The Liveship Traders Series

by Robin Hobb

  The man who had first discovered them laughed so hard he choked.

  Cosgo’s face went scarlet with fury. ‘I mean the real captain. Captain Deiari.’

  Captain Red’s grin went wider. He dared a wink at Malta. ‘I’m so sorry, Magnadon Satrap Cosgo. Captain Deiari is presently entertaining the fish.’ In a stage-whisper, he explained to Malta, ‘That’s what happens to men who don’t know when to put their swords down. Or men who lie to me.’ He waited.

  Behind him, two sailors seized the fallen man behind the mast and dragged him away. Malta stared in fascinated horror. His lifeless body left a swathe of blood behind it. His dead eyes looked at her as they lifted him and his mouth fell open in a joyless smile as he flopped over the railing. She felt she could not breathe.

  ‘I tell you, I am the Magnadon Satrap Cosgo, ruler of all Jamaillia.’

  The freckled captain spread wide his arms, sword still in hand, and grinned. ‘And here are gathered all your loyal retainers and grand nobles, to attend you on this remarkable voyage from … where? Chalced? The Satrap journeys from Chalced to Jamaillia?’

  Cosgo’s nostrils were pinched white with outrage. ‘Not that it is the affair of a thieving, murdering cutthroat, but I am returning from Bingtown. I went there to resolve a dispute between the Old and New Traders, but then I was kidnapped by the Bingtown Traders and taken up the Rain River. The Rain Wild Traders, a race of folk so horribly deformed that they must constantly wear veils, held me captive in an underground city. I escaped during an earthquake and journeyed down the Rain Wild River until I was rescued by a…’

  As the Satrap spoke, the Captain looked from one to another of his men, all the while pulling faces that feigned his wonder and astonishment at the Satrap’s tale. As his men guffawed in delight, the captain suddenly leaned forwards to set the tip of his blade at Cosgo’s throat. The Satrap’s eyes bulged and his flow of words ceased. All colour drained from his face.

  ‘Stop it now, do, stop!’ the captain pleaded merrily. ‘We have work to do here, my men and I. Stop your jesting and tell the truth. The sooner you tell us your name and family, the sooner you can be ransomed back to them. You do want to go home, don’t you? Or do you fancy you’d make a good addition to my crew?’

  Cosgo looked wildly about at the circle of captors. When at last his eyes met Malta’s, tears suddenly brimmed in them.

  ‘Stop it,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Leave him alone. He is the Magnadon Satrap Cosgo, and he is far more valuable to you as a hostage if he does not have a cut throat.’

  The blade’s tip lifted from the Satrap’s throat. An instant later, it pressed between her breasts. She looked down on it, paralysed. Someone else’s blood was still on it. Captain Red slid the tip under the lacing that secured her bodice. ‘And you, of course, are the lovely and learned Companion of his Heart. Also on your way back to Jamaillia.’ His gaze travelled over her slowly.

  His mockery broke her fear. She met his gaze furiously and spat a single word at a time. ‘Don’t. Be. Stupid.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I am Malta Vestrit, a Bingtown Trader’s daughter. As wild as his tale sounds, he truly is Magnadon Satrap Cosgo.’ She took a breath. ‘Kill him, and you will henceforth be known as the stupidest captain ever to discard a Satrap’s ransom.’

  The captain roared out his delight, and his crew echoed him. Malta felt her cheeks grow red, but she dared not move while the blade pressed her breast. Behind her, the Satrap whispered angrily, ‘Don’t anger him, wench.’

  ‘Cap’n Red. The ship’s secured.’ This from a sailor, little more than a boy, wearing an embroidered vest, far too large for him. Malta remembered seeing it on Captain Deiari. A dead man’s clothes were the ship’s boy’s plunder.

  ‘Very good, Oti. How many prisoners?’

  ‘’Sides these two? Only five.’

  ‘Condition of the ship?’

  ‘Fit to sail, sir. And full holds as well. She’s loaded with good stuff.’

  ‘Is she indeed? Marvellous. I think a prize this fat is enough to take us straight back to port, don’t you? We’ve ranged a bit this time, and Divvytown will look good to us, hey?’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ the boy replied enthusiastically. There were assenting noises from the rest of the crew.

