by Robin Hobb
“Jerd, you are such a child sometimes! Now wait, don’t glare at me. It’s not your fault. You’ve never known anything but the Rain Wilds. I myself have only ventured out once or twice, but at least I’ve read of what the outside world is like. And the hunter is an educated man. He has ideas, Jerd, and he sees things so clearly. When he talks, everything just makes so much sense. I always knew that there had to be a way to have a different life, but I just couldn’t see it. Jess says it was because for so long I’d been told what the rules were that I couldn’t see they were just rules made by men. And if men can make rules, then other men can change them. We can change them. We don’t have to be bound by the ‘way things have always been. ’ We can break out of it, if we just have the courage.
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“Look how we are with the dragons. They remember how the world was, back when they dominated, and they think that’s how it’s going to be again. But we don’t have to give them that power. None of the dragons needs to have that dragon’s body when it dies. It’s just meat to them, and we’ve given them plenty of meat. So, in a sense, they owe it to us, especially when you think what it could mean to us. With the kind of wealth we could get for the dragon’s corpse, we could make a foundation for a better life for all of us, including the other dragons! If we have the courage to change the rules and do what is best for us for a change. ” Thymara could almost see Greft’s imagination soaring on what could be. The grim smile on his face promised triumph over old humiliations and wrongs. “Jess says that if you have money, anyone will trade with you. And if, from time to time, we have rare merchandise, unique merchandise that no one else anywhere can get, then there will always be people willing to come to you, no matter the difficulties. They’ll come, and they’ll meet your price. ”
Jerd had rolled slightly to face him. In the dimness, the touches of silver in her eyes gleamed more sharply. She looked uneasy. “Wait. Are you talking about selling dragon body parts again? Not just now, maybe, if the copper dies, but in the future? That’s just wrong, Greft. What if I were talking about selling your blood or bone? What if the dragons were thinking of raising your children for meat?”
“It won’t be like that! It doesn’t have to be like that. You’re thinking of this in the worst possible way. ” His hand came back, gentle, soothing. He traced her arm from shoulder to elbow and back again. Then his touch slipped to her neck, and his hand wandered slowly down her rib cage. Thymara saw Jerd’s breasts move with her indrawn breath. “The dragons will come to understand. A few scales, a bit of blood, the tip of a claw. Nothing that harms them. Sometimes but not often, something more than that, a tooth perhaps or an eye, taken from a dragon who will die anyway…Never often, or what is rare becomes commonplace. That would do no one any good. ”
“I don’t like it. ” She spoke flatly and pulled away from his exploring hand. “And I don’t think any of the dragons will like it. How about Kalo? Have you shared your plan with your own dragon? How did he take it?”
He shrugged, and then admitted, “He didn’t like it. Said he would kill me before he allowed that to happen. But he threatens to kill me several times a day. It’s just what he says when things don’t go his way. He knows he has the best keeper. So he threatens me, but he puts up with me. In time, I think even he would see the wisdom of the idea. ”
“I don’t. I think he’d kill you. ” Her voice was flat. She meant it. She stretched as she spoke and then glancing down at her own breasts, brushed at her left nipple as if dislodging something. Greft’s eyes followed her hand, and his voice went deeper.
“Maybe it won’t ever come to that,” he conceded. “Maybe we will find Kelsingra and maybe it will be rich with Elderling artifacts. If we do find our fortune there, then we must be sure that all recognize it is ours. Trehaug will try to claim it;be sure of that. Bingtown will want to be the sole marketplace for it. We’ll hear it all again from them. ‘This is the way it has always been. ’ But you and I, we know it doesn’t always have to be that way. We must be very ready to defend our future from grasping hands. ”
Jerd pushed blond hair back from her face. “Greft, you spin such wonderful webs of dreams. You speak as if we were hundreds of people in search of a haven, instead of just over a dozen. ‘Defend our future’ you say. What future? There are too few of us. The best we can think of would be finding a better life just for ourselves. I like how you think, most of the time, with your talk of new rules for a new life. But sometimes you sound like a little child playing with wooden toys and claiming them as your kingdom. ”
“Is that wrong? That I’d like to be a king?” He cocked his head at her and smiled his tight-lipped smile. “A king might need a queen. ”
She sounded scornful of him as she told him sternly, “You will never be a king. ” But her deprecation of him was a lie, her hands said. Thymara watched in amazement as Jerd caught Greft’s shoulders in both her hands, twisted onto her back, and then drew him down on top of her. “Enough talk,” she announced. One of her hands moved to the back of Greft’s neck. She pulled his face down to hers.
