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When he had finished his list, she waited, expecting that he would next defer to her. Instead, a score of Traders stood and waited silently, hoping to be recognized.
Ronica Vestrit was among them.
Serilla startled everyone, including herself, when she stood. Instantly all eyes were focused on her. All that she had earlier planned to say fled her mind. All she knew was that she must somehow reassert the Satrap’s power, and hence her own. She must keep Ronica Vestrit from speaking. She had thought she had ensured the woman’s silence earlier when she spoke to Roed Caern. Listening to how assuredly the Bingtown mechanism had begun to govern once more, she suddenly had little faith in Roed. The power that people simply took for themselves here astonished her. Roed would be no more than a cat in the path of a carriage if Ronica managed to gain an audience.
She did not wait for Trader Dwicker to recognize her. She had been foolish to let him even begin this meeting. She should have seized control at the very start. So now she looked around at the people and nodded and smiled until those standing slowly resumed their seats. She cleared her throat.
‘This is a proud day for Jamaillia,’ she announced. ‘Bingtown has been called a shining gem in the Satrapy’s crown, and so it is. In the midst of adversity, the folk of Bingtown do not fall into anarchy and disorder. Instead, you gather amidst the ruins and uphold the civilization you are sprung from.’ She spoke on and on, trying to make her voice ring with patriotism. At one point she reached across and picked up the scroll that lay before Trader Dwicker and held it aloft. She praised it, saying that Jamaillia itself was founded on just such a sense of civic responsibility. She let her eyes rove over the crowd as she tried to claim some credit for these measures, but in her heart she wondered if any of them were fooled. She spoke on and on. She leaned forwards towards them, she met their eyes, and she put the fervour of belief into her words. All the while, her heart trembled within her. They did not need the Satrap or the Satrapy to govern them. They didn’t need her. And once they realized it, she was doomed. All the power that she had thought she had amassed would vanish, leaving her just a helpless woman in a strange land, prey to whatever fate overtook her. She could not allow that to happen.
When her throat began to grow dry and her voice to shake, she sought desperately for an ending. Taking a deep breath, she declared, ‘You have made a brave start tonight. Now, as darkness closes around our city, we must recall that dark clouds still overshadow us. Return to the safety of your homes. Keep yourselves well there, and wait for word from us as to where your efforts can best be employed. On behalf of the Satrap, your ruler, I praise and thank you for the spirit you have shown. On your way to your homes this evening, please keep him in mind. But for the threats raised against him, he would be here himself tonight. He wishes you well.’
She took a breath and turned to Trader Dwicker. ‘Perhaps you should lead us in a closing prayer of thanksgiving to Sa before we disperse.’
He came to his feet, his brow creased. She smiled at him encouragingly, and saw him lose the battle. He turned to the assembled Traders and took a breath to begin.
‘Council, I would speak before we adjourn. I ask that the matter of Davad Restart’s wrongful death be considered.’ It was Ronica Vestrit.
Trader Dwicker actually choked. For a moment, Serilla thought she had lost entirely. Then Roed Caern rose smoothly to his feet.
‘Council, I submit that Ronica Vestrit speaks without authority here. She is no longer Trader for her own family, let alone Restart’s. Let her sit down. Unless this matter is raised by a rightful Trader, the Council need not consider it.’
The old woman stood stubbornly, two high spots of colour on her cheeks. She controlled her anger and spoke clearly. ‘The Trader for my family cannot speak for us. The attempt on our lives has sent her into hiding with her children. Therefore, I claim the right to speak.’
Dwicker managed a breath. ‘Ronica Vestrit, have you written authorization from Keffria Vestrit to speak as Trader for the Vestrit family?’
A silence of six heartbeats. Then, ‘No, Councilhead Dwicker, I do not,’ Ronica admitted.
Dwicker managed to contain his relief. ‘Then, according to all our laws, I fear we cannot hear you tonight. For every family, there is only one designated Trader. To that Trader, both voice and vote belong. If you obtain such a paper, duly witnessed, and come back to us when next we meet, then perhaps we can hear you.’
