Читать книгу The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny - Робин Хобб - Страница 37

THERE WAS A SONG he had learned as a child, about the white streets of Jamaillia shining in the sun. Wintrow found himself humming it as he hurried down a debris-strewn alley. To either side of him, tall wooden buildings blocked the sun and channelled the sea wind. Despite his efforts, the saltwater had reached his priest’s robe. The damp bure slapped and chafed against him as he walked. The winter day was unusually mild, even for Jamaillia. He was not, he told himself, very cold at all. As soon as his skin and robe dried completely, he’d be fine. His feet had become so calloused from his days on shipboard that even the broken crockery and splintered bits of wood that littered the alley did not bother him much. These were things he should remember, he counselled himself. Forget the growling of his empty belly, and be grateful that he was not overly cold.

And that he was free.

He had not realized how his confinement on the ship had oppressed him until he waded ashore. Even before he had dashed the water from his skin and donned his robe, his heart had soared. Free. He was many days from his monastery, and he had no idea how he would make his way there, but he was determined he would. His life was his own again. To know he had accepted the challenge made his heart sing. He might fail, he might be recaptured or fall to some other evil along the way, but he had accepted Sa’s strength and acted. No matter what happened to him after this, he had that to hold to. He was not a coward.

He had finally proved that to himself.

Jamaillia was bigger by far than any city he had ever visited. The size of it daunted him. From the ship, he had focused on the gleaming white towers and domes and spires of the Satrap’s Court in the higher reaches of the city. The steaming of the Warm River was an eternal backdrop of billowing silk to these marvels. But he was in the lower part of the city now. The waterfront was as dingy and miserable as Cress had been, and more extensive. It was dirtier and more wretched than anything he had ever seen in Bingtown. Dockside were the warehouses and ship-outfitters, but above them was a section of town that seemed to consist exclusively of brothels, taverns, druggeries and run-down boarding houses. The only permanent residents were the curled beggars who slept on doorsteps and within scavenged hovels propped up between buildings. The streets were near as filthy as the alleys. Perhaps the gutters and drains had once channelled dirty water away; now they overflowed in stagnant pools, green and brown and treacherous underfoot. It was only too obvious that nightsoil from chamberpots was dumped there as well. A warmer day would probably have produced an even stronger smell and swarms of flies. So there, he reminded himself as he skirted a wider puddle, was yet another thing to be grateful for.

It was early dawn, and this part of the city slept on. Perhaps there was little that folk in this quarter of town deemed worth rising for. Wintrow supposed that night would tell a different story on these streets. But for now, they were deserted and dead, windows shuttered and doors barred. He glanced up at the lightening sky and hastened his steps. It would not be too much longer before his absence from the ship would be noticed. He wanted to be well away from the waterfront before then. He wondered how energetic his father would be in the search for him. Probably very little on his own account; he only valued Wintrow as a way to keep the ship content.

Vivacia.

Even to think the name was like a fist to his heart. How could he have left her? He’d had to, he couldn’t go on like that. But how could he have left her? He felt torn, divided against himself. Even as he savoured his liberty, he tasted loneliness, extreme loneliness. He could not say if it were his, or hers. If there had been some way for him to take the ship and run away, he would have. Foolish as that sounded, he would have. He had to be free. She knew that. She must understand that he had to go.

But he had left her in the trap.

He walked on, torn within. She was not his wife or his child or his beloved. She was not even human. The bond they shared had been imposed upon them both, by circumstance and his father’s will. No more than that. She would understand, and she would forgive him.

In the moment of that thought, he realized that he meant to go back to her. Not today, nor tomorrow, but some day. There would come a time, in some undecided future, perhaps when his father had given up and restored Althea to the ship, when it would be safe for him to return. He would be a priest and she would be content with another Vestrit, Althea or perhaps even Selden or Malta. They would each have a full and separate life, and when they came together of their own independent wills, how sweet their reunion would be. She would admit, then, that his choice had been wise. They would both be wiser by then.

His conscience suddenly niggled at him. Did he hold the intent to return as the only way to assuage his conscience? Did that mean, perhaps, that he suspected what he did today was wrong? How could it be? He was going back to his priesthood, to keep the promises made years ago. How could that be wrong? He shook his head, mystified at himself, and trudged on.

He decided he would not venture into the upper reaches of the city. His father would expect him to go there, to seek sanctuary and aid from Sa’s priests in the Satrap’s Temple. It would be the first place his father would look for him. He longed to go there, for he was certain the priests would not turn him away. They might even be able to aid him to return to his own monastery, though that was a great deal to ask. But he would not ask them, he would not bring his father banging on their doors demanding his return. At one time, the sanctuary of Sa’s temple would have protected even a murderer. But if the outer circles of Jamaillia had degraded to this degree, he somehow doubted that the sanctity of Sa’s temple would be respected as it once was. Better to avoid causing them trouble. There was really no sense to pausing in the city at all. He would begin his long trek across the satrapy of Jamaillia to reach his monastery and home.

He should have felt daunted at the thought of that long journey. Instead he felt elated that, at long last, it was finally begun.

He had never thought that Jamaillia City might have slums, let alone that they would comprise such a large part of the capital city. He passed through one area that a fire had devastated. He estimated that fifteen buildings had burned to the ground, and many others nearby showed scorching and smoke. None of the rubble had been cleared away; the damp ashes gave off a terrible smell. The street became a footpath beaten through debris and ash. It was disheartening, and he reluctantly gave more credence to all the stories he had heard about the current Satrap. If his idle luxury and sybaritic ways were as decadent as Wintrow had heard, that might explain the overflowing drains and rubbish-strewn streets. Money could only be spent once. Perhaps taxes that should have repaired the drains and hired street watchmen had been spent instead on the Satrap’s pleasures. That would account for the sprawling wasteland of tottering buildings, and the general neglect he had seen down in the harbour. The galleys and galleasses of Jamaillia’s patrol fleet were tied there. Seaweed and mussels clung to their hulls, and the bright white paint that had once proclaimed they protected the interests of the Satrap was flaking away from their planks. No wonder pirates now plied the inner waterways freely.