Thymara watched.
She didn’t mean to. There was no moment when she decided to stay. Instead, her claws dug deep into bark and held her there. Her brow furrowed and she stared, heedless of the biting insects that found her and hummed around her.
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She had seen animals mate, a male bird mounting a female. With a flutter and a shudder, it was soon done and sometimes the female scarcely seemed to notice it. Her parents had never spoken to her of mating, for it was forbidden to her and to those like her. Any curiosity about it had been firmly discouraged. Even her beloved father had warned her, “You may encounter men who will try to take advantage of you, well knowing that what they seek is forbidden. Trust no man who tries to do more than touch your hand in greeting. Leave his company at once, and tell me of it. ”
And she had believed him. He was her father, with her best interests at heart. No one would make a marriage offer for her. Everyone knew that if those the Rain Wilds touched heavily had children, the children were born either completely monstrous or not viable at all. It made no sense for such as her to mate. The food she would eat during a pregnancy while she was unable to hunt or gather, the difficulty her body would endure in bringing forth a child that would most likely die…no. Resources in the Rain Wilds were always scarce;life was always difficult. No one had a right to consume and not produce. It was not the Trader way.
Except that her father had broken that rule. He’d taken a chance on her, taken a chance that she would pull her own weight. And she had. So perhaps the rules were not always right…Was Greft right? Could it be that any rules that men made, other men could change? Were the rules not so absolute as she has always believed them?
The couple below her didn’t seem to be thinking of the rules at all. It also seemed to be taking them substantially longer than when birds mated. They made sounds, small sounds of approval that sent shivers up Thymara’s back. When Jerd arched her back and Greft put lingering kisses on her breasts, Thymara’s whole body reacted in a way that embarrassed and astonished her. Light flowed in glittering waves on the scaled bodies that moved in rhythm. Greft pounded his body against Jerd’s in a way that looked punishing, but the woman below him only writhed and then suddenly gripped his buttocks and pulled him tight and still against her. She gave a muffled moan.
An instant later, Greft collapsed upon her. For a long time, they sprawled there. Greft’s heaving breath gradually calmed. He raised his head and lifted himself slightly from her body. A moment later, Jerd reached a lazy hand to push her sweaty strands of hair from her eyes. A slow smile spread across her face as she looked up at him. Then her eyes widened, and suddenly her gaze shot past Greft and met Thymara’s stare. She gave a shriek and snatched uselessly at her discarded clothes.
“What is it?” Greft demanded, rolling off her and turning his gaze skyward. But by
then, Thymara was two trees away and moving fast. She leaped from branch to branch, scurrying like a lizard. Behind her, she heard Jerd’s voice raised in an angry complaint, and then Greft’s laughter scalded her. “Probably the most she’ll ever dare to do is watch,” he said in a carrying voice, and she knew that he meant her to hear the words. Tears stung her eyes, and her heart hammered against her ribs as she fled.
SEDRIC STOOD ALONE on the deck of the Tarman. He gazed toward the shore. There was no sign that anyone intended to travel today. Instead, Leftrin was hurrying about with a steaming bucket, doing some sort of doctoring on the dragons. It made Sedric anxious to see that the major gathering of people and dragons was now clustered around the prone copper dragon. It wasn’t his fault. The animal had been sick when he first visited it. Uneasily he wondered if he had left any sign of his passage there. He hadn’t meant to hurt it, only to take what he so desperately needed. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, not sure to whom he apologized. Leftrin joined the keepers clustered around the prone dragon. He could not see what they were doing now. Was it dead? Keepers and other dragons formed a wall. What were they doing down there?
