There had been an air of both mystery and adventure to tracking Grag down, but never did Althea forget that it was serious as well. In the days since Ophelia had defied the Satrap’s tariff minister, Bingtown had grown more divided. The liveship’s swift departure from the harbor had been a wise decision, for three new Chalcedean patrol vessels had arrived shortly thereafter. This “timely” arrival had sparked suspicions that the tariff ministry had closer ties to Chalced than perhaps even Jamaillia knew. Someone had broken into the minister’s quarters, and messily killed a cote of homing pigeons there. The tariff warehouses that had survived the Council night fires had been torched twice since then. This had led to the Chalcedean mercenaries guarding the minister’s quarters by night as well as ostensibly patrolling the harbor and adjacent waters. Some of those Old Traders who had initially been more conservative were now more sympathetic to those who quietly spoke of independence from Jamaillia.
Grag Tenira had become a focus for the tariff minister’s grievances with the town. There was a large price on his head. Brashen’s suggestion that Althea could sell Grag for enough money to re-launch Paragon had been a jest, but not an exaggeration. If Grag did not put himself out of harm’s reach soon, even those loyal to him might be tempted by the soaring bounty.
So now, as she sat in the summer evening’s mellow breeze and looked across at him, she felt a sense of foreboding. Grag had to act and soon. She had spoken to him of it before, and now she ventured, “I still do not understand why you linger near Bingtown. Surely, you could slip out of town on one of the liveships. I am only amazed that the Satrap’s agents have not deduced that you would be here. It is well known that your family has a cabin in the Sanger Forest.”
“So well known that they have been here twice and searched it. They may come again. But if they do, they will find it as empty and abandoned as the last times.”
“How?” Althea was intrigued.
Grag laughed, but not lightly. “My great uncle was not the most moral of men. The family rumor is that he kept many a tryst up here. That is why there is not only a wine cellar concealed behind a false wall in the root cellar, but a tiny chamber behind that. And there is a very expensive sympathy bell, with its partner installed in the foot bridge you crossed.”
“I heard nothing when I crossed the bridge,” Althea protested.
“Of course not. It’s a tiny one, but very sensitive. When your passage rang it there, its partner answered up here. Thank Sa for the magic of the Rain Wilds.”
He lifted his glass in a toast to their Rain Wild brethren, and Althea drank with him. She set her glass down and dragged him back to her topic. “Then you intend to remain here?”
He shook his head. “No. It would only be a matter of time before they caught me. Supplies must be brought up. The folk in this area know that I am here. Many of them are Three Ships families. Good people, but not rich. Eventually, one would give in to temptation. No, I am leaving and very soon. That is why I begged my mother to arrange this visit. I feared your family would forbid it; I knew it was not proper for me to seek to see you alone in these circumstances. Desperate times beget desperate measures.” He looked apologetic.
Althea gave a soft snort of amusement. “I don’t think Mother gave it that much thought. I’m afraid my childhood reputation as a rebellious hoyden has followed me into adulthood. What would be scandalous for my sister to do is ordinary behavior for me.”
He reached across the table to put his hand over hers. He pressed it warmly, then possessed it. “Is it wrong for me to say that I am glad it is so? Otherwise, I would never have come to know you well enough to love you.”
The bald admission left her speechless. She tried to move her mouth to say she loved him too, but the lie would not come. Odd. She had not known it would be a lie until she tried to speak the words. She took a breath to say something true: that she had come to care for him as well, or that she was honored by his words, but with a shake of his head, he cut her off.
“Don’t speak. You don’t have to say it, Althea. I know you don’t love me, not yet. In many ways, your heart is even more cautious than mine is. I knew that from the beginning. Even if I had not, Ophelia was at great pains to tell me so when she was instructing me in how to woo you.” He laughed self deprecatingly. “Not that I sought her advice. In many ways, she is a second mother to me. She does not wait for me to ask for her advice.”
