The Liveship Traders Series

by Robin Hobb

  Ronica smiled at her. ‘She is long abed, as most children her age are.’ She took a sip of her wine.

  ‘I find myself in an awkward position,’ Jani said slowly.

  ‘I fear ours is much more ungainly,’ Keffria cut in smoothly. ‘I wish to be completely honest. We were both shocked, just now, at the mention of a scarf and flame-jewel. I assure you we had no knowledge of such a gift. And if the dream-box has been opened… no, I am sure it has been, for your son has shared the dream… well, Malta is the culprit there also.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I must apologize most humbly for her ill manners.’ Despite her efforts at control, Keffria found her throat tightening. ‘I am distressed.’ She heard her voice begin to shake. ‘I did not believe her capable of such deception.’

  ‘My son will certainly be discomfited,’ Jani Khuprus said quietly. ‘I fear he is too naive. He is close to twenty, but never before has he evinced any interest in courting a bride. And now, I fear, he has been precipitate. Oh, dear.’ She shook her head. ‘This puts a different face on many things.’ She exchanged a glance with Caolwn and the other woman met it with an uncomfortable smile.

  Caolwn explained softly. ‘The Festrew family has ceded to the Khuprus family the contract for the liveship Vivacia. All rights and debt have been transferred to them.’

  Keffria felt she staggered and fell out into the white silence. She scarcely needed the words that followed from Jani. ‘My son negotiated this with the Festrews. I came tonight to speak for him. But clearly what I was to say is inappropriate now.’

  No one needed to explain. The debt would have been offered back as a bridal gift. An extravagantly expensive bridal gift, a typical Rain Wild gesture, but on a scale Keffria had never before imagined. A liveship debt cancelled for one woman’s marriage consent? It was preposterous.

  ‘Such a dream as it must have been,’ her mother murmured dryly.

  It was inappropriate, almost coarse in its implications. Keffria would always wonder if her mother had guessed what would happen next. As all the women burst into sudden laughter at the susceptibility of men, the awkwardness dispersed. They were all suddenly mothers caught up in the clumsiness of their offspring’s fumbling courtship.

  Jani Khuprus took a breath. ‘It seems to me,’ she said ruefully, ‘that our problem is not so great a one as time cannot solve it. So my son must wait. It will not harm him.’ She smiled with motherly tolerance from Ronica to Keffria. ‘I will speak to him most seriously. I shall tell him that his courtship cannot commence until your Malta has presented herself as a woman.’ She paused, mentally calculating. ‘If that is this spring, then the wedding can be in summer.’

  ‘Wedding? She will barely be fourteen!’ Keffria cried out incredulously.

  ‘She would be young,’ Caolwn agreed. ‘And adaptable. For a Bingtown woman marrying into a Rain Wild family, that is advantageous.’ She smiled and the fleshy protuberances on her face wobbled hideously at Keffria. ‘I was fifteen.’

  Keffria drew a deep breath; she was not sure if she would shriek at them, or simply order them from the house. Her mother’s hand fell on her arm and squeezed it. She managed to close her mouth.

  ‘It is far too early for us to speak of a marriage,’ Ronica said bluntly. ‘I have told you that Malta is fond of childish pranks. I fear this may be one of them, that she has not considered your son’s courtship with the seriousness it deserves.’ Ronica looked slowly from Caolwn to Jani. ‘There is no need for haste.’

  ‘You speak as a Bingtown Trader,’ Jani replied. ‘You live long lives and bear many children. We do not have the luxury of time. My son is almost twenty. Finally, he has discovered a woman he desires, and you tell us he must wait? Over a year?’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘It will not do,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I will not force my child,’ Keffria asserted.

  Jani smiled knowingly. ‘My son does not believe it is a question of forcing anyone. And I believe my son.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘Come, we are all women here. If she were as childish as you say, the dream-box would have revealed that to him.’ When no one spoke, she went on in a dangerously soft voice, ‘The offer is handsome. You cannot be hoping for more, from anyone.’

  ‘The offer is more than handsome, it is staggering,’ Ronica replied swiftly. ‘But we are all women here. As such, we know that a woman’s heart cannot be bought. All we ask is that you wait until Malta is a bit older, to be sure she knows her own mind.’

