Dragon Keeper

by Robin Hobb

The thought was unbearable. She couldn’t let her work come to such an end. She couldn’t ruin her life in such a headstrong, childish way. She had to go home. That was all there was to it.

  The thought strangled her, and for a time she gave way to wild weeping. She cried as she had not cried in years, letting the deep sobs rise and choke her as they passed through her. The world rocked with her anguish. When finally the fury passed, she felt as if she’d been the victim of a terrible physical mishap, a hard fall or a beating. Sweat had plastered the hair to her head, and her nose was running. Her head spun with dizziness. In the darkness she rose, her body aching. She groped around until she found one of her shirts in the wardrobe, pulled it out, and wiped her face on it, not caring how she soiled it. What did it matter anymore? What did anything matter? She wiped her face again on a dry spot and then sullenly threw the shirt to the floor. She heaved a great sigh. The tears were gone, used up with as little result as they ever had. It was time to surrender.

  There was a timid knock at her door. Her hands flew to her face. Reflexively she patted her cheeks and smoothed her hair. She must not be seen like this. She cleared her throat and attempted to sound sleepy. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s Sedric. Alise, may I have a word with you?”

  “No. Not now.” The refusal was out of her mouth before she thought about it. Her deep sadness blazed up and was suddenly heedless fury again. Another wave of vertigo swept over her. She put out a hand and steadied herself on the desk she would never use. For a time, a frozen silence held outside the door. Then Sedric’s voice came again, stiffly correct.

  “Alise, I’m afraid I must insist. I’m opening the door now.”

  “Don’t!” she warned him, but he did, pulling it open to admit a slice of afternoon light into the small room. Instinctively she moved beyond its reach and half turned her face away from it. “What do you want?” she demanded, and in the next breath, “I’m packing my clothing back in my wardrobe,” she lied. “I’ll be ready to leave soon.”

  He was merciless. He pulled the door open wide. She stooped to pick up the blouse from the floor, contriving to turn her back to him. As she did so, she lost her balance and nearly fell. In two steps he was inside the room, catching her arm and holding her up. She clung to him gratefully, both hands on his arm as she looked over his shoulder. “I’m dizzy,” she admitted breathlessly.

  “It’s just the movement of the barge on the river,” he said. In the same moment, she realized that the barge was in motion again. Behind him, she saw the stately parade of immense tree trunks as the ship moved upriver. Her vertigo was suddenly the gentle shifting of the floor under her feet. It passed.

  “We’re under way,” she said in wonder. She found herself clutching his arm and staring over his shoulder at the passing riverbank. She could not quite believe it. She had defied him, and she had won. The barge was carrying her upriver.

  “Yes. We are.” His response was curt.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and then wondered at her words. She wasn’t sorry, not at all, and yet she could not keep herself from apologizing. When had it become so ingrained in her to apologize whenever she wanted something for herself?

  “That makes two of us,” Sedric responded. He took a deep breath, and she was suddenly aware of how close she was standing to him. It was almost an embrace. She could smell him, the spicy scent he wore, the soap he used. She was surprised that she recognized those scents. They brought Hest sharply to mind, and she stepped back. She suddenly wondered if the two men used the same perfumed oils. She frowned, thinking about that.

  His voice was deep and regretful as he interrupted her thoughts with, “Alise, this is mad. We’ve just embarked on a journey with no fixed destination, into territory that has never been successfully mapped. We’ll be gone for weeks, if not months! How can you do this? How can you just walk away from your entire life?”

  A stillness welled up in her and then a joy as dizzying as the gentle rocking of the barge spun her. He was right. She’d left it all behind. After a moment, she found her voice. “Walk away from my life, Sedric? I’d run away from what you think is my life if I could. The hours sitting at my desk, scratching away with a pen, living a life based on things that happened centuries ago. Dining alone. Going to bed alone.”

  Her harshness seemed to shock him. “You don’t have to dine alone,” he said awkwardly.

  Her mouth was dry with bitterness. “I suppose I don’t have to go to bed alone, either. Yet, when one weds, one expects one’s husband to be her companion for those things. When Hest asked me to marry him, I foolishly thought that I wouldn’t have to worry about loneliness again. I thought he would be there, with me.”

