Kennit was beginning to regret letting the man think he regarded him as an equal. He was becoming entirely too demanding, and seemed unaware of how odious Kennit found such behavior. Kennit narrowed his eyes as he considered that the crew seemed overly pleased with Sorcor's idealistic ranting. He doubted it was that they shared his lofty goals of suppressing slavery. More like that they relished the thought of unreined carnage. As he watched two of his worthy seamen together loft a still-living man over the side and into the waiting maw of a serpent, Kennit nodded his head slowly to himself. This bestial bloodshed was what they craved. Perhaps he had been keeping too tight a rein on the men for the sake of the ransom that live captives bought. He tucked that thought away for later consideration. He could learn from anyone, even Sorcor. All dogs needed to be let off their leashes now and then. He mustn't let the crew believe that only Sorcor could provide such treats.
He quickly wearied of watching the final slaughter. The slaver's crew was no match for his. There was no organization to their ship's defense, merely a band of men trying not to die. They failed at that. The mass of men that had met the pirate's boarding party rapidly diminished to knots of defenders surrounded by implacable foe. The ending was predictable; there was no suspense at all to this conquest. Kennit turned away from it. There was a sameness to men dying that bored more than disgusted him. The shrieks, the blood that gushed or leaked, the final frantic struggles, the useless pleas; he had seen it all before. It was far more enlightening to watch the two serpents.
He wondered if they had not escorted this ship for some time; perhaps they even regarded it companionably, as a sort of provider of easy feeding. They had withdrawn when the
Marietta
initially attacked, seemingly spooked by the flurry of activity. But when the sounds of battle and the shrieks of the dying began, they came swiftly back. They circled the locked ships like dogs begging at a table, vying with one another for the choicest positions. Never before had Kennit had the opportunity to observe a serpent for so long and at such close quarters. These two seemed fearless. The larger one was a scintillating crimson mottled with orange. When he reared his head and neck from the water and opened his maw, a ruff of barbs stood out around his throat and head like a lion's mane. They were fleshy, waving appendages, reminding Kennit of the stinging arms on an anemone or jellyfish. He would have been much surprised to discover they were not tipped with some sort of paralyzing poison. Certainly when the smaller turquoise worm vied with the larger one, he avoided the touch of the other's ruff.
What the smaller serpent lacked in size it made up for in aggression. It dared to come much closer to the ship's side, and when it lifted its head to the height of the slaveship's rail, it opened its maw as well, baring row upon row of pointed teeth. It hissed when it did so, sending forth a fine cloud of venomous spittle. The cloud engulfed two struggling men. Both of them immediately left off their own fight and fell gasping to the deck, writhing in a useless struggle to pull air into their lungs. They soon grew still while the frustrated serpent lashed the sea beside the ship into foam, furious that its prey remained safe aboard the ship. Kennit guessed that it was young and inexperienced.
The larger serpent seemed more philosophical. He was content to hover alongside the slaver, watching expectantly for men bearing bodies to approach the railing. He then opened his maw to catch whatever was thrown, regardless of whether it was dead or wriggling. He would seize a body in his jaws, but made no effort at chewing it. His teeth seemed devoted to the purpose of tearing. These small tidbits needed no dismembering. Instead the serpent would fling his head back and open his jaws far wider than Kennit would have believed possible. Then the body would vanish, boots and all, and Kennit could mark its progress down the creature's gullet by the distention of his sinuous throat. It was a spectacle at once chilling and fascinating.
His crew seemed to share his awe, for as the battle subsided and there were but bodies and subdued captives to dispose of, they gathered their serpent victuals on the high afterdeck of the slaver and took turns feeding the serpents from there. Some of the bound captives wept and screamed, but their cries were drowned out by the approving roars of the pirate crew as each human morsel was flung over the side. It soon became a game to toss each victim or corpse not to a serpent, but between them, to watch the great beasts vie for the meat. Those men who had remained aboard the
Marietta
felt greatly slighted to be excluded from this pastime, for though they kept to their duties on the ship, it was with many a glance in the direction of their comrades. As the serpents became sated, their aggression diminished and they were content to take turns with their feeding.
