by Robin Hobb
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He’d let his filthy ragged clothing fall to the floor as he disrobed. He took his time washing himself. His skin was too tender to hurry. Even as he dreamed of a tub full of hot, sudsy water, he was grateful for this small mercy. The water had cooled and turned a nasty shade of brown by the time he was finished. He found a clean nightshirt and donned it. It was an incredible pleasure to have something soft next to his abused skin. Washing had shown him that the large bruise on his face was merely the most obvious of the injuries that Jess had dealt him. There were bruises on his back and on his legs that he scarcely remembered getting.
After he was as clean as he could get with such limited water, he smoothed scented oil on the worst of his scalds, frowning over how little he had left. Someone had laundered some of his clothing. He dressed himself, looked at his discarded clothing, and realized it was little more than rags now. With his foot, he pushed it toward the door.
That was when he heard the faint jingle of metal against the floor. He lifted his candle and peered closer, wondering what he could have dropped. There, on the floor, was his locket. Habit made him open it. And there, in the candle’s dim light, Hest looked out at him.
He’d commissioned the tiny portrait from one of the best painters of miniatures in Bingtown. The man had to be good; Hest had sat for him only twice and was very ungracious about both appointments, acceding to the request only because Sedric had pleaded for it as a birthday gift. Hest had thought it overly sentimental, as well as dangerous. “I warn you, if anyone catches a glimpse of you wearing it, I shall deny all knowledge and leave you to their mockery. ”
“As I expect,” Sedric had replied. Even then, he now saw, he had begun to accept that perhaps his feelings for Hest were deeper than any Hest had for him. Now he looked down into the supercilious smile and recognized the slight curl of his lip that the artist had caught so accurately. Not even for a portrait could Hest think of him with respect, let alone love.
“Did I make you up?” he asked the tiny picture. “Did you ever exist as the person I longed for you to be?” He snapped the locket shut, coiled the chain into his palm and closed his hand around it, then sat on the edge of his flat, hard bunk, his loosely clenched hands to his temples. He closed his eyes and commanded his memories. One kiss that Hest had initiated in gentleness rather than as demand. One openhanded touch that was pure affection and nothing else. One word of praise or affection, unhinged by sarcasm. He was certain there had been such moments, but he could not call one to the forefront of his mind.
Unbidden, the thought of Carson’s hand brushing his injured face came to him. Strange, that the calloused hand of the hunter had been gentler than any touch he had ever received from the gentlemanly Hest.
He’d never met anyone like Carson. He hadn’t asked him to conceal his role in Jess’s death, yet when he had been recounting his rescue of Sedric, the hunter’s name hadn’t come into it. He hadn’t mentioned the boat, letting all the others assume whatever they wished about it. Before they had left the debris raft, Carson had insisted on cleaning out the boat, scrubbing away the bloodstains and bailing out the stinking bilgewater. He’d cleaned the hatchet and restored it to its sheath. Not once during that operation had he mentioned that he was obscuring all traces of the murder.
Carson had simply done it and shielded him since then from the questions. He imagined that sooner or later, it would come out. Relpda was too proud of what she had done to keep quiet forever. But he was grateful it wasn’t just now. His own secret was too tightly tied to Jess’s death. He didn’t want anyone picking at one thread to discover where it might lead. For although Carson doubted that Leftrin had been involved with Jess, Sedric was not too sure. It would explain so many things: why he had set out on such a ridiculous and unprofitable errand, why he had cozied up to Alise, and how Jess had become a member of the party so easily. Yes. He was certain there were secrets that Leftrin wasn’t sharing with anyone. And he feared that if Leftrin thought those secrets were threatened, he might take action. The captain, he felt, was capable of anything. Discovering his secret had only confirmed the opinion Sedric had had of him since the beginning.
And what of his opinion of himself? What of his own dirty little secrets?
He lowered his hand and looked at the closed locket he still clutched in his hand.
Throw it overboard.
