The Liveship Traders Series

by Robin Hobb

  Keffria exhaled sharply. ‘And you didn’t know the half of what she was doing! As her sister, I… but in all the years, it hasn’t changed. She still worries us, both of us. When she was a little girl, her wilfulness and naughtiness always made her papa’s favourite. And now that he has gone, she has disappeared, and so managed to capture your heart as well, simply by being absent.’

  ‘Keffria!’ Ronica rebuked her for the heartless words. Her sister was missing, and all she could be was jealous of Ronica worrying about her? But after a moment, Ronica asked hesitantly, ‘You truly feel that I give no thoughts to you, simply because Althea is gone?’

  ‘You scarcely speak to me,’ Keffria pointed out. ‘When I muddled the ledger books for what I had inherited, you simply took them back from me and did them yourself. You run the household as if I were not here. When Cerwin appeared on the doorstep today, you charged directly into battle, only sending Rache to tell me about it as an afterthought. Mother, were I to vanish as Althea has, I think the household would only run more smoothly. You are so capable of managing it all.’ She paused and her voice was almost choked as she added, ‘You leave no room for me to matter.’ She hastily lifted her mug and took a long sip of the steaming coffee. She stared deep into the fireplace.

  Ronica found herself wordless. She drank from her own mug. She knew she was making excuses when she said, ‘But I was always just waiting for you to take things over from me.’

  ‘And always so busy holding the reins that you had no time to teach me how. “Here, give me that, it’s easier if I just do it myself.” How many times have you said that to me? Do you know how stupid and helpless it always made me feel?’ The anger in her voice was very old.

  ‘No,’ Ronica said quietly. ‘I didn’t know that. But I should have. I really should have. And I am sorry, Keffria. Truly sorry.’

  Keffria snorted out a sigh. ‘It doesn’t really matter, now. Forget it.’ She shook her head, as if sorting through things she could say to find the words she must. ‘I’m taking charge of Malta,’ she said quietly. She glanced up at her mother as if expecting opposition. Ronica only looked at her. She took a deeper breath. ‘Maybe you doubt that I can do it. I know I doubt it. But I know I’m going to try. And I wanted to ask you… No. I’m sorry, but I have to tell you this. Don’t interfere. No matter how rocky or messy it gets. Don’t try to take it away from me because it’s easier to do it yourself.’

  Ronica was aghast. ‘Keffria, I wouldn’t.’

  Keffria stared into the fire. ‘Mother, you would. Without even knowing you were, just as you did today. I took what you had set up, and handled it from there. But left to myself, I would not have called Malta down at all. I would have told Cerwin and Delo that she was out or busy or sick, and sent them politely on their way, without giving Malta the chance to simper and flirt.’

  ‘That might have been better,’ Ronica conceded in a low voice. Her daughter’s words hurt. She had only been trying to think swiftly and handle things quickly to prevent a disaster. But although her daughter’s words stung, she could also hear the truth of them. So she closed her lips tightly and took a sip of her coffee. ‘May I know what you plan?’ she asked after a few moments.

  ‘I scarcely know myself,’ Keffria admitted. ‘She is so far gone, and she has so little respect for me… I may not be able to do anything with her. But I have a few ideas of ways to begin. I’m going to take Rache away from her. No more dance or etiquette lessons unless she earns them. If and when they resume, she will have to extend to Rache the same courtesy and respect that Selden gives his tutor. The lessons will be at a set time every day, not whenever Malta is bored and wishes a diversion. If she misses one, she will have to earn the time back with chores.’ Keffria took a breath. ‘I intend that she will only earn the privileges of a woman by doing the work of a woman. So.’ She took a breath and then met her mother’s eyes. ‘I am taking back my ledger books from you. I will not let Malta grow up as ignorant as I am. Malta is going to have to spend some time reconciling the ledgers every week. I know she will blot them and spoil pages and make mistakes and copy pages over. We will both have to endure that, as will she. She will have to enter the numbers and tot them up. And she… we, that is… will have to accompany you when you meet with the brokers and the tradesmen and the overseers. She needs to learn how the estates and trading accounts are handled.’

  Again Keffria paused, as if waiting to deal with an objection. Ronica said nothing.

