Robin Hobb - The Mad Ship

At home, it would almost be spring. The buds would be swelling in the monastery orchards. He wondered how Berandol was doing with his own studies, if his tutor ever missed him. He wondered with deep regret what he would be studying now if he were there. He looked down at his hands. Once they had transcribed manuscripts and shaped stained glass windows. They had been a boy’s hands, agile but still tender. Callus coated his palms now, and a finger was missing from one hand. They were the rough hands of a sailor. His finger would never wear a priest’s ring.

Here it was a different kind of spring. The canvas snapped in the brisk chill wind. Migrating flocks of birds passed over head with their haunting cries. The islands to either side of the channel had become even more lush, green, and alive with shorebirds arguing about nesting space.

Something tugged at him.

‘Your father calls for you,’ Vivacia said quietly.

Of course. He had sensed it through her. Their journey through the storm had affirmed and strengthened the bond of mind and spirit between the ship and himself. He did not resent it as he once had and he sensed that Vivacia did not cherish it as dearly as she once had. Perhaps in this, at least, their feelings were meeting in the middle. Since the storm, she had been kind to him, but no more than that. Like a preoccupied parent with a demanding child, he thought to himself.

‘In some ways, we have exchanged roles since our journey began,’ she observed.

He nodded, having neither spirit nor energy to deny the truth. Then he straightened his shoulders, ran a hand through his hair, and set his jaw more firmly. He would not let his father see how uncertain he felt.

He kept his head up as he threaded his way across the deck, avoiding the knots of slaves and the working crewmen. No one met his eyes, no one challenged him. Foolish, he told himself, to believe they all watched his passage. They had won. Why should they care about the actions of one surviving crewmember? At least he had come through it physically unscathed.

Vivacia bore the scars of the slave uprising. There were still bloodstains on the decks. The marks had not and would not yield to the sanding-stones the men used. The ship still smelled like a slaver, despite the near continuous scrubbing Brig had ordered. The storm had taken a toll on her canvas as well; the hasty patching that the pirates had done showed plainly on her sails. In the aftercastle, doors had been forced when the slaves had hunted down the ship’s officers. The gleaming woodwork was splintered and awry. She was not the tidy little vessel he had embarked upon from Bingtown. It suddenly shamed him to see his family ship this way, as if he had seen his sister whoring in a tavern. His heart went out to her and he wondered what it would have been like to have come aboard the ship of his own free will, as a boy perhaps, to serve under his grandfather’s authority.

Then he set all such thoughts aside. He came to a battered door guarded by two sullen map-faces. He stepped past the former slaves as if he did not see them and knocked on Gantry’s cabin door. At least, it had been the mate’s while he was still alive. Now the stripped and looted room was his father’s prison cell. He did not wait for a reply, but entered.

His father sat on the edge of the bare bunk. The stare he lifted to Wintrow’s face was an uneven one. Blood filled the white of one eye in his swollen and discoloured face. Kyle Haven’s posture suggested pain and despair, but there was only acid sarcasm in his greeting. ‘Nice of you to recall me. I had supposed you were too busy grovelling to your new masters.’

Wintrow held back a sigh. ‘I came to see you earlier, but you were sleeping. I knew rest would heal you more than anything I could offer. How are your ribs?’

‘Afire. My head throbs with every beat of my heart. And I’m hungry as well as thirsty.’ He made a slight motion with his chin towards the door. ‘Those two won’t even let me out for some air.’

‘I left food and water here for you earlier. Didn’t you…’

‘Yes, I found it. A gill of water and two pieces of dry bread.’ There was suppressed fury in his father’s voice.

‘It was all I could get for you. There is a shortage of food and fresh water aboard. During the storm, much of the food was spoiled by saltwater…’

‘Gobbled down by the slaves, you mean.’ Kyle shook his head in disgust and then winced. ‘They didn’t even have the sense to know they’d have to ration food. They kill the only men who can sail the ship in the midst of a storm, and then eat or destroy half the rations on board. They are no more fit to be in charge of themselves than a flock of chickens. I hope you are pleased with the freedom you dispensed to them. It’s as like to be their deaths as their salvation.’

‘They freed themselves, Father,’ Wintrow said stubbornly.

‘But you did nothing to stop them.’

‘Just as I did nothing to stop you from bringing them aboard in chains.’ Wintrow took a breath to go on, then stopped himself. No matter how he tried to justify what he had done, his father would never accept his reasons. Kyle’s words nudged the bruises on Wintrow’s conscience. Were the deaths of the crew his fault because he had done nothing? If that was so, then was he also responsible for the deaths of the slaves before the uprising? The thought was too painful to consider.

In an altered tone he went on, ‘Do you want me to tend your injuries, or try to find food for you?’

‘Did you find the medical supplies?’

Wintrow shook his head. ‘They’re still missing. No one has admitted taking them. They may have been lost overboard during the storm.’

‘Well, without them, there is little you can do for me,’ his father pointed out cynically. ‘Food would be nice, however.’

Wintrow refused to be irritated. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said softly.

‘Of course you will,’ his father replied snidely. His voice lowered abruptly as he asked, ‘And what will you do about the pirate?’

‘I don’t know,’ Wintrow admitted honestly. He met his father’s eyes squarely as he added, ‘I’m afraid. I know I have to try to heal him. But I don’t know which is worse, the prospect of him surviving and us continuing as prisoners, or him dying and us with him, and the ship having to go on alone.’

His father spat on the deck, an action so unlike him that it was as shocking as a blow. His eyes glittered like cold stones. ‘I despise you,’ he growled. ‘Your mother must have lain with a serpent, to bring forth something like you. It shames me to have folk name you my son. Look at you. Pirates have taken over your family ship, the livelihood of your mother and sister and little brother. Their very survival depends on you taking this ship back! But you don’t even think of that. No. All you wonder is if you will kill or cure the pirate whose boot is on your neck. You have not given one thought to getting weapons for us, or persuading the ship to defy him as she defied me. All the time you wasted nursemaiding those slaves when they were in chains! Do you try to get any of them to help you now? No. You mouse along and help that damn pirate keep the ship he has stolen from us.’

Wintrow shook his head, in wonder as much as sorrow. ‘You are not rational. What do you expect of me, Father? Am I supposed to single-handedly take this ship back from Kennit and his crew, subdue the slaves into being cargo again, and then sail it on to Chalced?’

‘You and this devil ship were able to overthrow me and my crew! Why don’t you turn the ship against him as you turned her against me? Why can’t you, just once, act in the best interests of your family?’ His father stood up, his fists clenched as if he would attack Wintrow. Then he abruptly clutched at his ribs, gasping with pain. His face went from the red of anger to the white of shock, and he swayed. Wintrow started forward to catch him.