She smiled gratefully. “I find no fault with you, Grag. There is nothing you have done to turn back my feelings. My life has given me no time, of late, to dwell on hopes or dreams for myself. My family’s problems weigh heavily on me. Lacking grown men in our line, the duty falls squarely on me. No one else can go after the
Vivacia.
”
“So you have told me,” Grag conceded, in a voice that did not concede complete agreement. “I have given up the hope that you might go with me now. I suppose that even in times such as these, that would be seen as too hasty a wedding to be seemly.” He turned her hand over in his and brushed his thumb over her palm. It sent a shiver of pleasure up her arm. He looked down at her hand as he asked, “But what of later? Better times will come … ” He considered his own words and then gave a bitter laugh. “Or worse ones, perhaps. I would like to tell myself that in time, you will stand beside me and join my family. Althea. Will you marry me?”
She closed her eyes and knew a moment of pain. This was a good man, an honest and upright man, handsome, desirable, even wealthy. “I don’t know,” she told him quietly. “I try to look ahead, and imagine a time when my life will be my own, to arrange as I will, but I cannot see that far. If all goes well, and we win the
Vivacia
back, then I will still challenge Kyle for possession of her. If I win her, then I will sail her.” She met his eyes honestly. “We have spoken of this before. I know you cannot leave Ophelia. If once more I possess Vivacia, I will not leave her. Where does that leave us?”
His mouth twisted wryly. “You make it hard for me to wish you success, for if you win all you desire, I lose you.” At the dawn of her frown, he laughed aloud. “But you know I do. Nevertheless, if you do not succeed … well, I will be waiting for you. With Ophelia.”
She lowered her eyes and nodded to his offer, but in her heart she felt a small chill. What would it be to fail? A lifetime ahead with no ship of her own. The
Vivacia
gone forever from her life. Grag’s wife, aboard his ship as a passenger, minding her little ones lest they fall overboard. Seeing her sons grow up and sail away with their father while she stayed home and ran a household and married off her daughters. The future suddenly seemed a tightening net, webbing her in. She tried to breathe, tried to convince herself that her life would not be like that. Grag knew her. He knew her heart was at sea, not at home. But, just as he accepted her duty to her family now, once they were married he would expect her to do her duty to him. Why else did sailors take wives, save to have someone at home to mind the house and raise the children?
“I can’t be your wife.” Incredulously, she heard herself say the words aloud. She forced herself to meet his eyes. “That is what truly keeps me from loving you, Grag. Knowing that that would be the price I must pay. I could love you, easily, but I could not live in your shadow.”
“In my shadow?” he asked in confusion. “Althea, I don’t understand. You would be my wife, honored by my family, the mother of the Tenira heir.” There was genuine hurt in his voice. He groped for words. “More than that, I could not offer. It is all and everything I have to offer any woman I marry. That and myself.” His voice sank to a whisper. “I had hoped it would be enough to win you.” Slowly he opened his hand. It was as if he released a bird.
Reluctantly she drew her hand back. “Grag. No man could offer me more than that, or better.”
“Not even Brashen Trell?” he asked roughly. His voice thickened on the words.
A terrible coldness welled up inside her. He knew. He knew she had bedded with Trell. She was glad she was sitting down. She tried to control her face even as she fought the roaring in her ears. Sa, she was going to faint! This was ridiculous. She could not grasp the extent of her reaction to his words.
He stood suddenly, and walked a short distance away from the table. He stared off into the night forest. “So. You love him, then?” His words were almost accusatory.
Guilt and shame had dried her mouth. “I don’t know,” she managed hoarsely. She tried to clear her throat. “It was just something that happened between us. We’d both been drinking, and the beer was drugged and … ”
“I know all that.” He dismissed it brusquely. He still did not look at her. “Ophelia told me all that, when she warned me. I didn’t want to believe her.”
Althea lowered her face into her hands.
Warned him.
The sudden gaping loss gutted her. She suddenly doubted that Ophelia had even liked her. “How long have you known?” she managed to ask.
