But in another moment she sighed loudly. “Aye,” she said, and with another heavy sigh she took his offered arm. She leaned on him heavily, and he was glad he had jettisoned his sea-bag earlier in the day. The tavern-keeper holding it for him knew him well, and he had parted with several small coins to ensure its safety. He did not like to think of how much more coin he had spent following her from tavern to tavern. More than he had meant to, true, but not as much as he would have ordinarily spent on a night out on the town. He was still almost sober, he reflected. This had been the most depressing first night back in home port that he had ever spent. Well, it was nearly over. All he had to do was get her safely home, and then the few hours between the stars and dawn would be his to spend as he wished.
He looked up and down the street. It was ill lit with widely spaced torches and all but deserted at this hour. Those who were still capable of drinking were within the taverns, and everyone else in this quarter would be passed out somewhere. Nevertheless, there would be a few rogues who'd lurk down this way, hoping for a drunken sailor's last coin. He'd be wise to go carefully, especially with Althea in tow.
“This way,” he told her and attempted to lead her at a brisk pace, but she almost immediately stumbled. “Are you that drunk?” he asked her in annoyance before he could curb his tongue.
“Yes,” she admitted with a small belch. She stooped so abruptly that he thought she was going to fold up on the boardwalk. Instead she tore off first one and then another heeled-and-ribboned shoe. “And these damn things don't help a bit.” She stood and flung them both out into the dark street. Straightening, she turned back to him and took his arm firmly. “Now let's go.”
She made her way much better barefoot, he had to admit. He grinned at himself in the darkness. Even after all the years of doing for himself, there was still some of the strait-laced Trell in him. He'd felt a shudder of horror at the impropriety of a Trader's daughter going barefoot through the town. Well, given the rest of her condition, he doubted it would be the first thing anyone noticed. Not that he intended to troll her through the market as she was; he'd keep to the lesser-traveled streets and hope they met no one who could recognize them in the darkness. That much he owed to the memory of Ephron Vestrit.
But as they came to an intersection, she tugged at his arm and tried to turn toward the bright streets of the night market. “I'm hungry,” she announced, and she sounded both surprised and annoyed, as if it were his fault.
“Too bad. I'm broke,” he lied succinctly and tried to draw her away.
She stared at him suspiciously. “You drank all your pay that fast? Sa's ass, man, I knew you were a sot in port, but I didn't think even you could go through coin that fast.”
“I spent it on whores,” he embellished irritably.
She appraised him in the flickering torch light. “Yes. You would,” she confirmed to herself. She shook her head. “Nothing you wouldn't do, is there, Brashen Trell?”
“Not much,” he agreed coldly, resolute on ending the conversation. Once more he tugged at her arm but she still resisted.
“Lots of places there will give me credit. Come on. I'll buy for you, too.” She had gone from judgmental to effusive in one breath.
He decided on a direct tack. “Althea. You're drunk and a mess. You're in no condition to be seen in any public place. Come on. I'm taking you home.”
The resistance went out of her and he led her docilely along the semi-dark street. They were in an area of smaller shops here, some of an unsavory nature, others incapable of paying the high rent of a night market location. Dim lanterns shone outside those that were still open for business: tattoo parlors, incense and drug shops, and those that sated the more unusual cravings of the flesh. He was glad that trade was paltry tonight. Just when he thought that the night's trials were over for him, Althea drew a long shuddering breath. He realized she was weeping, all but silently.
“What's wrong?” he asked her wearily.
“Now that my father's dead, no one will ever be proud of me again.” She shook her head blindly, and then blotted her eyes on her sleeve. Her voice was choked when she spoke. “With him, it was what I could do. With all of them, it's how I look, or what others think of me.”
“You've had too much to drink,” he said quietly. He had meant the words to sound comforting, to mean that such things would only bother her when she was drunk and her defenses were down. Instead they came out sounding like another condemnation. But she only bowed her head to it and followed him docilely, so he let it be. He was certainly having no luck at making her feel better, and honestly he was not sure that he wanted to make her feel better, or had any responsibility to do so. So her family had condemned her. Could she speak to him and forget how completely cast out from his kin he was? Only a few weeks ago, she had thrown that in his face. It wasn't fair of her to expect sympathy now that the tables were turned.
