by Robin Hobb
And yet there was a horrible kernel of fear in Wintrow's waiting, too. What if Torg did not turn and notice him? What then? Would Wintrow abase himself by calling out to the man? Or let him pass by, and face a future full of dealing with other Torgs? Just as Wintrow thought he would cry out, just as he bit down on his own tongue to keep it from betraying him, Torg glanced at him. And away, and then back, as if he could not believe what his eyes had shown him. His eyes widened, and then a grin split his face. He immediately left his task to stride over to Wintrow.
“Well, well,” he exclaimed in vast satisfaction. “I do believe I've earned myself quite a bonus here. Quite a bonus. ” His eyes roved up and down Wintrow, taking in the straw clinging to his worn robe, to the shackles around his chafed ankles and his face white with cold. “Well, well,” he repeated. “Doesn't look as if your freedom lasted long, holy boy. ”
“Do you know this prisoner?” the keeper demanded as he came to stand beside Torg.
“Indeed I do. His father is . . . my business partner. He has been wondering where his son disappeared to. ”
“Ah. Then it is fortunate for you that you have found him today. Tomorrow, his freedom would have been forfeit for his fine. He would have been tattooed the Satrap's slave, and sold. ”
“The Satrap's slave. ” The grin came back to Torg's face. His pale eyebrows danced over his gray eyes. “Now, there's an amusing idea. ” Wintrow could almost see the slow workings of Torg's brain. “How much is the boy's fine?” he demanded suddenly of the keeper.
The old man consulted a tally cord at his waist. “Twelve bits of silver. He killed one of the Satrap's other slaves, you know. ”
“He what?” For a moment Torg looked incredulous. Then he burst out laughing. “Well, I doubt that, but I don't doubt there's quite a tale attached to it. So. If I come back with twelve silver bits tonight, I buy him free. What if I don't?” He narrowed both his eyes and grinned as he asked, more of Wintrow than the keeper, “What would he sell for tomorrow?”
The keeper shrugged. “Whatever he would bring. New slaves are generally auctioned. Sometimes they have friends or family who are willing to buy them free. Or enemies eager to have them as slaves. The auction bidding can be quite fierce. And sometimes amusing as well. ” The keeper had seen who had the power and was playing to him. “You could wait it out, and buy him back. Perhaps you'd save a coin or two. Perhaps you'd have to pay more. But he would be marked by then, marked with the Satrap's sigil. You or his father could grant him his freedom after that, of course. But he'd have to have some tattoo from you, and some sort of paper or ring to say he was free. ”
“Couldn't we just burn the tattoo off?” Torg asked callously. His eyes devoured Wintrow's face, looking for some kind of fear. Wintrow refused to show any. Torg would never dare to let it go so far. This was but the same kind of mockery and taunting the man always indulged in. If Wintrow gave any sign of being upset by it, Torg would only indulge in more of it. He let his eyes wander past Torg as if he were no longer interested in him or his words.
“Burning off a slave tattoo is illegal,” the keeper pronounced ponderously. “A person with a burn scar to the left of his nose is assumed to be an escaped and dangerous slave. He'd be brought right back here, if he were caught. And tattooed again with the Satrap's sign. ”
Torg shook his head woefully, but his grin was evil. “Such a shame, to mark such a sweet little face as that, eh? Well,” he turned abruptly aside from him. With a jerk of his head, he indicated the slaves he had not yet inspected. “Shall we continue?”
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The keeper frowned. “Do you want me to send for a runner? To take word of this boy to his father?”
“No, no, don't trouble yourself. I'll see his father hears of his whereabouts. He's not going to be pleased with the boy. Now, what about this woman? Has she any special skill or training?” His voice caressed the last two words, making it a cruel joke on the elderly hag who crouched before them.
