The Liveship Traders Series

by Robin Hobb

  Well, it didn’t bother him. Not really, he told himself. He knew enough of men’s ways to realize that it was natural for him to want to be a part of the group, to do whatever he must do to belong. And, he told himself sternly, he knew enough of Sa’s ways to know that there were times when a man had to set himself apart from the group, for his own good. Bad enough, really, that he had not so much as muttered a single word against their afternoon’s plans for whoring and drunkenness. He tried to find reasons for that but knew they were only excuses and set the whole question aside in his mind. He had done what he had done, and tonight he would meditate on it and try to find perspective on it. For now, he had a whole city to see in the space of a few hours.

  He had his grandfather’s memory of the city’s layout to guide him. In an odd way, it was almost as if he walked with him, for he could see the changes that had occurred since the last time Ephron had visited this port. Once, when a shopkeeper came out to adjust the awning over his heaped baskets of fruit, Wintrow recognized him and nearly greeted him by name. Instead he just found himself grinning at the man, thinking that his belly had done a bit of rounding out in the last few years. The man glared at him in turn, looking the boy up and down as if he were affronted. Wintrow decided his smile had been too familiar and hastened on past him, heading into the heart of the city.

  He came to Well Square and stopped to stare in awe. Cress had an artesian spring for its water supply. It surged up in the centre of a great stone basin, with enough force to mound the water in the centre as if a great bubble were trying to rise from the depths. From the main basin it had been channelled into others, some for the washing of clothes, some for potable water and still others for watering of animals. Each basin had been fancifully decorated with images of its purpose so that there could be no mistake in its utility. The overflow too was gathered and funnelled off out of sight into a drainage system that no doubt ended in the bay. Interspersed among the various basins were plantings of flowers and shrubs.

  A number of young women, some with small children playing beside them, were taking advantage of the clear and warm afternoon to wash clothing. Wintrow halted and stood looking at the scene they made. Some of the younger women stood in the washing basin, skirts looped up and tied about their thighs as they pounded and rubbed the laundry clean and then wrung it out against their legs. They laughed and called to one another as they worked. Young mothers sat on the basin’s side, washing clothes and keeping a watchful eye on babes and toddlers that played at the fountain’s edge. Baskets were scattered about, holding laundry both wet and dry. There was something so simple and yet so profound about the scene that it nearly brought tears to Wintrow’s eyes. Not since he had left the monastery had he seen folk so harmoniously engaged in work and life. The sun shone on the water and the Caymaran women’s smooth hair, gleamed on the wet skin of their arms and legs. He gazed avidly, taking it all in as balm that soothed his roughened spirit.

  ‘Are you lost?’

  He turned quickly to the words. They could have been spoken kindly, but had not been. One look at the eyes of the two city guardsmen left him in no doubt of their hostility. The one who had spoken was a bearded veteran, with a white stripe tracing an old scar through his dark hair and down his cheek. The other was a younger man, brawny in a professional way. Before Wintrow could reply to the query, the second guard spoke. ‘The waterfront’s down that way. That’s where you’ll find what you’re looking for.’ He pointed with a truncheon back the way Wintrow had come.

  ‘What I’m looking for…?’ Wintrow repeated blankly. He looked from one tall man to the other, trying to fathom their hard faces and cold eyes. What had he done to cause offence? ‘I wanted to see the Heroes’ Frieze and the carvings on the Idishi Hall.’

  ‘And on the way,’ the first guard observed with ponderous humour, ‘you thought you might stop off to watch some young women getting wet in a fountain.’

  There seemed nothing he could say. ‘The fountains themselves are objects of beauty,’ he attempted.

  ‘And we all know how interested sailors are in objects of beauty.’ The guard put the emphasis on the last three words with heavy sarcasm. ‘Why don’t you go buy some “objects of beauty” down at the Blowing Scarf? Tell them Kentel sent you. Maybe I’ll get a commission.’

  Wintrow looked down, flustered. ‘That isn’t what I meant. I do, seriously, wish to take time to see the friezes and carvings.’ When neither man replied, he added defensively, ‘I promise, I’ll be no trouble to anyone. I have to be back to my ship by sundown anyway. I just wanted to look about the town a bit.’