Jamaillia City, the greatest city in the world, the heart and light of all civilization, was rotting at the edges. All his life he had heard legends of this city, of its wondrous architecture and gardens, its grand promenades and temples and baths. Not just the Satrap’s palace, but many of the public buildings had been plumbed for water and drains. He shook his head as he reluctantly waded past yet another overflowing gutter. If the water was standing and clogged here below, how much better could things be in the upper parts of the city? Well, perhaps things were much better along the main thoroughfares, but he’d never know. Not if he wanted to elude his father and whatever searchers he sent after him.

Gradually the circumstances of the city improved. He began to see early vendors offering buns and smoked fish and cheese, the scents of which made his mouth water. Doors began to be opened, people came out to take the shutters down from the windows and once more display their wares. As carts and foot-traffic began to crowd the streets, Wintrow’s heart soared. Surely, in a city of this size, with all these people milling about, his father would never find him.

Vivacia stared across the bright water to the white walls and towers of Jamaillia. In hours, it had not been that long since Wintrow left. Yet it seemed lifetimes had passed since he had clambered down the anchor chain and swum away. The other ships had obscured her view of him. She could not even be absolutely certain he had reached the beach safely. A day ago, she would have insisted that if something had happened to him, she would have felt it. But a day ago, she would have sworn that she knew him better than he did himself, and that he could never simply leave her. What a fool she had been.

‘You must have known when he left! Why didn’t you give an alarm? Where did he go?’

Wood, she told herself. I am only wood. Wood need not hear, wood need not answer.

Wood should not have to feel. She stared up at the city. Somewhere up there, Wintrow walked. Free of his father, free of her. How could he so easily sever that bond? A bitter smile curved her lips. Perhaps it was a Vestrit thing. Had not Althea walked away from her in much the same way?

‘Answer me!’ Kyle demanded of her.

Torg spoke quietly to his captain. ‘I’m so sorry, sir. I should have kept a closer watch on the boy. But who could have predicted this? Why would he run, after all you’ve done for him, all you wanted to give him? Makes no sense to a man like me. Ingratitude like that’s enough to break a father’s heart.’ The words were spoken as if to comfort, but Vivacia knew that every sentence of Torg’s commiseration only deepened Kyle’s fury with Wintrow. And with her.

‘Where did he go and when? Damn you, answer me!’ Kyle raged. He leaned over the railing. He dared to seize a heavy lock of her hair and pull it.

Swift as a snake, she pivoted. Her open hand slapped him away like a man swipes at an annoying cat. He went sprawling on the deck. His eyes went wide in sudden fear and shock. Torg fled, tripping in his fear and then scrabbling away on all fours. ‘Gantry!’ he called out wildly. ‘Gantry, get up here!’ He scurried off to find the first mate.

‘Damn you, Kyle Haven,’ she said in a quiet vicious voice. She did not know where the tone or the words came from. ‘Damn you to the bottom of the briny deep. One by one, you’ve driven them away. You took my captain’s place. You drove his daughter, the companion of my sleeping days, from my decks. And now your own son has fled your tyranny and left me friendless. Damn you.’

He stood slowly. Every muscle in his body was knotted. ‘You’ll be sorry —’ Kyle began in a voice that shook with fear and fury, but she cut him off with a wild laugh.

‘Sorry? How can you make me sorrier than I already am? What deeper misery can you visit upon me than to drive from me those of my own blood? You are false, Kyle Haven. And I owe you nothing, nothing, and nothing is what you shall have from me.’

‘Sir.’ Gantry’s voice came in a low respectful tone. He stood on the main deck, a safe distance from both man and figurehead as he spoke. Torg hovered behind him, both savouring and fearing the conflict. Gantry himself stood straight, but his tanned face had gone sallow. ‘I respectfully suggest you come away from there. You can do no good, and, I fear, much harm. Our best efforts should be made to search for the lad now, before he goes too far and hides too deep. He has no money, nor friends here that we know of. We should be in Jamaillia City right now, putting out word that we are seeking him. And offer a reward. Times are hard for many folk in Jamaillia. Like as not, a few coins will have him back on board before sunset.’

Kyle made a show of considering Gantry’s words. Vivacia knew that he stood where he was, almost within her reach, as a show of boldness. She was aware, too, of Torg watching them, an almost avid look on his face. It disgusted her that he relished this quarrel between them. Abruptly she didn’t care. Kyle wasn’t Wintrow, he wasn’t kin to her. He was nothing.

Kyle nodded to Gantry, but his eyes never left her. ‘Your suggestion has merit. Direct all crew members who have shore time to put out the word that we’ll give a gold piece for the boy returned safe and sound. Half a gold piece in any other condition. A silver for word of where he is, if such words helps us take him ourselves.’ Kyle paused. ‘I’ll be taking Torg and heading down to the slave-markets. The damned boy’s desertion has cost me an early start this day. No doubt the best stock will be taken already. I might have had a whole company of singers and musicians, if I had been down there early on the morning we arrived. Have you any idea what Jamaillian singers and musicians would have been worth in Chalced?’ He spoke as bitterly as if it were Gantry’s failure. He shook his head in disgust. ‘You stay here and see to the modifications in the hold. That needs to be completed as swiftly as possible, for I intend to sail as soon as we have both boy and cargo on board.’

Gantry was nodding to his captain’s words, but several times Vivacia felt his eyes on her. She twisted as much as she could to stare coldly at the three men. Kyle would not look at her, but Gantry’s uneasy glance met her eyes once. He made a tiny motion with his hand, intended for her, she was sure, but she could not decide what it meant. They left the foredeck and both went down into the hold. Some time later she was aware of both Torg and Kyle leaving. And good riddance to them both, she told herself. Again her eyes wandered the white city cloaked in the faint steaming of the Warm River. A city veiled in cloud. Did she hope they would find Wintrow and drag him back to her, or did she hope he would escape his father and be happy? She did not know. She remembered a hope that he would come back to her of his own will. It seemed childish and foolish now.

