by Robin Hobb
"You don't have to be mixed up in this, Rache," Ronica felt obliged to point out to her. "If you leave me, you could find refuge among the Tattooed. Roed has no reason to pursue you. You could be safe."
"Nonsense," the serving woman declared. "Besides, you don't know the way to Sparse Kelter's house. I'm convinced we should go there first. If he turns us away, we both may have to take shelter with the Tattooed."
By midmorning, the rain eased. They came to a place where a trail angled down the steep slope of the ravine. Amidst the tracks of cloven hooves, Ronica saw the print of a bare foot in the slick mud. More than deer used this trail. She followed Rache awkwardly, catching at tree trunks and small bushes to keep from falling. By the time they reached the bottom, her scratched legs were muddy to the knees. It mattered little. There was no bridge across the wide, green sheet of water at the bottom of the ravine. The two women slogged through it silently. The bank on the opposite side was neither as steep nor as tall. Clutching at one another, they staggered up it and emerged into woods that were more open.
They were on a pathway now, and before they had gone much farther, it widened out into a beaten trail. Ronica began to catch glimpses of makeshift shelters back under the trees. Once she smelled woodsmoke and cooking porridge. It made her stomach growl. "Who lives back here?" she asked Rache as the serving woman hurried her on.
"People who cannot live anywhere else," Rache answered her evasively. An instant later, as if ashamed to be so devious, she told her, "Slaves that escaped their New Trader owners, mostly. They had to remain in hiding. They could not seek work, nor leave town. The New Traders had watchers at the docks who stopped any slaves without documents. This is not the only shantytown hidden in the woods around Bingtown. There are others, and they have grown since Fire Night. There is a whole other Bingtown hidden here, Ronica. They live on the edges, on the crumbs of your town's trade, but they are people all the same. They snare game, and have tiny hidden gardens, or harvest the wild nuts and fruits of the forest. They trade, mostly with the Three Ships folk, for fish and fabric and necessities."
They passed two huts leaning together in the shadow of a stand of cedars. "I never knew there were so many," Ronica faltered.
Rache gave a snort of amusement. "Every New Trader who came to your town brought at least ten slaves. Nannies, cooks and footmen for the household, and farmhands for fields and orchards: they didn't come to town and walk amongst you, but they are here." A faint smile rippled her tattoo. "Our numbers make us a force to reckon with, if nothing else. For good or for ill, Ronica, we are here, and here we will stay. Bingtown needs to recognize that. We cannot continue to live as hidden outcasts on your edges. We must be recognized and accepted."
Ronica was silent. The former slave's words were almost threatening. Down the path, she glimpsed a boy and a small girl, but an instant later they had vanished like panicked rabbits. Ronica began to wonder if Rache had deliberately steered her to this path. Certainly, she seemed at ease and familiar with her surroundings.
They climbed another hill, leaving the scattered settlement of hovels and huts behind them. Evergreens closed in around them, making the overcast day even darker. The path narrowed and appeared less used, but now that Ronica was looking for them, she saw other little paths branching away. Before the two women reached the Three Ships houses along the shale beach the trail looked like no more than an animal track. A chill wind off the open water rushed them along. Ronica winced at the tattered and muddy aspect she must present, but there was nothing she could do about it.
In this section of Bingtown, the houses hugged the contour of the beach, where the Three Ships families could watch for their fishing vessels to return. As Rache hurried her down the street, Ronica looked about with guarded interest. She had never been here before. The exposure to storms off the bay pitted the winding street with puddles. Children played on the long porches of the clapboard houses. The smells of burning driftwood and smoking fish rode the brisk wind. Nets stretched between the houses, waiting to be mended. The rioting and the desolation that had followed it had had small effect on this section of town. A woman, well hooded against the nasty weather, hastened past them, pushing a barrow full of flatfish. She nodded a greeting to them.
"Here, this is Sparse's house," Rache suddenly said. The rambling single-story structure looked little different from its neighbors. A recent coating of whitewash was the only indication of greater prosperity that Ronica could see. They stepped up onto the covered porch that ran the length of the house and Rache knocked firmly on the door.
