by Robin Hobb
Caern's boot heels tapped briskly across the floor. Ronica imagined that he had returned to stand before the Companion. "You are obviously unused to being on your own. You need a protector here in Bingtown. We marry. In return for my protection, my name and my home, you share power with me. What could be simpler?"
The Companion's voice was low and incredulous. "You presume too much, Trader's son!"
Roed laughed. "Do I? I doubt you will get a better offer. By Bingtown standards, you are nearly an old maid. Look ahead, Serilla, more than a week or a month. Eventually these troubles will pass. Then what will become of you? You cannot return to Jamaillia. A man would have to be blind and deaf to imagine that you cherished your role as Companion to Satrap Cosgo. So. What will you do? Remain here in Bingtown, to live in social isolation among a people who would never completely accept you? Eventually you would become an elderly woman, alone and childless. Trader Restart's home and pantry will not always be at your disposal. Where will you live, and how?"
"As you have suggested, I will have the Satrap's voice here in Bingtown. I will use my authority to create my own living circumstances." Ronica almost smiled to hear the Companion stand up to Roed Caern.
"Ah. I see." The amusement was undisguised. "You imagine you will be a woman living independently in Bingtown."
"And why not? I see other women managing their own affairs and exercising their own authority. Consider Ronica Vestrit, for instance."
"Yes. Let us consider Ronica Vestrit." Roed's voice cut impatiently across hers. "We should keep our minds to the matters at hand. Soon enough, you will realize that I have made you a handsome offer. Until then, our minds should focus on the Satrap. We have had reason before this to suspect the Vestrits. Consider the antics Davad Restart went through to put Malta Vestrit before the Satrap's eyes at the ball. If Malta Vestrit whisked the Satrap away from the Rain Wilders, it is part of the conspiracy's plan. Perhaps they will bring him back to Bingtown to side with the New Traders. Perhaps he flees from the river to the sea, to bring his Chalcedean allies down on us with flame and war machines."
Silence fell. Ronica opened her lips and drew a long silent breath. Malta? What was this talk of her taking the Satrap? It made no sense. It could not be true. Malta could not be mixed up in this. Yet she felt with a sinking certainty that she was.
"We still have a weapon." Roed's voice broke into Ronica's speculations. "If this is a conspiracy, we have a hostage." His next words confirmed Ronica's worst fears. "We hold the girl's grandmother. Her life is forfeit to the girl's cooperation with us. Even if she cares nothing for her own family, there is her fortune to consider. We can confiscate her family home, threaten to destroy it. The Vestrit girl has friends within the Bingtown Traders. She is not immune to 'persuasion'."
A silence followed his words. When the Companion spoke again, her voice was lifted in outrage. "How can you consider such a thing? What would you do? Seize her right here, under my own roof?"
"These are harsh times!" Roed's voice rang with conviction. "Gentleness will not restore Bingtown. We must be willing to take harsh actions for the sake of our homeland. I am not alone in this idea. Traders' sons can often see what their dim-eyed fathers cannot. In the end, when the rightful folk of Bingtown once more rule here, all will know we did right. We have begun to make the oldsters on the Council see our strength. It does not go well for those who act against us. But let us set that aside."
"The rightful folk of Bingtown?"
Ronica had no chance to hear who Roed considered the rightful folk of Bingtown. The creak of a distant door warned her just in time. Someone was coining this way. Light-footed as a child, she sprang away from her eavesdropping, raced down the hall and whisked herself into a guest parlor. She halted there, standing in the shuttered dimness, her heart thundering in her ears. For moments, all she could hear was the sound of her body's panic. Then, as her heart calmed and her breathing steadied, other noises came to her ears, the small sounds of the great house awakening. Her ear to the cracked door of the parlor, she heard a servant deliver breakfast to Davad's study. She waited, aching with impatience, until she heard the woman dismissed. Ronica gave her time to return to the kitchen, then hastened from her hiding place back to her rooms.
Rache opened befuddled eyes as Ronica gently closed the door behind her. "Wake up," Ronica told her softly. "We must gather our things and flee immediately."
