Robin Hobb - Liveship 1 - Ship of Magic

Ship of Magic

by Robin Hobb

Book One of the Liveship Traders Trilogy

A Bantam Spectra Book/March 1998

Book design by Lisa Stokes

Jacket design by Jamie S. Warren Youll

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hobb, Robin.

Ship of magic / Robin Hobb.

p. cm. - (Liveship traders ; bk. 1)

ISBN 0-553-10324-5

Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

Visit Bantam's website at www.bantam.com/spectra

Description:

Not far from the Six Duchies lies Bingtown, hub of exotic trade and home

to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships- rare vessels carved from

wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. Bingtown's Old

Traders, their wealth eroded by northern wars and the rapacity of southern

pirates, now face an influx of upstart merchants who bring change to a complex

society.

The Vestrit family's only hope of renewed prosperity is the Vivacia, a

liveship they have nurtured for three generations. Now, as old Captain Vestrit

lies dying in Bingtown, the Vivacia cuts homeward through the waves, about to

quicken into a living being. The ship carries Vestrit's daughter Althea and

the conniving son-in-law he has named as the Vivacia s next captain.

But lovely, wild-spirited Althea, sailing the Vivacia with her father

since childhood and sharing its half-awakened memories and ocean secrets, has

bonded with the ship in her deepest soul. Joined by Brashen-her father's first

mate, now demoted by the Vivacia's new commander-she will stop at nothing in a

bitter quest to claim its captaincy.

Meanwhile, in the rocky cays known as the Pirate Isles, a ruthless man

lusts after his own kind of power. The pirate captain Kennit, in his scheme to

be king of this outlaw realm, has vowed that he will wrest a liveship from its

owners and turn it to his own use. His twisted ambition will bring him into a

strange partnership with a boy-priest turned seaman-and into violent conflict

with the wizardwood magic of Althea and Brashen.

From the peculiar magic realm of the Others to the bawdy, raucous lair of

the pirates, Ship of Magic sweeps a dazzling cast of characters into an epic

of terrible beauty and mysterious sorcery.

THIS ONE IS FOR

The Devil's Paw

The Totem

The EJ Bruce

The Free Lunch

The Labrador (Scales! Scales!)

The (aptly named) Massacre Bay

The Faithful (Gummi Bears Ahoy!)

The Entrance Point

The Cape St. John

The American Patriot (and Cap'n Wookie)

The Lesbian Warmonger

The Anita J and the Marcy J

The Tarpon

The Capelin

The Dolphin

The (not very) Good News Bay And even the Chicken Little

But especially for Rain Lady, wherever she may be now.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to thank Gale Zimmerman of Software Alternatives,

Tacoma, Washington, for rendering swift and compassionate aid in stamping out

the computer virus that nearly ate this book.

PROLOGUE - THE TANGLE

MAULKIN ABRUPTLY HEAVED HIMSELF OUT OF HIS WALLOW WITH A WILD THRASH THAT

LEFT THE ATMOsphere hanging thick with particles. Shreds of his shed skin

floated with the sand and muck like the dangling remnants of dreams when one

awakes. He moved his long sinuous body through a lazy loop, rubbing against

himself to rub off the last scraps of outgrown hide. As the bottom muck

started to once more settle, he gazed about at the two dozen other serpents

who lay basking in the pleasantly scratchy sediments. He shook his great maned

head and then stretched the vast muscle of his length. "Time," he bugled in

his deep-throated voice. "The time has come."

They all looked up at him from the sea-bottom, their great eyes of green

and gold and copper unwinking. Shreever spoke for them all when she asked,

"Why? The water is warm here, the feeding easy. In a hundred years, winter has

never come. Why must we leave now?"

Maulkin performed another lazy twining of himself. His newly bared scales

shone brilliantly in the filtered blue sunlight. His preening burnished the

golden false-eyes that ran his full length, declaring him one of those with

ancient sight. Maulkin could recall things, things from the time before all

this time. His perceptions were not clear, nor always consistent. Like many of

those caught twixt times, with knowledge of both lives, he was often unfocused

and incoherent. He shook his mane until his paralyzing poison made a pale

cloud about his face. He gulped his own toxin in, breathed it out through his

gills in a show of truth-vow. "Because it is time now!" he said urgently. He

sped suddenly away from them all, shooting up to the surface, rising

straighter and faster than the bubbles. Far above them all he broke the

ceiling and leaped out briefly into the great Lack before he dove again. He

swam about them in frantic circles, wordless in his urgency.