  The older man sucked his teeth briefly. For a moment, Wintrow thought he was reconsidering. ‘Well, we “seriously” think you ought to get back down where you belong. Down by the docks is where sailors “look about our town”. The street for your kind is easy to find; we call it the Sailors’ Walk. Plenty there to amuse you. And if you don’t head back that way now, young fellow, I promise you that you will have trouble. With us.’

  He could hear his heart beating, a muffled thunder in his ears. He couldn’t decide which emotion was stronger, but when he spoke, it was the anger he heard, not the fear. ‘I’m leaving,’ he said brusquely. But even if the anger was stronger, it was still hard to turn his back on the men as he walked past them. The skin on his back crawled, half expecting to feel the blow of a truncheon. He listened for footsteps behind him. What he did hear was worse. A derisive snort of laughter, and a quietly mocking comment from the younger man. He neither turned to it nor walked faster, but he could feel the muscles in his neck and shoulders knotting with his fury. My clothing, he told himself. It isn’t me they’ve judged, but my clothing. I should not take their insults to heart. Let it go by, let it go by, let it go by, he breathed to himself, and after a time, he found that he could. He turned at the next corner and chose a different path up the hill. He would let their words go by, but he would not be defeated by their attitude. He intended to see the Idishi Hall.

  He wandered for a time, bereft of his grandfather’s guidance, for he had never taken this route through the city. He was stopped twice, once by a young boy who offered to sell him some smoking herbs and more distressingly by a woman who wished to sell herself to him. Wintrow had never been so approached before, and it was worse that the telltale sores of a flesh disease were plain around her mouth. He forced himself to refuse her courteously twice. When she refused to be put off, only lowering her price and offering him ‘any way you like, anything you fancy at all’, he finally spoke plainly. ‘I have no wish to share your body or your disease,’ he told her, and heard with a pang how cruel his honesty sounded. He would have apologized but she did not give him time, spitting at him before she turned and flounced away. He continued walking, but found that she had frightened him more than the city guards had.

  Finally he gained the heart of the city proper. Here the streets were paved and every building that fronted on the street had some decoration or design to recommend it. These were obviously the public structures of Cress, where laws were made and judgements passed and the higher business of the city conducted. He walked slowly, letting his eyes linger, and often stopping to step back into the street to try to see a structure as a whole. The stone arches were some of the most amazing work he had ever seen.

  He came to a small temple of Odava, the serpent-god, with the traditional rounded doors and windows of the sect. He had never especially cared for this particular manifestation of Sa, and had never met a follower of Odava who would admit that the serpent-deity was but another facet of Sa’s jewel face. Nonetheless, the graceful structure still spoke to him of the divine and the many paths folk trod in seeking it out. So finely was the stone of this building worked that when he set his hand to it, he could scarcely feel the seam of the builders’ joining. He stood thus for a time, reaching out as he had been trained to do to sense structure and stresses in the building. What he discovered was a powerful unity, almost organic in its harmony. H
e shook his head in amazement, scarcely noticing the group of men in white robes banded with green and grey who had emerged from a door behind him and now walked past and around him with annoyed glances.

  After a time he came to himself, and realized, too, that the afternoon was fleeing more swiftly than he had expected it to. He had no more time to waste. He stopped a matron to courteously ask her the way to the Idishi Hall. She took several steps back from him before she answered, and then it was only with a toss of her hand that indicated a general direction. Nonetheless, he thanked her and hurried on his way.

  The streets in this part of the city had more pedestrian traffic. More than once he caught folk looking at him oddly. He suspected that his clothes proclaimed him a stranger to their town. He smiled and nodded, but hastened along, too pressed for time to be more social.

  The Idishi Hall was framed by its site. A hollow in the side of a hill cupped the building lovingly in its palm. From Wintrow’s vantage, he could look down on it. The verdant forest behind it set off the gleaming white of its pillars and dome. The contrast of the lush and random growth and the precise lines of the hall took Wintrow’s breath away. He stood transfixed; it was an image he wished to carry with him for ever. People were coming and going from the hall, most dressed in gracefully-draped robes in cool tones of blues and greens. It could not have been more lovely if it had been a contrived spectacle. He softened the focus of his eyes, and took several deep breaths, preparing to absorb the scene before him with complete concentration.