  “Hest is with you when he can be.” Sedric sounded uncertain, probably because he knew he was lying. “He’s a Trader, Alise. You know that means he must travel. If he doesn’t travel, he can’t find the special goods that bring in the prices that allow him to provide you with the life you have.”

  “You don’t understand, Sedric.” She cut off the spiral of words that she had heard so many times from Hest in the early years of her marriage. The tightening noose of words that inevitably proved how selfish she was to resent being left home alone, night after night, week after week. “It isn’t that he’s away so much. I don’t mind that anymore. I don’t pine after him. Do you know what I hate now, Sedric? I hate that I’m glad when he’s gone. Not because I like to be alone; I’ve learned a great tolerance for it. I’m very good at it, actually. I don’t think of him when he’s gone. I don’t wonder who he might be with or how he treats her.” She halted abruptly. She’d made a promise to Hest, never to accuse him of lying again, never to pelt him with such suspicions. Sedric had been there and knew of the promise. She pressed her lips tightly closed.

  Her words had made him uncomfortable. She felt him shift slightly, as if he wished to move away from her but didn’t know how to untangle himself gracefully. With a leap of certainty, she knew her suspicions were well founded. Hest did have someone else now, and Sedric knew about her. Knew about her and felt guilty for shielding Hest. She suddenly decided to free him from that guilt. “Don’t worry about it, Sedric. I promised I’d never ask again, and I won’t. I don’t wonder anymore if other women in Bingtown know how little he cares for our bed. If they like him, they are welcome to him. I’m tired of his hard words, his hard heart, and his hard hands.”

  She felt his muscles stiffen. “Hard hands?” he said in a strangled voice. “Does he— Alise, he hasn’t . . . Has Hest ever struck you?” He sounded horrified.

  “No,” she admitted in a low voice. “No, he has never struck me. But there are many ways for a man to be hardhanded with a woman that do not involve striking her.” She thought of how he would take her arm and grip it when he wished to leave an evening’s entertainment and she had not responded immediately to his polite suggestions that it was time for them to go home. She thought of how he sometimes took things from her, not snatching them but removing them from her grip as if she were an errant child. She refused to think of his hands on her shoulders or upper arms, gripping so tight that sometimes she had bruises, as if she might flee him even though she had never shown any resistance to his attempts to impregnate her.

  Sedric cleared his throat and moved away from her. “I’ve known Hest a long time,” he said stiffly. “He’s not a bad person, Alise. He’s just—” He halted and she saw him searching for a word.

  “He’s just Hest,” she finished for him. “He’s a hard man. Hardhanded. Hard-hearted. He doesn’t strike me. He doesn’t have to. He has a hard, cruel mouth when he’s crossed. He can humiliate me with a glance. He can pound me with words and smile while he’s doing it, as if he doesn’t realize what he’s doing. But he does. I’m ready to admit that to myself now. He does know just exactly how much he hurts me and how often.”

  She turned away from his shocked gaze but kept her eyes on the moving riverbank. “I’m not sorry,” she finally said. “I’m
not sorry I defied you and I’m not sorry that we’re headed up the river. I know it’s foolish and dangerous. I’m scared. I’m scared of going and I’m scared of what I’ll have to face when I return home. But I’m not sorry to be doing it. I’m not walking away from my life, Sedric. I’m running toward the chance to have a little bit of a life of my own, for a little time.

  “I am sorry to drag you along, Sedric. I know it’s not the sort of thing you’d choose to do. I wish Hest hadn’t inflicted me on you. But I’ll admit that I’m glad you came back to the barge and you’re here. If I’m going to do a foolish thing like this, I can’t think of a better companion to have along with me.”

  She sensed him fumbling for some sort of a reply. She had told him things that had made him uncomfortable, things he probably should never have heard about his employer. She tried to regret it and couldn’t. She only hoped it would not sever whatever it was between them. Almost she hoped that he would gather her into his arms and hold her, even if it was only for a moment, as a friend. She tried to recall the last time anyone had embraced her with affection. She recalled her mother’s quick hug of farewell. When had a man held her?