  ‘She will, of course, have to behave well at those times. And dress as befits a girl who is becoming a woman. Not cheaply and suggestively, but not childishly, either. She will need some new clothing. I intend that she shall share in the making of it. And that she will learn to prepare food, and supervise the servants.’

  Ronica nodded gravely each time Keffria added another task to those Malta must learn. When she finally paused, her mother spoke. ‘I think you have made wise plans, and Malta can benefit greatly from what you propose to teach her. But I do not think she will come willingly to this. It is not fashionable at all for a woman to know how to do such things, let alone actually to do them. In fact, Bingtown now sees such behaviour as plebeian. It will hurt her pride to do it. I doubt she will be a willing student.’

  ‘No. She will not,’ Keffria concurred. ‘And that is why I have yet another task. Mother, I know you will not agree with this, but I think it is the only way to rein her to my will. Not a coin must she be given to spend on her own, save that it comes from me. I will have to instruct the shopkeepers and tradesmen that they are no longer to extend her the family’s credit. It will be humiliating to do, but…’ she paused as if considering. ‘Yes. I will widen that to include Selden as well. I suppose it is not too early to begin with him. Perhaps I should never have allowed Malta to have so easily whatever she desired.’

  To this Ronica nodded, suppressing a heartfelt sigh of relief. There were already on the desk a handful of chits with Malta’s imprint on them, for sweets and baubles and outrageously-priced perfumes. Malta’s casual spending had not been easy to allow for, but it was yet another thing that Ronica had been unwilling to bring up to Keffria. Now she honestly wondered why. ‘She is your daughter,’ Ronica added. ‘But I fear this will not be easy, on any of us. And,’ she added unwillingly, ‘there is yet another thing she must be taught about. Our contract with the Festrew family.’

  Keffria raised one eyebrow. ‘But I am married,’ she pointed out.

  Ronica felt a sudden pang of sympathy for her daughter. She recalled how she had felt, the first time she realized that her growing daughters were now vulnerable to a bargain struck generations ago. ‘That you are,’ she agreed quietly. ‘And Althea is missing. And our debts grow faster far than our credits. Keffria, you must recall the terms of the Vestrit bargain. Blood or gold. Once Malta is presented to Bingtown society as a woman, then she is forfeit to the Festrews, if we do not have the gold to make the payment. And,’ she added unwillingly, ‘at the midsummer, I was short. I have promised to pay it in full by midwinter, plus a penalty.’ She could not find the courage to admit to her daughter what a large penalty she had accepted. ‘If not,’ she went on with difficulty, ‘Caolwn Festrew may invoke her right to claim blood from us. Althea, if she is found by then. Malta if she is not.’

  Ronica could find no more words. She watched understanding and horror grow in Keffria’s eyes. Followed, inevitably, by anger. ‘It is not fair. I never agreed to such a bargain! How can Malta be forfeit to a contract signed generations before she was born? It makes no sense, it isn’t fair!’

  Ronica gave her a moment or two. Then she said the words familiar to any Trader’s daughter or son. ‘It’s Trader. Not fair, always; not right, always. Sometimes not even understandable. But it’s Trader. What did we have when we came to the Cursed Shores? Only ourselves, and the value of a man’s word. Or a woman’s. We pledged our loyalty to each other, not just for the day or the year, but to all generations. And that is why we have survived
here where no others had before. We pledged ourselves to the land, also, and to what it demands. That, I imagine, is another topic you have not yet discussed with Malta. You should, and soon, for you know that she must have heard rumours.’

  ‘But… she is only a child,’ Keffria pleaded. As if by agreeing with her, her mother could somehow change the facts that time had imposed on them.

  ‘She is,’ Ronica agreed carefully. ‘But only for a short time longer. And she must be prepared.’

  22

  PLOTS AND PERILS

  ‘SO. IT DIDN’T work out quite as Captain Kennit the Pirate King had planned, did it?’

