by Robin Hobb
We reboarded Vivacia, but she felt like a different ship. Althea, Brashen and Boy-O were aboard, but Paragon’s crewmembers had disembarked. From overheard conversations, I knew that Brashen had seen that they had funds for their immediate needs and promised them that they would be paid their full wages in the next two days, and given recommendations for future work. For some of them, it had been years since they had lived ashore. Paragon had been their home, and most were already pounding the docks looking for a new berth on another ship.
‘Why must we leave so soon?’ Lant asked Boy-O. We had herded ourselves into the galley to avoid being in the way, and Boy-O had come in to give me a parcel that had been delivered to the ship. It had my name on it. It was wrapped in canvas and tied with string. The knots were complicated but I didn’t want to cut the string.
‘It’s a Trader thing. If we are underway before the council votes that the liveships must not be allowed to turn into dragons, then we don’t know they voted that, so we aren’t disobeying the Traders’ Council. That’s something that no Bingtown Trader wants to be accused of, let alone found guilty of and fined. The alliance of Bingtown Traders has become extremely important once the impervious ships started competing for the river trade. If all the liveships go dragon, the Bingtown Traders won’t have any way of bringing articles from Trehaug and Kelsingra and the other little Rain Wild towns to Bingtown, unless they hire impervious ships. The Rain Wild Traders will have to start doing business with the impervious boats, and we lose our monopoly on Elderling goods. So we leave tonight and we run hard for Trehaug. And we hope that Malta and Reyn agree with us, and get the Silver shipped down to Trehaug as fast as possible.’ He gestured with his pink hand, palm up. ‘Once it’s on its way, it’s a done deal, and to be honourable Traders, we have to accept shipment of it.’
‘Can they really stop the liveships from turning into dragons?’ asked Per.
‘Probably not. But those who don’t own liveships, those who think they are just talking boats, believe they can order us to do that. And they could make it difficult for us.’
‘Aren’t they just talking boats?’ asked Per innocently.
‘No. They’re family,’ Boy-O replied seriously and then realized Per was teasing him.
I got the knot undone and pulled the string away. I unfolded canvas to find trousers and a jerkin. The material was like silk, and patterned with golden frogs on a background of green lily pads. They were as colourful as the butterfly cloak had been. I ran the fabric over my hands. It snagged slightly on my broken nails and rough skin. ‘They’re beautiful. I will set them aside for when I grow into them. Who should I thank?’
Boy-O was staring at the gift open-mouthed. ‘My grandmother,’ he said breathlessly. ‘And you don’t have to wait to wear them. They’re Elderling made. They’ll adjust.’
‘Will they make her invisible?’ Per asked.
‘What?’
‘She had a cloak like that with butterflies on it, and it made the wearer invisible.’
Boy-O stared. ‘You meant really invisible when you told me that story? You never actually showed us how it worked that night when Fitz chased us out of Amber’s cabin! The night Kennitsson and I glimpsed the Silver.’ For a moment, he went still, recalling his friend. Then he shook his head. ‘I thought you meant she had covered you with the cloak and thrown snow over the cloak to make you invisible.’ He sat back. ‘Do you still have it? Can I see it?’
As Per shook his head, we heard a shout. ‘Boy-O! On deck!’ It was his father, and he jumped to his feet. ‘And no, they won’t make her invisible. But they are worth a small fortune. Try them on!’ And he clattered away to his father’s command.
That very night we were underway again. Vivacia’s mooring lines were slipped and we ignored the shouts of the harbourmaster’s underlings. We sailed under a clear sky and when the moon rose and I went out on deck, I saw we were not alone. Kendry trailed us. ‘Well. I’m glad his family isn’t going to fight him any more,’ Brashen said when he came to stand beside me. He looked down at my beautiful clothes, and smiled. ‘Aren’t you fine?’
But as Boy-O dashed by behind us, he dared to tousle my hair. ‘For good luck!’ he whispered, and then ran on. More sail blossomed on Vivacia’s masts and we easily outpaced Kendry.
Up the coast we fled, with Per and Ant keeping watch in the crow’s nest for any pursuit. They saw two ships, but they could catch neither Vivacia nor Kendry. And when we started up the river, Brashen laughed and said the acid would protect us from any pursuit.