  The captain looked around. ‘Secure the five belowdecks. Get names, find out if they’ve got families that will ransom them. They fought well. If any express an interest in turning pirate, have him brought to me. Carn! Pick yourself a prize crew. You’ll be bringing this one home for us.’

  Carn, the man who had first found them, grinned broadly. ‘That I will, sir. All right, you two, right back down where you came from!’

  The captain shook his head. ‘No. Not these two. I’ll be taking them back to the Motley with me. Even if he’s not the Satrap of all Jamaillia, I’ll wager he brings a rich ransom from someone.’ A deft lift of his blade tip cut Malta’s laces. She caught at the loose bodice of her dress and held it to her, gasping in outrage. The captain only grinned. ‘As for the lady, she shall have dinner with Captain Stupid and tell me whatever tales she pleases. Bring her along.’

  21

  PARAGON OF THE LUDLUCKS

  ALTHEA WAS AT the top of the mast, watching, when Vivacia’s sails first appeared, white against the threatening overcast. Paragon was lurking in an inlet with a clear view of a channel just outside Divvytown, but Vivacia had not yet passed the mouth of the inlet. Brashen had studied his scraps of charts, and gambled that this was the approach Vivacia would use to return to Divvytown, assuming Kennit would be returning from the direction of the Others’ Island. Brashen had guessed correctly. Even before Althea could see her hull or her figurehead, she recognized her mast and sails. For a moment, the long-awaited sight left Althea speechless. Several times over the last seven days, she had spotted ships she thought might be Vivacia. Twice she had even called Brashen to the top of the mast to confer. Each time, she had been wrong.

  Now, as she watched the familiar rigging come into sight, she was certain: this was her ship, and she knew it as she knew her mother’s face. She did not cry out the news to all, but came spidering down the mast and hit the deck running. Without knocking, she barged into Brashen’s cabin. He was in bed; he had taken the night watch. ‘It’s her. To the southeast, whence you thought she would come. No mistake this time, Brashen. It’s Vivacia.’

  He was instantly awake and on his feet. ‘Then it’s time. Let’s hope that Kennit is truly as intelligent and rational as you believe he is. Otherwise, we’re offering our throats to a butcher.’

  For a moment, she could only stare at him, wordless. ‘Sorry,’ he offered huskily. ‘I didn’t need to say that. We both decided on this plan. We’ve both convinced the crew it will work. Don’t feel I’m putting it all on you.’

  She shook her head. ‘You only spoke aloud what I’ve been thinking for too many days. One way or another, Brashen, it is all upon me. But for me, this ship and this crew would not even be out here, let alone considering this mad plan.’

  He caught her in his arms for a rough hug. For an instant, the scent of his bare skin was in her nostrils and his loosened hair against her cheek. She rubbed her face against the warmth of his chest. Why, she wondered, was she willing to gamble this man’s life and her own on such a wild venture? Then he turned her loose and caught up his shirt from a chair. As he put it on, he became the captain again.

  ‘Go shake out our truce flag and run it up. Tell the crew to have weapons ready, but none in hand. We’re offering to talk first to Kennit; we’re not inviting him to board us. At the first sign of aggression from him, we respond in kind.’

  She bit her tongue to keep from telling him that the crew needed no reminders. They had drilled it into them rigorously. Without Lavoy’s subversion to deal with, she felt far more confident of the men. They would obey. Perhaps, in a few hours, she’d stand on the Vivacia’s deck again. She jumped to carry out his orders.

  ‘There, sir. See it now?’ Gankis p
ointed and squinted as if that would aid his captain’s vision. ‘The ship is holding anchor just off the beach. He’s probably trusting to the shoreline and the trees to make him hard to see, but I spotted –’

  ‘I see him,’ Kennit cut the man off tersely. ‘Go about your duties!’ He stared at the masts and riggings. A strange certainty filled his soul. The old lookout left Kennit’s side, chastened by his captain’s tone. The chill wind blew past Kennit and his ship plunged on through the waves, but he was suddenly separate from it all. Paragon. The other half of his soul rode at anchor in the inlet.

  ‘Can I know him from this far away?’ he asked himself softly. ‘How? Is it a feeling in the air? A scent on the wind?’

  ‘Blood calls to blood,’ whispered the charm at his wrist. ‘You know it’s him. After all these years, he has come back.’