As the final captives went over the side, the first of the slaves began to emerge onto the deck. They came up from the hatches, coughing and blinking in the morning light. They clutched their tattered rags about their bony bodies against the briskness of the sea wind. As hatch cover after hatch cover was removed, the fetid stink in the air increased, as if the stench were an evil genie confined too long below decks. Kennit's gorge rose as he saw how scabrous these men were. Disease had always held a great horror for him, and he hastily sent a man to tell Sorcor it was time the vessels parted. He wanted good clean seawater between him and that pestilence-ridden hulk. He saw his messenger leap to his command, more than willing to get a closer look for himself. Kennit himself quit the afterdeck and went below to his cabin. There he set scented candles alight to ward off the trailing odor from outside.
Some moments later, Sorcor rapped smartly on his door.
“Enter,” Kennit invited him brusquely.
The burly mate came in, red of hand and bright of eye. “A complete victory,” he told Kennit breathlessly. “A complete victory. The ship is ours, sir. And over 350 men, women and children released from below her scurvy decks.”
“Any other cargo worth speaking of?” Kennit asked dryly when Sorcor paused for breath.
Sorcor grinned. “The captain seemed to have an eye for fine clothes, sir. But he was a portly man, and his taste in colors rather wild.”
“Then perhaps you will find the dead man's garments to your taste.” The chill in Kennit's tone stood Sorcor up straight. “If you have finished with your adventure, I suggest we put a small crew aboard her and sail our “prize' to port somewhere, seeing as how that wooden hulk is all we have to show for the night's work. How many men lost or wounded?”
“Two dead, sir, three cut up a bit.” Sorcor sounded resentful of the question. Plainly he had been foolish enough to expect Kennit to share his exuberance.
“I wonder how many more we shall lose to disease. The stench alone is enough to give a man the flux, let alone whatever other contagion they have bred in that tub.”
“It's scarcely the fault of the folk we have rescued if we do, sir,” Sorcor pointed out stiffly.
“I did not say it would be. I will put it down to our own foolishness. Now. We have the ship to show for our troubles, and perhaps it will sell for a bit, but only after we have rid it of its cargo and seen to its scrubbing out.” He looked at Sorcor and smiled carefully as he phrased the question he had been looking forward to. “What do you propose to do with these wretches you have rescued? Where shall we put them off?”
“We can't simply put them off on the closest land, sir. It'd be murder. Half are sick, the others weak, and there are no tools or provisions of any kind we could leave them, save ship's biscuit.”
“Murder,” Kennit cut in affably. “Ah, now there's a foreign concept for you and me. Not that I've been tossing folk to sea serpents of late.”
“They got what they deserved!” Sorcor was beginning to look badgered. “And better than what they deserved, for what they got was quick!” He smacked a meaty fist into his other palm and nearly glared.
Kennit heaved a tiny sigh. “Ah, Sorcor, I do not dispute that. I am merely trying to remind you that we are, you and I, pirates. Murderous villains who scour the Inside Passage for vessels to overcome, loot and plunder and ransom. We do this to make a profit for ourselves. We are not nursery maids for sickly slaves, half of whom are probably as deserving of their fates as were the crew that you fed to the serpents. Nor are we heroic saviors of the downtrodden. Pirates, Sorcor. We are pirates.”
“It was our deal,” Sorcor pointed out doggedly. “For every liveship we chase, we go after one slaver. You agreed.”
“So I did. I had hoped that after you had dealt with the reality of one “triumph' you would see the futility of it. Look you, Sorcor. Say we strain our crew and resources to take that squalid vessel to Divvytown. Do you think the inhabitants are going to welcome us and rejoice that we put ashore 350 half-starved, ragged, sickly wretches to infest their town as beggars, whores and thieves? Do you think these slaves we have “rescued' are going to thank you for abandoning them to their fates as paupers?”
“They're thankful now, the whole damn lot of them,” Sorcor declared stubbornly. “And I know in my time, sir, I'd have been damn grateful to be set ashore anywhere, with or without a mouthful of bread or a stitch of clothes, so long as I was a free man and able to breathe clean air.”
“Very well, very well.” Kennit made a great show of capitulating with a resigned sigh. “Let us ride this ass to the end, if we must. Choose a port, Sorcor, and we shall take them there. I shall but ask this. On our way there, those who are able shall begin the task of cleaning out that vessel. And I should like to get underway as soon as we are decently able, while the serpents are still satiated.” Kennit glanced casually away from Sorcor. It would not do to let him wallow in the gratitude of the freed captives. “I shall require you aboard the
Marietta,
Sorcor. Put Rafo in charge of the other vessel, and assign him some men.”