Serilla felt pathetically grateful for the interruption of the maid with the coffee and rolls. Roed glared at the interruption, but he also fell silent. Only in the silence did she feel she could truly think her own thoughts.
When Roed was in the room, when he stood so tall and spoke so strongly, she found herself nodding at him. Only later would she be able to recall what he had been saying, and feel ashamed that she had agreed.
He frightened her. When he had revealed that he knew she secretly hoped to seize the Satrap's power, she had nearly fainted. When he had calmly assumed he could take her to wife, and sidestepped her affront with amusement, she had felt suffocated. Even now, her hands were damp with perspiration and trembling in her lap. Her heart had been shaking her body since her maid had wakened her and told her that Roed was below, demanding to see her immediately. She had flung on her clothing, snapping at the woman when she tried to help her. There had been no time to dress her hair properly. She had brushed it out roughly, twisted it up tightly and pinned it to her head. She felt as untidy as a lax housemaid.
Yet a tiny spark of pride burned inside her. She had stood up to him. If the shadow she had glimpsed at the door's crack had been Ronica, she had warned her. She had suspected someone was outside the door, just at the moment when he made his outrageous marriage proposal. Somehow, the thought that Ronica might be overhearing his brash offer had given Serilla the composure to rebuff him. It had stirred shame in her, that the Bingtown Trader woman might overhear Roed speaking so to her. The shame had metamorphosed into artificial courage. She had defied Roed by warning Ronica. And he didn't even know it.
She sat rigidly stiff at Davad's desk as the servant set out a breakfast of coffee and fresh sweet rolls from the kitchen. Any other morning, the fragrant coffee and the rich aroma of the warm rolls would have been appetizing. With Roed standing there, simmering with impatience, the smell of the food left her queasy. Would he guess what she had done? Worse, would she regret it later? In the days she had known Ronica Vestrit, she had begun to respect her. Even if the Trader woman was a traitor to Jamaillia, Serilla wanted no part of her capture and torture. The memory of her own experiences assaulted her. Just as casually as Roed had spoken of «persuading» Ronica, so had the Satrap turned her over to the Chalcedean captain.
As soon as the serving woman left Roed strode over to the food and began to help himself. "We can't waste time, Companion. We must be prepared before the Satrap arrives with the Chalcedeans on his leash."
It was more likely to be the other way, she thought, but was unable to voice the words. Why, oh why, had her moment of courage fled? She could not even think logically when he was in the room. She didn't believe what he said; she knew she was more politically experienced than he, and more capable of analyzing the situation, but somehow she could not act on that thought. While he was in the room, she felt trapped in his world, his thoughts. His reality.
He was frowning at her. She had not been paying attention. He had said something and she had not responded. What had he said? Her mind scrabbled frantically backward but could find nothing. She could only stare at him in mounting dismay.
"Well, if you don't want coffee, shall I summon the servant for tea?"
She found her tongue. "No, please don't trouble yourself. Coffee is fine, really."
Before she could move, he was pouring for her. She watched as he stirred honey and cream into it, far too much for her taste, but she said nothing. He put a sweet bun on a plate as well and brought them to her. As he set them before her, he asked bluntly, "Companion, are you well? You look p
ale."
The muscles stood out in his tanned forearms. The knuckles of his hand rose in hard ridges. She lifted her cup hastily and sipped from it. When she set it down, she tried to speak with a steady voice. Her reply was stiff. "I am fine. Please. Continue."
"Mingsley's overtures of peace are a farce, a distraction to keep us busy while they muster their forces. They know of the Satrap's escape, and probably in more detail than we do. Also, I am certain the Vestrits have been involved in this from the beginning. Consider how that old woman tried to discredit us at the Traders' Council meeting! It was to shift attention away from her own treachery."
"Mingsley—" Serilla began.
"Is not to be trusted. Rather, we shall use him. Let us allow him to make overtures of truce. Let us appear even eager to meet him. Then, when we have drawn him out far enough, let us chop him off." Roed made a sharp gesture with his hand.