"Some of the other tangles have already gone," Shreever said thoughtfully.

"Not all of them, not even most. But enough to notice they are missing when we

rise into the Lack to sing. Perhaps it is time."

Sessurea settled deeper into the muck. "And perhaps it is not," he said

lazily. "I think we should wait until Aubren's tangle goes. Aubren is ...

steadier than Maulkin."

Beside him, Shreever abruptly heaved herself out of the muck. The gleaming

scarlet of her new skin was startling. Rags of maroon still hung from her. She

nipped a great hank of it free and gulped it down before she spoke. "Perhaps

you should join Aubren's tangle, if you misdoubt Maulkin's words. I, for one,

will follow him north. Better to go too soon than too late. Better to go

early, perhaps, than to come with scores of other tangles and have to vie for

feeding." She moved lithely through a knot made of her own body, rubbing the

last fragments of old hide free. She shook her own mane, then threw back her

head. Her shrill trumpeting disturbed the water. "I come, Maulkin! I follow

you!" She moved up to join their still circling leader in his twining dance

overhead.

One at a time, the other great serpents heaved their long bodies free of

clinging muck and outgrown skin. All, even Sessurea, rose from the depths to

circle in the warm water just below the ceiling of the Plenty, joining in the

tangle's dance. They would go north, back to the waters from whence they had

come, in the long ago time that so few now remembered.

MIDSUMMER

CHAPTER ONE - OF PRIESTS AND PIRATES

KENNIT WALKED THE TIDELINE, HEEDLESS OF THE SALT .WAVES THAT WASHED AROUND

HIS BOOTS AS THEY licked the sandy beach clean of his tracks. He kept his eyes

on the straggling line of seaweed, shells and snags of driftwood that marked

the water's highest reach. The tide was just turning now, the waves falling

ever shorter in their pleading grasp upon the land. As the salt water

retreated down the black sand, it would bare the worn molars of shale and

tangles of kelp that now hid beneath the waves.

On the other side of Others Island, his two-masted ship was anchored in

Deception Cove. He had brought the Marietta in to anchor there as the morning

winds had blown the last of the storm clean of the sky. The tide had still

been rising then, the fanged rocks of the notorious cove grudgingly receding

beneath frothy green lace. The ship's gig had scraped over and between the

barnacled rocks to put him and Gankis ashore on a tiny crescent of black sand

beach that disappeared completely when storm winds drove the waves up past the

high tide marks. Above, slate cliffs loomed, and evergreens so dark they were

nearly black leaned precariously out in defiance of the prevailing winds. Even

to Kennit's iron nerves, it was like stepping into some creature's half-open

mouth.

They'd left Opal, the ship's boy, with the gig to protect it from the

bizarre mishaps that so often befell unguarded craft in Deception Cove. Much

to the boy's unease, Kennit had commanded Gankis to come with him, leaving the

boy and boat alone. At Kennit's last sight, the boy had been perched in the

beached boat. His eyes had alternated between fearful glances over his

shoulder at the forested cliff-tops and staring anxiously out to where the

Marietta strained against her anchors, yearning to join the racing current

that swept past the mouth of the cove.

The hazards of visiting this island were legendary. It was not just the

hostility of the "best" anchorage on the island, nor the odd accidents known

to befall ships and visitors. The whole of the island was enshrouded in the

peculiar magic of the Others. Kennit had felt it tugging at him as he and

Gankis followed the path that led from Deception Cove to the Treasure Beach.