Sorcor straightened himself. “Aye, sir,” he replied heavily. He trudged from the room, a very different man from the one who had burst in the door exuberant with victory. He shut the door quietly behind himself. For a time, Kennit remained looking at it. He was straining the man's loyalty; the link that bound them together was forged mostly from Sorcor's fidelity. He shook his head to himself. It was, perhaps, his own fault. He had taken a simple uneducated sailor with a knack for numbers and navigation and elevated him to the status of mate, taught him how it felt to control men. Thinking, perforce, went with that command. But Sorcor was beginning to think too much. Kennit would soon have to decide which was worth more to him: the mate's value as second in command, or his own total control of his ship and men. Kennit sighed heavily. Tools blunted so quickly in this trade.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TRANSITIONS
BRASHEN AWOKE WITH GRITTY EYES AND A CRICK IN HIS NECK.
Morning sunlight had penetrated the thick panes of the bay windows that glassed one end of the chamber. It was a thick, murky light, greenish with the dried algae that coated the outside of the windows, but light nonetheless. Enough to alert him that it was daylight and time he was up and about.
He swung out of the hammock to his feet. Guilty. He was guilty of something. Spending all his pay when he had sworn that this time he would be wiser. Yes, but that was a familiar guilt. This was something else, something that bit with sharper teeth. Oh. Althea. The girl had been here last night, begging his advice, or he had dreamed her. And he had given her his bitterest counsels with not a word of hope or an offer of help from him.
He tried to shrug the concern away. After all, what did he owe the girl? Nothing. Not a thing. They hadn't even really been friends. Too big of a gap in status for that. He had just been the mate on her father's ship, and she had been the daughter of the captain. No room for a friendship there. And as for the old man, well, yes, Ephron Vestrit had done him a good turn when no one else would, had let him prove himself when no one else would. But the old man was dead now, so that was that.
Besides. Bitter as the advice had been, it was solid. If Brashen could have gone back in time, he would never have quarreled with his father. He'd have gone to the endless schooling, behaved correctly at the social functions, eschewed drunkenness and cindin, married whoever was chosen for him. And he'd be the heir now to the Trell fortune, instead of his little brother.
The thought reminded him that as he was not heir to the Trell fortune and as he had spent the rest of his money last night save for a few odd coins, he had best be worrying more about himself and less about Althea. The girl would have to take care of herself. She'd have to go home. That's all there was to it. What was the worst that would happen to her, really? They'd marry her off to a suitable man. She'd live in a comfortable home with servants and well-prepared food, wear clothing tailored especially for her and go to the endless round of balls and teas and social functions that seemed so essential to Bingtown society and the Traders especially. He snorted softly to himself. He should hope for such a cruel fate to befall him. He scratched at his chest and then his beard. He ran both hands through his hair to smooth it back from his face. Time to find work. He'd best clean himself up and head down to the docks.
“Good morning,” he greeted Paragon as he rounded the bow of the ship.
The figurehead looked permanently uncomfortable, fastened to the front of the heavily leaning ship. Brashen suddenly wondered if it made his back ache, but didn't have the courage to ask. Paragon had his thickly muscled arms crossed over his bare chest as he faced out over the glinting water to where other ships came and went from the harbor. He didn't even turn toward Brashen. “Afternoon,” Paragon corrected him.
“So it is,” Brashen agreed. “And more than time I got myself down to the docks. Have to look for a new job, you know.”
“I don't think she went home,” Paragon replied. “I think that if she went home, she would have gone her old way, up the cliffs and through the woods. Instead, after she said good-bye, I heard her walking away over the beach toward town.”
“Althea, you mean?” Brashen asked. He tried to sound unconcerned.
Blind Paragon nodded. “She was up at first light.” The words almost sounded like a reproach. “I had just heard the morning birds begin to call when she stirred and came out. Not that she slept much last night.”
“Well. She had a lot to think about. She may have gone into town this morning, but I'll wager she goes home before the week is out. After all, where else does she have to go?”
“Only here, I suppose,” the ship replied. “So. You will seek work today?”
“If I want to eat, I have to work,” Brashen agreed. “So I'm down to the docks. I think I'll try the fishing fleet or the slaughter boats instead of the merchants. I've heard a man can rise rapidly aboard one of the whale or dolphin boats. And they hire easy, too. Or so I've heard.”
