by Robin Hobb
His brows arched again. “Well, it seems clear enough to me. It’s an anchorage chart for a river mouth.” He touched it carefully, tracing it with a scaled forefinger. “See, here’s the best channel. It has different blues to show high and low tidelines. And this black might be the channel for deep-hulled ships. Or an indication of a strong current or tide rip.”
She peered down at it, and then looked up at him in surprise. “Yes, I see it now. Do you recognize this place?” Excitement coursed through her.
“No. It’s nowhere I’ve ever been. But it’s a river chart, one that focuses all on water and ignores land details. On that, I’d wager.”
“Will you sit with me and explain it?” Alise invited him. “What might these wavy lines here be?”
He shook his head regretfully. “Not now, I’m afraid. I only came in for a quick cup of coffee and to be out of the wind and rain for a time. It’s getting dark outside, but the dragons show no signs of settling for the night. I’d best be out there. Can’t have too many eyes on the river if you must run at night.”
“Do you still fear white water then?”
Leftrin scratched his beard, then shook his head. “I think the danger has passed. It’s hard to say. The rain is dirty and smells sooty. It’s black when it hits the deck. So, somewhere, something is happening. I’ve only seen a true white flood happen twice in my life, and each time it was only a day or so after the quake. It’s common enough to have the acid in the river vary. But my feeling is that if we were going to be hit with white water, it would have happened by now.”
“Well. That’s a relief then.” She groped for something more to say, words that would keep him in the galley, talking to her. But she knew he had his work, and she closed her mouth on such silliness.
“I’d best be about my work,” he said reluctantly, and with a girlish lurch of her heart, she was abruptly certain that he, too, wished he could stay. Such knowledge made it easier to let him go.
“Yes. Tarman needs you.”
“Well, some days I’m not sure Tarman needs any of us. But I’d best get out there and put my eyes on the river.” He paused and daringly added, “Though I’d just as soon be keeping them on you.”
She ducked her head, flustered by his compliment, and he laughed. Then he was out of the door, and the river wind banged it shut behind him. She sighed, and then smiled at how foolish she had become about him.
She went to dip her pen, then decided she needed the blue ink if she were to make a note on the page of Leftrin’s interpretation. Yes, she decided, she wanted blue, and she’d credit him for the theory as well. It pleased her to think that scores of years hence, scholars would read his name and know that a common river captain had deduced what had eluded others. She found the small ink bottle, uncorked it, and dipped her pen. It came up dry.
She held the bottle to the light. Had she written that much on her journey? She supposed she had. She’d seen so much that had given her ideas or made her revise old thoughts. She thought of adding water to the pigment that remained and scowled. No. That would be her last resort. Sedric, she recalled, had plenty of ink in his portable desk. And she hadn’t visited him since morning. It was as good an excuse to check on him as any.
SEDRIC CAME AWAKE, not suddenly, but as if he were surfacing from a deep dive into black water. Sleep sleeked away from his mind like water draining from his hair and skin. He opened his eyes to the familiar dimness of his cabin. But it was different. The air was slightly cooler and fresher. Someone had recently opened the door. And entered.
He became aware of a figure hunched on the deck by his pallet. He heard the stealthy pawing of thieving hands on his wardrobe chest. Moving by tiny increments, he shifted so he could peer over the edge of his bed. The compartment was dim. Outside the light was fading and he had not lit a lamp. The only illumination came from the small “windows” that also ventilated his room.
Yet the creature on the floor beside his bed gleamed a warm copper and seemed to cast back light that had not struck it. As he watched, it shifted and brilliance ran over a scaled back. She scrabbled at the wardrobe chest, seeking for the hidden drawer that held the vials of her stolen blood.
Terror flooded him and he nearly wet himself. “I’m sorry!” he cried aloud. “I’m so, so sorry. I did not know what you were. Please. Please, just let me be. Let go of my mind. Please.”
“Sedric?” The copper dragon reared up and abruptly took Alise’s shape. “Sedric! Are you all right? Do you have a fever or are you dreaming?” She put a warm hand on his damp brow. He pulled back from her touch convulsively. It was Alise. It was only Alise.