Wintrow stood trembling in his pen. The anger he felt inside him threatened to burst him wide open. Torg would leave him here, in cold and filth, for as long as he could. But he'd tell his father, and then come down here with him to witness their confrontation. With a sudden cold sinking of his heart, Wintrow considered how vast his father's anger would be. He'd feel humiliated as well. Kyle Haven did not like to be humiliated. He'd find ways of expressing that to his son. Wintrow leaned against the wall of his pen miserably. He should have just waited and endured. It was less than a year now to his fifteenth birthday. When it came, he would declare himself a man independent of his father's will, and just step off the ship wherever it was. This foolish attempt at running away was only going to make the months stretch longer. Why hadn't he waited? Slowly he sank down to sit in the straw in the corner of his pen. He closed his eyes to sleep. Sleeping was far better than considering his father's anger to come.
“Get out,” Kennit repeated in a low growl. Etta stood where she was, her face pale, her mouth firm. One hand held a basin of water, the other was draped in bandaging.
“I thought a fresh bandage might be more comfortable,” she dared to say. “That one is stiff with dry blood and-”
“Get out!” he roared. She whirled, sloshing water over the rim of the basin and fled. The door of his cabin thudded shut behind her.
He had been awake and clear-headed since early morning, but those were the first words he had spoken to anyone. He had spent most of that time staring at the wall, unable to grasp that his luck had forsaken him. How could this have happened to him? How was it possible for Captain Kennit to suffer this? Well. It was time. Time to see what the bitch had done to him, time to take command again. Time. He braced his fists deep in his bedding and hauled himself upright to a sitting position. When his injured leg dragged against the bedding, the pain was such that he felt ill. A new sweat broke out on him, plastering his stinking nightshirt to his back once more. Time. He grabbed the bedclothes and tore them aside. He looked down at the leg she had ruined.
It was gone.
His nightshirt had been carefully folded and pinned back from it. There were his legs, swarthy and hairy as ever. But the one just stopped short, snubbed off in a dirty brownish wad of bandaging right below his knee. It couldn't be. He reached toward it, but could not touch it. Instead, stupidly, he put his hand on the empty linen where the rest of his leg should have been. As if the fault might have been with his eyes.
He keened, then drew a breath and held it. He would not make another sound. Not one sound. He tried to remember how it had come to this. Why had he ever brought the crazy bitch aboard, why had they been attacking slaveships in the first place? Merchant ships, that was where the money was. And they didn't have a herd of serpents trailing after them, ready to grab a man's leg. This was their fault, Sorcor's and Etta's. But for them, he'd still be a whole man.
Calm. Calm. He had to be calm, he had to think this through. He was trapped here, in this cabin, unable to walk or fight. And Etta and Sorcor were both against him. What he had to figure out now was if they were in league with one another. And why had they done this to him? Why? Did they hope to take the ship from him? He took another breath, tried to organize his thoughts. “Why did she do this to me?” A second thought occurred to him. “Why didn't she just kill me then? Was she afraid my crew would turn on her?” If so, then perhaps she and Sorcor were not in league. . . .
“She did it to save your life. ” The tiny voice from his wrist was incredulous. “How can you be this way? Don't you remember it at all? A serpent had you by the leg, he was trying to pick you up and flip you into the air so he could gulp you down. Etta had to cut your leg off. It was the only way to keep him from getting all of you. ”
“I find that very difficult to believe,” he sneered at the charm.
“Why?”
“Because I know her. That's why. ”
“As do I. Which is why that answer doesn
't make sense either,” the face observed cheerily.
“Shut up. ”
Kennit forced himself to look at the wrapped stump. “How bad is it?” he asked the charm in a low voice.
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“Well, for starters, it's gone,” the charm informed him heartlessly. "Etta's hatchet chop was the only clean part of the severing.
The part the serpent did was half chewed and half sort of melted away. The flesh reminded me of melted tallow. Most of that brown stuff isn't blood, it's oozing pus. "
“Shut up,” Kennit said faintly. He stared at the clotted, smeary bandaging and wondered what was beneath it. They had put a folded cloth beneath it, but there was still a smear of ochre stuff across his fine, clean linen. It was disgusting.
The little demon grinned up at him. “Well, you asked. ”
Kennit took a deep breath and bellowed, “Sorcor!”
The door flew open almost immediately, but it was Etta who stood there, teary and distraught. She hastened into the room. “Oh, Kennit, are you in pain?”
