The Liveship Traders Series

by Robin Hobb

  And aboard a liveship again. Her heart approached that with mixed feelings. The Ophelia was not the Vivacia. There would be no bond there. On the other hand, Ophelia would not be some dead piece of wood pushed around only by wind and waves. It would be good to be back on board a responsive vessel again. And she’d be glad to see the last of this greasy little town.

  She turned her feet towards the rundown inn where she had been staying. She’d board Ophelia tonight and sail tomorrow. There wasn’t time to find Brashen and bid him farewell. She had no idea where he was. Why, for all she knew, he might have shipped out again by now. Besides, what was the point? She’d go her way, he’d go his. That was simply how it was. She had no real connection to the man at all. None at all. She didn’t even know why she was thinking about him. Certainly there was nothing left to say to him. And seeing him again would only bring up difficult words and topics.

  The office of the ship’s agent was small and stuffy. The fireplace held a roaring blaze for such a tiny room. It seemed smoky after the fresh windy day outside. Brashen tugged at his collar, then forced his hands to lie still in his lap.

  ‘I hire for the ship Springeve. That is how much trust the captain places in me. And it is a trust I take gravely. If I send him out with a sloppy man, or a drunk, I can cost the ship time, money and lives. So I am careful whom I hire.’

  The agent, a small, balding man, paused to suck at a pipe. He seemed to be waiting for a reply, so Brashen tried to think of one. ‘It’s a heavy responsibility,’ he hazarded.

  The agent exhaled a yellowish smoke. The acridity of it bit at Brashen’s eyes and throat but he tried not to show it. All he wanted was the mate’s position they had posted on the bill outside the door. The Springeve was a small, shallow-draught trading-vessel that worked her way up and down the coast between Candletown and Bingtown. The cargo she picked up or let off in each town determined her next port of call. That was how the agent delicately explained it. To Brashen, it sounded suspiciously as if the Springeve worked with the pirates, buying and selling stolen cargoes from other ships. Brashen wasn’t sure he wanted to get involved in that sort of work. Actually, he was damn sure that he didn’t want to do any work at all, of any kind. But he was out of money and almost out of cindin. So he had to work, and this berth was as good as any.

  The man was talking again, and Brashen tried to look as if he’d been paying attention.

  ‘… so we lost him. It was a shame, he’d been with us for years. But, as I’m sure you know…’ he took another long draw from his pipe and breathed it out through his nose. ‘Time and tide wait for no man. Nor does perishable cargo. The Springeve has to sail and we need a new mate. You seem familiar with the waters we’ve discussed. We may not be able to pay you what you think you’re worth.’

  ‘What could you pay me?’ Brashen asked bluntly. Then he smiled, to try and soften the roughness of the words. His headache had abruptly returned, and if the man breathed smoke in his face one more time, he thought he’d puke.

  ‘Well.’ The small man bridled a bit at his question. ‘That depends, of course. You’ve your ticket from the Reaper, but nothing to show for the other experience you claim. I’ll need to think about this.’

  He meant he hoped someone with more tickets would apply. ‘I see. When will you know if you want me?’ Another question phrased too baldly. Once he had said it, he could hear it, but he seemed unable to govern his words before they came out of his mouth. He smiled at the man again, and hoped his smile was not as sickly as he felt.

  ‘Possibly by early morning.’

  When the man took a draw from his pipe, Brashen bent over and pretended to adjust the cuff of his trousers. He waited until the man breathed out before he straightened up again. There was still a cloud of yellowish fumes waiting for him. He coughed, then cleared his throat. ‘I’ll check back with you then, shall I?’ A knot of anxiety was forming in Brashen’s gut. He’d have to face another day without food, another night sleeping outside. With every day that passed like that, he’d have less of a chance at a decent berth. A hungry, dirty, unshaven man was not what an agent sought for in a ship’s mate.

  ‘Yes. Do that,’ the agent said absently. He was already shuffling papers on his desk, Brashen dismissed from his mind. ‘And come ready to sail, for if we want you, we shall want you right away. Good day.’

