The Liveship Traders Series

by Robin Hobb

  ‘I won’t,’ he promised. Cautiously, he asked, ‘Are you angry at me?’

  ‘I was,’ she admitted. ‘I’m not any more.’

  ‘You didn’t shout at me. You were so quiet I thought you had left.’

  ‘I almost did. I detest shouting. I hate being shouted at, and I never shout at anyone. That doesn’t mean I never get angry though.’ After a moment’s pause, she added, ‘Or that I never get hurt. “Only my pain is more silent than my anger.” That’s a quote from the poet Tinni. Or a paraphrase, actually, a translation.’

  ‘Tell me the whole poem,’ Paragon begged, leaping swiftly to this safe topic. He wanted to get away from speaking of anger and hatred and spoiled children. Perhaps if she told him the poem, she would forget that he had not apologized. He did not want her to know that he could not apologize.

  ‘Nana has said that she would rather stay on at half-pay, if we can still afford that.’ Ronica spoke the words into the quiet room. Keffria sat in the chair on the opposite side of the hearth, where her father had sat in the times when he was home. She held a small embroidery frame, and skeins of coloured thread were arranged on the arm of the chair, but she no longer pretended to work. Ronica’s hands were likewise idle.

  ‘Can we afford that?’ Keffria asked.

  ‘Only just. If we are willing to eat simply and live simply. I’m almost embarrassed to say how grateful and relieved I am that she offered. I felt so guilty letting her go. Most families want a young woman to watch over their children. It would have been hard for her to find another place.’

  ‘I know. And Selden would have been devastated.’ She cleared her throat. ‘So. What about Rache?’

  ‘The same,’ her mother said shortly.

  Keffria began carefully, ‘If our finances are so strained, then perhaps paying Rache a wage is not as essential—’

  ‘I don’t see it that way,’ Ronicà stated abruptly.

  Keffria was silent, simply looking at her.

  After a short time, Ronica was the one to glance aside. ‘Beg pardon. I know I’ve been too sharp with everyone lately.’ She forced her voice to be conversational. ‘I feel it is important that Rache be paid something. Important for all of us. Not so important that I would put Malta at risk for it, but far more important than new frocks and hair ribbons.’

  ‘Actually, I agree,’ Keffria said quietly. ‘I but wanted to discuss it with you. So. With those expenses agreed on… will we still have enough to pay the Festrews?’

  Her mother nodded. ‘We have the gold, Keffria. I’ve set it aside, the full amount we owe, and the penalty. We can pay the Festrews. What we can’t pay is anyone else. And there are a few who will come between now and then, demanding payment.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Keffria asked. Then, remembering, she changed it to, ‘What do you think we should do?’

  Ronica took a breath. ‘I suggest we wait and see who comes, and how insistent they are. The Vivacia is due before long. Some may be willing to be put off until she arrives, others may demand extra interest. If we are unlucky, there will be some that demand immediate payment. Then we will have to sell something from the holdings.’

  ‘But you believe that should be a final resort?’

  ‘I do.’ Her mother spoke firmly. ‘Carriages, horses, even jewellery are all things that come and go. I don’t think we’ve truly missed what we’ve sold. Oh, I know it has grated on Malta not to have new clothes this winter, but I don’t think her suffering has been as acute as her temper. It is good for her to learn a little thrift; she has not had to practise it much at any other time in her life.’

  Keffria bit her tongue. Her daughter had become a painful topic, one she wished to discuss as little as possible. ‘But land?’ she prompted her mother. It was a discussion they had had before. She didn’t really know why she brought it up again.

  ‘The holdings are another matter. As more and more folk come to Bingtown, the best land becomes ever more precious. If we sold what we have now, our best offers would come from new folk. That goes without saying. If we sell to them, we lose much goodwill from our Old Trader kin. We deliver more power into the hands of the new folk. And, to me the most telling point, we are selling something that can never be replaced. One can always buy a new carriage or some earrings. But there is no more bottom land near Bingtown to be had. Once ours is gone, we’ve given it up for ever.’

  ‘I think you are right. And you believe we can hold out until the Vivacia returns?’