Serilla summoned all her courage. "There is a discrepancy. Ronica Vestrit has cautioned me not to trust Mingsley. Surely if she were in league with him…"
"She would do all she could to appear not to be," Roed finished decisively. His dark eyes glinted with anger.
Serilla drew a breath and stiffened her spine. "Ronica has urged me, often, to structure a peace in which all of Bingtown's factions have a say. Not just the Old Traders and the New, but the slaves and the Three Ships folks and the other immigrants. She insists we must make all a party to a truce in order to achieve a fairly won peace."
"Then she is damned by her own tongue!" Roed Caern declared decisively. "Such talk is traitorous to Bingtown, the Traders and Jamaillia. We should all have known the Vestrits had gone rotten when they allowed their daughter to marry a foreigner, and a Chalcedean at that. That is how far back this conspiracy reaches. Years and years of their plotting and making a profit at Bingtown's expense. The old man never traded up the Rain Wild River. Did you know that? What Trader in his right mind, owner of a liveship, would forego an opportunity like that? Yet, he kept making money, somehow. Where? From whom? They take a Chalcedean half-breed into their own family. That looks like a clue to me. Does that not make you suspect that, from the very beginning, the Vestrits had abandoned their loyalties to Bingtown?"
He stacked his points up too quickly. She felt bludgeoned by his logic. She found herself nodding and with an effort, stopped. She managed to say, "But to make peace in Bingtown, there must be some sort of accord reached with all the folk who live here. There must."
He surprised her by nodding. "Exactly. You are right. But say rather, all the folk who should live here. The Old Traders. The Three Ships immigrants, who made pacts with us when they got here. And those who have arrived since, in ones and twos and families, to take up our ways and live by our laws, while recognizing that they can never become Bingtown Traders. That is a mix we can live with. If we expel the New Traders and their slaves, our economy will be restored. Let the Bingtown Traders take up the lands that were wrongfully granted to the New Traders, as reparation for the Satrap breaking his word to us. Then all will be right again in Bingtown."
It was a child's logic, too simplistic to be real. Make it all go back to the way it was before, he proposed. Could not he see that history was not a cup of tea, to be poured back into a pot? She tried again, forcing strength she did not feel into her voice. "It does not seem fair to me. The slaves had no say in being brought here. Perhaps—"
"It is fair. They will have no say in being sent away from Bingtown, either. It balances exactly. Let them go away and become the problem of those who brought them here. Otherwise, they will continue to run wild in the streets, looting and vandalizing and robbing honest folk."
A tiny spark of her old spirit flared up in her. She spoke without thinking. "But how do you propose to do all this?" she demanded. "Simply tell them to go away? I doubt they will obey."
For an instant, Caern looked shocked. A shadow of doubt flickered through his eyes. Then his narrow lip curled disdainfully. "I'm not stupid," he spat. "There will be bloodshed. I know that. There are other Traders and Traders' sons who stand with me. We have discussed this. We all accept that there must be bloodshed before this is over. It is the price our ancestors paid for Bingtown. Now it is our turn, and pay we shall, if we must. But our intent is that it shall not be our own blood that is spilled. Oh, no." He drew in a breath and paced a quick turn about the study.
"This is what you must do. We will call an emergency meeting of the Traders — no, not all of them, only the Council heads. You will announce to them our grievous tidings: that the Satrap is missing in a Trehaug quake, and we fear he is dead. So you have decided to act on your own, to quell the unrest in Bingtown. Tell them that we must have a peace pact with the New Traders, but specify that it must be ratified by every New Trader family. We will send word to Mingsley that we are ready to discuss terms, but that every New Trader family must send a representative to the negotiations. They must come under truce, unarmed and without menservants or guards of any kind. To the Bingtown Concourse. Once we have them there, we can close our trap. We will tell the New Traders that they must all depart peacefully from our shores, forfeiting all their holdings, or the hostages will pay the price. Leave it to them how they manage it, but let it be known that the hostages will be set free in a ship to join them only after all of them are a day's sail from Bingtown Harbor. Then…"
"Are you truly prepared to kill all the hostages if they don't agree?" Serilla could find no more strength for her voice.
