Robin Hobb - Ship of Magic

“No offense taken, Sorcor. But you might consider that anarchy is but disorganized oppression.” Kennit watched Sorcor's face carefully. The moment of puzzlement told him that his selection of words had been wrong. Obviously, he was going to need more practice at this persuasion. He smiled genially, “Or so some would say. I have both more faith in my fellow men, and a greater appreciation for simpler words. What do we have in Divvytown now? Why, a succession of bullies. Do you remember when Podee and his gang were going about breaking heads and taking pouches? It was almost accepted that if a sailor did not go ashore with his ship-mates, he'd be beaten and robbed before midnight. And that if he did, the best he could expect was a brawl with Podee's gang. If three ships' companies hadn't turned on Podee and his men at once, it would still be going on. Right now, there's at least three taverns where a man stepping into a dim chamber is as likely to get a stick behind his ear as the whore he paid for. But no one does anything. It's only the business of the man who gets clubbed and robbed.” Kennit stole a glance at Sorcor. The mate's brow was furrowed, but he was nodding to himself. With an odd little thrill, Kennit realized that the man on the wheel was paying as much attention to their words as to holding the ship steady. At any other time, Kennit would have rebuked him. Now he felt a small triumph. But Sorcor noticed it at the same moment his captain did.

“Hey, you, ‘ware there! You're to hold the ship steady, not be listening in on your betters!”

Sorcor sprang to the man with a look that threatened a blow. The sailor screwed up his face to accept it but did not wince nor budge from his post. Kennit left Sorcor berating him for being a lazy idiot and strolled forward. Beneath his boots, the decks were white as sand and stone could make them. Everywhere he cast his eyes he found precision and industry. Every hand was engaged at a task, and every bit of gear that was not in immediate use was carefully stowed. Kennit nodded to himself. Such had not been the case when he had first come on board the Marietta five years ago. Then she had been as slatternly a tub as any in the pirate fleet. And the captain that welcomed him aboard with a curse and an ill-aimed blow had been as indistinguishable from his greasy, scurvy crew as any mongrel in a street pack.

But that had been why Kennit had chosen the Marietta to ship aboard. Her lines were lovely beneath the debris of years of neglect and the badly patched canvas on her yards. And the captain was ripe for overthrow. Any ship's master who had not even the leadership to let his mate do his cursing and brawling for him was a man whose reign was ending. It took Kennit seventeen months to overthrow the captain, and an additional four months to see his mate over the side as well. By the rime he stepped up to command the Marietta, his fellow sailors were clamoring eagerly to follow him. He chose Sorcor with care, and all but courted the man to make him his loyal subordinate. Once they had taken command, he and Sorcor took the vessel out on the open seas, far from sight of land. There they culled the crew as a gambler discards worthless cards at a table. As the only men capable of reading a chart or setting a course, they were almost immune from mutiny, yet Kennit never let Sorcor's strictness cross the line into abuse. Kennit believed that most men were happiest under a firm hand. If that hand also supplied cleanliness and the security of knowing one's place, the men would be only the more content. Those that could be made into decent sailors were. They sailed to the limits of the ship's biscuits and the stars he and Sorcor knew.

By the time he and Sorcor brought the Marietta into a port so distant that not even Sorcor knew the language, the Marietta had the guise of a prim little merchant vessel, and a crew who scrambled at a glance from either captain or mate. There Kennit spent his long-hoarded crew-shares to refit his ship as best he could. When the Marietta left that shore, it was to indulge in a month of precision piracy such as the little ports on that coast had never faced before. The Marietta returned to Divvytown heavy with exotic goods and oddly stamped coins. Those of the crew that returned with him were as wealthy as they had ever been, and loyal as dogs. In a single voyage, Kennit had gained a ship, a reputation and his fortune.

Yet even as he stepped down onto the docks of Divvytown, thinking he had realized his life's ambition, all his joy in his accomplishment peeled away from him like dead skin from a burn. He watched his crew strut up the docks, dressed in silk as if they were lords, their swag bags heavy with coins and ivory and curiously wrought jewelry. He knew then that they were but sailors, and their plunder would be engulfed in Divvytown's maw in a matter of hours. And suddenly the immaculately clean decks and neatly sewn sails and crisp paint on the Marietta seemed as brief and shallow a triumph as his crew's wealth. He rebuffed Sorcor's companionship, and instead spent their week in port drinking in the dimness of his cabin. He had never expected to be so disheartened by success. He felt cheated.

It took him months to recover. He moved through that time in a numb blackness, bewildered by the hopelessness that had settled on him. Some distant part of himself recognized then how well he had chosen in Sorcor. The mate carried on as if nothing were amiss, and never once inquired into the captain's state of mind. If the crew sensed something was odd, there was no evidence of it. Kennit was of the philosophy that on a well-run ship, the captain need never speak directly to the crew, but should only make his wishes known to the mate and trust him to see them carried out. That habit served him well in those despairing days. He had not felt himself again until the morning that Sorcor had rapped on his door to announce that they had a fine fat merchant vessel in sight, and did the Captain wish him to pursue her?

They not only pursued her, but grappled and boarded her, securing for themselves a fine cargo of wine and perfumes. Kennit left Sorcor in charge of the Marietta's deck while he himself led the crew onto the merchant vessel. Up to that time, he had viewed battle and killing as one of the untidy aspects of his chosen career. For the first time that day, his heart caught fire with battle fury. Over and again he slew his anger and disappointment, until to his shock there was suddenly no one left to oppose him. He turned from the last body that had fallen at his feet to find his men gathered in knots on the deck, staring at him in a sort of fascination. He heard not so much as a whispered remark, but the combination of horror and admiration in their eyes told him much. He thought he had won his crew to him with discipline, but that was the day when they actually gave him their hearts. They would not speak familiarly with him nor ever regard him with fondness. But when they went forth to drink and carouse through Divvytown, they would brag of his strict shipboard discipline that marked them as men of endurance, and his savagery with a sword that marked them as a ship to be feared.

From that time on, they expected their captain to lead their forays. The first time he held them back and accepted a captain's surrender of their ship, the crew had been somewhat disgruntled, until he shared out amongst them the greater crew-shares from the ransom of the ship and cargo. Then it had been all right; the satisfaction of greed can make most things right with a pirate crew.

In the intervening years, he secured his little empire. He cultivated in Chalced both merchants in the seedier ports that would buy unusual cargoes with no questions asked, and lesser Chalcedean lords who did not scruple to act as go-betweens in the ransoming of ships, cargoes and crews. One got far more from them for pirated cargo than one did in Divvytown or Skullsport. In recent months he had begun to fantasize that these Chalcedean lordlings could help him gain recognition of the pirate isles as a legitimate domain, once he had convinced the inhabitants to accept him as their ruler. He once again tallied up what he had to offer both sides. For the pirates, legitimacy, with no threat of a noose to haunt them. Open trade with other ports. Once he unified the pirate isles and towns, they could act together to put an end to the slavers raiding their towns. He worried briefly that that would not be enough for them, but then pushed that thought aside. For the merchants of Chalced and the traders of Bingtown, the benefits were clearer. Safe use of the inside passage up the coast to Bingtown, Chalced and the lands beyond. It would not be free, of course. Nothing could be free. But it would be safe. A smile ghosted across his lips. They'd like that change.