Ship of Magic (21 page)

“So may a harp string, struck strongly, awaken its twin, or a pure high note of a voice set crystal to shimmering as you have wakened truth in me.” He laughed aloud, surprising himself, for it felt as if a bird, long caged in his chest, had taken sudden flight. “What you say is so simple, only that we complement one another. I can think of no reason why your words should so move me. But they do. They do.”

“Something is happening, here, tonight. I feel it.”

“As do I. But I don't know what it is.”

“You mean you have no name for it,” she corrected him. “We both cannot help but know what this is. We grow. We become.”

Wintrow found himself smiling into the night. “We become what?” he asked of her.

She turned to face him, the chiseled planes of her wooden face catching the reflected gleam of the distant lights. She smiled up at him, lips parting to reveal her perfect teeth. “We become us,” she said simply. “Us, as we were meant to be.”

ALTHEA HAD NEVER KNOWN THAT MISERY COULD ACHIEVE
perfection. Only now, as she sat staring at her emptied glass, did she grasp how completely wrong her world had become. Things had been bad before, things had been flawed, but it was only today that she had made one stupid decision after another until everything was as completely wrong as it could possibly be. She shook her head at her own idiocy. As she fingered the last coins from her flattened pouch, and then held up her glass to be refilled, she reviewed her decisions. She had conceded when she should have fought, fought when she should have conceded. But the worst, the absolute worst, had been leaving the ship. When she had walked off Vivacia before her father's body had even been consigned to the waves, she had been worse than stupid and wrong. She had been traitorous. False to everything that had ever been important to her.

She shook her head at herself. How could she have done it? She had not only stalked off leaving her father unburied, but leaving her ship to Kyle's mercy. He had no understanding of her, no real grasp of what a liveship was or what she required. Despair gripped her heart and squeezed. After all the years of waiting, she had abandoned Vivacia on this most crucial day. What was the matter with her? Where had her mind been, where had her heart been to have put her own feelings before that of the ship? What would her father have said to that? Had not he always told her, “The ship first, and all else will follow.”

The tavern-keeper appeared suddenly, to take her coin, ogle it closely, and then re-fill her glass. He said something to her, his voice unctuous with false solicitude. She waved him away with the re-filled glass and nearly spilled its contents. Hastily she drank it down lest she waste it.

She opened her eyes wide as if that would clear her head and looked around her. It seemed wrong that the folk in this tavern shared none of her misery. To all appearances, this slice of Bingtown had not even noticed the departure of Ephron Vestrit. Here they were having the same conversations that they'd been having for the past two years: the newcomers were ruining Bingtown; the Satrap's delegate was not only overstepping his authority in inventing taxes, but was taking bribes to ignore slave ships right in the harbor; the Chalcedeans were demanding of the Satrap that Bingtown drop their water taxes, and the Satrap would probably concede for the sake of the pleasure herbs Chalced sent him so freely. The same old woes, Althea thought to herself, but damn few in Bingtown would stand up and do anything about any of it.

The last time she had gone to the Old Traders' Council with her father, he had stood up and told them to simply outlaw it all. “Bingtown is our town,” he'd told them determinedly. “Not the Satrap's. We should all contribute toward our own patrol ship, and simply deny slave ships access to our harbor. Turn the Chalcedean grain boats back, too, if they don't want to pay a tax to water and provision here. Let them re-supply elsewhere, perhaps in one of the pirate towns, and see if they're better treated there.”

A roar of consternation had greeted his words, composed of both shock and approval, but when it came to the vote, the council had failed to take action. “Wait a year or two,” her father had told Althea as they left. “That's how long it takes for an idea to take root here. Even tonight, most of them know that I'm right. They just don't want to face what needs to be done, that there must be confrontations if Bingtown is to remain Bingtown and not become southern Chalced. Sa's sweat, the damn Chalcedeans are already challenging our northern border. If we ignore it, they'll creep in here in other ways: face-tattooed slaves working Bingtown fields, women married off at twelve, all the rest of their corruption. If we let it happen, it will destroy us. And all the Old Traders know that, in their hearts. In a year or two, I'll bring this up again, and they'll suddenly all agree with me. You'll see.”

