Robin Hobb - Ship of Magic

Wintrow lifted up his candle and peered into the gloom. He could not decide who had spoken. In this part of the hold, he couldn't even stand up straight. The slaves chained here were even more restricted. Yet the rolling of the Vivacia as she cut through the heavy seas kept them in constant motion, flesh against wood. They averted their eyes from his dim candlelight, blinking as if they stared at the sun. He scooted farther down the line, trying to avoid the worst of the filth. Most of the slaves were silent and impassive to his passage, all of their strength invested in endurance. He saw a man half sitting up in his chains, blinking as he tried to meet Wintrow's eyes. “Can I help you?” he asked quietly.

“Do you have the key to these things?” one man to the side of him answered sarcastically, while another one demanded, “How come you get to move about?”

“So that I can keep you alive,” Wintrow answered evasively. He was a coward. He feared that if they knew he was the captain's son, they'd try to kill him. “I've a bucket of seawater and rags, if you want to wash yourself.”

“Give me the rag,” the first man commanded him gruffly. Wintrow sopped it in water and passed it to him. Wintrow had expected him to wipe his face and hands. So many slaves seemed to take comfort from that bare ritual of cleanliness. Instead he shifted as far as he could to put the rag against the bared shoulder of an inert man next to him. “Here you go, rat-bait,” he said, almost jokingly. He sponged tenderly at a raw and swollen lump on the man's shoulder. The man made no response.

“Rat-bait here got bitten hard a few nights ago. I caught the rat and we shared it. But he ain't been feeling well since.” His eyes met Wintrow's for a glancing moment. “Think you could get him moved out of here?” he asked in a more genteel tone. “If he's got to die in chains, at least let him die in the light and air, on deck.”

“It's night, right now,” Wintrow heard himself say. Foolish words.

“Is it?” the man asked in wonder. “Still. The cool air.”

“I'll ask,” Wintrow said uncomfortably, but he wasn't sure he truly would. The crew left Wintrow to himself. He ate apart from them, he slept apart from them. Some of the men he had known earlier in the voyage would watch him sometimes, their faces a mixture of pity and disgust at what he had become. The newer hands picked up in Jamaillia treated him as they would any slave. If he came near them, they complained of his stench and kicked or pushed him away. No. The less attention he got from the crew, the simpler his life was. He had come to think of the deck and the rigging as “outside.” Here “inside” was his new world. It was a place of thick smells, of chains caked with filth and humans meshed in them. The times when he went on deck to refill his bucket were like trips to a foreign world. There men moved freely, they shouted and sometimes laughed, and the wind and rain and sun touched their faces and bared arms. Never before had such things seemed so wondrous to Wintrow. He could have stayed abovedeck, he could have insinuated himself back into the routine as ship's boy. But he did not. Having been belowdecks, he could not forget or ignore what was there. So each day he rose as the sun went down, filled his bucket and got his washed-out rags, and went down into the slave holds. He offered them the small comfort of washing with seawater. Fresh water would have been far better, but there was precious little of that to spare. Seawater was better than nothing. He cleaned sores they could not reach. He did not get to every slave, every day. There were far too many of them for that. But he did what he could, and when he curled up to sleep by day, he slept deeply.

He touched the leg of the inert man. His skin was hot. It would not be long.

“Would you damp this again, please?”

Something in the man's tones and accent were oddly familiar. Wintrow pondered it as he sloshed the rag in the small amount of seawater remaining in his bucket. There was no pretending the rag and water were clean anymore. Only wet. The man took it, and wiped the brow and face of his neighbor. He folded the rag anew, and wiped his own face and hands. “My thanks to you,” he said as he handed the rag back.

With a shivering up his back, Wintrow caught it. “You come from Marrow, don't you? Near Kelpiton Monastery?”

The man smiled oddly, as if Wintrow's words both warmed and pained him. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes, I do.” In a lower voice, he amended it to, “I did. Before I was sent to Jamaillia.”

“I was there, at Kelpiton!” Wintrow whispered, but he felt the words as a cry. “I lived in the monastery, I was to be a priest. I worked in the orchards, sometimes.” He moistened the rag and handed it back again.

“Ah, the orchards.” The man's voice went far as he gently wiped his companion's hands. “In the spring, when the trees blossomed, they were like fountains of flowers. White and pink, the fragrance like a blessing.”

“You could hear the bees, but it was as if the trees themselves were humming. Then, a week later when the blossoms fell, the ground was pink and white with them”

“And the trees fogged with green as the first leaves came out,” the other man whispered. “Sa save me,” he moaned suddenly. “Are you a demon come to torment me, or a messenger-spirit?”

“Neither,” Wintrow said. He suddenly felt ashamed. “I'm only a boy with a bucket of water and a rag “

“Not a priest of Sa?”

“Not any longer.”

“The road to the priesthood may wander, but once upon it, no man leaves it.” The slave's voice had taken on a teaching cadence, and Wintrow knew he heard ancient scripture.

“But I have been taken away from the priesthood.”

“No man can be taken away, no man can leave it. All lives lead towards Sa. All are called to a priesthood.”

Some moments later, Wintrow realized he was sitting very still in the dark, breathing. The candle had guttered out, and he had not been aware of it. His mind had followed the man's words, questioning, wondering. All men called to a priesthood. Even Torg, even Kyle Haven? Not all calls were heeded, not all doors were opened.

He did not need to tell the other man he was back. He was aware of him. “Go, priest of Sa,” the man said quietly in the darkness. “Work the small mercies you can, plead for us, beg comfort for us. And when you have the chance to do more, Sa will give you the courage. I know he will.” Wintrow felt the rag pressed back into his hand.

“You were a priest, too,” Wintrow asked softly.

“I am a priest. One who would not sway to false doctrine. No man is born to be a slave. That, I believe, is what Sa would never permit.” He cleared his throat and asked quietly, “Do you believe that?”

“Of course.”

In a conspiratorial voice, the man observed, “They bring us food and water but once a day. Other than that, and you, no one comes near us. If I had anything metal, I could work at these chains. It need not be a tool that would be missed. Anything metal you could find in any moment you are unwatched.”

“But… even if you were out of your chains, what could you do? One man against so many?”

“If I can sever the long chain, many of us could move.”

“But what would you do?” Wintrow asked in a sort of horror.

“I don't know. I'd trust to Sa. He brought you to me, didn't he?” He seemed to hear the boy's hesitation. “Don't think about it. Don't plan it. Don't worry. Sa will put opportunity in your path, and you will see it and act.” He paused. “I only ask that you beg that Kelo here be allowed to die on deck. If you dare.”

“I dare,” Wintrow heard himself reply. Despite the darkness and stench all around him, he felt as if a tiny light had been rekindled inside him. He would dare. He would ask. What could they do to him for asking? Nothing worse than what they'd already done. His courage, he thought wonderingly. He'd found his courage again.