For a path seldom used, its black gravel was miraculously clean of fallen

leaves or intruding plant life. About them the trees dripped the second-hand

rain of last night's storm onto fern fronds already burdened with crystal

drops. The air was cool and alive. Brightly hued flowers, always growing at

least a man's length from the path, challenged the dimness of the shaded

forest floor. Their scents drifted alluringly on the morning air as if

beckoning the men to leave off their quest and explore their world. Less

wholesome in appearance were the orange fungi that stair-stepped up the trunks

of many of the trees. The shocking brilliance of their color spoke to Kennit

of parasitic hungers. A spider's web, hung like the ferns with fine droplets

of shining water, stretched across their path, forcing them to duck under it.

The spider that sat at the edges of its strands was as orange as the fungi,

and nearly as big as a baby's fist. A green tree-frog was enmeshed and

struggling in the web's sticky strands, but the spider appeared disinterested.

Gankis made a small sound of dismay as he crouched to go beneath it.

This path led right through the midst of the Others' realm. Here was where

the nebulous boundaries of their territory could be crossed by a man, did he

dare to leave the well-marked path allotted to humans and step off into the

forest to seek them. In ancient times, so the tales told, heroes came here,

not to follow the path but to leave it deliberately, to beard the Others in

their dens, and seek the wisdom of their cave-imprisoned goddess, or demand

gifts such as cloaks of invisibility and swords that ran with flames and could

shear through any shield. Bards that had dared to come this way had returned

to their homelands with voices that could shatter a man's ears with their

power, or melt the heart of any listener with their skill. All knew the

ancient tale of Kaven Ravenlock, who visited the Others for half a hundred

years and returned as if but a day had passed for him, but with hair the color

of gold and eyes like red coals and true songs that told of the future in

twisted rhymes. Kennit snorted softly to himself. All knew such ancient tales,

but if any man had ventured to leave this path in Kennit's lifetime, he had

told no other man about it. Perhaps he had never returned to brag of it. The

pirate dismissed it from his mind. He had not come to the island to leave the

path, but to follow it to its very end. And all knew what waited there as

well.

Kennit had followed the gravel path that snaked through the forested hills

of the island's interior until its winding descent spilled them out onto a

coarsely grassed tableland that framed the wide curve of an open beach. This

was the opposite shore of the tiny island. Legend foretold that any ship that

anchored here had only the netherworld as its next port of call. Kennit had

found no record of any ship that had dared challenge that rumor. If any had,

its boldness had gone to hell with it.

The sky was a clean brisk blue scoured clean of clouds by last night's

storm. The long curve of the rock and sand beach was broken only by a

freshwater stream that cut its way through the high grassy bank backing the

beach. The stream meandered over the sand to be engulfed in the sea. In the

distance, higher cliffs of black shale rose, enclosing the far end of the

crescent beach. One toothy tower of shale stood independent of the island,

jutting out crookedly from the island with a small stretch of beach between it

and its mother-cliff. The gap in the cliff framed a blue slice of sky and

restless sea.

"It was a fair bit of wind and surf we had last night, sir. Some folk say

that the best place to walk the Treasure Beach is on the grassy dunes up there

. . . they say that in a good bit of storm, the waves throw things up there,

fragile things you might expect to be smashed to bits on the rocks and such,

but they land on the sedge up there, just as gentle as you please." Gankis

panted out the words as he trotted at Kennit's heels. He had to stretch his

stride to keep up with the tall pirate. "An uncle of mine-that is to say,

actually he was married to my aunt, to my mother's sister-he said he knew a

man found a little wooden box up there, shiny black and all painted with

flowers. Inside was a little glass statue of a woman with butterfly's wings.

But not transparent glass, no, the colors of the wings were swirled right in

the glass they were." Gankis stopped in his account and half-stooped his head

as he glanced cautiously at his master. "Would you want to know what the Other

said it meant?" he inquired carefully.

Kennit paused to nudge the toe of his boot against a wrinkle in the wet

sand. A glint of gold rewarded him. He stooped casually to hook his ringer

under a fine gold chain. As he drew it up, a locket popped out of its sandy

grave. He wiped the locket down the front of his fine linen trousers, and then

nimbly worked the tiny catch. The gold halves popped open. Saltwater had

penetrated the edges of the locket, but the portrait of a young woman still

smiled up at him, her eyes both merry and shyly rebuking. Kennit merely

grunted at his find and put it in the pocket of his brocaded waistcoat.