He sighed heavily. “The night she urged me to kiss you, and I did … she told me later. I suppose she felt, oh, I don’t know, guilty. Afraid that I might get hurt, if I fell too deeply in love with you, and then found out you weren’t … what I expected.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before this?”
She lifted her head to see his lop-sided shrug. “I thought it wouldn’t matter. It bothered me, of course. I wanted to kill the bastard. Of all the low things to do … but then Ophelia told me that you might have feelings for him. Might even be a bit in love with him?” It was a half-hearted question.
“I don’t think I am,” she said in a low voice. The ambivalence in her own voice surprised her.
“That’s twice,” Grag observed bitterly. “You know you don’t love me. But you aren’t sure about him.”
“I’ve known him a long time,” she said lamely. She wanted to say she didn’t love him. But how could you know someone that long, be friends with someone that long, and not feel some kind of love for him? It was not that different from her relationship with Davad Restart. She could despise the Trader’s actions, and still recall a kindly, avuncular bumbler. “For years, Trell was a friend and a shipmate. And what happened between us doesn’t change those years. I … ”
“I don’t understand at all,” Grag said softly. She still heard the undercurrent of anger in his voice. “He dishonored you, Althea. He compromised you. When I found out, I was furious. I wanted to call him out. I was sure you must hate him. I knew he deserved to die. I thought he would never dare return to Bingtown after what he had done. When he did, I wanted to kill him. Only two things held me back. I could not do so without revealing the reason for challenging him. I didn’t want to shame you. Then, I heard he had called at your home. I thought, perhaps, he was going to offer to do the honorable thing. If he had and you had refused him … Did he offer? Is that what this is about, do you feel some sort of obligation to him?”
There was desperation in his voice. He was struggling so hard to understand.
She stood up from the table and went to stand beside him. She, too, looked into the darkened forest. Shadows of twigs and limbs and trunks tangled and obstructed each other. “He didn’t rape me,” she said. “That is what I must admit to you. What happened between us was not wise. But it wasn’t violent and I was as much to blame as Brashen.”
“He’s a man.” Grag spoke the words uncompromisingly. He crossed his arms on his chest. “The blame is his. He should have been protecting you, not taking advantage of your weakness. A man should control his lust. He should have been stronger.”
She felt struck dumb. Was this really how he viewed her? As a weak and helpless creature, to be guided and protected by whatever man happened to be closest to her? Did he honestly believe she could not have stopped Brashen if she had wanted to? She felt first a rift, and then a building anger. She wanted to rip him with words, to force him to see that she controlled her own life. Then, as swiftly as it had come, the anger fled. It was hopeless. She saw her liaison with Brashen as a personal event that had involved only the two of them. Grag viewed it as something that had been done to her, something that must change her forever. It affronted his whole concept of society. Her own shame and guilt had not come from a sense of wrongdoing, but from a fear of what the discovery could do to her family. The two views seemed radically different to her. She knew, with a sudden deep certainty, that they could never build anything together. Even if she could have given up her dreams of a ship of her own, even if she had suddenly decided she wanted a home and children to cherish, his image of her as a weak and defenseless woman would always humble her.
“I should leave now,” she announced abruptly.
“It’s dark,” he protested. “You can’t go now!”
“The inn isn’t far, once I’m past the bridge. I’ll go slowly. And the horse seems very steady.”
Finally, he turned back to look at her. His eyes were wide, his face vulnerable as he pleaded, “Stay. Please. Stay and talk. We can resolve this.”
“No, Grag. I don’t think we can.” An hour ago, she would have touched his hand, would have wanted to kiss him good-bye at least. Now she knew she could never get past the barriers between them. “You’re a good man. You’ll find a woman who is right for you. I wish you all the best. And when next you see Ophelia, give her my best wishes also.”
He followed her back into the circle of dancing light from the cut-tin lanterns. She picked up her wine glass and drank the last swallow from it. When she looked around, she realized there was nothing further to do here. She was ready to leave.
“Althea.”
She turned to the bereft tone of his voice. Grag suddenly looked very boyish and young. He met her eyes bravely and did not try to hide his pain. “The offer stands. I’ll wait until you come back. Be my wife. I don’t care what you’ve done. I love you.”
