by Robin Hobb
I had a little fire of dislike for him, and every chance I got, I fed it. I thought often of how he was here and my father was not. I imagined what my father and I would have done on this journey home. We would have talked with the ship, and watched the seabirds. He would have told me the history and geography of the Six Duchies, and explained Bingtown and the Rain Wilds to me. My father would have been steady and fair with me. But he was not here, and every time I looked at the changeable man who was trying to replace him, I disliked him more.
Per was more direct with me. He insisted I come to the table for meals, and while I ate he showed me knots. Boy-O was up and tottering around. He joined us at table once, and I was so embarrassed by his gratitude that I could not look at him. His mother always smiled at me. Captain Wintrow gave me a necklace with a gem that glowed in darkness, and a mug that magically warmed whatever was in it.
‘You need to know this ship, while you have the chance!’ Per rebuked me one afternoon. ‘When will you ever sail on a liveship again? Never. They will all turn into dragons. Be here while you can!’ I knew he was right, but trying to do anything made me so tired. One day, he insisted on showing me how to climb the rigging. ‘Please, Bee. Only five steps up, just so you feel how the ropes are under your feet. All you have to do is follow me. Put your feet where I put my feet and my hands where I put my hands.’
He wouldn’t let me refuse. He didn’t ask me if I’d be afraid and, just as it had been with Pris, I could not break my pride enough to tell him it terrified me. And so we climbed. And climbed. Many more than five steps. There was a tiny room at the top of the mast, with short walls of webbing. He helped me inside and I was glad to hunker down and feel safer. ‘This is the crow’s nest,’ he told me. His face became sad for a moment. ‘Not that I have a crow any more.’
‘I know you miss him.’
‘Her. Motley. She never came back after she went after the red dragon that day. Maybe she lives with the dragons. She was very taken with Heeby.’ He was quiet. ‘I hope she is alive. The other crows used to peck her because she had a few white feathers. Would it be worse with shiny red feathers?’
‘I’m sorry she’s gone. I’d have liked to know a crow.’
He said suddenly, ‘Bee, you healed Boy-O’s burns. Why don’t you fix yourself?’
I turned my face away from him. It stung that it mattered to him, that he noticed the scars on my face and wrists. I knew he had no magic but he still seemed to hear me. ‘It’s not about how you look, Bee. It’s about pain. I see you limp. I see you putting your hand over your cheek when it’s hurting you. Why don’t you just make them better?’
‘It doesn’t feel right,’ I answered him after a time. I could not say that I didn’t want to have to do it myself. My father should have been with me, to smooth my face with his hands, and admit to me how badly I’d been hurt. Why did I have to mend myself? Because Amber was here instead of my father. But I could not say any of that, so I found other words.
‘My father wore his scars. Riddle has scars. My mother wore the marks of all the children she had borne. My father even said they marked my victories. To just make these go away …’ I touched my crushed cheek. I could feel how the bone was pushed in. ‘It wouldn’t undo what they did to me, Per.’
He tilted his head at me. Then he opened his shirt. I stared in astonishment as he unfastened the collar laces and laid bare his hairless chest to me. ‘See where I took an arrow for you?’ he asked me.
I stared. His skin was smooth over his muscles. ‘No.’
‘That’s because your father erased it. He healed me. And Lant, too. And you should have seen what the Fool looked like before your father worked on him! Fitz even took the Fool’s wounds and put them on himself so the Fool could heal faster.’
I was silent, wondering how he had done that. It did not increase my respect for the Fool that he had given my father his scars to bear. Per touched my cheek. I realized I had been silent a long time. ‘I can see that this hurts you. You should fix it. You can’t make it unhappen, but you don’t have to carry around what they did to you. Don’t give them that power over you.’
‘I will think about it,’ I told him. ‘And now I want to go down. I don’t like how we are waving about up here.’
‘You would get used to it. And after a time, you might even like coming up here.’
‘I will think about it,’ I promised him again.
