by Robin Hobb
“I guess it doesn’t matter now,” Carson said quietly.
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. Sorry I didn’t tell the whole truth to you from the beginning.”
“You didn’t know me,” Carson conceded. The words were forgiving, but the wall in his voice was still there.
“It’s more than that,” Sedric said stubbornly. “I was treating Alise exactly as I was accusing Leftrin. I was using her to get close to the dragons, so I could harvest what I wanted, for my own ends. But somehow, when I thought about it, they seemed like two different things. I thought I could use her that way and keep it from her, so she’d never be hurt by it. And in my mind, I thought Leftrin would do that to her and just not care.”
He glanced up at Carson. His face was still and closed. “I was stupid, Carson. You know that at first I couldn’t even hear the dragons. I thought they were like, well, like clever cows. Why shouldn’t I slaughter one and sell off the meat? We slaughter cows all the time. It was only after I had some of Relpda’s blood that I could begin to hear her. And to understand what she was, what they all were. If I’d known from the start, if I’d understood, I’d have abandoned the plan immediately.”
“Alise.”
“What about her?”
“Did you ever think what would become of her after you took Hest and ran away?” Carson spoke heavily. His hands, strong, calloused, competent, continued the work of tidying up the boat. He shipped the oars neatly, and restowed all of Greft’s gear. The little glass bottles remained in an accusing row on the seat.
“A little bit,” Sedric conceded. “Not much. I thought that perhaps we could make it look like we were lost at sea. Then she’d be Hest’s widow. Part of his money and estate would stay with her, enough for her to live comfortably.” He sighed and felt ashamed. “Once I even imagined that if she were pregnant when I left, it would be best of all for everyone. She’d have a child for company, to be an heir for the Finboks, and she’d control his inheritance for him until he came of age.”
Carson had finished every conceivable task in the other boat. He remained crouched in it. His dark eyes under his heavy brow wandered over their surroundings. They were hunter’s eyes, always seeking, always wary. There were still several gallators watching them, but the creatures were keeping their keenest watch on Spit. He had finished eating and was splashily cleaning himself as he watched the other gallators. Evidently not even two gallators and a human had filled his belly. The noises of the silver’s ablutions were the only sounds for a time.
Sedric found himself meeting Carson’s dark stare. The hunter spoke carefully. “I know you finally told Alise about you and Hest. Did you ever tell her this part? About coming here to butcher dragons and sell the meat to Chalced?”
“No. I didn’t.” By an effort, he didn’t look away. “I didn’t have the courage.”
Carson took in a deep breath through his nose and slowly let it out. He gathered the little bottles into his hands and held them out to Sedric. Sedric received them in his cupped hands. Carson settled himself on the rowing bench, untied the rope that had bound the two boats together, and then took up a paddle. “You can’t really begin something new until you’ve finished with the old, Sedric.”
He dug the paddle into the water and moved his boat clear of Sedric’s. Spit, sensing they were returning to the barge, made a futile charge at the gallators. They retreated into the sunken roots of the brush where the dragon could not get at them. He gave a roar of frustration and then gave it up to follow Carson’s boat. Sedric watched them go. Neither one looked back at him.
Sedric dropped the little bottles into the bottom of the boat. They floated in the water that he had not bailed out. With his feet, he pushed them aside. Then he settled himself on the seat, took up a paddle, and followed Carson. Rain began to fall.
Day the 27th of the Gold Moon
Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown
To Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug
From the Bingtown Traders’ Council to the Rain Wild Traders’ Councils at Trehaug and Cassarick, being a formal request, at the behest of the Meldar and Kincarron families, to inquire into the fate of the Tarman expedition, especially as to the well-being of Sedric Meldar and Alise Kincarron.