  Brashen stood slowly. ‘That is swash. You won’t say if you want me or how much you’ll pay me, but I should be on my toes to leave if you wink at me. I don’t think so.’ You’re being stupid, some rational part of himself was yelling. Shut up, shut up, shut up! But the words were out and he knew he’d only look ignorant as well as rude if he tried to recall them now. He tried to put an arch civility into his tone as he added, ‘Good day to you, sir. I regret we couldn’t do business together.’

  The ship’s agent looked both insulted and worried. ‘Wait!’ he exclaimed almost angrily. ‘Wait.’

  Brashen halted and turned to him, one eyebrow raised inquiringly.

  ‘Let’s not be hasty.’ The man’s eyes shifted in indecision. ‘I’ll tell you what we can do. I’m going to talk to the Reaper’s man sometime today. If he says all’s square with you, then we’ll pay you the same wages you had there. That’s fair.’

  ‘No. It’s not.’ Having adopted a hard-nosed stance, he had no choice but to stick with it. And he didn’t really want the agent to chat with anyone from the Reaper. ‘On the Reaper I was a third. If I sign with the Springeve I’ll be the mate. Not the captain, nor a sailor before the mast. The mate, who is held liable for anything that goes wrong aboard. The Springeve may be a smaller vessel, but it’s a bigger job. The crew on a trader has to be worked harder and faster than the crew on a slaughter-ship. And I’ll wager the Springeve brings in more coin than the Reaper ever did, if she’s worth her salt at all. If I sail as mate on the Springeve I’ll want the same wages the last mate was paid.’

  ‘But he had years of experience on her!’ the agent squeaked.

  ‘I’ve years of experience as a mate on the Vivacia, a substantially larger vessel. Come. Pay me what you paid the last man. If you made money with him, I’ll guarantee you’ll make just as much with me.’

  The agent sank back into his chair. ‘You’ve the arrogance of a good mate,’ he conceded grudgingly. ‘All right. Come ready to sail, and at mate’s wages. But I warn you, if you show badly, the captain will put you off at the next port, no matter how small it is.’

  ‘I’ll do you one better, as I’m an honest man and a hard worker,’ Brashen offered. ‘I’ll report to the ship now. If she’s to leave the day after tomorrow, I’ll want at least that much time to be sure all aboard is stowed right, and to make sure the crew understands I’m the mate now. It’ll give the captain a full day to test my mettle. He doesn’t like how I do things, he tells me to walk. Is that fair?’

  It was the right time to offer him such a concession. It let the agent save a bit of his pride as he narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, and then nodded. ‘That’s fair. You know where the Springeve ties up?’

  Brashen grinned at him. ‘Do I look the sort of man who’d ask for a position aboard a vessel I hadn’t seen? I know where she’s tied. I and my sea-bag will be aboard her, should you change your mind about me. But I don’t think you will.’

  ‘Well. All right. Good day to you, then.’

  ‘Good day.’

  Brashen left the man’s office, shutting the door firmly behind him. Once outside, he walked briskly down the street, a man with a purpose. He was relieved to find his sea-bag was still in a straw pile behind a livery stable where he had slept last night. Now if that had been stolen, he would have been in a real fix. He opened it and glanced through it quickly, to be sure that nothing had been filched from it. Not that he had much of value in there, but what was his was his. He poked through the bag. His cindin supply was still there. It was dwindling, but it would be enough. He wouldn’t be using it while he was on duty, anyway. He never used cindin on
duty. Like as not, he’d set it aside and not even use it while he was aboard. After all, for the years he had been on board the Vivaria, he hadn’t used it at all, not even when he had liberty on-shore.

  Thinking of the Vivacia woke a dull pang in him. When he’d lost his place on her, he’d lost a lot. He tried to imagine how things could have been if Ephron Vestrit hadn’t sickened. He knew he’d still be sailing aboard her. Althea, too. The thought of her jabbed him. He didn’t even know where she was in this dirty town. Stupid and stubborn, that was him. There had been no reason, really, to stalk off like that on that night. So she’d said they didn’t even know one another. That was just words, he knew better, she knew better.

  She knew him so well she had wanted nothing further to do with him.

