by Robin Hobb
“Oh. That locket. ” A lie, he needed a lie. Some sort of excuse, some reason he would have such a thing. “It’s mine, actually. It’s mine. ”
The words came out so easily. Then they hung, irrevocable and unmistakable, in the silent air of the room. All turned to stillness. He didn’t look at Alise. If she continued to breathe, he couldn’t hear it. He was breathing, wasn’t he? Slow and shallow. Can one unmake a moment? He willed it not to be, tried to make it unhappen with his stillness.
But she spoke, nailing the reality to what he had just said with the most damning words of all. “Sedric, I don’t understand. ”
“No,” he replied lightly, glibly, as if the admission meant nothing at all to him. “Most people don’t. And lately, I’ll admit I scarcely understand it myself. Hest? Hest and Always on the same locket? What an unlikely combination. ” He laughed, but the sound fell in brittle pieces all around him. Moved by what, he could not say, he reached into the bundle he used for a pillow and pulled out the locket. “Here. You can have it, if you wish. A gift from me rather than Hest. ”
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“So you…I don’t understand, Sedric. You had it made? You had it made to give to me? But Hest must have known of it. He sat for the portrait, didn’t he? It’s so like him that he must have!”
Boldly he pressed the catch on the locket and opened it. Hest looked out at both of them, sardonically pleased at the mess he had made of their lives, at the friendship of years that was now crumbling away at his touch. He looked into Hest’s eyes as he spoke. “Oh, yes, he sat for it. I commissioned Rolleigh to paint it. It was very expensive and Rolleigh was justifiably insulted by Hest’s cavalier attitude toward the sittings and the finished portrait. He was supposed to come six times, in the evenings after dark, to a very private place for the sittings. He only came twice. And Rolleigh wanted to show him the miniature before it was put into the locket. Hest did not even come to see it and thank the painter for the likeness. That fell to me. And if Rolleigh was ungracious, well, I can scarcely blame him. Hest was unpleasant and condescending about the whole thing. And he told Rolleigh that if he knew what was good for him, he’d keep the matter of both the sitting and the portrait secret. ”
From time to time as he spoke, he glanced over at her. She sat there, freckled and unlovely, her wild red hair abandoned to its own inclinations. It had danced free of the pins she had put in it, to curl loosely around her windburned brow and cheeks. Her clothing was clean, but worn. Her blouse was just beginning to fray at the seam. She looked like what she had been when Hest married her; a member of Bingtown’s genteel but down-at-the heel middle class. And in her eyes there was only confusion, with not even the slightest flicker of suspicion of what he was actually telling her.
“I don’t understand why you paid to have him sit for a portrait, Sedric, let alone a miniature to put in a locket. If you wished to give—”
“Alise, can you be so unaware, even at your age? Let me speak plainly. I love your husband. I loved him for years, even before he thought to marry someone to put a respectable façade on his household. Now do you understand?”
She was beginning to. Pink had started to suffuse her face, and her eyes were widening in shock and horror. He didn’t wait for her inevitable questions.
“Yes. He is my lover. When we travel by sea, when we are abroad, even after you are asleep at night in your own home, we share a bed. For me, there has never been anyone else. Only Hest. Forever, I thought, when I so foolishly had this damned locket created for myself. Here. Have it, if you wish, Always and all. I wish I could give you Hest along with it. But somehow I doubt that he was ever mine, to keep or to give away. ”
She stared at the locket as if he held a tiny coiled snake in his hand rather than a piece of jewelry. He tipped his hand and let it slither onto the bed between them. He was trembling slightly. Over the years, he’d imagined this moment of revelation in so many ways, but never like this, with them sitting side by side on a bed in a dim room, both frozen in agony. He had thought Hest would be present, that they might tell Alise together before he stole her husband out of her life. He had thought there would be shrieking, hurled threats and thrown objects, slaps and hysteria. But as she sat there, absorbing the betrayal and deception of years, reordering her perception of him and her life, she was silent. She swayed a tiny bit, like a tree in a high wind, and he feared for an instant that she would faint.