Ronica sank slowly back to her seat. But Serilla’s relief was short lived. Other Traders rose to their feet, and Dwicker began recognizing them in turn. One Trader rose and asked if Wharf Seven could be repaired first, as it offered the best moorage for deep draught ships. Several others quickly agreed with this idea, and in quick succession a number of men volunteered to take this as their task.
Proposal after proposal followed. Some referred to public matters, others to private. One Trader stood to offer space in his warehouse to any who would help him make quick repairs and to guard it at night. He quickly had three volunteers. Another had teams of oxen, but was running out of feed for them. He wanted to trade their labour for food to keep them alive. He, too, received several offers. The night grew later and later, but the Traders showed no inclination to go home. Before Serilla’s eyes, Bingtown knit itself back together. Before Serilla’s eyes, her hopes of power and influence faded.
She had almost ceased listening to the proceedings when a sombre Trader stood and asked, ‘Why are we being kept ignorant of what triggered this whole disaster? What has become of the Satrap? Do we know who was behind the threat to him? Have we contacted Jamaillia to explain ourselves?’
Another voice was raised. ‘Does Jamaillia know of our plight? Have they offered to send ships and men to help us drive out the Chalcedeans?’
All faces turned towards her. Worse, Trader Dwicker made a small motion encouraging her to speak. She gathered her thoughts hastily as she stood. ‘There is little that is safe to tell,’ she began. ‘There is no practical way to send swift word to Jamaillia without risk of it being intercepted. We are also uncertain whom we should consider trustworthy and loyal there. For now, the secret of the Satrap’s location is best not shared with anyone. Not even Jamaillia.’ She smiled warmly at them as if certain of their understanding.
‘The reason I ask,’ the Trader went on ponderously, ‘is that I had a bird from Trehaug yesterday, warning me that I should expect payment for some goods I sent upriver to be delayed. They had had a quake, and a big one. They weren’t sure how much damage had been done when they sent the bird, but said that the Kendry would certainly be delayed.’ The man shrugged one skinny shoulder. ‘Are we sure the Satrap came through it safely?’
For a moment, her tongue could get no purchase on her thoughts. Then Roed Caern was rising gracefully to claim the floor. ‘Trader Ricter, I think we should not speculate on such things, lest we send rumours running. Surely if anything were amiss, we would have received word. For now, I propose we let all questions regarding the Satrap rest. Surely his security is more important than our idle curiosity.’ He had a trick of standing with one shoulder slightly higher than the other. He turned as he spoke, somehow conveying both the charm and arrogance of a well-clawed cat. There was no threat in his words, yet somehow it would be challenging him to ask more about the Satrap. A little ripple of uneasiness seemed to spread out from him. He took his time about resuming his seat, as if allowing everyone to consider his words. No one brought up the topic of the Satrap again.
A few other Traders stood after that to bring up lesser matters, volunteering to keep street lamps filled and the like, but the feeling of the meeting was suddenly that it was over. Serilla was caught between disappointment and relief that it was finished when a man in a dark blue robe stood up in the far corner of the room.
‘Trader’s son Grag Tenira,’ he announced himself when Trader Dwicker hesitated over his name. ‘And I do have permission, written and witnessed, to speak for my family. I speak for Tomie Tenira.’
‘Speak, then,’ Dwicker recognized him.
The Trader’s son hesitated, then drew a breath. ‘I suggest that we appoint three Traders to consider the matter of Trader Restart’s death and the disposition of his estate. I claim interest in this matter, for monies owed by the estate to the Tenira family.’
Roed Caern was on his feet again, too quickly this time. ‘Is this a worthy use of our time?’ he demanded. ‘All debt is to be held in abeyance just now. That was agreed at the very start of the meeting. Besides, how can the manner of a man’s death affect a debt that is owed?’
