by Robin Hobb
“I’m…I’m in my nightrobe. I came here from my cabin when I couldn’t sleep. ”
He could see that also. Her nightrobe was long and white and rather plain, the simple lines of it interrupted only by the complex curves of the woman inside it. Her red hair had been brushed and plaited into two long braids. It took years away from her face. Her little bare feet peeped out the bottom of the robe. If she’d had any idea of how desirable it made her look, she’d never have dared open the door to anyone!
But her eyes and the end of her nose were reddened from crying. And it was that more than anything else that made him step into the room, close the door firmly behind him, and take her into his arms. She stiffened slightly but did not resist him, even when he pulled her close and kissed the top of her hair. How could she smell like flowers still? He closed his eyes as he embraced her and heaved a heavy sigh. “You mustn’t cry,” he told her. “We haven’t given up hope yet. You mustn’t cry and you mustn’t torment yourself like this. It doesn’t do a bit of good for anyone. ”
He refused to think anymore. He stooped and kissed her left eye. She gasped.
When he kissed her other eye, her arms rose and linked tight around his neck. He put his mouth on hers, and her lips opened so softly and easily to his that his heart shook. She was trembling, pressed hard against him. He held the kiss, feeling and tasting the warmth of her mouth. He straightened up and still she clung to him, not letting him break the kiss. He lifted her easily and she hooked her knees over his hips with no pretense of keeping her legs together.
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“Alise,” he gasped, warning her.
“Don’t talk!” she responded fiercely. “No talking at all!”
So he didn’t.
Two shuffling steps crossed the small room. He tried not to crush her as he lowered her to the bed, but she would not let go of him and he all but fell on top of her. He was between her legs, nothing but the canvas of his trousers and the bunched fabric of her nightdress between them. He pressed himself against her, warning her, wanting her. Instead of heeding the warning, she surged up against him. He kissed her again, finding her breasts free within her nightdress. He hefted the weight of them while he kissed her, found her ripe nipples and gently teased them. She made a small sound in her throat and pressed herself into his hands.
Emboldened, he slid a hand down her belly and lifted his body slightly from hers to touch her with his fingers. She gasped, and gave the unmistakable shudder of a woman in climax. He was astonished and almost insufferably pleased at her responsiveness. He hadn’t even entered her!
But if he thought his brushing touch had satisfied her, he was wrong. When she opened her eyes to look at him, her gaze was wild and hungry. “Don’t stop,” she warned him.
“Alise, are you cert—”
He didn’t even complete the sentence. She stopped his mouth with hers, and her groping hand found him and made her desire plain.
ALISE OPENED HER other hand. The locket with Hest inside it fell, to the bedding, to the floor. It could have fallen into the river itself. She didn’t care.
Day the 25th of the Prayer Moon
Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown
To Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug
Enclosed, part one of a missive from the Bingtown Traders’ Council to the Rain Wild Traders’ Councils at Trehaug and Cassarick, being the public accounting of the Bingtown Traders’ expenses and income for the year, for purposes of shared taxation. Three copies of each accounting to be sent by bird, and one by ship.
Detozi,
I am sure all are anxiously awaiting to hear how our taxes will rise yet again this year! With Bingtown still, in some places, rebuilding public works and the Market damaged by the Chalcedeans, and both Cassarick and Trehaug needing funds for the shoring up of the excavations, I wonder if taxes will ever go down to what they were five years ago. My father is on the mend at last, but his recent illness has renewed my parents’ anxiety about my lack of a wife and children. Silly me, to think that might be MY business!
Erek
CHAPTER ELEVEN
REVELATIONS
Some time short of dawn, she’d wakened him. “We should go back to our own beds,” she whispered.
He gave a long sigh of resignation. “In a minute,” he lied. He stroked her hair, twined a lock of it around his finger. It tugged gently, pleasantly against her scalp.
“I had a dream,” she heard herself say.