“Mostly because so many of them die,” Paragon relentlessly observed. “That's what I heard, back when I was in a position to hear such gossip. That they're too long at sea and load their ships too heavy, and hire more crew than they need to work the ship because they don't expect all of them to survive the voyage.”
“I've heard such things, too,” Brashen reluctantly admitted. He squatted down on his haunches, then sat in the sand beside the beached ship. “But what other choice do I have? I should have listened to Captain Vestrit all those years. I'd have had some money saved up by now if I had.” He gave a sound that was not a laugh. “I wish someone had told me, all those years ago, that I should just swallow my stupid pride and go home.”
Paragon searched deep in his memory. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” he declared, and then smiled, almost pleased with himself. “There's a thought I haven't recalled for a long time.”
“And true as ever it was,” Brashen said disgruntledly. “So I'd best take myself down to the harbor and get myself a job on one of those stinking kill boats. More butchery than sailor's work is what I've heard of them as well.”
“And dirty work it is, too,” Paragon agreed. “On an honest merchant vessel, a man gets dirty with tar on his hands, or soaked with cold sea water, it's true. But on a slaughter ship, it's blood and offal and oil. Cut your finger and lose a hand to infection. If you don't die. And on those that take the meat as well, you'll spend half your sleeping time packing the flesh in tubs of salt. On the greedy ships the sailors end up sleeping right alongside the stinking cargo.”
“You're so encouraging,” Brashen said bleakly. “But what choice do I have? None at all.”
Paragon laughed oddly. “How can you say that? You have the choice that eludes me, the choice that all men take for granted so that they cannot even see they have it.”
“What choice is that?” Brashen asked uneasily. A wild note had come into the ship's voice, a reckless tone like that of a boy who fantasizes wildly.
“Stop.” Paragon spoke the word with breathless desire. “Just stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop being. You are such a fragile thing. Skin thinner than canvas, bones finer than any yard. Inside you are wet as the sea, and as salt, and it all waits to spill from you anytime your skin is opened. It is so easy for you to stop being. Open your skin and let your salt blood flow out, let the sea creatures take away your flesh bite by bite, until you are a handful of green slimed bones held together with lines of nibbled sinew. And you won't know or feel or think anything anymore. You will have stopped. Stopped.”
“I don't want to stop,” Brashen said in a low voice. “Not like that. No man wants to stop like that.”
“No man?” Paragon laughed again, the sound breaking and going high. “Oh, I have known a few that did want to stop. And I have known a few that did stop. And it ended the same, whether they wanted to or not.”
“ONE APPEARS TO HAVE A SMALL FLAW.”
“I am sure you are mistaken,” Althea replied icily. “They are well-matched and deep-hued and of the finest quality. The setting is gold.” She met the jeweler's gaze squarely. “My father never gave me a gift that was less than the finest quality.”
The jeweler moved his palm and the two small earrings rolled aimlessly in his hand. In her ear lobes, they had looked subtle and sophisticated. In his palm, they merely looked small and simple. “Seventeen,” he offered.
“I need twenty-three.” She tried to conceal her relief. She had decided she would not take less than fifteen before she came into the shop. Still, she would wring every coin she could out of the man. Parting with them was not easy, and she had few other resources.
He shook his head. “Nineteen. I could go as high as nineteen, but no more than that.”
“I could take nineteen,” Althea began, watching his face carefully. When she saw his eyes brighten she added, “if you would include two simple gold hoops to replace these.”
A half hour of bargaining later, she left his shop. Two simple silver hoops had replaced the earrings her father had given her on her thirteenth birthday. She tried not to think of them as anything other than a possession she had sold. She still had the memory of her father giving them to her. She did not need the actual jewelry. They would only have been two more things to worry about.
It was odd, the things one took for granted. Easy enough to buy heavy cotton fabric. But then she had to get needle, thread and palm as well. And shears for cutting the fabric. She resolved to make herself a small canvas bag as well to keep these implements in. If she followed her plan to its end, they would be the first possessions she had bought for her new life.