Grag Tenira did not seem daunted by his reasoning. ‘An inheritance is not a debt, I think. If the estate has been confiscated, then we must give up all hope of regaining what is owed us. But if the estate is to be inherited, then we have an interest in knowing that, and in seeing it passed on to an heir before it is…depleted.’ Depleted was the word he used, yet ‘plundered’ was in his tone. Serilla could not control the pink that rose to her cheeks. Her mouth was suddenly dry and she could not speak. This was far worse than being ignored; he had all but accused her of theft.
Trader Dwicker did not seem to notice her distress. He did not even seem to realize it was up to her to answer this. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and said gravely, ‘A panel of three Traders to look into this seems a reasonable request, especially as another member of a Trader family has already expressed concern about this. Would volunteers with no connection to this matter please stand?’
As quickly as that, it was done. Serilla did not even recognize the names of those Dwicker chose. One was a dowdy young woman holding a squirming child in her arms, another an old man with a seamed face who leaned on a cane. How was she supposed to exert her influence on such as those? She felt as if she dwindled into her chair as a wave of defeat and shame washed over her. The shame amazed her in its intensity and brought despair in its wake. Somehow, it was all connected. This was the power that men could take over her. She caught a sudden glimpse of Ronica Vestrit’s face. The sympathy in the old woman’s eyes horrified Serilla. Had she sunk so low that even her enemies pitied her as they tore her to pieces? A sudden ringing in her ears threatened her, and the hall grew dimmer around her.
Ronica sat small and quiet. They would do for Grag Tenira what they would not do for her. They would look into Davad’s death. That, she told herself, was the important thing.
She was distracted from her thoughts by how pale the Companion had suddenly become. Would the woman faint? In a way, she pitied her. She was a stranger to this place, and caught in the turmoil of its civil upheaval with no hope of extricating herself. Moreover, she seemed so trapped in her role as Companion. She sensed that at one time there had been more to Serilla, but somehow it had been lost. Still, it was difficult to pity anyone so obsessed with obtaining and holding power for herself at any cost.
Watching her sit so still and small through the rest of the meeting, Ronica scarcely noticed it ending. Trader Dwicker led them in a final prayer to Sa, at once asking for strength and thanking the deity for survival. The voices echoing his were certainly stronger than those that had responded to his opening prayer. It was a good sign. All that had happened here had been good tonight, for Bingtown.
Companion Serilla left, not with Trader Drur, but on Roed Caern’s arm. The tall, handsome Trader’s son glowered as he escorted her from the gathering hall. Several heads besides Ronica’s turned to watch them go. Almost, they looked like a couple on the edge of a marital spat. It did not please Ronica to see the anxiety that haunted the Companion’s face. Was Caern somehow coercing her?
Ronica had not the gall to hasten after them and beg a ride home, though she would have dearly loved to hear what passed between them in the carriage. Instead, as she wrapped Dorill’s shawl well about her, she thought with dread of the long walk back to Davad’s house. Outside was a chill fall night. The road would be rough and dark, and the dangers more vicious than those of the Bingtown she had known. Well, there was no help for it. The sooner she started, the sooner she was there.
Outside the hall, a nasty little breeze cut at her. Other families were clambering into carriages and waggons or walking home in groups, carrying lanterns and armed with walking sticks. She had not thought to bring either. Chiding herself for thoughtlessness, she started down the steps. At the bottom, a figure stepped from the shadows and touched her on the arm. She gasped in startlement.
‘Beg pardon,’ Grag Tenira spoke immediately. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you. I merely wanted to be certain you had a safe way home.’
Ronica laughed shakily. ‘I thank you for your concern, Grag. I no longer even have a safe home to go to. Nor a way there, other than my own two feet. I have been staying at Davad’s house, since my own was vandalized. While I am there, I have been attempting to trace Davad’s transactions with the New Traders. I am convinced that if the Companion would but pay heed to me, she would see that Davad was no traitor. Nor am I.’
The words spilled from her. Belatedly she got her tongue under control. However, Grag stood gravely listening and nodding to her words. When she fell silent, he offered, ‘If the Companion will not heed what you find, I and several others would find it of interest. Although I doubted Davad Restart’s loyalty, I never questioned the Vestrit family’s allegiance to Bingtown, even if you have dabbled in the slave trade.’