No. He couldn’t quite bring himself to do that. Not yet. But he would not wear it, nor sleep with it under his pillow anymore. He’d set it aside, where he wouldn’t see it by accident. He would put it with the other mementos that now shamed him.
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He was on his knees, working the concealed catch on the wardrobe when he heard the knock on the door. “A moment!” he cried, flung himself back into bed, and then thought to ask, “Who is it?”
“It’s Alise,” she said, opening the door as she spoke. She carried a candle. Uninvited, she entered his room and shut the door behind her. She stood a moment, looking down at him, and then exclaimed, “My poor Sedric. I am so sorry about everything that has befallen you as a result of this journey. If I could take on your suffering as my own, I would. ”
“You don’t look much better than I do,” he replied, surprised into honesty.
He saw a flash of hurt in her eyes as her hand flew to her cheek. “Well, yes, I’m as scalded as you are, on my face and hands. The river water wasn’t kind to either of us. If it hadn’t been for Sintara, both Thymara and I would have drowned. But, well, here we are, both of us intact, and not all that much the worse for wear. ” She smiled apologetically.
“I had thought that you were safe aboard the boat,” he said in wonder. “The wave caught you too, then. ”
“Indeed. Even Captain Leftrin was washed away in it. Luckily for him, his crew found him quickly. But Thymara and I only returned to the Tarman a day before you did. ”
“Alise, I’m so sorry. I must seem so thoughtless to you. I never even asked you about your experience. Tell me now. ” And ask me no questions about what befell me.
Her smile grew warmer. She sat down on the edge of his bed. “There’s not much to tell. The wave hit us, Sintara fished us out of the water, and when we struggled to what had been the shore, we found many of the other keepers there. Not all, unfortunately. I’m sure you’ve heard that we lost Warken and young Rapskal and his dragon, Heeby. Still, it could have been so much worse. Other than some bruises and cuts, most of us emerged unscathed. Though you look as if you took quite a battering. ”
He touched the bruised side of his face and shrugged. “It’s healing,” he replied.
“I’m glad,” she replied, letting the topic go so easily that he immediately knew she had something else on her mind. Her eyes were wandering around his small room, her glance lingering on the floor near his bed, as if she were looking for something. Anxiety uncoiled in him and slithered in his belly. She’d been in here in his absence; he knew that. She’d tidied the room. Had she found his hidden cache of dragon parts? No. That couldn’t be it. If she even suspected him of doing such a dastardly thing, she’d have accused him immediately. There was something else. He waited. When her words came, they shocked him.
“Sedric, does Hest love me?”
She asked the outlandish question with the naiveté of a child. And like a child, there was both longing and dread in her voice. He tried to think what answer she wanted so he could give it to her. He settled for saying, “Surely I’m not the one to ask such a question. He married you, didn’t he? Doesn’t he give you nearly everything you ask for? Including this extended journey?”
“He gives me everything he must give me, everything that our bargain binds him to give me. I have his name and stature, money to spend as I wish, the opportunity to use all my free time poring over old scrolls. I have lovely clothing, an excellent chef, and a well-appointed home. When he wishes me to, I welcome his guests. I do everythi
ng that he expects me to do. I…I’ve cooperated with his efforts to get an heir from me…”
She’d had excellent control of her voice and face right up until then. But suddenly, on the final breathless words, her face crumpled, her nose turned red, and tears began to leak from her eyes. It was a transformation as sudden as it was shocking. In a heartbeat, she went from composed and contained Alise to someone he didn’t know. She hunched at the foot of his bed, her hands covering her face, weeping noisily and messily. And, he realized with rising alarm, uncontrollably. “Alise, Alise,” he begged her, but her sobs only grew more spastic, shaking her entire body. He sat up, every muscle in his body aching, and put a cautious arm around her. She turned to him and huddled against him, her shoulders shaking with her grief.
“What is it?” he asked her, dreading whatever secret she was about to spill. “Alise, what is wrong? What brought this on?”
