Robin Hobb - The Mad Ship

‘How can you thank me, when I am the one who caused you such distress?’

She widened her eyes and looked up at him. ‘Oh, I am sure the fault is with me,’ she said disingenuously. ‘How foolish I must appear to you, that I begin to tremble at mere words. My mother warned me that there was still a great deal that I did not know of what it is to be a woman. This, I suppose, is part of it.’ She made a small gesture around at the room. ‘As you can tell, we live a quiet life here. I suppose I have been more sheltered than I thought. I have well understood my family’s need to live simply, within our means. Nevertheless, it has kept me apart from many experiences.’ With a tiny shrug, she confessed, ‘I know so little of the ways of young men.’ She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them as she added meekly, ‘I must ask you to be patient while I learn, I fear.’ A final glance up at him through lowered lashes. ‘I hope you will not think me stupid and dull, nor be wearied with the need to teach me such things. I hope you do not give up on me as hopelessly simple. Almost, I wish I had had other suitors, that I could already know something of the ways of men and women.’ She gave a tiny shrug and a sigh as she looked back down. She held her breath for a moment, hoping the effort would redden her cheeks as with a blush. She whispered breathlessly, ‘I confess, I almost did not understand my own dream, that night I opened the box.’ She did not look up as she pleaded prettily, ‘Could you teach me what such things signify?’

She did not need to see his face. She didn’t even need to look up at his stance. She knew she had conquered completely in the moment he replied, ‘I could think of nothing I should like better than to be your tutor in such things.’

‘HE STOPPED!’ VIVACIA was astonished.

‘No!’ Wintrow shrieked, his voice breaking to a boy’s on the word.

He spun away from the railing and hurled himself from the foredeck to the main. He crossed it at a run, then raced down the companionway. Fear of death had been all that had kept the pirate clinging to life. When Wintrow and Vivacia had persuaded him not to fear it, Kennit had simply let go. At the door to the captain’s quarters, Wintrow did not knock nor pause. Etta looked up in astonished anger at his mad entrance. She had been folding lint bandages. As Wintrow rushed to Kennit’s bedside, she dropped them to the deck and tried to intercept him.

‘Don’t wake him!’ she cautioned him. ‘He’s finally resting.’

‘He’s trying to be dead!’ Wintrow contradicted her as he shouldered past her. At Kennit’s bedside, he took the pirate’s hand and called his name. There was no response. He tapped Kennit’s cheek, then slapped it almost sharply. He pinched the man’s cheek gently, then hard, trying to get a reaction. There was none. Kennit was not breathing.

He was dead.

Kennit settled into the dark, drifting down gently like a leaf falling to the forest floor. He felt warm and comfortable. A thin silver thread of pain anchored him to his life. It attenuated as he fell. Soon it must fade to nothing and then he would be free of his body. It did not seem worth his attention. Nothing was worth his attention. He let go of himself and felt his consciousness expand. Never before had he comprehended how cramped a man’s thoughts were when confined to a mere body. All those discordant worries and ideas jumbled together like a sailor’s swag in his sea bag. Now they could spread out and disconnect. Each could assume its own importance.

Abruptly he felt a tug. An insistence he could not resist drew him into itself. Reluctantly he gave way to it, but once it possessed him, it did not seem to know what to do with him. He mingled with it confusedly. It was like being plunged into a kettle of simmering fish chowder. First one thing and then another bobbed to the surface, only to float away a moment later. He was a woman, combing out her long hair as she stared thoughtfully across the water. He was Ephron Vestrit, and by Sa, he would bring his cargo through intact and on time, storm or no. He was a ship, the cold water purring past his bow, shining fish flickering below and stars glittering above him. Deeper, higher, and wider than all others, encompassing them all but thin as a coat of shellac, there was another awareness, one that spread wide her wings and soared through a summer sky. That one drew him more strongly than any of the others did and when it drifted away from him, he tried to follow it.

No, someone forbade him, gently but firmly. No. I do not go there and neither shall you. Something drew him back and held him together. He felt like a child, supported in a mother’s arms, protected and cherished. She loved him. He settled into her embrace. She was the ship, the lovely, intelligent ship he had won. The stirring of that memory was like a breath on the ember of his being. He glowed brighter and almost became aware of who he had been. That was not what he desired. He rolled over and burrowed into her, merging with her, becoming her. Lovely, lovely ship, hull to the cupping water, sails in a caressing wind, I am you and you are me. When I am you, I am wondrous and wise. He sensed her amusement at his flattery, but flattery it was not. In you, I could be perfect, he told her. He sought to dissipate himself but she held him intact.

She spoke again, her words intended for someone else. I have him. Here. You must take him and put him back. I do not know how.

A boy’s voice replied. It was uncertain and thin as smoke, coming from a great distance. Fear was making him jabber. I don’t know what you mean. How can you have him, how can I take him? Put him back how? Put him back where? The pleading desperation in the young voice rang against something inside him. It woke echoes of another boy’s voice, just as desperate, just as pleading. Please. I can’t do that. I don’t know how, I don’t want to, please, sir, please. It was the hidden voice, the secret voice, the voice that must never be acknowledged. No one else must hear it, no one. He flung himself upon it, wrapped himself around it and stilled it. He absorbed it into himself to conceal it. The divergence that was the key to him was restored. A shiver of anger ran over him, that they had forced him to be himself again.

Like that, she said suddenly to the other one. Like that. Find the pieces of him and put them back into one. More softly, she added, There are places where you almost match. Begin with those.

What do you mean, he matches me? How could he match me?

I meant only that in some ways you resemble one another. You share more than you realize. Do not fear him. Take him. Restore him.

He clung to the ship’s being more tightly than ever. He would not allow himself to be separated from her. Frantically, he strove to weave himself into her, twining his consciousness into hers as a single rope is woven from multiple strands. She did not repulse him, but neither did she welcome him in. Instead, he felt himself gathered back together, and offered in turn to an entity that was both of her and distinct from her.

Here. Take him. Put him back.

The connection between the two was amazingly complex. They loved one another and yet struggled not to be one another. Resentments burned like isolated brush fire in the landscape of their relationship. He could not discern where one left off and the other began, yet each clearly asserted ownership to a greatness of soul that could not be encompassed by a single creature. The outstretched wings of an ancient creature both sheltered and overshadowed them, yet they were unaware of it. Blind funny little creatures they were, fumbling in the midst of a love they feared to acknowledge. To win, all they had to do was surrender but they could not perceive that. The beauty of what they could have been together made him ache. It was a love he had been seeking all his life, a love to redeem and perfect him. That which he most desired, they feared and avoided.