скачать книгу бесплатно
She was strongly tempted to go out on deck, simply to challenge Kyle’s order to her. What could he do? Order a deckhand to put her back in her quarters? There wasn’t a hand on this ship that would dare lay hands on her, and not just because she was Althea Vestrit. Most of them liked and respected her, and that had been a thing she’d earned for herself, not bought with her name. Despite what Kyle said, she knew this ship better than any sailor aboard it now. She knew it as only a child who has grown up aboard a ship could; she knew the places in the holds where no grown man could have fit himself, she had climbed masts and swung on rigging as other children climbed trees. Even if she did not stand a regular watch, she knew the work of every hand aboard and could do it. She could not splice as fast as their best rigger, but she could make a neat strong splice, and cut and sew canvas as well as any deckhand. She had divined this was her father’s intention in bringing her aboard; to learn the ship and every sailor’s task of running her. Kyle might despise her as a mere daughter of her family, but she had no fear that her father thought her any less than the three sons the family had lost to the Blood Plague. She was not a substitute for a son; she was to be Ephron Vestrit’s heir.
She knew she could defy Kyle’s order and nothing would befall her. But like as not he’d take it out on the hands, punishing them when they did not leap to obey his order to confine her to quarters. She would not let that happen to them. This was her quarrel with Kyle; she’d settle it herself. Because despite what he’d said, she did not care just for herself. The Vivacia deserved a good crew, and save for Kyle, her father had chosen every hand well. He paid good money, more than the going rate, to keep able and willing hands aboard. Althea would not give Kyle an excuse to discharge any of them. She felt again a pang of guilt that she’d been part of that fate coming down on Brashen.
She tried to push thoughts of him aside, but he refused to budge. In her mind’s eye, he stood before her, arms crossed on his chest, looking down at her from his superior height as he so often did. Lips flat in disapproval of her, brown eyes narrowed to slits, with even the bristle of his beard betraying his annoyance. Good deckhand he might be, and a promising mate, but for all of that, the man had an attitude. He’d thrown over the Trell name, but not their aristocratic ways. She could respect that he’d worked his way up the decks to his position of mate; still, she found it irritating that he moved and spoke as if command were his birthright. Perhaps it had been once, but when he’d thrown that over, he should have discarded his prideful ways along with the name.
She rolled suddenly from her bunk, landing lightly on the deck. She crossed to her sea-chest and flung the lid open. Here were things that could sweep all these unpleasant thoughts from her mind. The trinkets she had brought for Selden and Malta now faintly annoyed her. She spent good coins on these gifts for her niece and nephew. Fond as she was of both children, right now she could only see them as Kyle’s children and her threatened replacements. She set aside the elaborately-dressed doll she’d chosen for Malta and put the brightly-painted top for Selden with it. Beneath were the bolts of silk from Tusk. The silver-grey was for her mother, the mauve for Keffria. Below them was the bolt of green she had chosen for herself.
She stroked it with the back of her hand. Lovely, liquid fabric. She took out the cream-coloured lace she had chosen for trim. As soon as she got to Bingtown, she planned to take it to the Street of the Tailors. She’d have Mistress Violet sew her a gown for the Summer Ball. Her services were expensive, but silk this fine merited a skilful dressmaker. Althea wanted a gown that would show off her long waist and round hips, and perhaps attract a dance partner more manly than Brashen’s little brother. Not too tight in the waist, she decided; the dancing at the Summer Ball was the lively sort, and she wished to be able to breathe. Ample skirts that would move with the complex steps of the dances, she decided, but not so full they got in the way. The cream lace would frame her modest cleavage and perhaps make it look more ample. She’d wear her dark hair swept up this year, and use her silver clasps to hold it. Her hair was as coarse as her father’s, but its rich colour and thickness more than made up for that. Perhaps her mother would finally allow her to wear the silver beads her grandmother had left her. Nominally, they were Althea’s, but her mother seemed jealous of parting with her guardianship of them, and often cited their rarity and value as reasons they should not be worn casually. They’d go well with the silver earrings she’d bought in Brigtown.
She stood and shook out the silk, and held it up against her. The looking-glass in the room was small. She could see no more than how her tanned face looked above the green silk draped over her shoulder. She smoothed the silk, only for her rough hands to snag on it. She shook her head at that. She’d have to pumice them every day once she was home to work the callous off them. She loved working the Vivacia and feeling the ship respond to the sailors’ tasks, but it did take a heavy toll on her hands and skin, not to mention the bruising her legs took. It was her mother’s second biggest objection to her sailing with her father, that it absolutely ruined her appearance at social events. Her main objection was that Althea should have been home sharing the tasks of managing the house and lands. Her heart sank as she wondered if her mother would finally win her way. She let the silk slither from her hands and reached overhead to touch the heavy timbers that supported the Vivacia’s decks.
