by Robin Hobb
He found himself nodding woodenly to the garrulous old man. Brashen was beginning to suspect that the mate who had sent him here had been having a bit of fun with him. Still, here he was, and it was quiet and clean and quite likely a better place to entertain Althea than a crowded, noisy tavern. ‘I’ll be heading out back to take a bath then,’ he announced when the landlord paused for breath. ‘Oh, and a shipmate of mine may be coming here to meet me. He’ll be asking for Brashen. That’s me. The lad is named Athel. Would you bid him wait for me?’
‘Aye, I’ll let him know you’re here.’ The landlord paused. ‘Not a carouser, is he? Not the type to come in here drunk and spew on my floor and knock over my benches, is he?’
‘Athel? No indeed, not him. No indeed.’ Brashen beat a hasty retreat out the back door. In a small shed set in a cobbled yard, he found the water pump, a bath trough and a fireplace as the landlord had promised. Like the rooming house, the pumphouse was almost excessively tidy. But the several rough towels that hung on pegs looked clean, if well-used, and the trough did not show a ring of some other man’s grease. Just as well, Brashen told himself, to stay at a clean place. He pumped several buckets of water and put them to heat. His shore-clothes were in the bottom of his duffel. They were clean, though smelling a bit musty. He hung out his striped shirt and stockings and good woollen trousers to air near the fireplace. There was a pot of soft-soap and he helped himself to it. He took off several layers of grease and salt and possibly a layer of skin as well before he was finished. For the first time in weeks he took his hair out of its braid, washed it well and then bound it back again. He would have liked to lie and soak in the tub, but he didn’t want to keep Althea waiting. So he rose and dried himself and trimmed his beard back to its former shape and donned his clean shore-clothes. Such a treat to put on clean, warm, dry clothes over clean, warm, dry skin. The bath had left him almost lethargic, but that was nothing that a good meal and a cold mug of beer wouldn’t cure. He stuffed his dirty clothes back in his sea-bag and did a quick tidy of the room. Tomorrow, he’d find a laundry to have all his clothes washed out, save for those so tarry as to be hopeless. Feeling a new man, he went back to the main house to have a meal and wait for Althea.
She had never been in a foreign port alone before. Always before, she had had shipmates and a ship to return to when the night grew dark. It was not late afternoon yet, but the day suddenly seemed both more chill and more grey. She looked around herself yet again. The world was suddenly an edgeless, formless place. No ship, no duties, no family ties. Only the coin in her pocket and the duffel on her back to concern her. A strange mixture of feelings suddenly assailed her; she felt at once forlorn and alone, devastated at their refusal to give her a ticket, and yet oddly powerful and independent. Reckless. That was the word. It seemed there was nothing she could do that would make things worse than they already were. She could do anything she wanted just now, and answer to no one, for no one else would care. She could get shamelessly drunk or spend every coin she had on a sybaritic night of food, wine, music and exotic surroundings. Of course there was tomorrow to worry about, but one always had to reckon with tomorrow. And if she chose to slam into one head first, there was no one to forbid it, or to say shame to her the next day.
It wasn’t as if careful planning had paid off well for her lately.
She gave a final heist to her bag and then deliberately set her cap at a jauntier angle. She strode down the street, taking in every detail of the town. This close to the waterfront, it was ship’s brokers and chandlers and cheap seaman’s boarding houses, interspersed with taverns, whorehouses, gaming rooms and druggeries. It was a rough section of town for a rough pack of folk. And she was part of them now.
She chose a tavern at random and went inside. It looked no different from the taverns in Bingtown. The floor was strewn with reeds, not very fresh. Trestle tables bore ancient ring stains from many mugs. The benches looked much mended. The ceilings and walls were dark with oily smoke from cooking and lamps. There was a large fireplace at one end of the room, and there the sailors had gathered thickest, close to the warmth and the smell of stew. There was a tavern keeper, a lean, mournful looking man and a gaggle of serving maids, some sullen, some giggly. A staircase at the back led up to rooms above. The conversational roar pushed at her as solidly as a wind.
