by Robin Hobb
Her mother spoke quietly. “I am very certain. ”
Malta came the rest of the way into the room and took her place at the breakfast table. She lifted the cover from the dish in front of her. “Not porridge again? We can't possibly be this poor! How could the box be missing?”
She looked up to meet their eyes again. Her grandmother's glance was narrowed as she said, “I thought perhaps you might know. ”
“Mother had it last. She didn't give it to me, she barely let me touch it,” Malta pointed out. “Is there any fruit or preserves to go on this stuff?”
“No. There is not. If we are to pay our debts in a timely fashion, we are going to have to live simply for a while. You have been told that. ”
Malta heaved a sigh. “I'm sorry,” she said contritely. “Sometimes I forget. I hope Papa gets home soon. I'll be so glad when things are as they are supposed to be again. ” She looked up at her mother and grandmother again and essayed a smile. “Until then, I suppose we should just be thankful for what we have. ” She sat up straight, put an agreeable look on her face, and spooned up some of the porridge.
“So. You have no thoughts on the missing dream-box?” her grandmother pressed.
Malta shook her head and swallowed. “No. Unless . . . did you ask the servants if they moved it when they tidied? Nana or Rache might know something. ”
“I put it away. It was not left out where it might be moved by chance. Someone had to come inside my room, search for it, and then remove it. ”
“Is anything else missing?” Malta asked quickly.
“Nothing. ”
Malta ate another spoonful of porridge thoughtfully. “Could it have just . . . disappeared?” she asked with a half-smile. “I know, maybe that is silly. But one hears such extravagant tales of the goods of the Rain Wild. After a time, one almost begins to believe anything is possible. ”
“No. It would not have disappeared,” her grandmother said slowly. “Even if it had been opened, it would not disappear. ”
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“How do you know so much about dream-boxes?” Malta asked curiously. She poured herself a cup of tea and sweetened it well with honey as she waited for a reply.
“A friend of mine was given one once. She opened the box and dreamed the dream. And she accepted the young man's suit. But he died before they were wed. I believe she married his brother a few years later. ”
“Ick,” observed Malta. She took another spoonful of porridge and added, “I can't imagine marrying a Rain Wilder. Even if they are supposed to be our kin, and all. Can you imagine kissing someone who was all warty? Or having breakfast with him in the morning?”
“There is more to men than how they look,” her grandmother observed coldly. “When you realize that, I may start treating you as a woman. ” She turned her disapproving stare on her own daughter now. “Well. What are we going to do?”
Malta's mother shook her head. "What can we do? Explain, most politely, that somehow the gift was lost before we could return it. But that we still cannot consider the suit, as Malta is far too young.
“We can't possibly tell them we lost his gift!” her grandmother exclaimed.
“Then what can we do? Lie? Say we are keeping it but refusing the suit anyway? Pretend we never got it and ignore the situation?” Keffria's voice was getting more and more sarcastic with each suggestion she made. “We'd only end up looking more foolish. As it was my fault, I shall write the letter, and I shall take the blame. I shall write that I had put it in a place I deemed safe, but it was gone in the morning. I shall offer most sincere apologies and reparation. But I shall also refuse the suit, and most tactfully point out that such a gift so early in a courting is scarcely appropriate. . . . ”
“By Rain Wild standards, it is,” Grandmother disagreed. “Especially for the Khuprus family. Their wealth is legendary. The boy probably considered it little more than a trinket. ”
“Mm. Maybe we should marry Malta off to him, then,” her mother offered facetiously. “We could certainly use a wealthy relative these days. ”
“Mother!” Malta exclaimed in irritation. She hated it when her mother said things like that.
“It was a joke, Malta. Don't fly into a fit about it. ” Keffria stood up from the table. “Well. This is not going to be an easy letter to compose, and I have little time if I am to get it to the Kendry before she sails. I had best get busy. ”
“Assure them that if we find the box, it will be returned,” her grandmother suggested.
“Of course. And I do intend to search my room again. But I'd best get this letter written if I am to have anything to send with the Kendry when she sails. ” Malta's mother hastened out of the room.