But he wouldn't. Her father was gone forever now. Bingtown was a poorer, weaker town than it had been, and it didn't even know it.

Her eyes brimmed with tears once more. Yet again, she wiped them on the cuff of her sleeve. Both cuffs were sodden, and she did not doubt that her face and her hair were a wreck. Keffria and her mother would be scandalized to see her now. Well, let them be scandalized. If she was a disgrace, they were worse. She had acted on impulse, going on this drunk, but they had planned and plotted, not just against her but ultimately against the family ship. For they must realize what it meant for them to turn Vivacia over to Kyle, to a man not even blood-related to her. A tiny cold trickle of doubt suddenly edged through her. But her mother was not born a Vestrit. She had married into the family, just as Kyle had. Perhaps, like him, she had no real feelings for the ship. No. No, it could not be so, not after so many years with her father. Althea sternly forbade the thought to have any truth in it. They must know, both of them, what Vivacia was to their family. And surely all of this was only some strange and awful, but temporary, revenge upon her. For what, she was not sure; perhaps for loving her father more than she had loved anyone else in the family.

Tears welled afresh. It didn't matter, none of it mattered. They would have to change their minds, they would have to give the ship back to her. Even, she told herself sternly, even if it meant she had to serve under Kyle as captain. As much as she hated the thought, she suddenly embraced it. Yes. That was all they wanted. Some assurance that the ship's business would be conducted as he and they saw fit. Well, at this point, she cared nothing for any of that. He could traffic in pickled eggs and dyeing nuts as much as he wished, as long as she could be aboard Vivacia and be a part of her.

Althea sat up suddenly. She heaved a huge sigh of relief, as if she had suddenly resolved something. Yet nothing had changed, she told herself. A moment later, she denied that as well. For something had changed, and drastically. She had found that she was much more willing to abase herself than she had believed, that she would do virtually anything to remain aboard Vivacia. Anything.

She glanced about herself and gave a soft groan of dismay. She'd had too much to drink, and wept too much. Her head was throbbing and she was not even sure which of Bingtown's sailor dives she was in. One of the most sordid, that was for certain. A man had passed out and slid from his seat to the floor. That was not that unusual, but usually there was someone to drag them out of the way. Kinder inn-keepers left them snoring by the door, while the more heartless simply tumbled them out into the alleys or streets for the crimpers to find. It was rumored that some tavern-keepers even trafficked with the crimpers, but Althea had always doubted that. Not in Bingtown. Other seaports, yes, she was certain of that, but not Bingtown.

She rose unsteadily. The lace of her skirts snagged against the rough wood of the table leg. She pulled it free, heedless of how it tore and dangled. This dress she would never wear again anyway; let it tatter itself to rags tonight, she did not care. She gave a final sniff and rubbed her palms over her weary eyes. Home and to bed. Tomorrow, somehow, she would face all of it and deal with all of it. But not tonight. Sweet Sa, not tonight, let everyone be asleep when she reached home, she prayed.

She headed for the door, but had to step over the sodden sailor on the floor. The wooden floor seemed to lurch under her, or perhaps she did not quite have her land-legs back. She took a bigger stride to compensate, nearly fell, and recovered herself only when she grabbed at the door post. She heard someone laugh at her, but would not sacrifice her dignity to turn and see who. Instead, she dragged the door open and stepped out into the night.

The darkness and the cool were both disorienting and welcome. She halted a moment on the wooden walkway outside the tavern and took several deep breaths. On the third one, she thought suddenly that she might be sick. She grasped at the railing and stood still, breathing more shallowly and staring with wide eyes until the street stopped swinging. The door behind her scraped open again and disgorged another patron. She turned warily to have him in view. In the dimness, it took a moment for her to recognize him. Then, “Brashen,” she greeted him.

“Althea,” he replied wearily. Unwillingly he asked, “Are you all right?”

For a moment she stood in the street looking at him. Then, “I want to go back to Vivacia.” The moment she impulsively spoke the thought, she knew it was something she had to do. “I have to see the ship tonight. I have to speak to her, to explain why I left her today.”

“Tomorrow,” Brashen suggested. “When you've slept and you're sober. You don't want her to see you like this, do you?” She heard the note of cunning in his voice as he added, “Surely she would be no more pleased than your father would.”