“You and Hest,” she said awkwardly, at last. “You love each other. He holds you, kisses you, touches you. That’s what this means?” She touched the coiled chain of the locket and then drew her finger back as if the cold metal had burned her. Her question had burned him.
He’d been so strangely calm up to now. He’d been able to tell her his life’s largest secret, without any display of emotion. But now the tears seeped up, flooding his eyes, and his throat closed as if distant hands were choking him. “I’ve loved him. I don’t think he loves me anymore. If he ever truly did. ” He bowed his face into his hands and the tears came. Had he thought he’d told Alise his most private secret? He’d been wrong. The deepest secret in his life was the one he had just uttered aloud for the first time, the deception he had hidden from himself.
He felt her stand. She would hit him now, she’d call him the names he had feared ever since he was a boy. He waited.
Instead, he felt one of her hands hesitantly touch his head and then smooth his hair, just as his mother had stroked him when he was a small boy. “I’m so sorry for you, Sedric. I’m angry and I’m hurt; I never thought you capable of such deception and betrayal of our friendship. But mostly I’m so sorry for both of us. Especially you. How could you love such a man? What a worthless waste of your heart. Look how it has destroyed both our lives. With Hest, there is no chance of happiness for either of us. But I don’t think he’d care about that at all. ”
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He couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t lift his face from his hands, could not even mutter an apology to her. He felt her cross the room. She took her candle with her, and when she left, the light diminished by half. The door shut firmly.
He sank into his bedding. There. It was done.
He’d just destroyed the last good thing in his life. His friendship with Alise was gone, shattered by what he and Hest had done to her. It shamed him now to think that he’d ever suggested such a marriage to Hest, even when he was in his cups. It shamed him more that he’d allowed Hest to follow through on it. What would it have taken to stop it? One call on Alise to inform her quietly of Hest’s true intentions? Of course, that would have betrayed what he was to her. And possibly brought misery crashing down on him then and there. Hest would have cast him aside. No doubt of that. And found a way to discredit him completely.
Why was it only now that he could admit how ruthless the man could be? If he were back in Hest’s presence for an hour, if Hest threw a casual arm across his shoulder, or made Sedric his evening’s companion for food and theater and wine, would he forget and forgive him? When Hest focused on him, when Hest was in full howl as he rampaged through any city in search of entertainment and mischief, then he could make Sedric feel as if he owned the world. To be Hest’s chosen companion for a night of raucous play was the most invigorating, heady rush of exhilaration that Sedric could imagine. Even now, in the depths of his despair, a sour smile came to his mouth as he recalled such evenings.
Arm in arm with Hest, surrounded by cohorts of well-dressed friends, they had stormed public houses and theaters from Chalced to Jamaillia. When Hest wished to, he could charm the most recalcitrant tavern owner into keeping his doors open and paying his minstrels for an extra hour. With that suave smile and a scattering of coin, he could procure the best tables, the finest seats in the playhouse, the best cuts of meat, and the finest wine. And people always smiled as they gave it to him. People who only knew his public face found him charming and gracious an
d witty. To be his companion at such a time, to be his chosen, preferred companion was to be toasted and honored right alongside Hest.
The smile slowly faded from his face, leaving only the bitterness. Never again. Never again would he be publicly lauded alongside Hest.
Never again would he be privately belittled and humiliated as the price of those hours.
That thought should have cheered him. Instead, he tried to imagine a life without Hest. He tried to imagine returning to Bingtown to find himself turned out of Hest’s home, reviled by Alise. Would she tell others? Dread gaped wide to consume him, but then a cruel comfort came. She would not. She could not tell anyone without revealing how she had been deceived and that her marriage had been a lie from the start. If she told, she would lose everything: her library, her studies, her social standing. She’d have to return to her father’s house, to live at the edge of poverty, a woman who would be either pitied or mocked by all who had known her.
The same fate would await him, if she told.