We sailed against the current. I watched how it was done and marvelled at it, and marvelled too at a landscape I could never have imagined. In the evenings, our little company gathered at the table. It began with Per telling me of their journey from Kelsingra down the river, and gradually other stories of their travel were shared. Lant spoke of how Per had killed Ellik, a different tale from the one Per had told. Lant’s praise made him blush. We recalled those who had died at Withywoods. Spark wept when Per spoke of how his mother had forgotten him. Boy-O remembered Paragon to us, and more than once tears were shed for the ship-turned-dragons. I heard stories of Malta, who I would meet, and her romance with a veiled Rain Wild Trader and how they had wed after many adventures. In my hesitant turn, I began to tell how Shun and I had been taken. Of Ellik. Of Vindeliar’s magic. Of the Chalcedean. I even told them of Trader Akriel and her death. But of killing Dwalia and Symphe I said not a word. Silent, too, was Beloved/Amber. I wanted to hear what that person knew of my father, of the years he said they had shared. But he gave me none of that.
Such a strange riverscape! I saw brightly coloured birds, and once, a troop of shrieking monkeys fleeing through the trees. No one asked me to do hard work, no one struck me or threatened me. I had no reason to be afraid. Yet I would wake as often as four times a night, shaking and weeping, or so paralysed by fear that I could not even cry out.
‘Come with me,’ someone said one night, standing by my hammock in the shifting dark, and I cried out in alarm, for it was Vindeliar commanding me again. But it was Beloved. I followed him up to the foredeck near the figurehead, but not on the special little deck where her family often gathered to speak to her. Vivacia was both anchored and tethered for the night, for the changing currents of the river made night navigation dangerous.
I dreaded long discussion with him. Instead, he took out a little flute. ‘A gift from Wintrow,’ he said and began to play soft and breathy music on it. When it was over, he handed me his little wooden pipe and said, ‘Here are where your fingers go. If it sounds wrong, your fingers aren’t blocking the holes completely. Try each note.’
It was both harder and easier than it looked. By the time the sun was threading through the trees, I could sound each note clearly. I ate with everyone, and then found a place on top of the aft-house to curl up out of the way and sleep. I felt like a cat, sleeping in warm sunlight while everyone around me worked. In my sleep, Vivacia spoke to me. It’s like poison working out of a wound. Let the tears fall and let the fear shake you. On my deck or within my hold, you do not have to be strong. Let go of what you had to hide.
Before we reached Trehaug I could play four simple tunes. And sleep at night in the dark. The ship helped me twice to meet with Boy-O secretly. He did not ask me. Vivacia was the one who told me that something was binding in his elbow and he could not straighten his arm completely. He worked alongside the others and did not complain, but he could not swing through the rigging as he once had. She woke me by night, and I went to him as he stood the anchor watch. I moved very softly and he startled when I reached to take his hand in mine. ‘Don’t tell,’ I whispered, and he stared at me in shock and dismay. He tried to pull his hand away, but I held him fast, and then he felt what I did. ‘The ship says it’s like loosening a line jammed in a block and tackle,’ I told him as I worked.
‘How can I thank you?’ he asked me as he flexed his arm.
‘By not telling anyone,’ I said, and slipped away to my hammock
.
But the next day, he took me up in the rigging with him, to the very top, and showed me the river and the jungle. And while he named the birds and the trees we could see, I put right a place where the skin on his neck had healed as smooth and shiny as polished wood. ‘It pulls sometimes,’ was all he needed to say. And then we clambered down, and no one was the wiser save he and me.
I had looked forward to Trehaug after all Per had told me of it. He shouted to me at his first sight of one of the little houses dangling in the trees. He stood beside me and we pointed and exclaimed as we saw little children running along outstretched branches, and a man fishing from a tree branch over the river.
So, I was disappointed when our crew anchored Vivacia out of the channel but in the river, away from the docks. Another liveship, a flat black barge named Tarman, was waiting for us, and we anchored next to him. Lines were exchanged to raft the two ships together. Three little boats from the treehouse town rowed out to us, but Captain Wintrow denied them permission to come aboard or tie to us. ‘We are concluding a bargain,’ he warned them. Trader custom meant they could not come aboard or speak to us.