  ‘Surely, if she has opened the dream-box and dreamed a shared dream, we can say she knows her own mind. Especially, it would seem, if she has had to defy both her mother and grandmother to do so.’ Jani Khuprus’ voice was losing its velvet courtesy.

  ‘The act of a wilful child should not be seen as the decision of a woman. I tell you, you must wait.’ Ronica’s voice was firm.

  Jani Khuprus stood. ‘Blood or gold, the debt is owed,’ she invoked. ‘The payment is due soon, Ronica Vestrit. And you have already been short with it once. By our contract, we can determine the coin of its payment.’

  Ronica stood, to match herself against Jani. ‘There, in the cask by the door. There is your gold. I give it to you freely, the just payment on a debt owed.’ She shook her head, wide and slow. ‘I will not, I will never, give you child or grandchild of mine, save that she goes by her own will. That is all I am saying to you, Jani Khuprus. And it shames us both that such a thing must be spoken aloud.’

  ‘Do you say you will not honour your contract?’ Jani demanded.

  ‘Please!’ Caolwn’s voice was suddenly shrill. ‘Please,’ she went on in a softer tone when all turned to her. ‘Let us recall who we are. And let us recall that we do have time. It is neither as short as some would believe it, nor as generous as others could wish, but we do have time. And we do have the hearts of two young people to consider.’ Her slitted violet eyes flitted from one countenance to another, seeking cooperation. ‘I propose,’ she said quietly, ‘a compromise. One that may spare all of us much grief. Jani Khuprus must accept your gold. This time. For she is as surely bound by what I and Ronica agreed, here in this same kitchen, as Ronica is ultimately bound by the contract itself. On that we all agree, do we not?’

  Keffria held her breath, did not move, but no one seemed to be looking at her. Jani Khuprus was the first to nod, stiffly. The nod that eventually came from Ronica was more like a bowing of the head in defeat.

  Caolwn gave a sigh of relief. ‘This would be my compromise. I speak, Ronica, as a woman who has known Jani’s Reyn for all his life. He is a most honourable and trustworthy young man. You need not fear he will take advantage of Malta, regardless of whether she be girl or woman. And that is why I believe you could let him begin his courtship now. Chaperoned, of course. And with the stipulation that there will be no more gifts such as could turn a girl’s head more with greed than love. Simply allow Reyn to regularly present himself to her. If she is truly a child, he will see this promptly, and be more abashed than any of us can imagine to have made such a mistake. But if she is truly a woman, give him a chance, the first chance of any, to win her heart for himself. Is this too much to ask? That he be allowed to be her first suitor?’

  It went far to repair many things between them that Ronica looked to Keffria for a decision. Keffria licked her lips. ‘I think I can allow this. If they are well chaperoned. If there are no expensive gifts to turn her head.’ She sighed. ‘In truth, Malta has opened this door. Perhaps this should be her first lesson as a woman. That no man’s affection is to be taken lightly.’

  The circle of women nodded agreement.

  31

  SHIPS AND SERPENTS

  IT WAS A CRUDE TATTOO, done hastily and only in green ink. But for all that, it was her image marked on the boy’s face. She stared at him aghast. ‘This falls upon me,’ she had said. ‘But for me, none of this would have befallen you.’

  ‘That is true,’ he agreed with her wearily. ‘But that does not mean it is your fault.’

  He
turned away from her to sit down heavily on the deck. Did he even guess how his words wounded her? She tried to share his feelings, but the boy who had vibrated with pain the night before was now a great stillness. He put his head back and drew a great breath of the clean wind sweeping her decks. He sighed it out.

  The man at the wheel tried to force her back out into the main channel. With almost idle malice, she leaned against it, weltering as he forced her over. That for Kyle Haven, who thought he could bend her to his will.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to you,’ Wintrow confessed quietly. ‘When I think of you, I feel shamed, as if I betrayed you by running away. Yet when I think of myself, I am disappointed, for I nearly managed to regain my life. I don’t wish to abandon you, but I don’t wish to be trapped here either.’ He shook his head, then leaned back against the railing. He was ragged and dirty, and Torg had not taken the chains from his wrists and ankles when he left him there. Wintrow now spoke over his shoulder as he looked up at her sails. ‘Sometimes I feel I am two people, reaching after two different lives. Or rather, joined to you, I am a different person from who I am when we are apart. When we are together, I lose… something. I don’t know what to call it. My ability to be only myself.’