"Cap'n, you know they won't let you keep that. No one keeps anything from

the Treasure Beach," Gankis pointed out gingerly.

"Don't they?" Kennit queried in return. He put a twist of amusement in his

voice, to watch Gankis puzzle over whether it was self-mockery or a threat.

Gankis shifted his weight surreptitiously, to put his face out of reach of his

captain's fist.

"S'what they all say, sir," he replied hesitantly. "That no one takes home

what they find on the Treasure Beach. I know for sure my uncle's friend

didn't. After the Other looked at what he'd found and told his fortune from

it, he followed the Other down the beach to this rock cliff. Probably that

one." Gankis lifted an arm to point at the distant shale cliffs. "And in the

face of it there were thousands of little holes, little what-you-call-'ems. .

. ."

"Alcoves," Kennit supplied in an almost dreamy voice. "I call them

alcoves, Gankis. As would you, if you could speak your own mother tongue."

"Yessir. Alcoves. And in each was a treasure, 'cept for those that were

empty. And the Other let him walk along tie cliff wall and look at all the

treasures, and there was stuff there such as he'd never even imagined. China

teacups done all in fancy rosebuds and gold wine cups rimmed with jewels and

little wooden toys all painted bright and, oh, a hundred things such as you

can't imagine, each in an alcove. Sir. And then he found an alcove the right

size and shape, and he put the butterfly lady in it. He told my uncle that

nothing ever felt quite so right to him as setting that little treasure into

that nook. And then he left it there, and left the island and went home."

Kennit cleared his throat. The single noise conveyed more of contempt and

disdain than most men could have fitted into an entire stream of abuse. Gankis

looked aside and down from it. "It was him that said it, sir, not me." He

tugged at the waist of his worn trousers. Almost reluctantly he added, "The

man is a bit in the dream world. Gives a seventh of all that comes his way to

Sa's temple, and both his eldest children besides. Such a man don't think as

we do, sir."

"When you think at all, Gankis," the captain concluded for him. He lifted

his pale eyes to look far up the tide line, squinting slightly as the morning

sun dazzled off the moving waves. "Take yourself up to your sedgy cliffs,

Gankis, and walk along them. Bring me whatever you find there."

"Yessir." The older pirate trudged away. He gave one rueful backward

glance at his young captain. Then he clambered agilely up the short bank to

the deeply grassed tableland that fronted on the beach. He began to walk a

parallel course, his eyes scanning the bank ahead of him. Almost immediately,

he spotted something. He sprinted toward it, then lifted an object that

flashed in the morning sunlight. He raised it up to the light and gazed at it,

his seamed face lit with awe. "Sir, sir, you should see what I've found!"

"I might be able to, did you bring it here to me as you were commanded,"

Kennit observed irritably.

Like a dog called to heel, Gankis made his way back to the captain. His

brown eyes shone with a youthful sparkle, and he clutched the treasure in both

hands as he leaped nimbly down the man-height drop to the beach. His low shoes

kicked up sand as he ran. A brief frown creased Kennit's brow as he watched

Gankis advancing towards him. Although the old sailor was prone to fawn on

him, he was no more inclined to share booty than any other man of his trade.

Kennit had not truly expected Gankis willingly to bring to him anything he

found on the grassy bank; in fact he had been rather anticipating divesting

the man of his trove at the end of their stroll. To have Gankis hastening

toward him, his face beaming as if he were a country yokel bringing his

beloved milkmaid a posy, was positively unsettling.

Nevertheless Kennit retained his customary sardonic smile, not allowing

his face to betray his thoughts. It was a carefully rehearsed posture that

suggested the languid grace of a hunting cat. It was not just that his greater

height allowed him to look down on the seaman. By capturing his face in a pose

of amusement, he suggested to his followers that they were incapable of

surprising him. He wished his crew to believe that he could anticipate not

only their every move, but their thoughts, too. A crew that believed that of

their captain was less likely to become mutinous; and if they did, no one

would wish to be the first to act.

