by Robin Hobb
She could think of too much to reply to that, and so said nothing. The water purled past her bow, the even breeze sped them on. The man on the wheel had a competent touch; he should have, he was one of Captain Vestrit’s choosing and had been aboard her for almost a score of years. It was an evening to be satisfied, sailing south from winter cold back into warmth, and so her unhappiness pierced her all the more keenly.
There were things the boy had said to her, over the past few days, words he had spoken in anger and frustration and misery. A part of her recognized such words for what they were: Wintrow railed against his fate, not her. Yet she could not seem to let go of them, and they cut her like hooks whenever she allowed herself to think of them. He had reviled her yesterday morning after a particularly bad night’s watch, telling her that Sa had no part in her being and she partook nothing of his divine force, but was only a simulacrum of life and spirit, created by men for the serving of their own greed. The words had shocked and horrified her, but even worse was when Kyle had strode up from behind the boy and knocked him flat to the deck in fury that he would so goad her. Even the kinder men among the crew had spoken ill of Wintrow after that, saying the boy was sure to curse their luck with his evil words. Kyle had seemed ignorant that she would feel the blow he had struck Wintrow as keenly as the boy himself had. Nor had he paused to think that perhaps that was not the way to help Wintrow develop kindly feelings toward her. Instead Kyle ordered the lad below to the extra chores he hated most. She was left alone to mull over the boy’s poisonous words and wonder if they were not, after all, absolutely true.
The boy made her think. He made her think of things no other Vestrit had ever considered while on her decks. Half his life, she reflected, seemed to be considering how he saw that life in respect to the existence of others. She had known of Sa, for all the other Vestrits had revered him in a cursory way. But none of them had pondered the existence of the divine, nor thought to see the reflection of divinity in life around them. None of them had believed so firmly that there was goodness and honour inherent in every man’s breast, nor cherished the idea that every being had some special destiny to fulfil, that there was some need in the world that only that life lived correctly could satisfy. Hence none of them had been so bitterly disappointed as Wintrow had been in his everyday dealings with his fellows.
‘I think they’re going to have to cut my finger off.’ He spoke hesitantly and softly, as if his voicing of the fear might make it a reality.
Vivacia held her tongue. It was the first time since the accident that he had initiated a conversation. She suddenly recognized the deep fear he had been hiding behind his harsh words to her. She would listen and let him share with her whatever he could.
‘I think it’s more than broken. I think the joint is crushed.’ Simple words, but she felt the cold dread coiled beneath them. He took a breath and faced the actuality he’d been denying. ‘I think I’ve known it since it happened. Still I kept hoping… But my whole hand has been swelling since this morning. And it feels wet inside the bandaging.’ His voice went smaller. ‘So stupid. I’ve cared for others’ injuries before, not as a healer, but I know how to clean a wound and change a dressing. But this, my own hand… I haven’t been able to muster the courage to look at it since last night.’ He paused. She heard him swallow.
‘Isn’t it odd?’ he went on in a higher, strained voice. ‘I was there once when Sa’Garit cut a man’s leg off. It had to be done. It was so obvious to all of us. But the man kept saying, “no, no, let’s wait a bit longer, perhaps it will get better,” when hour by hour, we could see it getting worse. Finally his wife persuaded him to let us do what had to be done. I wondered, then, why he had kept putting it off, instead of simply getting it over with. Why cling to a rotting hunk of flesh and bone, simply because it used to be a useful part of your body?’
His voice suddenly closed itself off. He curled forward over his hand again. And now she could sense the throbbing of his pain, the beat, beat, beat in his hand that echoed every pulse of his body’s heart.