  A prickling of dread ran over Vivacia. His words were too close to what she had planned to say to him. She had left Jamaillia City the morning before this, but only now had Torg brought Wintrow to her. For the first time she had seen what they had done to him. Most jolting was her crude image in coloured ink on the boy’s cheek. Nothing marked him as a sailor now, let alone the captain’s son. He looked like any slave. Yet despite all that had befallen him, he was outwardly calm.

  Answering her thought, he observed, ‘I don’t have anything left for feelings any more. Through you, I am all the slaves at once. When I allow myself to feel that, I think I shall go mad. So I hold back from it and try to feel nothing at all.’

  ‘These emotions are too strong,’ Vivacia agreed in a low voice. ‘Their suffering is too great. It overwhelms me, until I cannot separate myself.’ She paused, then went on haltingly, ‘It was worse when they were aboard and you were not. Just your being gone made me feel as if I were adrift. I think you are the anchor that keeps me who I am. I think that is why a liveship needs one of her own family aboard her.’

  Wintrow made no reply, but she hoped from his stillness he was listening. ‘I take from you,’ she admitted. ‘I take and I give you nothing.’

  He stirred slightly. His voice was oddly flat as he observed, ‘You’ve given me strength, and more than once.’

  ‘But only that I might keep you by me,’ she said carefully. ‘I strengthen you so I may keep you. So I can remain certain of who I am.’ She gathered her courage. ‘Wintrow. What was I, before I was a liveship?’

  He shifted his fetters and rubbed his chafed ankles distractedly. He did not seem to understand the importance of her question. ‘A tree, I suppose. Actually, a number of trees, if wizardwood grows as other wood does. Why do you ask?’

  ‘While you were gone, I could almost recall… something else. Like wind in my face, only stronger. Moving so swiftly, of my own free will. I could almost recall being… someone… who was not a Vestrit at all. Someone separate from all I have known in this life. It was very frightening. But.’ She halted, teetering on a thought she didn’t want to acknowledge.

  After a long silence, she admitted, ‘I think I liked it. Then. Now… I think I had what men would call nightmares… if liveships could sleep. But I don’t sleep, and so I could not wake from them completely. The serpents in the harbour, Wintrow.’ Now she spoke hurriedly in a low voice, trying to make him understand all of it at once. ‘No one else saw them in the harbour. All now admit of that white one that follows me. But there were others, many of them, in the bottom mud of the harbour. I tried to tell Gantry they were there, but he told me to ignore them. But I could not, because somehow they made the dreams that… Wintrow?’

  He was dozing off in the warm sun on his skin. No one could blame him after the hardships he’d endured.

  It still hurt her. She needed to talk to someone about these things, or she thought she would go mad. But no one was willing to truly listen to her. Even with Wintrow back on board, she still felt isolated. She suspected he was somehow holding himself back from her. Again, she could neither blame him, nor stop the hurt she felt at that. She felt an unfocused anger as well. The Vestrit family had made her what she was, created these needs in her. Yet since she had quickened, she had not had even a single day of ungrudging companionship. Kyle expected her to sail lively and well with a belly full of misery and no companion. It wasn’t fair.

  The thud of hasty footsteps on her deck broke her thoughts.

  ‘Wintrow,’ she pitched urgency into her voice as she warned him, ‘Your father is heading this way.’

  ‘You’re wide of the channel. Can’t you hold a course?’ Kyle barked at Comfrey.

  Comfrey looked up at him, a hooded glance. ‘No, sir,’ he said evenly, as if he were not being insubordinate. ‘I can’t seem to. Every time I correct, the ship goes wide.’

  ‘Don’t blame this on the ship. I’m getting sick of every crew member on board this vessel blaming their incompetence on the ship.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Comfrey agreed. He stared straight ahead, and once more turned the wheel in an attempt to correct. The Vivacia answered as sluggishly as if she were towing a sea-anchor. As if in response to that thought, he saw a serpent thrash to the surface in her wake. The ugly thing seemed to be looking right at him.