Ronica pushed her rain-soaked hair back from her face as the door swung open. A tall woman stood in it, big-boned and hearty as many of the Three Ships settlers were. She had freckles and a reddish tint in her sandy, weather-frazzled hair. For a moment she stared at them suspiciously, then a smile softened her face. "I recall you," she said to Rache. "You're that woman begged a bit of fish from Da."
Rache nodded, unoffended by this characterization. "I've been back to see him twice since then. Both times you were out in your boat, fishing flounder. You are Ekke, are you not?"
Ekke no longer hesitated. "Ah, come in with you, then. You both look wetter than water. No, no, never mind the mud on your shoes. If enough people track dirt in, someone will start tracking it out."
From the look of the floor just inside the door, that would begin happening soon. The floor was bare wood plank, worn by the passage of feet. Within the house, the ceilings were low, and the small windows did not admit much light. A cat sprawled sleeping beside a shaggy hound. The dog opened one eye to acknowledge them as they stepped around him, then went back to sleep. Just past the dozing dog was a stout table surrounded by sturdy chairs. "Do sit down," the woman invited them. "And take your wet things off. Da isn't here just now, but I expect him back soon. Tea?"
"I would be so grateful," Ronica told her.
Ekke dipped water from a barrel into a kettle. As she put it on the hearth to boil, she looked over her shoulder at them. "You look all done in. There's a bit of the morning's porridge left-sticky-thick, but filling all the same. Can I warm it for you?"
"Please," Rache replied when Ronica could not find words. The girl's simple, open hospitality to two strangers brought tears to her eyes, even as she realized how bedraggled she must look to merit such charity. It humbled her to know she had come to this: begging at a Three Ships door. What would Ephron have thought of her now?
The leftover porridge was indeed sticky and thick. Ronica devoured her share with a hot cup of a reddish tea, pleasantly spiced with cardamom in the Three Ships fashion. Ekke seemed to sense they were both famished and exhausted. She let them eat and made all the conversation herself, chatting of changing winter weather, of nets to be mended, and the quantity of salt they must buy somewhere to have enough to make "keeping fish" for the stormy season. To all of this, Ronica and Rache nodded as they chewed.
When they had finished the porridge, Ekke clattered their bowls away. She refilled their cups with the steaming, fragrant tea. Then, for the first time, she sat down at the table with a cup of her own. "So. You're the women who've talked with Da before, aren't you? You've come to talk with him about the Bingtown situation, eh?"
Ronica appreciated her forthright approach, and reciprocated it. "Not exactly. I have spoken with your father twice before about the need for all the folk of Bingtown to unify and treat for peace. Things cannot continue as they are. If they do, the Chalcedeans need do no more than sit outside our harbor and wait until we peck each other to bits. As it is, when our patrol ships come back in, they have difficulty finding fresh supplies. Not to mention that it is hard for fathers and brothers to leave homes to drive off the Chalcedeans, if they must worry about their families unprotected at home."
A line divided Ekke's brow as she nodded to all this. Rache suddenly cut in smoothly, "But that is not why we are here, now. Ronica and I must seek asylum, with Three Ships folk if we can. Our lives are in danger."
/> Too dramatic, Ronica thought woefully to herself as she saw the Three Ships woman narrow her eyes. An instant later, there was the scuff of boots on the porch outside, and the door opened to admit Sparse Kelter. He was, as Rache had once described him, a barrel of a man, with more red hair to his beard and arms than to the crown of his head. He stopped in consternation, then shut the door behind him and stood scratching his beard in perplexity. He glanced from his daughter to the two women at table with her.
He took a sudden breath as if he had just recalled his manners. But his greeting was as blunt as his daughter's had been, "And what brings Trader Vestrit to my door and table?"
Ronica stood quickly. "Hard necessity, Sparse Kelter. My own folk have turned on me. I am called traitor, and accused of plotting, though in truth I have done neither."
"And you've come to take shelter with me and my kin," Kelter observed heavily.