  A heavy hand fell on his shoulder. ‘Sailor-boy is lost again,’ the younger city guard observed. Even as Wintrow’s head swivelled to the man’s words, he received a shove that sent him sprawling on the paving stones. The older guard looked down at him and shook his head, almost regretfully.

  ‘I guess we’ll have to see him back to where he belongs this time,’ he observed as the brawny guard advanced on Wintrow. There was a deadly softness to his words that chilled Wintrow’s heart. Even more chilling were the three people who had halted to watch. None of them spoke nor made any effort to interfere. When he looked appealingly at them, seeking help, their eyes were guiltless, showing only their interest in what would happen next.

  The boy struggled to his feet hastily and began backing away. ‘I’ve done no one any harm,’ he protested. ‘I simply wanted to see the Idishi Hall. My grandfather saw it and…’

  ‘We don’t welcome waterfront rats coming up our streets and dawdling about staring at folk. Here in Cress, we don’t let trouble start.’ The older man was speaking but Wintrow scarcely heard him. He spun about to flee, but in one lunge the brawny guard had him by the back of his collar. He gripped it hard, half strangling Wintrow and then shaking him. Dazed, Wintrow felt himself lifted from the ground and then propelled suddenly forward. He tucked into the fall, rolling with the momentum this time. One uneven paving stone caught him in the short ribs as he did so, but at least no bones broke. He came to his feet almost smoothly but not quite swiftly enough to avoid the younger guardsman. Again he seized Wintrow, shook him and then threw him in the general direction of the waterfront.

  This time he collided with the corner of a building. The shock took the skin from his shoulder but he kept to his feet. He ran a few staggering steps, with the grinning inexorable guard in pursuit. Behind him the older soldier followed them almost leisurely, lecturing as he came. It seemed to Wintrow that his words were not for him, but to remind the folk who were halting to watch that they were only doing their jobs. ‘We’ve nothing against sailors, so long as they keep themselves and their vermin to the waterfront where they belong. We tried to be nice to you, boy, just because you are such a pup. If you’d gone to the Sailors’ Walk, you’d have found it suited you well, I’m sure. Now you’re bound for the waterfront anyway. You could have saved all of us a lot of effort and yourself a lot of bruises if you’d only listened.’

  The calm reasonableness of the older man’s voice was almost more horrifying than the other guard’s efficient enjoyment of his task. The man was as quick as a snake. Somehow he once more had hold of Wintrow’s collar. This time he snapped the boy out as a dog flings a rat, sending him slamming into a stone wall. Wintrow felt his head strike the stone and saw a brief flash of darkness. He tasted blood. ‘Not a sailor,’ he blurted out. ‘I’m a priest. A priest of Sa.’

  The young guard laughed. The older man shook his head in mock regret for the boy. ‘Oho. That makes you a heretic as well as waterfront scum. Haven’t you heard that the followers of Odava have no use for those who would submerge him as but a part of their own god? I was about to tell Flav you’d had enough, but another knock or two might hasten your enlightenment.’

  The guard’s hand was closing on his collar, dragging him to his feet. In a panic, Wintrow let his head slip through the overlarge collar and whipped his arms in as well. He literally fell out the bottom of his shirt as the guard hauled up on the collar of it. Fear spurred him and he scrabbled away, already running as he came to his feet. There was a burst of laughter from the onlookers. He had one brief glimpse of the younger guard’s surprised face and the older man’s beard split in a grin of amusement. The old man’s laughter and the younger man’s angry shout followed him but Wintrow was running now, running full tilt. The lovely stonework that had earlier transfixed him was now but something to pass on his way back to his ship and safety. The wide straight streets that had been so open and welcoming now seemed designed only to expose him to pursuit. He dodged past people on the street, and they shrank back from him and then stared after him curiously. He ran shirtless, turning corners as he came to them, afraid of looking back lest they still be pursuing him.