‘Oh, ship, they can’t separate us now. Not after all these years, not when you’re so close to quickening. No one has the right to take that from us.’ She whispered the words knowing that she need not speak aloud at all. She and the ship were linked that closely. She would have sworn she felt a shivering of response from the Vivacia. ‘This bond between us is something my father intended as well; it is why he brought me aboard when I was so young, that we might come to adulthood already knowing one another.’ There was a second tiny shivering of the ship’s timbers, so faint another might not have noticed it. But Althea knew the Vivacia too well to be deceived. She closed her eyes and poured herself forth into her ship, all her fears and anger and hopes. And in turn she felt the soft stirring of the Vivacia’s as yet unawakened spirit, answering her soothingly.
In years to come, after the Vivacia had quickened, she would be the one the ship preferred to speak to; it would be her hand on the wheel that the Vivacia answered most promptly. Althea knew the ship would run willingly before the wind for her, and would battle adverse seas with all her heart. Together they would seek out trade ports and goods that not even the traders of Bingtown could match, wonders beyond even those of the Rain Wild folk. And when she died, it would be her own son or daughter that stepped up to the helm, not one of Kyle’s get. This she promised to both herself and the ship. Althea wiped her tears on the back of her hand and then stooped to gather the silk from the floor.
He was dozing on the sand. Dozing. That was the word the humans had always used, but he had never agreed that what he did was similar to the sleep they indulged in. He did not think a liveship could sleep. No. Even that escape was denied him. Instead, he could go somewhere else in his mind, and immerse himself so deeply in that past moment that the deadly boredom of the present retreated. There was one place in his past that he used most frequently for that. He was not entirely sure what it was he was recalling. Ever since his log books had been taken from him, his memory had begun to stretch and grow thin. There were growing gaps in it now, places where he could not make the events of one year connect to those of another. Sometimes he thought perhaps he should be grateful for that.
So as he dozed in the sun, what he chose to recall was satiation and warmth. The gentle scratching of the sand beneath his hull translated into an elusively similar sensation that refused to be completely called to his mind. He did not try very hard. It was enough to cling to an ancient memory of feeling replete and satisfied and warm.
The men’s voices stirred him from that. ‘This is it? This has been here for, what did you say? Thirty years.’ An accent flavoured the words. Jamaillian, Paragon thought to himself. And from the capital, Jamaillia City itself. Those from the south provinces swallowed their end consonants. This he recalled without knowing the source of the knowledge.
‘This is it,’ another voice replied. The second voice was older.
‘This has not been here thirty years,’ the younger voice asserted. ‘A ship pulled out and left on a beach for thirty years would be worm-holed and barnacled over.’
‘Unless it’s made from wizardwood,’ responded the older voice. ‘Liveships don’t rot, Mingsley. Nor do barnacles or tubeworms find them appetizing. That is but one of the reasons the ships are so expensive, and so desirable. They endure for generations, with little of the hull maintenance an ordinary ship requires. Out on the seas, they take care of themselves. They’ll yell to a steersman if they see hazards in their paths. Some of them near sail themselves. What other vessel can warn you that a cargo has shifted, or that you’ve overloaded them? A wizardwood ship on the sea is a wonder to behold! What other vessel…’
‘Sure. So tell me again why this one was hauled out and abandoned?’ The younger voice sounded extremely sceptical. Mingsley did not trust his older guide, that much was certain.
Paragon could almost hear the older man shrug. ‘You know what a superstitious lot sailors are. This ship has a reputation for bad luck. Very bad luck. I might as well tell you, because if I don’t someone else will. He’s killed a lot of men, the Paragon has. Including the owner and his son.’
‘Um.’ Mingsley mused. ‘Well, if I buy it, I wouldn’t be buying it as a ship. I wouldn’t expect to pay a ship’s price for it, either. Quite honestly, it’s the wood I want. I’ve heard a lot of strange things about it, and not just that the liveships quicken and then move and speak. I’ve seen that down in the harbour. Not that a newcomer like me is very welcome on the North wall where the liveships tie up. But I’ve seen them move and heard them speak. Seems to me, if you can make a figurehead do that, you could do it with a smaller carving of the same wood. Do you know how much they’d pay for something like that in Jamaillia City? A moving, speaking carving?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ the older man demurred.
The young man gave a snort of sarcastic laughter. ‘Of course you don’t! It’s never occurred to you, has it? Come on, man, be honest with me. Why hasn’t this ever been done before?’
‘I don’t know.’ The older man spoke too hastily to be plausible.
‘Right,’ Mingsley replied sceptically. ‘All the years Bingtown has existed on the Cursed Shores, and no one has thought of marketing wizardwood anywhere except to the residents of Bingtown. And then only as ships. What’s the real catch? Does it have to be this big before it can quicken? Does it have to be immersed in saltwater a certain amount of the time? What?’
‘It’s just… never been done. Bingtown is an odd place, Mingsley. We have our own traditions, our own folklore, our own superstitions. When our ancestors left Jamaillia all those years ago and came to try to colonize the Cursed Shores, well… most came because they had no other options left. Some were criminals, some had shamed or ruined their family names, some were very unpopular with the Satrap himself. It was almost an exiling. They were told that if they survived, each family could claim two hundred leffers of land and would be granted amnesty for their past. He also promised us we would be left in peace, with trade monopoly over whatever goods we found worth trading. In return for the Satrap granting them this, they ceded to him a fifty per cent tax on their profits. For years, this bargain worked well.’