“No. She'd understand. We know one another that well. She'd understand anything I did.”

“Then she'd also understand if you came in the morning, clean and sober.” Brashen pointed out reasonably. He sounded very tired. After a moment's silence, he proffered her his arm. “Come on. I'll walk you home.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

NIGHT
CONVERSATIONS

HER MOTHER BROKE DOWN AS SOON AS THEY WERE INSIDE THE
door, her knees simply folding. Kyle stood shaking his head, so Keffria saw her mother to bed. The bedroom she had so long shared with her husband had become a chamber of sickness and dying. Rather than put her mother on the cot where she had kept watch so many nights, Keffria ordered Rache to make a guest room ready for her. She sat with her until the bed was ready and the serving woman settled her impassive mother into it. Then she went to check on Selden. He was crying. He had wanted his mother, and Malta had told him she was busy, too busy for a crying baby. Then she had left him sitting on the edge of his bed, without so much as calling a servant to see to him. For an instant Keffria was angry with her daughter; then she reminded herself that Malta was little more than a child herself. It was not reasonable to expect a twelve-year-old to care for her seven-year-old brother after a day such as they had just had.

So she soothed the boy and helped him into his night-robe and stayed by him until his eyes sagged shut. When she finally left him to seek her own bed, she was sure that every other soul in the household was already asleep. The dancing light of the candle as she trod the familiar halls put her in mind of spooks and spirits. She suddenly wondered if the anma of her father might not still linger in the chambers where he had suffered so long. A shiver walked up her spine, standing up the hair on the back of her neck. A moment later she reproached herself. Her father's anma was one with the ship now. And even if it were lingering here, surely her own father would bear her no ill will. Still, she was glad to slip soundlessly into the chamber where Kyle had already gone to bed. She blew out the candle lest she disturb him and undressed in the darkness, letting her garments fall as they might. She found the nightgown Nana had laid out for her and slipped into its coolness. Then finally, finally, her own bed. She turned back the blanket and linen and eased in beside her slumbering husband.

He opened his arms to welcome her in. He had not slept without her, but had waited for her here. Despite how long the day had been, despite how weary and sorrowful she was, that gladdened her. Keffria felt as if Kyle's touch cut through knots of pain that had been strangling her for days. For a time he simply held her close. He stroked her hair and rubbed her neck until she relaxed in his arms. Then he made love to her, simply and gently, without words as moonlight spilled into their bedroom from the high windows. This summer night's moon was bright enough to lend almost colors to all it touched; the cream-colored sheets on the bed, Kyle's hair like ivory, his skin two shades of dull gold where sun had and had not touched it. Afterwards, as she curved her body against his and rested her head on his shoulder, all was silence for a time. She listened to the beating of his heart and the movement of air through his chest and was glad of it, and of his warmth.

Then she suddenly felt selfish and thoughtless, that she could possess all this and enjoy it, on the very night of the day when her mother lost her father, and with him all possibility of physical closeness and this kind of sharing. Lax and warm from their lovemaking, it suddenly seemed too terrible a loss to exist in any world. She did not move away from Kyle, but closer as her throat closed painfully and a single hot tear slid across her cheek to drip onto his bare shoulder. He reached up to touch it, and then her face.

“Don't,” he told her gently. “Don't. There have been enough tears today, and enough mourning. Let it all go, for now. Don't let there be anything or anyone in this bed save we two.”

She caught a breath. “I'll try. But my mother's loss . . . I just truly realized what she lost. All this.” Her free hand charted the length of him, from shoulder to thigh, before he caught it up and brought it to his mouth for a kiss.

“I know. I thought of that, too, as I was touching you. Wondered if there would be a time I didn't come back to you, what you would do . . .”

“Don't even speak such an idea!” she begged him. She put her palm to his jaw and turned his face to hers in the moonlight. “I still don't know that it was right,” she suddenly declared in an altered tone. “I know we talked about it, that we all agreed it would be for the best, that it would protect everyone. But the look on her face when I put my hand on the peg . . . and then the way she just stormed off. I never would have believed Althea would do that, just leave the funeral that way. I thought she loved him more than that . . .”

