by Robin Hobb
Chest heaving, Gantry turned to Kyle. “What is it?” he demanded. “What set this off?”
Vivacia was now uttering short panting shrieks, answered by incoherent cries from the slaves in the hold. Wintrow still sprawled where Kyle had dropped him. Gantry took two steps and looked down on the boy, then looked up at Kyle incredulously. “You did this?” he asked. “Why? The boy is knocked senseless. ”
Kyle merely stared at him, speechless. Gantry shook his head and then glanced up at the sky as if imploring help from above. “Quiet down!” he snapped at the figurehead. “And I'll see to him. But quiet down, you're upsetting everyone. Mild! Mild, I want the medicine chest. And tell Torg I want the keys to these stupid chains, too. Easy. Easy, my lady, we'll soon have things put as right as I can make them. Please. Calm down. It's gone now, and I'll see to the boy. ” To a gaping sailor he shouted, “Evans. Go below, wake my watch. Have them go among the slaves and calm them, tell them there's nothing to fear. ”
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“I touched it,” Kyle heard Vivacia tell Gantry breathlessly. “I hit it, and when I hit it, it knew me. Only I wasn't me!”
“It's going to be all right,” Gantry repeated doggedly.
The ship lurched again as Vivacia leaned far down to scrub her hands in the sea. She was still making small, frightened sounds.
Kyle forced himself to look down at his son. Wintrow was out cold. He massaged the puffy knuckles of his right hand and abruptly knew how hard he'd hit the boy. Hard enough to loosen teeth at least, possibly enough to break his face. Damn. He'd been going to feed the boy to the serpent. His own son. He knew he'd struck Wintrow, he recalled doing it. What he could not recall was why. What had goaded him into it? “He's all right,” he told Gantry gruffly. “More than likely he's faking it. ”
“More than likely,” Gantry agreed sarcastically. He took a breath as if to speak, then suddenly seemed to change his mind. A moment later he said in a low voice, “Sir, we should make some sort of a weapon. A pike or a spear. Something. For that monster. ”
“We'd probably just make it mad,” Kyle said uneasily. “Serpents follow slavers all the time. I've never heard of them attacking the ship itself. It will be content with the dead slaves. ”
Gantry looked at him as if he hadn't heard him correctly. “What if we don't have any?” he said, speaking very clearly. “What if we're as smart and good as you said we'd be, and we don't kill half of them off on the way? What if it gets hungry? And what if the ship just plain doesn't like it? Shouldn't we try to get rid of it for her?” Belatedly his eyes roved over the idle sailors that were gathering to overhear this exchange. “Get back to your tasks!” he barked at them harshly. “If any man has nothing to do, let me know. I'll find him something. ” As the sailors dispersed, he swung his attention back to Wintrow. “I think he's just stunned,” he muttered. “Mild!” he bellowed again, just as the young sailor bounded up with keys in hand and the medicine box under his arm.
Wintrow was stirring, and Gantry helped him sit up. He sat, hands braced wide on the deck behind him, and watched dazedly as Gantry unfastened the shackles on Wintrow's feet. “This is stupid,” the man hissed angrily. He glared at the oozing sores on Wintrow's ankles, then barked an order over his shoulder. “Mild, haul him up a bucket of salt water. ” He turned his attention back to the boy before him. “Wintrow, wash those out good with salt water and then bandage them. Nothing like seawater for healing a cut. Leaves a good, tough scar. I should know, I got enough of them. ” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “And wash yourself while you're at it. Those chained below have an excuse for stinking. You don't. ”
Gantry glanced up at Kyle, who still stood over them. He met his captain's eyes and dared to shake his head in disapproval. Kyle tightened his jaw but said nothing. Then Gantry stood and walked away from them, to where he could look down at Vivacia. She had craned her head over her shoulder to watch what was going on. Her eyes were very wide and she clutched her hands together at her breast. “Now,” he said levelly. “I've had enough of this. Exactly what is it that you want to make you behave?”
Confronted so baldly, Vivacia almost recoiled from him. She was silent.
