by Hobb, Robin
Bellin got up heavily, drank the last of her coffee, and hung her mug on the rack. She unlatched the door to the crew quarters, and then the one to the deck, and left him there. The wind banged the door shut behind her.
Leftrin sat for a time longer, his mug cradled in his hands. He heard a woman’s voice out on the deck. Tillamon. He leaned to look out the small window and saw her smiling. She was unveiled and her hair was free to the wind. Today there was a break in the rain, and sun actually shone on the decks. “But how do you know where it’s deep enough for him and where it’s too deep?” she was demanding of someone.
“Well, you just look at the river’s face, and you know.” Hennesey. With a lilt in his voice that Leftrin had never heard before. “When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you can tell just by looking.”
Leftrin stepped to where he could see Hennesey’s face. Yes. There were some times when you could tell the depth of something just by looking. “Oh, Hennesey,” he said under his breath. “Best I tell you to talk to Reyn. Better you ask permission to court now than later.”
He wondered what the Elderling would say to his first mate.
A knock sounded at the cabin door. Hest sighed and rolled over on the narrow bed. “What is it?” he snapped.
“It’s just me!” Redding replied cheerily. The door opened and he entered, walking carefully, a tea tray in his hands. He caught the door with his heel and tried to flip it shut, stumbled, and barely managed to land the tray on the small table as he caught his balance. Remaining slightly hunched, he braced his hands on the table. “We’re nearing Trehaug, and I still haven’t got my sea legs,” he announced with a wan smile.
“We’re on a river, man. The ship scarcely rocks at all. It’s not as if we’re contending with waves.” Hest rolled onto his back to stare at the low ceiling. These new ships might be impervious to the river’s acid, but the shipwright had given far too little thought to passenger comfort, despite being Jamaillian. The captain had explained to him that they were intended for the swift transport of freight, but even so! It vexed him to know that the captain and the first and second mates on the New Glory had more luxurious accommodations than he did. Doubtless they cared not at all how he suffered. There wasn’t even a common area for sharing meals or a friendly game of chance. He and Redding had been forced to take their meals in their tiny room. For entertainment, one could stroll a bit on the deck, and that was it. Much of the ship was off-limits to passengers. They’d have to change that if they wished to build a brisk passenger trade in the future!
“No. I mean, yes, you’re right. I’m just not accustomed to the floor moving at all.” Redding waited for a response, and when Hest gave none, he smiled too brightly and said, “Well, I suppose this will be our final meal on this part of our adventure. We should dock before nightfall. I’m quite looking forward to seeing Trehaug. I hope the weather clears a bit, and we finally get a chance to socialize. This is my first visit to the Rain Wilds, you know.”
“Don’t anticipate great things and you won’t be disappointed,” Hest observed sourly. He swung his long legs off the bed and stood up carefully. “Don’t expect the weather to clear. It’s rained for days, and I expect it will continue to rain. As for touring Trehaug—hah! Rain Wild cities are scarcely worthy of the name. There are a few buildings of substance on the big low branches and then residences that are strung about in the trees like random fruit, but there is little of the conveniences of civilization. They look down on the folk of the Six Duchies and the other northern countries, but in truth, the Rain Wilders are just as backward and provincial. The only reason to come here is to buy Elderling artifacts and magical goods. It’s the only thing that keeps these cities alive.”
Hest wandered over to the small table and perched on a chair. As soon as he was seated, Redding plopped into his own chair and took up his napkin. Plainly he was famished, as he was at every meal. He licked his lips and gave an anticipatory wriggle as he eyed the covered dishes. The man wallowed in his pleasures with no pretense of disciplining his appetites. His blatant greed and venality had initially intrigued Hest after years of Sedric’s careful manners and public restraint, but of late, Redding’s obsequiousness and unsubtle pleas for gifts and bribes had begun to chafe. The man had absolutely no shame. As a result, he was actually more difficult to manipulate than Sedric had been. Implied threats of pain seemed to motivate him best. But even that amusement was beginning to pall. The man had proven a poor replacement for Sedric. Bringing him along had been merely a matter of realizing that there was no one else available at such short notice and knowing how much it would irritate his father when he saw Redding’s passage billed to his account.
