Mad Ship

by Robin Hobb

  “Argued?”

  “Not angrily. Discussed, I should have said.” She lifted the coverlet and slid into the bed with him. “I’ve washed,” she added hastily as he shrugged away from her touch.

  “In Wintrow’s room?” he asked nastily.

  “No. In the galley, where the water can be kept hot more easily.” She settled her body against his and sighed. A moment later, she asked, almost sharply, “Kennit, why did you ask me that? Do you mistrust me? I am faithful to you.”

  “Faithful!” The word shocked him.

  She sat up abruptly in the bed, her action snatching the blankets off him. “Of course, faithful! Faithful always. What did you think?”

  This could be a barrier to all his plans for her. He tugged at the blanket and she lay back down beside him. He formulated his words carefully. “I thought that you would be with me for a time. Until another attracted you.” He shrugged lightly, more disturbed than he liked to admit. Why should it be so hard to admit this? She was a whore. Whores were not faithful.

  “Until another attracted me? Such as Wintrow, you mean?” She laughed a rich throaty chuckle. “Wintrow?”

  “He is closer to your age than I am. His body is sweet and young, scarcely scarred and possessed, I might add, of two legs. Why would not you find him more desirable?”

  “You are jealous!” She said it as if he had just presented her with a diamond. “Oh, Kennit. You are being silly. Wintrow? I started to be kind to him only because you asked it of me. Now, I have come to see his value. I see what you wanted to show me about him. He has taught me much, and I am grateful for that. But why would I trade a man for an untried youth?”

  “He is whole,” Kennit pointed out. “Today he fought as a man. He killed.”

  “He fought today, yes. But that scarcely makes him a man grown. He fought for the first time, with a blade we gave him and the skills I taught him. He killed, and that act consumes and torments him tonight. He spoke long about it, the wrong of taking from a man what Sa alone could give him.” She lowered her voice. “He wept about it.”

  Kennit groped to follow. “And that made you despise him as less than a man.”

  “No. It made me pity him, even as I wanted to shake him out of it. He is a youth torn between his natural gentleness of spirit and his need to follow you. He himself knows that. He spoke of it tonight. A long time ago, when we were first thrown into one another’s company, I said things to him. Commonsense things, such as finding his life in what is instead of longing after what could be. He took those things to heart, so seriously, Kennit.” She lowered her voice. “He now believes that Sa has steered him to you. Everything, he says, that happened to him since he left his monastery carried him toward you. He believes that Sa gave him over to slavery so that he might better understand your hatred of it. He fought the idea for so long. He says that he resisted it because he was jealous of how his ship swung so quickly to you. That jealousy blinded him and made him seek out faults in you. But over the last few weeks, he has come to see it is Sa’s will for him. He believes he is destined to stand beside you, speak out for you and fight for you. Yet, he dreads the last. It tears him.”

  “Poor boy,” Kennit said aloud. It was hard to sound sympathetic with triumph racing through his heart. He tried. It was almost as good as if she had slept with the boy.

  Etta’s hands came up to rest on his shoulders. She kneaded gently at his flesh. Her cool hands were pleasant. “I tried to comfort him. I tried to tell him it might be chance, not destiny, that has put him here. Do you know what he said?”

  “That there is no chance, only destiny.”

  Her hands paused. “How did you know?”

  “It is one of the cornerstones of Sa’s teachings. That destiny is not reserved for a few chosen ones. Each man has a destiny. Recognizing it and fulfilling it are the purpose of a man’s life.”

  “It seems a burdensome teaching to me.”

  Kennit shook his head against the pillow. “If a man can believe it, then he can know he is as important as any other man. He can also know that he is no more important than any other is. It creates a vast equality of purpose.”

  “But what of the man he killed today?” Etta asked.

  Kennit snorted softly. “That is Wintrow’s hurdle, isn’t it? To accept that someone is destined to die at his hand, and that he is destined to wield the knife. In time Wintrow will see that it was not his doing that slew the man at all. Sa brought them both together, to fulfill their destinies.”

  Etta spoke hesitantly. “Then you, too, believe in Sa and his teaching?”

