by Robin Hobb
He knew in that instant that he desired nothing more than to stand at her side. She was no cooing dove of a woman to be sheltered and protected. She was a tigress, as strong as the wind that swept her, a partner a Rain Wild man could depend on. The strength of his emotion rushed out and wrapped her like a blanket. "Malta, my dear, my strength to you," he whispered. "For you are my strength and my hope."
She turned her head sharply to his words. "Reyn?" she asked the night. "Reyn?"
The hope in her voice jolted him awake. Behind him, sand and stone rasped against Tintaglia's scaled body as she stirred.
"Well, well," she said in a sleepy voice. "I am surprised. I thought only an Elderling could dreamwalk on his own."
He drew a deep breath. "It was like sharing the dream-box with her. It was real, wasn't it? I was with her, as she stood there."
"It was definitely a sharing with her, and real. But I do not know what you mean by a dream-box."
"It is a device of my people, something lovers occasionally use when they must be apart." His words trickled to a halt. He would not mention that such boxes worked because they contained a minute amount of powdered wizardwood mixed in with potent dream herbs. "Usually, when lovers meet in such dreams, they share what they imagine. But tonight I felt as if Malta were awake but I was with her, in her mind."
"You were," the dragon observed smugly. "A pity you are not more adept at such dream travel. For if you were, you could have made her aware of yourself, and she would have told you where to find her."
Reyn grinned. "I saw the stars. I know the heading her ship is on. And I know that she was not in pain, nor confined in any way. Dragon, you cannot know how heartening that is to me."
"Can't I?" She laughed softly. "Reyn, the longer we are in proximity, the thinner the barriers between us will grow. The Elderlings who could dreamwalk were all dragon-friends. I suspect your newfound ability has the same source. Look at yourself. Daily you take on more of my aspects. Were you born with copper eyes? I doubt it, and I doubt even more that they ever glowed as they do now. Your back aches with your growth. Look at your hands, at the thickening of the nails that mimics my claws. Even now, the firelight dances on the sheen of scales on your brow. Even encapsulated in our cocoons, my kind left its marks on yours. Now that dragons are awake and walking in the world once more, those who claim friendship with us will wear the badges of that association. Reyn, if you find a mate, and if you can father children, you will get the next generation of Elderlings."
Her words took his breath away. He sat up, gaping at her. She stretched her fearsome jaws wide with amusement and spoke in his mind. Open your thoughts to me. Let me see the stars and islands that you glimpsed. Perhaps I may recognize something. Tomorrow, we resume our search for a woman worthy to be mother to Elderlings.
Malta took a few hesitant steps into the darkness. "Reyn?" she whispered again, her heart hammering. Foolishness, she knew. But it had seemed so real. She had felt his touch on her hair, she had tasted his scent on the air… It could not be. It was only her childish heart, yearning after a lost past. Even if she could return to Bingtown, she could never be who she had been. The ridged scar down her forehead was stigma enough, but to it would be added rumors and gossip. Reyn himself might still want her, but his family could not permit their marriage. She was a ruined woman. The only socially acceptable end for her in Bingtown was to live simply and out of sight. She set her jaw and let anger be her strength. She would never go back to that. She would churn her way forward against a tide of misfortune, and build a new life for herself. Dreaming of the past could only cripple her with longing. Resolutely she set thoughts of Reyn aside. Coldly she assessed the only tools that remained to her. Her body and her wits were hers; she would use them.
She had crept out on the night deck to be alone, away from the two men who currently plagued her life. Each continued his obstinate efforts to possess her body. Captain Red fancied himself as her instructor in carnal pleasure; the Satrap saw her body as an infant might see a sugar-sop, as a physical consolation for times of duress. The avid gallantries of the one and the pawing pleas of the other left her feeling grimy and jaded. Each must be discouraged, but not completely denied all possibility. Men, she had discovered, were ruled by their imaginations in that regard. As long as Captain Red and the Satrap fancied that she might give in, they would both keep striving to impress her. From Captain Red she was able to extract the small liberties that made life tolerable: she could walk the deck alone, dine at his table and speak her mind almost freely. From the Satrap, she gleaned information from his bragging tales of his glories at court. It was information that she hoped to use to buy their freedom from Kennit.
