by Robin Hobb
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So the only question that remained was what she was going to do with the rest of the evening, and the night to follow. She held up her mug to get a tavern maid's attention. As the girl filled it, Althea pasted a sickly grin on her face. “I'm more tired than I thought,” she said artlessly. “Can you recommend a quiet rooming house or inn? One where I can get a bath as well?”
The girl scratched the back of her neck vigorously. “You can get a room here, but it's not quiet. Still, there's a bath house down the street. ”
Watching the girl scratch, Althea decided that even if the tavern were silent, she wouldn't want to sleep in one of their beds. She hoped to get rid of any vermin she'd acquired on the ship, not invite more. “A quiet place?” she asked the girl again.
The girl shrugged. “The Gilded Horse, if you don't mind paying well for what you get. They've got musicians there, too, and a woman who sings. And little fireplaces in the best rooms, I've heard. Windows in some of the rooms, too. ”
Ah. The Gilded Horse. Dinner with her father there, roast pork and peas. She'd given him a funny little wax monkey she'd bought in a shop, and he'd told her about buying twenty casks of fine oil. A different lifetime. Althea's life, not Athel's.
“No. Sounds too expensive. Someplace cheap and quiet. ”
She frowned. “Don't know. Not many places in this part of town are quiet. Most sailors, they don't want quiet, you know. ” She looked at Althea as if she were a bit strange. “There's the Red Eaves. Don't know if they have baths there, but it's quiet. Quiet as a tomb, I heard. ”
“I heard of that place earlier,” Althea said quickly. “Anywhere else?”
“That's it. Like I said, quiet isn't what most sailors come to town to find. ” The girl looked at her oddly. “How many places do you need to hear about?” she asked, and then took the coin for the beer she had poured and sauntered off.
“Good question,” Althea conceded. She took a slow drink of her beer. A man who smelled badly of vomit sat down heavily next to her. Evening was coming on and the tavern was starting to fill up. The man belched powerfully and the smell that wafted toward her made her wince. He grinned at her discomfiture and leaned confidentially closer. “See her?” he demanded of Althea as he pointed to a sallow-faced woman wiping a table. “I did her three times. Three times, and she only charged me for the once. ” He leaned back companionably against the wall and grinned at her. Two of his top teeth were broken off crookedly. “You ought to give her a go, boy. She'd teach you a few things, I'd wager. ” He winked broadly.
“I'm sure you'd win that wager,” Althea agreed amiably. She drank off the last of her beer and rose. She took up her sea-bag again. Outside it had begun to rain. A wind was sweeping in with it, and it promised heavier rainfall soon. She decided to do the simplest thing. She'd find a room that suited her, pay for it, and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow was soon enough to think of something significant to do. Such as find a shipboard job that would take her back to Bingtown as swiftly as possible.
Bingtown. It was home. It would also mark the end of her dream of recovering the Vivacia. She pushed that thought aside.
By the time it was fully dark, she had sampled six different rooming houses. Almost all the rooms were over taverns or tap rooms. Every one of them had been noisy and smoky, some with whores on the premises for the convenience of those staying there. The one she settled on was no different from the others, save that there had just been a brawl there. The city guard had come, temporarily driving out the more lively customers. Those who remained after the brawl seemed either worn out or sodden. There were three musicians in a corner and now that the paying customers were mostly dispersed, they were playing for themselves. They talked and laughed softly, and occasionally stopped in mid-piece to go back and try something a different way. Althea sat close enough to listen in on their intimacy and far enough away not to intrude. She envied them. Would she ever have friends like that? She had enjoyed her sailing years aboard ship with her father, but there had been a price. Her father had been her only real friend. The captain and owner's daughter could never fully share the deep friendships of the forecastle crew. When she was at home, it was much the same. She had long ago lost touch with the little girls she had played with as a child. Married by now, most of them, she thought. Probably to the little boys they had spied on and giggled about. And here she was, in ragged sailor-boy togs in a foreign port in a run-down tavern. And alone. With no prospects save crawling home with her tail between her legs.
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And getting more maudlin every minute. Time to go to bed. Right after this last mug, it would be time to go up to the room she had secured for the night.
Brashen walked in the door. His gaze swept the room and settled on her immediately. For a frozen instant he just stood where he was. She knew by his stance that he was angry. He'd been in a fight, too. The redness under his left eye would be a black eye before morning. But she doubted that was what he was still angry about. There was a tightness to his wide shoulders under his clean striped shirt, and small sparks deep in his dark eyes. There was no reason for her to feel guilty or ashamed. She hadn't promised to meet him, she'd only said she might. So the sudden shrinking she felt surprised her. He strode across the tavern and glanced about to find an unbroken chair. There wasn't one, and he had to sit on the end of her bench. He leaned forward to speak to her and his words were clipped.