“Umh.” Kyle considered. “I hadn't expected it either. I thought she loved the ship more than that, if not her father. I expected a real battle with her, and was just as glad when she gave in easily. I was sure the whole funeral ceremony would be one bitter scene after another with her. At least she spared us that. Though I confess I'm uneasy as to where she is right now. A girl should be at home on the night of her father's death, not out gallivanting around a wild port like Bingtown.” He paused, then added almost cautiously, “You know I can't let her get away with it. She has to be rebuked; someone has to take a hand with her before she ruins herself entirely.”

“Papa always said that Althea ran best under a light hand,” Keffria ventured. “That she had to have room to make her own mistakes, as it seemed they were the only things she could learn from.”

Kyle gave a snort of disgust. “Forgive me, my love, but I think he said it to excuse himself from taking a father's stand with her. She's spoiled. She's been indulged for as long as I've known her, and it shows. She constantly assumes she's going to get her own way. It's made her selfish and thoughtless of others. But it's not too late for her. Finding out that was more of a shock to me than you can imagine. On the way home, when I lost my temper and ordered her into her cabin for the remainder of the voyage, I never dreamed she'd heed me. I was angry and barked out the words to get her out of my sight before I could really lose my temper with her. But she obeyed me. And I think she finally had time to do a lot of thinking in that time alone. You saw how she was when we landed. Quiet and repentant. She dressed like a lady when we left the ship, or as closely as she knows how to.”

He paused for a moment. He shook his head, tangling his blond hair against the pillow. “I was amazed. I kept waiting for her to try to start up the quarrel again. And then I realized, this was what she has been looking for all along. Someone to draw a line. Someone to finally take charge of her and make her behave as she knows she should. All this time, I think she was just seeing how far she could go before someone took in her sails and dropped anchor.” He cleared his throat. “I respected your father. You know I did. But when it came to Althea, he was . . . blind. He never forbade her anything, never really told her “no' and enforced it. When I stepped in and did that, well, the difference was amazing. Of course, when she got off the ship and I was no longer in charge, then she started to get a bit wild again.” He shrugged. For a time there was silence as he and Keffria considered her sister and her strange ways.

Kyle took a deep breath and sighed it out heavily. “I used to think there was no hope for her. That she'd only bring us sorrow and come to a bad end herself. But today, when she finally saw all of us united in what was best for the family, she didn't truly oppose us. Deep inside, she knows what is right. The ship must be worked for the good of the whole family. You are eldest: it's only right and just that you inherit the family's real wealth. Besides, you've children to provide for, and the ship will let us do that. Who has Althea to provide for? Why, only herself, and I think we can trust ourselves to see that she doesn't go hungry or naked or roofless. But if the situation were reversed and the ship had been given over to her, she would have sailed the
Vivacia
out of the harbor without a backward glance, and like as not she'd have that ne'er-do-well Brashen as the captain on her.”

He stretched slightly, but not enough to dislodge her. His arm came around her, held her close. “No, Keffria, I don't think you need to question that what we did today was for the best. We know we'll provide for Althea, and get your mother out of her financial tangle as well. Could you say for certain that Althea would take care of your mother, let alone us and our children? I think that toward the end even your father saw the wisdom of bequeathing the ship to you, hard as he found it to hurt his little favorite's feelings.”

Keffria heaved a sigh and settled closer against him. Every word he said made sense. That was one of the reasons she had married him; his ability to think things through so carefully and logically had made her feel so safe. That was one thing she had been certain of when she wed; that she did not want to live her life tied to a man as impulsive and fanciful as her father had been. She had seen what it had done to her mother, how it had aged her far beyond her years. Other Trader matrons lived sedate lives of ease, tending their rose gardens and grandbabies, while her own mother had each day arisen to face a man's load of decisions and work. It was not just the accounts and the laborious working-out of agreements with fellow Traders. Often as not her mother had been out on the fields on horseback, checking for herself that what her overseers said was true.