His question seemed to reach her. Perhaps it gave her permission to speak of whatever it was that distressed her so. She drew herself more upright and groped in her pocket for a kerchief. The one she drew out was stained and torn, more fit for a Jamaillian street urchin than a Trader’s wife. Nonetheless, she dried her face with it, took a breath, and spoke. She watched her candle in its holder as she talked, never glancing at him.
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“When Hest first courted me, I was skeptical of his intentions. He was such an eligible bachelor, such a prize, and there I was, a younger daughter, not pretty and with no prospects and scarcely any dowry. It actually made me angry that he would court me. I kept thinking it was some sort of wager or cruel jest. I even resented how he intruded into my life and work. But as our courtship went on, he was so charming that somehow I persuaded myself that not only was I infatuated with him but that he concealed a similar feeling for me. ” She gave a strangled laugh.
“Well, he concealed it very well, and continued to do so for all the years of our marriage. He has the cleverest way of twisting words, of delivering a compliment that leaves everyone at the table smiling for me while only I see all the barbs it carries. To everyone else, he shows such a fair face. He seems an attentive, even a doting, husband to our friends and families. Yet to me…” She turned suddenly to face him. “Is it me, Sedric? Do I expect too much? Are all men like him? My father was sometimes tender, sometimes merry, and always kind to my mother.
Was that only for show before us children? When they were alone, was he cold and boorish and cruel?”
There was such need in her question, such honest confusion that he felt carried back in time to when they had been much younger. She had sometimes asked him such questions then, in full confidence that he was older and wiser in the ways of the world. Without thinking, he took her hand, and then wondered at himself. How could his feelings about her weathervane so freely? It was mostly her fault that he was in the forsaken place on this dreary vessel, and now bonded to a simpleminded dragon. How could he feel sympathy for her?
Perhaps because it was mostly his doing that she was locked in a marriage that was equally forsaken and dreary, bonded to a man who regarded her with the sort of affection usually reserved for a dog with mange?
“Hest isn’t like us,” he said, and he wondered if he had ever said a truer thing. “I don’t know if he loves anyone, in the way that we use the word. Certainly he values you. He knows that you are his hope for an heir. ” His supply of glib words suddenly dried up. “Oh, Alise,” he said, sighing. He put his arm across her narrow shoulders. “No. He doesn’t love you. Yours is a marriage of convenience. It was convenient to Hest to have a wife, to settle down and try for an heir. His parents had begun to insist that he behave as a respectable Trader’s son should. With you, he could present those aspects without changing his ways too much. I am sorry, my friend. He doesn’t love you. He never has. ”
He was braced for her to collapse into sobs. He was prepared to comfort her as well as he could. He did not expect her to suddenly sit up straight and square her shoulders. She sighed deeply, but no new tears welled. She sniffed a couple of times and then said flatly, “Well. That’s that, then. It’s what I expected. Probably what I deserve. I made a deal with him. I keep telling myself that. Maybe now that I’ve heard the truth from you as well, I can believe it all the way through my heart. And decide what I’m going to do about it. ”
That sounded dangerous. “Alise, my dear, there is little you can do about it, except to make the best of it. Go home. Live respectably. Continue your studies, and add to them what you’ve learned from this expedition. Have a child, or children. They will love you as you deserve. ”
“And loving them, I could condemn them to having a father like Hest?”
He could not find a response to that. He tried to imagine Hest as a father and could not. Children and sardonic wit would not blend. Elegance and wailing babies? A supercilious smile and a five-year-old offering a flower. He cringed at each thought. She was right, he slowly conceded. A child might be what Hest wanted and needed, for the sake of providing his line with an heir. But Hest as a father was the last thing that any child needed. Or deserved.
Alise wiped tears from her reddened cheeks. “Well. I have no solution to my dilemma. I promised to be his wife, to lie with him, to give him a child if I could. I gave my word. It was a bad bargain to be sure, but what am I to do? Just sail up the river and disappear forever?”
Her query sounded almost hopeful, as if he might accede to such a wild idea.