Ronica had to bow her head and bite her tongue to that, for it was true. It might not be any of her own doing, but her family ship had gone as a slaver. And been lost because of it. She took a breath. ‘I would be happy to show you and any others who would be interested. I have heard that Mingsley of the New Traders has been making truce offers. In terms of his long dealings with Davad, I wonder if he was not seeking to buy Old Traders to his way of thinking.’
‘I should be pleased to see the records. But, for tonight, I would be more pleased to see you safely to wherever you are staying. I have no carriage, but my horse can carry two, if you would not object to riding pillion.’
‘I would be grateful. But why?’
‘Why?’ Grag looked startled at the question.
‘Why?’ Ronica took up all the bravery of an old woman who no longer cares for the niceties of courtesy. ‘Why do you extend yourself on my behalf? My daughter Althea has refused your suit. My reputation right now in Bingtown is unsavoury. Why chance your own, associating with me? Why press for the matter of Davad’s death to be investigated? What motivates you, Grag Tenira?’
He bowed his head for an instant. Then, when he lifted his face, a nearby torch caught his blue eyes and limned his profile. As he smiled ruefully, Ronica wondered how Althea could ever have held her heart back from this young man. ‘You ask a blunt question and I will give you truth in return. I myself feel some responsibility for Davad’s death and your disaster that night. Not for what I did, but for what I failed to do. And as for Althea –’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Perhaps I don’t give up that easily. And perhaps the way to her heart is through courtesy to her mother.’ He gave a sudden laugh. ‘Sa knows I have tried everything else. Perhaps a good word from you would turn the key for me. Come. My horse is this way.’
7 DRAGON SHIP (#ulink_d4aaecf4-e717-5574-86de-2bb666f6a06b)
ONE MOMENT HE was curled in oblivion, resting in womb-like isolation. Wintrow was aware of nothing save his physical body. He worked on it as he had once worked stained glass. The difference was that it was a restoration rather than a creation. He found placid pleasure in his work; dimly it echoed memories of stacking blocks when he was a very small child. The tasks that faced him were simple and obvious, the work repetitive; he was only directing his body to do more swiftly what it would have eventually done on its own. The willing focus of his mind speeded the labour of his body. The rest of his life had dimmed to an absolute stillness. He considered nothing except repairing the animal he inhabited. It was rather like being in a small cosy room while a great storm raged outside.
Enough, growled the dragon.
Wintrow curled himself smaller before her irritation. ‘I am not finished,’ he begged.
No. The rest will take care of itself, if you nourish your body and encourage it from time to time. I have delayed for you too long. You are strong enough now for all of us to confront what we are. And confront it we shall.
It was like being seized and flung into the air. Like a panicky cat, he flailed and clawed in all directions, seeking something, anything to attach himself to. He found Vivacia.
Wintrow!
Her exclamation was not a verbal cry of joy, but a sudden pulse of connection as she discovered him again. They were reunited, and in that joining they were once more whole. She could sense him; she could feel his emotions, smell with his nose, taste with his mouth, and feel with his skin. She knew his pain, and agonized for him. She knew his thoughts and –
When one falls in dreams, one always awakens before the impact. Not this time. Wintrow’s awakening was the impact. Vivacia’s love and devotion to him collided with his anguished knowledge of what she was. His thoughts were a mirror held to her corpse face. Once she had looked into it, she could not look aside. He was trapped in that contemplation with her, and felt himself pulled down deeper and deeper into her despair. He plunged into the abyss with her.
She was not Vivacia, not really. She had never been anything except the stolen life of a dragon. Her pseudo-life was fastened on to the remnants of the dragon’s death. She had no real right to exist. Rain Wild workers had split open the cocoon of the metamorphosing dragon. The germ of its life had been flung out, to perish squirming on a cold stone floor, while the threads of memory and knowledge that had enclosed it were dragged off and cut up into planks to build liveships.