“Why are you wearing a dragon’s skin? And why are you rummaging through my possessions?” Shock made him both indignant and accusing.
“I’m…a dragon’s skin? Oh, no, it’s a robe. Captain Leftrin loaned it to me. It’s of Elderling make and completely lovely. And it doesn’t irritate my skin. Here. Feel the sleeve.” She offered her arm to him.
He didn’t try to touch the shimmering fabric. Elderling made. Dragon stuff. “That still doesn’t explain why you’ve sneaked into my room to dig through my things,” he complained petulantly.
“I haven’t! I didn’t ‘sneak’! I tapped on your door and when you didn’t answer, I let myself in. The door wasn’t latched. You were asleep. You’ve looked so weary lately that I didn’t want to wake you. That’s all. The only thing I want from you is some ink, some blue ink. Don’t you keep it in your little lap desk? Ah. Here it is. I’ll take some and leave you in peace.”
“No! Don’t open that! Give it to me!”
She froze in the act of working the catch. Stonily silent, she handed the lap desk to him. He tried not to snatch it from her, but his relief at keeping it out of her clutches was too evident. He swung it onto the bed beside him so he could conceal it with his body. She didn’t say a word as he opened it and slid his hand in to grope for the ink bottles. Fortune favored him. He pulled out a blue one. As he offered it to her, he ventured a halfhearted apology. “I was asleep when you came in. And I am out of sorts.”
“Indeed you are,” she replied coolly. “This is all I need from you. Thank you.” She snatched it from his hand. As she went out the door, she muttered for him to hear, “Sneaked, indeed!”
“I’m sorry!” he called, but she shut the door on his words.
The moment she was gone, he rolled from his bed to latch the door tight, then dropped to his knees beside the hidden drawer. “It was just Alise,” he said to himself. Yes, but who knew what the copper dragon might have told her? He worked it open clumsily, the drawer jamming, then forced himself to calm as he carefully lifted the flask of the copper dragon’s blood. It was safe. He still had it.
And she still had him.
He’d lost count of how many days had passed since he’d tasted the dragon’s blood. His dual awareness came and went like double vision after a blow to the head. He’d be almost himself; morose and despondent, but Sedric. Then that overlay of physical sensation and confused memory would wash through him as her baffled impressions mingled with his thoughts. Sometimes he tried to make sense of the world for her. You are wading through water, not flying. Sometimes the water lifts you almost off your feet, but this is not flying. Your wings are too weak to fly.
Sometimes he encouraged her. The others are almost out of sight. You have to try to move faster. You can do it. Move to your left, where the water is shallower. See? It’s easier to walk now, isn’t it? That’s a girl. Keep going. I know you’re hungry. Watch for fish. Maybe you could catch a fish and eat it.
Sometimes he felt vaguely proud of himself for being kind to her. But at other times, he felt his life had become an eternity of caring for a rather stupid child. By dint of effort he could sometimes block most of his awareness of her. But if she felt pain or her hunger grew too strong or if she were frightened, her dim thoughts burst through into his. Even when he could avoid sharing her dull mental processes, he could not escape her c
onstant weariness and hunger. Her desolate Why? echoed through every moment of his day. It did not help that he shared that same question about his own fate. Worse was when she tried to make sense of his thoughts. She did not understand that sometimes he was asleep and dreaming. She broke into his dreams, offering to kill Hest or trying to comfort him with her company. It was all too strange. He was weary, doubly exhausted from his interrupted sleep and by his sharing of her dismal endless struggle.
Life aboard the barge had become very strange for him. He kept to his compartment as much as he could. Yet there was no solitude for him. Even when the dragon was not intruding into his thoughts, he had too much company. Alise was racked with guilt and could not seem to leave him alone. Every morning, every afternoon, and every evening before she retired, she came to call on him. Her visits were brief and uncomfortable. He didn’t want to hear her chatter enthusiastically about her day, and there was nothing that he dared share with her, yet there was no graceful way to shut her up and send her out of his room.
