The Liveship Traders Series

by Robin Hobb

  Kennit swayed in his grasp and Wintrow found himself steadying the man. All about them, men were frozen in a tableau of watching and waiting. The map-faces had his father pressed up against the railing, that he might watch the serpent that waited so impatiently.

  ‘It’s a poor sort of bet,’ Kennit observed weakly. ‘Up the ante. Your life as well.’ He grinned a sickly grin. ‘So that if I win by dying, we all lose together.’

  ‘You have a strange idea of winning,’ said Wintrow.

  ‘Then you include your crew in your wager,’ Vivacia suddenly pointed out. ‘For if you take Wintrow’s life from me, I shall see every one of you to a watery grave.’ She paused. ‘And that is the only bargain I offer to any of you.’

  ‘High stakes,’ Wintrow observed quietly. ‘Nonetheless, I accept them if you do.’

  ‘I am scarcely in a position to shake hands upon it,’ the pirate pointed out. His tone was as cool and charming as ever, yet Wintrow could see the man’s strength fading even as they spoke. A small smile bent his lips. ‘You do not try to make me agree that if I live, I give your ship back to you?’

  It was Wintrow’s turn to shake his head slowly. His smile was as small as Kennit’s. ‘You cannot take her from me. Nor could I give her to you. That, I think, is something you must discover for yourself. But your word will suffice to bind me to the rest of our wager. And that of your mate and the woman,’ he added. He looked past Kennit to the woman as he added, ‘And if my father comes to ill from the slaves aboard this ship, I shall take it to cancel the bet.’

  ‘There are no slaves aboard this ship!’ Sa’Adar declared pompously.

  Wintrow ignored him. He waited until the woman gave a slow nod.

  ‘If you have my captain’s word, you have my word,’ Sorcor added gruffly.

  ‘Fine,’ Wintrow declared. He turned his head and looked straight at Sa’Adar as he spoke. ‘Clear the way to my father’s salon. I want the pirate captain in his bed there. And let my father go to Gantry’s cabin and take some rest. I will see to his ribs later.’

  For just an instant, Sa’Adar’s eyes narrowed at the boy. Wintrow was not sure what passed through the man’s mind. He knew he could not trust the priest to abide by anyone’s word, not even his own. The man would bear watching.

  Slaves milled apart to open a channel to the aftercastle. Some moved grudgingly and others impassively. Some few looked at him and seemed to remember a boy with a bucket of water and a cool, moist rag. Wintrow watched his father led away to Gantry’s cabin. He never turned to look back at his son, nor spoke a word.

  Wintrow decided he should press his power, to see how far it would extend. He glanced at the map-faces that flanked Sa’Adar. ‘This deck is still a shambles,’ he observed quietly. ‘I want the canvas and line cleared from it, and all mess scrubbed away. Then begin belowdecks. Free men have no excuse to live in squalor.’

  The map-faces looked from him to Sa’Adar and back again.

  Sorcor broke the impasse. ‘You can obey the boy when he tells you to do it, or you can obey me. The point is, it gets done and promptly.’ He looked away from them to his own crew. The map-faces slowly moved away from Sa’Adar, to take up their directed tasks. The priest remained standing as he was. Sorcor was giving commands. ‘…and Cory on the wheel, Brig running the deck. I want anchor up and sail on as soon as you see the Marietta start to move. We’ll all be heading back to Bull Creek. Move lively, now, show them how a sailor does his work.’ He glanced again at the slowly dispersing map-faces and included the priest who stood with his arms crossed on his chest. ‘Lively. There’s work for all of you. Don’t make Brig find it for you.’

  Two steps brought him to Wintrow’s side, where the boy now more held than threatened the man. As gently as if he were picking up a sleeping infant, the burly mate eased his arms about his captain. The smile he gave Wintrow showed him more teeth than a bulldog’s snarl. ‘You lived through laying hands on the captain once. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘No. I trust it won’t need to,’ Wintrow replied, but it was the woman’s cold black eyes on his back that made his belly cold.

  ‘I’ll see you to your room, sir,’ Sorcor suggested.

  ‘After I have presented myself to the ship,’ Kennit countered. The man actually tried to smooth his shirt front.

  Wintrow smiled. ‘I’ll be pleased to introduce you to the Vivacia.’

  The methodical slowness with which Kennit worked his way across the deck made Wintrow’s heart sink. He was a man held together by sheer will and sense of self. Should either falter, he would die. As long as he was determined to live, Wintrow had a powerful ally in curing him. But if he gave it up, all the skill in the world would not prevail against the spreading infection.

  The ladder to the foredeck was a major obstacle. Sorcor did his best to maintain Kennit’s dignity as he helped him up it, while Etta, who had preceded them, turned to glare down at the gawking slaves. ‘Have you nothing better to do than stare?’ she demanded of them, and then to Brig she suggested, ‘There are sick slaves below, no doubt. These ones could be employed in bringing them up for air.’ A moment later Kennit gained the foredeck. She tried to take his arm, but he waved her away. By the time Wintrow had gained the foredeck, Kennit had used his crutch to make his painful way to the bow.

  Vivacia turned to look over her shoulder. Her eyes travelled up and down him before she said in a quietly reserved voice, ‘Captain Kennit.’

  ‘My lady Vivacia.’ He bowed to her, not as deeply as a healthy man might have, but more than a nod. When he straightened, he returned her inspection. Wintrow watched uneasily, for the man’s nostrils widened and the smile that curved his mouth was both approval and avarice. His frank appraisal flustered Vivacia. In an almost girlish response, she drew back and lifted her arms to cross her wrists over her breasts. Kennit’s smile only widened. Vivacia’s eyes went very wide, but could not seem to stop the smile that crept to her own face.

  She broke the silence first. ‘I do not know what you want of me. Why have you attempted to claim me this way?’

  Kennit took a step closer. ‘Ah, my lady of wood and wind, my swift one, my beauty. What I want could not be plainer. I wish to make you my own. So my first question must be, what do you wish of me? What must I do to win you?’

  ‘I do not… No one has ever…’ Obviously flustered, she turned to Wintrow. ‘Wintrow is mine and I am his. We have both discovered that nothing can change that. Certainly you cannot come between us.’

  ‘Can’t I? So says the girl who speaks fondly of her brother, until her lover steals her heart away.’

  Wintrow found himself speechless. Perhaps the only other person as flabbergasted at this interplay was the woman who had come aboard with Kennit. Her eyes were narrowed, like a cat’s when she stares down a hostile dog. Jealous, Wintrow thought. She is jealous of his sweet words to the ship. As I, he admitted to himself, am jealous at Vivacia’s confusion and pleasure.

  The fine grain of her cheeks had taken on a pink blush. The breath that moved her bare breasts behind her arms came more swiftly. ‘I am a ship, not a woman,’ she pointed out to him. ‘You cannot be my lover.’

  ‘Can’t I? Shall not I drive you through seas no other man would dare, shall not we together see lands that are the stuff of legends? Shall not we venture together under skies where the stars have not been named yet? Shall not we, you and I, weave such a tale of our adventures that the whole world will be in awe of us? Ah, Vivacia, I tell you plainly that I shall win you to me. Without fear, I tell you that.’

  She looked from Kennit to Wintrow. Her confusion was pretty, as was the sweetness of her pleasure at his words. ‘You shall never take Wintrow’s place with me, regardless of what you say,’ she managed. ‘He is family.’

  ‘Of course not!’ Kennit told her warmly. ‘I do not wish it. If he makes you feel safe, then we shall keep him aboard for ever more.’ Again he smiled at her, a smile both wicked and wise. ‘I do not wish to make you fee
l safe, my lady.’ He crossed his arms on his chest, and despite his crutch and shortened leg, managed to look both handsome and rakish. ‘I have no desire to be your little brother.’

  In the midst of this courtship, his leg must have pained him, for he suddenly faltered, losing his smile to a grimace of pain. He bowed his head forward with a gasp, and in an instant Sorcor was at his side.

  ‘You are hurt! You must go and rest now!’ Vivacia exclaimed before anyone else could speak.

  ‘I fear I must,’ Kennit concurred so humbly that Wintrow suddenly knew he was more than pleased at the ship’s reaction. He even wondered if the man had deliberately sought it. ‘So I must leave you now. But I shall call again, shall I? As soon as I am able?’

  ‘Yes. Please do.’ Her hands fell away from her chest. She extended one toward him, as if to invite him to touch palms with her.

  The pirate managed another deep bow but made no move to touch her. ‘Until then,’ he told her, fondness already in his voice. He turned aside, to say in a huskier voice. ‘Sorcor. I shall require your assistance yet again.’

  As the brawny pirate took his captain’s weight and began to help him aft, Wintrow caught sight of the look that the woman gave the ship. It was not pleasant.

  ‘Sorcor!’ All turned back to the Vivacia’s imperious command. ‘Be careful with him. And when you have finished there, I would borrow some of your archers. I’d like these serpents discouraged, if nothing else.’

  ‘Captain?’ Sorcor asked doubtfully.

  Kennit leaned on him heavily. His face was moist with sweat, but still he smiled. ‘Give the lady her due. A liveship under me. Court her for me, man, until I can charm her myself.’ With a sigh like death, he folded suddenly into his mate’s arms. As Sorcor hefted the man and then bore him off to what had been his father’s stateroom, Wintrow wondered at the strange smile Kennit yet wore. The woman walked behind them, her eyes never leaving Captain Kennit’s face.

  Wintrow turned and walked slowly to the bow, to the spot where Kennit had stood. No one, he marked, moved to stop him. He was as free aboard the ship as he had ever been.

  ‘Vivacia,’ he said quietly.

  She had been staring after Kennit. She broke from her bemusement to look up at Wintrow. Her eyes were wide with wonder. They sparkled.

  She lifted a hand to him and he leaned to let their palms touch. No words were needed, yet he spoke them anyway. ‘Be careful.’

  ‘He is a dangerous man,’ she agreed. ‘Kennit.’ Her voice caressed the name.

  He opened his eyes to a well-appointed room. The grain of the panelled walls had been carefully selected to match. The fixed lanterns were of brass that would gleam when properly polished again. Rolled charts graced the chart rack like fat hens in nesting boxes. They would be a treasure trove of information, the gathered wealth of a Bingtown Trader family’s charts. There were other niceties, too. The washstand with its matching porcelain bowl and pitcher. The framed paintings fastened securely to the walls. The meticulously carved shutters for the thick glass windows. A tasteful and elegant room indeed. True, it had been recently rifled, and the captain’s possessions scattered about, but Etta moved quietly about it, setting it to rights. There was an overlying smell of cheap incense that could not disguise the underlying stench of a slaver. Yet it was obvious to him that the Vivacia had not been so used for long; it should be possible to scrub it out of her. Once more she could be a bright and tidy vessel. And this was a room for a true captain.

  He glanced down at himself. He had been undressed and a sheet draped over his legs.

  ‘And where is our boy-captain?’ Kennit asked Etta.

  She spun at the sound of his voice and then hurried to his side. ‘He has gone to tend his father’s ribs and head. He said it would not take long, and he wished to have the chamber cleared of clutter before he tried to heal you.’ She looked at him and shook her head. ‘I do not understand how you can trust him. He must know that if you live this ship can never be his. Nor do I understand why you will allow a mere boy to do what you forbade three skilled healers even to think of in Bull Creek.’

  ‘Because he is a part of my luck,’ he said quietly. ‘The same luck that has given this ship to me so easily. You must see this is the ship I am meant to have. The boy is part and parcel of that.’

  He almost wanted to make her understand. But no one must know of the words the charm had spoken when the boy looked so deeply into his eyes. No one must know of the bond forged between them in that instant, a bond that frightened Kennit as much as it intrigued him. He spoke again to keep her from asking any more questions. ‘So. We are under weigh already?’

  ‘Sorcor takes us back to Bull Creek. He has put Cory on the wheel and Brig in charge of the deck. We follow the Marietta.’

  ‘I see.’ He smiled to himself. ‘And what do you think of my liveship?’

  She gave him a bittersweet smile. ‘She is lovely. And I am already jealous of her.’ Etta crossed her arms on her chest and gave him a sideways glance. ‘I do not think we shall get along easily. She is too strange a thing, neither woman nor wood nor ship. I do not like the pretty words you sprinkle so thickly before her, nor do I like the boy Wintrow.’

  ‘And as ever, I care little what you like or dislike,’ Kennit told her impatiently. ‘What can I give the ship to win her, save words? She is not a woman in the same way you are.’ When the whore still looked sulky, he added savagely, ‘And were not my leg so painful, I would put you on your back and remind you of what you are to me.’

  Her eyes changed suddenly from black ice to dark fire. ‘Would that you could,’ she said gently, and disgusted him with the warmth of the smile his rebuke earned him.

  *

  Kyle Haven lay on Gantry’s bare bunk, facing the bulkhead. All that the ransacking slaves had left of the mate’s possessions were scattered on the floor. There was not much. Wintrow stepped over a carved wooden chain and a single discarded sock. All else that had been Gantry’s — his books, his clothes, his carving tools — had been taken or left in fragments, either by the slaves in their first rush of plundering, or by the pirates in their far more organized gathering of loot.

  ‘It’s Wintrow, Father,’ he said, shutting the door behind him. It would not latch any more; during the uprising, someone had kicked it open rather than simply try the knob. But the door stayed shut, and the two map-faces that Sa’Adar had posted as sentries did not try to open it again.

  The man on the bed did not stir.

  Wintrow set the basin of water and the rags he’d salvaged down on the cracked remains of Gantry’s desk and turned to the man in the bed. He hastily set his fingers to the pulse-point in his throat, and felt his father jolt back to consciousness at his touch. The man shuddered away from him with an incoherent sound, then sat up hastily.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Wintrow said comfortingly. ‘It’s only me.’

  His father showed his teeth in a mockery of a smile. ‘It’s only you,’ he conceded. ‘But I’ll damned well bet it isn’t all right.’

  He looked terrible, worse than he had when the slaves were trying to feed him to the serpent. Old, Wintrow thought to himself. He looks suddenly old. Stubble stood on his cheeks and blood from his head-wound was smeared through it. He had come in here intending to clean his father’s wounds and bind them. Now he felt himself strangely reluctant to touch the man. It was not dismay at the blood, nor was he too proud to do such tasks. His time in the hold tending the slaves had eroded those things away long ago. This was a reluctance to touch because the man was his father. Touch might affirm that link.

  Wintrow faced what he felt squarely. He wished with all his heart he had no bond to this man.

  ‘I brought some wash-water,’ he told him. ‘Not much. Freshwater supplies are very low just now. Are you hungry? Shall I try to get some hardtack for you? It’s about all that is left.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ his father said flatly, not answering his question. ‘Don’t trouble yourself on my
account. You’ve more important friends to pander to just now.’

  He ignored his father’s choice of words. ‘Kennit’s sleeping. If I’m to have any chance of healing him, he’ll need all the rest he can get to strengthen him.’

  ‘So. You’ll truly do it. You’ll heal the man who’s taken your ship from you.’

  ‘To keep you alive, yes.’

  His father snorted. ‘Bilge. You’d do it anyway, even if they’d fed me to that snake. It’s what you do. Cower before whoever has the power.’

  Wintrow tried to consider it impartially. ‘You’re probably right. But not because he has power. It would have nothing to do with who he is. It’s life, father. Sa is life. While life exists, there is always the possibility of improvement. So, as a priest, I have a duty to preserve life. Even his.’

  His father gave a sour laugh. ‘Even mine, you mean.’

  Wintrow gave a single nod.

  He turned the gashed side of his head toward his son. ‘May as well get to it, then, priest. As it’s all you’re good for.’

  He would not be baited. ‘Let’s check your ribs first.’

  ‘As you will.’ Moving stiffly, his father drew off what remained of his shirt. The left side of his chest was black and blue. Wintrow winced at the clear imprint of a boot in his flesh. It had obviously been done after his father was already down. The rags and the water were the only supplies he had; the ship’s medicine chest had completely disappeared. Doggedly, he set out at least to bind the ribs enough to give them some support. His father gasped at his touch, but did no jerk away. When Wintrow had tied the final knot, Kyle Haven spoke.

  ‘You hate me, don’t you, boy?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Wintrow dipped a rag and started to dab blood from his face.

  ‘I do,’ his father said after a moment. ‘It’s in your face. You can scarcely stand to be in this room with me, let alone touch me.’