Ronica bowed her head in acknowledgment. They both knew she brought trouble, and that it could fall most heavily on Sparse and his daughter. She didn't need to put that into words. "It's Trader trouble, and there is no justice in me asking you to take it on. I shall not ask that you shelter me here: only that you send word to another Trader, one that I trust. If I write a message and you can find someone to carry it for me to Grag Tenira of the Bingtown Traders, and then allow me to wait here until he replies… that is all I ask."
Into their silence she added, "And I know that's a large enough favor to ask, from a man I've spoken to only twice before."
"But each time, you spoke fairly. Of things dear to me, of peace in Bingtown, a peace that Three Ships folk could have a voice in. And the name Tenira is not unknown to me. I've sold them salt fish many a time for ship provisions. They raise straight men in that house, they do." Sparse pursed his lips, and then made a sucking noise as he considered it. "I'll do it," he said with finality.
"I've no way of repaying you," Ronica pointed out quickly.
"I don't recall that I asked any payment." Sparse was gruff, but not unkind. He added matter-of-factly, "I can't think of any payment that would be worth my risking my daughter. Save my own sense of what I ought to do, no matter the risk to us."
"I don't mind, Da," Ekke broke in quietly. "Let the lady write her note. I'll carry it to Tenira myself."
An odd smile twisted Sparse's wide features. "I thought you might want to, at that," he said. Ronica noted that she had suddenly become "the lady" to Ekke. Oddly, she felt diminished by it.
"I have not even a scrap of paper nor a dab of ink to call my own," she pointed out quietly.
"We have both. Just because we are Three Ships does not mean we don't have our letters," Ekke said. A tart note had come into her voice. She rose briskly to bring Ronica a sheet of serviceable paper, a quill and ink.
Ronica took up the quill, dipped it and paused. Speaking as much to herself as to Rache, she said, "I must pen this carefully. I need not only to ask his aid, but to tell him tidings that concern all of Bingtown, tidings that need to reach many ears quickly."
"Yet I noticed you haven't offered to share them here," Ekke observed.
"You are right," Ronica agreed humbly. She set her pen aside and lifted her eyes to Ekke's. "I scarcely know what my news will mean, but I fear it will affect us all. The Satrap is missing. He had been taken upriver, into the Rain Wilds, for safety. All know none but a liveship can go up that river. There, it seemed, he would be safe from any treachery from New Traders or Chalcedeans."
"Indeed. Only a Bingtown Trader could get to him there."
"Ekke!" her father rebuked her. To Ronica he said with a frown, "Tell on."
"There was an earthquake. I know little more than that it did great damage, and for a time he was missing. Now the word is that he was seen in a boat going down the river. With my young granddaughter, Malta." The next words came hard. "Some fear that she has turned him against the Old Traders. That she is a traitor, and has convinced him that he must flee his sanctuary to be safe."
"And what is the truth?" Sparse demanded.
Ronica shook her head. "I don't know. The words I overheard were not meant for me; I could not ask questions. They spoke something about a threatened attack by a Jamaillian fleet, but said too little for me to know if the threat is real or only suspected. As for my granddaughter…" For an instant, her throat closed. The fear she had refused suddenly swamped her. She forced a breath past the lump in her throat, and spoke with a calmness she did not feel. "It is uncertain if the Satrap and those with him survived. The river might have eaten their boat, or they may have capsized. No one knows where they are. And if the Satrap is lost, regardless of the circumstances, I fear it will plunge us into war. With Jamaillia, and perhaps Chalced. Or just a civil war here, Old Trader against New."
"And Three Ships caught in the middle, as usual," Ekke commented sourly. "Well, it is as it is. Pen your letter, lady, and I shall carry it. This is news, it seems to me, that it is safer spread than kept secret."
