by Robin Hobb
She did not look back but hurried down the street in a lumbering trot. I went stumbling after her, clutching at the chain around my throat, trying to tear it from her grip. She passed over and among sprawled figures and I was forced to jump over the fallen people or step on them. They seemed stunned, some twitching and others sprawled lax on the paving stones. Dwalia turned abruptly and we went down an alley between two tall buildings. Halfway to the next street, she halted in the darkness, and a sobbing Vindeliar came blundering into us. ‘Silence!’ she hissed at him, and when I opened my mouth to scream she jerked savagely on the chain, slapping my head against the wall beside us. I saw a bright flash of light and my knees gave out.
Some time had passed. I knew that. Dwalia was yanking on the chain around my neck. Vindeliar was plucking at me, trying to pull me to my feet. Using the wall, I staggered upright and looked around dazedly. At the other end of the alley, lanterns bobbed and voices were raised in horror, confusion and commands. ‘This way,’ Dwalia said quietly, and then gave a fierce jerk on my leash that brought me to my knees again. Vindeliar was still sobbing softly. She turned, slapped him as if she were hitting a mosquito and walked away. I got to my feet in time to save myself from another fall. I tottered after her, feeling sick and weak.
Vindeliar moved one of the hands he’d had clapped over his mouth to muffle his sobs. ‘Kerf?’ he dared to ask.
‘Useless,’ Dwalia snapped. Vindictively, she added, ‘Let them have him. He will keep them busy while we find a better place to be.’ She looked back at Vindeliar. ‘You were almost as useless as he was. Next time, I will leave you behind for the mob.’
She increased her pace, annoyed that I was walking fast enough to keep slack in the chain. I groped for whatever clip Vindeliar had used to fasten it. My fingers found it but I could find no way to open it. She gave the chain another jerk and I stumbled after her again.
Dwalia led us out into a street and uphill and away from the tall buildings near the harbour. Always she chose to go where there were fewer people and lanterns in the streets and those we passed seemed to find nothing unusual about her hauling me along. Vindeliar followed us, hurrying to catch up, then falling behind, sniffling or sobbing or panting. I didn’t look at him. He was not my friend. He had never been my friend and he would do anything to me that Dwalia told him to do.
We turned down a dark road lit only by the lights coming from the houses. They were not prosperous homes; light shone through cracks in the walls and the street was rutted and muddy. Dwalia appeared to choose one at random. She halted and pointed at it. ‘Knock on the door,’ she ordered Vindeliar. ‘Make them want to welcome us.’
He gulped back a sob. ‘I don’t think I can. My head hurts. I think I’m sick. I’m shaking all over. I need—’
She clouted him with the free end of the chain, jerking me to my knees as she did so. ‘You need nothing! You’ll do it! Right now.’
I spoke in a low clear voice. ‘Run away, Vindeliar. Just run away. She can’t catch you. She can’t really make you do anything.’
He looked at me and for an instant his little eyes grew big and round. Then Dwalia struck me twice with the loose end of my chain, hard, and Vindeliar fled up to the doorstep of the run-down house and hammered on the door as if to warn of fire or flood. A man snatched the door open and demanded, ‘What is it?’ Then his face suddenly softened and he said, ‘Come in, friend! Come in out of the night!’
At those words, Dwalia hurried toward the door and I was forced to follow. The man stood back to let us in. As I followed Dwalia across the threshold, I saw her mistake. The young man holding the door and nodding was not alone. Two older men sat at a table, glaring at him and us. An old woman stirring a kettle of something over a low fire in the hearth demanded of him, ‘What are you thinking, bringing strangers into the house in the dead of night?’ A boy about my age looked at us in alarm and immediately picked up a stick of firewood, holding it like a truncheon. The woman’s gaze had snagged on Dwalia’s face. ‘A demon? Is that a demon?’
Vindeliar turned back to Dwalia with a face full of woe. ‘I can’t do this many people any more. I just can’t!’ He gave a broken sob.
‘All of them!’ Dwalia demanded shrilly. ‘Right now!’
