“When you sent me off to be a priest, it was not my choice.” Again he looked from face to face, trying to find some memory in them of that devastating day. “We stood in this very room. I clung to you, Mother, and promised I'd be good forever, if only you wouldn't send me away. But you told me I had to go. You told me that I was a first-born son, dedicated to Sa from the moment that I drew breath. You said you couldn't break your promise to Sa, and you gave me over to the wandering priest to take me to the monastery at Kall. Don't you remember at all? You stood there, Father, over by that window, on a day so bright that when I looked at you, all I could see was a black shadow against the sunlight. You said not a word that day. Grandmother, you told me to be brave, and gave me a little bundle with a few cakes from the kitchen to keep me on my way.”
Again he looked from face to face, seeking some discomfort with what they were doing to him, some trace of guilt that would indicate they knew they were wronging him. His mother was the only one to show any signs of uneasiness. He kept trying to catch her eye, to make her speak her thoughts, but her gaze slid away from him to his father. The man looked as if he were carved of stone.
“I did what you told me to do,” he said simply. The words sounded weak, whiny. “I left here and went off with a stranger. The way to the monastery was hard, and when I got there, everything was foreign. But I stayed and I tried. And after a time, it came to be my home, and I realized how correct your decision for me had been.” Memories of his first taste of priestly life were bittersweet; the strangeness and then the rightness of it all washed over him yet again. Tears pricked at his eyes as he said, “I love serving Sa. I have learned so much, grown so much, in ways I cannot even express to you. And I know that I'm only at the beginning, that it is all just starting to unfold for me. It's like . . .” He fumbled for a metaphor. “When I was younger, it was like life was a beautiful gift, wrapped in exquisite paper and adorned with ribbons. And I loved it, even though all I knew of it was the outside of the package. But in the last year or so, I've finally started to see there is something even better inside the package. I'm learning to see past the fancy wrappings, to the heart of things. I'm right on the edge. I can't stop now.”
“It was wrong,” his father conceded suddenly. But even as Wintrow's heart started to soar with relief, the sea-captain went on. “All those years ago, I knew it was wrong to send you away. I stood there and I kept my mouth shut and I let your mother have her way, because it seemed so important to her. And small as Selden was, he was a brave little fellow, and I knew I'd have a son to follow after me.”
He rose from his seat at the table and crossed the room, to stare out the window as he had on that morning years ago. Kyle Haven shook his head at himself. “But I should have followed my instincts. I knew it was a bad decision, and so it has proved. The time has come when I, when this family, needs a young son to rise up and take his place on the family ship, and we are not prepared. Selden is still too young. Two years from now, even one perhaps, and I'd take him as a ship's boy.” He turned back to face the room. “We brought this on ourselves, all of us. And so all of us will have to endure, without complaining, the pain of correcting that mistake. It means that you women will have to manage on your own here for yet another year. Somehow our creditors must be made to wait, and you must do whatever it takes to wring a profit out of our holdings. Those that cannot be made profitable must be sold to shore up those that can. It means another year of sailing for me, and a hard year, for we will have to sail fast and traffic in that which is most profitable. And for you, Wintrow, it means a single year in which I must teach you all you should have learned in the last five, a single year for you to learn the ways of a man and a sailor.” He paced the room as he spoke, ticking off orders and goals on his fingers. Wintrow suddenly knew that this was how he spoke to his mate on board ship, lining out tasks to be done. This was Captain Haven, accustomed to unquestioning obedience, and he was sure to be astonished by what was about to happen.
Wintrow stood, pushing his chair back carefully. “I am going back to the monastery. I have little to pack, and all I can do here I have done. I shall be leaving today.” He looked around the table. “I promised Vivacia when I left her this morning that someone would come down to spend the rest of the day with her. I suggest you wake Althea and ask her to go.”
His father's face reddened with instant rage. “Sit down and stop talking nonsense,” he barked. “You'll do as you're told. That'll be your first lesson to learn.”
Wintrow thought the beating of his heart was making his whole body shake. Was he afraid of his own father? Yes. It took all the defiance he could muster to remain standing. He had nothing left to speak with. Yet even as he met his father's glare and did not look away, even as he stood still and silent as the furious man advanced on him, a cool and particular part of himself observed, “yes, but it's only physical fear of physical things.” The notion caught up his whole mind in its web, so he paid no attention to his mother crying out and then shrieking, “Oh, Kyle, no, please, please don't, just talk to him, persuade him, don't, oh, please don't!” and his grandmother's voice raised in command, a fierce shout of “This is my home and you will not . . .”