She found a spot at a table, not as close to the fire as she wished, but still much warmer than it had been outside, or in the forecastle of the ship. She set her back to the wall at the mostly empty table. She got a mug of beer that was surprisingly good, and a bowl of stew that was badly seasoned, but still a vast improvement over ship’s food. The chunk of bread that went with it more than made up for it. It had not been out of the oven for more than a few hours. It was dark and thick with grain and chewy. She ate slowly, savouring the warmth, the food, and the beer, refusing to think of anything else. She considered getting a room upstairs, but the thumps, thuds, shrieks and laughter that drifted down the staircase made her aware that the rooms were not intended for sleeping. One tavern maid approached her half-heartedly, but Althea simply pretended not to understand. The girl seemed as glad to go on her way.
She wondered how long one had to be a whore before one got tired of it. Or used to it. She found her hand had gone to her belly and was touching the ring through her shirt. Whore, the captain had called her, and said she’d brought the serpents down on the ship. Ridiculous. But that was how they had seen her. She took a bite of her bread and looked around the room and tried to imagine what it would be like to randomly offer herself to the men there in hopes of money.
They were a rancid lot, she decided. The sea might make a man tough, but for the most part, it also made him ugly. Missing teeth, missing limbs, hands and faces weathered dark as much by tar and oil as by wind and sun; there were few men there that appealed to her. Those that were young and comely and well-muscled were neither clean nor mannered. Perhaps, she reflected, it was the oil trade. Hunting and killing and rendering, blood and salt and oil made up their days. The sailors on the merchant vessels had been cleaner, she thought. Or perhaps only the ones on the Vivacia. Her father had pushed the men to be clean to keep the vessel free of vermin as well.
Thinking of Vivacia and her father did not hurt as much as it once had. Hopelessness had replaced the pain. She brought her mind about and sailed straight into the thought she’d been refusing. It was going to be damn close to impossible to ever get a ship’s ticket in her name. All because she was a woman. The defeat that washed abruptly over her almost sickened her. The food in her belly was suddenly a sour weight. She found she was trembling as if she were cold. She pressed her feet against the floor, and set her hands to the edge of the table to still them. I want to go home, she thought miserably. Somewhere that I am safe and warm and people know me. But no, home was none of those things, not any more. The only place those things existed for her was in the past, back when her father had been alive and the Vivacia had been her home. She reached for those memories, but found them hard to summon. They were too distant, she was too disconnected from them. To long for them only made her more alone and hopeless. Brashen, she thought suddenly. He was as close to home as she could get in this dirty town. Not that she intended to seek him out, but it suddenly occurred to her that she could. That was something she could do, if she wanted to, if she wanted to be reckless and truly care nothing about tomorrow. She could find Brashen, and for a few hours, she could feel warm and safe. The thought was like the smell of a well-laden table to a starving man.
But she wouldn’t do it. No. Brashen would not be a good idea. If she went to meet him, he would think that meant she was going to bed him again. She deliberately considered that idea. She felt a slow stirring of interest. She gave a snort of disgust and forced herself to truly consider it. The sounds from upstairs seemed suddenly both degrading and silly. No. She wasn’t really interested in doing that with anyone, let alone Brashen. Because if they did, that would be the worst ide
a of all, because sooner or later one or the other of them, or both of them, would be back in Bingtown. Bedding Brashen on the ship had not been a good idea. They had both been tired and half-drunk, to say nothing of the cindin. That was the only reason it had happened. But if she went to meet him tonight and it happened again, then he might think it meant something. And if they encountered one another in Bingtown… well, what happened on the ship was one thing, but in Bingtown it would be quite another. Bingtown was home. So. She would not go to meet him and she would not bed him. That was all quite decided with her.
So the only question that remained was what she was going to do with the rest of the evening, and the night to follow. She held up her mug to get a tavern maid’s attention. As the girl filled it, Althea pasted a sickly grin on her face. ‘I’m more tired than I thought,’ she said artlessly. ‘Can you recommend a quiet rooming house or inn? One where I can get a bath as well?’