  Never.

  He took her hands in both of his, giving them a gentle squeeze before he released them. Then he made an awkward attempt at levity as he stepped clear of her touch. “Well, I suppose that should be a comfort to me. But it’s not.”

  His words were harsh, but the rueful smile she looked up to see was not. It faded quickly from his face however, as if he did not have the strength to sustain it there. He shook his head at her and then said, “I’d best go get things settled in my room. It looks as if I may be living there longer than I thought.”

  HE LEFT HER as quickly as he decently could and walked briskly back to his compartment, trying not to appear to be fleeing from her. Even though he was.

  He shut the door of the tiny room behind him. Earlier, he had opened the ventilation slots in the upper wall. He refused to think of them as windows. They were too high and too narrow to provide any sort of a view. But they did let in a flow of air, even if it was tinged with the river smell, and admitted a murky light in his room. A reflection of the river rippled on the ceiling of the small cabin. He sat down on his trunk and stared at the closed door. His case with its precious cargo was on the floor. A fortune in dragon parts, and he was headed upriver with them. Away from all profit, and away from every reason he had for dreaming of making a profit. He hoped the salt and the vinegar would preserve the tattered flesh. They represented his last, best chance for an honest life. He lowered his face into his hands and retreated into stillness.

  Hest. Oh, Hest. What have we done to her? What cruelty have I been a party to?

  Hest’s hard hands.

  He didn’t want to think about it yet he could not stop himself from thinking about it. He didn’t want to envision Hest’s hands on Alise. He knew that Hest must be with her, that he must do his best to father a child with her. He’d chosen never to think of the mechanics of that, never to wonder if Hest was tender and passionate with her. He didn’t want to know, didn’t want his feelings stirred about such things. What would it matter? It had nothing to do with Hest and him.

  But he’d never imagined Hest would be harsh with her, or rough. But of course he would be. That was Hest. The man had strong hands, with long fingers and short, well-groomed nails. Sedric didn’t want to think of those hands gripping her shoulders and the nails sinking into her flesh. They’d leave little half-moon dents there that would be small bruises by morning. Sedric knew. Unbidden, his hands left his face to touch and then grip his own shoulders. It had been weeks since Hest had left small bruises on him. He missed them.

  He wondered in desolation if Hest missed him at all. Probably not. He’d spurned Sedric relentlessly in their last days together. At the same time, he had been sure that his secretary handled all the details of whom Hest would invite to accompany him on his latest trading venture. Hest wasn’t alone right now, and almost definitely, he wasn’t thinking of Sedric. Redding. That damn Redding, always so obvious in his interest in Hest. Redding with his plump little mouth always quirking, and his little hands always patting his curly hair back into place. Redding was with him.

  A thick choking lump rose in his throat. It would have been a comfort to weep, but he couldn’t. What he felt right now went beyond weeping. Hest. Hest. “Hest.” He said the man’s name aloud, and it was a comfort that cut like a knife. He was the only one who truly knew Sedric, the only one who understood him. And he’d set him aside, sent him off on this ridiculous errand with the wife he didn’t love. The wife he gripped with his hard hands, the same powerful hands that had held him by the shoulders and pulled him close in that first squirming and desperate embrace.

  Sedric hadn’t been much more than a boy, barely shaving, desperately unhappy, at odds with his father, unable to confide in his mother or his sisters anymore. Unable to confide in anyone. Bitterly, he now reflected on how successful Hest had been in returning him to that isolation, the isolation that Hest had once shattered for him. Was that what he’d wanted to prove to Sedric? That he could put him right back where he’d been, all those years ago?

  Their first encounter had happened at a Trader gathering, at a winter wedding. The bride had been seventeen, and the young husband-to-be had been his friend Prittus, an older neighbor who had tutored him in the Chalcedean language that his father had insisted he must learn. He had always been kind and patient with Sedric, their lessons much more social and enjoyable than the ciphering and history and basic navigation lessons that he received from his other tutor. The other tutor was a shared master, hired by a group of Trader families to instruct their sons. That man was an ogre, and his fellow students alternated between coarse mockery of one another and sarcastic comments on Sedric’s precise recitations and reports. He hated attending those classes, dreaded the snubbing and mockery of the other pupils. It was a wonder he had learned anything there. But Prittus had been different. He’d been a teacher who cared, one who found readings for his pupil that interested him. He’d treasured his hours with Prittus.