  ‘I do. We had word that she hailed the Vestroy as they passed one another in Markham’s Straits. That means she is right on schedule getting into Jamaillia. The southbound trip is always the trickiest this time of year.’ Her mother was only speaking what they both already knew. What was so reassuring about again sharing these thoughts? A belief that perhaps if one spoke them often enough, fate would listen and heed their plans? ‘If Kyle does as well with selling slaves as he believed he would, then when he returns, we should have enough to put ourselves current with our creditors.’ Ronica’s voice was carefully neutral when she mentioned the slaves. She still did not approve. Well, neither did Keffria. But what else could they do?

  ‘If he does well with the slaves, then we will have enough,’ she echoed her mother. ‘But only just enough. Mother, how long can we go on just keeping abreast of our debts? If prices for grain fall any lower, we shall be falling behind. Then what?’

  ‘Then we shall not be alone,’ her mother said in a dire voice.

  Keffria took a breath. The things they had hoped would come to pass, they spoke of often. Now she dared to voice their unuttered fear. ‘Do you truly believe there will be an uprising against the Satrap? A war?’ Even to speak of war against Jamaillia was difficult. Despite being born in Bingtown, Jamaillia was still home. It was the motherland, the source, the pride of the folk of Bingtown, the seat of all civilization and learning. Jamaillia, gleaming white city to the south.

  Her mother sat silent a long time before she replied. ‘A great deal will depend on how the Satrap replies to our envoys. There has been another disturbing rumour; they say the Satrap will hire Chalcedean mercenaries as escorts for Jamaillian tradeships and privateers to get rid of the pirates in the Inside Passage. Already people are arguing, saying we cannot allow armed Chalcedean ships in our harbour and waters. But I do not think there will be outright war. We are not a warring people, we are traders. The Satrap must know that all we are asking is that he keep his word to us. Our envoys carry with them the original charter for our company. It will be read aloud to the Satrap and his Companions. No one can deny what was promised us. He will have to call back the New Traders.’

  Keffria thought her mother was doing it again; speaking aloud what they hoped would be, trying to forge a reality from words. ‘Some thought he might offer us money in reparation,’ she ventured.

  ‘We would not take it,’ her mother said quickly. ‘I was frankly shocked by Davad Restart when he suggested we should set an amount and seek it. One does not buy back one’s word.’ Her voice went bitter as she added, ‘Sometimes I fear Davad has forgotten who he is. He spends so much time with the New Traders and takes their part so often. We stand between the world and our Rain Wild kin. Shall we take money for our family?’

  ‘It is hard for me to care about them just now. Whenever I think of them, I feel them as a threat to Malta.’

  ‘A threat?’ Ronica sounded almost offended. ‘Keffria, we must keep in mind that they are but holding us to our original agreement. Exactly the same thing we are requiring of the Satrap.’

  ‘Then it does not feel at all to you as if we would be selling her into slavery, if a time came when we did not have the payment and they claimed blood instead?’

  Ronica was silent a moment. ‘No, it does not,’ she said at last. Then she sighed. ‘I would not be happy to see her go. But, you know, Keffria, I have never heard of any Bingtown man or woman who was kept against their will by the Rain Wild Traders. They seek wives and husba
nds, not servants. Who would wish to wed someone against their inclination? Some folk go there of their own accord. And some, who go there as part of a contract, return when it suits them. You remember Scilla Appleby? She was carried off to the Rain Wilds when her family failed in a contract. Eight months later, they brought her back to Bingtown, because she was unhappy there. And two months after that, she sent them word that she had made a mistake, and they came for her again. So it cannot be all that bad.’

  ‘I heard that her family shamed her into returning. That her grandfather and mother both felt she had disgraced the Applebys and broken their pledge when she came back to Bingtown.’

  ‘I suppose that could be so,’ her mother conceded doubtfully.

  ‘I don’t want Malta to go there against her will,’ Keffria said bluntly. ‘Not for duty nor for pride. Not even for our good name. If it came down to it, I think I would help her run away myself.’

