by Robin Hobb
A bit more pressure and Althea yelled, ‘Wah!’ and suddenly batted his hand away. ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded angrily, turning to glare up at him.
‘I told you. I’ve got to stitch this shut.’
‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘I wasn’t listening.’ She rubbed at her eyes, then reached back to touch her own scalp cautiously. ‘I suppose you do have to close it,’ she said ruefully. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. ‘I wish I could either pass out or wake up,’ she said woefully. ‘I just feel foggy. I hate it.’
‘Let me see what I have in here,’ he suggested. He knelt on one knee to rummage through the ship’s stores of medicines. ‘This stuff hasn’t been replenished in years,’ he grumbled to himself as Althea peered past his shoulder. ‘Half the containers are empty, the herbs that should be green or brown are grey, and some of the other stuff smells like mould.’
‘Maybe it’s supposed to smell like mould?’ Althea suggested.
‘I don’t know,’ he muttered.
‘Let me look. I used to restock Vivacia’s medicines when we got to town.’ She leaned against him to reach the chest in the small space between the bunk and the wall. She inspected a few bottles, holding them up to the lamplight and then setting them aside. She opened one small pot, wrinkled her nose in distaste at the strong odour, and capped it again. ‘There’s nothing useful in there,’ she decided, and sat back on the bunk. ‘I’ll hold it closed and you just stitch it. I’ll try to sit still.’
‘Just a minute,’ Brashen said grudgingly. He had saved part of the plug of cindin. Not a very large part, just a bit to give him something to look forward to on a bad day. He took it out of his coat pocket and brushed lint off it. He showed it to Althea and then carefully broke it in two pieces. ‘Cindin. It should wake you up a bit, and make you feel better. You do it like this.’ He tucked it into his lower lip, packed it down with his tongue. The familiar bitterness spread through his mouth. If it hadn’t been for the taste of the cindin, he thought ruefully, he might have tasted the drug in his beer. He pushed that aside as a useless thought and nudged the cindin away from the earlier sore.
‘It’ll taste very bitter at first,’ he warned her. ‘That’s the wormwood in it. Gets your juices going.’
She looked very dubious as she tucked it into her lip. She made a wry face and then sat meeting his eyes, waiting. After a moment she asked, ‘Is it supposed to burn?’
‘This is pretty strong stuff,’ he admitted. ‘Shift it around in your lip. Don’t leave it in one place too long.’ He watched the expression on her face slowly change, and felt an answering grin spread over his own. ‘Pretty good, huh?’
She gave a low laugh. ‘Fast, too.’
‘Starts fast, ends fast. I never really saw any harm to it, as long as a man had finished before he came on watch.’
He watched her awkwardly move the plug in her lip. ‘My father said that men used it when they should have been sleeping instead. Then they come on watch all used up. And if they were still on it when they were working, they’d be too confident, and take unneeded risks.’ Her voice trailed off. ‘“Risk-takers endanger everyone”, he always said.’
‘Yes. I remember,’ Brashen agreed gravely. ‘I never used cindin aboard the Vivacia, Althea. I respected your father too much.’
For a moment silence held, then she sighed. ‘Let’s do this,’ she suggested.
‘Right,’ he agreed. He took up the needle and thread again. She followed it with her eyes. Maybe he’d made her too alert. ‘There’s no room in here to work,’ he complained. ‘Here. Lie down on the bunk and turn your head. Good.’ He crouched down on the floor beside the bunk. This was better, he could almost see what he was doing. He dabbed away the sluggishly welling blood and picked out a few stray hairs. ‘Now hold the gash shut. No, your fingers are in the way. Here. Like this.’ He arranged her hands, and it was no accident that one of her wrists was mostly over her eyes. ‘I’ll try to be quick.’
‘Be careful instead,’ she warned him. ‘And don’t stitch it too tight. Just pull the edges together as evenly as you can, but not so they hump up.’
‘I’ll try. I’ve never done this before, you know. But I’ve watched it done more than once.’
She moved the plug of cindin in her lip, and he remembered to shift his own. He winced as it touched a sore from earlier in the evening. He saw her jaws clench and he began. He tried not to think of the pain he inflicted, only of doing a good job. He finally got the needle to pierce her scalp. He had to hold the skin firmly to her skull as he brought the tip of the curved needle up on the other side of the cut. Drawing the thread through was the worst. It made a tiny ripping noise as it slipped through, very unnerving to him. She set her teeth and shuddered to each stitch, but did not cry out.