  So he’d watched Prittus make his wedding promises in a sullen gloom of disappointment. He’d have no time to tutor Sedric now; he’d be following his father into the spice trade and he’d have all the concerns of a young man with his own household. Sedric’s sole island of company was sinking back into his sea of isolation.

  Prittus had stood tall in his simple green Trader robe, the candlelight waking glints in his gleaming black hair. The vows spoken, he turned to the girl at his side and looked down into her face with that smile that Sedric had come to know so well. The girl’s face lit with a rosy blush of joy. He put his hands out and the girl set her small fingers in his; Sedric had to turn aside, choking with jealousy over all he could never hope to possess. The couple turned to face their guests and the applause washed around them like the breaking waves of a gentle sea.

  Sedric had not clapped. When the applause ended, he’d finished the glass of sparkling wine he held and set the glass down on the edge of one of the laden feast tables. The room swirled with smiling, talking people, all eager to wish the young couple well. Close to the door, a handful of young men were speaking in deep goodhumored voices to one another. He caught a leering reference to the night that awaited Prittus, and the round of bawdy chuckles that followed it. He’d made an excuse as he pushed past them to the door and left the crowded Traders’ Concourse to go outside for some air. He didn’t even bother with his coat; he wanted to feel the wind on his face. He wanted to be cold. It would match his mood.

  A storm was threatening, one that couldn’t make up its mind between icy rain and wet, driven flakes of snow. The wind gusted and died, and then spat sleet again. The thick clouds were making late afternoon into early evening. He didn’t care. He’d left the shelter of the large porch of the Concourse, strolled past the line of waiting carriages and well-bundled drivers. He’d gone walking in the d
eepening twilight on the meticulously groomed grounds that surrounded the Concourse.

  The gardens were desolate and deserted this time of year. Most of the trees had lost their leaves, and the unimpeded wind blew sharply. Fallen leaves littered the gravel paths. There was a stand of evergreens at the edge of an herb garden that had gone to seed. He headed instinctively toward the protection of the grove. In the circle of their shelter, the wind could barely find him. He turned his eyes up to the cold winter sky and tried to find a single star through the overcast. He couldn’t. He lowered his face and wiped rain from his cheeks.

  “Weeping at a wedding? What a sentimental fool you are.”

  He’d turned in shock. He hadn’t imagined anyone else would be out in this weather. It was even more of a shock to realize that the man was Hest, and that he must have followed him. He’d been a part of the group of men by the door. Sedric knew his name and his reputation, but little more than that. The wealthy and popular young Trader moved in a social circle several notches higher than Sedric’s orbit. He wondered why he had followed him out into the night. His long deep-blue cloak was nearly black in the dimming light. The collar was turned up high, framing his face.

  “It’s just rain. I came outside to clear my head of a little too much wine.”

  Hest listened to him silently, head cocked mockingly. He raised his sculpted brows in a rebuke for his lie.

  “I’m not weeping,” Sedric added defensively.

  “Aren’t you?” Hest came toward Sedric through the wet snow. It was definitely snow now. Big flakes of it spangled the tall man’s dark hair. “I saw you watching the happy couple and thought to myself, now there’s a spurned lover, watching his dreams stroll off without him.”

  Sedric watched his approach warily. “I hardly know her,” he said. “Prittus was my tutor. I’m just here to wish him well.”

  “As we all are,” Hest agreed smoothly. “Our dear friend Prittus enters a new stage of his life now. He takes on the duties of a husbandman. And his loving friends, though we wish him well, will see far less of him now.” The light was waning from the sky, and the shadows of the evergreens made the winter afternoon even darker. The fading light took the colors with it; Hest’s face was a study of planes and shadows. He was smiling. His narrow lips were chiseled into a fine smile as he asked him, “And what did Prittus tutor you in?”