He shifted his fetters and rubbed his chafed ankles distractedly. He did not seem to understand the importance of her question. “A tree, I suppose. Actually, a number of trees, if wizardwood grows as other wood does. Why do you ask?”
“While you were gone, I could almost recall… something else. Like wind in my face, only stronger. Moving so swiftly, of my own free will. I could almost recall being… someone… who was not a Vestrit at all. Someone separate from all I have known in this life. It was very frightening. But.” She halted, teetering on a thought she didn't want to acknowledge.
After a long silence, she admitted, “I think I liked it. Then. Now… I think I had what men would call nightmares… if liveships could sleep. But I don't sleep, and so I could not wake from them completely. The serpents in the harbor, Wintrow.” Now she spoke hurriedly in a low voice, trying to make him understand all of it at once. “No one else saw them in the harbor. All now admit of that white one that follows me. But there were others, many of them, in the bottom muck of the harbor. I tried to tell Gantry they were there, but he told me to ignore them. But I could not, because somehow they made the dreams that… Wintrow?”
He was dozing off in the warm sun on his skin. No one could blame him after the hardships he'd endured.
It still hurt her. She needed to talk to someone about these things, or she thought she would go mad. But no one was willing to truly listen to her. Even with Wintrow back on board, she still felt isolated. She suspected he was somehow holding himself back from her. Again, she could neither blame him, nor stop the hurt she felt at that. She felt an unfocused anger as well. The Vestrit family had made her what she was, created these needs in her. Yet since she had quickened, she had not had even a single day of ungrudging companionship. Kyle expected her to sail lively and well with a belly full of misery and no companion. It wasn't fair.
The thud of hasty footsteps on her deck broke her thoughts.
“Wintrow,” she pitched urgency into her voice as she warned him, “Your father is headed this way.”
“You're wide of the channel. Can't you hold a course?” Kyle barked at Comfrey.
Comfrey looked up at him, a hooded glance. “No, sir,” he said evenly, as if he were not being insubordinate. “I can't seem to. Every time I correct, the ship goes wide.”
“Don't blame this on the ship. I'm getting sick of every crew-member on board this vessel blaming their incompetency on the ship.”
“No, sir,” Comfrey agreed. He stared straight ahead, and once more turned the wheel in an attempt to correct. The Vivacia answered as sluggishly as if she were towing a sea anchor. As if in response to that thought, Kyle saw a serpent thrash to the surface in her wake. The ugly thing seemed to be looking right at him.
Kyle felt the slow burn of his anger begin to glow. It was too much. It was just too damn much. He was not a weak man; he could face whatever fate threw his way and stand up to it. Unfavorable weather, tricky cargoes, even simple bad luck could not break his calm. But this was different. This was the direct opposition of those he strove to benefit. And he didn't know how much more of it he could take.
Sa knew he had tried with the boy. What more could his son have asked of him? He'd offered him the whole damn ship, if he'd but be a man and step up and take her. But no. The boy had to run off and get himself tattooed as a slave in Jamaillia.
So he'd given up on the boy. He'd brought him back to the ship and put him completely at the ship's disposal. Wasn't that what she'd insisted she'd needed? He'd had the boy taken to the foredeck this morning, as soon as they were well out of the harbor. The ship should have been content. But no. She wallowed through the water, listing first to one side and then to another, constantly drifting out of the best channel. She shamed him with her sloppy gait, just as his own son had shamed him.
It all should have been so simple. Go to Jamaillia, pick up a load of slaves, take them up to Chalced, sell them at a profit. Bring prosperity to his family and pride to his name. He ran the crew well and maintained the ship. By all rights, she should sail splendidly. And Wintrow should have been a strong son to follow after him, a son proud to dream of taking the helm of his own liveship someday. Instead, at fourteen, Wintrow already had two slave tattoos on his face. And the larger one was the result of Kyle's own angry and impulsive reaction to a facetious suggestion from Torg. He wished to Sa that Gantry had been with him instead of Torg that day. Gantry would have talked him out of it. In contrast, Torg had acted immediately, much to Kyle's unspoken regret. If he had it to do over.
