Page 51

‘No. No, everything is under control. Captain Haven just had a bit of a temper-tantrum,’ Althea heard herself lie calmly.

Under control, she thought to herself. It felt far from that to her.

Instead she felt like she was a juggler’s club, flying through the air, not knowing what hand would next seize her and fling her into a rhythm.

No hand, perhaps. Perhaps she would just go flying off, out of control, never again to be a part of her family’s pattern.

She smiled bitterly at the ridiculous image, and put the wet cloth into an earthenware bowl before she bore it down the hall to the dining room.

When she got there, Wintrow and her mother were seated at a corner of the low table.

Wintrow looked pale and shaken, her mother very determined.

She held both the boy’s hands in her own as she spoke to him earnestly.

Kyle, arms crossed on his chest, stood by the window. His back was to the room, but Althea could sense his indignation. Keffria stood next to him, looking up at him imploringly, but he appeared unaware of her existence.

‘… all in Sa’s hands.’ Her mother spoke earnestly to her nephew. ‘I believe that He has sent you back to us, and created this bond between you and the ship for a reason. It’s meant to be, Wintrow. Can you accept it, as you once accepted the way we sent you off with the priest?’

A bond between Wintrow and her ship. It could not be.

Her heart turned to ice in her chest, but strangely her body kept moving and her eyes kept seeing.

Wintrow’s whole attention was on his grandmother’s face.

He simply looked at her. His Haven blood showed plain in him, in the set of his chin and the anger in his eyes.

Then, as Althea set the bowl and cloth down next to him, she saw the boy take control of himself.

In half a dozen breaths, his features relaxed, and for a fleeting instant she glimpsed not only a strong resemblance to her father but to her own image in the looking-glass.

It shocked her into silence. When the lad spoke, his voice was mild and reasoned.

‘So I’ve heard people speak a thousand times.

It’s Sa’s will, they say. Bad weather, late storms, stillborn children.

Sa’s will.’ He reached for the damp cloth in the bowl, folded it carefully and pressed it against his jaw.

The side of his face was already starting to purple, and he still looked shaky and unfocused.

The edges of his words were soft; Althea guessed it was painful for him to speak.

But he did not seem angry, or cowed, or frightened, only intent on reaching his grandmother with his words, as if by winning her to his side he could save his own life. Perhaps he could.

‘Weather and storms I am willing to say are his will. Stillborn children, perhaps. Though not when the husband had beaten his wife but the day before… ’ his voice trailed off into some unpleasant memory.

Then his eyes came back to his grandmother’s face.

‘I think Sa gave us our lives, and his will is for us to live them well. He gives us obstacles, yes… I have heard folk rail against his cruelty and loudly ask “why, why?” But the next day the same folk will take their saws and go out and cut limbs from their fruit trees, and dig up young trees and move them far from where they sprouted. “They will grow better and yield more,” the orchard workers say. They do not stand by the tree and explain that it is for their own good.’

He lifted the cloth from his face and refolded it to find a cooler spot.

‘My mind wanders,’ he said unhappily. ‘Just when I want to speak most clearly to you. Grandmother. I do not think it is Sa’s will for me to leave his priesthood and live aboard a ship so that our family may prosper financially.

I am not even sure it is your will. I think it is my father’s will.

To get his way, he proposes breaking a promise, and breaking my heart.

Nor am I unaware that this unwelcome “gift” he thrusts upon me was snatched but yesterday from my Aunt Althea’s hands. ’

For the first time he turned his eyes to Althea.

Despite the pain and bruised skin, for an instant her father seemed to look out of those eyes.

The same infinite patience cushioning an iron will.

This was not some frail, cowering priest-boy, but a man’s mind in a boy’s changing body, she realized in amazement.

‘Even your own son recognizes the injustice of what you do,’ she accused Kyle. ‘Your snatching Vivacia from me has nothing to do with whether or not you believe I can command her. It is solely a matter of your own greed.’

‘Greed?’ Kyle shouted in disdain. ‘Greed? Oh, I like that! Greed makes me want to take over a ship so ridiculously in debt, I’ll be lucky to pay her off before I die.