‘Ship? Vivacia?’ Gantry had not ventured onto the foredeck. Instead he stood on the short ladder and called to her in a quiet voice.

‘You needn’t be afraid to approach me,’ she told him sulkily. Despite being one of Kyle’s men, he was a good sailor. She felt oddly ashamed to have him fear her.

‘I but wanted to ask, is there anything I can do for you? To… ease you?’

He meant to calm her down. ‘No,’ she replied shortly. ‘No, there is nothing. Unless you wish to lead a mutiny.’ She stretched her lips in a semblance of a smile, to show him she was not serious in her request. At least, not quite yet.

‘Can’t do that,’ he replied, quite solemnly. ‘But if there’s anything you need, let me know.’

‘Need. Wood has no needs.’

He went away as softly as he had come, but in a short time, Findow appeared, to sit on the edge of the foredeck and play his fiddle. He played none of the lively tunes he used to set the pace for the crew when they were working the capstan. Instead he played soothingly, tunes with more than a tinge of sadness to them. They were in keeping with her mood, but somehow the simple sound of the fiddle-strings echoing her melancholy lifted her spirits and lessened her pain. Salt tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at Jamaillia. She had never wept before. She had supposed that tears themselves would be painful, but instead they seemed to ease the terrible tightness inside her.

Deep inside her, she felt the men working. Drills twisted into her timbers, followed by heavy eye-bolts. Lengths of chain were measured across her and then secured to stanchions or heavy staples. Oncoming supplies were mostly water and hard-tack and chains. For the slaves. Slaves. She tried the word on her tongue. Wintrow had believed slavery to be one of the greatest evils that existed in the world, but when he had tried to explain it to her, she could not see much difference between the life of a slave and the life of a sailor. All, it seemed to her, were owned by a master and made to work for as long and hard as that master saw fit. Sailors had very little say about their lives. How could it be much worse to be a slave? She had not been able to grasp it. Perhaps that was why Wintrow had been able to leave her so easily. Because she was stupid. Because she was not, after all, a human being. Tears welled afresh into her eyes, and the slaver Vivacia wept.

Even before they could see the ship itself, Sorcor declared he knew she was a slaver by the tallness of her masts. They were visible through the trees as she came around the island.

‘More sail to run faster, to deliver “fresh” cargo,’ he observed sarcastically. Then he shot Kennit a pleased grin. ‘Or perhaps the slavers are learning they have something to fear. Well, run as they may, they won’t outdistance us. If we put on some sail now, we’ll be on her as soon as she rounds the point.’

Kennit shook his head. ‘The shoals are rocky there.’ He considered a moment. ‘Run up a Trader flag and drag some rope to make us appear heavy-laden. We’ll just be a fat little merchant-vessel ourselves, shall we? Hang off and don’t approach too close until she’s going into Rickert’s Channel. There’s a nice sandy shoal just past there. If we have to run her aground to take her, I don’t want to hole her.’

‘Aye, sir.’ Sorcor cleared his throat. It was not clear whom he next addressed. ‘When we take a slaver, it’s usually pretty bloody. Serpents snapping up bodies is not a fit sight for a woman’s eyes, and slavers always have a snake or two in their wakes. Perhaps the lady should retire to her cabin until this is over.’

Kennit glanced over his shoulder at Etta. It now seemed to him that any time he came on deck, he could find her just behind his left shoulder. It was a bit disconcerting, but he’d decided the best way to deal with it was to ignore it. He found it rather amusing that Sorcor would refer to a whore so deferentially and pretend that she needed some sort of sheltering from the harsher realities of life. Etta, however, looked neither amused nor flattered. Instead there were deep sparks in her dark eyes, and a pinch of colour at the top of each cheek. She wore sturdier stuff this day, a shirt of azure cotton, dark woollen trousers and a short woollen jacket to match. Her black knee-boots were oiled to a shine. He had no idea where those had come from, though she had prattled something about gaming with the crew a few nights ago. A gaudy scarf confined her black hair, leaving only the glossy tips free to brush across her wind-reddened cheeks. Had he not known Etta, he might have mistaken her for a young street tough. She certainly bristled enough at Sorcor to be one.

‘I think the lady can discern what is too bloody or cruel for her taste, and retire at that time,’ Kennit observed dryly.

A small cat smile curved Etta’s lips as she brazenly pointed out, ‘If I enjoy Captain Kennit by night, surely there is little I need to fear by day.’

Sorcor flushed red, scars standing white against his blush. But Etta only shot Kennit a tiny sideways glance to see if he would preen to her flattery. He tried not to, but it was pleasing to see Sorcor discomfited by his woman’s bragging of him. He permitted himself a tiny quirk of his lip acknowledging her. It was enough. She saw it. She flared her nostrils and turned her head, his tigress on a leash.

Sorcor turned away from them both. ‘Well, boys, let’s run the masquerade,’ he shouted to the crew and they tumbled to his command. Kennit’s Raven came down and the Trader flag, taken long ago with a merchant-ship, was run up and the rope drags put over the side. All but a fraction of their crew went below. Now the Marietta moved sedately as a laden cargo-ship, and the sailors who manned her deck carried no weapons. Even as the slaver rounded the point and became completely visible to them, Kennit could tell they would overtake her easily.

He observed her idly. As Sorcor had observed, her three masts were taller than usual, to permit her more sail. A canvas tent for the crew’s temporary shelter billowed on the deck; no doubt the sailors working the ship could no longer abide the stench of their densely-packed cargo, and so had forsaken the forecastle for airier quarters. The Sicerna, as the name across her stern proclaimed her, had been a slaver for some years. The gilt had flaked from her carvings, and stains down her sides told of human waste sloshed carelessly overboard.