Hest poured himself some tea and lifted the lid on a dish. He shook his head. Why did they even bother to cover the food? It wasn’t hot, and it was exactly the same thing they had offered him every day of his journey. A loaf of brown bread sweetened with molasses had been sliced and buttered. The other dish on the tray held slices of smoked ham, a wedge of indifferent cheese, and half a dozen little sausages. He didn’t uncover the third dish. It would be boiled potatoes. He was so bored with the food he could scarcely bring himself to put it on his plate, but Redding seemed to have no such problem. He served himself quickly, as if fearful that Hest would eat more than his share, and then immediately filled his mouth. Hest sipped his tea. Warm, but not hot. And useless to complain about it.
Well, they would dock in a few hours and he would find a decent lodging in Trehaug. One more day to be finished with all this horrid mess that Sedric had left him. In Trehaug, he’d have a good meal and a proper sleep, and then finally he’d take on his unwelcome errand from the nameless Chalcedean assassin. His gut tightened whenever he thought of the man. The pain, the ignominy, the humiliation . . .
The poison had dropped Hest. Ched had not come, despite his feeble cries for help. But someone else had. The Chalcedean had entered the room as if he owned it and stood over Hest with a smile. “I’ve come to watch you die,” he’d said and pulled one of Hest’s armchairs around to where he might sit in it and watch Hest squirm on the floor. After that, he had said not a word. He’d watched Hest vomit until it seemed there was not a drop of bile or even moisture left in his body. He’d witnessed Hest begging for help until he could no longer form words.
Only then had he stood and produced, from his waistcoat pocket, a tiny glass flask with a bluish liquid in the bottom. “It’s not too late,” the Chalcedean had told him. He swirled the pale liquid in the tiny flask. “Not quite. But nearly. I could bring you back from the brink. If I thought you’d stop being stupid. Which I don’t. Think hard, Bingtown Trader. What could you do, right now, that might make me think I should save you?”
Hest was curled around his belly. Fiery knives were trapped inside it and trying to slash their way out. He had soiled himself and ruined the rug; he stank and he was dying and it hurt. He could think of nothing he could do, though he would have been willing to do anything to stop the pain he was enduring.
The Chalcedean nudged him with his boot. “I know you, Trader. Such a fine fellow, such a fancy fellow. I know the people you visit, and I know how you amuse yourself. I do not understand why you find it amusing, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? You like to think yourself the master, don’t you?” He’d stooped down then, seized the hair on top of Hest’s head, and twisted it to force Hest to look up at him. “It arouses you, doesn’t it?” the Chalcedean had asked him knowingly. “To think you are in charge. To make others grovel before you take your pleasure from them. But now I am showing you an important thing, aren’t I?”
The Chalcedean had crouched down even lower to put his face close to Hest’s. He was smiling as he whispered, “You aren’t the master. You pretend. The people who you play with, they are pretending, too, my little friend. They, like me, know that you are not really the master. I am the master. You are just a dog, like them. A shit-sniffing, boot-licking dog.”
He
had released his grip on Hest’s hair, let his head thump back onto the soiled rug, then had walked three paces away and suggested softly, “Why don’t you show me that you know what you are, Trader Hest?
Hest hated recalling what came after that. Despite the stabbing pain in his belly, despite his shrieking pride, he had wanted to live. He had dragged himself through his own vomit to where the assassin stood, smiling slightly. He had licked the man’s boot. Not once or twice, but like a dog, lapping at it over and over until the Chalcedean had stepped away. He had pulled an embroidered cloth from Hest’s lamp stand and used it to wipe Hest’s spittle from his boot before tossing it disdainfully aside.
