only ask that you allow me to help you.’

‘Allow you to help me what?’

Amber smiled. ‘Thwart fate,’ she replied.

Wintrow scooped a double handful of lukewarm water from the bucket and splashed and rubbed it over his face. With a sigh, he lowered his hands back into the bucket and allowed the water to soothe them for a moment. Broken blisters, his father had assured him, were the beginning of callous. ‘We’ll have those priest’s hands toughened up in a week. You’ll see,’ his father had jovially promised him the last time he had seen fit to notice his son’s existence. Wintrow had been unable to reply.

He could not remember when he had ever been so tired before. His training told him that the deepest rhythms of his body were being broken. Instead of rising at dawn and seeking his bed when darkness closed over the land, his father and the first and second mates were forcing him into a new regimen, based on watches and bells. There was no need for their cruelty. The ship was still tied firmly to the dock, but nevertheless they persisted. What they were insisting he learn was not that difficult, if only they would let his body and mind completely rest between lessons. Instead they woke him at hours that made no sense to him, and had him clambering up and down masts and tying knots and sewing canvas and scrubbing and scouring. And always, always, with a scant smile at the corners of their lips, with an edge of mockery to every command. He was convinced he could have dealt well with anything they threw at him, if only he had not had to face that ever-present scorn. He pulled his aching hands from the bucket and gently dried them on a bit of rag.

He looked around the chain locker that had become his home. A hammock of coarse twine was draped across one corner. His clothing shared pegs with coils of line. Every bit of rope was now precisely and neatly stowed. The broken blisters on Wintrow’s hands were testament to his repeated lessons.

He took down his cleanest shirt and eased into it. He thought about changing his trousers and decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He’d washed put his other pair last night, but in the close confines of the storage room, they were still damp and were beginning to acquire a mildewy smell. He sank down onto his haunches; there was no comfortable place to sit. He put his aching head in his hands and waited for the bang on the door that would summon him to the captain’s table. Since he had tried simply to walk off the ship yesterday, Torg had taken to locking him in his quarters during the time allotted for him to sleep.

Incredibly, he dozed off as he crouched there, jerking back to wakefulness when the door was snatched open. ‘Cap’n wants you,’ Torg greeted him. As he strode off, the apish man added, ‘though why anyone would want you is a puzzle to me.’

Wintrow ignored the gibe and the screaming of his joints to rise and follow the man. As he walked, he tried to work his shoulders loose. It felt good to be able to stand completely upright again. Torg glanced back at him. ‘Hurry up, you! No one has time to put up with your dawdling.’

It was more his body than his mind that responded, making an effort to put spring in his step. Although Torg had threatened him several times with a knotted rope, he’d never used it. And the fact that he only threatened him when neither his father nor the first mate were on board made Wintrow suspect it was something Torg would have liked to do but dared not. Still, just the sensing of that capacity in the man was enough to make Wintrow’s flesh crawl whenever he was about.

Torg saw him right to the captain’s door, as if he could not trust the boy to report himself. And Wintrow supposed he could not. Even though his father had reminded him repeatedly that Sa’s precepts included obedience and honour due to one’s parents, Wintrow had decided that if any opportunity presented itself at all, he would leave the ship and return however he could to his monastery. Sometimes he felt that resolve was all he had left to cling to. Torg watched him as he knocked sharply on the door, and then entered to his father’s curt, ‘Come ahead.’

His father was already seated at a small table. A white cloth overlay it, and a goodly array of serving vessels graced it. It was set for two, and for an uncomfortable moment Wintrow stood in the door, wondering if he were intruding on a private meeting.

‘Come in,’ his father said, a shade of annoyance in his voice. ‘And shut the door,’ he added in a gentler tone.

Wintrow obeyed him but remained standing by the door, wondering what was required of him now. Had he been summoned to wait table for his father and a guest? His father was dressed well, almost formally. He wore tight-fitting breeches of blue and a blue jacket over a shirt of soft cream. His hair had been plaited with oil and it gleamed like old gold in the lamplight.

‘Wintrow, son, come and sit down and join me. Forget for a moment that I am the captain, and have a good meal and let us talk plainly.’ His father gestured at the plate and chair opposite him and smiled warmly. It only made Wintrow feel warier as he approached the table and gingerly seated himself. He smelled roast lamb and mashed turnips with butter and apple sauce and peas cooked with mint. Amazing, how keen one’s nose could become after a few days of hard bread and greasy stew as rations. Still, he kept his aplomb, forcing himself to unfold his napkin onto his lap and await his father’s signal to begin serving himself. He said, ‘Please,’ to his father’s offer of wine, and ‘thank you’ as each dish was offered him. He sensed his father watching him, but made no effort to meet his eyes as he filled and then emptied his plate.