“Well?” Gantry demanded, indignation slipping into his voice. “You've tried the patience of every man aboard you. Just what in Sa's name do you want to make you happy? Music? Company? What?”
“I want . . . ” She paused and seemed to lose her thought. “I touched it, Gantry. I touched it. And it knew me and it said I wasn't Vivacia nor was I of the Vestrits. It said I belonged to them. ” She was babbling now, Kyle thought in disgust. Babbling like an idiot.
“Vivacia,” Gantry told her sternly. “Serpents don't talk. It said nothing, it just frightened you. It rattled us all, but it's over. No one's badly hurt. But you could have hurt us, with your wild behavior and-”
She didn't seem to be listening. Vivacia furrowed her wooden brow and frowned, then seemed to recall his first question. “What I want is to go back to the way it was before. ” It was a desperate plea.
“Before what?” Gantry demanded in despair. Kyle knew the man was already defeated. No sense in asking the ship what she wanted, she always wanted what no one could give her. She was spoiled, that was all, a spoiled female with vast ideas of her own importance. Trying to please her was the wrong tack. The more Gantry catered to her, the more she'd bully them all. It was the nature of women. Why hadn't they carved a man for a figurehead? A man could have understood reason.
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“Before Kyle,” Vivacia said slowly. She turned to glare at him. “I want Ephron Vestrit back at the helm. And Althea on board. And Brashen. ” She lifted her hands to cover her face and turned away from them. “I want to be sure of who I am again. ” Her voice shook like a child's.
“I can't give you that. No man can give you that. ” Gantry shook his head. “Come, ship. We're doing our best. Wintrow's out of the chains. I can't force him to be happy. I can't force the slaves to be happy. I'm doing the best I can. ” The man was close to pleading.
Vivacia shook her head slowly. “I just can't go on like this,” she said, and there were tears in her muffled voice. “I feel it all, you know. I feel it all. ”
“Bilge,” Kyle growled. Enough of this. He mastered the disgust he felt for his own unbridled anger. So he'd lost his temper. Well, Sa knew he'd been pushed hard enough lately. It was time to let them all know he'd tolerate no more nonsense. He stepped up to the railing beside his mate. “Gantry, don't encourage her to whine. Don't encourage her to be childish. ” He looked down on Vivacia and their eyes met. “Ship. You'll sail. That's all there is to it. You can sail willing or sail like a cow-hide raft, but we'll sail you. I don't give a rat's ass for whether you're happy or not. We've got a task to do and we'll do it. If you don't like having a hold full of slaves, why then, sail faster, damn you. The sooner we get to Chalced the sooner we're rid of them. As for Wintrow, there's no making him happy. He didn't want to behave as my son, he didn't want to be the ship's boy. He made himself a slave. So that is what he is now. That's your likeness needled into his face. He's yours, to do with as you will and you're welcome to him. If he doesn't please you, you can throw him over the side for all I care. ”
Kyle stopped. He was out of breath and they were all staring at him. He didn't like the look on Gantry's face. He was staring at Kyle as if he were mad. There was a deep uneasiness behind his eyes. Kyle didn't like it. “Gantry. Take the watch,” he snapped at him. He glanced aloft. “Get her canvas up, every scrap of it, and see the men scramble lively. Move this tub along. If a seagull farts near us, I want the wind from it caught. ” He strode off to go back to his cabin. He'd bought incense in Jamaillia City, on the advice of one of the experienced slaver captains. He'd burn that and get away from the stink of slaves for a time. He'd get away from all of them for a time.
The ship had returned to near calm. A slav
eship was never completely peaceful. Always, there were cries from somewhere in the hold. People cried out for water, for air, begging voices rose, pleading for the simple light of day. Fights broke out amongst the slaves. It was astounding, how much damage two closely chained men could work upon each other. The cramped quarters and the stench, the stingy rations of ship's bread and water made them turn on one another like rats in a rain barrel.