She searched for true words she could say to him. “You have a kind heart, Grag Tenira,” she said at last. “Farewell.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CONSEQUENCES
SERILLA HAD NOT LEFT THE CAPTAIN’S CABIN
since she had been dragged there. She ran her hands through her bedraggled hair and tried to decide how long that had been. She forced herself to review the events in her mind, but her memories would not stay in proper order. They jumped and jiggled about, the moments of terror and pain leaping up to demand her attention even as she refused to think about them.
She had fought the sailor sent to bring her. Serilla had wanted to go with dignity, but found she could not. She had held back until he dragged her. When she struck him, he had simply picked her up and slung her over one wide shoulder. He stank. Her efforts to strike and kick him had amused not only him, but also the other members of the crew who had observed her humiliation. Her screams for help had been ignored. Those of the Satrap’s party who had witnessed her abduction did nothing. Those who had chanced to see her kept their faces carefully expressionless, turning away from her plight or closing the doors they had peeped out. But Serilla could not forget the expressions on Cosgo and Kekki as they watched her hauled away. Cosgo smiled in smug triumph, whilst Kekki roused from her drugged stupor to watch in fascinated titillation. Her hand had lingered on Cosgo’s thigh.
Her captor had borne her into an unfamiliar part of the ship. He shoved her into the captain’s darkened cabin, then latched the door behind her. Serilla did not know how long she had waited there. It seemed hours, but how could one measure time in such circumstances? She had cycled from rage to despair to terror. Fear had been with her constantly. By the time the man actually arrived, Serilla was already exhausted from shouting, weeping and pounding on the door. At his first touch, she physically collapsed, near fainting. Nothing in her scholarly upbringing or days at court had ever prepared her for anything like this. He easily overcame her efforts to push him away. She was like a spitting kitten in his hand. He raped her, not savagely, but matter-of-factly. The discovery of her virginity made him exclaim in surprise, and curse in his own language. Then he went on with his own pleasure.
How many days ago had that been? She did not know. She had not left the cabin since then. Time was broken up into when the man was there and when he was not. Sometimes he used her. Other times he ignored her. He was impersonal in his cruelty. He did not notice her in any other way; he made no attempt to win her affection. He showed her the same courtesy he gave to the chamber pot or spittoon. He never spoke to her. She was there to use, when he felt the need. If she made it difficult, with resistance or pleading, he would hit her. He delivered the open-handed blows casually, with a lack of effort that convinced her his intent strength would be far greater. One slap loosened two of her teeth and left her ear ringing for hours. The lack of malice with which he struck her was more frightening than the blows. Hurting her was of no concern to him.
At some early point in her captivity, she had contemplated revenge. She had rummaged about in the room, looking for anything that might serve as a weapon. The man was not a trusting soul. His chests and cupboards were locked, and did not give way to her prying. But she did find on his desk documents that indicated her suspicions were well founded. She recognized a chart of Bingtown harbor, and a map of the area around the mouth of the Rain Wild River. Like all such maps she had ever seen, there were great blank spaces. There were letters there as well, but she did not read the Chalcedean language. The documents contained mention of money and the names of two high Jamaillian nobles. It might have been information about bribes; but it might also have been a bill of lading. She put everything back exactly as she had found it. Either she had not done a good job, or the beating he gave her that night was for a different offense. It quenched her last thoughts of resistance or revenge. She no longer even thought of survival. Her mind retreated, leaving her body to function on its own.
After a time, she had learned to eat the leavings from his meals. He did not eat often in his cabin, but provided her no other food or drink. She had no clothing left intact, so she spent most of her time huddled in the corner of his bed. She no longer thought. When she tried to fumble her way out of her confusion, she found only ugly alternatives. All thought was fear. Today, he might kill her. He might give her to his crew. He might keep her forever, all the rest of her life, in this cabin. Worst of all, he might return her to the Satrap, a broken toy that no longer amused him. Eventually, he would get her pregnant. Then what? This present that she endured had irreparably destroyed all her futures that might be. She would not think.
