Ship of Magic

by Robin Hobb

  “That would be a good idea,” she said quietly. “Where do you suggest?”

  He looked away. “There's a place just down the street from here. ” He pointed through the darkness. “Eldoy's. They make chowder and fresh bread there. It's very good. We could meet there. I'd buy you dinner, and you could tell me your adventures. Since you left Bingtown. ” His eyes came back to her face and he managed a smile. “Or since we last danced together. ”

  So he had recalled that. She returned his smile.

  He had a good face, open and honest. She thought of what she had seen of him, especially him and his father and Ophelia together. The fondness and ease that existed among them made her suddenly hunger for such things as simple jokes and companionable times. When she smiled back at him, his grin widened before he looked away. “I'll meet you there tomorrow afternoon,” she agreed easily.

  “Good. Good, then, that's settled. Good night, then. ” Almost hastily, he turned away from her. He gave another hitch to his trousers and then shifted his cap to the back of his head. She smiled as she watched him walk away. He had a jaunty sailor's roll to his gait. She recalled now that he'd been a very good dancer.

  “You know something?” Tarlock queried drunkenly. “I know you. I'm sure I know you. ”

  “Not surprising. I'm only the mate on your ship,” Brashen told him disgustedly. He swiveled in his seat so he didn't have to face the seaman. Tarlock didn't take the hint.

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  “No. No, I mean, yeah, that's true. That's true, you're mate on the Springeve. But I knew you before that. Way before that. ” With elaborate care, he sat down beside Brashen. His mug sloshed a bit over the lip as he set it down.

  Brashen didn't turn to face him. Instead he lifted his own mug and drank from it as if he hadn't noticed Tarlock had joined him. He'd been alone at the tavern table before the grizzled old sot had sought him out. He'd wanted to be alone. This was the first port the Springeve had made since they'd left Candletown, and Brashen had wanted time to think.

  His job was pretty much what he'd expected it to be. The day-today running of the shallow-draft vessel was not a large strain on his abilities. Most of the crew aboard her had been with her for some time and knew their tasks well enough. He'd had to back up his bark with his fists a few times, especially when he first came aboard, but that was something he'd expected. Men were bound to challenge a new mate, regardless of whether he came aboard fresh or rose up through their ranks. It was just how sailors were. Knowledge and ability weren't enough in a mate; he had to be able to back it up with his fists. Brashen could. That wasn't the problem.

  It was his off-ship tasks that were bothering him. Initially the ship had followed the coast of Jamaillia north, skipping along its increasingly broken shoreline. Now it ventured from island to island, skirting and sometimes venturing into what was acknowledged as pirate territory. This little town was typical. It was little more than a wharf and a handful of warehouses on a scummy slough. A couple of taverns housed a few run-down whores. A scatter of hovels marred the hillside behind the taverns. The town had no reason to exist that Brashen could see.

  Yet he'd spent the whole afternoon with a sword hanging at his belt and a truncheon in his hand. He'd been watching his captain's back, standing guard behind him as he sat at a table in one of those warehouses. Between his captain's feet was a chest of coins. Three of the most suspicious sea-dogs Brashen had ever encountered brought out merchandise samples, a bit at a time, and prices were negotiated. The variety and condition betrayed the source of their wares. Brashen had felt a surge of disgust with himself when the captain had turned to ask his opinion on some blood-spattered but heavily illustrated manuscripts. “How much are they worth?” Captain Finny had demanded.

  Brashen had pushed aside a squirming memory. “Not worth dying for,” he'd said dryly. Finny had laughed and named a price. When Brashen nodded, the pirates selling their loot had consulted one another briefly, then accepted it. He'd felt soiled by the transaction.

  He'd suspected from the start that the Springeve would be trading in such goods. He just hadn't imagined himself inspecting merchandise with a dead man's blood on it.

  “Tell ya what,” Tarlock offered slyly. “I'll just say a name. You recall it, you tip me a wink and we'll say no more about it. No more at all. ”

  Brashen spoke softly over his shoulder. “How about you shut up right now and stop bothering me, and I don't black both your eyes?”

  “Now is that any way to talk to an old ship-mate?” Tarlock whined.

