by Robin Hobb
Even Althea could hear the vague note of anxiety in Kyle’s voice. That muffled sound, she decided, was her sister weeping. What had he done to little Selden? A terrible dread rose up in her, a desire to flee this messy domestic life and go back to… what? The ship? That was no escape any longer. She halted where she stood, until the dizzying misery could pass.
‘That was not discipline. It’s brawling, and it has no place in my home. Last night, I was willing to make some allowances for you. It had been a horrible day already, and Althea’s appearance was shocking. But this, inside my own walls, between blood-kin … no. Wintrow’s not a child any more, Kyle. Even if he were, a spanking would not have been the answer. He was not throwing a temper-tantrum, he was trying to make you see his side of things. One doesn’t spank a child for courteously voicing an opinion. Nor does one strike a man for it.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Kyle said flatly. ‘In a few days he’s going to be living aboard a ship, where opinions don’t matter unless they’re mine. He won’t have time to disagree. He won’t even have time to think. On a ship, a hand obeys, at that instant. Wintrow’s just had his first lesson in what happens if he doesn’t.’ In a quieter voice he added, ‘It just may save my son’s life some day.’
Althea heard the scuff of his boots as he walked. ‘Come, get up, Keffria. He’ll come around in a few minutes, and when he does, I don’t want you fussing over him. Don’t encourage him in behaviour I won’t tolerate. If he thinks we’re divided on this, he’ll only fight it the more. And the more he fights it, the more times he’s going to meet the floor.’
‘I hate this,’ Keffria said in a small dull voice. ‘Why does it have to be this way? Why?’
‘It doesn’t,’ her mother said flatly. ‘And it won’t. I tell you this plainly, Kyle Haven, I won’t tolerate it. This family has never treated one another so, and we are not going to start on the day after Ephron’s death. Not in my home.’ Ronica Vestrit left no room for disagreement.
It was the wrong tone to take with Kyle. Althea could have told her that. Setting herself up directly against him would only bring out the worst in him. It did.
‘Fine. As soon as he comes round, I’ll take him down to the ship. He can learn his manners there. Actually, that’s probably for the best anyway. If he learns a bit of the ship in port, he won’t have to scramble so hard when we’re under weigh. And I won’t have to listen to women argue with every order I give him.’
‘Aboard my ship or in my home,’ her mother began, but Kyle cut across her words with words of his own that made Althea both cold and hot with anger.
‘Keffria’s ship. And mine, as I am her husband. What happens aboard the Vivacia is no longer your affair, Ronica. For that matter, I believe by Bingtown laws of inheritance, this house is now hers as well. To run as we see fit.’
There was a terrible silence. When Kyle spoke again, there was an offer of apology in his voice. ‘At least, it could be that way. To the detriment of all of us. I don’t propose a splitting of our ways, Ronica. Obviously the family will prosper best if we work together, from a common home towards a common goal. But I cannot do that with my hands tied. You must see it is so. You’ve done very well, for a woman, all these years. But times are changing, and Ephron should not have left you to cope with everything on your own. As much as I respected the man… perhaps because I respected the man, I must learn from his mistakes. I’m not going to just sail off into the sunset and tell Keffria to mind things and manage until I return. I have to make provisions now to be able to stay home and run things. Nor am I going to let Wintrow come aboard the Vivacia and behave like some spoiled prince. You’ve seen what became of Althea; she’s wilful and thoughtless of others to the point of uselessness. No, worse, to the point of doing damage to the family name and reputation. I’ll tell you bluntly, I don’t know if you two can draw the lines with her that need to be drawn. Perhaps the simplest thing to do with her would be to marry her off, preferably to a man who does not live in Bingtown…’
Like a ship under full sail, Althea swept around the corner and into the room. ‘Would you care to mouth your insults to my face, Kyle?’
He was not at all surprised to see her. ‘I thought I saw your shadow. How long have you been eavesdropping, little sister?’
‘Long enough to know that you intend no good for my family or our ship.’ Althea tried not to be rattled by his calmness. ‘Who do you think you are, to speak to my mother and sister so, calmly telling them what you plan to do, how you intend to come back and “run” things?’
‘I think I’m the man of this family now,’ he proclaimed bluntly.