And so he kept his poise as Gankis raced across the sand to him. Moreover,

he did not immediately snatch the treasure away from him, but allowed the man

to hold it out to him while he, Kennit, gazed down at it in amusement.

From the instant he saw it, it took all of Kennit's control not to snatch

at it. Never had he seen such a cunningly wrought bauble. It was a bubble of

glass, an absolutely perfect sphere. The surface was not marred with so much

as a scratch. The glass itself had a very faint blue cast to it, but the tint

did not obscure the wonder within. Three tiny figurines, garbed in motley with

painted faces, were fixed to a tiny stage and somehow linked to one another so

that when Gankis shifted the ball in his hands, it sent them off into a series

of actions. One pirouetted on his toes, while the next did a series of flips

over a bar. The third bobbed his head in time to their actions, as if all

three heard and responded to a merry tune trapped inside the ball with them.

Kennit allowed Gankis to demonstrate it for him twice. Then, without a

word, he extended a long-fingered hand towards him gracefully, and the sailor

set the treasure in his palm. Kennit held his bemused smile firmly as he first

lifted the ball to the sunlight, and then set the tumblers within to dancing

for himself. The ball did not quite fill his hand. "A child's plaything," he

surmised loftily.

"If the child were the richest prince in the world," Gankis dared to

observe. "It's too fragile a thing to give a kid to play with, sir. All it

would take would be dropping it once. . . ."

"Yet it seems to have survived bobbing about in the waves of a storm, and

then being flung up on a beach," Kennit pointed out with measured good nature.

"That's true, sir, that's true, but then this is the Treasure Beach.

Almost everything cast up here is whole, from what I've heard tell. It's part

of the magic of this place."

"Magic." Kennit permitted himself a slightly wider smile as he placed the

orb in the roomy pocket of his indigo jacket. "So you believe it is magic that

sweeps such trinkets up on this shore, do you?"

"What else, Captain? By all rights, that should have been smashed to bits,

or at least scoured by the sands. Yet it looks as if it just come out of a

jeweler's shop."

Kennit shook his head sadly. "Magic? No, Gankis, no more magic than the

rip-tides in the Orte Shallows, or the Spice Current that speeds sailing ships

on their journeys to the islands and taunts them all the way back. It's but a

trick of wind and current and tides. No more than that. The same trick that

promises that any ship that tries to anchor off this side of the island will

find herself beached and broken before the next tide."

"Yessir," Gankis agreed dutifully, but without conviction. His traitorous

eyes strayed to the pocket where Captain Kennit had stowed the glass ball.

Kennit's smile might have deepened fractionally.

"Well? Don't loiter here. Get back up there and walk the bank and see what

else you find."

"Yessir," Gankis conceded, and with one final regretful glance at the

pocket, the older man turned and hastened back to the bank. Kennit slipped his

hand into his pocket and caressed the smooth cold glass there. He resumed his

stroll down the beach. Overhead, gulls followed his example, sliding slowly

down the wind as they searched the retreating waves for tidbits. He did not

hasten, but kept in mind that on the other side of the island, his ship was

awaiting him in treacherous waters. He'd walk the whole length of the beach,

as tradition decreed, but he had no intention of lingering after he had heard

the sooth-saying of an Other. Nor did he have any intention of leaving

whatever treasure he found. A true smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

As he strolled, he took his hand from his pocket and absently touched his

opposite wrist. Concealed by the lacy cuff of his white silk shirt was a fine

double thong of black leather. It bound a small wooden trinket tightly to his

wrist. The ornament was a carved face, pierced at the brow and lower jaw so

the face would be snugged firmly against his wrist, exactly over his pulse

point. At one time, the face had been painted black, but most of that was worn

away now. The features still stood out distinctly: a tiny mocking face, carved

with exquisite care. Its visage was twin to his own. It had cost him an

inordinate amount of coin to commission it. Not everyone who could carve

wizardwood would, even if they had the balls to steal some.

Kennit remembered well the artisan who had worked the tiny face for him.