I had been at the point of stepping over the threshold. I took a firm hold on my chain below my throat and stepped back as far as I could. ‘I’m not a part of this!’ I shouted hopelessly. Everyone in the little house was staring at us in consternation and fear. My shout broke them.
‘Murder! Demons! Thieves!’ the woman shrieked suddenly and the lad sprang forward at Vindeliar with his chunk of firewood. Vindeliar threw his arms up over his head and the lad delivered several sound thwacks to him. Dwalia was backing hastily out of the door but not in time to avoid the heavy mug one of the men flung at her. It struck her in the face, sloshing beer over her and making her yell angrily. Then she was away, dragging me after her. Vindeliar came behind us, yelping as the lad landed blow after blow on his shoulders and back while his father and uncles cheered him on.
We ran on, even after the family had given up their pursuit, for the shouts and clatter had roused other folk in the row of simple houses. We fled them, though Dwalia soon dropped her run to a shuffling trot and then to a hasty walk as she looked back over her shoulder repeatedly. Vindeliar caught up with us, holding his head with both hands and sobbing brokenly. ‘I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,’ he kept saying until even I wanted to strike him.
Dwalia was leading us back toward the town. I waited until we were in streets where the houses were sturdily built, with glass in the windows and wooden porches. Then I set both hands to the chain, set my heels and jerked it as hard as I could. Dwalia did not let go but she halted and glared back at me. Vindeliar stood beside me, his mouth loose and trembling, hands still on his battered head.
‘Let me go,’ I said firmly. ‘Or I shall scream and scream and scream until this street fills with people. I will tell them you are kidnappers and murderers!’
For a moment, Dwalia’s eyes went wide and I thought I had won. Then she leaned in close to me. ‘Do it!’ she dared me. ‘Do it. There will be witnesses that recognize us, I don’t doubt. And there will be folk who will believe that you were our partner, the servant girl that let us in to rob and kill that woman. For that is the tale that we shall tell, and Vindeliar will make Kerf agree with it. We shall all hang together. Scream, girlie! Scream!’
I stared at her. Would that happen? I had no one to vouch for my tale. Trader Akriel was dead, cut to pieces. Abruptly that loss hit me like a blow to the belly. She was dead because of me, as Vindeliar had warned me would happen. I’d left that Path he spoke of, and again someone was dead. My wonderful idea of escaping Dwalia hung in tatters around me. I did not want to believe Vindeliar’s superstitions about the Path. It was stupid and ridiculous to think there was only one right way for me to live my life. But here I was again, alive when those who had helped me were dead. I wanted to weep for Akriel but my grief went too deep for tears.
‘I thought not,’ she mocked me, and turning away from me, gave a vicious jerk on the chain. It ripped from my bruised hands and I found myself following her again as she led us into the dark.
SIXTEEN
* * *
The Pirate Isles
I have dreamed the theft of a child. No, not dreamed. For six nights, this nightmare has howled through my sleep, a dire warning. The child is snatched, sometimes from a cradle, sometimes from a feast, sometimes from a morning of play in fresh snow. However it happens, the child is lifted high and then falls. When the Stolen Child lands, the child has become a scaled monster with glittering eyes and a heart full of hatred. ‘I am come to destroy the future.’
Those words are the only part of my dream that is always the same. I know I am but a collator, with no more than a drop of White in my veins. Over and over, I have sought to tell this dream, and always I am pushed away, told it is just an ordinary nightmare. Beau
tiful Symphe, you are my last hope that I will be heard. This dream is worthy of being recorded in the archives. I tell it to you, not to gain glory for myself or be recognized as a White who can dream, but only because … (text charred away)
Discovered among Symphe’s papers
The long slow days aboard Paragon lodged in my life like a bone in the throat. Each had been so much like the last that it seemed like one endless day, and each choked me with its dragging passage.