  The man was too drunk for his own good. Too drunk to be effectively threatened. Not drunk enough to pass out. But that, perhaps, Brashen could remedy. He changed tactics and turned back to face him. He forced a smile to his face. “You know, you're right. Now I don't recall that I've shipped with you before, but what difference need that make? As we're ship-mates now, let's have a drink together. Boy! Let's have some rum here, the good dark stuff, not this piss-thin beer you've been serving us. ”

  Tarlock's demeanor brightened considerably. “Well. That's a bit more like it,” he observed approvingly. He raised his mug and hastily drank his beer down to be ready for the rum when it arrived. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and grinned at Brashen, displaying what remained of his teeth. “Thought I recognized you when you first come aboard, I did. Been a long time, though. What's it been, let's see. Ten years? Ten years ago aboard the Hope”?"

  The Despair. Brashen took a pull from his own mug and appeared to consider. “Me, you mean? Ten years ago? You're mistaken, man, ten years ago I was just a lad. Just a lad. ”

  “Right. That you were. That's what made me uncertain, at first. You didn't have a whisker to your chin then. ”

  “No, that I didn't,” Brashen agreed affably. The serving boy came with the bottle and two glasses. Brashen clenched his teeth and paid for the liquor. He grinned at Tarlock and elbowed the small glass aside. The rum gurgled happily as Brashen poured it into the sailor's emptied beer mug. Tarlock beamed. Brashen tipped a bit into his own glass, then lifted it in salute. “So here's to ship-mates, old and new. ”

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  They drank together. Tarlock took a hefty slug of the rum, gasped, then leaned back with a sigh. He scratched his nose and whiskery chin energetically. Then he pointed a single thick finger at Brashen. “Child of the Wind,” he said, and grinned his gap-toothed smile. “I'm right, ain't I?”

  “About what?” Brashen asked him lazily. He watched the man through narrowed eyes as he took a slow sip of his own rum. Tarlock followed his example with another swallow of his.

  “Aw, come on,” Tarlock wheezed after a moment. “You were on Child of the Wind when we overtook her. Little whip of a kid you was, spitting and scratching like a cat when we hauled you out of the rigging. Didn't have so much as a knife to defend yourself, but you fought right up until you dropped. ”

  “Child of the Wind. Can't say as I recall her, Tarlock. ” Brashen put a note of warning in his voice. “You're not going to tell me you were a pirate, are you?”

  The man was either too stupid or too drunk to deny it. Instead he spewed a rummy laugh into his own mug and then sat back, to wipe his chin with his wrist. “Hey! Weren't we all? Look around you, man. Think there's a man in this room hasn't freebooted a bit? Naw!” He leaned forward across the table, suddenly confidential. “You wasn't too slow to sign the articles, once you had a blade at your ribs. ” He leaned back again. “But as I recall, the name you went by wasn't Brashen Trell of Bingtown. ” He rubbed his reddened nose, considering. “I bin trine to member,” he slurred. He leaned heavily on the table, then set his head down on one of his arms. “Can't remember what you said it was. But I recall what we called you. ” Again the thick finger lifted, just from the tabletop, to wag at Brashen. “Weasel. Cuz you was so skinny and so fast. ” The man's eyes sagged shut. He drew a deep, heavy breath that em
erged as a snore.

  Brashen stood quietly. The merchandise would be nearly loaded by now. It wouldn't take much to speed up their departure. Perhaps when Tarlock awoke, he'd find his ship had sailed without him. He wouldn't be the first sailor to get drunk and be left behind. He looked down at the snoring Tarlock. The years had not been kind to him since the Child of the Wind. Brashen would never have recognized him if he hadn't revealed himself. He lifted the bottle of rum, then in a spirit of largesse, he re-corked it and nestled it in the crook of the old pirate's elbow. If he woke up too soon, he'd likely delay himself with another drink or two. And if he woke up too late, perhaps the rum would console him. He really had nothing against the man, except that he reminded Brashen of a time he'd sooner forget.

  Weasel, he thought to himself as he left the tavern and emerged into the chill fog of the early evening. I'm not Weasel anymore. As if to convince himself, he took a stick of cindin from his pocket and snapped the end off in his mouth. As he tucked it in his cheek, the sharp bitterness of it almost made his eyes water. It was probably the best quality of the drug he'd ever known, and it had been a parting goodwill gift to him from the freebooters they'd dealt with earlier in the day. Free.