He'd sat for long hours in the man's studio, washed in the cool morning light

as the artist painstakingly worked the iron-hard wood to reflect Kennit's

features. They had not spoken. The artist could not. The pirate did not. The

carver had needed absolute silence for his concentration, for he worked not

only wood but a spell that would bind the charm to protect the wearer from

enchantments. Kennit had had nothing to say to him anyway. The pirate had paid

him an exorbitant advance months before, and waited until the artist had sent

him a messenger to say that he had obtained some of the precious and jealously

guarded wood. Kennit had been outraged when the artist had demanded still more

money before he would begin the carving and spell-setting, but Kennit had only

smiled his small sardonic smile, and put coins and jewels and silver and gold

links on the artist's scales until the man had nodded that his price had been

met. Like many in lidded eyes. Small. The runt, most likely. It was sodden and

cold and disgusting. A ruby earring like a fat tick decorated one of the wet

ears. He longed to simply drop it. Ridiculous. He plucked the earring free and

dropped it in his pocket. Then, moved by an impulse he did not understand, he

returned the small blue bodies to the bag and left it beside the tideline.

Kennit walked on.

Awe flowed through him with his blood. Tree. Bark and sap, the scent of

the wood and the leaves fluttering overhead. Tree. But also the soil and the

water, the air and the light, all was coming and going through the being known

as tree. He moved with them, sliding in and out of an existence of bark and

leaf and root, air and water.

"Wintrow."

The boy lifted his eyes slowly from the tree before him. With an effort of

will, he focused his gaze on the smiling face of the young priest. Berandol

nodded in encouragement. Wintrow closed his eyes for an instant, held his

breath, and pulled himself free of his task. When he opened his eyes, he took

a sudden breath as if breaking clear of deep water. Dappling light, sweet

water, soft wind all faded abruptly. He was in the monastery work room, a cool

hall walled and floored with stone. His bare feet were chill against the

floor. There were a dozen other slab tables in the big room. At three others,

boys like himself worked slowly, their dreamlike movements indicative of their

tranced state. One wove a basket and two others shaped clay with wet gray

hands.

He looked down at the pieces of gleaming glass and lead on the table

before him. The beauty of the stained-glass image he had pieced together

astonished even him, yet it still could not touch the wonder of having been

the tree. He touched it with his fingers, tracing the trunk and the graceful

branches. Caressing the image was like touching his own body; he knew it that

well. Behind him he heard the soft intake of Berandol's breath. In his state

of still-heightened awareness, he could feel the priest's awe flowing with his

own, and for a time they stood quietly, glorying together in the wonder of Sa.

"Wintrow," the priest repeated softly. He reached out and traced with a

finger the tiny dragon that peered from the tree's upper branches, then

touched the glistening curve of a serpent's body, all but hidden in the

twisting roots. He put a hand on the boy's shoulders and turned him gently

away from his worktable. As he steered him from the workroom, he rebuked him

gently. "You are too young to sustain such a state for the whole morning. You

must learn to pace yourself."

Wintrow lifted his hands to knuckle at eyes that were suddenly sandy.

"I've been in there all morning?" he asked dazedly. "It did not seem like it,

Berandol."

"I am sure it did not. Yet I am sure the weariness you feel now will

convince you it is so. One must be careful, Wintrow. Tomorrow, ask a watcher

to stir you at mid-morning. Talent such as you possess is too precious to

allow you to burn it out."

"I do ache, now," Wintrow conceded. He ran his hand over his brow, pushing

fine black hair from his eyes and smiled. "But the tree was worth it,

Berandol."

Berandol nodded slowly. "In more ways than one. The sale of such a window

will yield enough coin to re-roof the novitiates' hall. If Mother Dellity can

bring herself to let the monastery part with such a thing of wonder." He

hesitated a moment, then added, "I see they appeared again. The dragon and the

serpent. You still have no idea. . . ." he let his voice trail away

questioningly.

"I do not even have a recollection of putting them there," Wintrow said.

"Well." There was no trace of judgment in Berandol's voice. Only patience.

For a time they walked in companionable silence through the cool stone

hallways of the monastery. Slowly Wintrow's senses lost their edge and faded

to a normal level. He could no longer taste the scents of the salts trapped in

the stone walls, nor hear the minute settling of the ancient blocks of stone.