Life struggles to continue, at any cost. A windstorm flings a tree down to the forest floor; saplings rise from its trunk. A tiny seed amongst pebbles and sand will still seize a droplet of moisture and send up a defiant shoot of green. Immersed in saltwater, bombarded with the memories and emotions of the humans that bestrode her, the fibres of memory in her planks had sought to align themselves into some kind of order. They had accepted the name given to her; they had striven to make sense of what they experienced now. Eventually, Vivacia had awakened. But the proud ship and her glorious figurehead were not truly part of the Vestrit family. No. Hers was a life stolen. She was half a being, less than half, a makeshift creature cobbled together out of human wills and buried dragon memories, sexless, deathless, and in the long run, meaningless. A slave. They had used the stolen memories of a dragon to create a great wooden slave for themselves.
The scream that tore out of Vivacia ripped Wintrow into full consciousness. He rolled over and fell to the floor, landing heavily on his knees beside his bunk. In the small room, Etta jerked awake with a start from where she’d kept watch over him. ‘Wintrow!’ she cried in horror as he heaved himself to his feet. ‘Wait! No, you are not well. Lie down, come back!’ Her words followed him as he staggered out the door and towards the foredeck. He heard noises from the captain’s stateroom, Kennit shouting for his crutch and a light, ‘Etta, damn you, where are you when I need you?’ but Wintrow did not pause for that either. He limped naked save for a sheet, the night air burning against his healing flesh. Startled crewmen on the night watch called out to one another. One seized a lantern and followed him. Wintrow paid him no mind. He took the steps to the foredeck in two strides that tore his healing skin and flung himself forwards until he half-hung over the railing.
‘Vivacia!’ he cried. ‘Please. It was not your fault; it was never your fault. Vivacia!’
The figurehead tore at herself. Her great wooden fingers tangled in her lush black curls and strove to snatch them out of her head. Her fingernails raked her cheeks and dug at her eyes. ‘Not me!’ she cried to the night sky. ‘Never me at all! Oh, Great Sa, what an obscene jest I am, what an abomination in your sight! Let me go, then! Let me be dead!’
Gankis had followed Wintrow. ‘What troubles you, boy? What ails the ship?’ the old pirate demanded, but Wintrow saw only the ship. The yellow lantern light revealed a horror. As swiftly as Vivacia’s nails cut furrows in her perfect cheeks, the fibrous flesh closed up behind them. The hair she tore from her scalp flowed into her hands, was absorbed, and her mane remained thick and glossy as before. Wintrow stared in horror at this cycle of destruction and rebirth. ‘Vivacia!’ he cried again, and flung his being into hers, seeking to comfort, to calm.
The dragon was waiting there. She rebuffed him as effortlessly as she wrapped and held Vivacia in her embrace. Hers was the spirit that defied the ship’s desire to die.
No. Not after all the years of repression, not all the ages of silence and stillness. I will not be dead. If this be the only life we can have, then we shall have it. Be still, little slave. Share this life with me, or know none at all!
Wintrow was transfixed. In a place he could only reach with his mind, a terrible confrontation was taking place. The dragon struggled for life as the ship tried to deny it to both of them. He felt his own small self as a rag seized by two terriers. He was pulled between them, torn in their grips as each tried to claim his loyalty and carry his mind with hers. Vivacia caught him up in her love and despair. She knew him so well; he knew her so well, how could his heart differ from hers? She dragged him with her; they teetered on the edge of a willing leap into death. Oblivion beckoned alluringly. It was, she convinced him, the only solution. What else was there for them? This endless sense of wrong, this horrible burden of stolen life; would he choose that?
‘Wintrow!’ Kennit gasped out the name as he dragged himself up the ladder to the foredeck. Wintrow turned sluggishly to watch him come. The pirate’s nightshirt, half-tucked into his trousers, billowed about him in the night breeze. His one foot was bare. A tiny part of Wintrow’s mind noted that he had never seen Kennit in such a state of dishevelment. There was panic in the captain’s ever cool and sardonic glance. He feels us, Wintrow thought to himself. He is starting to bond with us; he senses something of what is going on, and it frightens him.