Most of the crew’s enmity was focused on me and Amber. Their simmering anger made our brief and meagre meals daily trials for me. Amber had destroyed not just Althea and Brashen’s livelihood, but theirs as well. Securing a berth on a liveship was seen as a lifetime position, for the crew was well paid, safer than on an ordinary ship, and became almost as family. Now that would end for all of them. From the youngest who had earned his position only six months ago to the oldest—a man employed on Paragon for decades—their livelihoods were gone. Or would be, when Amber supplied the ship with enough Silver to transform himself. For now, they were hostages to Paragon’s ambition. As we were.
Spark and Per were pitied more than reviled. Clef still seemed intent on completing Per’s education as a deckhand and I took comfort that the lad had time that was not focused on our differences with the crew. Lant continued to share Clef’s room, and Clef moved Per in with them. I wanted to thank him for keeping the lad close and safe from any resentment, but feared that any conversation would taint Clef with the dislike I had to bear. To avoid exacerbating the discord, I kept mostly to the cabin I now shared with Amber and Spark. Spark had become subdued and thoughtful. She spent more time strolling on the deck with Lant than she did trying to learn knots or run the rigging. Spring had warmed to summer, and the tiny chamber was often muggy. When Lant and Per crowded in with us to practise our language lessons of an evening, sweat rolled down my back and plastered my hair to my head. Even so, it was a welcome diversion from the enforced idleness I endured.
When we were alone during those long days, the Fool and I pored endlessly over Bee’s books. He sought further clues from her dreams. I desperately wanted to believe that she might still be alive somewhere, even as the thought of my little daughter held captive in such ruthless hands tormented me to sleeplessness. He asked me to read to him from her journal as well, and this I did. Somewhat. I could not tell if he knew I skipped passages and entries that were too painful to share. If he was aware of it, he said nothing. I think he realized I had been pushed to my limit.
Yet the Fool was far less restricted in his movements than I was. As Amber, he moved freely on the deck, immune to the displeasure of the crew and the captains, for he was favoured of the ship. Paragon often required her presence for conversation, or music. It was a freedom that I envied and attempted not to resent. Yet it made for long and lonely evenings.
One evening after Amber had left the chamber to spend time with the figurehead, I could stand the small, close room no more. With only a slight twinge of conscience, I rummaged through the substantial wardrobe packs that Spark and Amber had brought aboard. I found the wondrous Elderling cloak folded into a very small packet, butterfly side out, and shook it out. Most Elderlings were tall, and the cloak was cut generously. I hesitated. But no, it had been Bee’s treasure and she had given it to Per to save him. In turn, he had surrendered it to the Fool’s use without a murmur. And now it was my turn.
I donned it, butterfly side in. It fitted, in that uncanny way that Elderling garments had of adapting to the wearer. The front fastened with a series of buttons from my throat to my feet. There were slits for my arms. I found them and lifted the hood to cover my head. It fell forward over my face. I had expected it to blind me, but I could see through it. I watched my disembodied arm reach for the door handle. I opened the door, drew my arm in and stepped out. I stood still, allowing the cloak to adopt the dim colour of the passageway walls.
I soon discovered what a burden a floor-length garment was. I moved slowly, but still stepped on the front hem more than once. As I explored the ship unseen, any ladder I ascended required that I wait until no one was near, for I had to hike the cloak up to climb. I wondered if the ship were aware of me, but did not wish to test that by venturing too close to the figurehead.
I ghosted about, moving only when no crew were near and choosing my stopping places carefully. As night deepened, I moved more boldly. I found Per sitting on the deck next to Clef in a circle of yellow lantern-light. I remained outside its reach. ‘It’s called marlinspike work,’ he was explaining to the boy. ‘You use the spike off a marlin’s nose, or some do. I just use a wooden fid. And you take the old line that’s no good for anything else, and you sort of weave the knots and you can make mats or whatever you want. See? Here’s one of the first ones I made. Useful and pretty in its way.’
I stood soundlessly nearby and watched Clef walk the boy through starting the knot centre. The work reminded me of Lacey, busy with her needles and hooks. She’d made lovely things, cuffs and collars and doilies. And few were the ones who knew that the sharpened tips of her needles were her clever weapons as Patience’s bodyguard. I drifted away from them, wishing that Per could give up his fierce loyalty to Bee and become a ship’s boy. Surely that was better than being involved in assassin’s work.