Then the fist hit the side of his face, making a tremendous crack as it impacted. So fast and so slowly he went down, amazed or ashamed that he had neither lifted a hand to defend himself nor fled, and all the time somewhere a philosophical priest was saying, “physical fear, ah, I see, but is there another kind, and what would have to be done to me to make me feel it?” Then the flagstone floor struck him, hard and cool despite the dawning heat of the day. Losing consciousness felt like he was sinking down into the floor, becoming one with it as he had with the ship, save that the floor thought only of black darkness. So did Wintrow.
CHAPTER TEN
CONFRONTATIONS
“KYLE, I WILL NOT HAVE IT!”
Her mother's voice echoed clearly down the stone-flagged hall. The strident ring of it made Althea want to hurry her headache off in the other direction, even as the mention of Kyle's name made her want to charge into battle. Caution, she counseled herself. The first thing to do was to find out what kind of weather she was sailing into. She slowed her step as she made her way down the hall to the dining room.
“He's my son. I'll discipline him as I see fit. It may seem harsh right now, but the faster he learns to mind, and mind quickly, the easier it will go for him on the ship. He'll come round, and you'll find he's not much hurt. More shocked than anything else, most likely.”
Even Althea could hear the vague note of anxiety in Kyle's voice. That muffled sound, she decided, was her sister weeping. What had he done to little Selden? A terrible dread rose up in her, a desire to flee this messy domestic life and go back to . . . what? The ship? That was no escape any longer. She halted where she stood, until the dizzying misery could pass.
“That was not discipline. It's brawling, and it has no place in my home. Last night, I was willing to make some allowances for you. It had been a horrible day already, and Althea's appearance was shocking. But this, inside my own walls, between blood-kin . . . no. Wintrow's not a child any more, Kyle. Even if he were, a spanking would not have been the answer. He was not throwing a temper tantrum, he was trying to make you see his side of things. One doesn't spank a child for courteously voicing an opinion. Nor does one strike a man for it.”
“You don't understand,” Kyle said flatly. “In a few days he's going to be living aboard a ship, where opinions don't matter unless they're mine. He won't have time to disagree. He won't even have time to think. On a ship, a hand obeys, at that instant. Wintrow's just had his first lesson in what happens if he doesn't.” In a quieter voice he added, “It just may save my son's life someday.”
Althea heard the scuff of his boots as he walked. “Come, get up, Keffria. He'll come around in a few minutes, and when he does, I don't want you fussing over him. Don't encourage him in behavior I won't tolerate. If he thinks we're divided on this, he'll only fight it the more. And the more he fights it, the more times he's going to meet the floor.”
“I hate this,” Keffria said in a small dull voice. “Why does it have to be this way? Why?”
“It doesn't,” her mother said flatly. “And it won't. I tell you this plainly, Kyle Haven, I won't tolerate it. This family has never treated one another so, and we are not going to start on the day after Ephron's death. Not in my home.” Ronica Vestrit left no room for disagreement.
It was the wrong tone to take with Kyle. Althea could have told her that. Setting herself up directly against him would only bring out the worst in him. It did.
“Fine. As soon as he comes round, I'll take him down to the ship. He can learn his manners there. Actually, that's probably for the best anyway. If he learns a bit of the ship in port, he won't have to scramble so hard when we're under weigh. And I won't have to listen to women argue with every order I give him.”
“Aboard my ship or in my home,” her mother began, but Kyle cut across her words with words of his own that made Althea both cold and hot with anger.
“Keffria's ship. And mine, as I am her husband. What happens aboard the
Vivacia
is no longer your affair, Ronica. For that matter, I believe by Bingtown laws of inheritance, this house is now hers as well. To run as we see fit.”
There was a terrible silence. When Kyle spoke again, there was an offer of apology in his voice. “At least, it could be that way. To the detriment of all of us. I don't propose a splitting of our ways, Ronica. Obviously the family will prosper best if we work together, from a common home toward a common goal. But I cannot do that with my hands tied. You must see it is so. You've done very well, for a woman, all these years. But times are changing, and Ephron should not have left you to cope with everything on your own. As much as I respected the man . . . perhaps because I respected the man, I must learn from his mistakes. I'm not going to just sail off into the sunset and tell Keffria to mind things and manage until I return. I have to make provisions now to be able to stay home and run things. Nor am I going to let Wintrow come aboard the
Vivacia
and behave like some spoiled prince. You've seen what became of Althea: she's willful and thoughtless of others to the point of uselessness. No, worse, to the point of doing damage to the family name and reputation. I'll tell you bluntly, I don't know if you two can draw the lines with her that need to be drawn. Perhaps the simplest thing to do with her would be to marry her off, preferably to a man who does not live in Bingtown . . .”