I stood at the railing and watched, wishing I were more a part of it, regretting what I had not learned and done. Vivacia reached for me and I lowered my walls. She suffused me with reassurance and a wave of warm gratitude for what had been done for Boy-O and his cousin Phron. What you have done, no one else could, she assured me.
The people on Tarman’s deck shouted greetings, and Per seized my hand and begged immediately to be allowed to cross to the other ship. Althea said we might, and my heart leapt with a good sort of fear as we crossed over the gap between the two ships and onto Tarman. Had Vivacia spoken to him somehow? He welcomed me, and he felt like a gracious old gentleman as he reassured me that I was safe on his decks. The captain of Tarman saw me touching his railing and as he hurried by me he muttered, ‘I should have guessed that would happen!’
On both vessels, the work was swift and frantic. Vivacia’s boats were moved and tied off to Tarman. Up from the hold and out of the captain’s stateroom came everything of value or sentiment. Charts and chairs, glasses and bedding, all manner of things came across the gap and were stowed in Tarman’s hold. At the same time, heavy casks were hauled up from Tarman’s hold and arranged in a row on his deck.
Captain Leftrin and his red-haired wife were much too busy to meet anyone new. He told Per to put me up on the flat roof of the deckhouse. He did, and then Per darted away to be helpful. I felt strange to be the only one idle. But from that perch, I could hear snatches of conversations. Several of the crew on Tarman joked with Spark and Per that they had feared the casks would leak. ‘We’d be trying to sleep, wondering if we’d wake up in a dragon’s belly instead of inside Tarman,’ one man called out to Lant. He was greeted with a chorus of shushes. ‘Sound carries across the water,’ a plump woman warned him, and he grinned and fell silent.
Midway through the day, Kendry anchored alongside us. ‘Not sure we have enough,’ Brashen called to his captain in a low voice.
‘We’ll take whatever you can spare,’ the captain replied. He shook his head. He was an older man, older than my father had been, and his face was lined. His eyes were the same as Brashen’s had been when he knelt by Boy-O and looked at his burns. His voice was thick with sorrow. ‘He’s been in agony for years now. Time to release him.’
Evidently Kendry had not been sailed for a time, for there was much less to unload from him. As they loaded their few goods onto Tarman, his captain spoke to his sparse crew, thanking them for bringing the difficult ship up the river. He grimly wished them good fortune in finding work again. It was Captain Leftrin who gruffly noted that the Dragon Traders had two impervious ships that could use experienced river crew.
‘I’d almost forgotten that Kelsingra had a couple of those,’ Kendry’s captain replied speculatively.
‘They haven’t been used much since we captured them. Tarman’s better on the river, shallow draught and all. But when his turn comes …’ They both fell silent.
Kendry’s captain nodded grimly, and Captain Leftrin added, ‘We’ll have a surplus of captains for a time, but experienced crew is always welcome.’
‘So. Tarman will change, too?’
‘He’s not decided yet. At present, he’s our lifeline. But if we get the impervious ships crewed, well …’ Captain Leftrin stroked the railing of his barge as if he were ruffling a boy’s hair. ‘He is the one who must decide,’ he finished.
‘Leftrin. We’re ready,’ Wintrow said.
It still took some time. The day was fine and the wind blew the sweet fragrance of flowers across the water as the crew said their farewells to Vivacia. There were tears. Some of the crew had been aboard her for most of their lives. And then there was a shifting of lines and anchor chains, both to bring the figurehead alongside Tarman’s deck and to make it possible to salvage the chain and anchors afterwards. Traders, I saw, wasted very little. If there had been more time I think they would have taken every scrap of canvas and line off her, but there was a limit to what Tarman could hold.
On Kendry’s decks, his crew waited uncertainly. The figurehead had his arms crossed over his manly chest, muscles bulging with tension. He was scowling as he looked about. Then his gaze met mine. He hunched his shoulders as if embarrassed and tried for a smile. It was more frightening than his scowl had been.
My friends joined me on top of the deckhouse. Tarman’s decks filled with Vivacia’s crew. Amber was weeping; I didn’t know why. Vivacia’s figurehead picked a cask from our deck. In her hands it was like a very large mug. She studied it and then, with an incredible strength, she broke the top with her thumb, raised it and began to drink. Her colours brightened as if she had been freshly painted. Everywhere that she had been built from wizardwood, varnish and paint flaked away. Planks and railings shone with an unusual sheen.