The boy was the second worst. Sedric could not understand Davvie’s fascination with him. Why couldn’t he just bring his meal tray and then leave? Instead, the boy watched him avidly, eager to perform the most menial service, even offering to wash his shirts and socks, an offer that made him cringe. Twice he’d been rude to the boy, not because he enjoyed it, but because it was the only way to get the lad to leave. Each time, Davvie had been so obviously crushed by Sedric’s rejection that Sedric had felt like a beast.
He turned the vial of dragon blood that he held, watching again how it swirled and gleamed even in the dim cabin. Even when the vial was still in his hand, the red liquid inside it shifted in a slow dance. It held its own light, and red on red, the threads of crimson inside the glass twined and twirled about each other. Temptation or obsession? he asked himself, and had no answer. The blood drew him. He held a king’s ransom in his hand, if he could but get it to Chalced. Yet the possessing of it seemed very important to him now. Did he want to taste it again? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t think he wanted to experience that again. He feared that if he gave in to his reluctant compulsion, he would find himself even more tightly joined to the dragon. Or dragons.
In late afternoon, when he’d ventured out on the deck for a short breath of cool air, he had heard Mercor calling to the other dragons. He called two of them by name. “Sestican. Ranculos. Stop your quarreling. Save your strength to battle the river. Tomorrow is another day’s journey.” He’d stood there, the dragon’s words shimmering through his mind. He’d heard the words, as clear as could be. He tried to remember if he’d heard the dragon’s trumpeting or whuffling that carried the thought, but he couldn’t. The dragons spoke to one another, reasoned with one another, just as men did. He’d felt a whirl of vertigo that combined with his guilt. Heartsick and dizzy, he’d staggered back to his cabin and shut the door tight. “I can’t go on like this. I can’t,” he’d said aloud to his tiny space. And almost immediately, he’d felt a worried query from the copper dragon. She sensed his agitation. And was concerned for him.
No, I’m fine. Go away. Leave me alone! He’d pushed at her and she’d retreated, saddened by his harshness. “I can’t go on like this,” he’d repeated, and longed for a day when he had known that no one else shared his thoughts. He tipped the vial of blood again. If he drank it all, would it kill him?
If he killed the dragon, would his mind be his own private territory again?
There was a heavy knock at his door. “Wait!” he shouted, terror and anger making his voice louder than he’d intended. There was no time to hide the blood properly. He wrapped it in a sweaty shirt and stuffed it under his blanket. “Who is it?” he called belatedly.
“It’s Carson. I’d like a word with you, please.”
Carson. He was the other person who seemed unable to leave Sedric alone. The hunters were gone during the day, doing what they were paid to do. But if Sedric arose early or ventured into the galley in the evening, Carson always seemed to appear. Twice he’d come to Sedric’s room when Davvie was there, to remind the boy that he wasn’t to bother Sedric. Each time, the boy had left, but not graciously. And each time, Carson had lingered. He’d tried to engage Sedric in conversation, asking him what it was like to live in a civilized place like Bingtown and if he’d ever traveled to other cities. Sedric had answered each of his queries briefly, but Carson hadn’t seemed to realize he was being brusque. The hunter continued to treat him with gentle courtesy that was very at odds with the man’s rough clothing and harsh vocation.
The last time he had come and shooed the boy away, Carson had taken the boy’s seat on the end of Sedric’s trunk and proceeded to tell him about himself. He lived a lonely life. No wife, no children, just a man on his own, taking care of himself and living as he pleased. He’d taken on Davvie, his nephew, because he foresaw the same sort of life for him, if Sedric took his drift. Sedric hadn’t. He’d finished eating and then made a great show of yawning.