Like a ship under full sail, Althea swept around the corner and into the room. “Would you care to mouth your insults to my face, Kyle?”
He was not at all surprised to see her. “I thought I saw your shadow. How long have you been eavesdropping, little sister?”
“Long enough to know that you intend no good for my family or our ship.” Althea tried not to be rattled by his calmness. “Who do you think you are, to speak to my mother and sister so, calmly telling them what you plan to do, how you intend to come back and “run' things?”
“I think I'm the man of this family now,” he proclaimed bluntly.
Althea smiled coldly. “You can be the man of this family all you like. But if you think you're keeping my ship, you're mistaken.”
Kyle sighed dramatically. “I thought it was only your so-called Rain Wild kin that believed that saying a thing often enough can make it so,” he observed sarcastically. “Little sister, you are such a fool. Not only does the common law of Bingtown recognize your sister as sole heir, but it was put into writing and signed by your father himself. Will you oppose even him in this?”
His words disemboweled her. She felt that everything that had ever given her strength had been torn from her. She had almost managed to convince herself that yesterday had been an accident, that her father could never have consciously intended to take the ship from her. It had only been that he had been in great pain and dying. But to hear that it was in writing, and sealed by him . . . NO. Her eyes darted from Kyle to her mother and then back again. “I don't care what my father was deceived into signing on his deathbed,” she said in a low but furious voice. “I know that Vivacia is mine. Mine in a way you can never claim her, Kyle. And I tell you now, I will not be stopped until I have her under my command—”
“Your command!” Kyle gave a great bark of laughter. “You command a ship? You're not even fit to serve aboard a ship. You have this great conceit about your abilities, this self-deception that you are some kind of a seaman. You're not! Your father kept you aboard to keep you from getting into trouble on shore, as near as I can see. You're not even a good sailor.”
Althea opened her mouth to speak, but a groan from Wintrow, sprawled on the floor, turned all eyes that way. Keffria started forward, but Kyle stopped her with a gesture. Their mother ignored both his look and his hand, however, to go to the boy. He sat up, obviously dizzy, holding both hands to the sides of his head. With an effort he focused his eyes on his grandmother. “Am I all right?” he asked her dazedly.
“I hope so,” she responded gravely. She gave a small sigh. “Althea, would you fetch me a cold, wet cloth?”
“The boy is fine,” Kyle proclaimed grumpily, but Althea ignored him. She stormed off down the hall to fetch her mother a wet rag, wondering all the time why she did so. She suspected her mother of having deceived her father, of getting him to sign something he never intended. So why did she so meekly obey her now? She didn't know, save that perhaps it was to give herself a moment away from Kyle before she killed him.
As she went down the hall to the pump room, she wondered what had become of her world. Never before had there been such doings in her home. People shouting at one another in her home was strange enough, but Kyle had knocked his own son cold on the floor. She still couldn't believe it had happened. These things were too foreign to her, so shocking she had no idea how to deal with them or even what to feel. She doused a towel under the cold stream of water she pumped up, and wrung the cloth out well. A very nervous serving woman was lurking there in the water room.
“Do you need my help?” the woman all but whispered.
“No. No, everything is under control. Captain Haven just had a bit of a temper tantrum,” Althea heard herself lie calmly. Under control, she thought to herself. It felt far from that to her. Instead she felt like she was a juggler's club, flying through the air, not knowing what hand would next seize her and fling her into a rhythm. No hand, perhaps. Perhaps she would just go flying off, out of control, never again to be a part of her family's pattern. She smiled bitterly at the ridiculous image, and put the wet cloth into an earthenware bowl before she bore it down the hall to the dining room. When she got there, Wintrow and her mother were seated at a corner of the low table. Wintrow looked pale and shaken, her mother very determined. She held both the boy's hands in her own as she spoke to him earnestly.
Kyle, arms crossed on his chest, stood by the window. His back was to the room, but Althea could sense his indignation. Keffria stood next to him, looking up at him imploringly, but he appeared unaware of her existence.