Detozi,
I am delighted with your family’s invitation and will speedily make arrangements for my duties to be taken on temporarily by one of the other keepers for the length of my visit. I am sure that you know your family assured me I was welcome to call “on any date, for so long as I wished to stay,” but I thought to ask your advice in this matter. The weather here has been unseasonably warm and fair, but we all know that cannot last forever! I know that the rainy season will soon be upon all of us. Am I too forward in suggesting that I would like to visit while our fine weather holds? What would your preference be for the timing of my visit?
Erek
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MUD AND WINGS
Toward midmorning, Tarman wedged and could go no farther. Leftrin was not surprised. He’d been expecting it to happen for some time. All of yesterday, Tarman’s feet had been firmly planted on the bed of the slough. A few of the keepers had become seasick from the rocking motion that Tarman’s walk contributed to his movement. As the day had progressed and the water grew ever shallower, Leftrin’s concern had increased. He’d sounded the horn to call all of the small boats back to the barge, and then sent them out again in varying directions, in search of deeper water.
When they’d returned that evening, no one had good tidings to report. No detectible current, and the water seemed uniformly shallow in all directions. A straw dropped into the open water beside the boat did float away, but almost immediately got lost in the beds of standing reeds that had encroached ever closer, even as the bluish foothills remained ever distant against a gray backdrop of thick clouds.
The barge stopped of his own accord. For a time, Leftrin sensed the ship standing and thinking. Tarman groped toward him, perhaps seeking an idea that Leftrin didn’t have. Then, with a very small lurch, Tarman folded his legs and settled in the mud. The barge he had carried on his back floated slightly now. A wave of sadness and resignation flowed up Leftrin’s chest and settled around his heart. They’d come to their stopping place. It wasn’t Kelsingra.
“Cap?” This from Swarge at the tiller. It had been weeks since anyone had kept up the illusion that Tarman needed to be poled through the water. Tarman usually appreciated the humans’ efforts to speed him along, but in water this shallow, the poling only threw him off stride.
“Take a break, Swarge,” Leftrin confirmed. He made a sound like a low growl in the back of his throat and gripped the bow rail tighter. He more felt than saw Alise coming down the deck to join him. When she reached his side, she halted and put her hands alongside his on the railing. Her eyes swept the scene before them.
There was no channel. Reeds, rushes, and those plants that loved swamps surrounded them. The dragons were bright-scaled giants who moved through the wrong landscape. Even yesterday, the dragons had still ostensibly led the way. For most of this morning, they had moved more slowly and uncertainly. No one was comfortable about venturing deeper into this borderless wet land. Yet there was no where else to go. Except…
“Do we go back?” Alise asked softly.
Leftrin didn’t reply. Two scarlet darning needles flew past them, their wings making a tiny whickering sound. They danced around a nearby bed of reeds before settling, one upon the other, on a seedhead. In the distance, he heard very faintly the cry of a hawk. He glanced up, but the overcast blocked even a glimpse of the sky. The dragons wandered disconsolately around the barge. He wondered what they were hunting. Frogs? Small fish? As the water had grown shallower, the food sources had become smaller and swifter to elude predators. Everyone was hungry, and the keepers felt the hunger of the dragons as well as their own.
“To what?” he aske
d.
“Perhaps to the other tributary?” Alise ventured the suggestion cautiously.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I wish Tarman could speak to me more clearly. I don’t think the other tributary is the answer. But I just don’t know anymore.”
“Then…what will we do?”
He shook his head unhappily. All he had were questions and no answers. Yet every life in his care depended on him having answers, or at least making good guesses. Right now he had no confidence in his ability to do either. Had he guessed wrong when he’d brought them this way? But he hadn’t guessed at all. He’d listened to his ship, and Tarman had seemed so confident. But now, here they were. They’d run out of river. They still had plenty of water, but it sheeted over the saturated land, and he could no longer guess where it came from. Perhaps a million tiny streams fed it. Perhaps it just welled to the surface in this immense basin. It didn’t matter.