  ‘Shut up.’ Kennit spoke more in weariness than rancour. It had been a distressing and taxing day. They had sighted a liveship, a wide-bellied merchant-trader of the old style, a wallowing sow of a ship. She had been quite a way ahead of them, picking her way through the shallows of Wrong Again Channel. She sat deep in the water, heavy with some rich cargo. At the very least, they should have been able to force her to run aground. The Marietta had put on sail and swept up on her, close enough to hear the figurehead calling out the soundings and headings to the steersman. They came close enough to see the faces of the men that manned her, close enough to hear their cries as they recognized his Raven flag and shouted encouragement to one another. Sorcor launched his balls-and-chains at their rigging, only to have the ship sidle aside from it at the last moment. In fury, Kennit called for fireballs, and Sorcor reluctantly complied. One of them struck well, splattering on a sail that obligingly burst into flames. But almost as swiftly as the flames ran up the canvas, the sail collapsed on itself, billowing down to where a frantic crew might trample it and douse it with water. And with every passing moment, somehow, impossibly, the liveship pulled steadily away from them.

  Kennit had shrieked at his crew like a madman, demanding canvas, oars, anything they might muster to push a bit more speed out of the ship. But as if the very gods opposed him, a winter squall blew in, one of the horrible island squalls that sent the winds racketing in every possible direction. Grey rain sheeted down, blinding them. He cursed, and climbed the mast himself, to try to keep sight of her. His every sense strained after her, and time after time, he caught glimpses of her. Each time she had been further ahead of him. She swept around a headland, and when the Marietta rounded it, the liveship was gone. Simply gone.

  Now it was evening, the night wind filled Marietta’s sails and the monotonous rains had ceased. His crew was tiptoeing around him, unaware that his seething displeasure with them had boiled itself dry. He stood on the afterdeck, watching witch-fire dance in their wake, and sought some inner peace.

  ‘I suppose this means you owe Sorcor another slaver, doesn’t it?’ the charm observed affably.

  ‘I wonder, if I cut you from my wrist and threw you overboard, would you float?’

  ‘Let’s find out,’ the small face suggested agreeably.

  Kennit sighed. ‘The only reason I continue to tolerate you is because you cost me so much in the first place.’

  The twin countenance pursed his lips at him. ‘I wonder if you shall say that of the whore, also, in days to come.’

  Kennit clenched his eyes shut. ‘Cannot you be silent and leave me alone for even a moment?’

  A soft step and the whisper of brushing fabric on the deck behind him. ‘Did you speak to me?’ Etta asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought you said something… you wished to be alone? I can return to the cabin, if you like.’ She paused, and added more softly, ‘But I would much prefer to join you, if it would please you.’

  Her perfume had reached him now. Lavender. Irresolution assailed him and he turned his head to regard her. She curtseyed low to him, a lady greeting her lord.

  ‘Oh, please,’ he growled in disbelief.

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied warmly. Her slippered feet pattered softly across the deck and Etta was suddenly beside him. She did not touch him. Even now, she knew better than to be that familiar. Nor did she lean casually on the rail beside him. Instead, she stood, her back straight, a single hand resting upon the rail. And she looked at him. After a time, he could not stand it. He turned his head to meet her stare.

  And she smiled at him. Radiantly. Luminously.

  ‘Lovely,’ breathed the small voice at his wrist. And Kennit had to concur. Etta lowered her eyes and looked aside from him, as if momentarily shy or confused. She wore yet another new costume. The sailor who had brought her aboard had followed his original directive, supplying her with a tub of warm water for bathing, but had been at a loss as to what to provide for her to wear. Clearly rough sailor’s clothing would not do for his captain’s lady. With a great deal of trepidation, he had laid out the captain’s own nightrobe for her, and then hesitantly offered her several bolts of rich cloth from their latest trove. Kennit had at first been disgruntled at this largesse, but then resigned to it. Needles and thread were always plentiful aboard a sailing ship, and Etta had kept herself well-occupied with her sewing tasks. Kennit eventually concluded that the man had actually been brilliant. While the woman was occupied with needlework, she could not bother him. The clothing Etta styled for herself was unlike anything Kennit had ever before seen on a woman, and actually quite sensible for shipboard life.