  Kyle felt the slow burn of his anger begin to glow. It was too much. It was just too damn much. He was not a weak man; he could face whatever fate threw his way and stand up to it. Unfavourable weather, tricky cargoes, even simple bad luck could not break his calm. But this was different. This was the direct opposition of those he strove to benefit. And he didn’t know how much more of it he could take.

  Sa knew he had tried with the boy. What more could his son have asked of him? He’d offered him the whole damned ship, if he’d but be a man and step up and take her. But no. The boy had to run off and get himself tattooed as a slave in Jamaillia.

  So he’d given up on the boy. He’d brought him back to the ship and put him completely at the ship’s disposal. Wasn’t that what she’d insisted she’d needed? He’d had the boy taken to the foredeck this morning, as soon as they were well out of the harbour. The ship should have been content. But no. She wallowed through the water, listing first to one side and then to another, constantly drifting out of the best channel. She shamed him with her sloppy gait, just as his own son had shamed him.

  It all should have been so simple. Go to Jamaillia, pick up a load of slaves, take them up to Chalced, sell them at a profit. Bring prosperity to his family and pride to his name. He ran the crew well and maintained the ship. By all rights, she should sail splendidly. And Wintrow should have been a strong son to follow after him, a son proud to dream of taking the helm of his own liveship some day. Instead, at fourteen, Wintrow already had two slave tattoos on his face. And the larger one was the result of Kyle’s own angry and impulsive reaction to a facetious suggestion from Torg. He wished to Sa that Gantry had been with him instead of Torg that day. Gantry would have talked him out of it. In contrast, Torg had acted immediately, much to Kyle’s unspoken regret. If he had it to do again—

  A movement off the starboard side caught his eye. It was the damned serpent again, slithering through the water, and watching him. It was a white serpent, uglier than a toad’s belly, that trailed in their wake. It didn’t seem much of a threat; the few glimpses of it he’d had, the thing had seemed old and fat. But the crew didn’t like it, and the ship didn’t like it. Looking down on it now, he realized just how much he didn’t like it. It stared up at him, meeting his gaze as if it were not an animal at all. It looked like a man trying to read his mind.

  He left the wheel to be away from it, striding toward the bow in agitation. His troubled
chain of thought followed him.

  The damned ship stank, much worse than Torg had said it would. Stank worse than an outhouse, more like a charnel house. They’d already had to put three deaders over the side, one of which had seemed to die by her own hand. They’d found her sprawled wide in her chains. She’d torn strips from the hem of her garment and stuffed them into her mouth until she choked on them. How could anyone do such a stupid thing to herself? It had rattled several of the men, though none of them had spoken to him directly about it.

  He glanced starboard again. The damned serpent was pacing him, staring up at him all the while. He looked away from it.

  Somehow it reminded him of the tattoo down the boy’s face. It was just as inescapable. He shouldn’t have done it. He regretted it, but there was no changing it, and he knew he’d never be forgiven for it, so there was no sense in apologizing. Not to the boy or his mother. They’d hate him for it to the end of his days. Never mind that it hadn’t really hurt the boy; it wasn’t as if he’d blinded him or cut off a hand. It was just a mark. A lot of sailors wore a tattoo of their ship or the ship’s figurehead. Not on their faces, but it was the same thing. Still. Keffria was going to throw a fit when she saw it. Every time he looked at Wintrow, all he could imagine was his wife’s horrified face. He couldn’t even look forward to going home any more. No matter how much coin he brought home, all they were going to see was the ship’s tattoo on the boy’s face.

  Beside the ship, the serpent’s head lifted out of the water and regarded him knowingly.

  Kyle found his angry stride had carried him the length of the ship, up to the foredeck. His son huddled there. This was his heir. This was a boy he had envisioned taking over the helm some day. It was just too damned bad that Malta was a female. She’d have made a much better heir than Wintrow.

  A sudden flash of anger jolted through him, clearing his thought. It was all Wintrow’s fault. He saw that now. He’d brought the boy on board to keep the ship happy and make her sail right, and he’d only made her bitchy and sullen. Well, if she wasn’t going to sail well with the boy aboard, then there was no reason he had to put up with the puling whiner. He took two strides and seized Wintrow by the collar of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. ‘I ought to feed you to the damned serpent!’ he shouted at the startled boy who dangled in his grip.