“I want Sorcor!” he declared, and even to himself it sounded like the demand of a petulant child. Then the brawny first mate filled the doorway. To Kennit's dismay, he looked as solicitous as Etta as he asked, “Is there aught I can do for you, Captain?” Sorcor's unruly hair stood up as if he had been pulling at it, and his face was sallow beneath its scars and weathering.
He tried to remember why he had called for Sorcor. He looked down at the disgusting mess in his bed. “I want this cleaned up. ” He managed to sound firmly in command, as if he were speaking of a sloppy deck. “Have a hand heat some water for a bath for me. And lay out a clean shirt. ” He looked up at Sorcor's incredulous stare and realized he was treating him more like a valet than his second in command. “You understand that how I appear when I interrogate the prisoners is important. They must not see me as a crippled wreck in a wad of dirty bedding. ”
“Prisoners?” Sorcor asked stupidly.
“Prisoners,” Kennit replied firmly. “I directed that three were to be saved, did I not?”
“Yessir. But that was . . . ”
“And were not three saved for me to question?”
“I have one,” Sorcor admitted uneasily. “Or what's left of one. Your woman has been at him. ”
“What?”
“It was his fault,” Etta growled low as a threatening cat. “All his fault that you were hurt. ” Her eyes had gone to alarming slits.
“Well. One, you say,” Kennit attempted a recovery. What kind of a creature had he brought aboard his ship? Don't think of that just now. Take command. “See to my orders, then. When I've made myself presentable, I'll want the prisoner brought here. I don't wish to see much of the crew just now. How did the rest of the capture go?”
“Slick as a plate of guts, sir. And we got a little bonus with this one. ” Despite the anxiety etched in Sorcor's face, he grinned. “Seems this ship was a bit special. Carrying a bunch of regular slaves, but forward was a batch that were a gift from the Satrap of Jamaillia himself to some high muckamuck in Chalced. A troupe of dancers and musicians, with all their instruments and fancy duds and pots of face paint. And jewels, several nice little casks of sparklies . . . I stowed those under your bunk, sir. And an assortment of fine cloths, lace, some silver statues and bottled brandies. A very nice little haul. Not weighty, but all of the best quality. ” He gave a sideways glance at Kennit's stump. “Perhaps you'd like to sample some of the brandy now yourself. ”
“In a bit. These dancers and musicians . . . are they tractable? How do they feel about having their journey interrupted?” Why hadn't they thrown them overboard with the rest of the crew?
“Wonderful, sir. They'd all been taken as slaves, you see. The company was in debt, so when the owners went bust, the Satrap ordered the dancers and musicians seized as well. Which wasn't quite legal, but being the Satrap, I suppose he doesn't have to worry about that part. No, they're happy as clams at being captured by pirates. Their captain already has them at work, making up songs and dances to tell the whole story of it. You being the hero of the piece, of course. ”
“Of course. ” Songs and dances. Kennit suddenly felt unaccountably weary. “We're . . . at anchor. Where? Why?”
“Cove don't have a name that I know, but it's shallow here. The Sicerna was taking on water; had been for some time. Slaves in the bottom hold were just about waterlogged all the time. Seemed best to anchor her up where she couldn't sink too far while we rigged extra pumps for her. Then I thought we'd make for Bull Creek. We've got plenty of man-power to keep the pumps going all the way there. ”
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“Why Bull Creek?” Kennit asked.
Sorcor shrugged. “There's a decent haul-out beach there. ” He shook his head. “She'll take some work before she'll be sea-worthy again. And Bull Creek has been raided twice in the last year by slavers, so I think we'll be welcomed there. ”
“There. You see,” Kennit said faintly. He smiled to himself. Sorcor was right. The man had learned much from him. Put a ship there, speak persuasively there, and he could win another little town over. What could he say to them. “If the Pirate Isles had one ruler . . . that raiders feared . . . folk could live . . . ” A tremble ran through him.
Etta rushed at him. “Lie back, lie back. You've gone white as a sheet. Sorcor, go for those things, the bath and all that. Oh, and bring in the basin and bandaging I left on the deck outside. I'll want them now. ” Kennit listened in dismay as she ordered his mate about with a fine disdain for protocol.