As predicted, a fat yellow-green serpent trolled along in the ship’s wake like a contented mascot. If the girth of the serpent was any indication, this slaver had already put a good part of its cargo overboard. Kennit squinted at the slaver’s deck. There were a great deal more people standing about on the deck than he would have expected. Had the slavers taken to carrying a fighting force to protect themselves? He frowned to himself at the idea, but as the Marietta slowly overtook the Sicerna, Kennit realized that the folk huddled together on the deck were slaves. Their worn rags flapped in the brisk winter winds, and while individuals shifted, no one appeared to move freely. The captain had probably brought a batch up on deck to give them a breath of fresh air. Kennit wondered if that meant they had sickness down below. He had never known a slaver to worry solely about his wares’ comfort.

Sorcor was closing up the distance between them now, and the reek of the slave-ship carried plainly on the wind. Kennit took a lavender-scented kerchief from his pocket and held it lightly to his face to mask the effluvium. ‘Sorcor! A word with you,’ he called.

Almost instantaneously, the mate was at his side. ‘Cap’n?’

‘I believe I shall lead the men this time. Pass the word firmly amongst them. I want at least three of the crew left alive. Officers, preferably. I’ve a question or two I’d like answered before we feed the serpents.’

‘I’ll pass the word, sir. But it won’t be easy to hold them back.’

‘I have great confidence they can manage it,’ Kennit observed in a voice that left little doubt as to the hazards of disobedience.

‘Sir,’ Sorcor replied, and went to pass the word to those on deck and to the armed boarders who waited below.

She waited until Sorcor was out of earshot before Etta asked in a low voice, ‘Why do you choose to risk yourself?’

‘Risk?’ He considered it a moment, then asked her, ‘Why do you ask? Do you fear what would happen to yourself if I were killed?’

The lines of her mouth went flat. She turned aside from him. ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘But not in the way you think I do.’

They had crept up to hailing distance, when the captain of the Sicerna called to them across the water.

‘Stand off!’ he roared. ‘We know who you be, no matter what flag you show.’

Kennit and Sorcor exchanged a look. Kennit shrugged. ‘The masquerade ends early.’

‘Hands on deck!’ Sorcor bellowed cheerfully. ‘And heave the ropes up.’

The decks of the Marietta resounded to the pounding of eager feet. Pirates crowded the railing, grappling-lines and bows at the ready. Kennit cupped his hands to his mouth. ‘You may surrender,’ he offered the man as the lightened Marietta closed with her prey.

For an answer, the man barked some command of his own. Six stalwart sailors abruptly seized up an anchor lying on the deck. Screams sounded as they hove it over the side. And in its wake, as swiftly as if they had eagerly leaped, went a handful of men who had been manacled to it. They vanished instantly, their screams bubbled into silence. Sorcor stared in shock. Even Kennit had to admit a sort of awe at the other captain’s ruthlessness.

‘That was five slaves!’ bellowed the captain of the Sicerna. ‘Stand off! The next measure of chain has twenty fastened to it.’

‘Probably the sickly ones he didn’t expect to last the journey anyway,’ Kennit opined. From the deck of the other vessel, he could hear voices, some raised in pleas, others in terror or anger.

‘In Sa’s name, what do we do?’ Sorcor breathed. ‘Those poor devils!’

‘We do not stand off,’ Kennit said quietly. Loudly, he called back, ‘Sicerna? If those slaves go over the side, you pay with your own lives.’

The other captain threw back his head and laughed so ringingly that the sound came clear across the water to them. ‘As if you would let any of us live! Stand off, pirate, or these twenty die.’

Kennit looked at the agony in Sorcor’s face. He shrugged. ‘Close the distance! Grapples away!’ he shouted. His men obeyed. They could not see the indecision in the mate’s eyes, but all heard the screams of twenty men as a second anchor dragged them down. They took part of the ship’s railing with them.

‘Kennit,’ Sorcor groaned in disbelief. His face paled with horror and shock.

‘How many spare anchors can he have?’ Kennit asked as he sprang to lead the boarding party. Over his shoulder he flung back, ‘You were the one who told me you would have preferred death to slavery. Let us hope it was their preference as well!’

His men were already hauling on the grappling-lines, drawing the two ships closer, while his archers kept up a steady rain of arrows against the defenders who sought to pluck the grapples out and throw them overboard. The crew of the Marietta outnumbered that of the Sicerna at least three times over. The embattled defenders were well-armed, but obviously unfamiliar with their weapons. Kennit drew his blade and jumped the small gap between the boats. He landed, then gut-kicked a sailor with one arrow standing out of his shoulder as he wrestled with his own bow. The man went down and one of Kennit’s men knifed him in passing. Kennit spun on him. ‘Leave three alive!’ he spat angrily. No one else challenged his boarding, and with drawn sword he went seeking the vessel’s captain.

He found him on the opposite side of the vessel. He, the mate, and two sailors were hastily trying to launch the ship’s boat. It hung swinging over the water from its davits, but one of the release-lines was jammed. Kennit shook his head to himself. The entire ship was filthy; they should not be surprised at a seized-up block if they could not even keep the deck clear.

‘Avast!’ he shouted with a grin.

‘Stand clear,’ the Sicerna’s captain warned him, levelling a hand-held crossbow at his chest.

Kennit lost respect for him. He had been far more impressive when he acted instead of threatening first. And then, arcing up from the water came the sinuous neck of the serpent. Perhaps the man did not wish to expend his bolt until he knew which target was more threatening. As the serpent’s head lifted from the water, Kennit saw the body of a slave gripped in the serpent’s jaws. Twin chains hung from the man’s body. To one side, a manacle still gripped a hand and arm. The other chain dangled slack and empty. The serpent gave a sudden worrying shake to the body, then a slight toss. The great jaws closed more firmly on its catch, shearing away the still-manacled hands at the elbows. The chain splashed back into the water. The serpent threw back its head and gulped the rest of the man down. As the bare feet vanished down its throat, it gave its head another shake. Then it eyed the men in the boat with interest. One of the sailors cried out in horror. The captain aimed his weapon at the monster’s wide eyes.

The moment it was not pointed at his chest, Kennit sprang forwards. He poised his blade to chop one of the davit-lines that supported the boat. ‘Throw down the weapon and come back on board,’ Kennit ordered him. ‘Or I’ll feed you to the serpent now!’