Althea smiled coldly. ‘You can be the man of this family all you like. But if you think you’re keeping my ship, you’re mistaken.’
Kyle sighed dramatically. ‘I thought it was only your so-called Rain Wild kin that believed that saying a thing often enough can make it so,’ he observed sarcastically. ‘Little sister, you are such a fool. Not only does the common law of Bingtown recognize your sister as sole heir, but it was put into writing and signed by your father himself. Will you oppose even him in this?’
His words disembowelled her. She felt that everything that had ever given her strength had been torn from her. She had almost managed to convince herself that yesterday had been an accident, that her father could never have consciously intended to take the ship from her. It had only been that he had been in great pain and dying. But to hear that it was in writing, and sealed by him… NO. Her eyes darted from Kyle to her mother and then back again. ‘I don’t care what my father was deceived into signing on his deathbed,’ she said in a low but furious voice. ‘I know that Vivacia is mine. Mine in a way you can never claim her, Kyle. And I tell you now, I will not be stopped until I have her under my command—’
‘Your command!’ Kyle gave a great bark of laughter. ‘You command a ship? You’re not even fit to serve aboard a ship. You have this great conceit about your abilities, this self-deception that you are some kind of a seaman. You’re not! Your father kept you aboard to keep you from getting into trouble on shore, as far as I can see. You’re not even a good sailor.’
Althea opened her mouth to speak, but a groan from Wintrow, sprawled on the floor, turned all eyes that way. Keffria started forward, but Kyle stopped her with a gesture. Their mother ignored both his look and his hand, however, to go to the boy. He sat up, obviously dizzy, holding both hands to the sides of his head. With an effort he focused his eyes on his grandmother. ‘Am I all right?’ he asked her dazedly.
‘I hope so,’ she responded gravely. She gave a small sigh. ‘Althea, would you fetch me a cold, wet cloth?’
‘The boy is fine,’ Kyle proclaimed grumpily, but Althea ignored him. She stormed off down the hall to fetch her mother a wet rag, wondering all the time why she did so. She suspected her mother of having deceived her father, of getting him to sign something he never intended. So why did she so meekly obey her now? She didn’t know, save that perhaps it was to give herself a moment away from Kyle before she killed him.
As she went down the hall to the pump room, she wondered what had become of her world. Never before had there been such doings in her home. People shouting at one another in her home was strange enough, but Kyle had knocked his own son cold on the floor. She still couldn’t believe it had happened. These things were too foreign to her, so shocking she had no idea how to deal with them or even what to feel. She doused a towel under the cold stream of water she pumped up, and wrung the cloth out well. A very nervous serving woman was lurking there in the water room.
‘Do you need my help?’ the woman all but whispered.
‘No. No, everything is under control. Captain Haven just had a bit of a temper-tantrum,’ Althea heard herself lie calmly. Under control, she thought to herself. It felt far from that to her. Instead she felt like she was a juggler’s club, flying through the air, not knowing what hand would next seize her and fling her into a rhythm. No hand, perhaps. Perhaps she
would just go flying off, out of control, never again to be a part of her family’s pattern. She smiled bitterly at the ridiculous image, and put the wet cloth into an earthenware bowl before she bore it down the hall to the dining room. When she got there, Wintrow and her mother were seated at a corner of the low table. Wintrow looked pale and shaken, her mother very determined. She held both the boy’s hands in her own as she spoke to him earnestly.
Kyle, arms crossed on his chest, stood by the window. His back was to the room, but Althea could sense his indignation. Keffria stood next to him, looking up at him imploringly, but he appeared unaware of her existence.
‘… all in Sa’s hands.’ Her mother spoke earnestly to her nephew. ‘I believe that He has sent you back to us, and created this bond between you and the ship for a reason. It’s meant to be, Wintrow. Can you accept it, as you once accepted the way we sent you off with the priest?’
A bond between Wintrow and her ship. It could not be. Her heart turned to ice in her chest, but strangely her body kept moving and her eyes kept seeing. Wintrow’s whole attention was on his grandmother’s face. He simply looked at her. His Haven blood showed plain in him, in the set of his chin and the anger in his eyes. Then, as Althea set the bowl and cloth down next to him, she saw the boy take control of himself. In half a dozen breaths, his features relaxed, and for a fleeting instant she glimpsed not only a strong resemblance to her father but to her own image in the looking-glass. It shocked her into silence. When the lad spoke, his voice was mild and reasoned. ‘So I’ve heard people speak a thousand times. It’s Sa’s will, they say. Bad weather, late storms, stillborn children. Sa’s will.’ He reached for the damp cloth in the bowl, folded it carefully and pressed it against his jaw. The side of his face was already starting to purple, and he still looked shaky and unfocused. The edges of his words were soft; Althea guessed it was painful for him to speak. But he did not seem angry, or cowed, or frightened, only intent on reaching his grandmother with his words, as if by winning her to his side he could save his own life. Perhaps he could.
‘Weather and storms I am willing to say are his will. Stillborn children, perhaps. Though not when the husband had beaten his wife but the day before… ’ his voice trailed off into some unpleasant memory. Then his eyes came back to his grandmother’s face. ‘I think Sa gave us our lives, and his will is for us to live them well. He gives us obstacles, yes… I have heard folk rail against his cruelty and loudly ask “why, why?” But the next day the same folk will take their saws and go out and cut limbs from their fruit trees, and dig up young trees and move them far from where they sprouted. “They will grow better and yield more,” the orchard workers say. They do not stand by the tree and explain that it is for their own good.’
He lifted the cloth from his face and refolded it to find a cooler spot. ‘My mind wanders,’ he said unhappily. ‘Just when I want to speak most clearly to you. Grandmother. I do not think it is Sa’s will for me to leave his priesthood and live aboard a ship so that our family may prosper financially. I am not even sure it is your will. I think it is my father’s will. To get his way, he proposes breaking a promise, and breaking my heart. Nor am I unaware that this unwelcome “gift” he thrusts upon me was snatched but yesterday from my Aunt Althea’s hands.’
For the first time he turned his eyes to Althea. Despite the pain and bruised skin, for an instant her father seemed to look out of those eyes. The same infinite patience cushioning an iron will. This was not some frail, cowering priest-boy, but a man’s mind in a boy’s changing body, she realized in amazement.
‘Even your own son recognizes the injustice of what you do,’ she accused Kyle. ‘Your snatching Vivacia from me has nothing to do with whether or not you believe I can command her. It is solely a matter of your own greed.’
‘Greed?’ Kyle shouted in disdain. ‘Greed? Oh, I like that! Greed makes me want to take over a ship so ridiculously in debt, I’ll be lucky to pay her off before I die. Greed makes me want to step forward and take responsibility for a household with no concept of wise money management. Althea, if I thought you had any capacity to be useful aboard the Vivacia, I’d seize on the chance of making you work for a change. No. More than that. If you could show me but one sign of true seamanship, if you had a single ship’s ticket to your belt, I’d make you a gift of the damned ship and all her debts with her. But you’re nothing but a spoiled little girl.’
‘You liar!’ Althea cried in infinite disgust.
‘By Sa, I swear it’s so!’ Kyle roared angrily. ‘If but one reputable captain would vouch for your seamanship, I’d hand the ship over to you tomorrow! But all of Bingtown knows you for what you are. A dabbler and a pretence.’
‘The ship would vouch for her,’ Wintrow observed in a wavering voice. He lifted a hand to his forehead, as if to hold his head together. ‘If the ship vouched for her, would you do as you’ve sworn? For by Sa, you’ve offered that oath, and we all witnessed it. You’d have to live up to it. I cannot believe this quarrelling and anger was what my grandfather willed for us. It is so simple for us to restore a balance. If Althea was on board Vivacia, I could go back to my monastery. We could all go back to where we belong. Where we were happy…’ His voice trailed off as he realized that all eyes were on him. His father’s look was black with fury, but Ronica Vestrit had lifted her hand to her mouth as if his words had cut her to the quick.
‘I’ve had enough of this whining!’ Kyle suddenly exploded. He crossed the room in a few strides, to lean on the table and glare down on his son. ‘Is this what the priests taught you? To twist things about to get your own way? It shames me that a boy of my own bloodlines could use such tricks on his own grandmother. Stand up!’ he barked, and when Wintrow stared up at him wordlessly, bellowed, ‘Stand up!’
The young priest hesitated a moment, and then came to his feet. He opened his mouth to speak, but his father spoke first. ‘You are thirteen years old, even if you look more like ten and behave like three. Thirteen. By law, in Bingtown, a son’s labour belongs to his father until he is fifteen years old. Oppose me and I’ll invoke that law. I don’t care if you wear a brown robe, I don’t care if you grow sacred antlers from your brow. Until you are fifteen, you’ll work that ship. Do you understand me?’
Even Althea was shocked at the near-blasphemy of Kyle’s words. Wintrow’s voice quavered as he replied, but he stood straight. ‘As a priest of Sa, I am bound only by those civil laws that are just and righteous. You invoke a civil law to break your promise. When you gave me to Sa, you gave my labour to Sa as well. I no longer belong to you.’ He glanced about, from his mother to his grandmother, then added, almost apologetically, ‘I am not even truly a member of this family any more. I have been given to Sa.’
Ronica stood to block him, but Kyle brushed past her with a force that sent the older woman staggering. With a cry, Keffria sprang to her mother’s side. Kyle gripped Wintrow by the front of his robe and shook him until his head whipped back and forth. His words were distorted by rage. ‘Mine,’ he roared at the boy. ‘You are mine. And you’ll shut up and do as you’re told. Now!’ He stilled the boy’s body and then hauled him up on his toes. ‘Get yourself down to that ship. Report to the mate. Tell him you’re the new ship’s boy, and that’s all you are. The ship’s boy. Understand?’
Althea had watched in horrified fascination. She was dimly aware that her mother was now holding and trying to comfort a sobbing, near-hysterical Keffria. Two servants, no longer able to restrain their curiosity, were peeping around the corner of the door. Althea knew she should intervene, but all that was happening was so far outside her experience that she could only gape. Kitchen servants gossiped of having squabbles like this at home, or one heard of tradesmen apprenticing their sons against their wills. She’d heard of ship’s discipline like this on other vessels. Things like this simply never happened in the homes of Old Trader families. Or if it did, it was never spoken of.
‘Do you understand me?’ Kyle demanded, as if shouting loud
er at the boy would make his words more comprehensible. Dazed as he was, Wintrow still managed a nod. Kyle let go of his shirt front. The boy staggered, then caught at the table’s edge. He stood, head hanging.
‘Now means now!’ Kyle barked in angry triumph. His head swivelled to the door and a gaping serving man there. ‘You! Welf! Stop your gawking and escort my son down to the Vivacia. See that he packs and takes everything he came here with, for he’ll be living on the ship from now on.’
As Welf hastened into the room to take Wintrow’s arm and lead him out of the room, Kyle rounded on Althea. His success at bullying his son seemed to have bolstered his courage, for he challenged her with, ‘Are you wise enough to take a lesson from this, sister?’
Althea kept her voice even and low. ‘I’d be very surprised if we had not all learned something about you today, Kyle. Chiefly that there is very little you won’t do in your ambition to control the Vestrit family.’
‘Control?’ Kyle stared at her incredulously, and then turned to the other two women to see if they were as astonished as he was. But Ronica met his gaze with a black stare, while Keffria sobbed against her shoulder. ‘Is that what you think this is about? Control?’ He shook his head and gave a brittle laugh. ‘This is about salvage. Damn me, I don’t know why I try. You all look at me as if I were a criminal, when all I’m trying to do is keep this family afloat. Keffria! You know what this is about. We’ve talked about this.’
He turned towards his wife. She finally lifted her tear-stained face to meet his gaze, but there was no understanding in her eyes. He shook his head in disbelief. ‘What am I supposed to do?’ he asked of them all. ‘Our holdings are losing money every day, we’ve a liveship we’re still paying the money-lenders for, our creditors are threatening to start confiscating our holdings, and you all seem to think we should genteelly ignore it and take tea together. No, I take that back. Althea seems to think she should hasten our progress toward ruin by keeping the liveship as a toy for herself, while she spends her evenings getting drunk with the local water rats and having a bit of slap and tickle on the side.’