Assassin’s Fate

I was silent, wondering how he had done that. It did not increase my respect for the Fool that he had given my father his scars to bear. Per touched my cheek. I realized I had been silent a long time. ‘I can see that this hurts you. You should fix it. You can’t make it unhappen, but you don’t have to carry around what they did to you. Don’t give them that power over you.’

‘I will think about it,’ I told him. ‘And now I want to go down. I don’t like how we are waving about up here.’

‘You would get used to it. And after a time, you might even like coming up here.’

‘I will think about it,’ I promised him again.

And I did. Two days later, at a time when the winds had died and our sails hung limp, we climbed the rigging again. I wasn’t sure that I enjoyed it, but I could convince myself I was not that scared. For several days we were becalmed, and slowly I made the crow’s nest a familiar place. Often it was already occupied by a sailor named Ant. She didn’t talk much but she loved the rigging. I liked her.

Bit by bit, in the night, in my hammock, I repaired myself. It was not easy. I did it slowly because I didn’t want anyone to notice it. I didn’t want them to say I looked better, or to praise me for doing it. I could not explain the why of that, not even to myself. But my ear, the crumpled ear my father had touched and called a victory? I left that as it was.

I came to love the ship. I think it was because I could feel how Vivacia felt about me. If I put my hand on the silvery wood of her railings, I could feel her. It was like my mother looking up from her sewing and smiling at me when I came into the room — a small welcome and a good wish for me. I was not bold enough to speak to her very much, but she was full of kindness toward me. That was the only conversation I needed with her.

I heard her have other conversations with her captain. It had taken me some time, but I had sorted out that Captain Wintrow was Althea Vestrit’s nephew and that Vivacia was the ship of the Vestrit family, and that Althea had grown up aboard her. Liveships, it seemed, were very important to the families that owned them. That Paragon had turned into two dragons and flown away meant that Althea and Brashen and Boy-O no longer had a ship. And Vivacia wanted to do the same. Then there would be no liveships for any of them. Per was right. Before I was a woman grown, all the liveships would be gone.

That saddened them, but there was a more immediate conflict. I had been sitting in a coil of rope near the foredeck and had dozed off there. I woke to a group of our sailors standing in a respectful row, their hats in hands. I had not heard what they asked of the ship, but her reply made it clear. Vivacia refused to put into the Pirate Isles. Her captain pleaded with her, Boy-O importuned her, but she was adamant. I could see that her black curling hair had the grain of wood, but somehow it still moved when she shook her head.

‘Kennitsson will never be less dead, no matter when or how they receive the news. We all know how terrible it will be for Queen Etta and Sorcor and indeed all the Pirate Isles. Do you think I did not care for Kennitsson? He was not blood of my blood, but I cared for him. I knew his father, and perhaps understood him far more than I enjoyed. I respect some of what he did. Nonetheless, I have no wish to be trapped in Divvytown while Etta rages and curses and weeps. And you know she will have a thousand questions followed by a thousand accusations and rebukes. She will delay me for weeks if not months.’

‘So what do you intend?’ Navigator asked the question.

‘I intend to bypass the Pirate Isles. I know you need supplies. I am not the Mad Ship, to care nothing for my crew’s lives. I can compromise. We can stop briefly in Bingtown. Then I will go up the Rain Wild River to Trehaug. For Silver. To become the dragon I was always meant to be.’

‘What of me?’ Captain Wintrow asked discouragedly as he came to join the discussion. ‘What will Etta think of me? Do you think I will ever be able to return to Divvytown if I do not bring Queen Etta the news of her son’s death?’ He shook his head. ‘It will be the end of my career there. Perhaps even my life.’

Althea and Brashen and Boy-O were coming to join them. Did they fear a mutiny on the ship?

Vivacia was silent for a time. Then she said, with both firmness and regret, ‘I know only that I have been too long a ship. Wintrow, I am trapped. I need to be free. I will free myself. As you should free yourself. It has been years. Etta will never love you as she loved Kennit. She is a woman whose love was won by coldness and neglect. She thought a man who did not beat her loved her. And Kennit? He never admitted to himself that he cared for her as anything more than a convenient whore. He was fonder of you than he ever was of her. Wintrow, go home. Take me home. It is time we both were free.’