I went in search of Lant. Since the crew’s feelings toward us had darkened, I worried for him more than I liked to admit. If any of the crew were to seek a target for their anger, it would most likely be Lant. He was young and able-bodied; it would not be seen as cowardly to provoke him to a fight. I’d warned him often to be wary of hostility. He’d promised to be careful, but with a weary sigh that said he believed he could take care of himself.
I found him standing on the dim deck, leaning on the railing and looking out over the water. The winds were favourable and Paragon was slicing the water smoothly. The decks were almost deserted. Spark was beside him and they were conversing in low voices. I drifted closer.
‘Please don’t,’ I heard him say.
But she lifted his hand from the railing and stepped inside the circle of his arm. She leaned her head on his shoulder. ‘Is it because I’m low born?’ she asked him.
‘No.’ I saw how difficult it was for him to remove his arm from around her and step away. ‘You know that’s not it.’
‘My age?’
He leaned on the railing, hunching his shoulders. ‘You’re not that much younger than I am. Spark, please. I’ve told you. I’ve a duty to my father. I’m not free to—’
She leaned in and kissed him. He turned his face toward her, letting her mouth find his. He made a low sound, pleading. Then he abruptly gathered her in and moulded her body to his, pushed her against the railing and kissed her deeply. Her pale hands moved to his hips and snugged his body tight to hers. She broke the kiss and said breathlessly, ‘I don’t care. I want what I can have now.’
I stood in numbed shock.
He kissed her again. Then, with a discipline I envied, he took her by the shoulders and pushed her gently away from him. He spoke hoarsely. ‘There are enough bastards in my lineage, Spark. I won’t make another one. Nor will I break faith with my father. I promised him, and I fear those words will be the last ones he heard from me. I must see this through to the end. And I will not chance leaving a fatherless child behind.’
‘I know ways to prevent …’
But he was shaking his head. ‘As you were “prevented”? As I was? No. You told me what Amber said to you, that in all likelihood, she and Fitz will both die. And as I am sent to protect him, that means I will die before he does. It will shame me enough to leave you without a protector, though I hope that Per will stand by you. But I’ll not chance leaving you with child.’
‘I’m more likely to end up protecting Per!’ She tried to take his hand but he clamped his fingers to the railing. She contented herself with covering his hand with hers. ‘Perhaps I’ll die protecting you before you die protecting Fitz,’ she offered, b
ut her laugh was not a merry one.
I moved softly away from them, scarcely able to breathe for the tears. I hadn’t realized I’d begun to cry until I’d choked on them. So many lives contorted because my father had given in to lust. Or love? If Chade had not been born, if I had not been born, would other players have stepped up into our roles? How often had the Fool told me that life was an immense wheel, turning in a set track and that his task was to bump the wheel out of that track and set it on a better one? Was that what I’d witnessed tonight? Lant refusing to continue the Farseer tradition of hapless bastards?
I drifted back to the privacy of the room, closed the door behind me, removed the butterfly cloak and folded it carefully as it had been. I wished I had not worn it. I wished I didn’t know what I knew now. I put the cloak back where I found it, resolving I would not use it again, and knowing that I lied to myself.
Paragon was selecting our course now, with little regard to what Althea or Brashen might wish. Bingtown had been left far behind, with no pause. We had neither dropped off cargo there nor taken on supplies and water. We had threaded our way along the shifting coast of the swampy shores and entered the waters of the Pirate Islands. Some of them were inhabited, and others were wild and unclaimed places. It made no difference to Paragon. We might look longingly toward tiny port towns alight at night where we may have put in to take on fresh water and food, but he did not pause. On we went, as relentless as the sea itself. And our rations grew ever smaller.
‘We are prisoners.’
The Fool sat up from where he had been lounging on the lower bunk in the sweaty cabin and leaned out to give me a look. ‘Do you speak of Althea and Brashen? You know why they have cautioned you to keep mostly to our cabin.’