The man spat at Kennit, then fired the bolt unerringly into the serpent’s swirling green eye. The bolt vanished from sight into the creature’s brain. Kennit guessed it was not the first serpent the man had shot. As the creature went into a frenzy of lashing and screaming, the man drew his own knife and began sawing at the line just above the hook that secured it to the boat. ‘We’ll take our chances with the serpents, you bastard!’ he screamed at Kennit as the undulating serpent sank beneath the waves. ‘Rodel, cut your line loose!’

Rodel, however, did not share his skipper’s optimism regarding the serpent. The terrified sailor gave a cry of despair and flung himself from the dangling boat back to the ship’s deck. Kennit disabled him with a cut to his leg and then put his attention back on the boat. He ignored the cries of the squirming sailor who tried vainly to stem the flow of his blood.

With a single stride Kennit sprang into the swinging boat. He set the tip of his blade to the captain’s throat. ‘Back,’ he suggested with a smile. ‘Or die here.’

The seized-up block-and-tackle suddenly broke free. One end of the suspended boat dropped abruptly, spilling men into the sea even as the serpent once more erupted to the surface. Kennit, lithe and lucky as a cat, sprang clear of the falling boat. One hand caught the railing of the Sicerna, and then the other. He was hauling up his dangling legs when the serpent lifted its head from the water to regard him. Its ruined eye ran ichor and blood. It opened its maw wide and screamed, a sound of fury and despair. Its blinded eye faced towards the men who struggled in the water, while Kennit dangled before the good eye like a fishing lure. Frantically he swung one leg up over the railing and hooked it there. As softly as a well-trained pet takes a titbit from its master’s fingers, the serpent closed its jaws on his other leg.

It hurt, it burned like a red-hot leg-iron, and he screamed. Then the pain suddenly flowed away from him. A chill, delightfully numbing, chased the pain away as hot water purges cold from the skin. He felt it flowing up his body. Relief, such relief from the pain. He felt his leg relax with it, and then the numbness was flowing higher. His scream died away to a groan.

‘NO!’ The whore shrieked the word as she flew across the deck. Etta must have been watching from the deck of the Marietta. No one blocked her way. The deck was mainly cleared of live men; they had probably fallen back at sight of the serpent rising again. Some impromptu weapon, a boarding-axe or a kitchen cleaver, flashed in the sunlight as Etta brandished it. She was screaming, a stream of gutter invective and threats directed towards the serpent that even now was lifting him up. Some reflex made him cling to the ship’s railing with all his might. That was not much any more. Strength had fled him. Whatever venom the serpent had put into his wound was already rendering him helpless. When Etta seized him in a wild embrace that also included the ship’s railing, he scarcely felt her grip. ‘Let him go!’ she commanded the serpent. ‘Let him go, you bitch-thing, you slimy sea-worm, you whore’s arse! Let him go!’

The enfeebled serpent tugged on his booted leg, stretching him out over the water. Etta hauled determinedly back. The woman was stronger than he had thought. He saw more than felt the serpent set its teeth more firmly. Like a hot knife through butter, those teeth sheared through flesh and muscle. He had a glimpse of exposed bone, looking oddly honeycombed where the serpent’s saliva ate into it. The creature turned its great head like a hooked fish, preparing to give a shake that would either tear him loose from the railing or snatch his leg from his body. Sobbing, Etta raised her weapon. ‘Damn you!’ she screamed, ‘Damn you, damn you, damn you!’ Her puny blade fell, but not as Kennit had expected. She did not waste the blow on the serpent’s heavily-scaled snout. Instead the blade cracked loudly against his weakened bone. She severed his leg just below the serpent’s teeth, cutting it off a nice bite, as it were. He saw blood gout from the ragged stump as she hauled him hastily backwards crabbing across the deck with him in her grip. He dimly heard the awe-stricken cries of his men as the serpent raised its head still higher, and then suddenly collapsed back into the sea, boneless as a piece of string. It would not rise again. It was dead. And Etta had fed it his leg.

‘Why did you do that?’ he demanded of her faintly. ‘What have I ever done to you that you would chop my leg off?’

‘Oh, my darling, oh, my love!’ she was caterwauling, even as the darkness swirled around him and took him down.

The slave-market stank. It was the worst smell that Wintrow had ever encountered. He wondered if the smell of one’s own kind in death and disease were naturally more offensive than any other odour. Instinctively, he wished to be away from here. It was a bone-deep revulsion. Despite the misery he saw, his sympathy and outrage were overwhelmed by his disgust. Hurry as he might, he could not seem to find an escape from this section of the city.

He had seen animals confined in large numbers before, even animals gathered together for slaughter, but their misery had been dumb and uncomprehending. They had chewed their cud and lashed their tails at flies as they awaited their fates. Animals could be held in pens or yards. They did not need to be secured with both manacles and leg-irons. Nor did animals shout or sob their misery and frustration in words.

‘I can’t help you, I can’t help you.’ Wintrow heard himself muttering the words aloud and bit down on his tongue. It was true, he assured himself. He could not help them. He could no more break their chains than they could. Even if he had been able to undo their fetters, what then? He could not erase the tattoos from their faces, could not help them flee and escape. Evil as their fates were, it was best if he left each one to face it and make the best he could of it. Some, surely, would find freedom and happiness later in their lives. This extreme of misery could not last for ever.

As if in agreement with that thought, a man passed him trundling a barrow. Three bodies had been dumped in it and despite their emaciation, the man pushed it with difficulty. A woman trailed after him, weeping disconsolately. ‘Please, please,’ she burst out as they passed Wintrow. ‘At least let me have his body. What good is it to you? Let me take my son home and bury him. Please, please.’ But the man pushing the barrow paid her no attention. Nor did anyone else in the hurrying, crowded street. Wintrow stared after them, wondering if perhaps the woman were crazy, perhaps it was not her son at all and the man with the barrow knew it. Or perhaps, he reflected, everyone else in the street was crazy, and had just seen a heartsick mother begging for the dead body of her son, and had done nothing about it. Including himself. Had he so swiftly become inured to human pain? He lifted his eyes and tried to see the street scene afresh.