‘And now it no longer does.’ Mingsley laughed mockingly. ‘How could anyone believe that such a bargain would last for ever? Satraps are human. And Satrap Cosgo finds the contents of his coffers too small for the habits of pleasure he acquired while waiting for his father to die. Chalcedean pleasure herbs are not cheap, and once the habit has been acquired, well, lesser herbs simply do not compare. And so he sold, to me and my friends, new trading and land grants for Bingtown and the Cursed Shores. And we have come and been very poorly welcomed by you all. You act as if we will snatch the bread from your mouths, when all know that business but begets more business. Why, look at us here. This ship has been rotting here for thirty years, or so you say, of no use to its owners or anyone else. But if I buy, the owner will get a nice price, I don’t doubt you will work yourself a nice commission, and I will have a quantity of this mysterious wizardwood.’ Mingsley paused and Paragon could hear the silence that his companion allowed to grow.
After a moment, Mingsley continued discontentedly, ‘But I will admit I am disappointed. I thought you said the ship had quickened. I thought it would speak to us. You did not mention it had been vandalized. Did that kill it?’
‘The Paragon speaks only when it pleases him. I don’t doubt he’s heard every word we said.’
‘Hmf. Is that true, ship? Have you heard every word we’ve said?’
Paragon saw no reason to reply. After a time, he heard the younger man make an expression of disgust. His footsteps began a slow circuit of the ship, while his heavier, slower companion followed.
After a time, Mingsley spoke again. ‘Well, my friend, I’m afraid this substantially lowers what I shall offer for the ship. My first estimate to you was based on the concept that I could cut the figurehead free of the ship, take it to Jamaillia City, and sell the quickened wood for a goodly sum. Or more likely, I would end up “gifting” it to the Satrap for some extensive land grants. But as it is… wizardwood or not, it’s a singularly ugly bit of carving. What possessed someone to chop the face up so badly? I wonder if an artisan could reshape it into something more pleasing?’
‘Perhaps,’ his companion conceded uneasily. ‘I do not know that that would be wise. I had assumed you were interested in the Paragon as he is, not as a source of wizardwood. Though you must recall, as I warned you, I have not yet approached the Ludlucks with the idea of selling him. I did not wish to broach the idea unless I was sure you were interested.’
‘Come, Davad, you cannot believe me so naive as that. What is “he”, besides a beached hulk? The owners will probably be glad to be rid of him. Were this ship seaworthy, it would hardly be chained to the beach like this.’
‘Well.’ A long pause. ‘I do not think even the Ludlucks would be moved to sell him, if he is to be chopped into bits.’ An intake of breath. ‘Mingsley, I caution you not to do this. To buy the ship and refit it is one thing. What you are speaking of is something else entirely. None of the Old Traders would deal with you if you did such a thing. As for me, I would be ruined entirely.’
‘Then you must be discreet about that when you make my offer. As I have been discreet about buying this hulk.’ Mingsley sounded condescending. ‘I know the Bingtown Traders have many odd superstitions. And I have no wish to flout them. If my offer is accepted, I will float the ship and tow it off before I dismantle it. Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying is. Does that satisfy you?’
‘I suppose it must,’ the man muttered discontentedly. ‘I suppose it must.’
‘Oh, don’t be so glum. Come. Let us go back to town, and I shall buy you dinner. At Souska’s. Now that’s a handsome offer, you must admit, for I know the prices there, and I’ve seen you eat.’ The younger man laughed appreciatively at his own humour. The older man did not join in. ‘And then this evening you will call on the Ludluck family and “discreetly” present my offer. It’s all to everyone’s good. Money for the Ludlucks, a commission for you, a large supply of rare wood for my backers. Show me the ill fortune in that, Davad.’
‘I cannot,’ the older man said quietly. ‘But I fear you will find it for yourself. Whether he speaks or not, this ship is quickened, and he has a mind of his own. Try to chop him into bits, and I am sure he will not be silent for long.’
The younger man laughed merrily. ‘You but do this to pique my interest, Davad. I know you do. Come. Let’s back to town. And Souska’s. Some of my backers would very much like to meet you.’
‘You promised to be discreet!’ the older man objected.
‘Oh, I have been, I assure you. But you cannot expect men to advance me money on my word alone. They want to know what they are buying, and from whom. But they are discreet men, one and all, I promise you.’
Paragon listened for a long time to their retreating footsteps. Eventually the small sounds of men were swallowed by the more pervasive sounds of the waves and the gulls’ cries.
‘Chopped into bits.’ Paragon tried the phrase out loud. ‘Well, it does not sound pleasant. On the other hand, it would at least be more interesting than lying here. And it might kill me. It might.’
The prospect pleased him. He let his thoughts drift again, toying with this new idea. He had nothing else to occupy his mind.