  Kennit tried to breathe, but his lungs felt heavy and sodden. Dread and anticipation warred in him. To speak to the ship again, to tread once more his decks would be to come full circle. All the past defeats and pain would be drowned in that triumph. The ship would take joy in how he had prospered and grown and…No. It would not be like that; it would be confrontation and accusation, humiliation and shame. It would open the door to all past sorrows and let them pour out to poison the present. It would be looking into the face of your betrayed beloved. It would be admitting what he had done to ensure his own selfish survival.

  Worse, it would be public. Every man on his ship would know who he had been and what had been done to him. The crew of the Paragon would know. Etta and Wintrow would know, Bolt would know. None of them would ever respect him again. Everything he had built so painstakingly, all his years of work would come undone.

  He could not allow it. Despite the screaming in the back of his mind, he could not allow it. The beaten, begging boy would have to be silenced once more. One last time, he would have to erase the grovelling, craven lad from the world’s memory.

  Jola came running down the deck to him. ‘Sir, that ship the lookout spotted? They’ve unfurled a truce flag. They’re taking up their anchor and coming towards us.’ His words died away at a baleful look from Kennit. ‘What do you want us to do?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I suspect treachery,’ he told Jola. ‘Faldin’s message warned us. I will not be lulled by their actions. If necessary, I shall make an example of this ship and its crew. If this is perfidy, the ship goes to the bottom with all hands.’ He made his eyes meet Jola’s. ‘Prepare yourself to hear many lies today, Jola. This particular captain is a very clever man. He tries to use a liveship to take a liveship. We will not allow that to happen.’

  Abruptly, his throat closed with pain. Terror rose in him, that Jola might turn towards him just now and see his eyes brim with sudden tears. Feelings change, he reminded himself savagely. This is the choking of a boy, the tears of a boy who no longer exists. I stopped feeling this long ago.

  He coughed to cover his moment of weakness. ‘Ready the men. Bring us about and drop anchor. Run up a truce flag of our own to chum them in closer. We’ll pretend to be gulled by his ruse. I shall have the ship send forth the serpents.’ He showed his teeth in mockery of a smile. ‘Let Trell negotiate his truce with them.’

  ‘Sir,’ Jola acknowledged him and was swiftly gone.

  Kennit made his way forwards. The tapping of his peg sounded loud to him. Men hurried past and around him, each intent on getting to his post. None of them really paused to look at him. None of them could really see him any more. They saw only Kennit, King of the Pirate Isles. Wasn’t that what he always wanted? To be seen as the man he had made of himself? Yet still he could imagine how Paragon would bellow in dismay at the sight of his missing leg, or exclaim in delight over the fine cut of his brocade jacket. Triumph was not as keen, he suddenly saw, when it was shared only with those who had always expected you to succeed. On all the seas in all the world, there was only one who truly knew all Kennit had gone through to reach these heights, only one who could understand how keen the triumph was and how deep the pits of misfortune had been. Only one who could betray his past so completely. Paragon had to die. There was no other way. And this time, Kennit must be sure of it.

  As he climbed the short ladder to the foredeck, he saw with dismay that Etta and Wintrow were already there. Wintrow leaned on the railing, deep in conversation with the figurehead. Etta stared across the water at Paragon, a strange expression on her face. Her dark hair teased the rising wind. Kennit shaded his eyes to follow her gaze. The Paragon was drawing steadily closer. His heart turned over at the sight of the cruelly chopped face. Shame burned him, followed by a rush of fury. It could not be blamed on him. No one, not even Paragon could blame him. Igrot’s fault, it was all Igrot’s fault. The cold horror of it reached across the water and burned him. Dread dizzied him, and he lifted a shaking hand to his face.

  ‘You let him take all the pain for you,’ the charm breathed by his ear. ‘He said he would, and you let him.’ The charm smiled. ‘It’s all there, waiting for you. With him.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Kennit grated. With trembling fingers, he tried to unknot the damnable thing from his wrist. He would throw it overboard, it would sink and be gone forever with all it knew. But his fingers were oddly clumsy, almost numb. He could not undo the tight leather knots. He tugged at the charm itself, but the cords held.

  ‘Kennit, Kennit! Are you well?’