“You could have simply said no. You didn't have to leave me sitting and worrying about you. ”
She drummed her fingers lightly on the table. For a few seconds she watched them and then looked up to meet his eyes. “Sorry, sir,” she reminded him. “Didn't think as you'd worry about the likes of me. ”
She saw his eyes dart to the musicians, who were paying no attention to them at all. “I see,” he said levelly. His eyes said much more. She'd hurt him. She hadn't meant to, hadn't really thought about that aspect of it at all. He got up and walked away. She expected he would leave, but instead he interrupted the tavern-keeper, who was sweeping up broken crockery. Brashen brought his own mug of beer back to the table and resumed his seat. He didn't give her a chance to speak at all. “I got worried. So I went back to the ship. I asked the mate if he knew where you'd gone. ”
“Oh. ”
“Yes. Oh. What he said about you was not . . . ” His words trailed off and he touched the darkening bruise on his face. “I won't be sailing aboard the Reaper again,” he said abruptly. He glared at her as if it were her fault. “Why were you so stupid as to tell them your real name?”
“The mate told you about it?” she asked in reply. Unbelievably, her mood dropped yet another notch. If he was talking about it, it was going to lessen her chances of getting aboard another ship as a boy. Despair hit her like green water.
“No. The captain. After the mate escorted me in there and they demanded to know if I had known you were a woman. ”
“And you told them you had?” Worse and worse. Now they would be convinced she had whored herself out to buy Brashen's silence.
“There seemed little point in lying. ”
She didn't want to know the rest, about who had hit whom first and when. None of it seemed to matter anymore. She just shook her head.
But Brashen wasn't going to let it be. He took a gulp of his beer, then demanded, “Why did you give them your real name? How could you expect to sail again on a ticket that had your real name on it?” He was incredulous at her stupidity.
“On the Vivacia” she said faintly. “I expected to use it to sail on the Vivacia. As her captain and owner. ”
“How?” he asked suspiciously.
And she told him. The whole story, and even as she spoke of Kyle's careless oath and her hopes of using it against him, even as Brashen shook his head at her foolish plan, she wondered why she was telling him. What was it about him that had her spilling her guts to him, about thing
s that were none of his business?
He left a small space of silence at the end of her story. Then he shook his head yet again. “Kyle would never keep his word on a chance oath like that. You'd have to take it to Traders' Council. And even with your mother and your nephew speaking in your behalf, I doubt they'd take you seriously. People say things, in the heat of anger. . . . If the Traders' Council started forcing every man who swore an oath in anger to live up to them, half of Bingtown would be murdered. ” He shrugged. “On the other hand, it doesn't surprise me that you'd try. I always thought that, sooner or later, you'd try to take the Vivacia back from Kyle. But not like that. ”
“How, then?” she asked him testily. “Sneak aboard and cut his throat while he's asleep?”
“Ah. So that occurred to you, too,” he observed dryly.
She found herself grinning in spite of herself. “Almost immediately,” she admitted. Then her smile faded. “I have to take the Vivacia back. Even though I now know I'm not really ready to captain her. No, don't laugh at me. I may be thick, but I do learn. She's mine, in a way no other ship ever could be. But the law is against me and my family is against me. One or the other, I might fight. But together . . . ” Her voice died away and she sat still and silent for a time. “I spend a lot of time not thinking about her, Brashen. ”
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“Me, too,” he commiserated. He probably meant the remark in sympathy, but she bristled to it. How could he say that? Vivacia wasn't his family ship. How could he possibly feel about her as Althea did? The silence stretched between them. A group of sailors came in the door and claimed an adjacent table. She looked at Brashen and could think of nothing to say. The door opened again and three longshoremen came in. They began calling for beer before they were even seated. The musicians glanced about as if awakening, and then launched into a full rendition of the bawdy little tune they'd been tinkering with. Soon it would be a noisy, crowded room again.
Brashen drew circles on the table with the dampness from his mug. “So. What will you do now?”
There. The very question that had been stabbing her all day. “I guess I'll go home,” she said quietly. “Just like you told me to do months ago. ”
“Why?”
“Because maybe you were right. Maybe I'd better go and mend things there as best I can, and get on with my life. ”
“Your life doesn't have to be there,” he said quietly. “There are a lot of other ships in the harbor, going to a lot of other places. ” He was too offhandedly casual as he offered, “We could go north. Like I told you. Up in the Six Duchies, they don't care if you're a man or a woman, so long as you can do the work. So they're not that civilized. Couldn't be much worse than life on board the Reaper. ”
She shook her head at him wordlessly. Talking about it made her feel worse, not better. She said the words anyway. “The Vivacia docks in Bingtown. If nothing else, I could see her sometimes. ” She smiled in an awful way. “And Kyle is older than I am. I'll probably outlive him, and if I'm on good terms with my nephew, maybe he'll let his crazy old aunt sail with him sometimes. ”
Brashen looked horrified. “You can't mean that!” he declared. “Spend your life waiting for someone else to die!”
“Of course not. It was a joke. ” But it hadn't been. “This has been a horrible day,” she announced abruptly. “I'm ending it. Good night. I'm going up to bed. ”
“Why?” he asked quietly.