  No, he wasn't Weasel anymore, he reflected wryly as he headed back toward the dock and the Springeve. Poor Weasel never had cindin like this.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - PIRATES AND CAPTIVES

  THEY'RE PIRATES, YOU DAMN FOOL!“ KYLE SPAT AT SA'ADAR. ”MUSTER YOUR MEN TO REPEL THEM. WE'VE still got a chance to get away. With Wintrow at the helm, Vivacia will . . . "

  “Yes, they are pirates,” Sa'Adar agreed triumphantly. “And they fly the Raven flag. They're the pirates that every slave in Jamaillia prays for. They capture slaveships and free the slaves. And they feed the crews to their own stinking serpents. ” The last he uttered in a low growl that was at odds with the joyous smile on his face. “Truly, Sa has provided,” he added, and then he was striding away from them, to the waist of the ship where the gathered slaves were pointing at the Raven flag and shouting joyously to one another.

  The word had spread through the ship like fire. As the Marietta came alongside, grapples were thrown. Wintrow felt Vivacia's apprehension as the sharpened hooks dragged across her decks to catch in her railing. “Steady, my lady,” he breathed to her again. Her anxiety mingled with his own. They had no crew with which to resist the capture, even if he had had the stomach for more fighting and blood. He felt his exhaustion hung on him like a heavy, cold garment. He kept her wheel, even as the other ship hauled in tight to her. Like an outpouring of ants from a disturbed nest, gaudily dressed sailors were suddenly swarming over her sides. Someone in the waist was barking orders, to slaves as well as sailors. With a swiftness and order that was almost magical, men began to flow up the masts. The sails were quickly and neatly reefed. He heard the anchor chain rattle out. Someone was barking orders in a voice of authority that the slaves responded to as they crowded out of the way of the pirate crewmen.

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  Wintrow kept still, and he hoped, inconspicuous among the other slaves. A feeling of almost relief welled up in him. These pirates were taking over his ship, but at least they moved competently. She was in the hands of true seamen.

  The relief was short lived as, a moment later, bodies began to splash overboard. The white serpent that Wintrow had supposed left far behind in the storm suddenly broke to the surface to gape eagerly for the corpses. Several others, more gaudily colored, lifted their heads at a distance to regard the ship both warily and curiously. One suddenly lifted a great crest around its neck and flourished its head with a challenging bellow.

  Vivacia gave an incoherent cry at sight of them. “No! Get them away!” she cried out. Then, “Not Gantry, no! Do not give him to the foul things! Wintrow! Make them stop, make them stop!”

  The only response was a terrible laughter.

  He glanced at his father. His eyes looked dead. “I have to go to her,” Wintrow apologized. “Stay here. ”

  His father snorted. “There's no sense in bothering. You've already lost her. You listened to that priest and let the pirates just board her. You just stood here and let the pirates take her. Just as last night you did nothing to warn us when the slaves rose against us. ” He shook his head. “For a time, last night, I thought I had misjudged you. But I was right all along. ”

  “Just as I stood by and did nothing as you changed my ship into a slaver,” Wintrow pointed out bitterly. He looked his father up and down slowly. “I fear I was right, too,” he said. He looped off the wheel and went forward without a glance back. The ship, he told himself. I do it for the ship. He did not leave the man there alone and injured because he hated his father. He did not leave him there half-hoping someone would kill him. He only did it because the ship needed him. He moved towards the foredeck. When he reached the waist, he tried to thread his way inconspicuously through the gathered slaves there.

  By daylight, the released slaves were an even more ungodly sight than they had been in the dimness of the holds. Chafed by chains and the movement of the decks beneath them, their rag-draped hides showed scabby and pale. Privation had thinned many to near bones. Some few wore better clothes, stripped from the dead or salvaged from the crew's belongings. The map-faces seemed to have appropriated his father's wardrobe and seemed to be more at ease than some of the others. Many had the blinking, confused gaze of animals caged long in the dark and suddenly released. They had broken into the ship's stores. Barrels of biscuit had been dragged out onto the deck and stove open. Some of the slaves clutched handfuls of ship's biscuit, as if to promise themselves food readily available. Freed of chains, they looked as if they could not yet recall how to move freely or act as they wished. Most shuffled still, and looked at each other only with the dull recognition that cattle have for one another. Humanity had been stolen from them. It would take them time to regain it.