  Stupid whore, always asking the wrong questions at the wrong time. He wrenched his emotions under control. He took out his handkerchief and patted sweat from his chilled brow. He found his voice.

  ‘I am quite well, of course. And you?’

  ‘You looked so … for an instant, I feared you would faint.’ Etta’s eyes roved over his face, trying to read it. She tried to take his hands in hers.

  That would never do. He smiled his small smile at her. Distract her. ‘The boy,’ he asked in a low voice. ‘This may be hard for Wintrow. How is he?’

  ‘Torn,’ Etta immediately confided. A lesser man might have been offended at how easily he had turned her concern from himself to Wintrow. But Etta was, after all, only a whore. She sighed. ‘He strives to wring some response from the ship. He demands that she react to him as Vivacia. Of course, she does not. Just now, he seeks some reaction to Althea’s presence from her. She gives him nothing. When he reminded her that you had promised him Althea would not be harmed, she laughed and said that was your promise, not hers. It struck him to the heart when she said that an agreement with you was not a promise to him.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Could you reassure him that you will keep your word?’

  Kennit lifted one shoulder in a shrug. ‘As much as I can, I will. It is as I told him before. Sometimes folk are determined to fight to the death, and then what can I do? Surely he does not expect me to allow her to kill me in order to keep my word to him?’

  For a moment, Etta just looked at him. Twice she seemed on the verge of saying something, but made no sound. Finally she asked quietly, ‘I suppose the truce flag could be a deception. But…but you will try to keep your promise?’

  He cocked his head at her. ‘Such an odd question. Of course I shall.’ He made his smile warmer. He offered her his arm, and she took it and walked beside him to the railing. ‘If things begin to go badly – use your judgement in this – but if you suspect that things may not turn out as Wintrow would wish, take him below,’ he said quietly. ‘Find an excuse, a distraction of any kind. Any kind at all.’

  Etta flickered a glance at him. ‘He is scarcely a child, to forget one toy when another is waved at him.’

  ‘Do not misunderstand me. I only say what we both know is true. You are a woman well capable of distracting any man. Whatever you must do, I would not hold it against you. Anything. I do not expect you can make him forget his family is involved in this, but he need not witness it.’ There. He could not make the hint any broader without actually commanding her to seduce him. Sa knew the woman had enough appetite for two men. Of late, she had been insat
iable. She should be able to keep Wintrow busy for as long as it took Kennit to deal with this problem. She seemed to be thinking deeply as they approached Wintrow.

  Wintrow spoke softly, earnestly. ‘Althea practically grew up on your deck. If the choice had been hers, she would never have left you. When she stands on this deck again, your feelings for her will return. Vivacia, she will bring you back to yourself, and I know you will welcome her. Let go the anger you feel over something she was forced to do.’

  Bolt’s arms were crossed on her breast. All around her, the water seethed with serpents. ‘I am not angry, Wintrow. I am bored. Bored with your whole recitation. I have often heard of priests that they will argue until a man agrees with them simply to still their tongues. So I ask you this. If I pretend to feel something for her, will you shut up and go away?’

  For an instant, Wintrow bowed his head. Kennit thought she had defeated him. Then he lifted it to stare at the advancing Paragon. ‘No,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I won’t go away. I’m staying right here, beside you. When she comes aboard, there should be someone here to explain to her what has happened to you.’

  That would never do. Kennit made a swift decision. ‘Actually, Wintrow, I have a small task for you. Take Etta with you. As soon as we are anchored, I wish you to take the ship’s boat over to the Marietta. Some of Sorcor’s men are a bit hot-headed. Tell Sorcor, diplomatically, that I alone will approach this ship. I wish him to hold the Marietta well back; it would suit me best if his crew did not even crowd the railings. This ship comes to us under a truce flag; I don’t wish them to feel outnumbered and threatened. That could lead to violence where none is needed.’

  ‘Sir, could not you send…’ Wintrow began pleadingly.

  Kennit patted Etta’s hand heavily. She took the hint.

  ‘Don’t whine, Wintrow,’ she rebuked him. ‘It will do you no good to remain here and let Bolt torment you. She toys with you like a cat with a mouse, and you have not the sense to remove yourself. So Kennit is doing it for you. Come. You have a gift for smooth words, and will be able to pass this order on to Sorcor in such a way that he does not feel slighted.’