It overwhelmed him. In the main part of the street, folk strolled arm in arm, dawdling to look at booths just as they might in any marketplace. They spoke of colour and size, of age and sex. But the livestock and goods they perused were human. There were simple coffles standing in courtyards, a string of people chained together, offered in lots or singles, for general work on farms or in town. At the corner of the courtyard, a tattooist plied his trade. He lounged in a chair beside a leather-lined head vice and an immense block of stone with an eye-bolt worked into it. For a reasonable price, the chant rose, a reasonable price, he would mark any newly-purchased slave with the buyer’s emblem. The boy calling this out was tethered to the stone. He wore only a loincloth, despite the winter day, and his entire body had been lavishly embellished with tattoos as a means of advertising his master’s skill. For a reasonable price, a reasonable price.

There were buildings that housed slaves, their specialities advertised on their swinging signs. Wintrow saw an emblem for carpenters and masons, another for seamstresses, and one that specialized in musicians and dancers. Just as any type of person might fall into debt, so one might acquire any type of slave. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, Wintrow thought to himself. Tutors and wet-nurses and scribes and clerks. Why hire what you could buy outright? That seemed to be the philosophy here in the slave-market, yet Wintrow wondered how those shopping for slaves could not see themselves in their faces, or recognize one’s neighbours. No one else seemed disturbed by it. Some might hold a lace kerchief fastidiously to the nose, distressed by the odour. They did not hesitate to demand a slave stand, or walk, or trot in a circle the better to inspect him. Latticed-off areas were provided for the more private inspection of the females for sale. It seemed that, in the eyes of the buyers, a failure of finances instantly changed a man from a friend or neighbour into merchandise.

Some, it appeared, were not too badly housed and kept. They were the more valuable slaves, the well-educated and talented and skilled. Some few of those even appeared to take a quiet pride in their own worth, holding themselves with pride and assurance despite being marked with a tattoo across the face. Others were what Wintrow heard referred to as ‘map-faces’ meaning that the history of their owners could be traced by the progression of different tattoos. Usually such slaves were surly and difficult; tractable slaves often found permanent homes. More than five tattoos usually marked a slave as less than desirable. They were sold more cheaply and treated with casual brutality.

The face-tattooing of slaves, once regarded as a barbaric Chalcedean custom, was now the norm in Jamaillia City. It pained Wintrow to see how Jamaillia had not only adopted it, but adapted it. Those marketed as dancers and entertainers often bore only small and pale tattoos, easily masked with make-up so that their status would not disturb the pleasure of those being entertained. While it was illegal still to purchase slaves solely to prostitute them, the more exotic tattoos that marked some of them left no doubt in Wintrow’s mind as to what profession they’d been trained to. It was easier, often, to see their tattoos instead of meet their eyes.

It was while he was passing a street-corner coffle that a slave hailed him. ‘Please, priest! The comfort of Sa for the dying.’

Wintrow halted where he stood, unsure if he were the one addressed. The slave had stepped as far from his coffle as his fetters would allow. He did not look the sort of man who would seek Sa’s comfort; tattoos sprawled over his face and down his neck. Nor did he look as if he were dying. He was shirtless and his ribs showed and the fetter on his ankle had chafed the flesh there to running sores, but other than that, he looked tough and vital. He was substantially taller than Wintrow, a man of middle years, his body scarred by heavy use. His stance was that of a survivor. Wintrow glanced past him, to where his owner stood a short way off, haggling with a prospective buyer. The owner, a short man who spun a small club as he talked, caught Wintrow’s gaze briefly and scowled in displeasure, but did not leave off his bargaining.

‘You. Aren’t you a priest?’ the slave asked insistently.

‘I was training to be a priest,’ Wintrow admitted, ‘though I cannot fully claim that title as yet.’ More decisively he added, ‘But I am willing to give what comfort I can.’ He eyed the chained slaves and tried to keep suspicion from his voice as he asked, ‘Who needs such comfort?’

‘She does.’ The man stepped aside. A woman crouched miserably behind him. Wintrow saw then that the other slaves clustered around her, offering her the warmth and scant shelter of their gathered bodies. She was young, surely not more than twenty, and bore no visible injuries. She was the only woman in the group. Her arms were crossed over her belly, her head bowed down on her chest. When she lifted her face to regard him, her blue eyes were dull as riverstones. Her skin was very pale and her yellow hair had been chopped into a short brush on her head. The shift she wore was patched and stained. The shirt that shawled her shoulders probably belonged to the man who had summoned Wintrow. Like the man and the other slaves in the coffle, her face was overwritten with tattoos. She bore no traces of injury that Wintrow could easily see, nor did she appear frail. On the contrary, she was a well-muscled woman with wide shoulders. Only the lines of pain on her face marked her illness.

‘What ails you?’ Wintrow asked, coming closer. In some corner of his soul, he suspected the coffle of slaves were trying to lure him close enough to seize him. As a hostage, perhaps? But no one made any threatening moves. In fact, the slaves closest to the woman turned their backs to her as much as they could, as if to offer this token of privacy.

‘I bleed,’ she said quietly. ‘I bleed and it does not stop, not since I lost the child.’

Wintrow crouched down in front of her. He reached out to touch the back of her arm. There was no fever, in fact her skin was chill in the winter sunlight. He gently pinched a fold of her skin, marked how slowly the flesh recovered. She needed water or broth. Fluids. He sensed in her only misery and resignation. It did not feel like the acceptance of death. ‘Bleeding after childbirth is normal, you know.’ He offered her. ‘And after child loss as well. It should stop soon.’

She shook her head. ‘No. He dosed me too strong, to shake the child loose from me. A pregnant woman can not work as hard, you know. Her belly gets in the way. So they forced the dose down me and I lost the child. A week ago. But still I bleed, and the blood is bright red.’

‘Even a flow of bright red blood does not mean death. You can recover. Given the proper care, a woman can—’

Her bitter laugh cut off his words. He had never heard a laugh with so much of a scream in it.

