by Robin Hobb
Rain still streamed down the tavern window. The uniform grayness 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 harbormaster 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 rain water draining from the street down to the harbor. 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 garb. Some of the languages she overheard she did not even recognize. Many folk 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 colored 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 willful virago who 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 who 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. Whe
re did that leave her? For one treacherous instant, she wondered if she were free. If Vivacia was 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 harbor, or did his outstretched wings send him sliding aloft on an updraft? 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 unawares. 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, 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, shifting 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."
The long-ago horror of the star being cut into his chest was eclipsed by the memory of a thousand inky needle-pricks jabbing the same emblem into his hip. He began to tremble. Every plank in his body shuddered. The calm waters of the lagoon shivered against him.
"Paragon. Steady, steady. It will be all right. Say nothing." Amber spoke swiftly, trying to calm him, but her words could not take away the ancient sting.
"Star or not, I'm right. I know I am." The man in the boat below sounded very smug. "The chopped face is a dead giveaway. Moreover, it's a liveship, same as I've always heard the tales say. Hey! Hey, ship! You were Igrot's ship, weren't you?"
The insult of that vile lie was too much to bear. Too often had it been flung at him, too many times he had been forced to mouth it for the boy's sake. Never again. Never!
"NO!" He roared the word. "Not I!" He snatched at the air in front of him, hoping that his tormentors were within reach. "I was never Igrot's ship! Never! Never! Never!" He shouted the word until it rang in his own ears, drowning out every other lie. Below and above and within him, he heard confused shouts. Bare feet thundered on his decks but he didn't care anymore. "Never! Never! Never!"
He barked the word out, over and over, until he could think of nothing else. If he never stopped saying it, then they could never ask him anything again. If they didn't ask, he couldn't tell. He could at least be that true to his word and his family.
They meandered down the street in easy companionship. The rain had eased and a few stars were starting to show in the deep blue edge of the sky. The taverns were setting their lanterns out. Candlelight glowed behind the shuttered windows of small homes. Brashen's arm was across her shoulders, and Althea's was about his waist. Their day had gone well. Divvytown seemed to have accepted them at their word. If the information they had gathered was confusing, it still confirmed one thing. Kennit would return to Divvytown. Soon.
Establishing that had required several rounds of drink at the final tavern. They were now making their way back to the ship's boat. They had not yet decided whether to slip quietly out of Divvytown tomorrow, or to stay on, perhaps even await Kennit's return. The chance of ransoming Vivacia seemed small; deceit seemed a likelier tack. There were too many possible courses of action. Time to go back to the ship and consider them all.
Foot traffic in the town dwindled as folk sought shelter for the night. As they wended their way down the wooden boardwalk, a couple ahead of them turned into the door of
a small house and shut the door firmly behind them. A few moments later, dim candlelight shone from within.
"I wish we were them," Althea observed wistfully.
Brashen's stride checked, then slowed. He pulled her around to face him and offered quietly, "I could find us a room somewhere."
She shook her head regretfully. "The crew is waiting down at the boat. We told them to be there by nightfall. If we're late, they'll assume something has gone wrong."
"Let them wait." He bent his head and kissed her hungrily. In the chill night, his mouth was tauntingly warm. She made a small frustrated sound. "Come here," he said gruffly. He stepped off the boardwalk into the thick dark of the alley and drew her after him. In the deep shadows, he pressed her back up against a wall and kissed her more leisurely. His hands wandered down her back to her hips. With abrupt ease, he lifted her. When his body pressed hers to the wall, she could feel the jut of his desire. "Here?" he asked her thickly.
She wanted him but this was too dangerous. "Perhaps if I were wearing a skirt. But I'm not." She pushed gently away from him and he let her down, but kept her pinned against the wall. She did not struggle. His kiss and his touch were more intoxicating than the brandy they had shared. His mouth tasted of liquor and lust.
He broke the kiss suddenly, lifting his head like a stag at bay. "What's that?"
It was like waking from a dream. "What's what?" She felt dazed.
"That shouting. Do you hear it? From the harbor."
The faint repetitive cries came to her ears. She could not make out the word, but with icy certainty, she knew the voice. "Paragon." She stuffed her shirt back into her waistband. "Let's go."
Side by side, they thundered down the boardwalk. There was no sense going quietly. Shouting was not unusual in a town like Divvytown, but eventually it would attract attention. Paragon was crying the same word over and over again.