Etta passed the captain’s crutch up to him. He seized it and came swinging across the deck to Wintrow’s side. Kennit’s sudden grasp on his shoulder was the grip of life, holding him back from death. ‘What do you do, boy?’ Kennit demanded angrily. Then his voice changed and he stared past Wintrow in horror. ‘God of Fishes, what have you done to my ship!’
Wintrow turned to the figurehead. Vivacia had twisted to stare back at the growing mob of disturbed sailors on the foredeck. One man shrieked aloud as her eyes went suddenly lambent green. The colour of her eyes swirled like a whirlpool, while at the centre was blackness darker than any night. Humanity left her face. Her black tresses blowing in the night breeze were more like a writhing nest of serpents. The teeth she bared at them in a parody of a smile were too white. ‘If I cannot win,’ the lips gave voice to the dragon’s thought, ‘then no one shall.’
Slowly she turned away from them. Her arms lifted wide as if to embrace the night sea. Then slowly she brought them back, to clasp the hull of the ship behind her.
Wintrow! Wintrow, aid me! Vivacia pleaded only in his mind; the figurehead’s mouth and her voice were no longer at Vivacia’s command. Die with me, she begged him. Almost, he did. Almost, he followed her into that abyss. But at the last instant, he could not.
‘I want to live!’ he heard himself cry out into the night. ‘Please, please, let us live!’ He thought, for an instant, that his words weakened her resolve to die.
A strange silence followed his words. Even the night breeze seemed to hold its breath. Wintrow became aware that somewhere a sailor gabbled out a child’s prayer but another, smaller sound caught his ears. It was a running, brittle sound, like the noise of cracking ice on the surface of a lake when one ventures out too far.
‘She’s gone,’ breathed Etta. ‘Vivacia’s gone.’
It was so. Even in the poor light of the lantern, the change was obvious. All colour and semblance of life had drained from the figurehead. Grey as a tombstone was the wood of her back and hair. No breath of life stirred her. Her carved locks were frozen and immune to the breeze’s fingering touch. Her skin looked as weathered as an ageing fence. Wintrow groped after her with his mind. He caught a fading trail of her despair, like a vanishing scent in the air. Then even that was gone, as if some tight door had closed between them.
‘The dragon?’ he muttered to himself, but if she was still within him, she had hidden herself too well for his poor senses.
Wintrow drew a deep breath and let it out again. Alone in his mind again; how long had it been since his thoughts had been the only ones in his head? An instant later he became aware of his body. The cool air stung his healing scalds. His knees jellied, and he would have sunk to the deck but for Etta’s cautious arm around him. He sagged against her. His new skin screamed at her touch, but he was too weak even to flinch away.
Etta looked past him. Her gaze mourned Kennit. Wintrow’s eyes followed hers. He had never seen a man look so grief-stricken. The pirate leaned far out on the bow railing to stare at Vivacia’s profile, his features frozen in anguish. Lines Wintrow had never noticed before seemed graven into Kennit’s face. His glossy black hair and moustache looked shocking against his sallow skin. Vivacia’s passing diminished Kennit in a way that the loss of his leg had not. Before Wintrow’s eyes, the man aged.
Kennit turned his head to meet Wintrow’s gaze. ‘Is she dead?’ he asked woodenly. ‘Can a liveship die?’ His eyes pleaded that it not be so.
‘I don’t know,’ Wintrow admitted reluctantly. ‘I can’t feel her. Not at all.’ The gap within himself was too terrible to probe. Worse than a lost tooth, more crippling than his missing finger. To be without her was a terrible, gaping flaw in himself. He had once wished for this? He had been mad.
Kennit turned back abruptly to the figurehead. ‘Vivacia?’ he called questioningly. Then, ‘Vivacia!’ he bellowed, the angry, forsaken call of a spurned lover. ‘You cannot leave me now! You cannot be gone!’