  He tried to move as if he were truly one of the slaves, slipping from one huddled knot to another. Sa'Adar and his map-faces stood in the center of the ship's waist, apparently offering a welcome to the pirates. The priest was speaking to three of them. The few words that Wintrow overheard seemed to be a flowery speech of welcome and thanks. None of the three looked particularly impressed. The tall man looked sickened by it. Wintrow shared his feelings.

  They were not his concern. Vivacia was. Her futile pleas had died away to small inarticulate sounds. Wintrow caught sight of two map-faces on the lee side of the ship. They were systematically throwing the stacked bodies of slain crewmen and slaves overboard. Their faces were detached, their only comments relating to the gluttony of the white serpent who seized them. Wintrow caught a glimpse of Mild as he went over, and would recall forever the image of bare feet dangling from ragged trousers as the white serpent seized his friend's body in an engulfing maw. “Sa forgive us,” he prayed on a breath. He spun away from the sight and got his hands on die ladder to the foredeck. He had started up it when he heard Sa'Adar order a map-face, “Fetch Captain Haven here. ” Wintrow halted an instant, then swarmed up it and raced to the bow. “Vivacia. I'm here, I'm here. ” He pitched his voice low.

  “Wintrow!” she gasped. She turned to him, reached up a hand. He leaned down to touch it. The face she turned up to him was devastated with both shock and fear. “So many are dead,” she whispered. “So many died last night. And what will become of us now?”

  “I don't know,” he told her truthfully. “But I promise that of my own will, I will never leave you again. And I will do all I can to stop any further killing. But you have to help me. You must. ”

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  “How? No one listens to me. I'm nothing to them. ”

  “You are everything to me. Be strong, be brave. ”

  In the waist there was a sudden stir, a muttering that grew to an animalistic roar. Wintrow didn't need to look. “They have my father down there. We have to ke
ep him alive. ”

  “Why?” The sudden harshness in her voice was chilling.

  “Because I promised him I would try. He helped me through the night, he stood by me. And you. Despite all that is between us, he helped me keep you off the rocks. ” Wintrow took a breath. “And because of what it would do to me if I just stood by and allowed them to kill my father. Because of who that would make me. ”

  “There is nothing we can do,” she said bitterly. “I could not save Gantry, I could not save Mild. Not even Findow for the sake of his fiddling could I save. For all these slaves have suffered, they have only learned to disregard suffering. Pain is the coin they use now in all their transactions. Nothing else reaches them, nothing else will satisfy them. ” An edge of hysteria was creeping into her voice. “And that is what they fill me with. Their own pain, and their hunger for pain and . . . ”

  “Vivacia,” he said gently, and then more firmly, “Ship. Listen to me. You sent me below to recall who I was. I know you did. And you were right. You were right to do so. Now. Recall who you are, and who has sailed you. Recall all you know of courage. We will need it. ”

  As if in response to his words, he heard Sa'Adar's voice raised in command. “Wintrow! Come forth. Your father claims you will speak for him. ”

  A breath. Two. Three. Finding himself at the center of all things, finding Sa at the center of himself. Recalling that Sa was all and all was Sa.

  “Do not think you can hide yourself!” Sa'Adar's voice boomed out. “Come out. Captain Kennit commands it!”

  Wintrow pushed the hair back from his eyes and stood as tall as he could. He walked to the edge of the foredeck and looked down on them all. “No one commands me on the deck of my own ship!” He threw the words down at them and waited to see what would happen.

  “Your ship? You, made a slave by your father's own hand, claim this ship as yours?” It was Sa'Adar who spoke, not one of the pirates. Wintrow took heart.

  He did not look at Sa'Adar as he spoke but at the pirates who had turned to stare at him. “I claim this ship and this ship claims me. By right of blood. And if you think that true claim can be disputed, ask my father how well he succeeded at it. ” He took a deep breath and tried to bring his voice from the bottom of his lungs. “The liveship Vivacia is mine. ”