“I suppose you’re still tired from being ill. I’d hoped you were feeling better by now,” Carson had commented. “I’ll leave you to rest.” Then, with the precision of a man accustomed to caring for himself, Carson had tidied Sedric’s supper things back onto the tray and whisked them away. As he folded up the square of cotton that passed for a napkin on the barge, he’d looked at Sedric and given him an odd smile. “Sit still,” he’d warned him and then, with the corner of the napkin, he’d dabbed something off the edge of Sedric’s mouth. “It’s plain you’re not used to having a bit of a beard. They take caring for. I think you should go back to shaving, myself.” He’d paused and glanced meaningfully around the untidy room. “And bathing. And caring for your things. I know you’re not happy to be here. I don’t blame you. But that doesn’t mean you should stop being who you are.”
Then he’d departed, leaving Sedric feeling both shocked and affronted. He’d found his small mirror and leaned closer to his candle to inspect his face. Yes. There had been soup at the corner of his mouth, caught in the short whiskers that had sprouted there. It had been some days since he’d shaved, or washed thoroughly. He studied himself in the mirror, noting that he looked haggard. There were dark circles under his eyes above his unshaven cheeks. His hair was lank and uncombed. The mere thought of going to the galley to heat some water and shave and wash wearied him. How shocked Hest would be to see him in such a state!
But somehow that thought had not spurred him to clean himself up, but to sit back on his bed and stare up into the darkness. It didn’t matter what Hest would think if he saw him like this, sweaty and unshaven, in a room littered with laundry. It was becoming more and more unlikely that Hest would ever see him again at all. And that was something that Hest had caused, with his stupid vengeance in sending him off to nursemaid Alise. Did Hest even think of him? Wonder what had delayed their return? He doubted it.
He had begun to doubt many things about Hest.
He’d crawled onto his pallet, a bed more fit for a dog than a man, and slept the rest of the day away.
Another bang on his door jerked his mind back to the present. “Sedric? Are you all right? Answer, or I’m coming in.”
“I’m fine.” Sedric took the one step he needed to cross the room and flipped the hook on the door clear. “You may come in, if you must.”
Either the man didn’t hear the lack of a welcome in his voice or he ignored it. Carson opened the door and looked about the dim cabin. “Seems to me that light and air might make you feel better than lying about in the close dark,” he observed.
“Neither light nor air will cure what ails me,” Sedric muttered. He glanced at the tall, bearded hunter and then away. Carson seemed to fill the small cabin with his presence. He had a broad forehead that sheltered wide dark eyes beneath heavy brows. His close-cropped beard was the same ginger as his rough hair. His cheeks were wind reddened, and his lips were ruddy and well-defined. He seemed to feel Sedric appraising him, for he smoothed his hair self-consc
iously.
“Did you need something?” Sedric asked. The words came out more abrupt than he intended. The friendliness in Carson’s eyes suddenly became more guarded.
“Actually, yes, yes I do.” He shut the door behind him, dimming the room again, cast about for something to sit down on, and perched, uninvited, on the end of the trunk. “Look, I’ll say this bluntly and then be out of your way. I think you’ll understand; well, I’ll make you understand, one way or another. Davvie is just a boy. I won’t have him hurt, and I won’t have him used. His dad and I were like brothers, and I could see the way Davvie was going a long time before his mother did. If she does even now, which I doubt.” The man gave a short bark of laughter and glanced over at Sedric as if expecting a response. When he said nothing, Carson looked back down at his big hands. He rubbed them together as if his knuckles pained him. “So, you take my drift?” he asked Sedric.
“You’re like a father to Davvie?” Sedric hazarded.
Carson barked another laugh at that. “As much as I’m ever likely to be a father to anyone!” he declared, and again, he looked at Sedric as if expecting some sort of response. Sedric just looked back at him.
“I see,” the hunter said, and his voice went softer and more serious. “I understand. It goes no further, I promise you that. I’ll speak my piece plain and then be gone. Davvie’s just a youngster. You’re probably the handsomest man he’s ever seen, and the boy is infatuated. I’ve tried to make him see that he’s much too young and that you’re way above his social class. But puppy love can blind a boy. I’ll be doing my best to keep him clear of you, and I’d appreciate it if you kept him at a distance. Once he realizes that there’s nothing here for him, he’ll get over it quick enough. Might even hate you a bit, but you know how that is. But if you mock him, or belittle him to the other men aboard, I’ll take issue with you.”