Sedric gave a sudden low cry and curled forward over his belly. Terrible tearing cramps uncoiled inside him. He sank to his knees, then fell over on his side. The pain was such that he couldn’t even call for help. It wouldn’t have done him any good anyway. Everyone else had gone ashore to help with the dragons. His bowels were being torn from his body. He clutched at his gut but could not shield himself from the agony. He closed his eyes as the world seemed to swirl around him and abruptly surrendered his consciousness.
Day the 7th of the Prayer Moon
Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug
To Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown
Dispatched today, three birds bearing wedding invitations from the family of Trader Delfin. Enclosed, a list of the intended recipients in Bingtown. If any bird fail, please see that a duplicate of the invitation is still delivered to each addressee.
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As the wedding is to be celebrated soon, promptness in delivery is essential.
Erek,
Be certain these invitations reach their destinations promptly, or I fear the families will be invited to celebrate the child’s birth before they have time to arrive for the wedding! Customs are not observed in Trehaug as they once were. Some blame it on the Tattooed, but this couple is Rain Wild born and bred!
Detozi
CHAPTER TWO
TRICKY CURRENTS
Hest stood over Sedric, looking down on him, a sneer distorting his handsome face. He shook his head in disappointment. “You fail because you don’t try hard enough. When it comes right down to it, you always back down from the challenge. ” In the gloom of the small cabin, Hest seemed larger than life. He was bare chested, and his broad shoulders and the musculature of his well-kept body framed the black triangle of thick curly hair on his chest. His belly was flat and hard over the waistband of his trim trousers. Sedric looked at him with longing. Hest knew it. He laughed, short, low, and ugly, and shook his head. “You’re lazy and soft. You’ve never been able to keep up with me. I really don’t know why I took up with you in the first place. Probably out of pity. There you stood, all mawkish and shy, bottom lip trembling at the thought of what you’d never have. What you didn’t even dare ask for! So, I was tempted to give you a taste of it. ” He laughed harshly. “What a waste of my time you were. There’s no challenge left in you, Sedric. Nothing left to teach you and there’s never been anything for me to learn from you. You always knew this day would come, didn’t you? And here it is. I’m tired of you. Bored with you and your whimpering. Tired of paying you wages you scarcely earn, tired of you living off me like a leech. You despise Redding, don’t you? But tell me, how are you better than he is? At least he has his own fortune. At least he can pay his own way. ”
Sedric moved his mouth, trying to make words come. Trying to tell him that he’d done something significant, that the dragon blood and scales would make a fortune for him, one he’d be happy to share with Hest. Don’t give up on me, he tried to say. Don’t end it now and take up with someone else when I’m not even there to try to change your mind. His lips moved, his throat strained, but not a sound emerged. Only drops of dragon blood dripped from his lips.
And it was too late. Redding was there; Redding with his plump little whore’s mouth and his stubby-fingered hands and greasy gold ringlets. Redding was there, standing beside Hest, running the back of one finger lightly up and down Hest’s bared arm. Hest turned to him, smiling. His eyelids drooped suddenly in a way that Sedric knew well, and then like a stooping hawk he swooped in to kiss Redding. He could no longer see Hest’s face, but he saw Redding’s hands starfish on Hest’s muscular back, pulling him closer.
Sedric tried to shout, strained until his throat hurt, but no sound came out.
They hurt you? Shall I kill them?
“No!” The sound suddenly burst from him in a shout. He jerked awake to find himself sprawled on his sweaty bedding in his small, smelly cabin. Around him, all was murkiness. No Hest, no Redding. Only himself. And a small copper dragon who pushed insistently at the walls of his thoughts. Dimly he felt her inquiry, her dull-witted concern for him. He pushed the contact away, shut his eyes tightly, and buried his face in the bundle that served him as a pillow. Just a bad dream, he told himself. Only a nightmare.
