The Liveship Traders Series

by Robin Hobb

  He told her other things that greatly surprised her. Part of the shock was his casual assumption that all knew these things were so. He spoke of the carrier pigeons that ferried news between the exiles in the Pirate Isle settlements and their kin in Jamaillia City. He spoke of the legitimate trading ships from Jamaillia and even Bingtown that regularly made furtive stops in the Pirate Isles. The latest gossip of Jamaillia City and even Bingtown was common knowledge in Divvytown. The news he passed on seemed far-fetched to Althea. An uprising in Bingtown had burned half the town. In retaliation, the Bingtown Traders had taken the visiting Satrap hostage. New Traders had conveyed that word to Jamaillia City, where those loyal to the Satrap were raising a fleet of warships to teach the rebellious province proper humility. There would be rich pickings in the wake of battle between Bingtown and Jamaillia. The pirates were already anticipating Jamaillian ships fat with Bingtown and Rain Wild goods. Discord between the two cities could only be good for the Pirate Isles. Althea hung on his every word, trapped between horror and fascination. Could any of this be true? If it was, what did it mean for her family and home? Even if she accepted that time and distance had fertilized the rumours, it boded ill for all she held dear. Meanwhile, the pirate waxed large in his telling of these tales, flattered and encouraged by her rapt attention. He gloated that when Kennit returned and heard these tidings, he would know that his time was truly come. In the midst of his neighbours’ discord, he could seize power. He had often told them that when the time was right, he planned to control all trade through the Pirate Isles. Surely, that time was soon.

  A sudden gust of wind hit the tavern’s window, rattling it and making her jump. It made a space in the conversation. ‘This Kennit sounds to me like a man worth meeting. Is he returning to Divvytown soon?’

  The young man shrugged. ‘When his holds are full he’ll return. He’ll bring us word from the Others’ Island as well; he has taken his priest there for the Others to augur his destiny. But no doubt Kennit will pirate his way back. Kennit sails when and where he will, but he never passes up prey.’ He cocked his head. ‘I understand your interest in him. There is no woman in Divvytown who does not sigh at his name. He is a man to put the rest of us into the shade. But you should know that he has a woman. Etta is her name and her tongue is as sharp as her knife. Some say that in Etta, Kennit has found the missing half of his soul. All men should be so fortunate.’ He leaned closer, eyes warm, and spoke quietly. ‘Kennit has a woman, and is content with her. But I do not.’

  Brashen stretched, rolling his shoulders and spreading his arms. When he rocked forwards, his left hand rested on Althea’s shoulder. He inclined very slightly towards the other man, and gently confided. ‘What a pity. I do.’ He smiled before he turned back to Maystar’s conversation, but left his arm across Althea’s shoulders. She tried for a disarming smile and shrugged her free shoulder.

  ‘No offence meant,’ the man said a bit stiffly.

  ‘None taken,’ she assured him. A warm flush rose to her face when, down the table, Jek caught her eye and dropped her a slow congratulatory wink. Damn Brashen! Had he completely forgotten that they were trying to keep this a secret? Yet, she could not deny that she took keen pleasure in the weight of his arm across her shoulders. Was this what he had been speaking of, the comfort of publicly claiming one another? Once they returned to the ship, they would both have to disavow this as a sham, as part of their overall ploy to gain information. But for now… She relaxed into him, and felt the solid warmth of his body, his hip against hers. He shifted slightly to accommodate her.

  The pirate drained off his beer. He set the mug down with a thump. ‘Well, Maystar, I see little threat from these folk. Noon’s well past now, and I’ve still a day’s work to do.’

  Maystar, in the midst of a long-winded tale, dismissed him with a wave. The man gave Althea a farewell nod, rather curt, and left. With his departure, several others also made their excuses and left. Brashen gave her shoulder a slight squeeze. Well done. They’d established they were no risk to Divvytown.

  Rain still streamed down the tavern window. The uniform greyness of the day had disguised the passage of time. Brashen patiently heard Maystar’s tale out to the end, and then made another show of stretching. ‘Well, I could listen to you all day; it’s a pleasure to hear a man who can properly spin a yarn. Unfortunately, that won’t fill my water barrels. I’d best put some of my crew to that, but I’ve noticed that the old water dock is gone completely. Where do ships take on water now? And I’ve promised the crew a bit of fresh meat if there’s any to be had. Be kind to a stranger, and steer me to an honest butcher.’

