'I stopped hating Kennit when I realized what he was giving me, each time he came. Honesty. He preferred me, and he did not fear to show that. In front of everyone, he chose me, every time. He did not bait me to simper and flirt. I was what he wanted, and I was for sale, so he bought me. He was showing me that as long as I was a whore that was all we could ever share. An honest transaction.'
An odd little smile crossed her face. 'Sometimes, Bettel would offer him other women. She had many. Some were fancier women, far more beautiful than I am, some were women who knew exotic ways to please a man. Bettel sought to win his favor that way. She did that with the house patrons, to keep them loyal to her. She offered them variety, and tempted them to… acquire new preferences. I knew it did not please her to see Kennit always come to me. It made her feel less important, I suppose. Once, in front of everyone, she asked him, 'Why Etta? So lanky, so plain. So ordinary. I have courtesans trained in the finest houses in Chalced. Or, if you prefer innocence, I have sweet virginal things from the countryside. You could afford the best in my house. Why do you prefer my cheapest whore?' ' The tiny smile reached Etta's eyes. 'I think she thought to shame him, before the other patrons there. As if he could ever have cared what they thought. Instead, he said, 'I never confuse the cost of something with its value. Etta, go and wash yourself. I shall be upstairs.' After that, all the other whores called me Kennit's whore. They tried to make it a name that stung. But it never bothered me.'
Obviously, Kennit was a deeper man than Wintrow had supposed him to be. Most sailors did not look beyond a whore's face and figure to make a choice. Kennit evidently had. On the other hand, perhaps the woman was deceiving herself. He glanced up at Etta's face and then away. Uneasiness swept through him. Whence had that thought sprung? For an instant, he had felt the sting of jealousy. Had it been from the ship herself? He felt the sudden need to speak with Vivacia.
He stood, his knees crackling. His lower back was stiff, his shoulders sore. When had he last slept in a real bed, slept until he had awakened naturally? Eventually, he must pay heed to the needs of his own body, or it would enforce its demands for rest and food. Soon, he promised himself. As soon as he felt safe, he would see to himself. 'It's dawn,' he said awkwardly. 'I should check on the ship and on my father. I need to get some sleep for myself, also. Will you send for me if Kennit awakens?'
'If he needs you,' Etta replied coolly. Perhaps that had been the point of her entire conversation: to make clear to Wintrow her prior claim upon Kennit. Did she see him as a threat somehow? Wintrow decided he did not know enough about women. She lifted her work to her mouth, and bit off a thread. Then she too, stood, shaking out the garment she had finished. 'For you,' she said abruptly, and thrust the trousers at him. He started toward her to take the gift from her hands, but she tossed it at him, forcing him to catch it awkwardly. One trouser leg slapped him lightly in the face.
'Thank you,' he said uncertainly.
She didn't look at him, nor acknowledge his words. Instead she opened a clothes chest and rummaged through it. She came up with a shirt. 'Here. This will do for you. It's one of his old ones.' She fingered the fabric for a moment. 'It's a very good weave. He knows quality, that one.'
'I am sure he does,' Wintrow replied. 'He chose you, as you have told me.' It was his first effort at gallantry. Somehow, it did not come out quite right. The comment hung crookedly between them. Etta stared at him, sorting the words to see if they held an insult. The heat of a blush rose to his cheeks; what had ever possessed him to say such a thing? Then she tossed the shirt at him and it opened wide, a white bird a-wing. It collapsed over his hands, heavy cloth, strong yet supple. It was a very good shirt, much too fine to dispose of so casually. Was there, he wondered, a message here, one that Etta scarcely knew that she conveyed? He draped the garments over his arm. 'Thank you for the clothing,' he said again, determined to be polite.
Her eyes leveled with his. 'Kennit wants you to have them, I am sure,' she said. Just as he began to feel grateful, she doused it with, 'You will be looking after him. He demands cleanliness of those around him. You should take time today to wash yourself, including your hair.'
'I'm not…' he began and then stopped. He was dirty. A moment's reflection made him realize he stank. He had cleansed his hands after he cut off Kennit's leg, but he had not washed his entire body for days. 'I will,' he amended humbly. Carrying the clothes, he left the captain's cabin.
