Robin Hobb - The Mad Ship

‘That’s crazy.’ Althea uttered the words flatly. ‘No one gives wedding gifts like that. Not even Rain Wild Traders.’

Ronica Vestrit took a deep breath. Changing the subject, she announced, ‘We have to sneak you up to your room and get you into some proper clothes. Though you look skinny as a rail. I wonder if anything you left here would still fit you.’

‘I can’t resume being Althea Vestrit just yet. I bring a message for you from Captain Tenira of the liveship Ophelia.’

‘That is true? I thought it was only a ruse to get in to see me.’

‘It’s true. I’ve been serving aboard the Ophelia. When we have more time, I’ll tell you all about that. But for now, I want to give you his message, and then take your reply back to him. Mother, the Ophelia has been seized at the tariff docks. Captain Tenira has refused to pay the outrageous fees they have demanded, especially all the ones they have tacked on to support those Chalcedean pigs tied up in the harbour.’

‘Tied up Chalcedean pigs?’ Her mother looked confused.

‘Surely you know what I mean. The Satrap has authorized Chalcedean galleys to act as patrol vessels throughout the Inside Passage. One of them actually attempted to halt us and board us on our way here. They are no more than pirates, and worse than the ones they are supposed to control. I cannot understand why they are tolerated in Bingtown Harbour, let alone that anyone would stomach the extra fees demanded of us!’

‘Oh. The galleys. There has been quite a stir about them lately, but I think Tenira is the first to refuse the fees. Fair or not, the Traders pay them. The alternative is no trade at all, as Tenira is finding out.’

‘Mother, that is ridiculous! This is our town. Why aren’t we standing up to the Satrap and his lackeys? The Satrap no longer abides by his word to us; why should we continue to let him leech away our honest profits?’

‘Althea…I have no energy left to consider such things. I don’t doubt you are right, but what can I do about it? I have my family to preserve. Bingtown will have to look after itself.’

‘Mother, we cannot think that way! Grag and I have discussed this a great deal. Bingtown has to stand united before the New Traders and the Satrap, and all of Jamaillia, if need be. The more we concede to them, the more they take. The slaves that the New Traders have brought in are at the bottom of our family problems right now. We need to force them to observe our old law forbidding slavery. We need to tell the New Traders that we will not recognize their new charters. We need to tell the Satrap that we will pay no more taxes until he lives up to the letter of our original charter. No. We need to go further than that. We need to tell him that a fifty percent tax on our goods and his limits on where we may sell our goods are things of the past. We have already let it go on too long. Now we need to stand united and make it stop.’

‘There are some Traders who speak as you do,’ her mother said slowly. ‘And I reply to them as I do to you: my family first. Besides. What can I do?’

‘Just say you will stand united with those Traders who refuse the tariffs. That is all I am asking.’

‘Then you must ask your sister. She has the vote now, not I. On your father’s death, she inherited. She is the Bingtown Trader now, and the council vote is hers to wield.’

‘What do you think she will say?’ Althea asked after a long silence. It had taken her a time to grasp the full significance of what her mother had said.

‘I don’t know. She does not go to many of the Trader meetings. She is, she says, too busy and she also says she does not want to vote on things that she has not had time to study.’

‘Have you spoken to her? Told her how crucial those votes can be?’

‘It is only one vote,’ Ronica said almost stubbornly.

Althea thought she heard a trace of guilt in her mother’s voice. She pressed her. ‘Let me go back to Trader Tenira and say this at least. That you will speak to Keffria, and counsel her both to attend the next Trader meeting, and to vote in Tenira’s support. He intends to be there and to demand that the Council officially side with him.’

‘I suppose I can do that much. Althea, you need not carry this message back yourself. If he is openly defiant of the tariff minister, then he could precipitate some sort of…of action down there. Let me have Rache fetch a runner to carry your word. There is no need for you to be in the middle of this.’

‘Mother. I wish to be in the middle of this. Also, I want them to know I stand firmly with them. I feel I must go.’

‘But not right now! Althea, you have only just come home. Surely you can stop to eat and bathe and change into proper clothes.’ Her mother looked aghast.

‘That I cannot. I am safer on the docks in these clothes. The guards at the tariff dock will not blink an eye at the errands of a ship’s boy. Let me return for now, and…there is one other person I must go and see. But right after that, I shall come back. I promise that by tomorrow morning, I shall be safely under your roof and attired as befits a Trader’s daughter.’

‘You’ll be out all night? Alone?’

‘Would you rather I was with someone?’ Althea asked mischievously. She disarmed her words with a quick grin. ‘Mother, I have been “out all night” for almost a year now. No harm has come to me. At least, nothing permanent…but I promise I shall tell you all when I return.’

‘I see I cannot stop you,’ Ronica said resignedly. ‘Well. For the sake of your father’s name, please do not let anyone recognize you! The family fortune is shaky enough as it is. Be discreet in whatever it is that you must do. And ask Captain Tenira to be discreet as well. You served aboard his ship, you said?’

‘Yes. I did. Moreover, I said I would tell you all when I return. The sooner I leave, the sooner I’m back.’ Althea turned towards the door. Then she halted. ‘Would you please tell my sister I’m back? And that I wish to speak to her of serious things?’

‘I will. Do you mean that you will try to, well, not make amends, or apologize, but make a truce with Kyle and your sister?’

Althea closed her eyes tight and then opened them. She spoke quietly. ‘Mother, I intend to take my ship back. I will try to make you both see that I am ready to do so and that I not only have the most right to her, but that I can do the most good for the family with her. But I do not want to say any more just yet, to you or to Keffria. Please do not tell her that. Say, if you would, only that I wish to speak to her of serious things.’

‘Very serious things.’ Her mother shook her head to herself. The lines on her brow and around her mouth seemed to deepen. She drank more wine, without relish or pleasure. ‘Go carefully, Althea, and return swiftly. I do not know if your coming home brings us salvation or disaster. I only know I am glad to know you are alive.’

Althea nodded abruptly and slipped quietly out of the room. She did not go back the way she had come, but went out the front door. She acknowledged a serving man who was sweeping scattered flower petals from the steps. The massed hyacinths by the steps gave off a rising tide of perfume. As she hurried down the drive towards Bingtown, she almost wished she were simply Athel, a ship’s boy. It was a beautiful spring day, her first day on shore in her homeport in almost a year. She wished she could take some simple pleasure in it.

As she hurried down the winding roads back to Bingtown proper, she began to notice that the Vestrit estate was not the only one that showed signs of disrepair. Several other great homes that she passed showed the neglect of a pinched purse. Trees had gone unpruned and winter wind damage unrepaired. When she passed through the busier streets of Bingtown’s market district, it seemed to her that she saw many unfamiliar folk.