“. . . all in Sa's hands.” Her mother spoke earnestly to her nephew. “I believe that He has sent you back to us, and created this bond between you and the ship for a reason. It's meant to be, Wintrow. Can you accept it, as you once accepted the way we sent you off with the priest?”
A bond between Wintrow and her ship. It could not be. Her heart turned to ice in her chest, but strangely her body kept moving and her eyes kept seeing. Wintrow's whole attention was on his grandmother's face. He simply looked at her. His Haven blood showed plain in him, in the set of his chin and the anger in his eyes. Then, as Althea set the bowl and cloth down next to him, she saw the boy take control of himself. In half a dozen breaths, his features relaxed, and for a fleeting instant she glimpsed not only a strong resemblance to her father but to her own image in the looking-glass. It shocked her into silence.
When the lad spoke, his voice was mild and reasoned. “So I've heard people speak a thousand times. It's Sa's will, they say. Bad weather, late storms, stillborn children. Sa's will.” He reached for the damp cloth in the bowl, folded it carefully and pressed it against his jaw. The side of his face was already starting to purple, and the boy still looked shaky and unfocused. The edges of his words were soft; Althea guessed it was painful for him to speak. But he did not seem angry, or cowed, or frightened, only intent on reaching his grandmother with his words, as if by winning her to his side he could save his own life. Perhaps he could.
“Weather and storms I am willing to say are his will. Stillborn children, perhaps. Though not when the husband had beaten his wife but the day before . . .” his voice trailed off into some unpleasant memory. Then his eyes came back to his grandmother's face. “I think Sa gave us our lives, and his will is for us to live them well. He gives us obstacles, yes. . . . I have heard folk rail against his cruelty and loudly ask “why, why?' But the next day the same folk will take their saws and go out and cut limbs from their fruit trees, and dig up young trees and move them far from where they sprouted. “They will grow better and yield more,' the orchard workers say. They do not stand by the trees and explain that it is for their own good.”
He lifted the cloth from his face and refolded it to find a cooler spot. “My mind wanders,” he said unhappily. “Just when I want to speak most clearly to you, Grandmother. I do not think it is Sa's will for me to leave his priesthood and live aboard a ship so that our family may prosper financially. I am not even sure it is your will. I think it is my father's will. To get his way, he proposes breaking a promise, and breaking my heart. Nor am I unaware that this unwelcome “gift' he thrusts upon me was snatched but yesterday from my Aunt Althea's hands.”
For the first time he turned his eyes to Althea. Despite the pain and bruised skin, for an instant her father seemed to look out of those eyes. The same infinite patience cushioning an iron will. This was not some frail, cowering priest boy, but a man's mind in a boy's changing body, she realized in amazement.
“Even your own son recognizes the injustice of what you do,” she accused Kyle. “Your snatching Vivacia from me has nothing to do with whether or not you believe I can command her. It is solely a matter of your own greed.”
“Greed?” Kyle shouted in disdain. “Greed? Oh, I like that! Greed makes me want to take over a ship so ridiculously in debt, I'll be lucky to pay her off before I die. Greed makes me want to step forward and take responsibility for a household with no concept of wise money management. Althea, if I thought you had any capacity to be useful aboard the
Vivacia,
I'd seize on the chance of making you work for a change. No. More than that. If you could show me but one sign of true seamanship, if you had a single ship's ticket to your belt, I'd make you a gift of the damn ship and all her debts with her. But you're nothing but a spoiled little girl.”
“You liar!” Althea cried in infinite disgust.
“By Sa, I swear it's so!” Kyle roared angrily. “If but one reputable captain would vouch for your seamanship, I'd hand the ship over to you tomorrow! But all of Bingtown knows you for what you are. A dabbler and a pretense.”
“The ship would vouch for her,” Wintrow observed in a wavering voice. He lifted a hand to his forehead, as if to hold his head together. “If the ship vouched for her, would you do as you've sworn? For by Sa, you've offered that oath, and we all witnessed it. You'd have to live up to it. I cannot believe this quarreling and anger was what my grandfather willed for us. It is so simple for us to restore a balance. If Althea was on board Vivacia, I could go back to my monastery. We could all go back to where we belong. Where we were happy . . .” His voice trailed off as he realized all eyes were on him. His father's look was black with fury, but Ronica Vestrit had lifted her hand to her mouth as if his words had cut her to the quick.