“Sorcor can bandage this,” Kennit declared mistrustfully.
“I'm better at it,” she asserted calmly.
“Sorcor-” he began again, but now the first mate dared to interrupt him with, “Actually, sir, she has quite a nice touch for it. Took care of all our boys after the last set to, and did a fine job of it. I'll see to the wash water. ” Then he was gone, leaving Kennit helpless and alone with the bloodthirsty wench.
“Now sit still,” she told him, as if he could get up and run away. “I'm going to lift your leg up and put a pad underneath it so we don't soak all your bedding. Then when we're finished, we'll give you clean linens. ” He clenched his teeth and squinted his eyes and managed not to make a sound as she lifted his stump and deftly slid more folded rags under it. “Now I'm going to wet the old bandages before I try to take them off. They pull less that way. ”
“You seem to know a great deal about this,” he gritted out.
“Whores get beaten up a lot,” she pointed out pragmatically. “If the women in a house don't take care of each other, who will?”
“And I should trust the care of my injury to the woman who cut my leg off?” he asked coolly.
All her motion ceased. Like a flower wilting, she sank down on the floor beside his bed. Her face was very pale. She leaned forward until her forehead rested on the edge of his bed. “It was the only way I could save you. I'd have cut off both my hands instead of your leg, if that would have saved you. ”
This declaration struck Kennit as so profoundly absurd that he was speechless for a moment. The charm, however, was not. “Captain Kennit can be a heartless pig. But I assure you that I understand that you did what you had to do to preserve me. I thank you for your deed. ”
Shock warred with fury that the charm would so betray itself to another. He immediately clapped his hand over it, only to feel tiny teeth sink savagely into the meat of his palm. He snatched his hand away with a gasp of pain as Etta lifted her face to regard him with tear-filled eyes. “I understand,” she said hoarsely. “There are many roles a man has to play. It is probably necessary that Captain Kennit be a heartless pig. ” She shrugged her shoulders and tried to smile. “I do not hold it against the Kennit who is mine. ”
Her nose had turned red and her leaky eyes were most distressing. Worse, she dared to believe him capable of
thanking her for cutting off his leg. Mentally he cursed his sly, malicious charm for putting him in such a fix, even as he grasped at the straw of hope that she truly believed such words could come from his lips. “Let's say no more about it,” he suggested hastily. “Make the best you can of the wretched mess of my leg. ”
The water she used to soak the bandaging free was warm as blood. He scarely felt it, until she began gingerly to peel the layers of linen and lint from the wound. Then he turned his head aside and focused on the wall until the edges of his vision began to waver. Sweat sheeted his body. He wasn't even aware that Sorcor had come back until the mate offered him an open bottle of brandy.
“A glass?” Kennit asked disdainfully.
Sorcor swallowed. “From the look of your leg, I thought it might be a waste of time. ”
If Sorcor hadn't said that, Kennit might have been able not to look at his stump. But now as the sailor fumbled clumsily in a cupboard for an appropriate glass, Kennit turned his head slowly to look down to where his sound, strong, muscular leg had once been.
The dirty bandaging had actually cushioned the shock. Seeing his leg end in a wad of stained fabric was not the same as seeing his leg stop in a mangle of chewed and seared flesh. The end of it looked partially cooked. His gorge rose, and sour bile bubbled into the back of his throat. He swallowed it back, refusing to disgrace himself in front of them. Sorcor's hand was shaking as he offered him the glass. Ridiculous. The man had dealt worse injuries than the one he was looking at now. Kennit took the glass and downed the brandy at a gulp. Then he took a shaky breath. Well, perhaps his luck had held in one odd way. At least the whore knew how to doctor him.
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Snatching even that bare comfort away from him, Etta said in a quiet whisper to Sorcor, “This is a mess. We need to get him to a healer. And quickly. ”
He counted three breaths as he drew them. He gestured with the glass at Sorcor, but when the man tried to fill his glass, Kennit took the bottle from him instead. One drink. Three breaths. Another drink. Three breaths. No. It was time, it was time now.