In addition, in the last few days the mood of the expedition had soured. Perhaps all of them had just spent too much time in one another’s company. Perhaps the battering wave and the losses they’d endured had demoralized them to the point at which they could not recover. Perhaps it was the lowering weather. He didn’t know what had affected their spirits so, but it showed, in both keepers and crew. He thought it had begun the evening when Carson and Sedric had returned with the boat to report Greft’s death. Carson had delivered the news to all of them as they sat on the deck with their meager rations of food. Carson had reported it flatly, and not apologized or explained that he’d fed the body to his dragon. No one challenged that; perhaps, for keepers, that was what they now expected. Sedric had looked drained and beaten; perhaps he had finally seen too much. Maybe his Bingtown shell had cracked, and some humanity was seeping in. Carson had made his report, formally returned the stolen ship’s bread to him, and then announced he was going to get some sleep. But the weariness on his old friend’s face did not look like the kind of tiredness that would yield to sleep.
Leftrin had looked from Carson’s weary face to Sedric’s hang-dog expression and formed his own impression. Well, that was too damn bad. The Bingtown dandy had finished with him, and the hunter was taking it hard. Carson deserved better fortune.
But then, didn’t they all?
The news of Greft’s death had dampened the spirits of all. None of the keepers, not even Tats or Harrikin, seemed to take any satisfaction in it. Tats had looked almost guilty. And Jerd had spent the rest of the evening sitting near the port railing, weeping quietly. After a time, Nortel had gone and sat beside her and spoken to her in a low voice until she leaned her head on his shoulder and allowed him to comfort her.
And that was another thing he had his own thoughts on. Bellin had told Swarge she was going to speak to the girls, and Swarge had passed it on to him. He hoped she had. He’d been relieved that the girl had been all right after her miscarriage and saddened at the loss of the little one. He refused even to guess how hard that had been for Bellin and Swarge. He’d lost track of how often Bellin had been pregnant. Not a one had come to term.
Greft’s boat had sat idle on the deck for two days after that until he’d brusquely ordered Boxter and Kase to divvy out the hunting supplies and then take it out and make themselves useful. It wasn’t his place to do so, but they’d obeyed him. And having at least some of the keepers out hunting was much better than the whole crew of them idle and brooding on his decks.
“We’ve lost heart,” Alise said, as if replying to his thoughts. “All of us.”
“Even the dragons?”
“The dragons have changed. Or maybe how I see them has changed. They’ve become far more independent since they survived the wave. Maybe it was because they were instrumental in saving most of us. Once the roles were reversed, it was like the severing of a tie that had worn thin. Some are more arrogant, and others almost ignore their keepers. Of course the most shocking changes are in Relpda and Spit.”
“I’ll say. They’ve gone from being lumpish creatures who the keepers could barely push along each day to being, most definitely, dragons. That little bastard Spit is a danger to himself and everyone else since he discovered he could spit toxins. His accuracy leaves a lot to be desired, and he doesn’t take kindly to correction from anyone. I preferred him the way he was. I appreciate Carson stepping up to try to manage him; he’s the man for a job like that, if there is one. But even he can’t keep a lid on that steam-pot forever. Sooner or later he’s going to hurt someone.”
A hawk cried in the distance. Several of the dragons turned their heads toward it. He wondered if they envied the bird’s flight and wondered if he turned the barge back, seeking for deeper water, would they follow him? Or would they stalk off into the bog, seeking a way to drier land? He glanced at the sky again and wondered if he should hope for rain. Enough rain would lift the barge so they could push on. It would also raise the water that surrounded the dragons. How long could they last with no dry land to rest on? He pushed away his doubts and fears. “I’ll make a decision tomorrow morning,” he told her.
“Until then?” She looked up into his face, and he saw how he had changed her. It wasn’t the roughened hair that mattered to him, nor how her freckles had spread and darkened. For him, it was all in her eyes. There was a question there, but there was no fear. None at all.
“Until then, my dear, we live.”