  When the streets narrowed and began winding through rows of wooden warehouses and ramshackle inns and brothels, he slowed from his now staggering run. He looked around himself. A tattoo shop. A cheap chandlery. A tavern. Another tavern. He came to an alley and stepped into it, heedless of the scattered garbage he waded through. Halfway down it, he leaned against a doorjamb and caught his breath. His back and shoulder burned where stone had abraded the skin from them. He touched his mouth cautiously; it was already beginning to puff up. The lump on his head was no more than that, just a bad bump. For a sickening second he wondered how badly the guard had intended to hurt him. Had he wanted to crack his skull, would he have continued beating him until he was dead if he hadn’t run away? He had heard of sailors and strangers being ‘roughed up’ by the city guard, even in Bingtown. Was this what was meant by that? He had always assumed that it happened only to those who were drunk or ill-mannered or in some other way offensive.

  Yet today it had happened to him. Why? ‘Because I was dressed as a sailor,’ he said quietly to himself. For one ghastly instant he considered that this might be a punishment from Sa for not having worn his priest’s robe. He had denied Sa and as retribution Sa had denied him His protection. He pushed the unworthy thought away. So children and the superstitious spoke of Sa, as if he were nothing but a much larger and more vengeful human rather than the god of all. No. That was not what was to be learned from this. What was the lesson then? Now that the danger was past, his mind sought refuge in the familiar exercise. There was always something to be learned from any experience, no matter how horrendous. As long as a man kept sight of that, his spirit could prevail against anything. It was only when one gave in and believed the universe to be nothing more than a chaotic collection of unfortunate or cruel events that one’s spirit could be crushed.

  The breath came more easily to his lungs. His mouth and throat were parched dry but he was not ready yet to go and look for water. He pushed the need to the back of his awareness and reached instead for the calm centre of himself. He took the deep steadying breaths and opened himself to perceive the lesson. He willed that his own mind would not shape it, nor his emotions. What was to be learned from this? What should he carry away?

  The thought that came floating to the top of his mind shocked him. With great clarity, h
e saw his own gullibility. He had seen the beauty of the city, and interpreted it to mean that folk of beautiful spirit lived here. He had come here expecting to be greeted and welcomed in the light of Sa. So strong had been his prejudgement that he had failed to heed any of the warnings that now glared so plainly. His crewmates had warned him, the city guard’s hostility had been a warning, the baleful glances from the townspeople… he had been like an overly friendly child approaching a growling dog. It was his own fault he’d been bitten.

  A wave of desolation deeper than anything he’d ever felt swept over him. He was unprepared for it and sank with it, letting it sweep away his balance from him. Hopeless, it was all hopeless. He’d never regain his monastery, never return to the life of meditation he so missed. He would become like so many others he’d met, convinced that all men were born his enemy and that only crass gain created friendship or love. So often he’d heard folk mock Sa’s ideal that all folk had been created to become creatures of goodness and beauty. Where, he asked himself bitterly, was the goodness in the young guard who’d taken such pleasure in roughing him up today? Where was the beauty in the ulcer-lipped woman who had wanted to lie with him for the sake of money? He suddenly felt young and stupid, gullible in the worst way. A fool. A stupid fool. The pain of this hurt was as real as his bruises, his heart actually felt heavy in his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut to it, wishing he could be somewhere else, be someone else who didn’t feel this way.

  After a moment he opened his eyes and stood up. The worst of it was that he still had to go back to the ship. This experience would have been hard enough even if he had had the safety and peace of the monastery to return to. To go from this to the stupid squabbling aboard Vivacia, to return to Torg’s gleeful brutality and his father’s disparagement of him was almost more than his heart could bear. Yet what was the alternative? To hide himself and remain in Cress as a penniless and despised vagabond? He sighed heavily but his heart only sank deeper in his chest. He waded through softening garbage to the mouth of the alley and then glanced up at the westering sun. The time that had seemed so brief for sight-seeing was now a long empty stretch until sundown. He decided to find the rest of Vivacia’s crew. He could think of nothing else he wanted to see or do in Cress.