When it was finally done, he tied the last knot and then snipped away the extra thread.
‘There,’ he told her, and tossed the needle aside. ‘Let go, now. Let me see how I did.’
She dropped her hands to the bed. Sweat misted her face. He studied the gash critically. His work was not wonderful, but it was holding the flesh closed. He nodded his satisfaction to her.
‘Thanks.’ She spoke softly.
‘Thank you.’ He finally said the words. ‘I owe you. But for you, I’d be in the hold of the Jolly Gal by now.’ He bent his head and kissed her cheek. Then her arm came up around his neck and she turned her mouth to the kiss. He lost his balance and caught himself awkwardly with one hand on the edge of the bunk, but did not break the kiss. She tasted of the cindin they were sharing. Her hand grasped the back of his neck gently and that touch was as stimulating as the kiss. It had been so long since anyone had touched him with gentleness.
She finally broke the kiss, moving her mouth aside from his. He leaned back from her. ‘Well,’ he said awkwardly. He took a breath. ‘Let’s get a bandage on your head.’
She nodded at him slowly.
He took up a strip of cloth and leaned over her again. ‘It’s the cindin, you know,’ he said abruptly.
She moved it in her lip. ‘Probably. And I don’t care if it is.’ Narrow as the bunk was, she still managed to edge over in it. Invitingly. She set her hand to his side and heat seemed to radiate out from it. A shiver stood his hair up in gooseflesh. The hand urged him forward.
He made a low sound in his throat and tried one last time. ‘This isn’t a good idea. It’s not safe.’
‘Nothing is,’ she told him, almost sadly.
His fingers were awkward on the laces of her shirt, and even after she shrugged out of it, there was a wrapping about her chest. He unwound it to free her small breasts and kiss them. Thin, she was so thin, and she tasted of the salt water, oakum and even the oil that was their cargo. But she was warm and willing and female, and he crammed himself into the too-narrow, too-short bunk to be with her. It was likely the cindin that made her dark eyes bottomless, he tried to tell himself. Startling it was that such a sharp-tongued girl would have a mouth so soft and pliant. Even when she set her teeth to the flesh of his shoulder to still her wordless cries, the pain was sweet. ‘Althea,’ he said softly into her hair, between the second and third times. ‘Althea Vestrit.’ He named not just the girl but the whole realm of sensation she had wakened in him.
Brash. Brashen Trell. Some small part of her could not believe she was doing this with Brashen Trell. Not this. Some small, sarcastic observer watched incredulously as she indulged her every impulse with his body. He was the worst possible choice for this. Then, too late to worry about it, she told herself, and pulled him even deeper inside her. She strained against him. It made no sense, but she could not find the part of her that cared about such things. Always, other than that first time, she’d had the sense to keep this sort of thing impersonal. Now not only was she giving in to herself and him with an abandonment that shocked her, but she was doing this with someone she had known for years. And not just once, no. He had scarcely collapsed upon her the first time before she was urging him t
o begin again. She was like a starving woman suddenly confronted with a banquet. The heat in her was strong, and she wondered if that were the cindin. But just as great was the sudden need she was admitting for this close human contact, the touching and sharing and holding. At one point she felt tears sting her eyes and a sob shake her. She stifled it against his shoulder, almost afraid of the strength of the loneliness and fears that this coupling seemed to be erasing. For so long she had been strong; she could not bear to display her weakness like this to anyone, let alone to someone who actually knew who she was. So she clutched him fiercely and let him believe it was part of her passion.
She did not want to think. Not now. Now she just wanted to take what she could get, for herself. She ran her hands over the hard muscles of his arms and back. In the centre of his chest was a thick patch of curly hair. Elsewhere on his chest and belly there was black stubble, the hair chafed away by the coarse fabric of his clothes and the ship’s constant motion. Over and over again he kissed her, as if he could not get enough of it. His mouth tasted of cindin, and when he kissed her breasts, she felt the hot sting of the drug on her nipples. She slipped her hand down between their bodies, felt the hard slickness of him as he slid in and out of her. A moment later she clapped her hand over his mouth to muffle his cry as he thrust into her and then held them both teetering on the edge of for ever.