“Did you? So did I. It was nice. ”
Alise smiled into the darkness. “I dreamed of Kelsingra. It was a strange dream, Leftrin. I think I was a dragon in my dream. Because I saw the city, well, as if it were small and I were looking down on it. I’ve never even imagined seeing a city that way. All the rooftops and spires, the roads set out like veins in a leaf, and the river was the biggest silver road of all. The river was so wide, but the city was still on both sides of it. You know, in my dream, the city looked as if it had been planned to be seen from above. Like a strange form of art…”
She let her voice drift away. In the bed beside her, Leftrin shifted. When he moved, she became more aware of him, of where his body touched hers and how he smelled. She spoke reluctantly. “I think we should both go back to our rooms. ”
The candle had long since guttered out. Sedric’s small room was black. Leftrin sat up slowly. Cold air touched her where his body had pressed against hers in the narrow bed. She smiled to herself. She’d slept next to a naked man. Actually slept with his arms around her, her cheek against the hair of his chest, her legs tangled with his.
She’d never experienced that before.
In the blackness, she heard him find his trousers and shirt. The canvas trousers made an interesting sound as he drew them up his legs. She heard him shoulder into his shirt. He stooped to find his shoes and picked them up. “I’ll walk you to your door,” he whispered, but, “No. Go along. I’ll be fine,” she told him.
He didn’t ask her why she wanted him to leave. For that, she was grateful. She heard the door open and close, and then she moved. Her nightgown was on the floor. It was cold and damp in places, but she pulled it on over her head. One of her braids, she noted, had come out of its plait. She shook out the other one. By touch, she smoothed the rucked blankets on Sedric’s bed. She found his “pillow” and put it back in place. She felt around on the bedclothes and on the floor, but did not find the locket. She told herself again that she didn’t care. It was a worthless artifact of a life no longer connected to her. She slipped from the room, closing the door behind her.
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It was only a short flit to her own room. She closed the door behind her and found her bed. The blankets seemed cold and unused as she crawled under them. Her groin ached, her face and breasts were rasped from his beard, and his smell was all over her. She wondered at what she’d done, defiantly decided she didn’t care, but still could not close her eyes. She cared about what she had done. She cared about it more than any decision she’d ever made in her life. She stared up into the darkness, not repenting it but reenacting every moment in her mind. His hands had touched her so, and he’d made those small sounds of enjoyment, and his beard had brushed her breasts when he had kissed them.
It had all been so new to her. She wondered if she had been wanton or only womanly. Had they behaved like animals toward each other, or was this how people who loved each other touched and tasted and devoured each other? She felt as if she’d experienced it all for the first time.
Perhaps she had.
She closed her eyes. Thoughts of Sedric’s fate, of Hest in Bingtown, of her proper friends and her mother’s pride, and of her eventual return to that life threatened her.
“No. ” She spoke aloud. “Not tonight. ”
She closed her eyes and slept.
&
nbsp; HE STOOD BAREFOOT on his deck, looking out over the shore. His shoes were in his hand. “Tarman, what are you about?” he asked his ship quietly.
The response that came was enigmatic. He didn’t hear it. He felt it as much through his bare soles on the deck as he did in his heart. The ship was keeping his own counsel.
He tried again. “Tarman, I know that dream. I thought it was mine. Something you wanted me to see. ”
This time there was a shiver of assent in the air. A shiver, and then silence.
“Ship?” he queried.
But nothing responded. And after a time, carrying his shoes, the captain of the Tarman sought his berth.
CARSON HAD ROPED the small boats together. That was humiliating, as if he were riding a horse that someone led, but Sedric appreciated how sensible it was. So instead of protesting it, he had devoted his efforts to seeing that the line between the two stayed slack. He was willing to admit that he was incompetent at keeping a small boat out of the main current and moving upstream in a river. He was not willing to admit that he didn’t have the strength to row his own boat and must be towed back to the barge.