For she was determined to ransom Cosgo as well as herself. Somehow, during her captivity with the Satrap, he had come to be her possession. As annoying as he was, she felt a proprietary sense toward him. She had kept him alive and intact. If anyone was going to profit from his value as a hostage, it would be Malta Vestrit. Satrap Cosgo would be the key to her survival in Jamaillia. When the Satrap was released to his Jamaillian ransomers, she would go with him. By then, she would be indispensable to him.
She summoned her courage once more. She dreaded these sessions with Cosgo. She left her hair, her last aspect of beauty, long and loose as if she were a girl still, went to his small chamber and tapped.
"Why bother?" he called out bitterly. "You will enter whether I wish your company or not."
"That is true, lordly one," she conceded as she entered. The room was dark, save for a guttering lamp. She turned up the wick and sat down on the foot of his bed. The Satrap sat hunched, his knees drawn up to his chin, on the pillow. She had known he would be awake. He slept by day, and brooded by night. As far as she could determine, he had not left his cabin since they had come aboard. He looked very young. And very sulky. She mustered a smile. "How are you this evening, Magnadon Satrap?"
"Just as I was last night. Just as I shall be tomorrow night. Miserable. Sick. Bored. Betrayed." This last he uttered while staring at her accusingly.
She did not react to it. "Actually, you appear to be much better. But it is stuffy in this little room. There is a cool breeze outside. I thought you might wish to join me in a turn around the deck."
The Satrap's seasickness had finally passed. In the last two days, his appetite had increased. The plain ship's fare she brought to him had not changed, but he had given up complaining about it. Tonight, his eyes were clear for the first time since she had known him.
"Why should I?"
"For variety, if nothing else," she suggested. "Perhaps the Lordly One would enjoy—"
"Stop it," he growled in a voice she had never before heard him use.
"Magnadon Satrap?"
"Stop mocking me. Lordly this and Mighty that. I am nothing of that, not anymore. And you despise me. So stop pretending otherwise. It demeans us both."
"You sound like a man," she exclaimed before she could stop herself.
He gave her a baleful glance. "What else should I sound like?"
"I spoke without thinking, my lord," she lied.
"You do that frequently. So do I. It is one of the few things I enjoy about you," he retorted.
She was able to continue smiling by reminding herself that he belonged to her. He shifted about on his bed, then lowered his feet to the floor. He stood uncertainly. "Very well, then," he announced abruptly. "I will go out."
She covered her surprise by stiffening her smile. She found a cloak and put it around him. The garment hung on his diminished body. She opened the door and he preceded her, keeping one hand on the wall, and surprised her by taking her arm. He walked like an invalid, with small hesitant steps, but she resisted her impulse to hurry him. She opened the outer door for him, and the crisp winter wind blew past them. He gasped, and halted.
She thought he would go back then, but he went doggedly on. On the open deck, he hugged his cloak tightly to himself as if it were far colder than it was. He
looked all around and up as well before stepping away from the ship's house. In his old man's shuffle, he toddled toward the railing, to stare out over the wide water and up at the night sky as if it were a foreign landscape. Malta stood beside him and said nothing. He was puffing as if he had just run a race. After a time, he observed aloud, "The world is a wide and savage place. I never fully realized that until I left Jamaillia."
"Magnadon Satrap, I am sure your nobles and your father felt the need to protect the heir to the Pearl Throne."