A second keg. A third. ‘It did not take that much for Paragon,’ Per said.
‘He was desperate,’ Boy-O said. ‘He had to change or die. I think that’s why his dragons were so small. He became as much as he could with that small amount of Silver.’
Vivacia was reaching for another cask. She caught my eye and winked at me. I glanced away. That was six casks. I could feel Kendry’s tension shimmering across to me. Almost half the casks were gone.
With every cask she drank, she changed slightly. Her face was not so human as it had been. Her wizardwood planks were scaled now. She chose another keg. As she began to drink it, I heard a popping, crackling noise. She dropped the empty cask into the river and gave a shudder, like a horse with a fly on her withers.
‘Ware!’ shouted Captain Leftrin, but there was nowhere to flee as Vivacia’s mast fell like a cut tree. Only good fortune put most of it on the far side of her hull. Spars, lines, rigging came down like a wind-toppled tree. I crouched, my arms over my head, but the bulk of it missed us. The fallen mast and spars dragged the canvas away from us as the river’s current tried to carry it off. For a few moments all was frantic activity as sailors cleared fallen lines from Tarman’s railing. There was shouting, the thud of hatchets cutting lines, and a lurching as the debris of the ship tugged at Tarman. I looked for Vivacia. I saw only wreckage churning in the river’s current.
Then it was floating away down the river, a sloppy raft of wood and canvas. For a moment, Vivacia’s aft-house was floating among it, and then it began to slowly sink deeper and deeper. ‘Oh, that’s going to be a hazard in the channel,’ someone said, but I wasn’t staring at that. Wallowing among some of the loose wreckage was a large silver dragon. She was twice the size of Paragon’s dragons.
‘Will she drown?’ Althea cried out in a low agonized voice. For the dragon was sinking. Her large head with its glittering blue eyes lingered a moment on the surface and then sank out of sight. Althea screamed, her hands reaching uselessly toward the water.
‘Wait!’ cried Brashen. I held my breath. I could feel the dragon st
ruggling beneath the water. She fought the current, then let it catch her. It carried her downstream. I turned my head that way and suddenly, in a shallower part of the channel, I saw the water stirring and then there was a wild splashing. ‘There!’ I shouted, and pointed. A head, a long neck, a spiny back and then, with a tremendous surge of effort, the silver dragon leapt into the air. Her wide wings spread, scattering water not in droplets but as bucketloads. She beat her wings and for a moment I feared she would fall back into the river. But with every heavy stroke, she rose a little higher. A long tail followed her out of the water.
‘She’s flying!’ Althea cried, and her joy and the wave of joy I felt from the rising dragon were one.
‘I’m so proud of you!’ Boy-O shouted at her. Everyone on the deck laughed and the dragon trumpeted uncertainly.
‘I cannot reach it!’ Kendry cried out, and his roar of despair was equal to Vivacia’s joyful trumpeting. He was listing as his figurehead strained to reach for the remaining kegs on Tarman’s decks.
‘Move those kegs!’ Leftrin ordered and all on deck sprang to his order. ‘Quickly!’ he added, and I felt Tarman’s uneasiness as Kendry leaned on him. It made his deck cant down, and a keg got away from a sailor, rolled across the deck and cracked sharply against the bulwark. Kendry seized it, and it trickled Silver onto Tarman’s deck as he raised it to his mouth.
‘Oh, sweet Sa!’ Captain Leftrin exclaimed, but the Silver soaked into Tarman as if his deck were a sponge, leaving not a trace. I felt a little shiver of pleasure run through him, but no more than that. The other kegs were being transported more carefully and as Kendry came upright, our deck didn’t slope. On the shore, people were shouting and pointing at Vivacia’s dragon as she tested her wings above the river.
Kendry was on his fourth cask when a small vessel from Trehaug came alongside Tarman. ‘Catch a line!’ the man in the bow shouted.
No one did.
A small red-faced woman with a thicket of dark curly hair stood up in the middle of the boat. ‘Last night, at the agreed-upon hour, a vote was taken. What you are doing is forbidden by a vote of the Bingtown Council. Their prohibition has been affirmed and duplicated by the Rain Wild Traders’ Council. You must cease immediately!’