  “When it fits my destiny to do so,” Kennit told her loftily, and then laughed. He suddenly felt inexplicably good. “This is what we shall do for the lad. We’ll get the Divvytown construction under way, and then we’ll take Wintrow to the Others Island. I’ll let him walk the beach, and have an Other tell his fortune from what he finds.” He grinned in the darkness. “Then I’ll tell him what it means.”

  He rolled over into her reaching arms.

  AT LEAST ONE BARREL OF THEIR SALT PORK had gone bad. The casks that held fatty pieces of meat floating in brine should have been tight. The smell meant that the cask had been broached, either in loading or by other cargo shifting against it. The leaking brine and rotting meat not only stank, it would contaminate any other food it contacted. The stench was coming from a forward hold, one with little headspace. Food supplies in kegs, boxes and barrels filled it snugly. The cargo would have to be shifted, the offending cask disposed of and anything it had leaked onto would have to be cleaned up or discarded. Brashen had discovered the stench on one of his prowls of the ship. He’d given the task to Lavoy, who had passed it on to her. She had put two men onto it at the beginning of her watch. Now, as dawn reached over the face of the water, she had come down to see how they had progressed.

  The sight that met her eyes infuriated her. Only about half the cargo had been shifted. The stench was as strong as ever; there was no sign that the cask had been discovered, or any cleaning done. The hand hooks they should have been using to move the kegs and crates were both sunk into an overhead beam. Lop sat on a cask, hunching his tall, skinny frame over the crate before him, his pale blue eyes intent on three walnut shells. Opposite him was Artu, his dirty fingers flickering and dancing over the shells. “Which one, which one,” he was humming in the old trickster’s chant as he deftly shifted the shells. The slick scar of the old brand on his cheek caught the lantern’s fading light. This was Brashen’s rapist. Lop was merely stupid, and prone to idleness, but Althea hated Artu. She never worked near him if she could help it. The man had glittery little eyes, dark as a rat-hole, and a puckered mouth that was constantly wet. So engrossed was he in cheating Lop out of his money that Artu was completely unaware of her. He stopped the shells with a flourish, and his darting tongue wet his lips again. “And which one has the bean?” he demanded, wiggling his eyebrows at Lop.

  Althea strode up and kicked the crate, making all the shells jump. “Which cask has the rotten meat?” she roared at them.

  Lop turned amazed eyes up at her. Then he pointed at the over-turned shells. “There’s no bean!” he exclaimed.

  She seized him by the back of his shirt collar and shook him. “There never is!” she told him, and then shoved him to one side. He gaped at her.

  She turned on Artu. “Why haven’t you found that cask and cleaned it up?”

  He came to his feet, licking his lips nervously. He was a small, bandy-legged man, more quick than strong. “’Cause there ain’t one to find. Me and Lop, we shifted all the cargo in this hold, looked at it all and found nothing. Right, Lop?”

  Lop goggled at her, his large pale eyes wide. “We didn’t find it, ma’am.”

  “You didn’t move all the cargo. I can smell it! Can’t you?”

  “Just ship stink, that’s all. All ships smell like that.” Artu shrugged elaborately. “When you been on as many ships as I have,” he began condescendingly, but Althea
cut him off.

  “This ship doesn’t stink like that. And it never will as long as I’m a mate on it. Now get that cargo shifted, find that rotten meat and clean it up.”

  Artu scratched at a boil on the side of his neck. “Our watch is almost up, ma’am. Maybe the next watch’ll find it.” He nodded to himself in satisfaction and gave Lop a conspiratorial nudge. The lanky sailor echoed Artu’s grin.

  “Tidings for you, Artu. You and Lop are on watch down here until you find it and clean it up. Clear? Now get on your feet and start shifting this cargo.”

  “That ain’t fair!” Artu cried out as he came to his feet. “We worked our watch! Hey, come back here! That ain’t fair!”

  His grubby fingers caught at her sleeve. Althea tried to jerk free, but his grip was amazingly strong. She froze. She wouldn’t risk a struggle she might not win, nor a torn shirt, with this man. She met his gaze with narrowed eyes. “Let go,” she said flatly.