"You see quickly to the heart of it," Ronica agreed. She took up the quill and dipped it once more. But as she set tip to paper, she was not only thinking of what words would bring Grag here most swiftly, but of how difficult it was going to be to forge a lasting peace in Bingtown. Far more difficult than she had first perceived. The quill tip scratched as it moved swiftly across the coarse paper.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bodies and Souls
The dawn sunlight glinted far too brightly off the water. The coarse fabric of Wintrow's trousers chafed his raw skin. He could not bear a shirt. He could stand and walk alone now, but became giddy if he taxed himself at all. Even limping to the foredeck was making his heart pound. As he made his slow journey, working crewmen slowed to stare at him, then, with false heartiness, congratulated him on his recovery. Scarred enough to make a pirate flinch, he told himself caustically. The crewmen were sincere in their good wishes to him. He was truly one of their own now.
He ascended the short ladder to the foredeck, two feet to each step. He dreaded confronting the gray and lifeless figurehead, but when he reached the railing and looked down on her renewed colors, his heart leapt. "Vivacia!" he greeted her joyously.
Slowly she turned to him, her black mane sweeping across her bare shoulders. She smiled at him. The swirling gold of a dragon's eyes gleamed above her red lips.
He stared at her in horror. It was like seeing beloved features animated by a demon. "What have you done to her?" he demanded. "Where is she?" His voice cracked on the words. He gripped the railing tightly as if he could wring the truth out of the dragon.
"Where is who?" she responded coolly. Then she slowly blinked her eyes. They went from gold to green to gold again. Had he, for an instant, glimpsed Vivacia looking out of those orbs? As he stared at her, the colors of her eyes whirled slowly and mockingly. Her scarlet lips bent in a taunting smile.
He took a breath and fought to speak calmly. "Vivacia," he repeated doggedly. "Where is she now? Do you imprison her within yourself? Or have you destroyed her?"
"Ah, Wintrow. Foolish boy. Poor foolish boy." She sighed as if sorry for him, then looked away over the water. "She never was. Don't you understand? She was just a shell, a muddle of memories that your ancestors tried to impose on me. She wasn't real. As a result, she isn't anywhere, not imprisoned in me nor destroyed. She is like a dream I had, and part of me, I suppose, in the sense that dreams are part of the dreamer. Vivacia is gone. All that was hers is mine now. Including you." Her voice went hard on the last two words. Then she smiled again and put warmth in her voice as she added, "But let us forego such inconsequential chatter. Tell me. How are you feeling today? You look so much better. Though I believe you would have to be dead to look worse than you did."
Wintrow did not dispute that. He had seen himself in Kennit's shaving mirror. Every trace of the fresh-faced boy who had wanted to be a priest was gone. What his father had begun, with his amputated finger and his tattooed face, he had well and truly completed himself. His
face, hands and arms were splotched red, pink and white. In some spots, he would heal and his skin would tan and look almost normal. But on his hand and his cheek and along his hairline, the dead-white skin was taut and shiny. Likely, it would always remain so. He refused to allow it to distress him. There was no time to be concerned with himself now.
She turned away from him to stare ahead at the islands of the barrier. They would come soon to the rocky shallows and scattered upthrusts in the treacherous passage between Last Island and Shield Island. "Ah, but I could show you how to repair those scars. The knowledge is there, buried in the back of your mind, coated over and hidden from you. Poor little thing, with no more than the memory of your fifteen short summers. Reach out to me. I'll show you how to heal yourself."
"No."
She laughed. "Ah, I see. This is how you profess your loyalty to 'Vivacia. By refusing to touch minds with me. A feeble tribute, but likely the best you can manage. I could force you, you know. I know you as no one else can." For a crawling moment, he felt the presence of her mind twined through his. She did not reach out for him; rather she let him sense that she was already there. Then she let her awareness of him go dormant again. "But, if you would rather remain disfigured…" She did not bother to finish the thought.
Longing devoured him. He could recall the intense satisfaction he had felt at consciously directing his body's repair while he slept in the dragon. Awake and alive once more, he could not sink his consciousness deep enough to attain that control over himself. Could she teach him to find that mastery at will? His desire for that knowledge went far beyond freedom from pain and erasing his latest scars. Could she show him how to expel the tattoo's ink from his face? Teach him to regenerate his lost finger as well? Once learned, could he use this skill for others? It would be the unlocking of a great mystery. All his life, Wintrow had loved knowledge, loved the pursuit of knowledge. She could not have chosen better bait to tempt him.