Malta scooped up the last spoonful of porridge from her bowl, but she was not quite fast enough.
“Malta,” her grandmother said in a soft but firm voice. “I want to ask you, one last time, if you stole the box from your mother's room. No, think before you answer. Think what this means to our family honor, to your reputation. Answer truthfully, and I promise not to be angry with you about your first lie. ” Her grandmother waited, holding her breath, watching Malta like a snake.
Malta set down her spoon. “I did not steal anything,” she said in a quivering voice. “I don't know how you can believe such things of me. What have I ever done to you, to deserve these accusations all the time? Oh, I wish my father were here, to see how I am treated while he is away. I am sure this is not the life he intended for his only daughter!”
“No. He'd have auctioned you off like a fat calf by now,” her grandmother said shortly. “Do not flap your emotions at me. You may fool your mother but you don't fool me. I tell you this plainly. If you have taken the dream-box and opened it, well, that is bad enough a hole for us to dig out of. But if you persist in lying and keep that thing . . . oh, Malta. You cannot flaunt a courtship from one of the major Trader families of the Rain Wilds. This is not a time for your childish little games. Financially, we are teetering. What has saved us thus far is that we are known for keeping our word. We don't lie, we don't cheat, we don't steal. We pay our debts honestly. But if folk lose faith in that, if they start believing we do not keep our word, then we are lost, Malta. Lost. And young as you are, you will have to help pay the forfeit for that. ”
Malta stood slowly. She flung down her spoon so it rang against her plate. “My father will be home soon, with a fat purse from his hard work. And he will pay off your debts and protect us from the ruin your stubbornness has brought us to. We'd have no problems if Grandpa had traded up the Rain Wild River, like any other man with a liveship. If you'd listened to Davad and sold off the bottom land, or at least let him use his slaves to work it for shares, we wouldn't be in this hole. It's not my stubbornness that threatens this family, but yours. ”
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Her grandmother's face had gone from stern to shock. Now her mouth was pinched white with fury. “Do you listen at doors, sweet granddaughter? To the words of a dying man to his wife? I had thought many things of you, Malta, both good and bad. But I never suspected you of being a prying little eavesdropper. ”
Malta wagged her head coldly. She made her voice sweet. “I was told it was how one became accepted as a woman in this family. To know the family holdings and finances, to be aware of both dangers and opportunities. But it seems to me you would rather risk any opportunity for the sake of keeping my father in ignorance. You don't really see him as a member of this family, do you? Oh, he's fine for fathering children and keeping my mother content. But you want nothing of him beyond that. Because then he might threaten your own plan. To keep power and control for yourself, even if it means ruin for the family. ” Malta had not known the depth of her own anger until she heard it poured out as venom.
Her grandmother's voice was shaking as she replied. “If your father is ignorant of our ways, it is because he never took the time to lear
n them. If he had, I would not be so fearful of the power he already wields, Malta. ” The woman took a breath. “You show me, here and now, that you have understanding I did not suspect in you. If you had shown us the depth of your understanding before, perhaps your mother and I would have seen you as more adult than child. For now, understand this. When Ephron . . . when your grandfather died, I could have retained far more control of the family fortune than I did. His wish was that Althea have the ship. Not Keffria and your father. It was I who persuaded him that your father would be a better choice for captain. Would I have done that, if my hope were to keep control for myself? If I opposed your father being a full member of this family? I believed in his stability and wisdom. But he was not content to inherit. He brought too much change, too fast, with no real understanding of what he was changing, or why such change would be bad. He never consulted any of us about it. Suddenly, it was all his own will and what he thought was best. I do not keep him in ignorance, Malta. His ignorance is a fortress he has built himself and defended savagely. ”
Malta listened, but it was almost against her will. Her grandmother was too clever for her. She knew there were lies hidden there, she knew the old woman was twisting the truth about her handsome, dashing, bold father. But she wasn't smart enough to unravel the deception. So she forced a smile to her lips. “Then you won't mind if I tell him what I know, to dispel his ignorance that offends you so. You won't mind if I tell him there never were any charts of the Rain Wild River. That the quickened ship is her own guide. Surely I should dispel that ignorance for him. ”