Sometimes she stared out the window. There was little to see. Water. Islands. Birds flying. The smaller ships that accompanied them. Sometimes the smaller ships disappeared, to rejoin them a day later. Sometimes they showed sign of battle, scorched wood or tattered sails or chained men on the deck. They raided the small outlaw settlements of the Inside Passage as they discovered them, taking loot and captives as slaves. They seemed to be doing well at it.
Someday, they would get to Bingtown. When that thought came to Serilla, it was like a tiny crack through which light shone. If she could somehow escape in Bingtown, if she could get ashore, she could conceal who she had been and what had happened to her. That was very important to her. Her mind recoiled from continuing this life. She could no longer be Serilla. Serilla was a soft and pampered academic, a gently reared scholar, and a court woman of words and thoughts. She despised Serilla. Serilla was too weak to fight off this man. Serilla had been too foolishly proud to accept the Satrap’s offer to bed him instead of the Chalcedean. Serilla was too cowardly to plot how to kill the captain, or even how to kill herself. Even knowing that Bingtown was her last hope in the world, she could not focus her mind enough to form an escape plan. Some vital part of herself had been, if not destroyed, suspended. She detached herself from Serilla, and shared the world’s contempt for her.
The end of her ordeal came as abruptly as it had begun. A sailor unlocked the cabin one day and gestured for her to follow.
She clutched the blanket to herself as she cowered on the captain’s bed. Steeling herself for a blow, she dared to ask, “Where are you taking me?”
“Satrap.” The one word was his reply. Either he spoke no more of her language than that, or he considered it ample. He jerked his head toward the door again.
She knew she had to obey. When she stood and wrapped the blanket about herself, the sailor did not try to take it from her. The gratitude she felt for this brought tears to her eyes. When he was sure she was following, he led the way. She followed him cautiously, as if she were venturing into a new world. Blanket clutched tightly around her, she emerged from the cabin. She kept her eyes cast down and hurried along. She tried to go to her old cabin, but a shout from her guide made her cringe. She fell in behind him once more, and he took her to the Satrap’s quarters.
She expected he would knock at the door. She had hoped to have at least that much time to prepare herself. He didn’t. He flung the door of the cabin open and gestured impatiently for her to enter.
She stepped forward into a noisome flow of overly warm air. In this warm weather, the smells of the ship itself had ripened with that of sickness and sweat. Serilla recoiled but the sailor was merciless. He seized her shoulder and pushed her into the room. “Satrap,” he said, and then shut the door firmly.
She ventured into the stifling room. It was still and dim. It had been tidied, in a careless sort of way. Discarded garments hung on backs of chairs rather than littering the floor. The censers for the Satrap’s smoke herbs had been emptied but not cleaned. The smell of stale smoke choked the room. Plates and glasses had been cleared from his table, but the sticky circles from the bottoms of the bottles remained. From behind the heavy curtains on the great window came the sound of a single determined fly battering its head against the glass.
The room was accusingly familiar. She blinked slowly. It was like awakening from a bad dream. How could this room with its domestic clutter still exist so unchanged after all she had been through? She stared around, her daze slowly lifting. While she had been held captive and raped repeatedly, a single deck away, life had gone on for the Satrap and his party. Her absence had changed nothing for them. They had continued to drink and dine, to listen to music and play games of chance. The litter and mess of their safely ordinary lives suddenly enraged her. A terrible strength flooded her. She could have smashed the chairs against the table, could have shattered the heavy stained glass of the windows and flung his paintings and vases and statues into the sea.
She did not. She stood still, savoring her fury and containing it until it became her. It was not strength, but it would do.
She had believed the room was deserted. Then she heard a groan from the disheveled bed. Clutching her blanket about her, she stalked closer.