And I did. Two days later, at a time when the winds had died and our sails hung limp, we climbed the rigging again. I wasn’t sure that I enjoyed it, but I could convince myself I was not that scared. For several days we were becalmed, and slowly I made the crow’s nest a familiar place. Often it was already occupied by a sailor named Ant. She didn’t talk much but she loved the rigging. I liked her.
Bit by bit, in the night, in my hammock, I repaired myself. It was not easy. I did it slowly because I didn’t want anyone to notice it. I didn’t want them to say I looked better, or to praise me for doing it. I could not explain the why of that, not even to myself. But my ear, the crumpled ear my father had touched and called a victory? I left that as it was.
I came to love the ship. I think it was because I could feel how Vivacia felt about me. If I put my hand on the silvery wood of her railings, I could feel her. It was like my mother looking up from her sewing and smiling at me when I came into the room—a small welcome and a good wish for me. I was not bold enough to speak to her very much, but she was full of kindness toward me. That was the only conversation I needed with her.
I heard her have other conversations with her captain. It had taken me some time, but I had sorted out that Captain Wintrow was Althea Vestrit’s nephew and that Vivacia was the ship of the Vestrit family, and that Althea had grown up aboard her. Liveships, it seemed, were very important to the families that owned them. That Paragon had turned into two dragons and flown away meant that Althea and Brashen and Boy-O no longer had a ship. And Vivacia wanted to do the same. Then there would be no liveships for any of them. Per was right. Before I was a woman grown, all the liveships would be gone.
That saddened them, but there was a more immediate conflict. I had been sitting in a coil of rope near the foredeck and had dozed off there. I woke to a group of our sailors standing in a respectful row, their hats in hands. I had not heard what they asked of the ship, but her reply made it clear. Vivacia refused to put into the Pirate Isles. Her captain pleaded with her, Boy-O importuned her, but she was adamant. I could see that her black curling hair had the grain of wood, but somehow it still moved when she shook her head.
‘Kennitsson will never be less dead, no matter when or how they receive the news. We all know how terrible it will be for Queen Etta and Sorcor and indeed all the Pirate Isles. Do you think I did not care for Kennitsson? He was not blood of my blood, but I cared for him. I knew his father, and perhaps understood him far more than I enjoyed. I respect some of what he did. Nonetheless, I have no wish to be trapped in Divvytown while Etta rages and curses and weeps. And you know she will have a thousand questions followed by a thousand accusations and rebukes. She will delay me for weeks if not months.’
‘So what do you intend?’ Navigator asked the question.
‘I intend to bypass the Pirate Isles. I know you need supplies. I am not the Mad Ship, to care nothing for my crew’s lives. I can compromise. We can stop briefly in Bingtown. Then I will go up the Rain Wild River to Trehaug. For Silver. To become the dragon I was always meant to be.’
‘What of me?’ Captain Wintrow asked discouragedly as he came to join the discussion. ‘What will Etta think of me? Do you think I will ever be able to return to Divvytown if I do not bring Queen Etta the news of her son’s death?’ He shook his head. ‘It will be the end of my career there. Perhaps even my life.’
Althea and Brashen and Boy-O were coming to join them. Did they fear a mutiny on the ship?
Vivacia was silent for a time. Then she said, with both firmness and regret, ‘I know only that I h
ave been too long a ship. Wintrow, I am trapped. I need to be free. I will free myself. As you should free yourself. It has been years. Etta will never love you as she loved Kennit. She is a woman whose love was won by coldness and neglect. She thought a man who did not beat her loved her. And Kennit? He never admitted to himself that he cared for her as anything more than a convenient whore. He was fonder of you than he ever was of her. Wintrow, go home. Take me home. It is time we both were free.’
So long a silence followed the ship’s words that I wondered if they had all left. I opened my eyes to slits and saw Althea set her arm across her nephew’s shoulders. The crew stood embarrassed for him, looking aside from his downcast face.