As she walked through the busy market, she saw it with new eyes. It was no longer merely a matter of what she had the coin to pay for and what she would have marked to her family's account. Suddenly some goods were far beyond her means. Not just lavish fabrics or rich jewelry, but things as simple as a lovely set of combs. She allowed herself to look at them for a few moments longer, holding them against her hair, as she looked into the cheap street-booth mirror and imagined how they would have looked in her hair at the Summer Ball. The flowing green silk, trimmed with the cream lace—for an instant she could almost see it, could almost step back into the life that had been hers a few scant days ago.
Then the moment passed. Abruptly Althea Vestrit and the Summer Ball seemed like a story she had made up. She wondered how much time would go by before her family opened her sea chest, and if they would guess which gifts had been intended for whom. She even indulged herself in wondering if her sister and mother would shed a tear or two over the gifts from the daughter and sister they had allowed to be driven away. She smiled a hard smile and set the combs back on the merchant's tray. No time for such mawkish daydreams. It didn't matter, she told herself sternly, if they never opened that trunk at all. What did matter was that she needed to find a way to survive. For, contrary to Brashen Trell's stupid advice, she was not going to go crawling home again like some helpless spoiled girl. No. That would only prove that everything Kyle had said about her was true.
She straightened her spine and moved with renewed purpose through the market. She bought herself a few simple foodstuffs: plums, a wedge of cheese and some rolls, no more than what she would need for the day. Two cheap candles and a tinderbox with flint and steel completed her purchases.
There was little else she could do in town that day, but she was reluctant to leave. Instead she wandered the market for a time, greeting those who recognized her and accepting their condolences on the loss of her father. It no longer stung when they mentioned him; instead it was a part of the conversation to get past, an awkwardness. She did not want to think of him, nor to discuss with relative strangers the grief she felt at her loss. Least of all did she want to be drawn into any conversation that might mention her rift with her family. She wondered how many folk knew of it. Kyle would not want it trumpeted about, but servants would talk, as they always did. Word would get around. She wanted to be gone before the gossip became widespread.
There were not many in Bingtown who recognized her anyway. For that matter, there were few other than the ship's brokers and merchants her father had done ship's business with that she recognized. She had withdrawn from Bingtown society gradually over the years without ever realizing it. Any other woman her age would have attended at least six gatherings in the last six months, balls and galas and other festivities. She had not been to even one since, oh, the Harvest Ball. Her sailing schedule had not allowed it. And the balls and dinners had seemed unimportant then, something she could return to whenever she wished. Gone now. Done and gone, dresses sewn for her with slippers to match, painting her lips and scenting her throat. Swallowed up in the sea with her father's body.
The grief she had thought numbed suddenly clutched at her throat. She turned and hurried off, up one street and down another. She blinked her eyes furiously, refusing to let the tears flow. When she had herself under control, she slowed her step and looked around her.
She looked directly into the window of Amber's shop.
As before, an odd chill of foreboding raced up her back. She could not think why she should feel threatened by a jeweler, but she did. The woman was not even a Trader, not even a proper jeweler. She carved wood, in Sa's name. Wood, and sold it as jewelry. In that instant, Althea suddenly decided she would see this woman's goods for herself. With the same resolution as if grasping a nettle, she pushed open the door and swept into the shop.
It was cooler inside, and almost dark after the brightness of the summer street. As her eyes adjusted, Althea saw the place as polished simplicity. The floor was smoothed pine planking. The shelves, too, were simple wood. Amber's goods were arranged on plain squares of deep-hued fabric on the shelves. Some of the more elaborate necklaces were displayed on the walls behind her counter. There were also pottery bowls full of loose wooden beads in every color that wood could be.
Her goods were not just jewelry either. There were simple bowls and platters, carved with rare grace and attention to grain; wooden goblets that could have honored a king's table; hair combs carved of scented wood. Nothing had been made of pieces fastened together. In each case, shapes had been discovered in the wood and called forth whole, brought to brilliance by carving and polishing. In one case a chair had been created from a huge wood bole; it was unlike any seat Althea had ever seen before, lacking legs but possessing a smoothed hollow that a slight person could curl into. Ensconced on it, knees folded beside her, sandaled feet peeping from the beneath the hem of her robe, was Amber.
It jolted Althea that for an instant she had looked right at Amber and not seen her. It was her skin and hair and eyes, she decided. The woman was all the same color, even to her clothing, and that color was identical to the honey-toned wood of the chair. She raised one eyebrow quizzically at Althea.