Robin Hobb - Blood of Dragons

‘We did,’ she admitted easily. ‘But my grandmother spent time in her own hothouses when I was very small. And by the time I was older, we no longer had servants, and we were growing not flowers but vegetables for the table. I admit I did as little of the dirty work as I could; I had a horror of ruining my hands then and I could not understand the pleasure my grandmother took in nurturing growing things. Now, I think, I understand her better. And so I ready seedbeds even when we don’t have seeds yet.’

Alum idly stirred the soil with a long-fingered, silvery-green hand. ‘I thought all Trader-born were wealthy.’

‘Some are. Others, less so. But wealth doesn’t mean idleness. Look at Leftrin. Or Skelly.’ She suspected she knew why he had sought her out. She’d lead him right to it, then.

‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed. ‘She works, and she works hard. For years now, she’s been working toward a dream. Taking over the family liveship when Leftrin … when he’s finished with it.’

‘When he dies,’ Malta said easily. ‘When he goes, he’ll die on the deck of his ship, Alum. And everything he was and all he knew of the river and the ways of Tarman will go back into the liveship. It’s how it’s done. And it’s important that there is someone there who is ready and willing to take over the captaining of the ship.’

‘I know,’ he replied quietly. ‘We’ve talked about it.’ He fell silent.

Malta waited. It was coming.

‘This time, when she’s in Trehaug, she promised she’d talk to her family, with or without Leftrin. She’s going to tell them that Leftrin and Alise want to get married and maybe have a child, and so she wouldn’t be his heir any more. To see if she can break her engagement to that Rof fellow that her family promised her to. She thinks that he won’t want to marry her if it’s not certain that she’ll inherit.’

‘And then what?’ Malta prodded him gently when he fell silent.

‘She’d come back here, to me.’ He sounded confident of that part.

‘And then?’

‘That’s the hard part. I’m an Elderling. Ranculos says I’m going to live a long, long time. Hundreds of years, perhaps.’

‘And she isn’t,’ Malta said ruthlessly.

‘No. Not unless Arbuc will turn her into an Elderling, too. It must be possible! Tintaglia has you and Reyn and now Phron. So, if he wanted to, he could make her an Elderling, too. Then we both could have a long life. Together.’

‘I suppose he could. I still don’t understand everything about it. But I know that he would have to want to do it.’ She watched Alum’s face and added, ‘And she would have to desire it, also.’

‘She says she’d feel disloyal to Tarman. That in some ways, the liveship is her dragon.’

She knew what he would next ask her. She wasn’t surprised when he said, ‘You came from a liveship family. You chose Reyn over your family ship. Reyn and Tintaglia. Could you talk to her for me? Tell her there’s nothing wrong with choosing her own happiness?’

He was so earnest. His eyes were so hopefully fixed on her that she hated to disappoint him. But, ‘It wasn’t that simple, Alum. I did not have a close bond with my family’s ship. Truth to tell, I had little interest in Vivacia. I thought my aunt or my brother would inherit her—’

‘But Selden became Tintaglia’s as well. And Skelly told me that Althea chose Paragon, not her own family ship. So it doesn’t always happen that a liveship trader stays with her own liveship!’

Malta sighed. ‘It was very complicated, Alum. And some of us did not have as much of a say in what we “chose” as you might think. Tintaglia never asked me or Reyn if we wanted to be her Elderlings. She took us. Nor did my elder brother Wintrow want to be bonded to a liveship. Yet he is, and content with it now, I imagine.’

Her heart sank as she thought of her brothers. Wintrow long gone to the Pirate Isles and seldom even visiting Bingtown these days. And Selden, gone Sa knew where. Her mother alone in Bingtown. And all at the whim of dragons and liveships. How little of her life path had been determined by what she thought she had wanted. And now, once more, she and Reyn were separated by a dragon’s decision.

She swung her gaze back to Alum and spoke her truth. ‘There can be much more to a decision than you can know at this stage of your life. Wise or foolish, well thought or on the impulse of a moment, Alum, the decision must belong to Skelly.’

He watched his hand. It was slender and scaled the same silvery-green as his dragon. He dragged it through the soil and then admitted, ‘She still dreams of captaining Tarman. She loves the ship and she said that if Leftrin doesn’t have a child, or if he dies before his child is ready to captain the ship, she would want to step in.’ He squirmed uncomfortably. ‘I asked her if she couldn’t be an Elderling and a liveship captain, and she said—’

‘Tarman would hate it. As would Arbuc.’ To his unwilling nod, Malta added, ‘Dragons in any form are jealous creatures, Alum. You have given your life over to one, and with it, you have surrendered many choices …’

‘Arbuc is worth it!’ he declared before she could say more.

‘I am sure he is, to you,’ Malta went on implacably. ‘And Skelly might say the same about Tarman. Would you leave Arbuc to follow Skelly to a life on the river with her liveship?’

The look on his face confirmed for her that he had never even considered such a choice. ‘Don’t rush her,’ Malta suggested quietly. ‘As you have said, you have scores of years before you. Possibly hundreds. You have more time to wait than she does to decide. If she waits ten years to decide, will you no longer want her? And if that is true, if she became an Elderling for you, would you still want her in ten years? Do not be too hasty to cut her off from what she has in favour of what you think you could make of her.’

His mouth had gone flat and there was a resentful sadness in his eyes that had not been there before. Malta tried not to regret that she had put it there.

‘I know you are right, Elderling Queen,’ he said huskily. ‘I was afraid to consult you, without knowing why. Well, now I do. I was going to ask you if I should request this of my dragon when he returns. I was going to ask if you had ever resented sharing Tintaglia.’ He shook his head at himself. ‘It’s not my choice, is it?’

Malta shook her head slowly.

He stood up and then bowed to her gravely. She thought of telling him she was not Queen of anything, and then decided that, for now, perhaps it hurt nothing if he thought of her that way. He turned to go, and then suddenly halted. He reached into a pouch at his hip.

‘Carson and I hiked up into the hills. It’s spring up there. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. The ground is dry and you can walk over it, and plants cover it everywhere. I thought I understood dry land after being here most of winter, but …’ He shook his head in wonder at it. ‘Carson found these and gathered them. He said we should give them to you, since you were spending so much time in the hothouses.’

From his pouch, he took a small prickly branch. Shrivelled brown husks clung to the end of it. ‘Rose hips,’ said Malta. ‘From wild roses.’

‘Yes! That’s what he said, too. He said you might want to try planting them.’

She took them from him and looked at them in her palm. Three shrivelled rose hips. She turned and looked back at the scores of empty gardening beds. ‘It’s a start,’ she said, and smiled at him.

‘A start,’ he agreed.

It had become almost a ritual for her. Every evening before the sun went down, Thymara climbed the map tower and looked out.

It was a different place compared to the first time she had seen it. She had spent a day helping Alise clean all the windows, inside and out. Alise had been very unhappy with the crude piece of scraped leather that covered the broken pane, but Carson had apologetically assured her it was the best he could do. It kept out the wind and rain.