There was a price to pay for that pride, and he was paying it now. Every stroke of the oars had become an effort. His hands had blistered, the blisters had popped and run, and now he gripped raw flesh to bare wood. Carson turned his head and shouted back to him. “Not much farther to go now! Everyone will be glad to see you and the dragon and the boat! Losing it was a significant loss. ”
Probably more significant than losing a Bingtown fop, Sedric thought savagely. He knew that Carson didn’t intend to insult him, only point out that they would be triply welcomed. Knowing that didn’t help. In the last day and night, he had seen himself in a different light, and he found it very unflattering. Useless to remind himself that in Bingtown business circles, he was a competent clever fellow. He was known in all the better taverns to have a lovely clear tenor for drinking songs, and the wine shops saved their best vintages for him. No one could fault his taste in silk. Given charge of Hest’s itinerary, every voyage under his control went flawlessly.
And none of that mattered here. Once he would not have cared about Carson’s regard at all. He would have been content to wait out each boring day on the barge until he could return to Bingtown and his proper life. Now he found himself hungry to show that he could distinguish himself in places other than the bargaining table. Or the bedroom. The thought loomed again, and this time he faced it. Had Hest truly valued him as a business partner? Or had he kept him at his side solely because he was amusing and pliable in the bedroom?
Off to the side of the boats, the copper dragon lumbered through the shallows. The river was almost down to its former level. She seemed cheery to be moving upriver again. Soon she would rejoin the other dragons, and their endless journey would continue. She slogged along, sometimes holding her tail up out of the river’s flow and sometimes letting it trail behind her. She kept a touch on his mind, rather like a small child gripping a handful of her mother’s skirts. He was aware of her without having her intrude too much into his mind. Right now, she had sun on her back, mud under her feet, and she was just starting to feel hungry. Soon they’d have to help her find food, or she’d become fractious. But for now, she had everything she desired from life and was content with it. She was such an immediate creature that she almost charmed him until he realized how amoral she was.
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Rather like Hest.
That thought ambushed him, breaking the pattern of his rowing. He stared straight ahead, trying to decide if he had just discovered something or was only indulging his anger at Hest yet again. Then the rope between the two small boats went tight, jolting him back on the seat and causing Carson to look back at him. The hunter allowed the river to push him back alongside Sedric’s boat. “You’re tired? If you’re tired, we can pull over to the trees for a time. ” The brown eyes were full of sympathy. He knew that Sedric was unaccustomed to physical labor. That morning, he’d offered to let Sedric just sit in his boat while Carson did all the rowing and towed the other boat behind them.
He longed to do just that. Just admit that he was a weakling and not fit to survive out here. “No, I was just scratching my nose. Sorry!”
“Well, let me know if you need a rest. ” Carson simply stated the possibility. Sedric looked for mockery behind the words and found none. The hunter pulled on his oars again, drawing his boat ahead.
Sedric leaned into his rowing again. Carson had turned his gaze back to the river. He watched the man’s back and tried to copy the way he moved his oars. His broad shoulders and muscular arms moved steadily with the seeming ease of an animal breathing. As he rowed, his head made small movements, watching the water, the passing trees, the dragon, the water. He was like the dragon, Sedric realized. He had his mind on what he was doing, and did it well, and that was enough for him. Sedric knew a moment of pure envy. Would that his own life was that simple.
Could it be?
Of course not.
His own life was a mess. He was out here, far from where he could be successful at anything. He’d taken blood from a dragon, and worse, he’d tasted it, and now he knew the lowness of what he’d done, and what he’d contemplated doing. How could he ever have imagined that they were simply animals, like a pig or a sheep, to be slaughtered as a man pleased? He thought of the bargain he’d struck with that merchant Begasti and shuddered. As soon he would traffic in a child’s heart or the fingers of a woman!
And here was where that ill-founded plan had brought him. He was far from home, and getting farther away every day. His plan for becoming an incredibly wealthy man and spiriting himself and Hest away from Bingtown seemed more unlikely and reprehensible every moment.
He tried to bring that fantasy back to life. He imagined himself and Hest in a beautifully appointed room, regarding each other over a table laden with a perfectly prepared meal. In his dream, there had always been tall doors open to a fragrant garden illuminated by the setting sun. In his dream, an astounded Hest was always demanding to know how he had acquired all this for them, while Sedric leaned back in a chair, a glass of wine in his hand, and silently smiled.