3 EPHRON VESTRIT (#ulink_f632f19a-c3f3-57b1-949d-1e6c1ea82ec7)
EPHRON VESTRIT WAS DYING. Ronica looked at her husband’s diminished face and impressed the thought on her mind. Ephron Vestrit was dying. She felt a wave of anger, followed by one of annoyance. How could he do this to her? How could he die now and leave her to handle everything by herself?
Somewhere beneath the tides of those superficial emotions she knew the cold deep current of her grief sought to pull her down and drown her. She fought savagely to be free of it, fought to keep feeling only the anger and irritation. Later, she told herself. Later, when I have pulled through this and have done all the things I must do, then I will stop and feel. Later.
For now she folded her lips tight in exasperation. She dipped a cloth in the warm balsam-scented water, and gently wiped first his face and then his lax hands. He stirred lightly under her ministrations, but did not waken. She had not expected him to. She’d given him the poppy syrup twice today already to try to keep the pain at bay. Perhaps for now, the pain had no control over him. She hoped so.
She wiped gently at his beard again. That clumsy Rache had let him dribble broth all over himself again. It was as if the woman just didn’t care to do things properly. Ronica supposed she should just send her back to Davad Restart; she hated to, for the woman was young and intelligent. Surely she did not deserve to end up as a slave.
Davad had simply brought the woman to her house one day. Ronica had assumed she was a relative or guest of Davad, for when she was not staring sorrowfully at nothing, her genteel diction and manners had suggested she was well born. Ronica had been shocked when Davad had bluntly offered the woman to her as a servant, saying he dared not keep her in his own household. He’d never fully explained that statement, and Rache refused to say anything at all on the topic. Ronica supposed that if she sent Rache back to Davad, he would shrug and send her on to Chalced to be sold as a slave. While she remained in Bingtown, she was nominally an indentured servant. She still had a chance to regain a life of her own, if she would but try. Instead Rache was simply refusing to adapt to her changed status. She obeyed the orders she was given, but not with anything like grace or goodwill. In fact, as the weeks passed, it seemed to Ronica that Rache had become more and more grudging in her duties. Yesterday Ronica had asked her to take charge of Selden for the day, and the woman had looked stricken. Her grandson was only seven, but the woman seemed to have a strange aversion to him. She had shaken her head, fiercely and mutely, her eyes lowered, until Ronica had ordered her off to the kitchen instead. Perhaps she was seeing how far she could push her new mistress before Ronica ordered her punished. Well, she’d find that Ronica Vestrit was not the kind of woman who ordered her servants beaten or their rations reduced. If Rache could not find it within herself to accept living comfortably in a well-appointed house with relatively light duties and a gentle mistress, well then, she would have to go back to Davad, and eventually take her place on the block and see what fate dealt her next. That was all there was to it. A shame, for the woman had promise. A shame, too, that despite Davad’s kindness in offering Rache’s services to her, the Old Trader was perilously close to becoming a slave-dealer. She had never thought to see one of the old family lines enticed into such a scurrilous trade. Ronica shook her head, and put both Rache and Davad out of her mind. She had other, more important things to think of beside Rache’s sour temperament and Davad’s dabbling in semi-legal professions.
After all, Ephron was dying.
The knowledge jabbed at her again. It was like a splinter in the foot that one could not find and dig out. That little knife of knowing stabbed into her at every step.
Ephron was dying. Her big bold husband, her dashing and handsome young sea-captain, the strong father of her children, the mate of her body was suddenly this collapsed flesh that sweated and moaned and whimpered like a child. When they had first been married, her two hands could not span the muscled right arm of her groom. Now that arm was no more than a stick of bone clothed in slack flesh. She looked down into his face. It had lost the weathering of the sea and wind; it was almost the colour of the linen he lay on. His hair was black as ever, but the sheen had fled it, leaving it dull when it was not matted with sweat. No. It was hard to find any trace of the Ephron she had known and loved for thirty-six years.
She set aside her basin and cloth. She knew she should leave him to sleep. It was all she could do for him any more. Keep him clean, dose him against pain, and then leave him to sleep. She thought bitterly of all the plans they had made together, conspiring until dawn as they sprawled together on their big bed, the stifling blankets thrown aside, the windows flung open to the cool night breeze.
‘When the girls are grown,’ he’d promised her, ‘wedded and bedded, with lives of their own, then, my lass, we’ll take up our own life again. I’ve a mind to carry you off with me to the Perfume Isles. Would you fancy that? Twelvemonth of clean salt air and naught to do but be the captain’s lady? And then, when we get there, why, we shall not hurry to take on a cargo. We shall go together, into the Green Mountains. I know a chieftain there who’s often invited me to come and see his village. We could ride those funny little donkeys of theirs, right up to the very edge of the sky, and…’
‘I’d rather stay home with you,’ she’d always said then. ‘I’d rather keep you at home here with me for a full year, have you beside me to see a full turning of the seasons with me. We could go to our holdings in the hills for spring; you’ve never seen it, when the trees are covered with red and orange blossoms, with not a leaf to be seen on one of them. And once, just once, I’d like to have you suffer alongside me during the mafe harvest. Up every morning before dawn, rousing the workers, getting them out to pick the ripe beans before the sun can touch them and shrivel them. Thirty-six years we’ve been married, and never once have you had to help me with that. Come to think of it, in all the years we’ve been married, you’ve never been home for the blooming of our wedding tree. You’ve never seen the pink buds swell and then open, so full of fragrance.’