  But Brashen was not rid of Maystar that easily. The garrulous harbourmaster told him where to take on water, but then went on to discuss at great length the relative merits of the two butchers in Divvytown. Brashen interrupted the man briefly, to put Jek in charge of the others. They could take their shore time now, but he warned them that he expected the ship’s casks to be filled before noon tomorrow. ‘Be back at the docks by nightfall. The second’s coming with me.’

  When a boy came running to tell Maystar that his pigs were loose again, the old man hurried off, uttering oaths and threats against the hapless swine. Brashen and Jek exchanged a look. She stood up, stepping over the bench she’d been seated on. ‘Care to show me where we can fill our ship’s casks?’ she asked the man she’d been talking with, and he agreed readily. Without further ado, the crew dispersed.

  Outside the tavern, the rain was falling determinedly, driven by a relentless wind. The streets were mud, but they ran straight. Brashen and Althea walked in silent companionship down a wooden walkway; a ditch beneath it rushed with rainwater draining from the street down to the harbour. Few of the structures boasted glass windows and most were tightly shuttered today against the downpour. The town had not the elegance or beauty of Bingtown, but it shared Bingtown’s purpose. Althea could almost smell the commerce here. For a town burnt to the ground not so long ago, it had recovered well. They passed another tavern, this one built of raw timbers, and heard within it a minstrel singing with a harp. Since they had anchored, another ship had come into the lagoon and tied up at the pier. An ant line of men with barrows was unloading the cargo from the ship to a warehouse. Divvytown was a prosperous lively trade port; folk everywhere thanked Kennit for that.

  The people hurrying along the walkway to escape the rain wore an amazing variety of garbs. Some of the languages she overheard she did not even recognize. Many faces wore tattoos, not just on their faces, but on arms, calves and hands. Not all face tattoos were slave marks: some had decorated themselves with fanciful designs.

  ‘It’s a declaration,’ Brashen explained quietly. ‘Many bear tattoos they cannot erase. So they obscure them with others. They dim the past with a brighter future.’

  ‘Odd,’ she muttered quietly.

  ‘No,’ he asserted. She turned in surprise at the vehemence in his voice. More quietly, he went on, ‘I understand the impulse. You don’t know how I’ve fought, Althea, to try to make folk see the man I am instead of the wild boy I was. If a thousand needle pricks in my face would obscure my past, I’d endure it.’

  ‘Divvytown is a part of your past.’ There was no accusation in her voice.

  He looked around the busy little port as if seeing another place and time. ‘It was. It is. I was last here on the Springeve, and that was none too honest an operation. But years ago, also, I was here. I had only a few voyages under my belt when pirates took the ship I was on. They gave me a choice. Join them or die. I joined.’ He pushed his wet hair back and met her eyes. ‘No apologies for that.’

  ‘None are needed,’ she replied. The rain on his face, the drops glistening in his hair, his dark eyes and the simple nearness of him suddenly overwhelmed her. Something of her rush of emotion must have shown on her face, for his eyes widened. Heedless of who might see, she seized his wet hand. ‘I can’t explain it,’ she laughed up at him. For an instant, just looking at
him was all she needed in the world.

  He squeezed her hand. ‘Come on. Let’s buy some stuff and talk to people. We do have a reason to be here.’

  ‘I wish we didn’t. You know, I like this town and I like these people. In spite of every reason that I shouldn’t, I do. I wish we could just be here, on our own like this. I wish this were our real life. Almost, I feel like I belong here. I’ll bet Bingtown was like this, a hundred years ago. The rawness, the energy, the acceptance of folk for who they are; it draws me like a candle draws a moth. Sa forgive me, Brashen, but I wish I could kick over every responsibility to my name and just be a pirate.’

  He looked at her in astonished silence. Then he grinned. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ he cautioned her.

  It was a strange afternoon. The role she played felt more natural than reality. They bought oil for the ship’s lanterns and arranged to have it sent down to the dock. At another merchant’s, Althea selected herbs and potents to restock Paragon’s medicine chest. Impulsively, Brashen tugged her inside a dry goods store and bought her a brightly coloured scarf. She bound her hair back with it, and he added hoop earrings embellished with jade and garnet beads. ‘You have to look the part,’ he muttered in her ear as he fastened the catch of a necklace.

  In the clouded mirror the shopkeeper offered, she caught a glimpse of a different Althea, a side of herself she had never permitted into the daylight. Behind her, Brashen bent to kiss the side of her neck. When he glanced up, their eyes met in the mirror. Time rocked around her, and she saw the wild, runaway Bingtown boy and the wilful virago that had scandalized her mother. A likely pair; piracy and adventure had always been their destiny. Her heart beat faster. Her only regret for this moment was that it was a sham. She leaned back against him to admire the glittering necklace on her throat. They watched themselves in the mirror as she turned her head and kissed him.

  At each place they went, one or the other would turn the conversation to Kennit or his liveship. They gathered nuggets of information about him, both useful and trivial. Like legends; each teller added personal embellishments to their stories of Kennit. His boy-priest had cut off his mangled leg, and Kennit had endured it without making a sound. No, he had laughed aloud in the face of his pain, and bedded his woman scarce an hour later. No, it was the boy’s doing: the pirate-king’s prophet had prayed and Sa himself had simply healed Kennit’s stump. He was beloved of Sa; all knew that. When evil men had tried to rape Kennit’s woman, right here in Divvytown, the god had protected her until Kennit appeared to slay a dozen men single-handedly and carry her off from her imprisonment. Etta had lived in a whorehouse, but kept herself only for Kennit. It was a love story to make the most hardened cutthroat weep.

  In late afternoon, they stopped to buy fish chowder and fresh baked bread. There they first heard how the boy-priest had stood his ground between Kennit and most of Divvytown, and prophesied that Kennit would someday be their king. Those who had doubted the boy’s words had fallen to his flashing blade. Althea’s astonishment must have flattered the fish vendor, for he told the tale thrice more, with more details each time. At the last telling, the man added, ‘And well the poor lad knew about slavery, for his own father had made him a slave, yes and tattooed his own ship’s likeness onto the boy’s face. I’ve heard it said that when Kennit freed the liveship and the boy, he won both their hearts at once.’

  Althea found herself speechless. Wintrow? Kyle had done that to Wintrow, his own son, her nephew?

  Brashen choked slightly on his chowder, but managed to ask, ‘And what fate did Kennit mete out to so cruel a father?’

  The man shrugged callously. ‘What he deserved, no doubt. Over the side to the serpents with the rest. So he does with the full crew of every slaver he takes.’ He raised an eyebrow at Brashen. ‘I thought everyone knew that.’

  ‘But not the boy?’ Althea asked softly.

  ‘The boy weren’t crew. I told you. He was a slave on the ship.’

  ‘Ah.’ She looked at Brashen. ‘That would make sense.’ The ship turning on Kyle and accepting Kennit made sense now. The pirate had rescued and protected Wintrow. Of course, the ship would be loyal to Kennit now.

  So. Where did that leave her? For one treacherous instant, she wondered if she were free. If Vivacia were happy with Wintrow aboard her, if she was content with Kennit and her life of piracy, did Althea have the right to ‘rescue’ her from it? Could she just go home now and tell her mother and sister that she had failed, that she had never found their family ship? For an instant, she teetered on a wilder decision. Did she, really, have to go home at all? Could not she and Brashen and Paragon simply go on as they had begun? Then she thought of Vivacia, quickening under her hands as she slipped the final peg into the figurehead, the peg her father had filled with his anma as he died. That was hers. Not Wintrow’s, certainly not Kennit’s. Vivacia was her ship, in a way no one else could claim. If the earlier gossip she had heard was true at all, if Bingtown were in some sort of upheaval, then her family needed their liveship more than ever. Althea would reclaim her. The ship would learn to love her again, Wintrow would be reunited with his family. She found she blamed Kyle more than Kennit for the deaths of Vivacia’s crewmen. Loyalty to her family had kept those men aboard Vivacia; Kyle’s betrayal of her father’s ethics had killed them. She could not mourn Kyle at all; he had caused her and her family too much pain. The only sympathy she felt was for Keffria. Better she mourn her husband’s death Althea thought grimly, than to mourn a long life with him.

  Time had become a slippery creature that writhed in Paragon’s grip. Did he rest at anchor in Divvytown’s harbour, or did his outstretched wings send him sliding aloft on an updraught? Did he wait for young Kennit to return, desperately hoping the boy would be unhurt this time, or did he expect Althea and Brashen to return and lead him to his vengeance? The placid motion of the lagoon water, the dwindling patter of the evening rain, the smells and sounds of Divvytown, the guarded quiet of his crew all plunged him into a state of suspension almost like sleep.

  Deep in his hold, in the darkness, where the curve of the bow made a cramped space beneath the deck, was the blood place. It was too small for a man to stand or even creep, but a small, battered boy could shelter there, rolled in a tight ball while his blood dripped onto Paragon’s wizardwood, and they shared their misery. There Kennit could brace himself and snatch briefly at sleep, knowing no one could come upon him unaware. Whenever Igrot began to bellow for him, Paragon would wake him. Quick as a rabbit, he would pop out of his hiding place and present himself, choosing to leave his sanctuary and face Igrot rather than risk the searching crew discovering his refuge. Sometimes Kennit slept there. He would press his small hands against the great wizardwood beams that ran the length of the ship, and Paragon would watch over him while sharing his dreams.

  And his nightmares.

  During those times, Paragon had discovered his unique ability. He could take away the pain and the nightmares and even the bad memories. Not completely, of course. To take all the memory away would have left the boy a fool. But he could absorb the pain just as he absorbed the blood from his beatings. He could dim the agony and soften the edges of Kennit’s recall. All that he could do for the boy. It demanded that he keep for himself all he took away from Kennit. The sharp humiliation and indignity, the stabbing pain and stunned bewilderment and the scorching hatred all became Paragon’s, to keep hidden forever deep inside him. To Kennit he left only his icy cold resolve that he would escape, that he would leave it all behind and that someday his own exploits would forever blot from the memory of the world all trace of Igrot. Someday, Kennit resolved, he would restore all that Igrot had broken and destroyed. He would make it as if the evil old pirate had never been. No one would even recall his name. Everything Igrot had ever dirtied would be hidden away or silenced.

  Even Kennit’s family liveship.

  That was how it was supposed to have been.

  The admission disturbed ancient pain, sh
ifting it like unsecured cargo pounding him during a storm. The depth of his failure overwhelmed him. He had betrayed his family, he had betrayed the last true-hearted member of his blood. He had tried to be loyal, he had tried to stay dead, but then the serpents had come, prodding and nosing at him, speaking to him without words, confusing him as to who he was and where his loyalties should lie. They had frightened him, and in his fear he had forgotten his promises, forgotten his duty, forgotten everything except his need for his family to comfort and reassure him. He had gone home. Slowly, through the seasons, he had drifted, following friendly currents, until he had returned, a derelict, to the shores of Bingtown.

  And all that befell him there was only just punishment for his faithlessness. How could he feel anger with Kennit? Had not Paragon betrayed him first? A deep groan broke loose inside Paragon. He gripped his stillness and his silence like a shield.

  The light tread of running feet on his deck. Two slender hands on his railing. ‘Paragon? What is the matter?’

  He could not tell her. She would not understand, and to speak would only break his promise more thoroughly than it was already broken. He bowed his face into his hands and sobbed, his shoulders shaking and his hands trembling.

  ‘There, I told you, didn’t I? It’s him.’ The voices came from below. Someone was down there on the water near the bow, staring up at him. Staring and jeering and mocking. Soon they would begin to throw things. Dead fish and rotten fruit.

  ‘You down there, stand clear of our ship!’ Amber warned them in a stern voice. ‘Take your gig away from here.’

  They paid no attention. ‘If he was Igrot’s ship, then where is Igrot’s star?’ another voice demanded. ‘He put that star on everything that belonged to him.’