Robin Hobb - The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy - Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny

Kennit did not know whether to frown or smile. So easily could the man be bought with the offer of unsullied flesh. Kennit scratched his chin. He watched Sorcor turn toward the docks and swagger off into the gathering autumn twilight. He gave his head a minute shake. ‘Whores,’ he congratulated himself quietly. ‘Whores make it all so much simpler.’ A wind had come up. Winter was no further away than a new moon, or a few days’ sail to the north. ‘I’ve never cared for the cold,’ he said softly to himself.

‘No one does,’ a small voice commiserated. ‘Not even whores.’

Slowly, as if the token were an insect that might take flight if startled, Kennit raised his wrist. He glanced about the street, then feigned refastening a cuff-link. ‘And why do you speak to me this time?’ he demanded softly.

‘Your pardon.’ The tiny smile was mocking as his own. ‘I thought you had spoken to me first. I was just agreeing.’

‘There is no strange weight, then, to be put on your words?’

The tiny wizardwood charm pursed its lips as if considering. ‘No more than I might put to yours,’ the face suggested. He gave his master a pitying look. ‘I know no more than you know, sirrah. The only difference between us is that I admit more easily what I know. Try it yourself. Say this aloud: But in the long run, a whore can cost one more than the most wastrel wife.’

‘What?’

‘Eh?’ An old man passing in the street turned back to him. ‘You spoke to me?’

‘No. Nothing.’

The old man peered at him closer. ‘You’re Captain Kennit, h’ain’t you? From the Marietta? . Goes around freeing slaves and telling them to be pirates?’ His coat was fraying at the cuffs, and one boot was split along the seam. But he carried himself as if he were a man of consequence.

Kennit had nodded twice. To the last he replied, ‘Well, so some say of me.’

The old man coughed wheezily, and then spat to one side. ‘Well, some also say they don’t like the idea. They say you’re getting too full of yourself. Too many pirates means the pickings get slimmer. And too many pirates preying on slave-ships can irritate the Satrap to where he sends his galleys up our way. Knocking off fat merchant-ships, well, that’s one thing, laddie. But the Satrap gets a cut of those slave-sales. We don’t want to be digging in the pockets of the man what funds the warships, if you get my drift.’

‘I do,’ Kennit said stiffly. He considered killing the old man.

The geezer wheezed and then spat again. ‘But what I say,’ he continued in a creakier voice. ‘Is more power to you. You put it to him, laddie, and give him a couple thrusts for me as well. Time someone showed him that blue ink on a man’s face don’t mean he’s not a man any more. Not that I’d say that to just anyone around here. There’s some as would think I needed shutting up, if they heard me speak so. But, seeing as how it was you, I thought I’d tell you this: not everyone that keeps silent is against you. That’s all. That’s all.’ He went off into his wheezing cough again. It sounded painful.

Kennit was amused to find himself rummaging in his pocket. He came up with a silver coin and passed it to the man. ‘Try a bit of brandy for that cough, sir. And good evening to you.’

The old man looked at the coin in amazement. Then he held it up and shook it after Kennit as he strode away. ‘I’ll drink your health, sir, that I will!’

‘To my health,’ Kennit muttered to himself. Having begun talking to himself, it now seemed he could not stop. Perhaps it was a side-effect of random philanthropy. Did not most madnesses occur in pairs? He pushed the thought aside. Too much thinking led only to bleakness and despair. Better not to think, better to be a man like Sorcor, who was probably even now imagining a blushing virgin in his bed. He’d be better off simply buying a woman who could blush and squeak convincingly, if that was what appealed to him.

He was still distracted when he strode up to Bettel’s bagnio. For such a chill evening, there were more idlers outside her door than he would have expected. Two of them were her regular toughs, cocky and grinning as usual. Some day, he promised himself, he’d do something permanent to their smirks. ‘Evening, Captain Kennit,’ one dared to address him lazily.

‘Good evening.’ He enunciated the reply, freighting it with a different meaning entirely. One of the idlers abruptly brayed aloud, a whisky-laugh that sent his fellows off into sniggering laughter. Brainless. He took the steps briskly, thinking that the music sounded louder tonight, the notes more brittle. Within, he endured the services of the serving boy, nodding perfunctorily that he was satisfied before passing into the inner chamber.

There, finally, there were enough things out of routine that he was moved to lightly touch the hilt of the sword at his belt. Too many folk were in this room. Customers did not linger here. Bettel did not permit it. If a man came to pay for a whore, then he could take his purchase to a private room to enjoy as he pleased. This was not some cheap sailors’ whorehouse, where the wares could be fondled and sampled before one bought. Bettel ran a proper house, discreet and dignified.

But tonight the reek of cindin was heavy in the air, and men slouched insolently in the chairs where the whores usually displayed themselves. The prostitutes who remained in the room were standing or perched on laps. Their smiles seemed more brittle, their laughter more forced, and Kennit noticed how swiftly their eyes strayed to Bettel herself. This time her black locks had been trained into ringlets. They swung stiff and shining. Despite her layers of powder, a mist of perspiration shone on her forehead and upper lip, and the reek of cindin was stronger on her breath.

‘Captain Kennit, you dear man!’ she greeted him with her usual contrived affection. She came at him, arms wide as if to embrace him. At the last moment she dropped them to clasp her hands joyously before her. Her fingernails were gilded. ‘Just wait until you see what I have for you!’

‘I’d rather not wait,’ Kennit replied irritably. His eyes wandered the room.

‘For I knew you were coming, you see!’ she burbled on. ‘Oh, we hear of it right away, when the Marietta comes to dock. And here in Divvytown, we’ve heard all the tales of your adventures. Not that we wouldn’t be so delighted if you ever chose to favour us with the telling yourself.’ She batted her lash-laden eyes up at him, and rolled her breasts forward against the confines of her dress.

‘You know my usual arrangements,’ he pointed out to her, but she had seized hold of his hand and was threatening to engulf it in her bosom as she clasped it fondly to her.

‘Oh, your usual arrangements!’ she cried gaily. ‘Fie on the usual, Captain Kennit, dear. That is not why a man comes to Bettel’s house, for the “usual”. Now come with me and see. Just see what I’ve saved for you.’

There were at least three men in the room who were following their conversation with more attention than seemed polite. None of them, Kennit noted, looked particularly pleased as Bettel tugged him over to a candlelit alcove off the main room. Curious and cautious, he glanced within.

Either she was a new arrival, or had been working on his previous visits. She was striking if one fancied small, pale women. She had large blue eyes in a heart-shaped face with painted pink cheeks. Her plump little mouth was painted red. Short golden hair was dressed in tight curls all over her head. Bettel had dressed her in pale blue, and decked her with gilt jewellery. The girl stood up from the tasselled cushions where she had been seated and smiled sweetly up at him. Nervously, but sweetly. Her nipples had been tipped with pink to make them stand out more noticeably beneath the pale gauze of her dress.