If his father had intended this civilized meal and quiet moment as a bribe or a peace offering, it was ill-considered. For as the food filled his belly and the surroundings restored to him a sense of normality, Wintrow found a chill sense of outrage growing in him. From not knowing what to say to this man who smiled fondly as his son ate like a famished dog, Wintrow went to forcing his tongue to keep still. He tried to recall all he had been taught about dealing with adverse situations, that he should reserve judgement and action until he had grasped his opponent’s motivation. So he ate and drank silently, watching his father covertly from beneath his lashes. His father actually rose himself to set their plates on a sideboard and then offered Wintrow a serving of custard with fruit. ‘Thank you,’ Wintrow forced himself to say quietly as it was set before him. There was something in the way his father re-settled himself in his chair that let him know the point of this whole meeting was about to be announced.

‘You’ve developed a good appetite,’ Kyle observed genially. ‘Hard work and sea air will do that for a man.’

‘So it would seem,’ Wintrow replied evenly.

His father gave a gruff laugh. ‘So. Still smarting, are we? Come, son, I know this must seem hard to you, and perhaps just now you are still angry at me. But you must be coming to see this is what you were meant to do. Honest hard work and the company of men and the beauty of a ship under full sail… but I suppose you haven’t known the full measure of it yet. I just want you to know, I’m not doing this to you to be harsh or cruel. A time will come when you will thank me. I promise you that. When we have finished with you, you will know this ship as a true captain should, for you will have worked every measure of her, and there won’t be a task on her that you haven’t performed yourself.’ His father paused and smiled bitterly. ‘Unlike Althea, who just claims such knowledge, you will actually have done it, and not just when it pleased you, but as a sailor should, keeping busy every minute of your watch, and doing tasks as they need doing, not only when you are ordered to do so.’

His father paused, obviously expecting some response. Wintrow kept still. After a heavy pause, his father cleared his throat. ‘I know what I am asking you is hard. So I will tell you plainly what awaits you at the end of this steep road. In two years, I expect to make Gantry Amsforge captain of this vessel. In two years, I expect you to be ready to serve as mate. You’ll be very young for it; don’t deceive yourself as to that. And it’s not going to be handed to you. You’ll have to show both Amsforge and me that you are ready for it. And even if and when we accept you, you’ll still have to prove yourself to the crew, every day and every hour. It won’t be easy. Still, it’s an opportunity that damned few men have offered to them. So.’

With a slow smile he reached into his jacket. He drew out a small box. He opened it himself and then turned to proffer the contents to Wintrow. It was a small gold earring, wrought in the likeness of Vivacia’s figurehead. He had seen such earrings on the other sailors. Most crew members wore some device that signalled their allegiance to their ship. An earring, a scarf, a pin, a tattoo if one were really sure of continuing employment. All were ways of declaring one’s highest loyalty was given to a ship. Such an act was not fitting for a priest of Sa. Surely his father must already know his answer. But the smile on his father’s face was warm as he invited him with, ‘This is for you, son. You should wear it proudly.’

Truth. Simple truth, Wintrow counselled himself, spoken without anger or bitterness. So. Politely. Gently. ‘I don’t want this opportunity. Thank you. You must know I would never deface my body by piercing an ear to wear that. I would rather be a priest of Sa. I believe it is my true calling. I know you believe you are offering me a—’

‘Shut up!’ There was deep hurt beneath the anger in his father’s voice. ‘Just shut up.’ As the boy clenched his jaws and forced himself to look only at the table, his father spoke on to himself. ‘I’d rather hear anything from you than your mealy-mouthed prattle about being a priest of Sa. Say you hate me, tell me you can’t take the work, and I’ll know I can change your mind. But when you hide behind this priest nonsense… Are you afraid? Afraid of having your ear pierced, afraid of an unknown life?’ His father’s question was almost desperate. The man grasped after ways he could persuade Wintrow to his side.

‘I am not afraid. I simply don’t want this. Why don’t you offer it to the person who truly hungers for it? Why don’t you make this offer to Althea?’ Wintrow asked quietly. The very softness of his words cut through his father’s diatribe.