‘Oh, there will be time enough for that. Time enough for posies and landwork, when the girls are grown and the debts paid.’
‘And when they are, I’ll have a year of you, all to myself,’ she’d threatened him. And always he’d promised her, ‘A whole year of me. You’ll probably be heartily sick of me before it’s done. You’ll be begging me to go back to sea and leave you to sleep at night in peace.’
Ronica bowed her face into her hands. She’d had her year of him at home; woeful gods, but what a way to gain her wish. She’d had an autumn of him coughing and fractious, feverish and red-eyed, lying in their bed all day and staring out the window at the sea whenever he was well enough to sit. ‘He’d best be taking care of them,’ he’d growled whenever the sky showed a dark cloud, and Ronica had known that his thoughts were always with Althea and the Vivacia. He’d been so reluctant to turn the ship over to Kyle. He’d wanted to give it to Brashen, an untried boy. It had taken Ronica weeks of arguing with him to make him see how that would look to the town. Kyle was his own son-in-law, and had proved himself as captain on three other ships. If he’d passed him over to put Brashen in charge of the Vivacia it would have been a slap in the face to his daughter’s husband, to say nothing of his family. Even though the Havens were not Bingtown Traders, they were an old family in Bingtown nonetheless. And the way the Vestrit fortunes were faring lately, they could afford to offend no one. So last autumn she’d persuaded him to entrust his precious Vivacia to Kyle and take a trip off, to strengthen his lungs again.
As winter had darkened their skies and whitened the streets, he’d stopped coughing. She had thought he was getting better, except that he couldn’t seem to do anything. At first, when he walked the length of the house, he’d lost his breath. Soon he was stopping to breathe between their bedroom and the parlour. By the time spring came, he could not cover the distance unless he leaned on her arm.
He’d finally been home for the blooming of their wedding tree. As the year warmed, the tree had budded. There had been a few weeks when, if Ephron was not getting better, at least he got no worse. She sat by his lounge and sewed or did the accounts while he did scrimshaw or made rope mats for the doorsteps. They had spoken of the future and he had fretted about his ship and daughter. The only times they had disagreed had been over Althea. But there was nothing new about that. They’d been disagreeing about her for as long as they’d had her.
Ephron had never been able to admit that he spoiled their youngest child. The Blood Plague had carried off their boys, one by one, back in that hellish disease year. Even now, close to twenty years later, Ronica felt the squeeze in her chest when she thought of it. Three sons, three bright little boys, taken in less than a week. Keffria had barely come through it alive. Ronica had thought it would drive them both mad, to see the tree of their family stripped of every male flower. Instead, Ephron had suddenly turned his attention and hopes to the babe that had sheltered inside her womb. Attentive as he had never been during her other pregnancies, he had even tied up the ship for an extra two weeks to be sure of being home when the child was born.
When the babe had been a girl, Ronica had expected Ephron to be bitter. Instead, he had given all his attention to his young daughter, as if somehow his will could make a man of her. He had encouraged her wildness and stubbornness until Ronica despaired of her. Ephron had always denied it was anything other than high spirits. He refused her nothing, and when Althea one day demanded to go with him on his next voyage, Ephron had even consented to that. It had been a short trip, and Ronica had met the ship at the docks, convinced she would get back a girl who had had more than enough of the rough living conditions on the ship. Instead she’d seen a wild monkey up the rigging, her black hair cut back to no more than a brush, barefoot and bare-armed. Ever since then, she had sailed with her father. And now she sailed without him.
They’d had words about that, too. It had taken all her words and his pain in addition to convince him that he should stay home for a time. Ronica had assumed that, of course, Althea would stay home, too. What business had she aboard a ship without her father? When she had suggested as much to Ephron, he had been aghast.
‘Our family liveship leave port without one of our blood aboard her? Do you know the kind of ill luck you’d be inviting, woman?’
‘The Vivacia has not quickened yet. Surely Kyle, our marriagekin, should be sufficient. He has been Keffria’s husband for close on fifteen years! Let Althea stay home for a time. It would do her hair and skin a world of good, and give her a chance to be seen about town. She is of an age to marry, Ephron, or at least to be courted. But to be courted, she must first be seen. She appears but once or twice a year, a Spring Ball one year, a Harvest Gathering the next. People scarcely recognize her on the street. And when the young men of the Trader families do see her, she is in trousers and jacket with her hair queued down her back and her skin like a tanned hide. It is scarcely a suitable way to present her if we wish her to marry well.’