‘She’s right.’ Boy-O whispered the words. ‘You know she’s right.’ But at that confirmation, Wintrow shrugged away from Althea’s touch and strode away from both family and figurehead. I judged it better to continue to feign sleep and never speak to anyone of what I had overheard.
Most of Vivacia’s crew was from the Pirate Isles. The ship’s refusal to put into port there left those sailors bereft and resentful. I felt the tension simmer and was puzzled. The crew knew it was not Wintrow’s decision, but the ship’s, so what did they expect him to do? But when we were within sight of the Pirate Isles, Captain Wintrow offered his compromise. He gave our ship’s boats to those who wished to leave Vivacia’s deck and go to Divvytown. Only one boat he would keep back, despite knowing it would not hold us all should some disaster befall Vivacia.
Yet given the opportunity, it was only a dozen or so who chose to depart. Some who had long sailed with Vivacia decided to stay with her, to see her become the dragon. ‘That will be a tale to tell for years, and a sight I will not miss,’ declared one man. And at that, two who had sought to leave decided to stay. Wintrow bade farewell to the others and assured them that the ship’s accountant would see them paid. And Boy-O said to the oldest man, ‘I trust this to you, to give to Queen Etta. All of you leaving the ship here, this must not go astray.’ But what he gave them was only a rather plain necklace with a dull grey charm on it. I did not understand while the crewmen were so stricken with gravity. They promised him many times it would go directly to her. The boats were lowered and we watched them row away across the waves. And we left the Pirate Isles behind us.
That night Captain Wintrow got very drunk, and Althea and Brashen with him. Boy-O stood the night watch and commanded the ship. Clef kept him company, and Per. They sat on the foredeck, near the figurehead, and sang some rude songs. The next day, they all went about their work with blotched faces and shaking hands. Amber and Spark helped to fill the gaps left by the departing sailors, and the ship seemed almost to sail herself in her drive to reach the Rain Wild River.
I had another episode of the sickness in which I became weak and feverish. When Amber sought to reassure me that all would be well, I said that I’d been through it before and wished to be left alone. Amber seemed to find that astonishing, but acceded to my wishes. It was Per who brought me water and soup and when the fever had passed begged permission of the captain that I be allowed to take a bath in his quarters. I was given a tub to stand in, a cloth to use and a bucket of hot water. I had longed for a tub full of steaming water, but Per explained that given Vivacia’s refusal to stop in the Pirate Isles we had to conserve our fresh water. With what they gave me, I could rid myself of most of my peeling skin. I emerged a colour that was a shade closer to Per’s skin and feeling much better.
It was peculiar that the very boredom of our uneventful voyage became difficult for me. After months of plotting each day how I would survive, there was suddenly very little for me to do. No one expected chores of me. Over and over, I was told to rest. In those idle hours, I was left to recall every detail of what had befallen me. I tried to make sense out of all that had happened. My father was dead. The people who had stolen me were dead, or mostly so. I was going ‘home’ to Buckkeep Castle, to a sister I did not know well and a niece who was a baby.
I thought of the things that had been done to me, and the things I had done to survive. Some, I could scarcely believe. Biting Dwalia’s face. Watching Trader Akriel die. Becoming the Destroyer, and killing Dwalia and setting fire to Symphe and burning all the libraries. Had that truly been me, Bee Farseer?
I had dreams, both those full of portents and the ordinary kind. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. I wandered the walls of Withywoods, calling for my father, but only a wolf came to me. Trader Akriel crawled after me, screaming that it was all my fault. I tried to run from her, but my legs were jelly. A blue buck leapt into a silver lake and a black wolf leapt out of it. A dozen dragons rose in glorious flight. Dwalia stood over my bed and laughed to think I had believed I could kill her. I dreamed of a woman who ploughed an immense field, and golden grasses grew up to be harvested into creaking wagons. I dreamed of my mother saying, ‘He may not seem to love you, but he does’. I dreamed I watched a grand ball in an immense, festive chamber through a crack in the wall.