His father’s eyes glinted like blue stone. He pointed his finger at Wintrow as if it were a weapon. ‘It’s simple. She’s a woman. And you, damn you, are going to be a man. For years it stuck in my craw to see Ephron Vestrit dragging his daughter after him, treating her like a son. And when you came back and stood before me in those brown skirts with your soft voice and softer body, with your mild manners and rabbity ways, I had to ask myself, am I any better? For here before me stands my son, acting more like a woman than Althea ever has. It came to me like that. That it was time for this family—’

‘You speak like a Chalcedean,’ Wintrow observed. ‘There, I am told, to be a woman is but little better than to be a slave. I think it is born of their long acceptance of slavery there. If you can believe that another human can be your possession, it is but a step to saying your wife and your daughter are also possessions, and relegate them to lives convenient to one’s own. But in Jamaillia and in Bingtown, we used to take pride in what our women could do. I have studied the histories. Consider the Satrapa Malowda, who reigned consortless for a score of years, and was responsible for the setting down of the Rights of Self and Property, the foundation of all our laws. For that matter, consider our religion. Sa, whom we men worship as Father of All, is still Sa when women call on her as Mother of All. Only in Union is there Continuity. The very first precept of Sa says it all. It is only in the last few generations that we have begun to separate the halves of our whole, and divide the—’

‘I didn’t bring you here to listen to your priestly clap-trap,’ Kyle Haven declared abruptly. He pushed himself away from the table so violently that it would have overturned if it had not been so securely fastened down. He paced a turn around the room. ‘You may not recall her, but your grandmother, my mother, was from Chalced. And yes, my mother behaved as was proper for a woman to behave, and my father kept to a man’s ways. And I took no harm from such an upbringing. Look at your grandmother and mother! Do they seem happy and content to you? Burdened with decisions and duties that take them out into the harshness of the world, subjected to dealing with all sorts of low characters, forced to worry constantly about accounts and credits and debts? That isn’t the life I swore I’d provide for your mother, Wintrow, or your sister. I won’t see your mother grow old and burdened as your Grandmother Vestrit has. Not while I’m a man. And not while I can make you a man to follow after me and uphold the duties of a man in this family.’ Kyle Haven returned and slapped his hand firmly against the table and gave a sharp nod of his head, as if his words had determined the future of his entire family.

Words deserted Wintrow. He stared at his father and floundered through his thoughts, trying to find some common ground where he could begin reasoning with him. He could not. Despite the blood-bond between them, this man was a stranger, and his beliefs were so utterly different from all Wintrow had embraced that he felt no hope of reaching him. Finally he said quietly, ‘Sa teaches us that no one may determine the life path of another. Even if you cage his flesh and forbid him to utter his thoughts, even to cutting out his tongue, you cannot still a man’s soul.’

For a moment, his father just looked at him. He, too, sees a stranger, Wintrow thought to himself. When he spoke, his voice was thick. ‘You’re a coward. A craven coward.’ Then his father strode past him. It took all of Wintrow’s nerve to stop from cowering as his sire passed him. But Kyle only threw open the door of his cabin and bellowed for Torg. The man appeared so promptly that Wintrow knew he must have been loitering nearby, perhaps eavesdropping. Kyle Haven either did not notice this or did not care.

‘Take the ship’s boy back to his quarters,’ his father ordered Torg abruptly. ‘Keep a good watch on him and see he learns all his duties before we sail. And keep him out of my sight.’ This last he uttered with great feeling, as if wronged by the world.

Torg gave a jerk of his head and Wintrow rose silently to follow him. With a sinking heart, he recognized the smirk on Torg’s face. His father had given him over completely into this wretch’s hands, and the man knew it.

For now the man seemed content to shepherd him forward to his miserable dungeon. Wintrow just managed to duck his head before the man pushed him across the threshold. He stumbled, but caught himself before he fell. He was too deep in despair even to pay attention to whatever mocking comment it was that Torg threw after him before slamming the door shut. He heard the man work the crude latch and knew he was shut in for the next six hours at least.

Torg hadn’t even left him a candle. Wintrow groped through the darkness until his hands encountered the webbing of the hammock. Awkwardly he hauled his stiff body up into it and tried to arrange himself comfortably. Then he lay still. About him the ship moved gently on the waters of the harbour. The only sounds that reached him were muffled. He yawned hugely, the effects of his large meal and long day’s work overwhelming both his anger and his despair. Out of long habit, he prepared both body and mind for rest. As much as the hammock would permit, he did the stretches of the large and small muscles of his body, striving to bring all back into alignment before rest. The mental exercises were more difficult. Back when he had first come to the monastery, they had given him a very simple ritual called Forgiving the Day. Even the youngest child could do this; all it required was looking back over the day and dismissing the day’s pains as a thing that were past while choosing to remember as gains lessons learned or moments of insight. As initiates grew in the ways of Sa, it was expected they would grow more sophisticated in this exercise, learning to balance the day, taking responsibility for their own actions and learning from them without indulging in either guilt or regrets. Wintrow did not think he was up to that tonight.

Odd. How easy it had been to love Sa’s way and master the meditations in the quietly structured days of the monastery. Within the massive stone walls, it had been easy to discern the underlying order in the world, easy to look at the lives of the farmers and shepherds and merchants and see how much of their misery was self-generated. Now that he was out in the midst of it, he could still see some of that pattern, but he felt too weary to examine it and see how he could change it. He was tangled in the threads of his own tapestry. ‘I don’t know how to make it stop,’ he said softly to the darkness. Doleful as an abandoned child, he wondered if any of his teachers missed him.