The rough brown bure of his novice robes became bearable against his skin. By

the time they reached the great wooden door and stepped out into the monastery

gardens, he was safely back in his body. He felt groggy as if he had just

awakened from a long sleep, yet as bone weary as if he had hoed potatoes all

day. He walked silently beside Berandol as monastery custom dictated. They

passed others, some men and women robed in the green of full priesthood and

others dressed in white as acolytes. Greetings were exchanged as nods.

As they neared the tool shed, he felt a sudden unsettling certainty that

they were going there and that he would spend the rest of the afternoon

working in the sunny garden. Any other time, it might have been a pleasant

thing to look forward to, but his recent efforts in the dim work room had left

his eyes sensitive to light. Berandol glanced back at his lagging step.

"Wintrow," he chided softly. "Refuse the anxiety. When you borrow trouble

against what might be, you neglect the moment you have now to enjoy. The man

who worries about what will next be happening to him loses this moment in

dread of the next, and poisons the next with pre-judgment." Berandol's voice

took on an edge of hardness. "You indulge in pre-judgment too often. If you

are refused the priesthood, it will most likely be for that."

Wintrow's eyes flashed to Berandol's in horror. For a moment stark

desolation dominated his face. Then he saw the trap. His face broke into a

grin, and Berandol's answered it when the boy said, "But if I fret about it, I

shall have pre-judged myself to failure."

Berandol gave the slender boy a good-natured shove with his elbow.

"Exactly. Ah, you grow and learn so fast. I was much older than you, twenty at

least, before I learned to apply that Contradiction to daily life."

Wintrow shrugged sheepishly. "I was meditating on it last night before I

fell asleep. 'One must plan for the future and anticipate the future without

fearing the future.' The Twenty-Seventh Contradiction of Sa."

"Thirteen years old is very young to have reached the Twenty-Seventh

Contradiction," Berandol observed.

"What one are you on?" Wintrow asked artlessly.

"The Thirty-Third. The same one I've been on for the last two years."

Wintrow gave a small shrug of his shoulders. "I haven't studied that far

yet." They walked in the shade of apple trees, under leaves hanging limp in

the heat of the day. Ripening fruit weighted the boughs. At the other end of

the orchard, acolytes moved in patterns through the trees, bearing buckets of

water from the stream.

" 'A priest should not presume to judge unless he can judge as Sa does;

with absolute justice and absolute mercy.' " Berandol shook his head. "I

confess, I do not see how that is possible."

The boy's eyes were already turned inward, with only the slightest line to

his brow. "As long as you believe it is impossible, you close your mind to

understanding it." His voice seemed far away. "Unless, of course, that is what

we are meant to discover. That as priests we cannot judge, for we have not the

absolute mercy and absolute justice to do so. Perhaps we are only meant to

forgive and give solace."

Berandol shook his head. "In the space of a few moments, you slice through

as much of the knot as I had done in six months. But then I look about me, and

I see many priests who do judge. The Wanderers of our order do little except

resolve differences for folk. So they must have somehow mastered the Thirty-

Third Contradiction."

The boy looked up at him curiously. He opened his mouth to speak and then

blushed and shut it again.

Berandol glanced down at his charge. "Whatever it is, go ahead and say it.

I will not rebuke you."

"The problem is, I was about to rebuke you," Wintrow confessed. The boy's

face brightened as he added, "But I stopped myself before I did."

"And you were going to say to me?" Berandol pressed. When the boy shook

his head, his tutor laughed aloud. "Come, Wintrow, having asked you to speak

your thought, do you think I would be so unfair as to take offense at your

words? What was in your mind?"

"I was going to tell you that you should govern your behavior by the

precepts of Sa, not by what you see others doing." The boy spoke forthrightly,

but then lowered his eyes. "I know it is not my place to remind you of that."

Berandol looked too deep in thought to have taken offense. "But if I

follow the precept alone, and my heart tells me it is impossible for a man to

judge as Sa does, with absolute justice and absolute mercy, then I must

conclude . . ." His words slowed as if the thought came reluctantly. "I must

conclude that either the Wanderers have much greater spiritual depth than I.