For a time she thought of nothing. Then from somewhere else, she abruptly came back to the narrow sweaty bunk and his crushing weight upon her and her hair caught under his splayed hand. Her feet were cold, she realized. And she had a cramp in the small of her back. She heaved under him. ‘Let me up,’ she said quietly, and when he did not move at first, ‘Brashen, you’re squashing me. Get off!’
He shifted and she managed to sit up. He edged over on the bunk so that she was sitting in the curl of his prone body. He looked up at her, not quite smiling. He lifted a hand, and with a finger traced a circle around one of her breasts. She shivered. With a tenderness that horrified her, he drew the sole blanket up to drape her shoulders. ‘Althea,’ he began.
‘Don’t talk,’ she begged him suddenly. ‘Don’t say anything.’ Somehow if he spoke of what they had just done, it would make it more real, make it a part of her life that she’d have to admit to later. Now that she was satiated, her caution was coming back. ‘This can’t happen again,’ she told him suddenly.
‘I know. I know.’ Nonetheless, his eyes followed his hand as he traced his fingers down her throat to her belly. He tapped at the ring and charm in her navel. ‘That’s… unusual.’
In the gently shifting lanternlight, the tiny skull winked up at them. ‘It was a gift from my dear sister,’ Althea said bitterly.
‘I…’ he hesitated. ‘I thought only whores wore them,’ he finished lamely.
‘That’s my sister’s opinion as well,’ Althea replied stonily. Without warning, the old hurt lashed her.
She suddenly curled herself smaller and managed to lie down in the bunk beside him. He snugged her into the curve of his body. The warmth felt good, as did the gentle tickling as he toyed with one of her breasts. She should push his hand away, she knew. She should let this go no further than it had. Getting up and getting dressed and going back to the forecastle would be the wisest thing she could do. Getting up in the chill cabin and putting her cold wet clothes back on… She shivered and pressed against his warmth. He shifted to put both arms around her and hold her close. Safe.
‘Why did she give you a wizardwood charm?’ She could hear the reluctant curiosity in his voice.
‘So I wouldn’t get pregnant and shame my family. Or catch some disfiguring disease that would let all Bingtown know what a slut I was.’ She deliberately chose the hard word, spat it out at herself.
He froze for an instant, then soothed his hand down her back. Stroking her, then gently kneading at her shoulders and neck until she sighed and relaxed into him again. ‘It was my own fault,’ she heard herself say. ‘I should never have told her about it. But I was only fourteen and I felt like I had to tell someone. And I couldn’t tell my father, not after he discharged Devon.’
‘Devon.’ He spoke the name, making it not quite a question.
She sighed. ‘It was before you came on board. Devon. He was a deckhand. So handsome, and always with a jest and a smile for anything, even misfortune. Nothing daunted him. He’d dare anything.’ Her voice trailed off. For a time she thought only of Brash’s hand gently moving over her back, unknotting the muscles there as if he were untangling a line.
‘That was where he and my father differed, of course. “He’d be the best deckhand on this ship if he had common sense,” Papa once told me. “And he’d make a good first, if he only knew when to get scared.” But Devon didn’t sail like that. He was always complaining that we could carry more sail than we did, and when he worked aloft, he was always the fastest. I knew what my father meant. When the other men tried to keep up with him, for pride’s sake, then work was done faster but not as thoroughly. Mistakes were made. And sailors got hurt. None seriously, but you know how my father was. He always said it was because the Vivacia was a liveship. He said accidents and deaths on board a liveship are bad for the ship; the emotions are too strong.’
‘I think he was right,’ Brashen said quietly. He kissed the back of her neck.
‘I know he was,’ Althea said in mild annoyance. She sighed suddenly. ‘But I was fourteen. And Devon was so handsome. He had grey eyes. He’d sit about on deck after his watch was over, and whittle things for me and tell me stories of his wandering. It seemed like he’d been everywhere and done everything. He never exactly spoke against Papa, to me or to the rest of the crew, but you could always tell when he thought we were sailing too cautious. He’d get this disdainful little smile at the corner of his mouth. Sometimes just that look could make my father furious with him, but I’m afraid I thought it was adorable. Daring. Mocking danger.’ She sighed. ‘I believed he could do no wrong. Oh, I was in love.’