A movement off the starboard side caught his eye. It was the damn serpent again, slithering through the water, and watching him. It was a white serpent, uglier than a toad's belly, that trailed in their wake. It didn't seem much of a threat; the few glimpses of it he'd had, the thing had seemed old and fat. But the crew didn't like it, and the ship didn't like it. Looking down on it now, he realized just how much he didn't like it. It stared up at him, meeting his gaze as if it were not an animal at all. It looked like a man trying to read his mind.
He left the wheel to be away from it, striding toward the bow in agitation. His troubled chain of thought followed him.
The damn ship stank, much worse than Torg had said it would. Stank worse than an outhouse, more like a charnel house. They'd already had to put three deaders over the side, one of which had seemed to die by her own hand. They'd found her sprawled wide in her chains. She'd torn strips from the hem of her garment and stuffed them into her mouth until she choked on them. How could anyone do such a stupid thing to herself? It had rattled several of the men, though none of them had spoken to him directly about it.
He glanced starboard again. The damn serpent was pacing him, staring up at him all the while. He looked away from it.
Somehow it reminded him of the tattoo down the boy's face. It was just as inescapable. He shouldn't have done it. He regretted it, but there was no changing it, and he knew he'd never be forgiven for it, so there was no sense in apologizing. Not to the boy or his mother. They'd hate him for it to the end of his days. Never mind that it hadn't really hurt the boy; it wasn't as if he'd blinded him or cut off a hand. It was just a mark. A lot of sailors wore a tattoo of their ship or the ship's figurehead. Not on their faces, but it was the same thing. Still. Keffria was going to throw a fit when she saw it. Every time he looked at Wintrow, all he could imagine was his wife's horrified face. He couldn't even look forward to going home anymore. No matter how much coin he brought home, all they were going to see was the ship's tattoo on the boy's face.
Beside the ship, the serpent's head lifted out of the water and regarded him knowingly.
Kyle found his angry stride had carried him the length of the ship, up to the foredeck. His son huddled there. It shamed him to look at such a creature as his elder son. This was his heir. This was the boy he had envisioned taking over the helm someday. It was just too damn bad that Malta was a female. She'd have made a much better heir than Wintrow.
A sudden flash of anger jolted through him, clearing his thought. It was all Wintrow's fault. He saw that now. He'd brought the boy on board to keep the ship happy and make her sail right, and the little priest had only made her bitchy and sullen. Well, if she wasn't going to sail well with the boy aboard, then there was no reason he had to put up with the puling whiner. He took two strides and seized Wintrow by the collar of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. “I ought to feed you to the damn serpent!” he shouted at the startled boy who dangled in his grip.
Wintrow lifted shocked eyes to his father and met his gaze. He said nothing, setting his jaws firmly into silence.
He drew back his hand, and when Wintrow refused to cower, he backhanded his son with all the force he could muster, felt the sharp sting in his own fingers as they cracked across the boy's tattooed face. The boy flew backwards, his feet tangling in his clanking fetters, to fall hard on the deck. He lay where he had fallen, his defiance of his father perfect in his lack of resistance.
“Damn you, damn you!” he roared at Wintrow and charged down on the boy. He intended to heave him over the side and let him sink. It was not only the perfect solution, it was the only manly thing left to do. No one would blame him. The boy was an embarrassment, and bad luck besides. Get rid of the whimpering boy-priest before Wintrow could shame him anymore.
Beside the ship, a death-white head reared suddenly from the water, jaws gaping expectantly. The scarlet maw was shocking, as were the red eyes that glittered so hopefully. It was big, bigger far than Kyle had thought from his glimpses of it. It kept pace with the Vivacia easily, even as it reared such a great length of itself out of the water. It waited for its meal.
The tangle had been following its provider into what Shreever now recognized as one of its resting places