"It won't come to that," he assured her immediately. "And if it does, it will be the doing of their own folk, not us. If they force us to it… but you know they will not." He spoke too quickly. Did he seek to reassure her, or himself?
She tried to find the courage to tell him how foolish he was. He was a large boy spouting violent nonsense. She'd been a fool ever to rely on him for anything. Too late she had found that this tool had sharp edges. She must discard him before he did any more damage. Yet she could not. He stood before her, nostrils flared, fists knotted at his sides, and she could sense the anger seething behind his calm mask, the anger that powered his so-righteous hatred. If she spoke against him, he might turn that anger on her. The only thing she could think of to do was to flee.
She stood slowly, trying to appear calm. "Thank you for bringing me this news, Roed. Now I must take some time to myself to think it through." She inclined her head to him gravely, hoping he would bow in his turn and then depart.
Instead, he shook his head. "You have no time to debate with yourself on this, Companion. Circumstances force us to act now. Compose the letters summoning the Council heads here. Then summon a servant to deliver your messages. I myself will take the Vestrit woman into custody. Tell me which room is hers." A sudden frown divided his brows. "Or has she swayed you to her cause? Do you think you would gain more power if you allied with the New Trader conspiracy?"
Of course. Any opposition to him would prompt him to classify her as an enemy. Then he would be just as ruthless with her as he was prepared to be with Ronica. The Vestrit woman had made him afraid when she stood up to him.
Had it been Ronica in the hall? Had she heard the warning and understood it? Had the old woman had time to flee? Had Serilla done anything to save her, or was she sacrificing her to save herself?
Roed's fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides restlessly. Too clearly, she could imagine his brutal clasp on the Trader woman's thin wrist. Yet she could not stop him. He would only hurt her if she tried: he was too large and too strong, too fearsomely male. She could not think with him in the room, and this errand would make him go away for a time. It would not be her fault, any more than Davad Restart's death had been her fault. She had done what she could, hadn't she? But what if the shadow at the door had not been anyone at all? What if the old woman still slept? Her mouth had gone dry, but a stranger spoke the horrifying words. "Top of the stairs. The fourth door on the left. Davad's room."
Roed left, his boots clacking purpos
efully as he strode away from her.
Serilla watched him go. After he was out of sight, she curled forward, her head in her hands. It wasn't her fault, she tried to console herself. No one could have come through what she had experienced unscathed. It wasn't her fault. Like a rebuking ghost, Ronica's words came to her: "That is the challenge, Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it, instead of being trapped by it."
To know the layout of Bingtown, Ronica reflected bitterly, was not the same as knowing its geography. With a tearless sob, she caught her breath at the sight of the deep ravine that cut her path. She had chosen to lead Rache this way, through the woods behind Davad's house. She knew that if they hiked straight through the woods to the sea, they would come to the humble section of Bingtown where the Three Ships families made their homes. She had seen it often on the map in Ephron's study. But the map had not shown this ravine winding through the woods, nor the marshy trickle of water at the bottom of it. She halted, staring down at it. "Perhaps we should have gone by the road," she offered Rache miserably. She wrapped her dripping shawl more closely about her shoulders.
"By the road, they'd have ridden us down in no time. No. You were wise to come this way." The serving woman took Ronica's hand suddenly, set it on her arm and patted it comfortingly. "Let's follow the flow of the water. Either we will come to a place where animals cross this, or it will lead us to the beach. From the beach, we can always follow the shoreline to where the fishing boats are hauled out."
Rache led the way and Ronica followed her gratefully. Twiggy bushes, bare of leaves, caught at their skirts and shawls, but Rache pushed gamely onward through sword ferns and dripping salal. Cedars towered overhead, catching most of the rain, but an occasional low bough dumped its load on them. They carried nothing. There had been no time to pack anything. If the Three Ships folk turned them away, they'd be sleeping outdoors tonight with no more shelter than their own skins.