THYMARA SAT IN the dimness of Alise’s room. She had asked earlier if she might borrow it for an hour or so, and the Bingtown woman had readily agreed, assuming that Thymara wished to bathe in warm water in privacy. But that was not her mission. Instead she had begged Sylve to come with her.
“I don’t see how I’m going to be a help, Thymara. It’s almost as dark as night in here.”
“We’re out of candles completely. Bellin said that if the hunters bring in any sort of an animal with fat, she’ll make some rushlights. But until then…” Thymara heard her voice, how quickly she spoke and how it was pitched higher than normal. Perhaps Sylve heard the fear, too.
“Let me look at your back, Thymara, and see how bad it is. I know you don’t like people to fuss over you, but if it’s infected, and has been for this long, well, you need to have someone open up the injury and clean it out. You can’t just let it keep festering.”
Sylve kept talking as Thymara pulled off her shirt and then unknotted the strips of rags she’d tied at her chest. Experience had taught her that this part was best done quickly. She took a deep breath and then snatched the rag free, gasping as she did so. The ooze from the injury on her back never seemed to cease and always glued the bandaging to her skin. Sylve made an exclamation of sympathy and then asked pragmatically, “What have you been doing for this?”
“I try to wash it every couple of days. Sometimes it’s hard to find a place that’s private.”
“Are you heating the water or just standing in the river?”
“Usually just standing in the river. I wash out the rags and then use them to sponge a trickle of water over it. Then I bandage it up again.”
“I can’t see a thing in here. Turn this way, so the light from that little window…Oh.” Sylve’s hands were cool on her bare shoulders as she turned Thymara in the small space of Alise’s chamber.
The sudden silence that followed her exclamation chilled Thymara even more. “How bad is it?” she asked roughly. “Just tell me.”
“Well.” Sylve took a ragged breath. “This isn’t an injury, Thymara. Maybe it started out as one, but it isn’t now. It’s a change. Mercor told me that sometimes, when a human’s skin and blood are open, a dragon’s influence can be stronger. Stronger than intended, even. He told me about it because I cut my hand and when I came to tend him that day, he said I should stay away from him for a day or two.”
Thymara tried to settle her breath and couldn’t. “What kind of a change?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I’m going to poke at you a bit. I hope I don’t hurt you, but I have to do it.”
It didn’t rattle Sylve. “I know you’re not angry at me. Stand still, now.”
She felt one of Sylve’s cool, scaled hands track down her spine from the nape of her neck to the middle of her back.
“That didn’t hurt? Good. It looks like it’s all sound flesh, but it’s scaled heavily and it’s…I don’t know…it’s different from how a human’s back should be. It stands up like it’s more muscled or something. Now, to either side of that space…” Thymara hissed and flinched wildly and Sylve took her hands away. “Um, there are these two, uh, slashes. They match. Each is about the span of my hand long, and the edges are all ridged. And—please, stand still again.”
She felt Sylve’s cold hands again, and then, as Sylve picked at something, Thymara gave a sudden yelp and curled forward, clenching her teeth and eyes. A burning pain spread out from whatever Sylve had done. When Sylve spoke, it sounded as if her own teeth were clenched. “Sorry, Thymara. So sorry. I shouldn’t have done that; it looks like you’re bleeding a bit now. But there’s—there’s something inside each of the slashes.”
“Something what? Dirt? Infection?”
Sylve took a deep shaking breath. “No. Something growing. Something bony like, well, like fingers or something. Thymara, you should go to Bellin or Alise. Or even Mercor. Someone who knows more than me has to look at this and tell you what to do. It’s bad. It’s really bad.”
Thymara didn’t bother with her rag bandage. She snatched up her shirt and pulled it on, heedless of how much pain the sudden movement cost her. “Don’t tell!” she insisted hoarsely. “Please, Sylve, don’t tell. Don’t tell anyone until I have a chance to think about this.” And talk to that damn dragon. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone.”
“Thymara, you have to tell. Something has to be done.”
“Don’t tell, Sylve. Please. Don’t tell.”