‘Did I ever really look at my hands before, really think about them? A priest’s hands… one always hears about a priest’s hands. All my life, I had perfect hands. Ten fingers, all working and nimble… I used to create stained-glass windows. Did you know that, Vivacia? I used to sit and plunge myself so deeply into my work… my hands would move of their own accord, it almost seemed. And now…’
He fell silent again. Vivacia dared to speak. ‘A lot of sailors lose fingers. Or whole limbs. Yet those sailors still…’
‘I’m not a sailor. I’m a priest. I was to be a priest! Until my father condemned me to this. He’s destroying me. He deliberately seeks to destroy me. He and his men make mock of my belief, when I try to hold to my ideals they use them against me. I cannot withstand what he is doing to me, what they are all doing to me. They are destroying…’
‘Yet those sailors still remain who they are, lost limbs or not.’ Vivacia continued implacably. ‘You are not a finger, Wintrow. You’re a man. You cut your hair, your nails, and you are still Wintrow and a man. And if you are a priest, then you will remain one, nine fingers or ten. If you must lose a finger, then you must lose a finger. But do not use it as an excuse to stop being yourself.’ She paused, almost savouring the boy’s astonished silence. ‘I know little of your Sa, Wintrow. But I know much of the Vestrits. What you are born to be, you will be, whether it be priest or sailor. So step up and be it. Let them do nothing to you. Be the one who shapes yourself. Be who you are, and eventually all will have to recognize who you are, whether they are willing to admit it or not. And if your will is that you will shape yourself in Sa’s image, then do so. Without whimpering.’
‘Ship.’ He spoke the word softly, but it was almost like a benediction. He placed his good hand flat on her planking. After a moment’s hesitation, he placed his injured hand, palm down, beside it. For the first time since Althea had left the ship, she felt one of her own deliberately reach towards her for strength. She doubted that he knew that was what he did; perhaps as he bowed his head and spoke soft words, he thought he prayed to Sa. But no matter who he addressed his plea for strength to, she was the one who answered it.
‘Wintrow,’ she said quietly, when his soft words were finished. ‘Go to your father now and tell him it must be done. And demand that it be done here, beside me. In my name, if they will not heed your wish.’
She had feared he would hesitate. Instead he rose gracefully. Without a word to anyone else he made his way to the captain’s gallery, where he rapped smartly on the door with his good hand.
‘Enter,’ Kyle replied.
She could not see all that went on within herself, but she was aware of it in a way humans had never given her a word for. So she knew the thundering of Wintrow’s heart, and sensed too the small leap of triumph he felt when his father looked up from his bills of lading to startle at the sight of his son standing so boldly before him.
‘What do you do here?’ Kyle demanded harshly. ‘You’re the ship’s boy, no more than that. Don’t bring your whining to me.’
Wintrow stood quietly until his father was finished. Then in an even voice he spoke. ‘I need this finger cut off. It was crushed, and now it’s infected. I can tell already it won’t get better.’ He took a small, swift breath. ‘I’d like it done while it’s only the finger and not the whole hand.’
When Kyle finally replied, his voice was thick and uncertain. ‘You are sure of this? Did the mate tell you so? He does the doctoring aboard the ship.’
‘It scarcely needs a doctor’s eye. See for yourself.’ With a casualness Vivacia was sure Wintrow did not feel, he began to unwind the crusted bandaging. His father made a small sound. ‘The smell is bad, also,’ Wintrow confirmed, still in that easy voice. ‘The sooner you cut it off for me, the better.’
His father rose, scraping his chair back over the deck. ‘I’ll get the mate for you. Sit down, son.’
‘I’d rather you did
it, sir, if it’s all the same to you. And up on deck, by the figurehead.’ She could almost feel Wintrow’s calculated glance about the room. ‘No sense in bleeding in your stateroom,’ he added, almost as an afterthought.
‘I can’t… I’ve never…’
‘I can show you where to cut, sir. It’s not that different from boning out a fowl for the pot. It’s just a matter of cutting out the joint. That’s another thing they taught me in the monastery. Sometimes it surprised me, how much cooking had in common with medicine. The herbs, the knowledge of… meat. The knives.’
It was some kind of a challenge, Vivacia realized. She didn’t understand it in full. She wondered if even Wintrow did. She tried to work it through in her head. If Kyle refused to cut the infected finger from his son’s hand, he somehow lost. Lost what? She was not sure, but she suspected it had something to do with who truly controlled Wintrow’s life. Perhaps it was a challenge from the boy for his father to admit fully to himself the life he had forced his son into, to make him confront completely the harshness of it. There was in it also the foolish challenge to risk his body that he had refused in town. They had called him a coward for that, and deemed him fearful of pain. He would prove to them all now that it had not been pain he feared. A shiver of pride in him travelled over her. Truly, he was unlike any Vestrit she had ever carried before.