  Lop stared, wide-eyed as a boy. He’d caught his lower lip between his teeth. “Artu, she’s second mate,” he whispered nervously. “You’re gonna get in big trouble.”

  “Mate,” Artu snorted in disgust. Quick as a flea’s hop, he shifted his grip from her sleeve to her forearm inside it. His dirty fingers bit down hard on her flesh. “She ain’t no mate, she’s a woman. And she wants it, Lop. She wants it bad.”

  “She wants it?” Lop asked dimly. He looked at Althea in consternation.

  “She ain’t screaming,” Artu pointed out. “She’s just standing here, waiting for it. I think she’s tired of getting it from the captain.”

  “She’ll tell,” Lop complained in confusion. It took so little to confuse the man.

  “Naw. She’ll scream and wiggle a bit, but we’ll leave her smiling. You’ll see.” Artu leered at her. He wet his pursed little mouth. “Right, matey?” he taunted her. He grinned, showing brown-edged teeth.

  Althea met his gaze squarely. She could not show fear. Her mind was racing. Even if she screamed, no one would hear her down here. The ship might be aware of her, but she couldn’t count on Paragon. He had been so spooky lately, imagining serpents and floating logs and yelling out sudden warnings, that most likely no one would pay attention to him. She would not scream. Artu was looking at her, his little eyes shining. He’d like her to scream, she realized. He and she both knew that when he was finished with her, he’d have to kill her. He’d try to make it look like an accident, falling cargo or whatever. Lop would say whatever Artu told him to say, but Brashen would not be fooled. Brashen would likely kill them both, but she wouldn’t be around to watch him do it.

  The cascade of thoughts tumbled through her mind in less than a breath. She was on her own here. She’d sworn to Brashen she could handle this crew. Could she?

  “Let go, Artu. Last chance,” she told him evenly. She managed to keep the tremor out of her voice.

  He backhanded her with his free hand, the blow so swift she never saw it coming. Her head snapped back on her neck. She was stunned for an instant, dimly aware of Lop’s distressed, “Don’t hit her,” and Artu’s, “Naw, that’s how she wants it. Rough.”

  His hands scrabbled over her body, pulling her shirt loose from her trousers. Her revulsion at his touch was what brought her back. She struck out at him with all her strength, body punches that he didn’t seem to feel. His body was as hard as wood. He laughed at her efforts and she knew an instant of despair. She couldn’t hurt him. She would have fled then, but his grip on her arms was tighter than a vise, and the disarray of cargo made a quick escape impossible. He forced her up against a crate. He released one of her arms to grip the front collar of her shirt. He tried to tear it, but the stout cotton held. With her one free hand, she punched hard in and up at the base of his ribs. She thought he flinched.

  This time she saw his blow coming. She threw her head to one side and he punched the crate behind her instead of her face. She heard the wood splinter with the force of his blow and heard him shout hoarsely. She hoped he had broken his hand. She tried to gouge his eyes, but he snapped at her, biting her wrist hard and drawing blood. They overbalanced, and went down. She twisted desperately, trying not to land beneath him. They fell on their sides amongst the crates and boxes. It made for close quarters. She drew her arm back and delivered two short, hard jabs to Artu’s belly.

  She had a glimpse of Lop towering over them. The great dolt was hitting himself in the chest in his distress. His mouth hung open, wailing. No time to think.

  She grabbed a handful of Artu’s hair and slammed his head against the keg behind him. For an instant, his grip on her slackened. She did it again. He kneed her in the gut, driving all the breath out of her. He rolled on top of her and pressed her down. With a knee, he tried to force her legs apart. She cried out in fury, but could not draw her arms back to get in a decent punch. She tried to pull her legs up to kick at him but he had her pinned. He laughed down at her, his breath foul in her face.

  She’d seen it done. She knew it would hurt. She threw her head back as far as she could, then tried to slam her forehead against his. She missed and cracked her forehead against his teeth. They cut her forehead as they broke off in his mouth. He screamed high in pain and was suddenly leaning back from her, his hands to his bloody mouth. She followed him up, hitting him as hard as she could, not caring where her punches landed. She heard one of her knuckles pop and felt a flash of pain in her hand, but kept hitting as she managed to come up to her feet. Once she was standing in the confined space between the crates, she kicked him instead. When he was lying on his side, balled up and moaning, she stopped.

