by Robin Hobb
“Yessir,” Mild agreed. He moved up shyly to Wintrow's side. When the other boy did not deign to notice him, he nerved himself to tug at Wintrow's sleeve. “You heard what the mate said,” he reminded him awkwardly.
“I'd rather stay here. ” Wintrow's voice had gone drifting and dreamy. The pain, Vivacia realized, must be paid for sooner or later. He had kept his body from reacting to it at the time, but the price now was complete exhaustion.
“I know,” Mild said, almost kindly. “But it was an order. ”
Wintrow sighed heavily and turned. “I know. ” With the docility of weariness, he followed the other boy below.
A short time later Vivacia was aware that Gantry had gone back to take the wheel himself. It was something he did when he was disturbed and wanted time to think. He was not, she thought to herself, a bad mate. Brashen had been better, but Brashen had been with her longer. Gantry's touch on the wheel was sure and steady, reassuring but not distrustful of her.
She looked down furtively and opened her hand. The finger lay in her palm. She did not think anyone had seen her catch it. She could not have explained why she had done so, save that it had been a part of Wintrow, and she was unwilling to lose even so small a fragment of him. It was so tiny compared to her own larger-than-life digits. A thin, jointed rod of bone, coated with flesh and skin, and in the end of it, the finely ridged nail. Even crushed and bloody, it fascinated her with its delicacy and detail. She compared it to her own hand. Her carver had done a competent job, with her joints and nails and even the tendons on the back of her hand. But there was no fine pattern of follicles on the back of her fingers, no tiny hairs, no whorling prints on the pads of her fingers. She bore, she decided regretfully, only a passing resemblance to a true creature of flesh and blood.
For a time longer she examined her treasure. Then she glanced furtively aft before she lifted it to her lips. She could not throw it away and she had no place to keep it, save one. She placed it in her mouth and swallowed. It tasted like his blood had smelled; of salts and copper and in an odd way, like the sea itself. She swallowed it down, to become part of herself. She wondered what would become of it, deep inside her wizardwood gullet. Then she felt it being absorbed, in much the same way the deck planks had soaked up his blood.
She had never eaten anything meat before. She had never known hunger or thirst. Yet in the taking of Wintrow's severed flesh into herself, she satisfied some longing that had gone nameless before. “We are one, now,” she whispered to herself.
In a bunk in the forecastle, Wintrow turned over restlessly. The laudanum could soften but not still the throbbing in his hand. His flesh felt hot and dry, tight over the bones of his face and arm. “To be one with Sa,” he said in a small cracked voice. The priest's ultimate goal. “I shall be one with Sa,” he repeated more firmly. “It is my destiny. ”
Vivacia had not the heart to contradict him.
It was raining, the relentless pelting rain that was the hallmark of winter in Bingtown. It ran down his carved locks and dripped from his beard onto his bare chest. Paragon crossed his arms on his chest, and then shook his head, sending heavy drops flying. Cold. Cold was mostly something he remembered from sensations humans had stored for him. Wood cannot get cold, he told himself. I'm not cold. No. It was not a matter of temperature, it was just the annoying sensation of water trickling over him. He wiped a hand over his brow and shook the water from it.
“I thought you said it was dead. ” A husky contralto voice spoke unnervingly near him. That was another problem with rain; the sound of it filled his ears, numbing them to important sounds like footsteps on wet sand.
“Who's there?” he demanded. His voice sounded angry. Anger was a better thing to show humans than fear. Fear only made them bolder.
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No one replied. He hadn't expected anyone to answer, really. They could see that he was blind. They'd probably creep about and he'd never know where they were until the rock hit. He put all his concentration into listening for stealthy footsteps. But when the second voice spoke, it was not far from where the first had originated. He recognized it right away by the Jamaillian accent. Mingsley.