“Because I'm tired, stupid. ” It was suddenly more true than it had ever been in her life. She was tired to her bones, and deeper. Tired of everything.
The patience in his voice was stretched thin as he said, “No. Not that. Why didn't you come to meet me?”
“Because I didn't want to bed you,” she said flatly. Even too tired to be polite anymore.
He managed to look affronted. “I only invited you to share a meal with me. ”
“But bed was what you had in mind. ”
He teetered on the edge of a lie, but his honesty won out. “I thought about it, yes. You didn't seem to think it went so badly last time. . . . ”
She didn't want to be reminded. It was embarrassing that she had enjoyed what they had done, and all the more so because he knew she had enjoyed it. At the time. “And last time, I also told you it couldn't happen again. ”
“I thought you meant on the ship. ”
“I meant anywhere. Brashen . . . we were cold and tired, we'd been drinking, there was the cindin. ” She halted, but could find no graceful words. “That's all it was. ”
His hand moved on the table top. She knew then just how badly he wanted to touch her, to take her hand. She put her hands under the table and gripped them tightly together.
“You're certain of that?” His words probed his pain.
“Aren't you?” She met his eyes squarely, defying the tenderness there.
He looked aside before she did. “Well. ” He took a deep breath, and then a long drink from his mug. He leaned towards her on one elbow and tried for a convincing grin as he suggested, “I could buy the cindin if you wanted to supply the beer. ”
She smiled back at him. “I don't think so,” she replied quietly.
He shrugged one shoulder. “If I buy the beer as well?” The smile was fading from his face.
“Brashen. ” She shook her head. “When you get right down to it,” she pointed out reasonably, “we hardly even know one another. We have nothing in common, we aren't-”
“All right,” he cut her off gruffly. “All right, you've convinced me. It was all a bad idea. But you can't blame a man for trying. ” He drank the last of his beer and stood up. “I'll be going, then. Can I offer you a last piece of advice?”
“Certainly. ” She braced herself for some tender admonition to take care of herself, or be wary.
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Instead he said, “Take a bath. You smell pretty bad. ” Then he left, sauntering across the room and not even looking back from the door.
If he had stopped at the door to grin and wave, it would have dispersed the insult. Instead, she was left feeling affronted. Just because she had refused him, he had insulted her. As if to pretend he had never wanted her, because she was not perfumed and prettied up. It certainly hadn't bothered him the last time, and as she recalled, he had smelled none too fresh himself. The gall of the man. She lifted her mug. “Beer!” she called to the sour innkeeper.
Brashen hunched his shoulders to the dirty rain that was driving down. As he walked back to the Red Eaves he carefully thought about nothing. He stopped once to buy a stick of coarse cindin from a street corner vendor miserable in the rain, and then walked on. When he reached the doors of the Red Eaves, he found them barred for the night. He pounded on them, unreasonably angry at being shut out in the rain.
Above his head, a window opened. The landlord stuck his head out. “Who's there?” he demanded.
“Me. Brashen. Let me in. ”
“You left the washing room a mess. You didn't scrub out the trough. And you left the towels in a heap. ”
He stared up at the window in consternation. “Let me in,” he repeated. “It's raining!”
“You are not a tidy person!” the innkeeper shouted down at him.
“But I paid for a room!”
For an answer, his duffel bag came flying out the window. It landed in the muddy streets with a splat that spattered Brashen as well. “Hey!” he shouted, but the window above him shut firmly. For a time he knocked and then kicked at the barred door. Then he shouted curses up at the closed window. He was throwing great handfuls of greasy mud up at it when the city guards came by and laughingly told him to move along. Evidently it was a situation they had seen before, and more than once.
He slung his filthy sea-bag over his shoulder and strode off into the night to find a tavern.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - GIFTS
THE WINTER MOONLIGHT IS
CRISP. IT MAKES THE SHADOWS VERY SHARP AND BLACK. THE SHORE ROCKS ARE sitting in pools of ink, and your hull rests in absolute blackness. Then, because of my fire, there's an overlay of another kind of shadows. Ones that jump and shift. So, when I look at you, parts of you are stark and sharp in the moonlight, and other parts are made soft and mellow by the firelight. "
Amber's voice was almost hypnotic. The warmth of her driftwood fire, kindled with great difficulty earlier in the evening, touched him distantly. Warm and cold were things he had learned from men, the one pleasant, the other unpleasant. But even the concept that warm was better than cold was a learned thing. To wood, it was all the same. Yet on a night like tonight, warm seemed very pleasant indeed.
She was seated-cross-legged, she had told him-on a folded blanket on the damp sand. She leaned back against his hull. The texture of her loose hair was finer than the softest seaweed. It clung to the grain of his wizardwood hull. When she moved, it dragged across his planks in strands before it pulled free.
"You almost make me remember what it was like to see.
Not just colors and shapes, but the times when sight was a pleasure to indulge in. "
She didn't reply but lifted her hand and put the palm flat against his planking. It was a gesture she used, and in some ways it reminded him of making eye-contact. A significant glance exchanged without eyes. He smiled.