  Not that he was resigned to her living aboard the ship. He had simply not yet found a good place to stash her. It was convenient to him that she was an adaptable sort. Not once had she complained since he had brought her aboard. Unless one counted the second day, when she stormed the galley and upbraided the cook for over-salting the stew he had sent to Kennit’s table. As often as not she now oversaw the preparation of their cabin-served meals. And perhaps the food had improved as a result of that.

  But she was still a whore, he reminded himself. Despite her crown of sleek short hair that caught the ship’s lights and returned it as sheen, despite the emerald green silk of her loose-sleeved blouse, or the brocaded trousers she tucked it into, despite the cloth-of-gold sash that narrowed her lean waist, she was still just his whore. Even if a tiny ruby twinkled in her earlobe, and a lush furlined cloak sheltered her body from the night wind.

  ‘I have been thinking about the liveship that eluded you today,’ she dared to say. She lifted her eyes to his, dark eyes too bold for his taste. She seemed to sense that, for she cast them down again, even before he barked, ‘Don’t speak to me of that.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she promised him gently. But after a moment, she broke her word, as women always did. ‘The swiftness of a willing liveship is legendary,’ she said quietly. She stared out at their wake and spoke to the night. ‘I know next to nothing of piracy,’ she next admitted. As if that might surprise him. ‘But I wonder if the very willingness of the ship to flee swiftly might not be somehow turned against it.’

  ‘I fail to see how,’ Kennit sneered.

  She licked her lips before she spoke, and for just an instant, his whole attention was caught by that tiny movement of wet pink tongue-tip. An irrational surge of desire flamed up in him. Damn her. This constant exposure to a woman was not good for a man. He breathed out, a low sound.

  She gave him a quick sideways glance. If he had been certain it was amusement at him that curved the corners of her lips, he would have slapped her. But she spoke only of piracy. ‘A rabbit kills itself when it runs headlong into the snare,’ she observed. ‘If one knew the planned course of a liveship, and if one had more than one pirate vessel at one’s disposal… why, then, a single ship could give chase, and urge the liveship to run headlong into an ambush.’ She paused and cast her eyes down to the water again. ‘I am told that it can be quite difficult to stop a ship, even if the danger ahead is seen. And it seems to me there are many narrow channels in these waters, where a sailing ship would have no alternative but to run aground to avoid a collision.’

  ‘I suppose it might be done, though it seems to me that there are a great many “ifs” involved. It would require precisely the right ci
rcumstances.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it would,’ she murmured. She gave her head a small shake to toss the hair back from her eyes. Her short sleek hair was perfectly black, as the night sky is black between the stars. He need not fear to kiss her; she had no man save him these days. She saw him watching her. Her eyes widened and suddenly she breathed more quickly and deeply. He abruptly matched his body to hers, pinning her against the rail, mastering her. He forced her mouth open to his, felt the small, hard nipples of her slight breasts through the thin, body-warmed silk of her blouse. He lifted his mouth from hers.

  ‘Never,’ he said roughly, ‘presume to tell me my business. I well know how to get what I want. I need no woman to advise me.’

  Her eyes were full of the night. ‘You know very well,’ she agreed with him huskily.

  He heard them long before they reached him. He knew it was full dark night, for the evening birds had ceased their calls hours ago. From the damp that beaded him, he suspected there was a dense fog tonight. So Paragon waited with trepidation, wondering why two humans would be picking their way down the beach toward him in the dark and fog. He could not doubt that he was their destination; there was nothing else on this beach. As they drew closer, he could smell the hot oil of a burning lantern. It did not seem to be doing them much good, for there had been frequent small curses as they worked their stumbling way towards him. He already knew one was Mingsley. He was coming to know that man’s voice entirely too well.

  Perhaps they were coming to set fire to him. He had taunted Mingsley the last time he was here. Perhaps the man would fling the lantern at him. The glass would break and flaming oil would splash over him. He’d die here, screaming and helpless, a slow death by fire.

  ‘Not much farther,’ Paragon heard Mingsley promise his companion.

  ‘That’s the third time you’ve said that,’ complained another voice. His accent spoke of Chalced even more strongly than Mingsley’s did of Jamaillia. ‘I’ve fallen twice, and I think my knee is bleeding. This had damned well better be worth it, Mingsley.’