‘Marry well? Let her marry happy instead, as we did. Look at Keffria and Kyle. Remember how the talk raced through the town when I let an upstart sea-captain with Chalcedean blood start courting my eldest? But I knew he was a man, and she knew what was in her heart, and they’ve been happy enough. Look at their children, healthy as gulls. No, Ronica, if Althea has to be kept on a leash and primped and powdered to catch a man’s eyes, then he’s not the kind of man I want sniffing after her anyway. Let her be seen by a man who admires her spirit and strength. Soon enough she’ll have to settle down, to be lady, wife and mother. I doubt she’ll find that kind of monotony to her taste much. So let’s allow the lass a life while she can have one.’ Having delivered this statement, Ephron had leaned back on his cushions, panting.
And Ronica, because he was so ill, had swallowed her ire that he could so disparage the life that she led, and thrust down the jealousy she felt for her own daughter’s freedom and careless ways. Nor had she mentioned that the way the family fortunes were going, there might be a need for Althea to marry well. Sourly Ronica now mused that if they tamed the girl down, perhaps they could wed her off to one of their creditors, preferably a generous one who would forgive the family’s debt as a wedding gift. Ronica shook her head slowly. No. In his own subtle way, Ephron had taken the argument right to her weakest position. She had married Ephron because she’d fallen in love with him. Just as Keffria had succumbed to Kyle’s blond charms. And despite all the family faced, she hoped that when Althea married, she would love the man. She looked with heartsick fondness on the man she still loved.
Afternoon sunlight pouring in the window was making Ephron frown in his sleep. Ronica got up quietly to draw a curtain across the window. She no longer enjoyed that view. Once it had been a great pleasure to look out that window and see the sturdy trunk and branches of their marriage tree. Now it stood stark and leafless in the midst of the summer garden, bare as any skeleton. She felt a shiver up her back as she drew the curtain across the sight.
He had so looked forward to seeing their tree in bloom. But that spring the bud blight that had always spared the tree struck it full force. The flowers browned and fell suddenly to the earth. Not a one opened for them, and the scent of the rotting petals was like funeral herbs. Neither of them spoke of it as an omen. Neither of them had ever been religious people. But shortly after that, Ephron had begun to cough again. Weak little bird coughs that brought up nothing, until the day that he had wiped his mouth and nose, and then frowned at the scarlet tracings of blood on the napkin.
It had been the longest summer of her life. The hot days were a torment to him. He’d declared that breathing the heavy humid air was no better than breathing his own blood, and then coughed up stringy clots as if to prove his point. The flesh had fallen from his body, and he’d had neither the appetite nor the will to take in sustenance. Still, they did not speak of his death. It hovered over the whole house, more oppressive than the humid summer air; Ronica would not give it any more substance by speaking of it.
She moved silently, carefully picking up a small table and setting it close to her bedside chair. She brought back to it her accounting ledgers, her ink and pen, and a handful of receipts to be entered. She bent to her work, frowning as she did so. The entries she made in her small, precise hand did nothing to cheer her. Somehow it was more depressing now that she knew Ephron would insist on looking over the book the next time he awoke. For years he had taken almost no interest in the running of the farms and orchards and other holdings. ‘I leave them in your competent hands, my dear,’ he would tell her whenever she tried to present her worries to him. ‘I’ll take care of the ship and see she pays herself off in my lifetime. To you I entrust the rest.’
It had been both heady and frightening to have her husband trust her so. It was not that unusual for wives to manage the wealth they brought with them as dowries, and many of the women in time quietly handled substantially more than that, but when Ephron Vestrit openly turned over the directing of almost all his holdings to his young wife, it near scandalized Bingtown. It was no longer the fashion for women to take a hand in the financial end of things; it smacked of their old pioneer life to revert to such a thing. The old Bingtown Traders had always been known for their innovative ways, but as they prospered, it had become a symbol of wealth to keep one’s womenfolk free of such tasks. Now it was seen as both plebeian and foolish to so entrust a Trader’s fortune to a woman.
Ronica had known that it was not just his fortune Ephron had put in her hands, but his reputation as well. She had vowed to be worthy of that trust. For more than thirty years their holdings had prospered. There had been bad harvests, grain blights, frosts both early and late to contend with, but always a good fruit crop had balanced out the grain not doing well, or the sheep had prospered when the orchards suffered. Had they not had the heavy debt from constructing the Vivacia to pay off, they would have been wealthy folk. Even as it had been, they’d been comfortable, and in some years a bit more than that.