‘I’ll call the mate,’ Kyle Vestrit replied firmly.
‘The mate won’t do,’ Wintrow asserted softly.
Kyle ignored him. He stepped to the door, opened it and leaned out to bellow, ‘GANTRY!’ for the mate. ‘I’m captain of this ship,’ he told Wintrow in the intervening space of quiet. ‘And on this ship, I say what will or will not do. And I say who does what. The mate does this sort of doctoring, not I.’
‘I had thought my father might prefer to do it himself,’ Wintrow essayed quietly. ‘But I see you have no stomach for it. I’ll wait for the mate on the foredeck, then.’
‘It’s not a matter of stomach,’ Kyle railed at him, and in that moment Vivacia glimpsed what Wintrow had done. He had shifted this, somehow, from a matter between the ship’s boy and the captain to something between a father and a son.
‘Then come and watch, Father. To give me courage.’ Wintrow made his request. No plea, but a simple request. He stepped out of the cabin without waiting to be dismissed, not even pausing for an answer. As he walked away, Gantry approached the door, to be harshly ordered to fetch his surgeon’s kit and come to the foredeck. Wintrow did not pause but paced calmly back to the foredeck.
‘They’re coming,’ he told Vivacia quietly. ‘My father and the mate, to cut off my finger. I pray I don’t scream.’
‘You’ve the will,’ Vivacia promised him. ‘Put your hand flat to my deck for the cut. I’ll be with you.’
The boy made no reply to that. A light breeze filled her sails and blew to her the scent of his sweat and fear. But he spoke no more words. He only sat patiently picking the last of the bandaging from his injured hand. ‘No.’ He spoke the word with finality. ‘There’s no saving this. Better to be parted from it before it poisons my whole body.’ She felt him let go of the finger, felt him remove it from his perception of his body. In his mind, he had already done the deed.
‘They come,’ Vivacia said softly.
‘I know.’ He gave a nervous giggle, chilling to hear. ‘I feel them. Through you.’
It was his first acknowledgement of such a thing. Vivacia wished it could have come at a different time, when they could have spoken about it privately, or simply been alone together to explore the joining. But the two men were on the foredeck and Wintrow reflexively surged to his feet and turned to face them. His injured hand rested upon the palm of his good one like an offering.
Kyle jerked his chin toward his son. ‘Boy thinks you need to take his finger off. What do you think?’
Wintrow’s heart seemed to pause in his chest, then begin again. Wordlessly he presented his hand to the mate. Gantry glanced at it and bared his teeth in his distaste. ‘The boy is right.’ He spoke to his captain, not Wintrow. He gripped Wintrow’s right wrist firmly and turned his hand to see the finger from all sides. He gave a short grunt of disgust. ‘I’ll be having a word with Torg. I should have seen this hand before now. Even if we take the finger off now, the lad will need a day or so of rest, for it looks to me like the poison from the finger has worked into the hand.’
‘Torg knows his business,’ Kyle replied. ‘No man can predict everything.’
Gantry looked levelly at his captain. There was no argument in his voice as he observed, ‘But Torg has a mean streak to him, and it comes out worst when he thinks he has one who should be his better at his mercy. It’s what drove Brashen away; the man was a good hand, save when Torg was prodding him. Torg, he picks a man, and doesn’t know when to leave off riding him.’ Gantry went on carefully, ‘It’s not a matter of favouritism. Don’t fear that. I don’t care what this lad’s name is, sir. He’s a working hand aboard the ship, and a ship runs best when all hands can work.’ He paused. ‘I’ll be having a word with Torg,’ he repeated, and this time Kyle made no reply. Gantry’s next words were to Wintrow.
‘You’re ready to do this.’ It wasn’t really a question, mostly an affirmation that the boy had seen the right of it.