Not so different, Wintrow thought, from Vivacia and me. In their own way, they were like the slaves chained cheek by jowl below. They had no space to be separate from one another, not even in their thoughts and dreams. No friendship could survive such an enforced confinement. Especially not when guilt was an invisible third sandwiched between them. He had abandoned her, left her to her fate. And for her, the one whispered comment when she had first seen his marked face. “This falls upon me,” she had said. “But for me, none of this would have befallen you. ”
“That is true,” he had had to agree with her. “But that does not mean it is your fault. ”
By her stricken look, he had known that his words wounded her. But he had been too weary and despondent on his own behalf to try to soften them with yet more useless words.
That had been hours ago, back before his father had attacked him. Not a sound had she uttered since Gantry had left them. Wintrow had huddled in the angle of her prow, wondering what had possessed his father. He wondered if he would be suddenly attacked again. He had been too dispirited to speak. He had no idea what had stilled Vivacia's tongue but her silence was almost a relief.
When she finally did speak, her words were banal. “What are we going to do?”
The futility of the question jabbed him. He refolded the wet rag to find a cooler spot, then held it against his swollen face. The bitter words rose to his lips spontaneously. “Do? Why do you ask me? I no longer have any choices as to what I will do. Rather, you should tell your slave what you command. ”
“I have no slave,” Vivacia replied with icy dignity. Outrage crept gradually into her voice. “If you wish to please your father by calling yourself a slave, say you belong to him. Not me. ”
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His long frustration found a target. “Rather say my father is intent on pleasing you, with no regard to what it does to me. If it were not for your strange nature, he would never have forced me to serve aboard you. ”
“My strange nature? And whence did that come? Not from my will. I am what your family has made me. You spoke of choices a moment ago, saying you no longer had any. I have never had any. I am more truly a slave than any mark on your face can make you. ”
Wintrow snorted in disbelief. His anger was rising to match her own. “You a slave? Show me the tattoo on your face, the manacles on your wrists. Easy for you to flaunt such words about. Vivacia, this is not something I play act. This mark is on my face for the rest of my life. ” He forced the bitter words from his lips. “I'm a slave. ”
“Are you?” Her voice was hard. “Before, you said you were a priest, and that no man could take that from you. But that, of course, was before you ran away. Since you have been dragged back, you have shown me otherwise. I had believed you had more courage, Wintrow Vestrit. More determination to shape yourself. ”
Outrage at her words overtook him. He sat up, to look over his shoulder and out at her. “What would you know of courage, ship? What would you know about anything that is truly human? What can be more degrading than to have someone take all decision from you, to tell you that you are a 'thing' that 'belongs' to him? To no longer have a say in where you will go or what you will do? How can one keep any dignity, any faith, any belief in tomorrow? You speak to me of courage-”
“What can I know of courage? What can I know of such things?” The look she swung upon him was terrible to behold. “When have I ever known anything else than to be a 'thing', a possession?” Her eyes blazed. “How dare you throw such things up to me!”
Wintrow gaped at her. For a moment he felt stricken, and then he tried to recover himself. “It is not the same! It is more difficult for me. I was born a man and-”
“Silence!” her words slashed at him. “I never put my mark upon your face, but your family spent three generations putting your mark upon my soul. Yes, soul! This 'thing' dares to claim one!” She looked him up and down, and began to speak. Then she caught her breath; a strange look passed across her face, so that for an instant a stranger seemed to look out at him.
“We are quarreling,” she observed in a sort of wonder. “We are at odds. ” She nodded her herself, seeming almost pleased. “If I can disagree with you, then I am not you. ”
“Of course not. ” For a moment he was confused by her foray into the obvious. Then his irritation with her came back. “I am not you and you are not me. We are separate beings, with separate desires and needs. If you have not realized that before now, then you need to. You need to start being yourself, Vivacia, and discover your own ambitions and desires and thoughts. Have you ever even stopped to think what you might truly want for yourself, other than possessing me?”