‘And he acted on that, when you were fourteen?’ Brashen’s voice was condemning. ‘On your father’s ship? That’s far past the line of daring, into stupidity.’
‘No. It wasn’t like that.’ Althea spoke reluctantly. She didn’t want to tell him any of this, yet somehow she could not stop. ‘I think he knew how I adored him, and he sometimes flirted with me, but in a joking way. So I could treasure his words, even as I knew he didn’t mean them.’ She shook her head at herself. ‘But one night I got my chance. We were tied up at a dock in Lees. Quiet night. My father had gone into Lees on business, and most of the crew had liberty. I had the watch. I had had liberty earlier that day, and I’d gone into town and bought myself, oh, earrings, and some scent and a silk blouse and a long silk skirt. And I was wearing it all, all rigged out for him to see whenever he came back from the taverns. And when I saw him coming back to the ship early, by himself, my heart started hammering so hard I could barely breathe. I knew it was my chance.
‘He came aboard with a bound, like he always did, landing on the deck like a cat and stood before me.’ She gave a snort of laughter. ‘You know, we must have talked, I must have said something, he must have said something. But I can’t recall a word of it, only how happy I was to finally be able to tell him how much I loved him, with no need to be careful, for no one would over hear us. And he stood and grinned to hear me say it, as if he could not believe how fortune had favoured him. And… he took my arm and walked me across the deck. He bent me over a hatch cover, and lifted my skirts and pulled down my knickers… and he took me right there. Bent over a hatch cover, like a boy.’
‘He raped you?’ Brashen was aghast.
Althea choked back an odd laughter. ‘No. No, it wasn’t rape. He didn’t force me. I didn’t know a thing about it, but I was sure I was in love. I went willingly, and I stood still for it. He wasn’t rough, but he was thorough. Very thorough. And I didn’t know what to expect, so I suppose I wasn’t disappointed. And afterwards, he looked at me w
ith that adorable grin and said, “I hope you remember this the rest of your life, Althea. I promise I will.’” She took a deep breath. ‘Then he went below and came back up with his sea-bag all packed and left the ship. And I never saw him again.’ A silence stretched out. ‘I kept watching and waiting for him to come back. When we left port two days later, I found out Papa had fired him as soon as we had docked.’
Brashen let out a low groan. ‘Oh, no.’ He shook his head. ‘Taking you was his revenge against your father.’
She spoke slowly. ‘I never thought of it quite that way. I always thought that it was just something he dared to do, reckoning he wouldn’t get caught.’ She forced herself to ask him, ‘You really think it was revenge?’
‘Sounds like it to me,’ Brashen said quietly. ‘I think that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard,’ he added softly. ‘Devon. If I ever meet him, I’ll kill him for you.’ The sincerity in his voice startled her.
‘The worst was afterwards,’ she admitted to him. ‘We got to Bingtown a couple of weeks later. And I was sure I must be pregnant. Just positive of it. Well, I dared not go to my father, and mother wasn’t much better. So I went to my married sister Keffria, sure that she could advise me. I swore her to silence and then I told her.’ Althea shook her head. She moved the cindin in her lip again. It had left a sore. The flavour was almost gone now.
‘Keffria?’ Brashen pushed her. He sounded as if he genuinely wanted to know the rest of the story.
‘Was horrified. She started crying, and told me I was ruined for ever. A slut and a whore and a shame to my family name. She stopped speaking to me. Four or five days later, my blood-days came, right on time. I found her alone and told her, and told her if she ever told Papa or Mama, I’d say she was lying. Because I was so scared. From all she had said, I was sure that they’d throw me out and never love me again if they knew.’
‘Hadn’t she promised not to tell?’
‘I didn’t trust her to keep her word. I was already pretty sure she’d told Kyle, from the way he started treating me. But she didn’t yell at me or anything. She hardly spoke at all when she gave me the navel ring. Just told me that if I wore it, I wouldn’t get pregnant or diseased, and that it was the least that I owed my family.’ Althea scratched the back of her neck, then winced. ‘It was never the same after that between us. We learned to be civil to one another, mostly to stop our parents from asking questions. But I think that was the worst summer of my life. Betrayal on top of betrayal.’