She watched her grandmother's face closely, to see how she would take Malta knowing this secret. But the old woman's face did not betray her. She shook her head. “You make a threat, child, and you don't even know that you threaten yourself. There are both costs and dangers to dealing with the Rain Wild Traders. Our kin they are, and I speak no ill against them. The bargains we have struck with them I will keep. But Ephron and I long ago decided that we would make no new bargains, no new commitments with them. Because we wanted our children and our grandchildren, yes, even you, to make their own decisions. So we lived a harder life than we needed to, and our debts were not paid off as swiftly as they might have been. We did not mind the sacrifice. ” Her grandmother's voice began to quaver wildly. “We sacrificed for you, you spitting little cat. And now I look at you and wonder why. Chalcedean salt water runs in your veins, not Bingtown blood. ”
The old woman turned and rushed from the room. There was no dignity and strength in her retreat. Malta knew that meant she had won. She had faced her down, once and for all, and now they all would have to treat Malta differently. She had won, she had proved her will was as strong as her grandmother's. And she didn't care, not really, about that last thing her grandmother had said. It was all a lie anyway, about sacrifices made for her. It was all a lie.
A lie. And that was another thing. She hadn't meant to lie to her about the box. She wouldn't have done it, if the old woman had not been so sure she had both stolen it and lied about it. If Ronica Vestrit had looked at her and wondered a little if she were innocent, Malta would have told her the truth. But what was the good of telling people the truth when they already believed you were wicked and the truth would just prove it to them? She might just as well lie twice and be the liar and thief that her grandmother not only believed she was, but hoped she was. Yes, that was true, her grandmother wanted her to be bad and wicked, because then she'd feel justified in the horrid way she treated Malta's father. It was all her grandmother's own fault. If you treated people badly, then it all just came back on you.
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“Malta?” The voice was very soft, very gentle. A hand came to rest tenderly on her shoulder. “Are you all right, my dear?”
Malta whirled, seizing up her porridge bowl and dashing it at the floor at Rache's feet. “I hate porridge! Don't serve it to me again! I don't care what else you have to cook for me, don't serve me porridge. And don't touch me! You don't have the right. Now clean that up and leave me alone!”
She pushed the shocked slave out of the way and stormed out of the room. Slaves. They were so stupid. About everything.
“Paragon. There's something I have to talk to you about. ”
Amber had spent the afternoon with him. She'd brought a lantern with her, and explored inside him. She'd walked slowly through his hold, the captain's chamber, the chart room, every compartment inside his hull. In the course of it, she'd asked many questions, some of which he could answer, others he would not or could not. She'd found the things that Brashen had left and boldly arranged them to suit herself. “Some night I'll come out here and sleep with you, shall I?” she had proposed. “We'll stay up late and tell each other stories until dawn. ” She'd been intensely interested in every odd bit of junk she found. A bag with dice in it, still tucked up in a crack where some sailor had hidden it so he could game on watch and not be caught. A scratched out message on one bulkhead. "Three days, Sa help us all, it read, and she had wanted to know who had carved it and why. She had been most curious about the blood stains. She had gone from one to another, counting up to seventeen irregular blotches on his deck and in various holds. She had missed six others, but he didn't tell her that, nor would he recall for her the day that blood had been shed or the names of those who had fallen. And in the captain's quarters she had found the locked compartment that should have held his log books, but did not. The lock was long shattered, even the plank door splintered and torn awry. The logs that should have been his memory were gone, all stolen away. Amber had picked at that like a gull at a body. Was that why he would not answer her questions? Did he have to have his logs to remember? Yes? Well, then, how did he remember her visits, or Mingsley's? He had no log of those things.
He had shrugged. “A dozen years from now, when you have lost interest in me and no longer come to visit, I shall probably have forgotten you as well. You do not stop to think that you are asking me of events that most likely occurred long before you were born. Why don't you tell me about your childhood. How well do you remember your infancy?”