‘I am.’ Wintrow’s voice had gone low and deep. He went down on one knee, almost as if he were pledging his loyalty to someone, and set his injured hand flat on Vivacia’s deck. She closed her eyes. She concentrated on that touch, on the splayed fingers pressing against the foredeck. She was wordlessly grateful that the foredeck was planked with wizardwood. It was almost an unheard-of use for the expensive wood, but today she would see that it would be worth every coin the Vestrits had pledged for it. She gripped his hand, adding her will to his that it would not move from the place where he had set it.
The mate had crouched beside him and was unrolling a canvas kit of tools. Knives and probes rested in canvas pockets, while needles were pierced through the canvas. Some were ready threaded with fine fish-gut twine. As the last of the kit bounced open, it revealed the saws, toothed both fine and coarse. Wintrow swallowed. Beside them Gantry set out bandages of lint and linen.
‘You’ll want brandy,’ Gantry told him harshly. The man’s heart was a deep trembling inside him. Vivacia was glad he was not unfeeling about this.
‘No.’ The boy’s word was soft.
‘He may want it. Afterwards.’ She dared to speak up. Wintrow did not contradict her.
‘I’ll fetch it,’ Kyle said harshly.
‘No.’ Both she and Wintrow spoke the word together.
‘I wish you to stay,’ Vivacia said more softly. It was her right. But in case Kyle did not understand it, she spoke it aloud. ‘When you cut Wintrow, I bleed. In a manner of speaking,’ she added. She forced her own nervousness down. ‘I have a right to demand that you be here, with me, when something as unsettling as this is happening on my deck.’
‘We could take the boy below,’ Kyle offered gruffly.
‘No,’ she forbade him again. ‘If this mutilation must be done, I wish it done here, where I may witness it.’ She saw no need to tell him that no matter where on the ship it was done, she would be aware of it. If he was that ignorant of her full nature, let him remain so. ‘Send one of the others.’
Kyle turned to follow her gaze, and almost startled. The rumour had spread quickly. Every hand that was not occupied had somehow found an excuse to draw closer to the foredeck. Mild, white-faced, almost jumped out of his skin when Kyle pointed at him. ‘You. Fetch the brandy and a glass. Quickly.’
The boy jumped to the command, his bare feet slapping the deck as he hastened away. No one else moved. Kyle chose to ignore them.
Wintrow took a deep breath. If he had noticed those who had gathered to watch, he gave no sign of it. His words were spoken to Gantry. He lifted his left hand and pointed carefully to his injured right. ‘There is a place, right here… in the knuckle. That’s
where I want you to cut. You’ll have to go in… with the point of the knife… and sort of feel as you cut. If you feel the knuckle of your own hand, you can find the spot I mean. That way there will be no jag of bone left… And afterwards, I want you to draw the skin together over the… space. And stitch it.’ He cleared his throat and spoke plainly. ‘Careful is better than fast. A clean slice, not a chop.’
Between each phrase, Wintrow drew a steadying breath. His voice did not quite shake, nor did his hand as he pointed carefully to what had been the index finger of his right hand. The finger that might have worn a priest’s pledge ring some day, had he been allowed to keep it. Sa, in your mercy, do not let me scream. Do not let me faint, nor look away. If I must do this, let me do it well.
The undercurrent of the boy’s thoughts were so strong, Vivacia found herself joined with him. He took a final breath, deep and steadying as Gantry chose a knife and held it up. It was a good one, shining and clean and sharp. Wintrow nodded slowly. Behind him came the patter of Mild’s feet and his whisper of, ‘I’ve brought the brandy, sir,’ but it seemed to come from far away, as faint and meaningless as the cries of the seabirds. Wintrow was doing something, Vivacia realized. With each breath, the muscles of his body slackened. He dwindled inside himself, going smaller and stiller, almost as if he were dying. He’s going to faint, she thought, and pity for him filled her.
Then in the next instant he did something she did not understand. He left himself. He was not gone from his body, but in some strange way he was apart from it. It was almost as if he had joined her and looked through her eyes at the slender boy kneeling so still upon the foredeck. His hair had pulled free from his sailor’s queue. A few strands danced on his forehead, others stuck to it with sweat. But his black eyes were calm, his mouth relaxed as he watched the shining blade come down to his hand.