Greed makes me want to step forward and take responsibility for a household with no concept of wise money management.

Althea, if I thought you had any capacity to be useful aboard the Vivacia, I’d seize on the chance of making you work for a change.

No. More than that. If you could show me but one sign of true seamanship, if you had a single ship’s ticket to your belt, I’d make you a gift of the damned ship and all her debts with her.

But you’re nothing but a spoiled little girl. ’

‘You liar!’ Althea cried in infinite disgust.

‘By Sa, I swear it’s so!’ Kyle roared angrily. ‘If but one reputable captain would vouch for your seamanship, I’d hand the ship over to you tomorrow! But all of Bingtown knows you for what you are. A dabbler and a pretence.’

‘The ship would vouch for her,’ Wintrow observed in a wavering voice.

He lifted a hand to his forehead, as if to hold his head together.

‘If the ship vouched for her, would you do as you’ve sworn?

For by Sa, you’ve offered that oath, and we all witnessed it.

You’d have to live up to it. I cannot believe this quarrelling and anger was what my grandfather willed for us.

It is so simple for us to restore a balance.

If Althea was on board Vivacia, I could go back to my monastery.

We could all go back to where we belong.

Where we were happy…’ His voice trailed off as he realized that all eyes were on him.

His father’s look was black with fury, but Ronica Vestrit had lifted her hand to her mouth as if his words had cut her to the quick.

‘I’ve had enough of this whining!’ Kyle suddenly exploded.

He crossed the room in a few strides, to lean on the table and glare down on his son.

‘Is this what the priests taught you? To twist things about to get your own way? It shames me that a boy of my own bloodlines could use such tricks on his own grandmother. Stand up!’ he barked, and when Wintrow stared up at him wordlessly, bellowed, ‘Stand up!’

The young priest hesitated a moment, and then came to his feet.

He opened his mouth to speak, but his father spoke first. ‘You are thirteen years old, even if you look more like ten and behave like three. Thirteen. By law, in Bingtown, a son’s labour belongs to his father until he is fifteen years old.

Oppose me and I’ll invoke that law. I don’t care if you wear a brown robe, I don’t care if you grow sacred antlers from your brow.

Until you are fifteen, you’ll work that ship. Do you understand me?’

Even Althea was shocked at the near-blasphemy of Kyle’s words.

Wintrow’s voice quavered as he replied, but he stood straight.

‘As a priest of Sa, I am bound only by those civil laws that are just and righteous. You invoke a civil law to break your promise. When you gave me to Sa, you gave my labour to Sa as well. I no longer belong to you.’ He glanced about, from his mother to his grandmother, then added, almost apologetically, ‘I am not even truly a member of this family any more. I have been given to Sa.’

Ronica stood to block him, but Kyle brushed past her with a force that sent the older woman staggering.

With a cry, Keffria sprang to her mother’s side.

Kyle gripped Wintrow by the front of his robe and shook him until his head whipped back and forth.

His words were distorted by rage. ‘Mine,’ he roared at the boy.

‘You are mine. And you’ll shut up and do as you’re told.

Now!’ He stilled the boy’s body and then hauled him up on his toes.

‘Get yourself down to that ship. Report to the mate. Tell him you’re the new ship’s boy, and that’s all you are. The ship’s boy. Understand?’

Althea had watched in horrified fascination.

She was dimly aware that her mother was now holding and trying to comfort a sobbing, near-hysterical Keffria.

Two servants, no longer able to restrain their curiosity, were peeping around the corner of the door.

Althea knew she should intervene, but all that was happening was so far outside her experience that she could only gape.

Kitchen servants gossiped of having squabbles like this at home, or one heard of tradesmen apprenticing their sons against their wills.

She’d heard of ship’s discipline like this on other vessels.

Things like this simply never happened in the homes of Old Trader families. Or if it did, it was never spoken of.

‘Do you understand me?’ Kyle demanded, as if shouting louder at the boy would make his words more comprehensible. Dazed as he was, Wintrow still managed a nod. Kyle let go of his shirt front. The boy staggered, then caught at the table’s edge. He stood, head hanging.