Page 107

TESTIMONIES

‘D OES IT HURT MUCH ?’

‘Can you feel pain?’

‘Not as men do, no, but I understand the distress you must—’

‘Then why do you ask? Any answer I give will have no real meaning to you.’

A long silence followed. Vivacia lifted her smooth arms and crossed them over her breasts.

She stared straight ahead of herself. She fought the rising tide of grief and despair inside her.

It was not getting any better between Wintrow and her.

Since Cress, with every passing day his resentment of her increased.

It made what might have been pleasant days into torture.

The wind was blowing from the north, pushing them southwards to warmer climes.

The weather had been fair, but all else had been ill.

The crew was at odds with Wintrow and hence with her.

She had picked up from the men’s talk the gist of what had happened on the beach.

In her limited way, she understood it. She knew that Wintrow still believed his decision had been correct.

And she knew, with the wisdom of her stored memories, that his grandfather would have agreed with him.

But all it took to make him miserable was for him to know that the rest of the crew considered him a coward, and that his father seemed to concur with their opinion.

And that was all it took for her to feel a misery as deep.

Despite his misery, he had not given up.

In her eyes, that spoke greatly for the spirit inside him.

Shunned by his shipmates, consigned to a life he could not relish, he still continued to work hard and learn.

He jumped as quickly to orders as any of them did, and endeavoured each day to shoulder a man’s share of the work.

He was now as capable as any ship’s boy and was moving rapidly to master the tasks of an able deckhand.

He applied his mind as well as his body, comparing how his father managed the sails to the commands that Gantry issued.

Some of his eagerness was simply the starvation of a mind accustomed to learning opportunities.

Bereft of books and scrolls, he now absorbed the lessons of wind and wave instead.

He accepted the physical labour of his shipboard life just as he had once accepted the menial work of the monastery’s orchard.

They were the tasks a man must do when he was part of such a life, and it behoved a man to do them well.

But Vivacia also knew that there was a second motivation for his mastering of seamanship.

He strove to show the crew by his deeds that he was neither fearful of necessary risks nor disdainful of a sailor’s work.

It was the Vestrit in him that kept his neck stiff and his head up despite the scorn of Torg and his fellows.

Wintrow would not apologize for his decision in Cress.

He did not feel he had done wrong. That did not keep him from smarting under the crew’s contempt for him.

But that had been before the accident.

He sat cross-legged on the deck, his injured hand cradled into his lap.

She did not need to look at him to know that he, too, stared towards a distant horizon.

The small islands they were passing held no interest to him.

On a day like this, Althea would have leaned on the railing, eyes avid.

It had rained heavily yesterday, and the many small streams of the islands were full and rushing.

Some meandered out into the saltwater; others fell in sheets of silver as waterfalls from the steeper, rockier islands.

All contributed freshwater that floated for a time atop the salt, changing the colours of the waters they moved through so serenely.

These islands teemed with bird-life: sea-birds, shore-birds, and those who inhabited the towering cliffs, all contributed their notes to the chorus.

Winter might be here, but in these islands it was a winter of rain and lush plant growth.

To the west of them, the Cursed Shore was cloaked in one of its familiar winter fogs.

The steaming waters of the many rivers that flowed from that coast mellowed the climate here even as they shrouded the Pirate Islands in mist. These islands would never know a snowfall, for the warm waters of the Inside Passage kept true winter forever at bay.

Yet green and inviting as the islands might be, Wintrow had thoughts only for a more distant harbour, far to the south, and the monastery a day’s journey inland from it.

Perhaps he could have endured better if there was even the faintest hope that their journey would pause there.

But it would not. His father was not so foolish as to offer him the vague hope of escape.

Their trade would make them stop in many ports of call, but Marrow was not one of them.

As if the boy could sense her thoughts as clearly as Althea had, he suddenly dropped his head over his bent knees.

He did not weep. He was past weeping, and rightfully wary of the harsh mockery that any show of weakness called forth from Torg.

So they were both denied even that vent from the wretchedness that coiled inside him and threatened to tear him apart.

After a time he took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

He stared down at his hand loosely fisted in his lap.

It had been three days since the accident.

A stupid mishap, as almost all such are in hindsight, of the commoner sort aboard a ship.

Someone had released a line before Wintrow expected it.

Vivacia did not believe it had been deliberate.

Surely the crew’s feeling against him did not run that high.

Only an accident. The twisting of the hemp line had drawn Wintrow’s gripping hand with it, ramming his fingers into a pulley-block.

Anger bubbled deep within Vivacia as she recalled Torg’s words to the boy as he lay curled on the deck, his bleeding hand clasped to his chest. ‘Serves you right for not paying attention, you gutless little plugger. You’re just stupid lucky that it was only a finger and not your whole hand smashed.

Pick yourself up and get back to your work.

No one here is going to wipe your nose and dry your little eyes for you.

’ And then he had walked away, leaving Mild to come wordless with guilt with his almost clean kerchief to bind Wintrow’s finger to the rest of his hand.

Mild, whose hands had slipped on the line that Wintrow had been gripping.

Mild, whose cracked ribs were still wrapped and healing.

‘I’m sorry,’ Wintrow said in a low voice.

More than a few moments had passed in silence.

‘I shouldn’t speak so to you. You offer me more understanding than anyone else aboard…

at least you endeavour to understand what I feel.

It’s not your fault, truly, that I am so unhappy.

It’s just being here when I wish I were somewhere else.

Knowing that if you were any other ship save a liveship, my father would not force me to be here.

It makes me blame you, even though you have no control over what you are. ’

‘I know,’ Vivacia replied listlessly. She did not know which was worse, when he spoke to her or when he was silent.

The hour each morning and each afternoon that he spent with her was ordered by his father.

She could not say why Kyle forced him into proximity with her.

Did he hope some bond would miraculously develop?

Surely he could not be so stupid. At least, he could not be so stupid as to suppose he could force the boy to love her.

Being what she was, and he being who he was, she had no choice but to feel a bond with him.

She thought back to the high summer evening that now seemed so long ago, that first night he had spent aboard with her, and how well they had begun together.

If only that had been allowed to grow naturally…

but there was no sense in pining for that, no more sense than when she let her thoughts drift back to Althea.

How she wished she were here now. Hard enough to be without her, let alone to constantly wonder what had become of her. Vivacia sighed.

‘Don’t be sad,’ Wintrow told her, and then, hearing the stupidity of his words, sighed himself. ‘I suppose this is as bad for you as it is for me,’ he added.

She could think of too much to reply to that, and so said nothing.

The water purled past her bow, the even breeze sped them on.

The man on the wheel had a competent touch; he should have, he was one of Captain Vestrit’s choosing and had been aboard her for almost a score of years.

It was an evening to be satisfied, sailing south from winter cold back into warmth, and so her unhappiness pierced her all the more keenly.