They had walked some way in silence when she spoke again. “Brashen,” she said quietly in a serious voice. “I'm going to get my ship back.”
He made a noncommittal noise. There was no sense in telling her he believed there was absolutely no chance of that.
“Did you hear what I said?” she demanded.
“Yes. I heard you.”
“Well. Aren't you going to say anything?”
He gave a short, bitter laugh. “When you get your ship back, I expect to be first mate again.”
“Done,” she replied grandiosely.
Brashen snorted. “If I knew it were that easy, I'd have demanded to be captain.”
“No. No, I'm going to be the captain. But you can be the mate. Vivacia likes you. When I am captain, I'm only going to have people we like aboard her.”
“Thank you,” he said awkwardly. He had never believed that Althea liked him. In a strange way, it touched him. The captain's daughter had liked him after all.
“What?” she asked him drunkenly.
“Nothing,” he told her. “Nothing at all.”
They turned into the street of the Rain Wild River merchants. Here the stores were more ornate, and all but one or two were closed for the evening. The exotic and expensive merchandise they dealt in was for the very wealthy, not the wild and reckless youth that were the main customers of the night market. The tall glass windows were shuttered for the night, and hired guards, heavily armed, loitered purposefully near the various shops. More than one glowered at the pair as they made their way down the boardwalks. The wares behind the shuttered windows were tinged with the magic of the Rain Wilds. It had always seemed to Brashen that there was a shimmer of something both shivery and sweet on this street. It prickled the hair on the back of his neck at the same time that it closed his throat with awe. Even in the night, with the mysterious goods of the forbidding river trade hidden from sight, the aura of magic simmered silvery-cold in the night air. He wondered if Althea felt it and nearly asked her, save that the question seemed both too serious and too trivial to utter aloud.
The silence between them had grown until Althea's hand on his arm was an uncomfortable closeness. When he spoke again, it was to dispel that more than from any need. “Well, she's come up in the world quite swiftly,” he observed aloud as they passed Amber's shop. He nodded toward a storefront on the corner of Rain Wild Street, where Amber herself sat in the window behind an expensive set of Yicca glass panes. They were as clear as water, and set in elaborately carved and gilded frames. They made the woman in the window look like a framed piece of art. The woven chair she lounged in was of white wickerwork. She wore a long brown gown that hung simply from her shoulders; it more cloaked than enhanced her slight form. Her shop windows were neither shuttered nor barred; no guards lurked outside. Perhaps Amber trusted to her own strange presence to deter thieves. A single dish lamp burned on the floor beside her with a mellow yellow light. The rich brown of her draped gown pointed up the gold of her skin and hair and eyes. Her bare feet peeped from the bottom of her long skirts. She watched the street with a cat's wide unblinking stare.
Althea halted to return that stare. She swayed slightly on her feet and without thinking Brashen put his arm around her shoulders to steady her. “What is she selling?” Althea wondered out loud. Brashen winced, certain that the woman beyond the glass had heard her words, but Amber's expression neither changed nor faltered from her emotionless regard of the disheveled girl in the street. Althea screwed her eyes tight shut, then opened them wide as if that would change the view. “She looks as if she's all carved of wood. Golden maple.”
The woman behind the glass could hear her words, for Brashen saw a small smile begin to form on her sculpted lips. But when Althea added plaintively, “She reminds me of my ship. Lovely Vivacia, with all the colors of life over the silk grain of wizardwood,” Amber's face abruptly changed to an expression of extreme distaste. Not quite sure of why that patrician disdain so alarmed him, Brashen nonetheless seized Althea by the elbow and firmly hurried her past the window and on down the dimly lit street.
At the next intersection, he allowed her to slow down. She was limping by then, and he recalled her bare feet and the rough wood of the boardwalk. She said not a word of that, but only asked again, “What does she sell there? She's not one of the Bingtown Traders who have Rain Wild River trade; only liveship families can trade up the Rain Wild River. So who is she and why does she have a shop on Rain Wild Street?”