  ‘Sa help me, I fear I would, too.’ Her mother’s words came some minutes later, uttered in a voice that seemed dragged from her.

  Keffria was shocked. Not just by what her mother was admitting, but by the depth of emotion that her voice betrayed. Ronica spoke on.

  ‘There have been times when I hated that ship. How could anything be worth so much? Not just gold they pledged, but their own descendants!’

  ‘If Papa had continued in the Rain Wild trade, the Vivacia would most likely be paid off by now,’ Keffria pointed out.

  ‘Most likely. But at what cost?’

  ‘So Papa always said,’ Keffria said slowly. ‘But I never understood it. Papa never explained it or talked about it in front of us girls. The only time I ever asked him about it, he just told me he thought it was an unlucky path to choose. Yet all the other families who have liveships trade with the Rain Wild families. As the Vestrits own a liveship, we have the right to do so, too. Yet Papa refused it.’ She spoke very carefully as she continued, ‘Perhaps it is a decision we should reconsider. Kyle would be willing. He made that clear when he asked about charts of the Rain River. Before that day, we had not discussed it. I thought that perhaps Papa had already explained to him. Before that day, he had never asked me why we stopped trading up the River. It just never came up.’

  ‘And if you manage things cleverly, it never will again,’ Ronica said shortly. ‘Kyle up the Rain River would be a disaster.’

  And here was another uncomfortable topic. Kyle.

  Keffria sighed. ‘I remember that when Grandfather was alive, he took the Vivacia upriver. I remember the gifts he used to bring us. A music box that twinkled as it played.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t even know what became of that.’ More quietly she added, ‘And I never truly understood why Papa wouldn’t trade up the river.’

  Ronica stared into the fire as if she were telling an old tale. ‘Your father… resented the contract with the Festrews. Oh, he loved the ship, and would not have traded her for the world. But much as he loved the Vivacia, he loved you girls more. And like you, he saw the contract as a threat to his children. He disliked being bound by an agreement he’d had no say in.’ Ronica lowered her voice. ‘In some ways, he thought ill of the Festrews, that they would hold him bound by such a cruel bargain. Perhaps they saw things differently in those days. Perhaps…’ Her words faltered for a time. Then, ‘I suppose I lied to you just now. I speak the way I know I should think; that a bargain is a bargain, and a contract is a contract. But that contract was made in older, harder times. Still, it binds us.’

  ‘But Father resented it,’ Keffria said, to draw her mind back to that.

  ‘He despised the terms. He often pointed out that no one ever completely discharged a debt to the Rain Wilds. New debts were always stacked upon the old ones, so that the chains binding the contracting families together only got stronger and stronger as the years passed. He hated that idea. He wanted there to come a time when the ship would be ours, free and clear, and if we chose to pack up and leave Bingtown, we could do so.’

  The very idea shook Keffria to the foundations of her life. Leave Bingtown? Her father had actually thought of taking the family away from Bingtown?

  Her mother spoke on. ‘And though his father and grandmother had traded in Rain Wild goods, he always felt they were tainted. That was how he put it. Tainted. Too much magic. He always felt that sooner or later, such magic would have to be paid for. And he did not think it was… honourable, in a way, for him to bring back to our world the magic of another place and time, a magic that had, perhaps, been the downfall of another folk. Perhaps the downfall of the entire Cursed Shores. Sometimes he spoke of it, late at night, saying he feared we would destroy ourselves and our world, just as the Elder folk did.’

  Ronica fell silent. Both women were still, thinking. These things were so seldom spoken aloud. Just as the charts of difficult channels represented a major trading advantage, so did the hard-won knowledge shared by Bingtown and Rain Wild Traders. The secrets they shared were as great a basis for their wealth as the goods they bartered.

  Ronica cleared her throat. ‘So he did a thing both brave and hard. He stopped trading up the river. It meant he had to work twice as hard and be gone three times as long to turn the same profit. Instead of the Rain Wilds, he sought out the odd little places in the inland channels, to the south of Jamaillia. He traded with the native folk there, for goods that were exotic and rare. But not magical. He swore that would make our fortune. And if he had lived, it probably would have.’