With a suddenness that shocked him, she suddenly separated herself from him. She looked away from him, but it was far more than that. He gasped as if deluged with cold water, and a shiver ran over him followed by giddiness. If he had not already been sitting, he might have fallen. He hugged himself for the wind seemed suddenly colder on his skin. In wonder he admitted, “I didn't realize how hard I was struggling to keep myself apart from you. ”
“Were you?” she asked almost gently. Her anger of a few moments ago was gone. Or was it? He could no longer feel what she felt. He stood to look over the railing and found himself trying to read her emotions from the set of her shoulders. She didn't look back at him.
“We are better parted,” she said with great finality.
“But . . . ” he faltered through the next question. “I thought a liveship had to have a partner, one of her own family. ”
“It didn't seem to concern you when you ran away. Don't let it concern you now. ” Her voice was brusque.
“I didn't mean to hurt your feelings,” he ventured. His own anger was suddenly gone. Perhaps he had only been feeling hers? “Vivacia. I am here, whether I want to be or not. As long as I'm here anyway, there is no reason why . . . ”
“The reason is that you have always held back from me. You admitted that, just now. And another reason is that perhaps it is time I discovered who I am without you. ”
“I don't understand. ”
“That is because when I was trying to tell you something important, earlier today, you were not listening. ” Her voice did not sound hurt. Instead there was a studied calm to it that suddenly reminded him of Berandol when his tutor tried to point out an obvious lesson.
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“I suppose I wasn't,” he admitted humbly. “I'll listen now, if you want me to. ”
“Now is too late,” she said sharply. Then she amended it to, “I don't want to tell you about it now. Perhaps I want to puzzle it out for myself. Maybe it's time I did that for myself, instead of always having a Vestrit do it for me. ”
It was his turn to feel abandoned and shut out. “But . . . what shall I do?”
She turned to look back at him, and there was almost kindness in her green eyes. “A slave would ask such a question and wait to be told. A priest would know the answer for himself. ” She almost smiled. “Or have you forgotten who you are without me?” She asked the question, but desired no answer. She turned her back on him. Head up, she stared at the horizon. She had shut him out.
After a time, he heaved himself to his feet. He found the bucket Mild had brought earlier and lowered it over the side. The rope jerked hard against his grip as it filled. It was heavy as he dragged it up. He picked up the rag he had used earlier. She did not watch him go as he left her, taking his bucket and rag below into the slave holds.
I don
't know if I can do this, she thought in despair. I don't know how to be myself without help. What if I go mad? She looked past the islands and rocks that dotted the wide channel, ahead to the horizon. She spread out her senses, tasting both wind and water. She became immediately aware of serpents. Not just the fat white one that trundled along in her wake like a fat dog on a leash, but others that shadowed her at a distance. Resolutely she shut them out of her thoughts. She wished she could do the same for the misery of the slaves within her and the confusion of her crew. But the humans were too close to her, they touched her wizardwood in too many places. Despite herself, she was aware of Wintrow as he went from slave to slave, wiping faces and hands with his cool wet rag, offering what small comforts he could. Both priest and Vestrit, she thought to herself. She felt oddly proud of the boy, as if he were hers somehow. But he was not. With each passing moment of this separateness, she realized more the truth of that. Humans and their emotions filled her, but they were not herself. She tried to accept them and encapsulate them and find herself as someone separate from them. Either she could not, or there was not much to herself.
After a time, she lifted her head and set her jaw. If I am no more than a ship, then I shall be a proud ship. She located the rush of the channel's current and edged herself into it. In tiny movements that were scarcely perceptible even to herself, she aligned her planking, trimming herself. Gantry was on the wheel now and she sensed his sudden pleasure in how well she ran before the wind. She could trust him. She closed her eyes to the rush of air past her face and tried to let the dreams come. What do I want of my life? she asked them.
“You lied to my captain. ” The Ophelia had a husky, courtesan's voice, sweet as dark honey. “Boy,” she added belatedly. She gave Althea a sideways glance. Ophelia, like many figureheads of her day, had been arrayed upon the beakhead of the ship, rather than positioned below the bowsprit. The glance she gave Althea over her bare and ample shoulder was an arch warning against lying.