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

He stood abruptly, his resolve strong, but when he spoke his words were soft.

‘Wait here and do not lose hope. I will go to Sa’s temple and get help. Surely your master can be made to see reason, that you will die without care.’ He offered a bitter smile. ‘If all else fails, perhaps we can persuade him a live slave is worth more than a dead one.’

The man who had first summoned him looked incredulous. ‘The temple? Small help we shall get there. A dog is a dog, and a slave is a slave. Neither is offered Sa’s comfort there. The priests there sing Sa’s songs, but dance to the Satrap’s piping. As to the man who sells our labour, he does not even own us. All he knows is that he gets a percentage of whatever we earn each day. From that, he feeds and shelters and doses us. The rest goes to our owner. Our broker will not make his piece smaller by trying to save Cala’s life. Why should he? It costs him nothing if she dies.’ The man looked down at Wintrow’s incomprehension and disbelief. ‘I was a fool to call to you.’ Bitterness crept into his voice. ‘The youth in your eyes deceived me. I should have known by your priest’s robe that I would find no willing help in you.’ He gripped Wintrow suddenly by the shoulder, a savagely hard pinch. ‘Give her the comfort of Sa. Or I swear I will break the bones in your collar.’

The strength of his clutch left Wintrow assured he could do it. ‘You do not need to threaten me,’ Wintrow gasped. He knew that the words sounded craven. ‘I am Sa’s servant in this.’

The man flung him contemptuously on the ground before the woman. ‘Do it then. And be quick.’ The man lifted a flinty gaze to stare beyond him. The broker and the customer haggled on. The customer’s back was turned to the coffle, but the broker faced them. He smiled with his mouth at some jest of his patron and laughed, ha, ha, ha, a mechanical sound, but all the while his clenched fist and the hard look he shot at his coffle promised severe punishment if his bargaining were interrupted. His other hand tapped a small bat against his leg impatiently.

‘I… it cannot be rushed,’ Wintrow protested, even as he knelt before the woman and tried to compose his mind.

For answer, she tottered to her feet. He saw then that her legs were streaked with blood, that the ground beneath her was sodden with it. It had clotted thick on the fetters on her ankles. ‘Lem?’ she said piteously.

The other slave stepped to her quickly. She leaned on him heavily. Her breath came out a moan.

‘It will have to be rushed,’ the man pointed out brusquely.

Wintrow skipped the prayers. He skipped the preparations, he skipped the soothing words designed to ready her mind and spirit. He simply stood and put his hands on her. He positioned his fingers on the sides of her neck, spreading them until each one found its proper point. ‘This is not death,’ he assured her. ‘I but free you from the distractions of this world so that your soul may prepare itself for the next. Do you assent to this?’

She nodded, a slow movement of her head.

He accepted her consent. He drew a slow, deep, breath, aligning himself with her. He reached inside himself, to the neglected budding of his priesthood. He had never done this by himself. He had never been fully initiated into the mysteries of it. But the mechanics he knew, and those at least he could give her. He noticed in passing that the man stood with his body blocking the broker’s view and kept watch over his shoulder. The other slaves clustered close around them, to hide what they did from passing traffic. ‘Hurry,’ Lem urged Wintrow again.

He pressed lightly on the points his fingers had unerringly chosen. The pressure would banish fear, would block pain while he spoke to her. As long as he pressed, she must listen and believe his words. He gave her body to her first. ‘To you, now, the beating of your heart, the pumping of air into your lungs. To you the seeing with your eyes, the hearing with your ears, the tasting of your mouth, the feeling of all your flesh. All these things do I trust to your own control now, that you may command them to be or not to be. All these things, I give back to you, that you may prepare yourself for death with a clear mind. The comfort of Sa I offer you, that you may offer it to others.’ He saw a shade of doubt in her eyes still. He helped her realize her own power. ‘Say to me, “I feel no cold”.’

‘I feel no cold,’ she faintly echoed.

‘Say to me, “the pain is no more”.’

‘The pain is no more.’ The words were soft as a sigh, but as she spoke them, lines eased from her face. She was younger than he had thought. She looked up at Lem and smiled at him. ‘The pain is gone,’ she said without prompting.

Wintrow took his hands away, but stood close still. She rested her head on Lem’s chest. ‘I love you,’ she said simply. ‘You are all that has made this life bearable. Thank you.’ She took a breath that came out as a sigh. ‘Thank the others for me. For the warmth of their bodies, for doing more that my less might not be noticed. Thank them…’

Her words trailed off and Wintrow saw Sa blossoming in her face. The travails of this world were already fading from her mind. She smiled, a smile as simple as a babe’s. ‘See how beautiful the clouds are today, my love. The white against the grey. Do you see them?’

As simply as that. Unchained from her pain, her spirit turned to contemplation of beauty. Wintrow had witnessed it before but it never ceased to amaze him. Once a person had realized death, if they could turn aside from pain they immediately turned toward wonder and Sa. It took both steps, Wintrow knew that. If a person had not accepted death as a reality, the touch could be refused. Some accepted death and the touch, but could not let go of their pain. They clung to it as a final vestige of life. But Cala had let go easily, so easily that Wintrow knew she had been longing to let go for a long time.

He stood quietly by and did not speak. Nor did he listen to the exact words she spoke to Lem. Tears coursed down Lem’s cheeks, over the scars of a hard life and the embedded dyes of his slave-tattoo. They dripped from his roughly shaven chin. He said nothing, and Wintrow purposely did not hear the content of Cala’s words. He listened to the tone instead and knew that she spoke of love and life and light. Blood still moved in a slow red trickle down her bare leg. He saw her head loll on her shoulder as she weakened, but the smile did not leave her face. She had been closer to death than he had guessed; her stoic demeanour had deceived him. She would be gone soon. He was glad he had been able to offer her and Lem this peaceful parting.

‘Hey!’ A bat jabbed him in the small of his back. ‘What are you doing?’

The slave-broker gave Wintrow no time to answer. Instead he pushed the boy aside, dealing him a bruising jab to the short ribs as he did so. It knocked the wind out of his lungs and for a moment, all he could do was curl over his offended midsection, gasping. The broker stepped boldly into the midst of his coffle, to snarl at Lem and Cala. ‘Get away from her,’ he spat at Lem. ‘What are you trying to do, get her pregnant again, right here in the middle of the street? I just got rid of the last one.’ Foolishly, he reached to grab Cala’s unresisting shoulder. He jerked at the woman but Lem held her fast even as he uttered a roar of outrage. Wintrow would have recoiled from the look in his eyes alone, but the slave-broker snapped Lem in the face with the small bat, a practised, effortless movement. The skin high on Lem’s cheek split and blood flowed down his face. ‘Let go!’ the broker commanded him at the same time. Big as the slave was, the sudden blow and pain half-stunned him. The broker snatched Cala from his embrace, and let her fall sprawling into the bloody dirt. She fell bonelessly, wordlessly, and lay where she had bled, staring beatifically up at the sky. Wintrow’s experienced eye told him that in reality she saw nothing at all. She had chosen to stop. As he watched, her breath grew shallower and shallower. ‘Sa’s peace to you,’ he managed to whisper in a strained voice.