But it was one that was all too possibly real.
When he was morose, he thought that perhaps Hest had wanted to be rid of him for some time. Perhaps his defending of Alise had given Hest the excuse he was looking for to send Sedric away.
He could, by an effort of will, recall how it had been when they first began. Hest’s calmness and strength had drawn him. In moments alone, in Hest’s strong embrace, he felt like he had finally found safe harbor. Knowing that shelter existed for him had made him stronger and bolder. Even his father had seen the change in him and told him that he took pride in the man his son was becoming.
If he’d only known!
When had Hest’s strength stopped being a shelter and become a prison wall? When had it become, not the comfort of protection, but the threat of that strength turned against him? How could he have continued unaware of how things had changed, of how Hest was changing him? He hadn’t, he admitted now. He’d known. But he’d stumbled on blindly, excusing Hest’s cruelty and slights, blaming the discord on himself, pretending that somehow, things would go back to the way they had once been.
Had it ever really been that good? Or was it all a dream he had manufactured for himself?
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He rolled over, pushing his face into the pillow and closing his eyes. He would not think about Hest or how things had once been between them. He would not dwell on what their relationship had become. Right now, he did not even have the heart to try to imagine something better for them. There had to be a better dream somewhere. He wished he could imagine what it was.
“ARE YOU AWAKE?”
He hadn’t been but now he was. A slice of light was falling into Sedric’s room from the open door. The silhouette standing in it had to be Alise. Of course. He sighed.
As if that were an invitation, she ventured into the room. She didn’t close the door behind her. The rectangle of light fell mostly on the floor, illuminating dropped clothing. “It’s so dark in here,” she said apologetically. “And close. ”
She meant smelly. He’d scarcely stirred out of the room for three days, and when he did, he spoke to no one and returned to his bed as soon as he could. Davvie, the hunter’s apprentice, had been bringing him meals and then taking them away again. At first, he’d been in too much pain to be hungry. And now he was too despondent to eat.
“Davvie said he thought you were feeling better. ”
“I’m not. ” Couldn’t she just go away? He didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t want to confide his problems to anyone. Davvie was bad enough, with his pestering, prying questions and his voluntary biography of his own unremarkable life. At fifteen years old, how could the boy imagine he had done anything that could possibly interest anyone other than himself? All of the boy’s meandering stories seemed to be leading up to some point that Sedric couldn’t grasp and the boy couldn’t seem to make. He suspected that Carson was using the boy to spy on him. He’d woken twice to find the hunter sitting quietly beside his bed. And once, he’d struggled out of a nightmare and opened his eyes to that other hunter, Jess, crouched on the floor nearby. Why all three of them were so fascinated with him, he didn’t know. Not unless they had guessed his secret.
At least he could order the boy out of his room and he obeyed. He doubted that tactic would work on Alise, but abruptly decided to try it. “Just go away, Alise. When I feel well enough to deal with people, I’ll come out. ”
Instead, Alise came into the room and sat down on his shoe trunk. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone so much, especially when we still don’t know what made you so ill. ” Her fingers tangled in her lap like writhing serpents. He looked away from them.
“Carson said it was something I ate. Or drank. ”
“That makes sense, except that we’ve all had the same food and drink that you’ve had, and no one else was affected. ”
There was one drink she hadn’t shared. He pushed the thought aside. Don’t think about anything that could incriminate you, or bring those alien thoughts back into your mind.
He hadn’t answered her. She was looking down at her hands. She spoke as if the words were teeth she were spitting out. “I’m sorry I dragged you along on this, Sedric. I’m sorry I ran off to help the dragons that day and wouldn’t listen to what you had to say. You’re a friend; you’ve been my friend for a very long time. Now you’re ill and we’re so far from any real healers. ” She halted for a moment, and he could tell she was trying to hold back tears. Strange, how little he cared about that. Perhaps if she knew the real danger he faced and was moved by it, he would feel more sympathy for how she struggled with her guilt.