The disarray and crowding on the captured ship almost seemed normal now. His eyes no longer snagged on every splintered door-jamb. He could look past bloodstains on the decks and walls. As he emerged onto the deck, he pressed his back to the wall to make room for a couple to pass him. They were both map-faces. The man was a bit simple, Wintrow recalled. Dedge was his name. He was one of the map-faces Etta had chosen to hold Kennit down. He always seemed to be with the younger, quicker Saylah. They scarcely noticed Wintrow as they brushed past him, so caught up were they in one another. That, too, had begun to happen. He should have expected it. After any disaster, that was always the first sign of returning hope. Men and women paired off and coupled. He looked after them curiously, wondering where they would find privacy. Idly, he wondered if they had been slaves long, if privacy were of any concern to them any more. He realized he was staring after them. With a twitch of annoyance at himself, he called to mind his errands. Confer with Vivacia. Check on his father. Eat. Bathe. Sleep. Check on Kennit. His life suddenly assumed a shape, with a schedule to his hours and purpose to his acts. He made his way forward.
The Vivacia still swung at anchor in the small cove. Had it truly been just one night since they had hidden here? A mist was dispersing in the morning sunlight. Soon the sun might have enough strength to warm the day. The figurehead stared out toward the wide channel as if keeping watch. Perhaps she was.
'I worry that the other ship will never find us.' She spoke aloud in answer to his silent thought. 'How will they know where to look?'
'I have the feeling that Kennit and Sorcor have sailed together for a long time. Such men have ways of doing things, ways they pass on to their crews. Besides, Kennit is still alive. Before long, he may feel well enough to guide us to Bull Creek himself.' Wintrow spoke reassuringly, attempting to comfort the ship.
'Perhaps,' Vivacia conceded grudgingly. 'But I would feel better if we were underway already. He has survived the night, that is true. Nevertheless, he is far from strong, or cured. Yesterday, he died when he stopped struggling to live. Today, he struggles to cling to life. I do not like how his dreams twitch and dance. I would feel better if he were in the hands of a real healer.'
Her words stung, just a bit. Wintrow knew he was not a trained healer, but she might have spoken some word of admiration at how well he had done so far. He glanced down at the deck where he had performed his crude surgery. Kennit's flowing blood had followed the contours of his supine body. The dark stain was an eerie outline of his injured leg and hip. It was not far from Wintrow's own bloody handprint. That mark had never been erased from the deck. Would Kennit's shadow stay as well? Uneasily, Wintrow scuffed at it with his bare foot.
It was like sweeping his fingers across a stringed instrument, save that the chord he awoke was not sound. Kennit's life suddenly sang with his own. Wintrow reeled with the force of the connection, then sat down hard on the deck. A moment later, he tried to describe it to himself. It had not been Kennit's memories, nor his thoughts or dreams. Instead, it had been an intense awareness of the pirate. The closest comparison he could summon was the way a perfume or scent could suddenly call up detailed memories, but a hundred times stronger. His sense of Kennit had almost driven him out of himself.
'Now you glimpse how it is for me,' the ship said quietly. A moment later she added, 'I did not think it could affect you that way.'
'What was that?'
'The power of blood. Blood remembers. Blood recalls not days and nights and events. Blood recalls identity.'
Wintrow was silent, trying to grasp the full import of what she was saying. He reached out a hand toward Kennit's spilled shadow on the deck. Then he pulled back his fingers. No amount of curiosity could draw him to experience that again. The potency of it had dizzied his soul and nearly displaced him from himself.
'And that is what you felt,' the ship added to his thought. 'You, who have blood of your own. At least you possess your own body, your own set of memories and your own identity. You can set Kennit aside and say, 'He is not I.' I have none of that. I am no more than wood impregnated with the memories of your family. The identity you call Vivacia is one I have cobbled together for myself. When Kennit's blood soaked into me, I was powerless to refuse it. Just like the night of the slave uprising, when man after man entered me, and I was powerless to deny any of them.
'The night all that blood was spilled… Imagine being drenched in identities, not once or twice, but dozens of times. They collapsed on my decks and died, but as their blood soaked into me, they made me the reservoir of