Some I wrote down on the paper Beloved had given me, and some I kept to myself. He came to me one evening and said, ‘I propose that we sit down together, and you read your dreams to me, and we discuss them.’
I did not want to share them. Writing them down made them important. Reading them aloud would make them even more so. I said nothing.
He sat down beside me on the foredeck. It had become my favourite place to be in the evening. His long hands, one gloved, one bared, were folded loosely in his lap. ‘Bee, please let me know you. There is nothing more important to me than that. I want to know you, and to teach you the things you must understand about yourself. Teach you about your dreams and what they might mean and what life may demand of you. Some day you must find a Catalyst, and begin to make the changes …’
I noticed that he did not say he wished me to know him. Amber-Fool-Beloved that he was. I covered my drawing of Trader Akriel. I made a smile for him. ‘I found a Catalyst. And I made my changes. I am finished with that.’ I thought of what my father would want me to do. I drew a great breath and tried not to hurt his feelings. ‘I don’t want to be a White Prophet like you were.’
‘I could wish that we could change that. But I’m afraid that for you, it’s inevitable. Let’s set that aside. Would you tell me about your Catalyst?’ He tipped his head at me and asked gently, ‘Is it Per?’
Per? I tried to hide my dismay for such an idea. Per was my friend! ‘I already told you! My catalyst was Dwalia. She enabled me to be who I had to be to become the Destroyer. She changed my life. She took me from Withywoods to Clerres. There I made the changes they all feared I would make. And then I killed her. I am the Destroyer, and I destroyed the Servants.’
He was silent for a time. His fingers, some gloved and some bared, toyed with one another. ‘Are you sure that Dwalia was your Catalyst?’
‘Prilkop said she was.’ I corrected myself. ‘Prilkop said he thought she was.’
‘Hmm. Prilkop has been known to be wrong.’ He sighed suddenly. ‘Bee, I thought this was going to be so much easier, for both of us. But then, I had hoped your father might be with us. To help us become friends. To help you trust me.’
‘But he’s dead.’
‘I know.’ He suddenly sat up straight. He tilted his head to consider my face. Those eyes. I looked away. He spoke to me anyway. ‘Bee. Do you blame me for his death?’
‘No. I blame him.’ I hadn’t known I was going to say that. But now that I had, I felt a surge of righteousness. It had been his own fault that he died, and it was fair that I was so angry with him.
Beloved took my hand in his gloved one. He wasn’t looking at me any more. He stared off over the sea. ‘I do, too. And I think I am as furious with him as you are.’
I tugged my hand away. As if he were innocent!
We sailed up the shifting coastline they called the Cursed Shores. Day by day we drew closer to Bingtown until the night we could see its lights in the distance. Beloved set out plans
for us. We would disembark in Bingtown, send a messenger bird to Buckkeep Castle that we needed funds for passage home, and wait to hear back from them. Althea had invited us stay in her family home until our funds arrived and our passage was arranged, and ‘Amber’ had gratefully accepted. Until our funds arrived from Buckkeep, we were paupers, dependent on her charity.
The day was sunny as we sailed into Trader Bay and then Bingtown harbour. Vivacia went directly to the docks reserved for the liveships. Our arrival caused a stir and soon the other liveships were calling to her. It was strange to hear ships shouting to one another, demanding news. Apparently the two small dragons that once had been Paragon had stopped in Bingtown to exhort the other ships to follow them to Kelsingra. Now they wanted to know: was it true? Had these dragons once been Paragon the liveship? One liveship named Kendry was the most vocal, roaring that it was past time for ships to be free dragons. His figurehead was a handsome, bare-chested young man. He was tied at a separate dock from the other liveships, and his masts were naked of canvas. Most of the ships were curious, but Kendry’s anger was frightening.
It was not only the ships that were in uproar. No sooner were we tied up than a contingent of folk in peculiar robes came down the docks in a gaggle. As I disembarked behind Beloved with Spark and Per they were demanding permission to board.