Even the light night breeze faded to stillness. On the deck of the ship, the silence was absolute. The crew seemed as stricken by their captain’s grief as by the passing of the liveship. Etta was the one who broke the silence.
‘Come,’ she said to Kennit. ‘There is nothing to be done here. You and Wintrow should come below, and talk about this. He needs food and drink. He should not be out of bed yet. Together, you two can puzzle out what is to be done next.’
Wintrow saw clearly what she was doing. The captain’s attitude was rattling the crew. It was best he was out of their sight until he recovered. ‘Please,’ Wintrow croaked, adding his plea to hers. He had to be away from that terrible, still figure. Looking at the grey figurehead was worse than gazing at a decaying corpse.
Kennit glanced at them as if they were strangers. A sudden flatness came to his eyes as he mastered himself. ‘Very well. Take him below and see to him.’ His voice was devoid of every emotion. He ran his eyes over his crew. ‘Get back to your posts,’ he muttered at them. For an instant, they did not respond. A few faces showed sympathy for their captain, but most stared confusedly, as if they did not know the man. Then, ‘Now!’ he snapped. He did not raise his voice, but the command in it sent his men scrabbling to obey. In an instant, the foredeck was empty save for Wintrow, Etta and Kennit.
Etta waited for Kennit. The captain moved awkwardly, shifting his crutch about until he got it under his arm. He hopped free of the railing and lurched across the foredeck to the ladder.
‘Go help him,’ Wintrow whispered. ‘I can manage.’
Etta gave a single nod of agreement. She left him for Kennit. The one-legged man accepted her help without any objections. That was as unlike the pirate as his earlier show of emotion. Wintrow, watching how tenderly the woman aided him down the short ladder, felt more keenly his own isolation. ‘Vivacia?’ he asked quietly of the night. The wind sighed past him, making him aware of his scalded skin and of his own nakedness. But Vivacia had been peeled away from him as painfully as his own skin had, leaving a different kind of pain. The nakedness of his body was a small discomfort compared to his solitude in the night. In a dizzying instant, he was aware of how immense the sea and the world around him were. He was no more than a mite of life on this wooden deck rocking on the water. Always before, he had sensed Vivacia’s size and strength around him, sheltering him from the world at large. Not since he had first left home as a child had he felt so tiny and unattended.
‘Sa,’ he whispered, knowing that he should be able to reach out for his god as solace. Sa had always been there for him, long before he had boarded the ship and bonded with her. Once, he had been certain he was destined to be a priest. Now, as he reached out with a word to touch the awe of the divine, he realized that the name on his lips was truly a prayer that Vivacia be restored to him. He felt shamed. Had his ship then replaced his god? Did he truly believe he could not go on without her? He knelt suddenly on the darkened deck, but not to pray. His hands groped over the wood. Here. The stains should be here, where his blood had joined her timbers and united him with her in a bond he shared with no other. But when his maimed hand found his own bloody handprint it was by sight, not touch. For he felt nothing under his palm save the fine texture of the wizardwood deck. He felt nothing at all.
‘Wintrow?’
Etta had come back for him. She stood on the ladder, staring across the foredeck at him hunched on his hands and knees. ‘I’m coming,’ he replied, and lurched to his feet.
‘More wine?’ Etta asked Wintrow.
The boy shook his head mutely. For boy he looked, draped in a fresh sheet from Kennit’s own bed. Etta had snatched it up and offered it to him when she had staggered him into the cabin. His peeling flesh would not yet bear the touch of proper clothing. Now the lad perched uncomfortably in a chair across the table from Kennit. It was obvious to Etta that he could find no position that eased his scalds. He had eaten some of the food she had put before him, but he seemed little better for it. Where the venom had eaten at him, his skin was splotched red and shiny. Bald red patches on his shorn head reminded her of a mangy dog. But worst was the dull look in his eyes. They mirrored the loss and abandonment in Kennit’s.