“I thought it was. It never moved nor spoke at all the last time I was here. Dav-my intermediary assured me that it was alive still, but I doubted him. Well. This puts a whole new slant on this. ” He cleared his throat. “The Ludlucks have been reluctant to deal, and now I see why. I thought I was bidding on dead wood. My offer was far too low. I shall have to approach them again. ”
“I think I've changed my mind. ” The woman's voice was low. Paragon couldn't decide what emotion she was repressing. Disgust? Fear? He could not be sure. “I don't think I want anything to do with this. ”
“But you seemed so intrigued earlier,” Mingsley objected. “Don't be squeamish now. So the figurehead is alive. That only increases our possibilities. ”
“I am intrigued by wizardwood,” she admitted reluctantly. “Someone brought me a tiny piece to work on once. The customer wanted me to carve it into a shape of a bird. I told him, as I tell you, that the work I do is determined by the wood I am given, not by any whim of my own or the customer's. The man urged me to try. But when I took the wood from him, it felt . . . evil. If you could steep wood with an emotion, I'd say that one was pure malice. I couldn't bear to even touch it, let alone carve it. I told him to take it away. ”
Mingsley chuckled as if the woman had told an amusing story. “I've found,” he said loftily, as if speaking in generalities, “that the finely tuned sensibilities of an artist are best soothed with the lovely sound of coins being stacked. I am sure we can get past your reservations. And I can promise you that the money from this would be incredible. Look at what your work brings in now, using ordinary wood. If you fashioned beads from wizardwood, we could ask . . . whatever we wanted. Literally. What we would be offering buyers has never been available to them before. We're two of a kind in this. Outsiders, seeing what all the insiders have missed. ”
“Two of a kind? I am not at all sure we can even talk. ” There was no compromise to the woman's tone, but Mingsley seemed deaf to it.
“Look at it,” he gloated. “Fine straight grain. Silvery color. Plank after plank and I haven't spotted a single knot. Not one! Wood like that, you can do anything with it. Even if we remove the figurehead, have you restore it, and sell it separately, there is still enough wizardwood in this hulk to found an industry. Not just your beads and charms; we have to think bigger than that. Chairs, and bedsteads, and tables, all elaborately carved. Ah! Cradles. Imagine the status of that, rocking your firstborn to sleep in a cradle all carved from wizardwood. Or,” the man's voice suddenly grew even more enthused, “perhaps you might carve the headboard of the cradle with women's faces. We could find out how to quicken them, teach them to sing lullabies, and we'd have a cradle that could sing a child to sleep!”
“The thought makes my blood cold,” the woman said.
“You fear this wood, then?” Mingsley gave a short bark of laughter. “Don't succumb to Bingtown superstition. ”
“I don't fear wood,” the woman snapped back. “I fear people like you. You charge into things blindly. Stop and think. The Bingtown Traders are the most astute merchants and traders this part of the world has ever seen. There must be a reason why they do not traffic in this wood. You've seen for yourself that the figurehead lives. But you don't ask how or why! You simply want to make tables and chairs of the same substance. And finally, you stand before a living being and blithely speak of chopping up his body to make furniture. ”
Mingsley made an odd sound. “We have no real assurances that this is a live being,” he said tolerantly. “So it moved and it spoke. Once. Jumping jacks on sticks move, as do puppets on strings. Parrots talk. Shall we give them all the status of a human?” His tone was amused.
“And now you are willing to spout whatever nonsense you must to get me to
do your will. I've been down to the north wall where the liveships tie up. As have you, I'll wager. The ships I saw there are clearly alive, clearly individuals. Mingsley. You can lie to yourself and convince yourself of anything you wish. But don't expect me to accept your excuses and half-truths as reasons I should work for you. No. I was intrigued when you told me there was a dead liveship here, one whose wood could be salvaged. But even that was a lie. There is no point to me standing out here in the rain with you any longer. I've decided this is wrong. I won't do it. ”
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Paragon heard her striding away, heard Mingsley call after her, “You're stupid. You're walking away from more money than you can even imagine. ”
Her footsteps halted. Paragon strained his ears. Would she come back? Her voice alone came, pitched in a normal tone but carrying clearly. “Somehow,” she said coldly, “you have confused profitable and not profitable with right and wrong. I, however, have not. ”
Then he could hear her walking away again. She strode like an angry man. The rain began to pelt even harder; the drops would have stung human flesh. He heard Mingsley grunt with distaste at the new downpour.