"There was a time," he began hesitantly. A line furrowed his brow. "It is like recalling another life. When I was a boy, I used to ride and hawk. One year, when I was eight, I caused a stir by entering the Summer Races. I raced against other boys and young men of Jamaillia. I did not win. My father praised me, all the same. But I was devastated. You see, I had not known I might lose…" His voice trailed away but Malta could almost see the intentness of his thought. "They neglected to teach me that, you see. I could have learned it, when I was younger. But they took away the things I did not succeed at, and praised my every success as if it were a wonder. All my tutors and advisors assured me I was a marvel, and I believed them. Except that I began to see the disappointment in my father's eyes. When I was eleven, I began to learn the pleasures of men. Fine wines, cunningly mixed smokes and skilled women were gifts to me from nobles and foreign dignitaries, and I sampled them all. And, oh, how I succeeded with them. The right smoke, the right wine, the right woman can make any man brilliant. Did you know that? I didn't. I thought it was all me. Shining like the high jewel of all Jamaillia." He turned abruptly away from the sea. "Take me back in. You were wrong. It is cold and wretched out here."
"Of course, Magnadon Satrap," Malta murmured. She offered him her arm and he took it, shaking with chill, and leaned on her all the way back to his chamber.
Once inside the room, he let the cloak fall to the floor. He climbed into his bed and drew his blankets closely around himself. "I wish Kekki were here." He shivered. "She could always warm me. When no other woman could stir me, she could."
"I shall leave you to rest, Magnadon Satrap," Malta hastily excused herself.
His voice stopped her at the door. "What is to become of me, Malta? Do you know?"
The plaintive question stopped her. "My lord, I do not know," she admitted humbly.
"You know more than I. For the first time since I became Satrap, I think I understand what Companions of the Heart are supposed to do… not that many of mine did it. They are to know the details of that which I have had no time or opportunity to learn. And they are to be truthful. Not flattering, not tactful. Truthful. So. Tell me. What is my situation? And what do you advise?"
"I am not the Companion of your Heart, Satrap Cosgo."
"Absolutely true. And you never will be. Nonetheless, you will have to serve as one for now. Tell me. What is my situation?"
Malta took a deep breath. "You are to be a gift to King Kennit of the Pirate Isles. Captain Red thinks that Kennit will ransom you to the highest bidder, but even that is not assured. If Kennit does, and coin is all that you can bring him, then it will not matter to him if the buyer is your enemy or your ally. Captain Red has urged me to discover who among your nobles would offer the most for you."
The Satrap smiled bitterly. "I suppose that means they already know which of my enemies will bid for me."
"I do not know." Malta thought hard. "I think that you should consider which of your allies might offer a fat reward for your life. When the time comes, you should write a letter asking them to ransom you."
"Foolish child. That is not how it will be done. I will negotiate my own ransom with Kennit, issue him letters of credit and insist that he provide me passage back to Jamaillia. I am the Satrap, you know."
"My Lord Satrap," she began hesitantly. She firmed her voice. Truthfulness he had asked for. She would see what he did with it. "Others see your situation differently. Kennit will not accept letters of credit from you or anyone else. He will want your ransom in cold coin, and he will see it before he releases you. And he will not care who it comes from: nobles loyal to you, or those who do not wish you to return to Jamaillia, New Traders, Chalcedeans who might use you as a hostage — he will not care. That is why you must think, and think well for yourself. Whose fidelity is unquestionable? Who has both loyalty to you, and wealth enough to buy your freedom?"
The Satrap laughed. "The answer to that is frightfully simple. No one. There is no noble whose loyalty is unquestionable. As to wealth, why, those who are wealthiest have the most to gain by my being lost. If I perish, someone must become Satrap. Why use your wealth to buy the occupant of a throne when the throne itself could be yours?"
Malta was silent. "Then no one will ransom you?" she asked quietly.
He laughed again, and it was even more brittle. "Oh, assuredly, I shall be ransomed, and you alongside me. We will be ransomed by those who most need me to disappear, without witnesses." He rolled to face the wall. "We will be ransomed by those who cheered most loudly as my ship departed from Jamaillia. By those who conspired to send me off on this ill-fated adventure. I am not stupid, Malta. The Bingtown Traders were correct: there was a conspiracy, and it must have involved nobles and Chalcedean diplomats and even New Traders. They bit the hand that fed them, for each thought that once that hand was removed, each could claim the lion's share of the meat."
