can cede it to your husband if you wish. Many Bingtown Trader wives in your position would do so, though Bingtown law does not require it. But remember that the Vestrit family gets one vote on the Traders' Council, and one vote only. And once you have ceded it to your husband, you cannot reclaim it. He can appoint whoever he wishes to vote his will in his absence.”
Keffria suddenly felt very cold and alone. No matter how she decided this, she would suffer for it. She could not doubt that Kyle would advocate for slavery. She could almost hear his logical, rational arguments, even when he argued that slavery in Bingtown was bound to be a kinder fate for the slaves than slavery in Chalced. He would persuade her. And when he did, her mother would lose respect for her. “It is but one vote on the Traders' Council,” she heard herself say faintly. “One vote of fifty-six.”
“Fifty-six remaining Trader families,” her mother conceded. In the next breath she went on, “and do you know how many newcomers have amassed enough leffers of land to claim a vote on the Bingtown Council now? Twenty-seven. You look shocked. Well, so was I. Evidently there are folk settling to the south of Bingtown, quietly taking up land with grants signed by the new Satrap, and then coming into Bingtown to assert their right to a place on the Bingtown Council. That second Council that we created — in a sense of fairness, that the Three-Ships Immigrants could have a place to resolve their own grievances among themselves, and a voice in governing Bingtown — is now being used against us.
“And the pressure is not just from within Bingtown. Chalced itself casts greedy eyes on our wealth. They have challenged our northern border, more than once, and that fool boy of a Satrap has all but conceded to them without a murmur. All for the sake of the gifts they send him, women and jewelry and pleasure herbs. He will not stand for Bingtown against Chalced. He will not even keep Esclepius' promises to us. Rumor has it that this new Satrap has depleted Jamaillia's treasury with his wastrel ways, and seeks to find more coin for his amusement by issuing grants of land to whoever will court his favor with gifts and promises of gifts. Not just to Jamaillian nobles does he give our land, but to his Chalcedean sycophants as well. So you may be correct in what you were about to say, Keffria. Perhaps one vote will do no good at all to stop the changes that are overtaking Bingtown.”
Her mother rose slowly from her place at the table. She had taken no food, not even a sip of tea. As she drifted toward the door, she sighed. “In time, not even all fifty-six Trader votes will be enough to stem the will of this wave of newcomers. And if this new Satrap Cosgo will so violate one promise given to us by Esclepius, will he hold the others sacred? How long before the monopolies granted to us are sold to others as well? I do not like to think of what may happen here. It will be far more than the end of our way of life. What such greedy and incautious folk as these may awaken if they venture up the Rain Wild River, I do not like to think.”
For one horrific instant, Keffria's mind was carried back to the birth of her third child. Or rather, her third time to be brought to childbed, for no child was born of that long pregnancy and painful labor. Only a creature her mother had neither allowed her to see nor to hold, something that had growled and snarled and thrashed wildly as her mother carried it from the room. Kyle had been at sea. Her father had been at home, and it had been left to him to do what was the burden of the Bingtown Trader families. No one had spoken of it afterwards. Even when Kyle came home from sea, he had not asked about the cradle still empty, but only accepted it and treated her with great tenderness. Once, since then, he had referred to her “stillbirth.” She wondered if that was what he truly believed. He was not Trader-born; perhaps he did not believe in the price that must be paid.
Perhaps he did not grasp all that it meant to have married into a Trader family. Perhaps he did not grasp that they protected as well as profited from the Rain Wild River and all it brought down with its waters.
For a brief instant she saw her husband as a stranger, as, perhaps, a threat. Not an evil, malevolent threat, but part of a storm or immense tide that, soulless, still crushes and destroys all in its path.
“Kyle is a good man,” she said to her mother. But her mother had left the room soundlessly, and her own words fell lifeless in the uncaring air.
Chapter Fifteen
Negotiations
“We sail tomorrow morning.” Torg didn't even try to mask the enjoyment he took from imparting these tidings.