Ever since Keffria could remember, she had hated the season of the mafe harvest. When she was tiny, all she had known was that it meant her mother was already gone when she awakened, and that she might see her for an hour before bedtime, or not at all that day. As she grew older, there had been a few years when her mother had insistently dragged her along to the hot fields and the long rows of prickly dark green bushes heavy with ripening beans. She had forced her to learn how the beans were harvested, what the pests that plagued them looked like, and which diseased bushes must be pulled up immediately and burned and which must be painstakingly doused with a strong tea made from leaf mold and horse manure. Keffria had hated it. As soon as she was old enough to be concerned with her hair and skin, she had rebelled and refused to be tormented any longer. That, she recalled, was the same year that she resolved she would never marry a man who would go to sea and leave her with such burdens. She would find a man willing to fulfill a man's role, to take care of her and keep her safe and defend their door from all troubles and worries. “And then I went and married a sailor,” she said aloud. The fondness in her voice made it a compliment.

“Um?” The sleepy question came from deep within his chest. She set a hand on its paleness in the moonlight, enjoyed the contrast of her olive skin against his whiteness.

“I just wish you weren't gone so much,” she said softly. “Now that papa is dead, you're the man of our family. If you're not around . . .”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I've thought of that, I've worried about that. Why else do you think I must insist I take Wintrow on the ship with me? It's time he stepped forward as a man of this family, and took on his share of the responsibilities.”

“But . . . his priesthood,” Keffria objected in a tiny voice. It was very hard for her to disagree with her husband, but in this one area, he had always before let her have her way. She could scarcely grasp that he might change his mind now.

“You know I never approved of that nonsense,” he said quietly as if in answer to her thought. “Offering our first-born son to the service of Sa . . . that's a fine thing for the rich folk of Jamaillia to do. Shows off their wealth, that they can offer up the labor of a son and think nothing of it. That's not the case with us, dear. But I knew you wanted it, and I tried to let you have it. We sent the boy off to the monastery. And if your father had lived for another handful of years, they could have kept him. But he didn't. Selden's too young to sail. The plain and simple truth of it is that this family needs Wintrow a lot more than some monastery in Jamaillia. Sa provides, you always say. Well, look at it this way. He provided us with a son, thirteen years ago. And now we need him.”

“But we promised him,” she said in a small voice. Inside her was a sort of agony. It had meant so much to her that Wintrow was a priest, offered up to Sa. Not all boys who were offered were accepted. Some were returned to their parents with the thanks of the monastery, but a polite letter explaining their sons were not truly suitable for the priesthood. Wintrow had not been returned. No, he had been cherished from the very beginning, advancing swiftly to his novice's brown robe, transferred from the outlying monastery at Kall to Kelpiton monastery on the Marrow peninsula. The priests did not often send reports, but those she had received had been glowing. She kept them, tied with the gilt ribbons that had originally bound them, in the corner of her clothing chest.

“You promised him,” Kyle pointed out. “Not I. Here. Let me up.” He disentangled himself from her arms and bedding to rise. His body was like carved ivory in the moonlight. He groped at the foot of the bed for his night robe and then dragged it on over his head.

“Where are you going?” she asked quietly. She knew her comment had displeased him, but he had never quitted her bed to sleep elsewhere before.

He knew her so well. As if sensing her worry, he reached down to smooth her hair back from her face. “I'll be back. I'm just going to go check Althea's room, and see if she's in yet.” He shook his head. “I can't believe her foolishness. I hope she doesn't make a spectacle of herself in Bingtown tonight. When she has a few drinks, she's capable of saying almost anything. Scandal is the last thing we need right now. The family must be seen as stable and united until we get these financial problems under control. Any wild talk from Althea, and we could find our creditors panicking, thinking they should get what they can out of us while we've got it. Ah, well. We've had enough worries and grief for tonight. Try to go to sleep. I'll be back in a few moments either way.”

FOR A LONG MOMENT, BRASHEN FEARED SHE WAS GOING TO
refuse his offer of escort. Althea wove slightly on her feet as she blearily appraised him. He returned her gaze evenly. Sa, she was a sight! Her hair had come loose and sprawled across her brow and shoulders. Her face was smeared with the day's dust and her own tears. Only her dress marked her as a woman of quality, and its disheveled condition made it look like someone else's cast off. Right now, he thought sourly, she looked more like a doxie looking for a tumble than the proud daughter of a Bingtown Trader family. If she attempted to walk home alone, anything might befall her in the wildness of the night market.