Or that they have no more right to judge than I do." His eyes wandered among

the apple trees. "Could it be that an entire branch of our order exists

without righteousness? Is not it disloyal even to think such a thing?" His

troubled glance came back to the boy at his side.

Wintrow smiled serenely. "If a man's thoughts follow the precepts of Sa,

they cannot go astray."

"I shall have to think more on this," Berandol concluded with a sigh. He

gave Wintrow a look of genuine fondness. "I bless the day you were given me as

student, though in truth I often wonder who is student and who is teacher

here. I shall miss you."

Sudden alarm filled Wintrow's eyes. "Miss me? Are you leaving, have you

been called to duty so soon?"

"Not I. I should have given you this news better, but as always your words

have led my thoughts far from their starting point. I am not leaving, but you.

It was why I came to find you today, to bid you pack, for you are called home.

Your grandmother and mother have sent word that they fear your grandfather is

dying. They would have you near at such a time." At the look of devastation on

the boy's face, Berandol added, "I am sorry to have told you so bluntly. You

so seldom speak of your family. I did not realize you were close to your

grandfather."

"I am not," Wintrow simply admitted. "Truth to tell, I scarcely know him.

When I was small, he was always at sea. At the times when he was home, he

always terrified me. Not with cruelty, but with ... power. Everything about

him seemed too large for the room, from his voice to his beard. Even when I

was small and overheard other folk talking about him, it was as if they spoke

of a legend or a hero. I don't recall that I ever called him Grandpa, nor even

Grandfather. When he came home, he'd blow through the house like the North

Wind and mostly I took shelter from his presence rather than enjoyed it. When

I was dragged out before him, all I can recall was that he found fault with my

growth. 'Why is the boy so puny?' he'd demand. 'He looks just like my boys,

but half the size! Don't you feed him meat? Doesn't he eat well?' Then he

would pull me near and feel my arm, as if I were being fattened for the table.

I always felt ashamed of my size, then, as if it were a fault. Since I was

given over to the priesthood, I have seen even less of him, but my impression

of him has not changed. Still, it is not my grandfather I dread, nor even

keeping his death watch. It's going home, Berandol. It is so ... noisy."

Berandol grimaced in sympathy.

"I don't believe I even learned to think until I came here," Win-trow

continued. "There, it was too noisy and too busy. I never had time to think.

From the time Nana rousted us out of bed in the morning until we were bathed,

gowned and dumped back in bed at night, we were in motion. Being dressed and

taken on outings, having lessons and meals, visiting friends, being dressed

differently and having more meals . . . it was endless. You know, when I first

got here, I didn't leave my cell for the first two days. Without Nana or

Grandma or Mother chasing me about, I had no idea what to do with myself. And

for so long, my sister and I had been a unit. 'The children' need their nap,

'the children' need their lunch. I felt I'd lost half my body when they

separated us."

Berandol was grinning in appreciation. "So that is what it is like, to be

a Vestrit. I'd always wondered how the children of the Old Traders of Bingtown

lived. For me, it was very different, and yet much the same. We were

swineherds, my family. I had no nanny or outings, but there were always chores

aplenty to keep one busy. Looking back, we spent most of our time simply

surviving. Stretching out the food, fixing things long past fixing by anyone

else's standards, caring for the swine ... I think the pigs received better

care than anyone else. There was never even a thought of giving up a child for

the priesthood. Then my mother became ill, and my father made a promise that

if she lived, he would dedicate one of his children to Sa. So when she lived,

they sent me off. I was the runt of the litter, so to speak. The youngest

surviving child, and with a stunted arm. It was a sacrifice for them, I am

sure, but not as great as giving up one of my strapping older brothers."

"A stunted arm?" Wintrow asked in surprise.

"It was. I'd fallen on it when I was small, and it was a long time

healing, and when it did heal, it was never as strong as it should have been.

But the priests cured me. They put me with the watering crew on the orchard,

and the priest in charge of us gave me mismatched buckets. He made me carry

Robin Hobb - Liveship 1 - Ship of Magic

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: