The Liveship Traders Series

by Robin Hobb

  It was late afternoon before he decided to visit Askew himself. It would be amusing, he thought, to see both how his freed slaves were reacting to the town, and how the town was welcoming this sudden influx of population. Perhaps by now Sorcor would have seen the folly of his beneficence.

  He made his will known to the ship’s boy, who speedily passed the word. By the time he had smoothed his hair, settled his hat and emerged from his cabin the ship’s gig was readied to be lowered. The sailors who were to man her were as eager as dogs invited for a walk. Any town, any shoreside trip was a welcome diversion to them. Despite the brevity of the notice he had given, every man jack of them had found time to don a cleaner shirt. From their anchorage to the docks of Askew was but a few minutes of their diligent rowing. Kennit silently ignored the grins the men exchanged. They tied up at the base of the dock, and he ascended the rickety ladder to the top and then awaited his men while he wiped the slime from his fingers with his handkerchief. As if he were passing out sweetmeats to children, he drew a handful of small coins from his coat pocket. It was enough for a round of beer for all of them. He entrusted it to the man in charge, with the nebulous warning, ‘Be here and ready when I come back. Don’t make me wait.’

  The men clustered in a circle about them. Gankis spoke for them. ‘Cap’n. You don’t need to do that. After what you done, we’d be waiting here for you if every demon of the deep was after us.’

  The sudden outpouring of devotion from the old pirate took Kennit aback. He could think of nothing he had done for them lately that should merit this sudden affection. In an odd way it touched him as much as it amused him. ‘Well. No sense waiting thirsty, boys. Don’t be late though.’

  ‘No, sir, Cap’n, that we won’t. Promise to be here, every one of us.’ The man who spoke grinned so that his old tattoo crawled and danced across his face. Turning his back on them, Kennit proceeded up the docks and towards the heart of town. Behind him, he could hear the men arguing as to how they could best enjoy their beer and still be back awaiting him on time. It pleased him to set them these little dilemmas. Perhaps it even sharpened their wits. In the meantime, he set his own wits as to puzzling out what he had done to please them. Had there been booty on the other boat that Sorcor had not informed him about? Promises of favours from the women that had been among the slaves? Suspicions, never long absent from Kennit’s thoughts, suddenly took over. It might be very revealing to find out where Sorcor was right now and what he was doing. That he had let the men believe such largesse had come from the captain did not excuse him for passing it out without making Kennit aware of it.

  He made his way down the main street of the small town. There were but two taverns in the town; if Sorcor was not in one, it was likely he was in the other. As it turned out, he was in neither. In what looked like a jubilant celebration, the entire population of the town seemed to be gathered in the street between the two taverns. Tables and benches had been dragged out into the light of day, and kegs rolled out and broached in the street. Kennit’s suspicions became even darker. This sort of jubilation usually bespoke coins by the handful, lavishly doled. He put a knowing look upon his face, accompanied by a small, tight smile. Whatever was going on here, he must appear to be informed of it, or be a fool before all.

  ‘Say nothing. Trust your luck,’ chided a tiny voice. The charm at his wrist had a tiny melodic laugh, unnerving in its sweetness. ‘Above all, show no fear. Luck such as yours has no patience with fear.’ Again, the laugh.

  He dared not lift his wrist nor gaze at his token. Not in public. Nor was there time to seek a quieter spot to confer with it, for at that moment the crowd became aware of him. ‘Kennit!’ cried a voice aloud. ‘Captain Kennit! Kennit!’ Others took up the cry until the summer air rang with his name. Like a beast stirred from licking itself, the mob turned faces towards him and then surged at him like an oncoming wave.

  ‘Courage. And smile!’ taunted the wizardwood face.

  He himself felt his sardonic grin was set in ice upon his features. His heart pounded and the sweat started down his back at the sight of the mob coming towards him, fists and mugs raised to the sky. But they could not see that. No. All they would see as they closed on him was that small smile and how straight and fearless he stood as they engulfed him. A bluff, perhaps, but a bluff only worked so long as the user believed it would. In vain he tried to pick out Sorcor’s face in that oncoming wave of humanity. He wanted to find him, and, if necessity dictated it, make sure he at least died before Kennit did.

  Instead the folk ringed him, their faces flushed red with both drink and apparent triumph. None, as yet, dared to touch him. They stood a respectful distance from his fists and every eye was on him. He let his gaze rove over them, looking for a weakness or for the aggressor who would strike the first blow. Instead a burly woman pushed her way to the front of the crowd ringing him, to stand before him, her meaty fists on her generous hips. ‘I’m Tayella,’ she announced in a clear and powerful voice. ‘I run Askew.’ Her eyes met his as if he might challenge that declaration. Then, to his astonishment, her eyes flooded suddenly with tears. They spilled unabashedly down her cheeks as she added in a voice that suddenly broke, ‘And I tell you that anything here is yours, yours for the asking. Anything, any time. For you have brought us our own, whom we never thought to see again!’

  Trust the luck. He returned her smile, and with his most gallant bow and silent heartfelt regrets for the wasted lace, offered her his handkerchief. She took it from him as if it were embroidered with gold. ‘How did you know?’ she asked brokenly. ‘How could you have guessed? One and all, we were astonished.’

  ‘I have my ways,’ he assured her. He wondered what it was he was supposed to have known. But he did not ask, did not even flinch when her hand fell on his shoulder with a whack surely meant to be welcoming.

  ‘Set out a fresh table and all our best. Make way for Captain Kennit! Bless the man who delivered our kin and our neighbours from slavers, and brought them here to join us in freedom and a new life. Bless the man!’

  They swept him forward in a triumphant wave, to seat him at a sticky table and then heap it high with baked fish and some kind of starchy cakes made from a pounded root. A bucket of clam soup thickened with seaweed completed the festive meal. Tayella joined him there, to pour him a wooden bowl of a wine they had contrived from a sour berry. He supposed that as it was the only wine in the town, it was also the best. He tried a sip of it and managed not to wince. Tayella seemed to have had a quantity of it already. He judged it most politic to sip at his wine and let her regale him with the town’s history. He scarcely glanced at the man when Sorcor came to join them. The swarthy old dog looked chastened, somehow. Humbled with amazement. To Kennit’s appalled amusement, he carried the swaddled child marked with the X. The mother hovered not far away.

  Tayella rose, to clamber up on top of the table and address the company at large.

  ‘Twelve long years ago,’ she intoned, ‘we were brought here. In chains and sick and half-dead, some of us. The ocean blessed us with a storm like to a hurricane. Shoved the ship right up this channel, where no slaver had ever come before or since, and run her aground. The pounding the ship took loosened a lot of things. Including a staple that secured a whole string of slave fetters. Even with our hands and feet still bound, we killed those Chalcedean bastards. And we freed our companions and we made this place our own. Not such a great place, no, but once anyone’s been in the hold of a slaver, anywhere else is Sa’s own paradise. We learned to live here, we learned to use the ship’s boats to fish, in time we even ventured out to let others know we were here. But we knew we could never go home. Our families, our village was lost to us for ever.’ She turned suddenly to point down at Kennit. ‘Until you brought it back to us today.’

  In consternation, he waited while she wiped more tears on his handkerchief. ‘Twelve years ago,’ she managed at last. ‘When they came to take us because we could not pay the Satrap’s taxes, I fought th
em. They killed my husband and took me, but my little girl ran away. And I never thought to see her again, let alone my grandson.’ She gestured fondly at Sorcor and little Sorcor. More tears welled up and choked her.

  It took her a bit, and soon other folk chimed in to help her and tell their own stories. By the most powerful of coincidences, most of the slaves on board the Fortune had come from the same village as had the original founders of Askew. But no one there believed it a coincidence. All, even dour Sorcor, credited him with deducing it and deciding to bring them here to be reunited with their kin. He had not. But Kennit knew it was not mere coincidence, but something far more powerful.

  Sheerest luck. His luck. Luck to be trusted and never questioned. Casually he smoothed a finger over the wizardwood charm at his wrist. Would he scorn such luck by disdaining this chance? Of course not. Such luck demanded he dare to be worthy of it. He decided he dared. Shyly, so humbly, he asked Tayella, ‘Have my men told you of the prophecy I received from the Others?’

  Tayella’s eyes widened. She sensed something immense to come. Like a widening ring of ripples, her silence spread. All eyes turned toward him. ‘I have heard something of what was said,’ she said cautiously.

  As if overcome, Kennit cast his eyes down. He let his voice drop deep, and said softly, ‘Here it begins.’ Then he drew a deeper breath and brought the words up from the depths of himself, powering them with his lungs. ‘Here it begins!’ he announced, and contrived to make it sound as if it were an honour he was bestowing on them.

  It worked. All about him, eyes shone with tears. Tayella shook her head in slow disbelief. ‘But what have we to offer you?’ she asked, almost brokenly. ‘We are a village with next to nothing. No fields to till, no grand houses. How does a king begin here?’

  Kennit put gentleness into his voice. ‘I begin as you begin. With a ship, which we have taken for you. With a crew, which I have trained for you. Work the ship. I shall leave Rafo here to teach you the ways of the Raven flag. Take whatever you will from whoever passes, and make it your own. Remember how the Satrap took all from you, and do not be ashamed to reclaim your wealth from the merchants of Jamaillia that he cossets with your blood.’ He glanced at the shining gaze of his first mate and was inspired. ‘But I warn you. Suffer no slaver to pass unchallenged. Send the crews to the serpents who will welcome them, and gather their ships here. Of all cargo that is aboard these ships, I give Askew a full half. A full half!’ He repeated it loudly, to be sure they all knew of his generosity. ‘Keep the rest here, in safety. Sorcor and I will return, before the year is out, to take a tally, and to teach you how such things are best sold.’ With a wry and confiding smile, he lifted the wooden bowl of wine. ‘I offer you a sour toast! To sweeter and better things to come!’

  As one, they roared out their adulation. Tayella did not seem to realize he had just stolen her village’s control from her. Her eyes shone as brightly as the rest, she lifted her bowl as high. Even dour Sorcor joined in when they shouted his name. Triumph sharper than any he had known cut deep and sweet into his soul. His gaze met the worshipful eyes of his first mate and he knew he once more had his leash securely. He smiled at the man and even at the baby he was doting on. A laugh almost burst from Kennit’s chest as this final piece tumbled into place. Sorcor believed Kennit had honoured him. That Kennit had hung his name on the baby as a sort of reward to him. He did not fight the widening of his own grin. Instead, he lifted his bowl high once more. With a pounding heart, he waited for the noise to subside around him. When it did, he spoke in a deceptively soft voice. ‘Do as I teach you,’ he bade them gently. ‘Follow my ways, and I shall lead you to peace and prosperity!’

  The roar that greeted this near deafened him. He lowered his eyes modestly, to share a secret grin with the small face on his wrist. The revelry lasted long, not just the night but over into the morning. Before it was over, most of Askew was reeling with the sour wine and Kennit’s gut was curdled from trying to drink it. Not only had Sorcor found a quiet moment in which he had begged Kennit to forgive him for doubting him, but he admitted to his captain that he had believed him a heartless sort of man, cold as a serpent. Kennit did not need to ask him what had changed his mind. He had already heard, from several sources, how moved they had all been when he himself — by all accounts one of the most hardened captains of the Pirate Isles — had been reduced to tears at the sight of their misery in the hold. He had rescued them, he had wept for them, and then he had restored to them not only their freedom but their lost families. He realized too late that he could have claimed this place without giving them a ship as well, but what was done was done. And half of whatever booty they managed to seize would come to him, without effort. It was not a bad beginning. Not a bad beginning at all.

  ‘I’d just like to see him again before he sails. So would Mother.’ Keffria said this and then hastily took up her tea cup and sipped at it. She tried to look casual, as if this were a minor favour she asked of her husband rather than something of the greatest importance to her.

  Kyle Haven wiped his mouth on his napkin and set the cloth aside on the breakfast table. ‘I know, my dear. I know it must be hard for you, not to see him for so long, and then to have him snatched away from you. What you have to remember is that at the end of this voyage, I’ll bring him back to you a healthy and hearty young man, a son to be proud of. Right now, he scarce knows his own mind about anything. The work he is learning is hard, he’s discouraged, I don’t doubt his body is sore every night.’ He lifted his own cup, frowned into it, and set it down. ‘More tea. If I brought him home here to his mama and granny, he’d but take it as a sign he could whine to you. He’d whimper and beg, you would both be upset, he’d be back to where he started. No, Keffria. Trust me in this. It would not be good for either of you. Or your mother. She’s had a hard enough time lately, losing Ephron. Let’s not make it worse for her.’

  Keffria quickly leaned forward to replenish her husband’s cup. She had been so pleased when he had joined her for breakfast, so sure she could beg this favour of him. It seemed for ever since he had set aside any time for the two of them. He came home exhausted each night and rose before each dawn to hasten back to his ship. This morning when he had lingered in her bed, she had hoped it foretold an easing in his temperament. When he had told her he had time to breakfast with her, her hopes had bubbled swiftly. But she recognized that tone in his voice when he spoke of Wintrow. There was no arguing with it. Best for the sake of peace to set her hopes aside.

  Over two weeks had passed since the day Kyle had sent her son from the house to the ship. In those two weeks, Kyle had volunteered no mention of her son, and replied but briefly to her queries. It was almost as it had been in the days when he had been newly gone to the monastery. Not knowing what his life had become, she could find no solid premises to anchor her worries. Still, they loomed, nebulous and threatening, whenever her mind was not otherwise occupied with worrying about her mother’s grieving silence or Althea’s absolute disappearance. At least, she comforted herself, she knew where he was. And Kyle was his father. Surely he would let no harm come to him, and would tell her if there was any real reason for concern. No doubt Kyle was right about the boy. Perhaps his firmness was what was called for. After all, what did she know of boys that age? She took a steadying breath and moved resolutely to her next topic of concern.

  ‘Have you… ’ she hesitated. ‘Has Althea been down to the ship?’

  Kyle frowned. ‘Not since the day that fool Torg ran her off. I had given orders she was not to come aboard, but I never meant for him to chase her off. I truly wish he had had the wit to summon me. I can tell you right now, I would have hauled that young woman home here where she belongs.’ His tone left no doubt that Althea’s opinion in the matter would not have counted.

  There was no one in the room with them save a serving maid, but Keffria lowered her voice nonetheless. ‘She has not been to see Mama. I know, for I asked her. And she has not come home at all. Kyl
e, where can she be? I’ve had nightmares. I fear she may be murdered, or something worse. I did have one other idea the other night… could she have sneaked aboard the Vivacia? She always had such a strong bond with the ship. She is just stubborn enough, perhaps, to creep aboard and hide herself until you were out to sea and turning back would be difficult, and then…’

  ‘She’s not on the ship,’ Kyle said shortly. His whole tone dismissed Keffria’s conjectures as female silliness. ‘She’s probably staying somewhere in town. She’ll be home as soon as her ready cash runs out. And when she does come home, I want you to be strict with her. Don’t fuss over her and tell her you were worried. And don’t scold like an angry hen. She’ll ignore that. You need to be hard with her. Leave her without a coin to her name until she starts behaving herself. Then keep the leash short.’ He reached across the table and took her hand gently, his touch belying the firmness of his tone. ‘Can I trust you in this? To do what is wisest and best for her?’

  ‘It will not be easy… ’ Keffria faltered. ‘Althea is used to getting her own way. And Mother—’

  ‘I know. Your mother is having second thoughts about all of this. Her judgement is not the best at this time. She has lost her husband, and fears to lose her daughter as well. But she will only truly lose Althea if she gives into her and lets her go her own wild way. If she wants to keep her, she must force her to come home and live her life properly. But I know that is not how your mother sees it just now. Still. Give her time, Keffria. Give them both time, for that matter, and they will see how right we are and come to thank us. What is it?’

  They both turned to the tap at the door. Malta peeked around the corner. ‘May I come in?’ she asked timorously.

  ‘Your mother and I are having a conversation,’ Kyle announced. He considered that an answer to the question. Without another glance at his daughter, he turned back to his wife. ‘I’ve had time to look over the accountings for the north properties. The tenants on the Ingleby farm have not paid a full rent for the last three years. They should be moved out. Or the whole farm should be sold. One of the two.’