The girl scratched the back of her neck vigorously. ‘You can get a room here, but it’s not quiet. Still, there’s a bath-house down the street.’
Watching the girl scratch, Althea decided that even if the tavern were silent, she wouldn’t want to sleep in one of their beds. She hoped to get rid of any vermin she’d acquired on the ship, not invite more. ‘A quiet place?’ she asked the girl again.
The girl shrugged. ‘The Gilded Horse, if you don’t mind paying well for what you get. They’ve got musicians there, too, and a woman who sings. And little fireplaces in the best rooms, I’ve heard. Windows in some of the rooms, too.’
Ah. The Gilded Horse. Dinner with her father there, roast pork and peas. She’d given him a funny little wax monkey she’d bought in a shop, and he’d told her about buying twenty casks of fine oil. A different lifetime. Althea’s life, not Athel’s.
‘No. Sounds too expensive. Somewhere cheap and quiet.’
She frowned. ‘Don’t know. Not many places in this part of town are quiet. Most sailors, they don’t want quiet, you know.’ She looked at Althea as if she were a bit strange. ‘There’s the Red Eaves. Don’t know if they have baths there, but it’s quiet. Quiet as a tomb, I heard.’
‘I heard of that place earlier,’ Althea said quickly. ‘Anywhere else?’
‘That’s it. Like I said, quiet isn’t what most sailors come to town to find.’ The girl looked at her oddly. ‘How many places do you need to hear about?’ she asked, and then took the coin for the beer she had poured and sauntered off.
‘Good question,’ Althea conceded. She took a slow drink of her beer. A man who smelled badly of vomit sat down heavily next to her. Evening was coming on and the tavern was starting to fill up. The man belched powerfully and the smell that wafted toward her made her wince. He grinned at her discomfiture and leaned confidentially closer. ‘See her?’ he demanded of Althea as he pointed to a sallow-faced woman wiping a table. ‘I did her three times. Three times, and she only charged me for the once.’ He leaned back companionably against the wall and grinned at her. Two of his top teeth were broken off crookedly. ‘You ought to give her a go, boy. She’d teach you a few things, I’d wager.’ He winked broadly.
‘I’m sure you’d win that wager,’ Althea agreed amiably. She drank off the last of her beer and rose. She took up her sea-bag again. Outside it had begun to rain. A wind was sweeping in with it, and it promised heavier rainfall soon. She decided to do the simplest thing. She’d find a room that suited her, pay for it, and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow was soon enough to think of something significant to do. Such as find a shipboard job that would take her back to Bingtown as swiftly as possible.
Bingtown. It was home. It would also mark the end of her dream of recovering Vivacia. She pushed that thought aside.
By the time it was fully dark, she had sampled six different rooming houses. Almost all the rooms were over taverns or taprooms. Every one of them had been noisy and smoky, some with whores on the premises for the convenience of those staying there. The one she settled on was no different from the others, save that there had just been a brawl there. The city guard had come, temporarily driving out the more lively customers. Those who remained after the brawl seemed either worn out or sodden. There were three musicians in a corner and now that the paying customers were mostly dispersed, they were playing for themselves. They talked and laughed softly, and occasionally stopped in mid-piece to go back and try something a different way. Althea sat close enough to listen in on their intimacy and far enough away not to intrude. She envied them. Would she ever have friends like that? She had enjoyed her sailing years aboard ship with her father, but there had been a price. Her father had been her only real friend. The captain and owner’s daughter could never fully share the deep friendships of the forecastle crew. When she was at home, it was much the same. She had long ago lost touch with the little girls she had played with as a child. Married by now, most of them, she thought. Probably to the little boys they had spied on and giggled about. And here she was, in ragged sailor-boy togs in a foreign port in a rundown tavern. And alone. With no prospects save crawling home with her tail between her legs.
And getting more maudlin every minute. Time to go to bed. Right after this last mug, it would be time to go up to the room she had secured for the night.