‘You speak of women. I am a slave. No, a woman need not die of this, but I shall.’ She took a breath. ‘The comfort of Sa. That is all I am asking of you. Please.’ She bowed her head to receive it.

Perhaps in that moment Wintrow finally grasped what slavery was. He had known it for an evil, been schooled to the wickedness of it since his first days in the monastery. But now he saw it and heard the quiet resignation of despair in this young woman’s voice. She did not rail against the master who had stolen her child’s life. She spoke of his action as if it were the work of some primal force, a wind storm or river flood. His cruelty and evil did not seem to concern her. Only the end product she spoke of, the bleeding that would not cease, that she expected to succumb to. Wintrow stared at her. She did not have to die. He suspected she knew that as well as he did. If she were given a warm broth, bed and shelter, food and rest, and the herbs that were known to strengthen a woman’s parts, she would no doubt recover, to live many years and bear other children. But she would not. She knew it, the other slaves in her coffle knew it and he almost knew it. Almost knowing it was like pressing his hand to the deck to await the knife. Once the reality fell, he could never be the same again. To accept it would be to lose some part of himself.

He stood abruptly, his resolve strong, but when he spoke his words were soft.

‘Wait here and do not lose hope. I will go to Sa’s temple and get help. Surely your master can be made to see reason, that you will die without care.’ He offered a bitter smile. ‘If all else fails, perhaps we can persuade him a live slave is worth more than a dead one.’

The man who had first summoned him looked incredulous. ‘The temple? Small help we shall get there. A dog is a dog, and a slave is a slave. Neither is offered Sa’s comfort there. The priests there sing Sa’s songs, but dance to the Satrap’s piping. As to the man who sells our labour, he does not even own us. All he knows is that he gets a percentage of whatever we earn each day. From that, he feeds and shelters and doses us. The rest goes to our owner. Our broker will not make his piece smaller by trying to save Cala’s life. Why should he? It costs him nothing if she dies.’ The man looked down at Wintrow’s incomprehension and disbelief. ‘I was a fool to call to you.’ Bitterness crept into his voice. ‘The youth in your eyes deceived me. I should have known by your priest’s robe that I would find no willing help in you.’ He gripped Wintrow suddenly by the shoulder, a savagely hard pinch. ‘Give her the comfort of Sa. Or I swear I will break the bones in your collar.’

The strength of his clutch left Wintrow assured he could do it. ‘You do not need to threaten me,’ Wintrow gasped. He knew that the words sounded craven. ‘I am Sa’s servant in this.’

The man flung him contemptuously on the ground before the woman. ‘Do it then. And be quick.’ The man lifted a flinty gaze to stare beyond him. The broker and the customer haggled on. The customer’s back was turned to the coffle, but the broker faced them. He smiled with his mouth at some jest of his patron and laughed, ha, ha, ha, a mechanical sound, but all the while his clenched fist and the hard look he shot at his coffle promised severe punishment if his bargaining were interrupted. His other hand tapped a small bat against his leg impatiently.

‘I… it cannot be rushed,’ Wintrow protested, even as he knelt before the woman and tried to compose his mind.

For answer, she tottered to her feet. He saw then that her legs were streaked with blood, that the ground beneath her was sodden with it. It had clotted thick on the fetters on her ankles. ‘Lem?’ she said piteously.

The other slave stepped to her quickly. She leaned on him heavily. Her breath came out a moan.

‘It will have to be rushed,’ the man pointed out brusquely.

Wintrow skipped the prayers. He skipped the preparations, he skipped the soothing words designed to ready her mind and spirit. He simply stood and put his hands on her. He positioned his fingers on the sides of her neck, spreading them until each one found its proper point. ‘This is not death,’ he assured her. ‘I but free you from the distractions of this world so that your soul may prepare itself for the next. Do you assent to this?’

She nodded, a slow movement of her head.

He accepted her consent. He drew a slow, deep, breath, aligning himself with her. He reached inside himself, to the neglected budding of his priesthood. He had never done this by himself. He had never been fully initiated into the mysteries of it. But the mechanics he knew, and those at least he could give her. He noticed in passing that the man stood with his body blocking the broker’s view and kept watch over his shoulder. The other slaves clustered close around them, to hide what they did from passing traffic. ‘Hurry,’ Lem urged Wintrow again.

He pressed lightly on the points his fingers had unerringly chosen. The pressure would banish fear, would block pain while he spoke to her. As long as he pressed, she must listen and believe his words. He gave her body to her first. ‘To you, now, the beating of your heart, the pumping of air into your lungs. To you the seeing with your eyes, the hearing with your ears, the tasting of your mouth, the feeling of all your flesh. All these things do I trust to your own control now, that you may command them to be or not to be. All these things, I give back to you, that you may prepare yourself for death with a clear mind. The comfort of Sa I offer you, that you may offer it to others.’ He saw a shade of doubt in her eyes still. He helped her realize her own power. ‘Say to me, “I feel no cold”.’

‘I feel no cold,’ she faintly echoed.

‘Say to me, “the pain is no more”.’

‘The pain is no more.’ The words were soft as a sigh, but as she spoke them, lines eased from her face. She was younger than he had thought. She looked up at Lem and smiled at him. ‘The pain is gone,’ she said without prompting.

Wintrow took his hands away, but stood close still. She rested her head on Lem’s chest. ‘I love you,’ she said simply. ‘You are all that has made this life bearable. Thank you.’ She took a breath that came out as a sigh. ‘Thank the others for me. For the warmth of their bodies, for doing more that my less might not be noticed. Thank them…’

Her words trailed off and Wintrow saw Sa blossoming in her face. The travails of this world were already fading from her mind. She smiled, a smile as simple as a babe’s. ‘See how beautiful the clouds are today, my love. The white against the grey. Do you see them?’

As simply as that. Unchained from her pain, her spirit turned to contemplation of beauty. Wintrow had witnessed it before but it never ceased to amaze him. Once a person had realized death, if they could turn aside from pain they immediately turned toward wonder and Sa. It took both steps, Wintrow knew that. If a person had not accepted death as a reality, the touch could be refused. Some accepted death and the touch, but could not let go of their pain. They clung to it as a final vestige of life. But Cala had let go easily, so easily that Wintrow knew she had been longing to let go for a long time.