The pirate sat across from Wintrow, his dark hair in disarray, his shirt half-buttoned. Kennit, always so careful of his own appearance, seemed to have forgotten it entirely. She could barely stand to look at the man she had loved. In the years she had known him, he had first been simply her customer, then the man she longed for. When he had carried her off, she had thought nothing could bring her more joy. The night he had told her he cared for her, her life had been transformed. She had watched him grow, from captain of one vessel to the commander of a fleet of pirate ships. More, folk now hailed him as king of the Pirate Isles. She had thought she had lost him in the storm when he commanded both sea and sea serpent to his will, for she could not be worthy of a man chosen by Sa for great destiny. She had mourned his greatness, she thought with shame. He had soared, and she had been jealous of it, for fear it might steal him from her.
But this, this was a thousand times worse.
No battle, no injury, no storm had ever unmanned him. Never, until tonight, had she seen him uncertain or at a loss. Even now, he sat straight at the table, drinking his brandy neat, his shoulders square, and his hand steady. Nevertheless, something had gone out of him. She had seen it leave him, seen it flow away with the life of the ship. He was now as wooden as Vivacia had become. She feared to touch him lest she discover his flesh was as hard and unyielding as the deck.
He cleared his throat. Wintrow’s eyes snapped to him almost fearfully.
‘So.’ The small word was sharp as a blade. ‘You think she is dead. How? What killed her?’
It was Wintrow’s turn to clear his throat, a small and tremulous sound. ‘I did. That is, what I knew killed her. Or drove her so deep inside herself that she cannot find a way back to us.’ He swallowed, fighting tears, perhaps. ‘Maybe she simply realized she had always been dead. Perhaps it was only my belief otherwise that kept her alive.’
Kennit’s shot glass clacked against the table as he set it down sharply. ‘Talk sense,’ he snarled at his prophet.
‘Sorry, sir. I’m trying to.’ The boy lifted a shaking hand to rub his eyes. ‘It’s long and it’s confusing. My memories have mixed with my dreams. I think a lot of it I always suspected. Once I was in contact with the serpent, all my suspicions suddenly came together with what she knew. And I knew.’ Wintrow lifted his eyes to meet Kennit’s and blanched at the blind fury in the man’s face. He spoke more quickly. ‘When I found the imprisoned serpent on the Others’ Island, I thought it was just a trapped animal. No more than that. It was miserable, and I resolved to set it free, as I would any creature. No creation of Sa’s should be kept in such cruel confinement. As I worked, it seemed to me that she was more intelligent than a bear or a cat would have been. She knew what I was doing. When I had removed enough bars that she could escape, she did. But on her way past me, her skin brushed mine. It burned me. But in that instant, I knew her. It was as if a bridge had been created between us, like the bond I share with the ship. I knew her thoughts and she knew mine.’ He took a deep breath and leaned forwards across the table. His eyes were desperate to make the pirate believe him.
‘Kennit, the serpents are dragon spawn. Somehow, they have been trapped in their sea form, unable to return to their changing grounds to become full dragons. I could not grasp it all. I saw images, I thought her thoughts, but it is hard to translate that into human terms. When I came back on board the Vivacia, I knew that the liveship was meant to be a dragon. I do not know how exactly. There is some stage between serpent and dragon, a time when the serpent is encased in a kind of hard skin. I think that is what wizardwood is: the husk of a dragon before it becomes a dragon. Somehow, the Rain Wild Traders changed her into a ship instead. They killed the dragon and cut her husk into planks to build a liveship.’
Kennit reached for the brandy bottle. He seized the neck of it as if he would throttle it. ‘You make no sense! What you say cannot be true!’ He lifted the bottle and for one frightening instant Etta thought he would dash out the boy’s brains with it. She saw in Wintrow’s face that he feared it, too. But the lad did not flinch. He sat silently awaiting the blow, almost as if he would welcome his own death. Instead, Kennit poured brandy into his glass. A tiny wave of it slopped over the edge of his glass onto the white tablecloth. The pirate ignored it. He lifted the glass and downed it at a gulp.