  She pushed her loose bloody hair back from her forehead and stared around her. Hours seemed to have passed, but the lantern still flickered and Lop still gaped at them. She had never realized how half-witted the man was until now. He was chewing on his knuckle and as her eyes met his, he shouted at her, “I’m in trouble, I know, I’m in trouble.” His eyes were both defiant and scared.

  “Find that keg of rancid meat and get it overboard.” She stopped to catch another breath. “Clean up the mess. Then you’re off watch.”

  She suddenly hunched over, hands on her knees, and took several deep breaths. Her head was spinning. She thought she would throw up, but managed not to. Artu was starting to uncurl. She kicked him again, hard. Then she reached overhead to the freight gaff. She grabbed the hook by the handle and twisted it free of the beam.

  Artu rolled his head and stared up at her with one blood-caked eye. “Sar, no!” he begged. He threw his hands up over his head. “I didn’t do nothing to you!” The pain of his broken teeth seemed to have completely disabled him. He waited for the blow to fall.

  Lop gave a wordless shout of horror. He frantically began moving crates and kegs, looking for the spoiled meat.

  For answer, she grabbed a handful of Artu’s shirt, and punched the freight hook through it. Then she headed toward the ladder, determinedly hauling him after her. He came kicking and squalling and trying to get to his feet. She paused and gave the handle of the hook a twist. The canvas of his shirt twisted with it, binding his arms in tight to his body. She dragged him on, almost a dead weight behind her. She supplemented her ebbing strength with her anger. She could hear Paragon shouting but couldn’t make out his words. By this time, a few heads had appeared at the hatch and were peering down curiously. They were from Lavoy’s watch. That meant the first mate was most likely on deck now. She didn’t look at them as she clambered up the steps dragging the struggling Artu behind her. She put all her determination into reaching the deck.

  As she finally emerged above, she heard muttered comments as the hands asked one another what was going on. Those about the hatch fell back. As she hauled Artu up behind her, the exclamations became curses of awe. She caught one glimpse of Haff, staring wide-eyed at her. She headed for the port railing, dragging Artu after her. He was moaning and mewling, “I didn’t do nothing to her, I didn’t do nothing!” His complaints were muffled by his own hands hel
d protectively over his broken teeth and bloody mouth. Lavoy looked at them incuriously from his post on the starboard railing.

  Brashen suddenly appeared on the deck. His shirt was open and he was barefoot, his hair unbound. Clef trailed after him, his mouth still tattling. The captain took in the situation at a glance. Brashen stared in horror at her bloodied face and disheveled clothing, but only for an instant. Then he glanced about for the mate.

  “Lavoy! What is going on here?” Brashen roared. “Why haven’t you put a stop to this?”

  “Sir?” Lavoy looked puzzled. He glanced over at Althea and Artu as if he had only just now noticed them. “Not my watch, sir. The second seems to have it well in hand.” He hardened his voice to that of command as he asked her, “Am I correct? Can you handle your task, Althea?”

  She halted where she stood to look at him. “I’m throwing the rotten meat overboard, like you ordered. Sir.” She put another half-twist on the hook as she spoke.

  For a moment, all was still. Lavoy transferred his quizzical look to Brashen. The captain shrugged. “Carry on.” He began fastening his shirt as if it did not concern him. He lifted his eyes to look over the water and see what sort of weather lay before them.

  Artu howled like a kicked dog and began to struggle. She dragged him closer to the rail, wondering if she would really do it. Suddenly Lop appeared on deck. He was carrying two buckets; the smell told her what they held. “I found the bad meat. I found it,” he bellowed and rushed past her to the railing. “Cask was smashed. It is all over down there, but we’ll get it cleaned up, right Artu? We’ll get it cleaned up.” He heaved one load over the side. As he lifted the second bucket, a serpent’s head broke the water.