"Then they will be squabbling over that division even now," Malta hazarded. "It all comes down to a bargain. Grandmother always said, 'Look to see who benefits the most.'" She knit her brows, ignoring the tugging of skin around her scar. "She told me that when you want to cut your way into a bargain that others are striking, you must look for the one who is benefiting the least. Shore up his interest, and he will take you as a partner. So. Who benefits the least by your being removed from the throne?"
"Oh, come!" He sounded disgusted as he rolled back to face her. "This is degrading! You would reduce my life and the fate of the throne to the squabbling of merchants." He snorted in disdain. "But what else should I expect from a Trader's daughter? Your whole life has been buying and selling. No doubt your mother and grandmother saw your brief beauty as a thing to be bartered away. Trader Restart certainly did."
Malta stood taller. She did not speak until she was sure she had control of herself. Her armor, she decided, was to be impervious to such taunts. "Merchants broker trade goods. Satraps and nobles broker power. You, noble Magnadon, deceive yourself if you believe there is a great difference in the machinations."
He seemed unimpressed, but he did not challenge her conclusion. "Well, then, to answer your question, all benefit from my absence. All the nobles with money or influence, anyway."
"Then that is the answer. Consider those without money or influence. There are your allies."
"Ah, such wonderful allies. With what will they buy my freedom? Sticks and stones? Dung and dust?"
"Before you consider how they will buy your freedom, you must consider why it would profit them. Make them see it is to their advantage to free you, and they will find the means." She loosened her cloak and sat down on the end of his bed. The Satrap sat up to face her. "So, think now."
The Satrap of all Jamaillia leaned his head back against the wall. His pallid skin and the dark circles under his eyes made him look more like a grievously ill child than a troubled ruler. "It's no use," he said hopelessly. "It is all too far away. No one in Jamaillia will rouse to my cause. My enemies are too many. I will be sold and slaughtered like a feast-day lamb." He rolled his eyes to stare at her. "You see, Malta, not everything can be solved with your Trader's ethic of buying and selling."
An idea suddenly blossomed in her mind. "But what if it could, Magnadon Satrap?" She leaned forward tensely. "If, with my Trader's ethic, I can save you and your throne, what would it be worth to me?"
"You cannot, so why even speculate?" He waved a lax hand at her. "Go away. Your idiotic idea of a stroll on a freezing deck has wearied me.
I will sleep now."
"You will not," she retorted. "You will lie awake and pity yourself. So, instead of that, rouse yourself to my challenge. You say I cannot save you. I think I can. I propose a wager." She lifted her chin. "If I save you, I am saved alongside you. You will give me an appointment to…"
"Oh, do not ask to be a Companion of my Heart. That would be too humiliating. As well ask me to wed you."
A spark of anger flashed in her. "I assure you, I would not so humble myself. No. You will appoint me and my family as your representatives in Bingtown and the Rain Wilds. You will recognize Bingtown and the Traders there as an independent entity. To my family, to the Vestrits, will go the exclusive right to represent Jamaillian interests there." A slow smile dawned on her face as the full brilliance of her idea shone in her mind. With such an accomplishment, she could return to Bingtown. No scar or shame would be remembered next to such a coup. It would be the ultimate bargain, the best trade that any dealer had ever struck. Even her grandmother would have to be proud of her. Even Reyn's family might…
"You want all of Bingtown for yourself! That is a ridiculous wager!"
"Is it? I'm offering you both your throne and your life in exchange for it." She cocked her head. "Bingtown's independence is virtually a reality anyway. You would only be recognizing what already exists, and making it possible for Jamaillia and Bingtown to continue on friendly terms. Losing this wager would only mean that you had to take what is a wise course of action in any case."