“Artistic temperament,” he scoffed to himself. “She'll be back. ” A pause. Then, “Ship. You, ship. Are you truly alive?”
Paragon chose not to reply.
“It's not smart to ignore me. It's only a matter of time before I own you. It's in your own best interests to tell me what I need to know. Are you separate from the ship, or truly a part of it?”
Paragon faced the pounding rain and did not reply.
“Would it kill you if I cut you free of your ship?” Mingsley asked in a low voice. “For that is what I intend to do. ”
Paragon did not know the answer to that. Instead, he invited Mingsley, “Why don't you come close enough to try?”
After a short time, he heard the man leave.
He waited there, in the stinging rain. When he heard her speak again, he did not start. He did turn his head slowly, to hear her better.
“Ship? Ship, may I come closer?”
“My name is Paragon. ”
“Paragon, may I come closer?”
He considered it. “Aren't you going to tell me your name?” he finally countered.
A short hesitation. “I am called Amber. ”
“But that is not your name. ”
“I've had a number of names,” she said after a time. “This is the one that suits me best, here and now. ”
She could, he reflected, simply have lied to him and said it was her name. But she had not. He extended an open hand toward the sound of her voice. “Amber,” he accepted her. It was a challenge, too. He knew how huge his hand was in comparison to a human's. Once his fingers closed around her hand, he'd be able to jerk her arm out of its socket. If he chose to.
He listened to her breath, to the sound of the rain pocking the packed sand of the beach. Abruptly she took two quick steps towards him and set her gloved left hand in his. He closed his immense fingers over her small ones. “Paragon,” she said breathlessly.
“Why did you come back?”
She laughed nervously. “As Mingsley put it, I am intrigued by you. ” When he made no reply to that, she went on, “I have always been more curious than wise. Yet any wisdom I have ever gained has come to me from my curiosity. So I have never learned to turn away from it. ”
“I see. Will you tell me about yourself? As you see, I am blind. ”
“I see that only too well. ” There was pity and regret in her voice. “Mingsley called you ugly. But whoever shaped your brow and jaw, your lips and nose, was a master carver. I wish I could have seen your eyes. What kind of a person could destroy such art?”
Her words moved him, but they also nudged him toward a thing he could not, would not recall. Gruffly he replied, “Such compliments! Are they meant to distract my mind from the fact that you have not answered my request?” He released her hand.
“No. Not at all. I am . . . Amber. I carve wood. I make jewelry from it, beads and ornaments, combs and rings. Sometimes larger pieces, such as bowls and goblets . . . even chairs and cradles. But not many of those. My talent seems strongest on smaller work. May I touch your face?”
The question came so swiftly that he found himself nodding before he had considered. “Why?” he asked belatedly.
He felt her come closer to him. The scant warmth of her body interceded with the chill of the rain. He felt her fingers brush the edge of his beard. It was a very slight touch and yet he shivered to it. The reaction was too human. Had he been able to draw back, he would have.
“I cannot reach you. Could you . . . would you lift me up?”
The vast trust she offered made him forget she had not answered his first question. “I could crush you in my hands,” he reminded her.
“But you will not,” she told him confidently. “Please. ”
The urgency in her plea frightened him. “Why do you think I would not? I've killed before, you know! Whole crews of men! All of Bingtown knows that. Who are you not to fear me?”