He recalled his final morning at the monastery, and the tree that had come to him out of the shards of stained-glass. He had always taken a secret pride in his ability to summon beauty and hold it. But had it been his skill at all? Or had it been something created instead by the teachers who insulated him from the world and provided both a place and a time in which he might work? Perhaps, given the right atmosphere, anyone could do it. Perhaps the only thing about him that had been remarkable was that he had been given a chance. For an instant, he was overwhelmed by his own ordinariness. Nothing remarkable about Wintrow. An indifferent ship’s boy, a clumsy sailor. Not even worth mentioning. He would disappear into time as if he had never been born. He could almost feel himself unravelling into darkness.

No. No! He would not let go. He would hang onto himself, and fight and something would happen. Something. Would the monastery send anyone to inquire after him when he did not return? ‘I think I’m hoping to be rescued,’ he observed wearily to himself. There. That was a high ambition. To stay alive and remain himself until someone else could save him. He was not sure if… if… if. There had been the beginning of a thought there, but the upsurging blackness of sleep drowned it.

In the dark of the harbour, Vivacia sighed. She crossed her slender arms over her breasts and stared up at the bright lights of the night market. So engrossed was she in her own thoughts that she startled to the soft touch of a hand against her planking. She looked down. ‘Ronica!’ she exclaimed in gentle surprise.

‘Yes. Hush. I would speak quietly with you.’

‘If you wish,’ Vivacia replied softly, intrigued.

‘I need to know… that is, Althea sent me a message. She feared all was not well with you.’ The woman’s voice faltered. ‘The message actually came some days ago. A servant, thinking it unimportant, had set it in Ephron’s study. I only found it today.’

Her hand was still set to the hull. Vivacia could read some of what she felt, though not all. ‘It is hard for you to go into that room, isn’t it? As hard as it is to come down here and see me.’

‘Ephron,’ Ronica whispered brokenly. ‘Is he… is he within you? Can he speak through you to me?’

Vivacia shook her head sorrowfully. She was used to seeing this woman through Ephron’s eyes or Althea’s. They had seen her as determined and authoritative. Tonight, in her dark cloak with her head bowed, she looked so small. Vivacia longed to comfort her, but would not lie. ‘No. I’m afraid it isn’t like that. I’m aware of what he knew, but it is commingled with so much else. Still. When I look at you, I feel as my own the love he felt for you. Does that help?’

‘No,’ Ronica answered truthfully. ‘There is some comfort in it, but it can never be like Ephron’s strong arms around me, or his advice guiding me. Oh, ship, what am I to do? What am I to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ Vivacia answered. Ronica’s distress was awakening an answering anxiety in her. She put it in words. ‘It frightens me that you ask me that question. Surely you know what to do. Ephron certainly always believed you did.’ Reflectively, Vivacia added, ‘He thought of himself as a simple sailor, you know. A man who had the knack of running a ship well. You were the wisdom of the family, the one with the greater vision. He counted on that.’

‘He did?’

‘Of course he did. How else could he have sailed off and left you to manage everything?’

Ronica was silent. Then she heaved a great sigh.

Quietly Vivacia added, ‘I think he would tell you to follow your own counsels.’

Ronica shook her head wearily. ‘I fear you are right. Vivacia. Do you know where Althea is?’

‘Right now? No. Don’t you?’

Ronica answered reluctantly. ‘I have not seen her since the morning after Ephron died.’

‘The last time she came to see me, Torg came down onto the docks and tried to lay hands on her. She pushed him off the dock, and walked away while everyone else was laughing.’

‘But she was all right?’

Vivacia shook her head. ‘Only as “all right” as you or me. Which is to say she is troubled and hurt and confused. But she told me to be patient, that all would eventually be put right. She told me not to take matters into my own hands.’

Ronica nodded gravely. ‘Those are the very things I came down here to say tonight, also. Do you think you can keep such counsels?’

‘I?’ The ship almost laughed. ‘Ronica, I am three times a Vestrit. I fear I shall have only as much patience as my forebears did.’

‘An honest answer,’ Ronica conceded. ‘I will only ask that you try. No. I will ask one more thing. If Althea returns here, before you sail, will you give her a message from me? For I have no other way to contact her, save through you.’

‘Of course. And I will see that no one save her hears the message.’

‘Good, that is good. All I ask is that she come to see me. We are not at odds as much as she believes we are. But I will not go into details now. Just ask her to come to me, quietly.’

‘I shall tell her. But I do not know if she will.’

‘Neither do I, ship. Neither do I.’