  He stopped on the street, lowered his sea-bag and took out the remaining cindin. He broke a small piece off the stick and tucked it into his cheek. Not much, just enough to help him look lively until he had a proper meal aboard. Odd, how a couple nights of a near-empty belly could make even hardtack and salt beef sound good. For a moment the cindin stung, then he shoved it into a better position with his tongue and it was fine. He took a deep breath past the bitterness in his mouth and felt all the world come into a sharper focus. He tossed his sea-bag to his shoulder again and headed toward the docks.

  It would be good to have a definite place in the world again. And the Springeve promised to be an interesting ship. As often as he’d been up and down the Inside Passage on the Vivacia they hadn’t done much stopping. Captain Vestrit had done most of his buying to the south of Jamaillia. Brashen had been to a hundred exotic little ports in that part of the world. Now it would be interesting to reacquaint himself with the Pirate Isles. He wondered if anyone would remember him there.

  Midday had come and gone, as near as Wintrow could tell. At least, that was what his stomach told him. He touched his face again, then looked at his fingertips. The ooze from the new tattoo felt tacky. He wondered what it looked like. He could see the same green sigil on the faces of the others in the pen with him, but somehow he couldn’t imagine it on his own visage. They were slaves, it was somehow not shocking to see them tattooed. But he was not a slave. It was a mistake. His father was supposed to have come and rescued him. Like a bubble popping, he saw the complete illogic of this. Yesterday, their faces had been as clean as his own. Like him, they were newly come to this status. But somehow he could not yet think of himself as a slave. It was all a great mistake.

  For some time, he had been hearing sounds, the murmur of a crowd, voices raised to speak above the din. But no one had come to see them, save a solitary guard making his rounds lethargically.

  He cleared his throat. No one turned to look at him. He spoke anyway. ‘Why aren’t there any buyers? At the other pens, there were buyers walking up and down, taking slaves.’

  The dirty boy spoke wearily. ‘Then you musta been by map-face pens. They take whatever offer they can get for them, almost. Skilled slaves get bought up by companies that rent them out. They get auctioned so the companies will bid against each other. New slaves,’ he suddenly paused, then cleared his own throat. He was a bit husky as he went on. ‘New slaves like us get auctioned, too. It’s called the mercy law. Sometimes your family or friends will buy you, and then give you your freedom back. I used to think it was pretty funny. Me and my friends used to come down to the auctions, and bid on new slaves. Just to run the money up, watch their brothers or fathers break a sweat.’ He cleared his throat again abruptly and turned back to the corner of the pen. ‘Never thought I’d be here.’

  ‘Maybe your friends will buy you,’ Wintrow suggested quietly.

  ‘Whyn’t you shut up before I bust your teeth?’ the boy snarled at him, and Wintrow guessed there would be no family or friends bidding for him. Or any of the others by their looks. One was a woman past her middle years. Her face looked as if she normally smiled, but it had collapsed on itself today. She rocked slightly as she sat in the straw. There were two diffident young men, probably in their middle twenties, dressed in rough farmers’ clothes. They sat beside each other, silent and empty-eyed. Wintrow wondered if they were brothers, or perhaps friends. The other woman in the pen was of an indeterminate age between disillusioned and hard. She sat huddled in a heap, her arms clasping her knees. Her lips made a flat line, her eyes were permanently narrowed. There were disease lesions on her mouth.

  The short winter day was nearly over when they came for the slaves. These were men Wintrow had never seen before. They carried short clubs and a length of heavy chain. As each slave was unshackled, he was fastened to it until they had a coffle of new slaves. ‘That way,’ one of the men said. The other didn’t bother with words. He just gave Wintrow a heavy prod with his stick to hasten him along.

  Wintrow’s reluctance to be sold on a block like a cow warred with his weariness of the uncertainty of the last few days. At least something definite was happening to him now even if he had no control over it. He held his handfuls of chain and shuffled awkwardly after the others. He looked around as he went, but there was not much to see. Most of the pens they passed were empty now. The crowd noises grew louder, and they suddenly came out into an open courtyard. Slave-sheds ringed it. In the middle was a raised platform with steps going up to it, not unlike a gallows. A crowd of folk stood before it, gaping up at the wares, laughing, drinking, exchanging pleasantries and comments with one another. And buying other humans. Wintrow suddenly smelled spilled beer and the tantalizing smell of fatty, smoked meat. There were food vendors working the crowd. Beyond the platform, Wintrow caught a glimpse of a row of tattoo stands, all quite busy.