But even if she did not, he feared it would be little better. He was virtually certain now that Hest was preparing to cast him off. He suspected he would return to find himself replaced. He, too, would have to return in humility to his father’s home and hope to be taken in and given work. The well-funded society of Hest’s friends who had welcomed him would not snub him, not at first. But he would not be able to afford such company, and once they found that he had lost Hest’s regard, few would wish to be seen as his friend. Hest’s displeasure had frozen out more than one friend or acquaintance over the years that Sedric had known him. It had been but one more of the uglier facets of Hest’s character that he had once been able to ignore. Now it would be the sole facet turned toward him.
No. There was nothing to go back to. Nothing at all.
His spirits sank and gloom closed in all around him. Even the room seemed to become darker. He closed his eyes and wondered how much courage it would take for him to end it. Once he had imagined he could throw himself into the water and drown, that once that decision had been undertaken, it would be irrevocable. Well, he knew better now. Once in the water he would struggle. Whether he willed it or not, he would shout for help.
And I would come to save you. Again.
As the thought entered his mind, a warm feeling suffused him. Comfort and contentment, without reason, rose up and permeated him as if he were an earthenware mug filling up with hot tea. He struggled briefly, trying to find his way back to his misery. And then, like a flame claiming a wick and sending forth life, he suddenly wondered why he was holding so tightly to that misery. He let go again. His dragon’s affection filled him and warmed him and crowded out the pain that had been there.
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There. You see? We’re going to be all right. Both of us.
“MY OLD FRIEND, we need a private word or two. ”
Leftrin looked up from scowling at his mug of coffee. It was the second pot made with the same grindings today, and it was both weak and bitter. He thought about dumping it over the side and then reminded himself that it was marginally better than plain hot water. He turned to his old friend. “Finding a place for a private word is going to be the trick,” he said. He and Carson both turned, putting their backs to the aft rail and looking over the decks of the Tarman. Keepers and crew mingled in conversation knots. Harrikin and Sylve and Skelly sat cross-legged on the roof of the deckhouse. Skelly was pointing up at the stars and telling them something about them. Boxter and Kase were belly down on the deck, arm wrestling. Alum and Nortel were keeping them honest while Jerd looked on grinning. Greft stood next to her, scowling. As Leftrin watched, the boy worked his mouth and then rubbed the sides of his jaw as if it pained him. The shape of his face was changing; it looked uncomfortable.
Past the keepers, he could see the silhouette of Swarge and Bellin, heads together, leaning on the railing, talking. As his eyes roved the decks, seeking a quiet spot, he found none.
“My stateroom, then,” he said quietly, and Carson followed him. He lit a candle in the galley and then led the way to his small room.
“So, what is it, then?” Leftrin asked him as he shut the door behind them. He pushed the candle into its holder and then sat down on his bunk. Carson, his face grave, sat down on the chair by the chart table. He took a heavy breath.
“Jess is dead. Believe it or not, Sedric and the copper killed him. Sedric says he had to kill him because Jess was planning to kill his dragon and sell the body parts in Chalced. ”
“Sedric killed Jess?” Leftrin’s disbelief was plain in his voice. He had been so sure that he had killed Jess. How that bastard had survived his beating and a drowning was nothing short of a miracle. And then to be killed by a Bingtown fop and a dim-witted dragon?
“He and the dragon both said so. ”
Leftrin scrambled for words. “Don’t get me wrong, that man needed killing if anyone ever did. It just seems so unlikely that Sedric was up to the job, let alone he’d do it to defend a dragon…” He let his comment trail away. If Carson had killed the hunter and was, for whatever reason, putting the deed at Sedric’s door, he wanted the man to know he could own up to it and Leftrin wouldn’t think less of him.
“The deed was done before I got there. Nothing left of Jess but some blood in Greft’s boat. Dragon ate him. ”
“Well, that’s fitting,” Leftrin said quietly. He tried not to smile. He wouldn’t tell Carson that his earlier fight with the hunter had probably softened him up substantially for Sedric. It was over. He heaved a sigh that was part relief and part amazement. Sedric had finished the deed for him. He owed the man a debt of thanks.
