Robin Hobb - Ship of Magic

The ship had returned to near calm. A slaveship was never completely peaceful. Always, there were cries from somewhere in the hold. People cried out for water, for air, begging voices rose, pleading for the simple light of day. Fights broke out amongst the slaves. It was astounding, how much damage two closely chained men could work upon each other. The cramped quarters and the stench, the stingy rations of ship's bread and water made them turn on one another like rats in a rain barrel.

Not so different, Wintrow thought, from Vivacia and me. In their own way, they were like the slaves chained cheek by jowl below. They had no space to be separate from one another, not even in their thoughts and dreams. No friendship could survive such an enforced confinement. Especially not when guilt was an invisible third sandwiched between them. He had abandoned her, left her to her fate. And for her, the one whispered comment when she had first seen his marked face. “This falls upon me,” she had said. “But for me, none of this would have befallen you.”

“That is true,” he had had to agree with her. “But that does not mean it is your fault.”

By her stricken look, he had known that his words wounded her. But he had been too weary and despondent on his own behalf to try to soften them with yet more useless words.

That had been hours ago, back before his father had attacked him. Not a sound had she uttered since Gantry had left them. Wintrow had huddled in the angle of her prow, wondering what had possessed his father. He wondered if he would be suddenly attacked again. He had been too dispirited to speak. He had no idea what had stilled Vivacia's tongue but her silence was almost a relief.

When she finally did speak, her words were banal. “What are we going to do?”

The futility of the question jabbed him. He refolded the wet rag to find a cooler spot, then held it against his swollen face. The bitter words rose to his lips spontaneously. “Do? Why do you ask me? I no longer have any choices as to what I will do. Rather, you should tell your slave what you command.”

“I have no slave,” Vivacia replied with icy dignity. Outrage crept gradually into her voice. “If you wish to please your father by calling yourself a slave, say you belong to him. Not me.”

His long frustration found a target. “Rather say my father is intent on pleasing you, with no regard to what it does to me. If it were not for your strange nature, he would never have forced me to serve aboard you.”

“My strange nature? And whence did that come? Not from my will. I am what your family has made me. You spoke of choices a moment ago, saying you no longer had any. I have never had any. I am more truly a slave than any mark on your face can make you.”

Wintrow snorted in disbelief. His anger was rising to match her own. “You a slave? Show me the tattoo on your face, the manacles on your wrists. Easy for you to flaunt such words about. Vivacia, this is not something I play act. This mark is on my face for the rest of my life.” He forced the bitter words from his lips. “I'm a slave.”

“Are you?” Her voice was hard. “Before, you said you were a priest, and that no man could take that from you. But that, of course, was before you ran away. Since you have been dragged back, you have shown me otherwise. I had believed you had more courage, Wintrow Vestrit. More determination to shape yourself.”

Outrage at her words overtook him. He sat up, to look over his shoulder and out at her. “What would you know of courage, ship? What would you know about anything that is truly human? What can be more degrading than to have someone take all decision from you, to tell you that you are a ‘thing’ that ‘belongs’ to him? To no longer have a say in where you will go or what you will do? How can one keep any dignity, any faith, any belief in tomorrow? You speak to me of courage —”

“What can I know of courage? What can I know of such things?” The look she swung upon him was terrible to behold. “When have I ever known anything else than to be a ‘thing', a possession?” Her eyes blazed. “How dare you throw such things up to me!”

Wintrow gaped at her. For a moment he felt stricken, and then he tried to recover himself. “It is not the same! It is more difficult for me. I was born a man and —”

“Silence!” her words slashed at him. “I never put my mark upon your face, but your family spent three generations putting your mark upon my soul. Yes, soul! This ‘thing’ dares to claim one!” She looked him up and down, and began to speak. Then she caught her breath; a strange look passed across her face, so that for an instant a stranger seemed to look out at him.

“We are quarreling,” she observed in a sort of wonder. “We are at odds.” She nodded her herself, seeming almost pleased. “If I can disagree with you, then I am not you.”

“Of course not.” For a moment he was confused by her foray into the obvious. Then his irritation with her came back. “I am not you and you are not me. We are separate beings, with separate desires and needs. If you have not realized that before now, then you need to. You need to start being yourself, Vivacia, and discover your own ambitions and desires and thoughts. Have you ever even stopped to think what you might truly want for yourself, other than possessing me?”

With a suddenness that shocked him, she suddenly separated herself from him. She looked away from him, but it was far more than that. He gasped as if deluged with cold water, and a shiver ran over him followed by giddiness. If he had not already been sitting, he might have fallen. He hugged himself for the wind seemed suddenly colder on his skin. In wonder he admitted, “I didn't realize how hard I was struggling to keep myself apart from you.”

“Were you?” she asked almost gently. Her anger of a few moments ago was gone. Or was it? He could no longer feel what she felt. He stood to look over the railing and found himself trying to read her emotions from the set of her shoulders. She didn't look back at him.

“We are better parted,” she said with great finality.

“But…” he faltered through the next question. “I thought a liveship had to have a partner, one of her own family.”

“It didn't seem to concern you when you ran away. Don't let it concern you now.” Her voice was brusque.

“I didn't mean to hurt your feelings,” he ventured. His own anger was suddenly gone. Perhaps he had only been feeling hers? “Vivacia. I am here, whether I want to be or not. As long as I'm here anyway, there is no reason why…”

“The reason is that you have always held back from me. You admitted that, just now. And another reason is that perhaps it is time I discovered who I am without you.”

“I don't understand.”

“That is because when I was trying to tell you something important, earlier today, you were not listening.” Her voice did not sound hurt. Instead there was a studied calm to it that suddenly reminded him of Berandol when his tutor tried to point out an obvious lesson.

“I suppose I wasn't,” he admitted humbly. “I'll listen now, if you want me to.”

“Now is too late,” she said sharply. Then she amended it to, “I don't want to tell you about it now. Perhaps I want to puzzle it out for myself. Maybe it's time I did that for myself, instead of always having a Vestrit do it for me.”

It was his turn to feel abandoned and shut out. “But… what shall I do?”

She turned to look back at him, and there was almost kindness in her green eyes. “A slave would ask such a question and wait to be told. A priest would know the answer for himself.” She almost smiled. “Or have you forgotten who you are without me?” She asked the question, but desired no answer. She turned her back on him. Head up, she stared at the horizon. She had shut him out.