  A lively market day, he thought to himself. No doubt some folk had woken up early today, looking forward to this. A day in town, seeing friends, dickering for bargains. A stroll to the auction to see what was available in slaves today.

  For a time they were kept bunched at the bottom of the steps while the auctioneer finished with the batch on the platform. A few serious buyers pushed through the crowd to view them more closely. Some shouted questions to the handlers, as to age, condition of teeth, past experience. These the handlers repeated to the slave in question, as if they could not hear and understand the buyer themselves. One queried Wintrow’s age. ‘Fourteen,’ he replied quietly.

  The buyer made a derogatory noise. ‘I’d have taken him for twelve. Push up his sleeve, let’s see his arm.’ And when the handler complied, ‘Well, there’s a bit of muscle there. What kind of work do you know, boy? Kitchen? Poultry?’

  Wintrow cleared his throat. What was he? A slave with good skills was treated better, or so he had been told. He might as well make the most of what cards he did hold. ‘I was in training to be a priest. I’ve worked in orchards. I can do stained-glass. I can read, write and figure. And I’ve been a ship’s boy,’ he added reluctantly.

  ‘Too full of himself,’ the buyer sneered. He turned away, shaking his head at a companion. ‘He’ll be hard to train. He already thinks he knows too much.’

  While he was trying to think of an appropriate reply to that, a jerk on his chain brought him to attention. The others were already climbing the steps and Wintrow staggered up after them. For a few moments, all he could concentrate on was the steep steps and the short chains that linked his ankles. Then he took his place in the row of slaves on the torchlit wooden stage.

  ‘New slaves, fresh slaves, no bad habits yet, you’ll have to teach them those yourself!’ The auctioneer began his spiel. The crowd responded with half-hearted chuckles. ‘Now here’s what I’ve got, see for yourself, and you decide which one will lead off the bidding. I got a couple of stout hands here, good for farm, field or stable; got a warm-hearted granny here, perfect for keeping an eye on your little ones; got a woman here, seen a bit of hard use but still got some good years in her; and a couple of boys, lively, healthy boys, young enough to be taught anything. Now who wants to open up the bidding? Don’t be shy, you just shout it out and let me know what one’
s caught your eye.’ The auctioneer gestured invitingly to the field of faces that looked up eagerly at the merchandise on the platform.

  ‘Mayvern! The old woman! Three silvers!’ Wintrow found the desperate young woman in the crowd. A daughter perhaps, or a younger friend. The old woman on the platform beside him lifted her hands to her face, covering it as if she were ashamed or afraid to hope. Wintrow thought his heart would break. Then he caught a glimpse of something that made it flip over in his chest instead. His father’s height and fair hair stood out in the crowd like a flag beckoning him to home and safety. He was discussing something with a man behind him.

  ‘Father!’ he cried out, and saw Kyle Haven’s head turn to the platform in disbelief. He saw Torg beside him, his hand going to his mouth as if in amazement, mimicking his astonishment very well. One of the handlers thudded Wintrow in the ribs with his stick.

  ‘Be still. Wait your turn,’ he commanded him.

  Wintrow scarcely felt the blow or heard the words. All he had eyes for was his father’s face, looking up at him. He seemed so small and far away in that sea of faces. In the gathering dark, Wintrow could not be sure of his expression. He stared down at his father and prayed to Sa. Neither his mind nor his lips shaped any words; it was a simple plea for mercy. He saw his father turn to Torg for a hasty conference of some sort. He wondered if, this late in the day, his father had money left to spend. But he must, or he would have taken what he’d bought and gone back to the ship. Wintrow tried to smile hopefully, but could not quite remember how. What was his father feeling just now? Anger, relief, shame, pity? It didn’t matter, Wintrow decided. His father could not look at him and not buy him. Could he? After all, what would his mother say?