“It’s fitting because Jess was on board to harvest dragon parts. Right? And you knew about it. Maybe had an agreement about it?”
Silence filled up the room like cold water filling up a sinking vessel. He hadn’t seen that coming. Carson was quiet, waiting. Leftrin cleared his throat and made his decision. Truth time. “Here’s how it was, Carson, exactly. Someone had me over the fire and thought they could demand I do this. They said they’d be sending someone on this expedition who would be hunting dragon bits for the Duke of Chalced. I didn’t agree to it; it was just done to me. At first, I wasn’t even sure who their man was. I even thought it might be you, from one comment you made. Then, not too long ago, Jess made it clear to me that he was the one and he expected me to help him. ”
Carson was sitting quietly, listening as only he could. He nodded slowly and let Leftrin take his time and pick how he told his story.
“Just before the wave hit? I was on the beach, doing my best to throttle the life out of Jess. All this time, I’ve been thinking that I’d done the job, or maybe the wave had finished it. So I’m surprised it was Sedric. But I’ll admit that I’m just glad it was done. ”
“So that’s all there was to it? You don’t have plans to butcher a dragon and sell the parts to Chalced?”
Leftrin shook his head. “I’m a lot of things, Carson, and a lot of them aren’t nice. But I’d never betray the Rain Wilds that way. ”
“Or Alise?” Carson watched his face as he asked him.
“Or Alise,” Leftrin agreed.
Day the 29th of the Prayer Moon
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Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown
To Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug
In a sealed case, covered in wax and marked with his signet, a message from a friend to Jess Torkef, to be left at the Frog and Oar tavern with Innkeeper Drost, until called for.
Detozi,
Please send a bird back to me with a note to let me know of Reyall’s safe arrival. If you would, let us try it on one of the swift pigeons he is bringing with him. It would be particularly interesting to me if you sent me a duplicate note on a regular bird, releasing both at dawn of the same day
. I wish to see if our efforts to breed for speed are yielding a measurable advantage to our birds. As for the kings, large and lovely as they are, I have had no success with them as messengers. They are too heavy-bodied to be fast, and many of them seem indifferent about returning to the home coop. They are, I fear, condemning themselves to be meat birds.
Erek
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHOICES
It was strange to move upriver again, as if nothing had happened. Thymara stood on the Tarman’s deck, the tool in her hand forgotten, and watched the jungly riverbank slowly slide by her. When she was in her own little boat, she’d never really had a chance to look down at the shore like this and see how the banks of the river changed as the hours of the day passed by. She missed being in her small boat but was almost glad it was gone. If it still existed, she’d have been paired with someone who wasn’t Rapskal, and it hurt to imagine that.
Counting Carson’s boat, they were reduced to five small boats, and only three had a full complement of gear. The Tarman had shipped extra oars for all the boats, she had discovered to her relief. Even so, the keepers had to rotate their days on the water. And when they were not in the small boats, they served on board the barge, doing whatever the captain asked them to do.
The expedition was now short on everything; knives, bows and arrows, spears, and fishing tackle had been lost, not to mention blankets, spare clothing, and the few personal items that each keeper had brought along. Greft had repeatedly congratulated himself on how well he had stowed his gear. It made Thymara want to hit him. It was sheer luck that his boat had wedged in the same tangle where the Bingtown man washed ashore. If it hadn’t, he would have been as beggared as the rest of them. As it was, he now functioned as a hunter alongside Carson. Those two boats had departed at dawn, with Davvie helping Carson and Nortel riding along with Greft. She was just as glad; Nortel had come to her with a bruised face and muttered an apology for “treating her like trade goods” and then walked away. She wondered if the words were his or Tats’s, and if Tats hoped to gain anything by forcing Nortel to apologize to her.
And there was her other painful subject. She didn’t want to think about Rapskal’s death, and she didn’t want to waste time thinking about Greft’s stupid plan for their lives.
