Benjamin Tate: Well of Sorrows

“Headed for Portstown? With the Chance and the Merry Weather?”

“Aye.”

“That’s a Carrente town. Carrente and Bontari have never been allies in the Court. With the coming Feud, are you certain-?”

“I’m a member of the guild. It’s a new world, they’ll need craftsmen-journeymen-in order to expand. I have my papers. The guildhall will accept me, Bontari or not.”

The guildmaster nodded at the defensiveness in Colin’s father’s voice, although Colin could see the doubt in his gaze as he turned to look down on Colin. “And I take it that Colin doesn’t want to go.”

It wasn’t a question, but Colin’s father answered anyway. “No. But he’s not yet twelve. He’s not of age to make the decision for himself.”

Colin stared up into the guildmaster’s eyes, pleaded with him with every fiber of his body. The guildmaster’s eyebrows drew together in consideration, and he drew in a deep breath, held it Then exhaled heavily, shaking his head.

He stepped aside. “He’s your son.”

The taste of apple turned suddenly sour.

His father stepped forward before the betrayal sank in completely, pulling Colin out into blinding sunlight onto the steps of the guildhall, but then Colin began to struggle again. That’s when his father jerked him in front of himself and cuffed him hard on the back of the head. “Stop it, Colin, stop it!”

Colin gasped and froze. Not because his father had struck him-he’d been cuffed on the head before, and not just by his father or mother-but because of the fear he heard in his father’s voice. Fear he’d never heard there before; fear he could now see in his father’s eyes as he knelt down beside him.

“I know you don’t understand this, Colin, but we have to leave. Now. The Families are preparing for a Feud, one that I don’t think will be settled in a day or a month or even a year. It’s going to rip the Court apart, and I don’t want you or your mother to be caught up in it. And it’s going to involve all the Families. There won’t be anywhere in Andover it won’t reach. Which means we can’t stay in Andover. The only place left to flee is across the Arduon, to the New World.”

Then the city’s bells began to toll midday, and his father’s haggard glance shot skyward, toward the sun and the drifting clouds, and he swore under his breath.

Standing, he said, “The ship’s going to leave soon. We have to hurry.”

And they had, running down through the Circle, through the tiered outer Precinct and market, to the shipyard and docks and the vibrant blue waters below. Colin had stumbled along at his father’s side at first, but the pace was too slow and after a few blocks his father hoisted him up onto his back. From this vantage, he could see the labyrinthine streets packed with crowds of hundreds as they passed. Sun glinted off the rounded, orange-red clay tiles of roofs, the blinding white buildings, the porticos, walled gardens, and secluded courtyards, all crammed into the steep landscape in haphazard fashion. At the top of the rocky bluff, above Trent, the stone columns of Dom Pellum’s estate rose into the blue sky, verandas, colonnades, and stone statues spread out amid the acres of grapes in the vineyards behind. For the first time, Colin noticed the groups of men from the Armory, noticed their brooding eyes as they watched the streets, their armor and pointed helmets glinting in the sun. They were everywhere, especially at the docks, three entire ships flying the Bontari pennant surrounded by them as crates of supplies were unloaded and carted up the terraces to the Dom’s estates.

Colin saw his mother on the dock that held the Trader’s Luck a moment before his father leaned back and shrugged him down from his shoulders.

“Thank Diermani,” his mother gasped, crossing herself-forehead, chest, right shoulder, heart-and the fear in her eyes drove the last of Colin’s resistance away. But not the resentment. “We have to hurry. The captain has already threatened to leave without us.” She snatched Colin’s hand and then rushed toward the end of the dock, a satchel flung over one shoulder.

“He doesn’t dare,” his father growled as he stooped down and hauled two sacks onto his back and lifted a chest containing his tools into his arms, grunting with the weight. “I’m acting as ship’s carpenter on the trip.”

They hustled to the lowered plank. The captain bellowed, “There you are! Get them down below and your gear stowed. We’re leaving. Now!”

His mother had descended the ladder into the hold before him. His father had shoved him from behind, to keep him moving.

And then, with two hundred and twenty other men, women, and children, on three different ships, they’d fled Trent.

A part of him had hated his father that day. A part of him hated his father still.

His father.

He lurched upright into a seated position in the alley in Portstown, winced at the pain in his stomach and sides, at the bruises he could already feel forming on his arms, chest, and back. But the loose, queasy sensation in his gut had faded, leaving behind a shaking weakness in his legs.

He stared down at his soiled breeches, his dirt- smeared, torn shirt, and felt sick.

His father would kill him.

“You may as well come in, Colin. I can see your shadow.”

Colin gave a guilty start. He’d been hovering outside of the ramshackle hut they’d claimed in Lean-to, listening to his mother hum softly to herself as she worked. But now he sighed and shoved aside the ragged blanket they were using as a door and entered.

He halted just inside the entrance, not quite able to look at his mother, and waited for the lecture to begin, as it had the last two times.

Instead, his mother simply said, “Oh, Colin. Not again.”

The defeat in her voice forced him to look up.

She sat before the circle of stones that made up their fire pit. Wood had been set, ready to be lit, and the tripod braces his father had constructed to hold the pot over the flames were out and waiting. His mother held the pot in her lap, her arms resting on its edges as she sliced a potato to add to the water. The skin around her hazel eyes appeared bruised with exhaustion, her face gaunt. She’d pulled her long black hair back and pinned it to keep it out of her face while she worked.

They stared at each other. Colin felt tears begin to burn his eyes again, but he clamped his jaw tight and forced the sensation back, his gangly body going rigid.

His mother smiled tightly, and then she set the black pot to one side and stood.

“Well, come here,” she said, moving toward the table against one wall, where she picked up a cloth and dipped it into water. “We’ll get you cleaned up as much as possible before your father gets back. He’s down at the docks, looking for work.”

Colin could hear the snort in her words. His father had been down to the docks looking for work for the past eight weeks but had found nothing so far. Nothing of significance.

His mother turned, wringing out the cloth, then paused when she noticed the stain on the front of his breeches. Her sudden frown almost brought the tears back, but then she knelt and looked up into his eyes, pressing the damp cloth to his face, wiping away the blood and dirt, and the tracks his earlier tears had made.

“Was it Walter and his cronies?”

“Yes. They caught me on Water Street. They dragged me into an alley.”

“And no one saw you?”

Colin didn’t answer.

His mother sat back. “People saw you, but no one came to help?”

He nodded.

His mother stood abruptly, threw the cloth back onto the table as she stormed over to the pallets and one of the small chests they’d carried with them all the way from Trent. “Were they townsmen who saw you?” she snapped as she dug through the chest, lifting out clothes and setting them to one side. “Were they from the Carrente Family? Sartori’s people?”