He imagined it all in detail, the laden sideboard, the wine in his glass, the silk shirt, and the birds calling as they flitted from bush to tree in the evening garden. He could recall every bit of his dream, but he could not make it move, could no longer hear Hest’s intrigued and eager questions, could no longer make his own face smile as he would have smiled and shaken his head, refusing all answers. It had become unruly, a dream turned to nightmare in which he knew that Hest would have had too much to drink, and that he had refused the fish as overcooked and leeringly commented on the serving boy who came to clear the dishes. The real Hest would have asked him if he’d whored himself out on the streets to get this money. The real Hest would disdain whatever Sedric presented, would have criticized the wine, found the house too ostentatious to be tasteful, would have complained that the food was too rich.
The Hest of his dreams had been replaced by the man Hest had steadily become over the last two years, the mocking, sour Hest, the impossible-to-please Hest, the domineering Hest who had banished him here for daring to disagree with him. The Hest who had begun to bludgeon him, more and more often, with reminders that the money they spent was Hest’s, that Hest fed him, clothed him, and gave him a place to sleep at night. What had Sedric thought? That by becoming the source of the wealth and taking control of it, he could make Hest go back to the man he had thought he was?
Or had he wanted to become Hest, to be the man in charge?
His oars dug deeply into the water. His back and neck and shoulders and arms all ached. His hands burned. But not even that pain could drown out the truth. From the beginning, from their very first time together, Hest had enjoyed dominating him. Always, he had sent for Sedric, and Sedric had come to him. The man had never been t
ender, never kind or considerate. He’d laughed at the bruises he’d left on Sedric, and Sedric had bowed his head and smiled ruefully, accepting such treatment as his due. Hest had never really gone too far, of course. Except for that one time, when he had been drunk, and Sedric had enraged him by trying to help him up the stairs of the inn. That one time, he’d been truly violent and drawn blood when he struck him. He’d fallen down the stairs. But only that one time—and the time when, in vengeance because Sedric had not agreed with him that a merchant had deliberately cheated him but suggested it was only an error, Hest had left the inn in a carriage without him, forcing Sedric to run through the most dangerous part of a rough Chalcedean town in order to board the ship minutes before it sailed. Hest had never apologized for that, only mocked him to the merriment of several of the fellows traveling with them.
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One of them, he now recalled, would be with Hest now. Cope. Redding Cope, with his plump little mouth and stubby-fingered hands, always hanging on Hest’s every word, always eager to win a smile from him with his sly mockery of Sedric. Well, Cope would have Hest to himself now. Savagely he wished the man small joy of it. Perhaps he might find the prize he had won was not what he had thought it to be.
THYMARA HAD LEFT the barge early in the morning, after begging the use of one of the small boats from Captain Leftrin, who had seemed in an uncommonly generous mood that morning. He had ordered Davvie to row her ashore in the remaining ship’s boat, telling her to hallo from the trees when she wanted a ride back to the vessel. She’d taken a couple of carry-sacks and promised she’d try to find fresh fruit or vegetables for them all.
She hadn’t told Tats she was going. She hadn’t told anyone. Still, she hadn’t been that surprised when he came to help them put the small boat over the side. And when he’d clambered down the ladder and sat down behind her, that hadn’t surprised her either.
She had the amount of time it took Davvie to row them ashore to consider how to react to Tats’s presence. Davvie’s friendly chatter kept him busy until then. Evidently he’d just become friends with Lecter and was full of questions about him. Tats answered as well he might. Lecter had always been a bit aloof; none of them knew him well. Thymara was happy for him; she didn’t know Davvie well, either, but had noticed how alone he seemed to be. She understood Leftrin’s decision to keep a distance between his ship’s crew and the keepers, but she had pitied Davvie as the only youngster on the ship. She hoped for his sake that Leftrin would loosen his rules a bit and allow his friendship with Lecter to continue.