The Satrap sprawled there in a wallow of bedding. His face was pale, his hair sweated to his brow. The smell of sickness was thick about him. A blanket thrown to the floor beside the bed stank of vomit and bile. As she stared down at him, his eyes opened. He blinked stickily, then appeared to focus on her. “Serilla,” he whispered. “You’ve come back. Thank Sa! I fear I am dying.”
“I hope you are.” She spoke each word clearly as she stared at him. He cowered from her gaze. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot. The hands that clutched the edge of his blanket trembled. To have lived in fear for all those days, and then discover that the man who had given her over to such treatment was now sickened and wasted was too great an irony. In his illness, his wasted face finally resembled his father’s. That brief resemblance both stabbed and strengthened her. She would not be what Cosgo had tried to make her. She was stronger than that.
She abruptly discarded her blanket. She walked naked to his wardrobe and flung the doors of it wide. She felt his eyes on her; she took a vengeance in that she no longer cared. She began to pull out and then discard his garments, searching for something clean she could put on. Most of his clothing stank of his drug-smokes or perfumes, but she finally found a loose pair of white pantaloons, and then a red silk shirt. The trousers were too ample for her. She belted them up with a finely woven black scarf. An embroidered vest covered her breasts more appropriately. She took up one of his hairbrushes, cleaned it of his strands, and then began to bring her own dirty locks into order. She ripped the brush through her brown hair as if she could erase the Chalcedean’s touch from it. Cosgo watched her in dull consternation.
“I called for you,” he offered her weakly. “After Kekki sickened. By then, there was no one else left to tend me. We were all having such fun, before the sickness came. Everyone got so sick, so quickly. Lord Durden died right after our card game one night. Then the others began to get sick.” He lowered his voice. “I suspect it is poison. None of the crew has been ill. Only me and those loyal to me. In addition, the captain does not even seem to care. They sent servants to tend me, but many of them are sick and the rest are fools. I have tried all my medicines, but nothing eases me. Please, Serilla. Don’t leave me to die. I don’t want to be tipped overboard like Lord Durden.”
She braided her hair back from her face. She studied herself in the mirror, turning her face from side to side. Her skin had gone sallow. On one side of her face, the bruises were fading. There was caked blood inside one of her nostrils. She picked up one of his shirts from the floor and wiped her nose on it. Then she met her reflection’s gaze. She did not recognize herself. It was as if a frightened, angry animal lurked behind her eyes. She had become dangerous, she thought to herself. That was the difference. She gave him a glance. “Why should I care? You gave me to him, like a leftover bone thrown to a dog. Now you expect me to care for you?” She turned to face him and stared into his eyes. “I hope you die.” She spoke the words slowly and individually, willing him to understand how completely she meant them.
“You can’t hope that!” he whined. “I am the Satrap. If I die, with no heir, all Jamaillia will fall into disorder. The Pearl Throne has never been unoccupied, not for seventeen generations.”
“It is now,” she pointed out sweetly. “And however the nobles are managing now is how they will manage when you are dead. Perhaps they won’t even notice.”
She crossed the room to his jewelry boxes. The best quality would be in the ones most stoutly locked. Casually she lifted an ornately carved box over her head. She dashed it to the floor. The thick carpeting on the deck defeated her. She would not humiliate herself by trying again. She would content herself with simple silver and gold instead. She opened compartments of a different chest randomly, chose earrings for herself and a throatpiece. He had let her out as if she were a whore he owned. He could pay well for what he had done to her, in a multitude of ways. What she took now might be her only source of wealth when she left him in Bingtown. She decked her fingers with rings. She looped a heavy chain of gold about her ankle. Never had she worn such jewelry. It was almost like armor, she thought. Now she wore her worth on the outside of her body instead of within. It built her anger.
“What do you want from me?” he demanded imperiously. He tried to sit up, then sank back with a moan. The command was gone from his voice as he whimpered, “Why are you being so hateful to me?”
He seemed so genuinely incredulous that she was jolted into an answer. “You gave me over to a man who raped me repeatedly. He beat me. You did it deliberately. You knew what I was suffering. You did nothing. Until you needed me, you cared nothing for what became of me. You were amused by it!”