Not so the last five years. In that time they had slipped from comfortable to well-off, and then to what Ronica had come to think of as anxious. The money went out almost as swiftly as it came in, and always it seemed she was asking a creditor to wait a day or a week until she could pay him. Over and over she had gone to Ephron to beg his advice. He had demurred to her, telling her to sell off what was not profitable to shore up what was. But that was the problem. Most of the farms and orchards were doing as well as they ever had in producing. But there were cheap slave-grown grain and fruit from Chalced to compete with, and the damned Red Ship Wars to the north destroying trade there, and the thrice-damned pirates to the south. Shipments sent forth never arrived at their destinations, and expected profits did not return. She feared constantly for the safety of her husband and daughter always out at sea, but Ephron seemed to class pirates with stormy weather; they were simply among the hazards a good sea-captain had to face. He might come home from his own voyages and tell her unnerving tales of running from sinister ships, but all his stories had happy endings. No pirate vessel could hope to run down a liveship. When she had tried to tell him of how severely the war and the pirates were affecting the rest of the family fortunes, he would laugh good-naturedly and tell her that he and the Vivacia would but work all the harder until things came right. Back then he had not been interested in seeing her account books nor in hearing the grim tidings of the other merchants and traders. Ronica recalled with frustration that he had seemed able to see only that his own voyages were successful, and that the trees bore fruit and the grain ripened in their fields as it always had. He’d take a brisk trip out to one of the holdings, give a cursory glance to their accounts, and take himself and Althea back to sea, leaving Ronica to cope.
Only once had she ever been bold enough to suggest to him that perhaps they might have to return to trading up the Rain Wild River. They had the rights, and the contacts, and the liveship. In the days of his grandmother and father, that had been the principal source of their trade goods. But ever since the Blood Plague days, he had refused to go up the Rain Wild River. There was no concrete evidence that the sickness had come from the Rain Wilds. Besides, who could say where a sickness came from? There was no sense in blaming themselves, and in cutting themselves off from the most profitable part of their trade. But Ephron had only shaken his head, and made her promise never to suggest it again. He had nothing against the Rain Wild Traders, and he did not deny their trade goods were exotic and beautiful. But he had taken it into his head that one could not traffic in magic, even peripherally, without paying a price. He would, he’d told her, rather that they be poor than risk it.
First she’d had to let the apple orchards go, and with them the tiny winery that had been her pride. The grape arbours had been sold off as well, and that had been hard for her. She had acquired them when she and Ephron were but newly weds, her first new venture, and it had been her joy to see them prosper. Still, she would have been a fool to keep them at the price that had been offered. It had been enough to keep their other holdings afloat for a year. And so it continued. As war and the pirates tightened the financial noose on Bingtown, she’d had to surrender one venture after another to keep the others afloat. It shamed her. She had been a Carrock and like the Vestrits, the Carrocks were one of the original Bingtown Trader families. It did nothing for her fears to see the other old families foundering as hungry young merchants moved into Bingtown, buying up old holdings and changing the way things had always been done. They’d brought the slave-trade to Bingtown, at first as merchandise on their way to the Chalced States, but lately it seemed that the flow of slaves that passed through Bingtown surpassed every other trade. But the slaves didn’t flow through any more. More and more of the fields and orchards were being worked with slaves now. Oh, the landowners claimed they were indentured servants, but all knew that such ‘servants’ were routinely sent on to Chalced and sold as slaves if they proved unwilling workers. More than a few of them wore slave tattoos on their faces. It was yet another Chalcedean custom that seemed to have gained popularity in Jamaillia and was now beginning to be accepted in Bingtown as well. It was these ‘New Traders’, Ronica thought bitterly. They might have come to Bingtown from Jamaillia City, but the baggage they brought with them seemed directly imported from Chalced.
Ostensibly, it was still against the law in Bingtown to keep slaves except as transient trade goods, but that did not seem to bother the New Traders. A few bribes at the Tax Docks, and the Satrap’s treasury agents became very gullible, more than willing to believe that folk with tattooed faces and chained in coffles were indentured servants, not slaves at all. The slaves would have gained nothing by speaking the truth of their situation. The Old Traders’ Council had complained in vain. Now even a few of the old families had begun to flout the slavery law. Traders like Davad Restart, she thought bitterly. She supposed Davad had to do as he did, to stay afloat in these hard times. Had not he as much as said so to her last month, when she had been worrying aloud about her wheat fields? He’d all but suggested she cut her costs by working the fields with slaves. He’d even implied he could arrange it all for her, for a small slice of the profits. Ronica did not like to think of how sorely she’d been tempted to take that advice.
She was writing the last dreary entry into her account books when the rustle of Rache’s skirts broke her attention. She lifted her eyes to the servant girl. Ronica was so weary of the mixture of anger and sorrow she always saw in Rache’s face. It was as if the woman expected her to do something to mend her life for her. Couldn’t she see that Ronica had all she could cope with between her dying husband and tottering finances? Ronica knew that Davad had meant well when he’d insisted on sending Rache over to help her, but sometimes she just wished the woman would disappear. There was no gracious way to be rid of her, however, and no matter how irritated Ronica became with her, she could never quite bring herself to send her back to Davad. Ephron had always disapproved of slavery. Ronica thought it was something that most slaves had brought on themselves, but somehow it seemed disrespectful to Ephron to condemn this woman to slavery when she had helped care for him as he was dying. No matter how poorly she had helped.
‘Well?’ she asked tartly of Rache when she just stood there.
‘Davad is here to see you, lady,’ Rache mumbled.