He stood quietly by and did not speak. Nor did he listen to the exact words she spoke to Lem. Tears coursed down Lem’s cheeks, over the scars of a hard life and the embedded dyes of his slave-tattoo. They dripped from his roughly shaven chin. He said nothing, and Wintrow purposely did not hear the content of Cala’s words. He listened to the tone instead and knew that she spoke of love and life and light. Blood still moved in a slow red trickle down her bare leg. He saw her head loll on her shoulder as she weakened, but the smile did not leave her face. She had been closer to death than he had guessed; her stoic demeanour had deceived him. She would be gone soon. He was glad he had been able to offer her and Lem this peaceful parting.

‘Hey!’ A bat jabbed him in the small of his back. ‘What are you doing?’

The slave-broker gave Wintrow no time to answer. Instead he pushed the boy aside, dealing him a bruising jab to the short ribs as he did so. It knocked the wind out of his lungs and for a moment, all he could do was curl over his offended midsection, gasping. The broker stepped boldly into the midst of his coffle, to snarl at Lem and Cala. ‘Get away from her,’ he spat at Lem. ‘What are you trying to do, get her pregnant again, right here in the middle of the street? I just got rid of the last one.’ Foolishly, he reached to grab Cala’s unresisting shoulder. He jerked at the woman but Lem held her fast even as he uttered a roar of outrage. Wintrow would have recoiled from the look in his eyes alone, but the slave-broker snapped Lem in the face with the small bat, a practised, effortless movement. The skin high on Lem’s cheek split and blood flowed down his face. ‘Let go!’ the broker commanded him at the same time. Big as the slave was, the sudden blow and pain half-stunned him. The broker snatched Cala from his embrace, and let her fall sprawling into the bloody dirt. She fell bonelessly, wordlessly, and lay where she had bled, staring beatifically up at the sky. Wintrow’s experienced eye told him that in reality she saw nothing at all. She had chosen to stop. As he watched, her breath grew shallower and shallower. ‘Sa’s peace to you,’ he managed to whisper in a strained voice.

The broker turned on him. ‘You’ve killed her, you idiot! She had at least another day’s work in her!’ He snapped the bat at Wintrow, a sharply stinging blow to the shoulder that broke the skin and bruised the flesh without breaking bones. From the point of his shoulder down, pain flashed through his arm, followed by numbness. Indeed, a well-practised gesture, some part of him decided as he yelped and sprang back. He stumbled into one of the other hobbled slaves, who pushed him casually aside. They were all closing on the broker and suddenly his nasty little bat looked like a puny and foolish weapon. Wintrow felt his gorge rise; they would beat him to death, they’d jelly his bones.

But the slave-broker was an agile little man who loved his work and excelled at it. Lively as a frisking puppy, he spun about and snapped out with his bat, flick, flick, flick. At each blow, his bat found slave-flesh, and a man fell back. He was adept at dealing out pain that disabled without damaging. He was not so cautious with Lem, however. The moment the big man moved, he struck him again, a sharp snap of the bat across his belly. Lem folded up over it, his eyes bulging from their sockets.

And meanwhile, in the slave-market, the passing traffic continued. A raised eyebrow or two at this unruly coffle, but what did one expect of map-faces and those who mongered them? Folk stepped well wide of them and continued on their way. No use to call to them for help, to protest he was not a slave. Wintrow doubted that any of them would care.

While Lem gagged up bile, the broker casually unlocked the blood-caked fetters from Cala’s ankles. He shook them clear of her dead feet, then glared at Wintrow. ‘By all rights, I should clap these on you!’ he snarled. ‘You’ve cost me a slave, and a day’s wages, if I’m not mistaken. And I am not, see, there goes my customer. He’ll want nothing to do with this coffle, after they’ve shown such bad temperament.’ He pointed the bat after his fleeing prospect. ‘Well. No work, no food, my charmers.’

The little man’s manner was so acridly pleasant, Wintrow could not believe his ears. ‘A woman is dead, and it is your fault!’ he pointed out to the man. ‘You poisoned her to shake loose a child, but it killed her as well. Murder twice is upon you!’ He tried to rise, but his whole arm was still numb from the earlier blow, as was his belly. He shifted to his knees to try to get up. The little man casually kicked him down again.

‘Such words, such words, from such a cream-faced boy! I am shocked, I am. Now I’ll take every penny you have, laddie, to pay my damages. Every coin, now, be prompt, don’t make me shake it out of you.’

‘I have none,’ Wintrow told him angrily. ‘Nor would I give you any I had!’

The man stood over him and poked him with his bat. ‘Who’s your father, then? Someone’s going to have to pay.’

‘I’m alone,’ Wintrow snapped. ‘No one’s going to pay you or your master anything for what I did. I did Sa’s work. I did what was right.’ He glanced past the man at the coffle of slaves. Those who could stand were getting to their feet. Lem had crawled over by Cala’s body. He stared intently into her upturned eyes, as if he could also see what she now beheld.

‘Well, well. Right for her may be wrong for you,’ the little man pointed out snidely. He spoke briskly, like rattling stones. ‘You see, in Jamaillia, slaves are not entitled to Sa’s comfort. So the Satrap has ruled. If a slave truly had the soul of a man, well, that man would never end up a slave. Sa, in his wisdom, would not allow it. At least, that’s how it was explained to me. So. Here I am with one dead slave and no day’s work. The Satrap isn’t going to like that. Not only are you a killer of his slaves, but a vagrant, too. If you looked like you could do a decent day’s work, I’d clap some chains and a tattoo on you right now. Save us all some time. But. A man must work within the law. Ho, guard!’ The little man lifted his bat and waved it cheerily at a passing city guard. ‘Here’s one for you. A boy, no family, no coin, and in debt to me for damage to the Satrap’s slaves. Take him in custody, would you? Here, now! Stop, come back!’