Brashen walked in the door. His gaze swept the room and settled on her immediately. For a frozen instant he just stood where he was. She knew by his stance that he was angry. He’d been in a fight, too. The redness under his left eye would be a black eye before morning. But she doubted that was what he was still angry about. There was a tightness to his wide shoulders under his clean, striped shirt, and small sparks deep in his dark eyes. There was no reason for her to feel guilty or ashamed. She hadn’t promised to meet him, she’d only said she might. So the sudden shrinking she felt surprised her. He strode across the tavern and glanced about to find an unbroken chair. There wasn’t one, and he had to sit on the end of het bench. He leaned forward to speak to her and his words were clipped.
‘You could have simply said no. You didn’t have to leave me sitting and worrying about you.’
She drummed her fingers lightly on the table. For a few seconds she watched them and then looked up to meet his eyes. ‘Sorry, sir,’ she reminded him. ‘Didn’t think as you’d worry about the likes of me.’
She saw his eyes dart to the musicians, who were paying no attention to them at all. ‘I see,’ he said levelly. His eyes said much more. She’d hurt him. She hadn’t meant to, hadn’t really thought about that aspect of it at all. He got up and walked away. She expected he would leave, but instead he interrupted the tavern keeper who was sweeping up broken crockery. Brashen brought his own mug of beer back to the table and resumed his seat. He didn’t give her a chance to speak at all. ‘I got worried. So I went back to the ship. I asked the mate if he knew where you’d gone.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. Oh. What he said about you was not…’ His words trailed off and he touched the darkening bruise on his face. ‘I won’t be sailing aboard the Reaper again,’ he said abruptly. He glared at her as if it were her fault. ‘Why were you so stupid as to tell them your real name?’
‘The mate told you about it?’ she asked in reply. Unbelievably, her mood dropped yet another notch. If he was talking about it, it was going to lessen her chances of getting aboard another ship as a boy. Despair hit her like green water.
‘No. The captain. After the mate escorted me in there and they demanded to know if I had known you were a woman.’
‘And you told them you had?’ Worse and worse. Now they would be convinced she had whored herself out to buy Brashen’s silence.
‘There seemed little point in lying.’
She didn’t want to know the rest, about who had hit whom first and when. None of it seemed to matter any more. She just shook her head.
But Brashen wasn’t going to let it be. He took a gulp of his beer, then demanded, ‘Why did you give them your real name? How could you expect to sail again on a ti
cket that had your real name on it?’ He was incredulous at her stupidity.
‘On Vivacia,’ she said faintly. ‘I expected to use it to sail on Vivacia. As her captain and owner.’
‘How?’ he asked suspiciously.
And she told him. The whole story, and even as she spoke of Kyle’s careless oath and her hopes of using it against him, even as Brashen shook his head at her foolish plan, she wondered why she was telling him. What was it about him that had her spilling her guts to him, about things that were none of his business?
He left a small space of silence at the end of her story. Then he shook his head yet again. ‘Kyle would never keep his word on a chance oath like that. You’d have to take it to Traders’ Council. And even with your mother and your nephew speaking in your behalf, I doubt they’d take you seriously. People say things, in the heat of anger… If the Traders’ Council started forcing every man who swore an oath in anger to live up to them, half of Bingtown would be murdered.’ He shrugged. ‘On the other hand, it doesn’t surprise me that you’d try. I always thought that, sooner or later, you’d try to take the Vivacia back from Kyle. But not like that.’
‘How, then?’ she asked him testily. ‘Sneak aboard and cut his throat while he’s asleep?’
‘Ah. So that occurred to you, too,’ he observed dryly.
She found herself grinning in spite of herself. ‘Almost immediately,’ she admitted. Then her smile faded. ‘I have to take the Vivacia back. Even though I now know I’m not really ready to captain her. No, don’t laugh at me. I may be thick, but I do learn. She’s mine, in a way no other ship ever could be. But the law is against me and my family is against me. One or the other, I might fight. But together…’ Her voice died away and she sat still and silent for a time. ‘I spend a lot of time not thinking about her, Brashen.’