  ‘Did Papa think the Blood Plague was due to the magic?’ Keffria asked carefully.

  ‘Where did you hear such a thing?’ Ronica demanded.

  ‘I was very little. It was right after the boys died. Davad was here, I remember. And Papa was crying and I was hiding outside the door. You were all in this same room. I wanted to come in but I was afraid to. Because Papa never cried. And I heard Davad Restart curse the Rain Wild Traders, saying they had dug up the disease in their mining of the city. His wife and children were dead, too. And Davad said…’

  ‘I remember,’ Ronica said suddenly. ‘I remember what Davad said. But what you were too small to understand was that he was in the throes of a terrible grief. A terrible grief.’ Ronica shook her head and her eyes were bleak, remembering. ‘A man says things at such times that he doesn’t truly mean. Or even believe. Davad badly needed someone or something to blame for his loss. For a time he blamed the Rain Wild Traders. But he got past that a long time ago.’

  Keffria took a careful breath. ‘Is it true, that Davad’s son—’

  ‘What was that?’ Her mother’s sudden exclamation cut off Keffria’s words. They both sat up and were still, listening. Ronica’s eyes were so wide, the white showed all round them.

  ‘It sounded like a gong,’ Keffria whispered into the gathered silence. It was eerie to hear a Rain Wild gong when they had been discussing them. She thought that she heard the scuff of footsteps in the hallway. With a wild look at her mother, she leapt to her feet. When she reached the door and pulled it open, her mother was right behind her. But all she caught was a brief glimpse of Malta at the end of the hall.

  ‘Malta!’ she called out sharply.

  ‘Yes, Mother?’ The girl came back from around the corner. She was in her nightrobe and carrying a cup and saucer.

  ‘What are you doing up at this hour?’ Keffria demanded.

  For answer, Malta held up the cup. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I made myself some camomile tea.’

  ‘Did you hear an odd sound, a few moments ago?’

  Malta shrugged. ‘Not really. Perhaps the cat knocked something down.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Ronica muttered worriedly. She brushed past Keffria and headed towards the kitchen. Keffria followed her and Malta, cup in hand, trailed after them curiously.

  The kitchen was dark save for the glow of the banked fires. There were the familiar, somehow safe smells of the room: the cookfire, the yeasty smell of the slow bread put out to rise for the morning’s baking, the lingering aroma of
the night’s meat. Ronica had brought a candle from the den; she crossed the familiar room to the outside door and tugged it open. Winter cold flowed in, making mist ghosts in the room.

  ‘Is there anyone there?’ Keffria asked as the candle guttered in the breeze.

  ‘Not any more,’ her mother replied grimly. She stepped out of the door onto the icy porch. She looked all around, and then stooped down to retrieve something. She came back into the kitchen and shut the door firmly.

  ‘What is it?’ Keffria and Malta asked together.

  Ronica set the candle down on the table. Beside it she placed a small wooden box. She peered at it for a moment, then turned a narrowed gaze on Malta. ‘It’s addressed to Malta.’

  ‘It is?’ Malta cried in delight. ‘What is it? Who is it from?’ She surged towards the table, her face alight with anticipation. She had always loved surprises.

  Her grandmother put a firm hand on top of the box as Malta reached for it. Her denial was plain. ‘What it is,’ Ronica went on in an icy tone, ‘I believe, is a dream-box. It is a traditional Rain Wild courting gift.’

  Keffria felt her heart pause inside her. She couldn’t get her breath, but Malta only tugged at the box under her grandmother’s forbidding grip. ‘What’s in it?’ she demanded. ‘Give it to me.’

  ‘No.’ Ronica’s voice was full of authority. ‘You will come back with us to your grandfather’s study. You have some explaining to do, young woman.’

  Ronica scooped up the box and strode from the room.

  ‘Mother, it’s not fair, it’s addressed to me! Make Grandma give it to me. Mother? Mother!’

  Keffria realized she was leaning on the table. She straightened up slowly. ‘Malta. Didn’t you hear what your grandmother just told you? It’s a courting gift! How could this be?’