Wintrow refused to look up from his work. The man's words were neither a question nor an order. He was not required to reply.
“Yep. We sail from here. Last you'll see of Bingtown for a time. We've got seven ports between here and Jamaillia. First three are in Chalced. Going to get rid of those comfer nuts. I could have told him they wouldn't sell in Bingtown, but then, no one asked me.” Torg rolled his shoulders and grinned in self-satisfaction. He seemed to think that his captain's poor decision proved that Torg was a wiser man. Wintrow saw no such connection.
“Captain's going to build up a bit of a cash pot, is what I hear, and have all the more to spend on slaves in Jamaillia. We'll take on a nice haul of them, boy.” He licked his lips. “Now, that's what I look forward to, especially as he'll be listening to my advice once we reach Jamaillia. That's a market I know. Yea. I know prime slave-flesh when I see it, and I'll be holding out for the best. Maybe I'll even get some skinny little girls for you to fancy. What do you think of that, laddie?”
Questions had to be answered, if one didn't want a boot in the small of one's back. “I think that slavery is immoral and illegal. And that it isn't appropriate for us to be discussing the captain's plans.” He kept his eyes on his work. It was a pile of old line. His task was to untangle it, salvage what was good, and render the rest down into fibers that could either be retwisted into line or used as chinking as needed. His hands had become as rough as the hemp he handled. When he looked at them, it was hard to recall they had once been the hands of an artist with a fine touch for glass. Across from him on the foredeck, Mild was working on his side of the pile. He envied the young sailor the agility of his callused hands. When Mild took up a piece of rope and gave it a shake, it seemed to magically untangle itself. No matter how Wintrow tried to coil a piece of line, it still always wanted to twist in the other direction.
“Oh, ho. Getting a bit snippy, are we?” Torg's heavy boot nudged him painfully. He was still bruised from an earlier kick.
“No, sir,” Wintrow answered reflexively. It was getting easier, sometimes, to simply be subservient. When his father had first given him over to this brute, he had tried to speak to the man as if he had a mind. He had rapidly learned that any words Torg didn't understand he interpreted as mockery, and that explanations were only seen as feeble excuses. The less said, the fewer bruises. Even if it meant agreeing with statements he normally disagreed with. He tried not to see it as an eroding of his dignity and ethics. Survival, he told himself. It was simple survival until he could get away.
He dared to venture a question. “What ports shall we be stopping in?”
If there were one anywhere on the peninsula of Marrow, he'd be off the ship there, somehow. He didn't care how far he had to walk, or if he had to beg his way across the entire peninsula, he'd get back to his monastery. When he told his tale there, they'd listen to him. They'd change his name and place him elsewhere, where his father could never find him again.
“Nowhere near Marrow,” Torg told him with vicious delight. “If you want to get back to your priesting, boy, you're going to have to swim.” The second mate laughed aloud, and Wintrow saw how he had been set up to ask that question. It disturbed him that even Torg's slow wit could know so clearly where his heart was. Did he dream on it too much, did it show in his every action? He had begun to think it was the only way for him to stay sane. He constantly planned ways to slip away from the ship. Every time they latched him into the chain locker for the night, he would wait until the footsteps had died away and then try the door. He wished he had not been so impatient when he first was dragged aboard the ship. His clumsy attempts to leave had alerted both captain and crew to his intent, and Kyle had made it well known both to him and the crew that any man who let him leave the ship would pay heavily for it. He was never left alone, and those who worked alongside him resented that they could not trust him, but must guard him as well as work.
Now Torg made a great show of stretching his muscles. He lifted a booted foot to tap Wintrow's spine again. “Got to go, boys. Work to do. Mild, you're the nanny. See pretty boy here keeps busy.” With a final painful nudge, Torg lumbered away down the deck. Neither boy looked up to watch him go. But when he was out of earshot, Mild observed calmly, “Someone will kill him someday and tip him over the side and no one will be the wiser.” The young