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For answer, she set her bare wet hand to the skin of his arm. She flowed through his grain; the warmth of her shot through him the way the heat of a woman's hand on a man's thigh can inflame his whole body. Both ways, he suddenly knew, the flow was both ways, he was within her flesh as much as she was within his timbers. Her humanity sang in him. He wallowed in her senses. Rain had soaked her hair and clothes to her body. Her skin was cold, but her body warmed itself from within. He felt the sigh of air in her lungs like wind against his sails had been, the rush of blood through her flesh almost like the sea water thrilling past his hull.
“You are more than wood!” she cried aloud. Discovery was in her voice and he knew the sudden terror of betrayal. She was inside him, seeing too much, knowing too much. All the things he had set aside from himself, she was awakening. He did not mean to push her so hard, but she cried out as she fell on the wet sand and rocky beach. He heard her gasping for breath as the rain fell all around them.
“Are you hurt?” he asked gruffly after a time. Things were calming inside him.
“No,” she spoke quietly. Then, before he could apologize, “I'm sorry,” she said. “Despite everything, I expected you to be . . . wood. I've a gift for wood. When I touch it, I know it, I know how its grain bends, where it runs fine or coarse. . . . I thought I could touch you and guess how your eyes had been. I touched you, thinking to find only wood. I should not have been so . . . forgive me. Please. ”
“It's all right,” he replied gravely. “I did not mean to push you away so abruptly. I did not intend you should fall. ”
“No, it was my own fault. And you were right to push me away. I . . . ” She halted again and for a time the only sounds were the rain. The shush of the waves came louder now. The tide had turned and the water was venturing closer. “Please, may we begin again?” she suddenly asked.
“If you wish,” he said awkwardly. This woman . . . he did not understand this woman at all. So quickly she had trusted him, and now so swiftly she moved towards friendship. He was not accustomed to things like this happening, let alone happening so quickly. It frightened him. But more frightening was the thought that she might go away and not come back. He searched himself for some trust of his own to offer her. “Would you like to come in, out of the rain?” he invited her. “I'm at a terrible list, and it's no warmer within than without, but at least you'd be out of the rain. ”
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I'd like that. I'd like that a great deal. ”
WINTER
CHAPTER TWENTY - CRIMPERS
THERE WERE FEW SAFE HARBORS ON THE OUTSIDE PASSAGE WORTHY OF THE NAME, BUT NOOK WAS ONE OF them. It was a tricky place to get into on an outgoing tide, but once within, it was one of the few places where both ships and sailors could rest easy for a night or two. M
ost ports on the Outside were regularly scoured by the winter storms that blew in off the Wild Sea and pounded the beaches mercilessly, sometimes for weeks on end. A wise captain kept his ship well away from land on her way south, for the closer she came to the outer banks, the greater the chance she would be driven ashore and pounded to pieces on the rocks. If their water supplies had not gone too foul even for sailors to drink, chances were that the Reaper would not have taken the risk of coming into Nook.
But she had, and so the crew was having one blessed evening of shore liberty, of women, of food that was not salt and water that was not green with scum. The holds of the Reaper were full, cask after cask of salted meat, stacks of rolled hides, tubs of oil and fat. It was a rich cargo, hard won, and the crew were justifiably proud of having filled her so swiftly. It had been but fifteen months since the Reaper had left her home port of Candletown. Their return journey had been far swifter than their outbound one. The professional sailors knew they had well earned the bonuses they expected at the end of the trip, while the hunters and skinners had kept their own tallies as to what their shares would be. Those forced into sailing knew that all they had to do now was survive as far as home, and they would disembark as free men.
Athel, the ship's boy, had distinguished himself by earning a skinner's bonus on top of his regular wages. This had made him somewhat popular with those on the ship who enjoyed playing dice, but the shy boy had turned down all offers to accept his scrip against his forthcoming bonus. To the surprise of all, he had also refused the offer to move in with the skinners and hunters and become one of them, preferring to remain as a common crew member. When pushed to answer why, the boy would only grin and say, “D'ruther be a sailor. Sailor can ship out on any kind of vessel. But hunters and skinners, they have to come north at least once a year. This is my first time north; didn't like it much. ”