‘Trader Restart, you mean?’ Ronica corrected her.
Rache bobbed her head in silent acknowledgement. Ronica set her teeth, then gave it up. ‘I’ll see him in the sitting room,’ she instructed Rache, and then followed the girl’s sullen eyes to where Davad already stood in the door.
As always he was immaculately groomed, and as always everything about his clothes was subtly wrong. His leggings bagged slightly at the knees, and the embroidered doublet he wore was laced just tightly enough that he had spoiled the lines of it: it made his modest belly seem a bulging pot. He had oiled his dark hair into ringlets, but most of the curl had fallen from them so it hung in greasy locks. Even if the curl had stayed, it was a style more suited to a much younger man.
Somewhere Ronica found the aplomb to smile back at him as she set down her pen and shut her account book. She hoped the ink was dry. She started to rise, but Davad motioned her to stay as she was. Another small gesture from him sent Rache scurrying from the room as Davad advanced to Ephron’s bedside.
‘How is he?’ Davad asked, softening his deep voice.
‘As you see,’ Ronica replied quietly. She set aside her irritation at his calm assumption of welcome in her husband’s sickroom. She also put aside her embarrassment that he had caught her at her totting up, with ink on the side of her hand and her brow wrinkled from staring at her own finely penned numbers. Davad meant well, she was sure. How he had managed to grow up in one of Bingtown’s old Trader families and still have such a hazy idea of good manners, she would never know. Without invitation, he drew up a chair to sit on the other side of Ephron’s bed. Ronica winced as he dragged it across the floor, but Ephron did not stir. When the portly Trader was settled, he gestured at her accounting books.
‘And how do they go?’ he asked familiarly.
‘No better nor worse than any other Trader’s these days, I am sure.’ She evaded his prying. ‘War, blight and pirates trouble all of us. All we can do is to persevere and wait for better days. And how are you today, Davad?’ She tried to recall him to his manners. He put a splay-fingered hand on his belly meaningfully. ‘I have been better. I have just come from Fullerjon’s table; his cook has an abominable hand with the spices, and Fullerjon has not the tongue to tell it.’ He leaned back in his chair and heaved a martyred sigh. ‘But one must be polite, and eat what is offered, I suppose.’
Ronica stifled her irritation. She gestured toward the door. ‘We could take our conversation to the terrace. A glass of buttermilk might help to settle your indigestion as well.’ She made as if to rise, but Davad did not budge.
‘No, no, thank you all the same. I’ve but come on a brief errand. A glass of wine would be welcome, however. You and Ephron always did keep the best cellars in town.’
‘I do not wish Ephron disturbed,’ she said bluntly.
‘Oh, I’ll take care to speak softly. Though, to be frank, I would rather bring this offer to him than to his wife. Do you expect him to wake soon?’
‘No.’ Ronica heard the edge in her voice, and coughed slightly, as if it had been the result of a dry throat. ‘But if you wish to tell me the terms of whatever offer you bring, I shall present it to Ephron as soon as he awakens.’ She pretended to have forgotten his request for wine. It was petty, but she had learned to take her small satisfactions where she could.
‘Certainly, certainly. All Bingtown knows you hold his purse-strings. And his trust, I might add, of course.’ He nodded jovially at her as if this were a high compliment.
‘The offer?’ Ronica pushed.
‘From Fullerjon, of course. I believe it was his sole purpose in inviting me to share his table this noon, if you can credit that. The little upstart seems to think I have nothing better to do than act as his go-between with the better families in town. Did I not think that you and Ephron could benefit from his offer just now, I’d have told him as much. As things stand, I did not want to alienate him, you understand. He’s no more than a greedy little merchant, but…’ He shrugged his shoulders eloquently. ‘One can scarce do business in Bingtown these days without them.’
‘And his offer was?’ Ronica prompted.
‘Ah yes. Your bottom lands. He wishes to buy them.’ He espied the platter of small biscuits and fruits that she kept at Ephron’s bedside and helped himself to a biscuit.
Ronica was shocked. ‘Those are part of the original grant lands of the Vestrit family. Satrap Esclepius himself granted those lands.’
‘Ah, well, you and I know the significance of such things, but newcomers such as Fullerjon…’ Davad began placatingly.
‘The granting of those lands was what made the Vestrit family a Trader family. They were part of the Satrap’s agreement with the Traders. Two hundred leffers of good land, to any family willing to go north and settle on the Cursed Shores, to brave the dangers of life near Rain River. There were few enough willing to in those days. All know that strangeness flows down the Rain River as swiftly as the waters. Those bottom lands, and a share in the monopoly on the trade goods of the Rain River are what make the Vestrits a Trader family. Can you seriously think any Trader family would sell off their grant lands?’ She was angry now.
‘You needn’t give me a history lesson, Ronica Vestrit.’ Davad rebuked her mildly. He helped himself to another biscuit. ‘Need I remind you that my family came here in the same expedition? The Restarts are as much Traders as the Vestrits. I know what those lands mean.’