“You may live,” he pronounced at last and threw the little vial to Hest. But as it fell, the stopper came free. The precious liquid spattered out as the vial struck the rug and rolled away. With feeble twitching hands, Hest had grasped at it, spilling still more, so that when he finally held it to his parched lips, only drops remained. He sucked at them, and when the Chalcedean laughed aloud, he knew he had been cheated. But he would not be cheated, he would not die! He scrabbled onto his belly and sucked at the drops that had fallen to the rug while the Chalcedean laughed even louder. He tasted dirt and the fiber of the carpet and only the barest trace of moisture. He had rolled away from it, feeling grit and filth on his lips. Tears had begun in his eyes.
As they slid down his cheeks, the Chalcedean had spoken. “Water. Water with a touch of dye in it. That’s all my ‘antidote’ was. You aren’t dying. You never were dying. You will suffer for a few more hours. You will feel ill for a day after that, but you will go out anyway, to book your passage to Trehaug on a ship called New Glory. It’s not a liveship; it’s a new sort of ship, out of Jamaillia. That is the one you will choose. You will hear from me one more time before you depart. There will be messages for you to deliver. And when I return, you will remember that you are not only stupid but my dog, and that I am your master.”
He’d walked over to Hest and set his boot on his belly. The pressure was an agony, and Hest had nodded numbly. Helpless fury had seethed inside him, but he had nodded.
And he had obeyed.
The nasty trophies in the pretty boxes were well wrapped in Redding’s luggage. Hest didn’t want to take the chance of any smell permeating his clothes. Redding had no idea of the contents.
The Chalcedean had kept his word. In the dark of night, he had materialized in Hest’s bedchamber and forced him to kneel while memorizing a list of contact names in Trehaug and Cassarick. When Hest had attempted to write the information down, the Chalcedean had threatened to carve the names into his thighs so he could consult them there without risk of dropping an incriminating list. Hest had chosen to memorize the names.
When he had tried to ask questions, to discover more of his task, the Chalcedean had slapped him. Hard. “A dog does not need to know his master’s mind. He sits. He fetches. He brings to his master’s feet the bloody, dead game. And that is as much as he needs to know. He will be told what he is to do when he is to do it.”
The lack of knowledge ate at Hest like a canker. Who were the men he must contact and what would they demand of him in return? Only one name was familiar. Begasti Cored. Sedric’s Chalcedean trader. He clung to that bit of knowledge with every speck of anger in his heart. The Chalcedean trader would lead him to Sedric.
He looked forward to that. He looked forward to humiliating Sedric as he had been humbled, to threatening him as he had been threatened. Whenever he thought of it, his heart beat faster and the muscles in his belly tightened. There was, he decided, only one way to purge himself of the terror and humiliation that the Chalcedean had forced on him.
He would pass them on to Sedric.
Hest had no doubt that once he found Sedric, he would discover Alise as well. With or without dragon parts, he intended to herd them both back to Bingtown, reinstall Alise as his lawful and dutiful wife, and then formalize his family claim to a substantial percentage of the newly found Elderling city. It was the only part of his mission that he actually anticipated with pleasure.
Bringing Alise home was the only mission that Redding knew about; Hest had not confided to him that once Sedric had been made tractable, he would probably displace Redding. Several times on the journey up the river, Hest had toyed with the idea of abandoning Redding to his own devices in Trehaug or Cassarick. It would give him a great deal of satisfaction to leave the greedy little man penniless in a strange city, and make for a wonderful tale for his inner circle when he returned to Bingtown. Unlike Sedric, Redding had not found much favor with Hest’s intimates. They’d be glad to see him gone. As would Hest. Except for a few small things. As Hest watched him patting his pursed lips with his napkin, he felt a minor stirring of interest. Sedric was classically handsome, but Redding was far more imaginative in some ways.
The little man became aware of Hest’s gaze. A smile bowed his lips and he licked them thoughtfully. “Before that,” he said coyly, “I’ve something else that may interest you. Something I learned on the deck.”
Hest leaned forward on the table, intrigued. “On the deck? Redding, have you found a new playmate for us?”