Brashen shrugged. “She was new here, about two years ago. Had a tiny little shop off the Odds and Bodkins Square. She made wooden beads and sold them. Nothing else. Just very pretty wooden beads. A lot of people bought them for their children to string. Then, last year, she moved to a better location and started selling, well, jewelry. Only it's all made of wood.”
“Wooden jewelry?” Althea scoffed. She sounded much more herself and Brashen suspected the walk was sobering her up. Good. Maybe she'd have the sense to tidy herself up before walking barefoot into her father's house.
“That's what I thought, too, until I saw it. I had never known a crafter could find so much in wood. She works with the odd little knotty bits, and brings out faces and animals and exotic flowers. Sometimes she inlays pieces. But it's as much the wood she chooses as the skill with which she does it. She has an uncanny eye, to see what she does in a bit of wood.”
“So. Does she work wizardwood, then?” Althea asked boldly.
“Fa!” Brashen exclaimed in disgust. “She might be new, but she knows our ways well enough to know that would not be tolerated! No, she only uses ordinary wood. Cherry and oak and I don't know, all different colors and grains . . .”
“There's a lot more that work wizardwood in Bingtown than would like to own up to it,” Althea observed darkly. She scratched at her belly. “It's a dirty little trade, but if you want a carved bit and have the coin, you can get it.”
Her suddenly ominous tone made Brashen uneasy. He tried to lighten the conversation. “Well, isn't that what all the world says of Bingtown? That if a man can imagine a thing, he can find it for sale here?”
She smiled crookedly at him. “And you've heard the rejoinder to that, haven't you? That no man can truly imagine being happy, and that's why happiness isn't for sale here.”
The sudden bleakness of her mood left him at a loss for words. The silence that followed seemed in tune with the cooling of the summer night. As they left the streets of the merchants and tradesmen behind and followed the winding roads into the residential sections of Bingtown, the night grew darker around them. Lanterns were more widely spaced and set far back from the road. Barking dogs threatened them from fenced or hedged yards. The roads here were rougher, the only walkways were of gravel, and when Brashen thought of Althea's bare feet, he winced sympathetically. But she herself said nothing of it.
In the silence and darkness, his grief for his fallen captain found space to grow in him. More than once he blinked away the sting of tears. Gone. Captain Vestrit was gone, and with him Brashen's second chance at life. He should have taken better advantage of all the Old Trader offered him while he was alive. He should never have assumed that the helping hand the man had extended him would always be available. Well, now he'd have to make his own third chance. He glanced over at the girl who still depended on his arm. She'd have to make her own way, too, now. Either that, or accept the fate her family parceled out to her. He suspected they'd find a younger son of a Trader family willing to wed her despite her risqué reputation. Maybe even his own little brother. He didn't think Cerwin would be any match for Althea's willfulness, but the Trell fortunes would mingle well with those of the Vestrits. He wondered how Althea's adventurousness would stand up to Cerwin's hide-bound traditionalism. He smiled grimly to himself, and wondered who he'd pity more.
He'd been to the Vestrits' home before, but always it had been by daylight, with some bit of ship's business to take to the Captain. The walk to Althea's home seemed much longer in the night. They left even the distant sounds of the night market behind them. They passed hedges with night-blooming flowers perfuming the air. An almost eerie peace descended over Brashen. Today had seen an end to so many things. Once more he was cut loose and drifting, with only himself to rely on. No obligations tomorrow, no schedules. No crews to supervise, no cargo to unload. Only himself to feed. Was that bad, really?
The Vestrit mansion was set well back from the public road. The gardens and grounds hosted insects and frogs, all trilling in the summer night. They provided the only sound other than the crunching of his boots as they walked up the stone drive. It was when he stood before the white stone of the entryway, before the familiar door where he had sometimes awaited admittance on ship's business, that he suddenly felt grief once more clutch at his throat. Never again, he supposed. This would be the last time he'd stand before this door. After a moment, he noticed that Althea had not let go of his arm. Here, clear of the narrow streets and shops, the moonlight could find her. Her bare feet were dirty, her gown draggled. Her hair had come loose of the lace thing she'd bound it in; at least, half of it had. She suddenly released his arm, stood up straight, and heaved a great sigh.