“Not very well. ” She changed the subject abruptly. “Do you know what I did yesterday? I went to Davad Restart and made an offer to buy you. ”
Her words jolted him into silence. Then he coldly replied, “Davad Restart cannot sell me. He does not own me. Nor can a liveship be bought and sold at all, save from kin to kin, and then only in dire circumstance. ”
It was Amber's turn to be silent. “Somehow, I thought you would know of these things. Well. If you do not, then you should, for they concern you. Paragon, among the New Traders, there have been rumors for months that you are for sale. Davad is acting as the intermediary. At first, your family was stipulating that you must not be used as a ship any longer because they . . . they didn't want to held responsible for any deaths. . . . ” Her voice trailed off. “Paragon. How frankly can I speak to you? Sometimes you are so thoughtful and wise. Other times . . . ”
“So you offered to buy me? Why? What will you make from my body? Beads? Furniture?” His edge of control was very thin, his words sharp with sarcasm. How dare she!
“No,” she said with a heavy sigh. Almost to herself she muttered, “I feared this. ” She took a deep breath. “I would keep you as you are and where you are. Those were the terms of my offer. ”
“Chained here? Beached forever? For seagulls to shit on, and crabs to scuttle beneath? Beached here until all of me that is not wizardwood rots away and I fall apart into screaming pieces?”
“Paragon!” She cried out the word, in a voice between pain and anger. “Stop this. Stop it now! You must know I would never let that befall you. You have to listen to me, you have to let me talk until you've heard it all. Because I think I will need your help. If you go off now into wild accusations and suspicions, I cannot help you. And more than anything, I want to help you. ” Her voice went lower and softer on those words. She drew
another deep breath. “So. Can you listen to me? Will you give me at least a chance to explain myself?”
“Explain,” he said coldly. Lie and make excuses. Deceive and betray. He'd listen. He'd listen and gather what weapons he could to defend himself against all of them.
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“Oh, Paragon,” she said hoarsely. She put a palm flat to his hull. He tried to ignore this touch, to ignore the deep feeling that thrummed through her. “The Ludluck family, your family, has come on hard times. Very hard times. It is the same for many of the Old Trader families. There are many factors: slave labor, the wars in the north . . . but that doesn't matter to us. What matters is that your family needs money now, the New Traders know that, and they seek to buy you. Do not think ill of the Ludlucks. They resisted many offers. But when finally the money offered was very high, then they specified that they could not sell to anyone who wished to actually use you as a ship. ” He could almost feel her shake her head. “To the New Traders, that simply meant that your family wanted more money, much more money, before they would sell you as a working ship. ”
She took a deep breath and tried to go on more calmly. “Now, about then, I began to hear rumors that the only ship that can go up the Rain Wild River and come back intact is a liveship. Something about your wizardwood being impervious to the caustic white floods that sometimes come down the river. Which makes sense in light of how long you have rested here and not rotted, and it makes me understand why families would go into debt for generations to possess a ship like you. It is the only way to participate in the trade on the Rain Wild River. So now, as that rumor has crept about, the offers have risen. The New Traders who bid on you promise they will blame no one if you roll, and bid against each other. ” She paused. “Paragon, do you hear me?” she asked quietly.
“I hear you,” he replied as he gazed out sightlessly over the ocean. He kept all expression out of his voice as he added, “Do go on. ”
“I will. Because you should know this, not because I take pleasure in it. So far, the Ludlucks have still refused all offers. I think perhaps they fear what the other Old Traders might think of them, if they sold you and opened up the Rain Wild River trade to the newcomers. Those goods are the last complete bastion of the Bingtown Traders. Or perhaps, despite their neglect of you, there still remains some family feeling. So. I made an offer. Not as great as the others have bid, for I don't have the wealth they do. But coupled with my offer was my promise that you would remain intact and unsailed. For I think the Ludlucks still care about you. That in an odd way, they keep you here to keep you safe. ”