Redding chortled. “My dear fellow, restrain yourself. I’m speaking of gossip, not a new bed game! I went out on the deck to get a bit of air, and there were two fellows out there already, chatting and smoking. I hadn’t seen either one of them before, so I held back a bit, and yes, I eavesdropped a bit. One of them was speaking of his cousin in Chalced. He was saying that his cousin had seen two dragons in the sky. A large blue one and an even larger black one. And I thought to myself, this is most likely Tintaglia and her mate.” He paused and wriggled his eyebrows at Hest, waiting to hear how clever he was.
Hest had no time for such niceties. “Over Chalced?”
“So I would assume,” Redding replied merrily. “So I thought to myself, if Tintaglia returns to Trehaug and asks what has become of the hatched dragons, well! That could lead to some very interesting times for the Rain Wilders, couldn’t it?”
“Indeed.”
What would it mean? The fury of a dragon unleashed on a treetop city? Perhaps. While he was in the city? Hest’s focus changed suddenly. He had seen the aftermath of a dragon’s fury, had seen stone furrowed from the acid spray of venom, seen men’s bodies reduced to liquefied flesh inside pitted armor. At that time, Tintaglia had been incensed with the Chalcedean fleet and invaders. But if she turned on Trehaug, there was nowhere to flee, no structure sturdy enough to provide shelter.
“Redding. How long ago was Tintaglia seen? And in which direction was she flying?”
And might the Duke of Chalced find a way to get his dragon parts closer to home?
“Oh, well!” Redding shook his head in mock dismay. “So much you want me to glean from an overheard sentence or two. I tried to get a bit more out of them. I bid them good day and said, ‘I couldn’t help but overhear that your cousin had seen a dragon.’ And before I could ask anything more, they turned and went back into their cabin. So rude! But I think we’ve little to fear. Think how long it would take for the news to travel to reach this fellow; much slower than a dragon could fly. So I’m sure if she were coming directly here, she’d be here by now. If she’s coming at all.”
“All the speculation I’d heard was that she was dead. It’s been so long since either dragon was seen, and she seemed to have simply abandoned the younger dragons.”
“So the rumors of her death were wrong, weren’t they?” Redding speared one of the little sausages. “At least, if this fellow’s cousin was telling the truth. Dear Hest, it was only a snippet of gossip. Don’t let it trouble you when there are other, more urgent matters to consider.” Redding smiled at him and with the tip of his tongue licked the sausage suggestively.
“How many more days to Kelsingra?”
Reyn’s question was urgent. But it had been urgent the first time he had asked it, and every time since, and Leftrin was becoming weary of trying to
answer it. He forced himself to keep his voice reasonable. “I can’t give you a specific answer. I’ve told you that. We’re traveling against the current now. It’s hard work, especially with all the rain we’ve had. It swells the river, puts more debris in the water, and makes it harder for us to stay to the shallows where the current is calmer.”
“But Tarman—” Reyn began stubbornly.
Leftrin cut him off. “Is a liveship. With some special abilities. That doesn’t mean that traveling upriver in winter is effortless, or that we can push on day and night. When the rains are relentless and the water rises, it’s harder for us to move upriver. So I can’t tell you when we’re going to get there.”
“And the boats that are following us?”
Leftrin gave a small shrug. “Nothing I can do about them, friend. The river doesn’t belong to me. All rivermen are free to go where they will.”
“But if they follow us to Kelsingra?”
“Then they do. What would you have me do, Reyn? Attack them?”
“No! But we can travel by night and they cannot. Cannot we outdistance them that way?”
“Tarman is strong, but even he must rest sometimes.” Leftrin spoke plainly now, more plainly than he liked. “Someone is paying those men well to track us. They were upriver and waiting. I suspect that when we were first sighted coming back down the river, someone let a bird fly. Those little boats were lying in wait for us, and even though it’s hazardous for them to travel by night, they can, especially for the kind of money they are being offered. All we can hope is that they weary before we reach Kelsingra. But even if they lose sight of us, there will remain signs that some could follow. Every time we tie up for the night, we leave traces of our presence, and on our first passage when we had the dragons with us, we left lots of evidence of where we stopped. Most of it was obscured by the flood. But not all. If they are as desperate to find us as we are to get your son to the dragons, then follow us they will. Unless you think we have time to play games with them, lead them astray or whatever.”