“You can’t. ” He spoke the words bluntly. She couldn’t know he was answering his own question as well. He wanted to run away almost as much as she did. But the Rain Wilds was no place for either of them. Difficult as things were at home, they didn’t belong here. As often as he told himself that he could not go back, he knew even more clearly that he could not stay here.
She hung her head, looking at the floor, almost as if she had lost something there. When she brought her eyes up to meet his, a blush reddened her windburned cheeks to an even darker shade. “I came into your room while you were gone. When I thought you might be drowned and forever lost to me. I felt terrible at how I had neglected you. I imagined a hundred terrible things had befallen you—that you were dead, or lying injured somewhere, stranded and alone. ” Her eyes wandered over his face, lingering on his bruises. “So I tidied your room and took your clothing to wash, thinking that if you did return, you’d know how badly I’d felt. And in the course of doing that, of straightening your bedding and so on, I—what’s that?”
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He’d been dreading what she was obviously about to tell him. She’d found the secret compartment and the vials of scales and blood. But the look of shock on her face now startled him. She leaned closer to him, lifting a hand. He leaned away from it, but she touched the side of his face anyway. Her fingers slid down his cheek and trailed along his jawline. She’d never touched him in such a way, let alone looked at him with such horror.
“Sweet Sa have mercy,” she said breathlessly. “Sedric. You’ve begun to scale. ”
“No!” He denied it fiercely. He jerked his face from her touch, replaced her hands with his own, and ran his fingers over his face. What did he feel? What was this? “No, it’s only roughness, Alise. The river water scalded me, and then I was out in the wind and the sun. It’s not scaling! I’m not a Rain Wilder, why would I grow scales? Don’t be foolish, Alise! Don’t be foolish!”
She just looked at him, her face locked between horror and pity. He rose abruptly from his bed, went to his wardrobe, and took out the little mirror he used for shaving. He hadn’t shaved since his return to the ship—that was all she was seeing. He looked into the mirror intently, bringing his candle close as he felt along his jawline. His skin was rough there. Just rough. “I need to shave. That’s all. Alise, you gave me a turn! What a wild notion. I’m tired now, but I’ll shave in the morning and put a bit of lotion on my face. You’ll see. S
caling. What an idea!”
She continued to stare at him. He met her eyes, daring her to disagree with him. She folded her lips in and bit them and then shook her head to herself.
“I’m very tired, Alise. I’m sure you understand. ” Just leave. Please. He wanted to look more closely at his face but not while she was here watching him.
“I know you must be tired. I’m sorry. Well. I’ve spoken about everything except the one thing that brings me here. And I don’t know how to approach that except bluntly. Sedric. Before we left Bingtown, when we were planning this journey…did Hest ever entrust to you a token for me? A keepsake? Something that, perhaps, you were to give me during our journey?”
He stared at her, honestly baffled. A keepsake from Hest for her? What could she be thinking? Hest was not the type to give keepsakes to anyone, let alone someone who had so seriously and recently irritated him. He didn’t say that. He merely shook his head, silently at first and then, as she narrowed her eyes and looked at him suspiciously, more vehemently. “No, Alise, he gave me nothing to pass on to you. I swear. ”
“Sedric. ” Her tone told him to stop pretending. “Perhaps he told you not to tell me of it or give it to me unless I, oh, I don’t know, unless I lived up to some standard he expected or…I don’t know. Sedric, speak bluntly to me. I know about the locket. I found it when I made up your bed. The locket with Hest’s portrait in it. The locket that says Always on the back. ”
At her first mention of it, he felt his heart give a hitch and then beat wildly. He felt dizzy and black spots danced before his eyes. The locket. How could he have been so foolish as to leave it where anyone might see it? When first he’d had it made, he’d promised himself to wear it always, to remind him every moment of the person who had so changed his life. Always. He’d had it engraved on the case. The little gold case that he’d paid for himself. The birthday gift that he had given himself. What a stupid, thoughtless, wretchedly apt gesture that had been!
And now his silence had lasted too long. She stared at him, a sick and reluctant triumph in her eyes. “Sedric,” she said.