Mad Ship (29 page)

His father halted with the mug halfway to his lips. He gave a hoarse bark of laughter. “No, you wouldn’t. Not you. You’d get someone else to poison it, and then you would give it to me, so you could pretend none of it was your doing. Not my fault, you could whine, and when you crawled back to your mother, she would believe you and let you go back to your monastery.”

Wintrow pinched his lips together.
I am living with a madman,
he reminded himself.
Conversing with him is not going to bring him to his senses. His mind has turned. Only almighty Sa can cure him and only in his own time.
He found a modicum of patience within himself. He tried to believe it was not a show of defiance when he crossed the small room and opened the window.

“Shut that,” his father growled. “Do you think I want to smell that scummy little town out there?”

“It smells no worse than the stench of your own body that fills this room,” Wintrow countered. He walked two steps away from the open window. At his feet was his own pallet, seldom slept in, and the small bundle of clothes he could call his own. Nominally, he shared this small room with his father. The reality was that he slept most nights on the foredeck near Vivacia. The proximity made him uncomfortably aware of her thoughts, and through her, the presence of Kennit’s dreams. Still, that was preferable to his father’s irascible and critical company.

“Is he going to ransom us?” Kyle Haven demanded suddenly. “He could get a good price for us. Your mother probably could scrape up a bit, and the Bingtown Traders would come through with more, to get a liveship back. Does he know that? That he could get a good price for us? You should tell him that. Has he sent a ransom note yet?”

Wintrow sighed. Not this conversation again. He cut swiftly to the meat of it, hoping for a mercifully quick end. “He doesn’t want to ransom the ship, Father. He intends to keep it. That means I have to stay with it. I don’t know what he plans to do with you. I’ve asked him, but he doesn’t answer. I don’t want to make him angry.”

“Why? You never feared to make me angry!”

Wintrow sighed. “Because he is an unpredictable man. If I push him, he may take … rash action. To demonstrate his power. I think it is wiser to wait for him to see he has nothing to gain from holding you. As he heals, he seems more reasonable. In time—”

“In time I shall be little more than a living corpse, shut up in here, taunted and mocked and despised by all on this ship. He seeks to break me with darkness and poor food and no company save that of my idiot son!”

His father had finished eating. Without a word, Wintrow picked up the tray and turned to go. “That’s right, run away! Hide from the truth.” When Wintrow made no reply as he opened the door, his father bellowed after him, “Make sure you take the chamberpot and empty it! It stinks.”

“Do it yourself.” Wintrow’s voice came out flat and ugly. “No one will stop you.”

He shut the door behind himself. His grip on the tray was so tight his knuckles were white. His molars hurt where his teeth were clenched together. “Why?” he asked aloud of no one. More quietly, he added to himself, “How could that man be my father? I feel no bond to him at all.”

He felt a faint tremor of sympathy from the ship.

Just before he reached the galley door, Sa’Adar caught up with him. Wintrow had been aware of him following him since he left his father’s room, but he had hoped to elude him. The priest became more frightening with every passing day. He had all but disappeared for a time, after Etta had marked him with her knife. Like some parasitic creature, he had burrowed deep into the holds of the ship, to work his poison silently among the freed men and women. There were fewer discontents as the days passed. Kennit and his crew treated them even-handedly. They were fed as well as any crew member, and the same level of effort was expected from them in caring for the ship.

When they reached Divvytown, it was announced to the former slaves that any who wished to disembark might take their freedom and go. Captain Kennit wished them well and hoped they would enjoy their new lives. Those who desired could request to stay aboard as crew, but they would have to prove themselves worthy and loyal sailors to Kennit. Wintrow had seen the wisdom in that; Kennit had effectively pulled Sa’Adar’s teeth. Any slave who truly desired a life of piracy and had the skill to compete could claim one. The others had their freedom. Not many had taken the road to piracy.

The taller, older man stepped abruptly around Wintrow. Sa’Adar stood before him, blocking his passage. Wintrow glanced past him. He was alone. He wondered if his map-face guards had forsaken him to regain lives of their own. Wintrow had to turn his eyes up to look at Sa’Adar. The man’s face was graven with discontent and fanaticism. His unkempt hair spilled onto his forehead; his clothes had not been washed in days. His eyes burned as he accused, “I saw you leave your father’s room.”

Wintrow spoke civilly and ignored the question. “I’m surprised you are still aboard. I am sure there is much work for a priest of Sa in a place like Divvytown. The freed slaves would surely appreciate your assistance in beginning new lives there.”

Sa’Adar narrowed his dark eyes at Wintrow. “You mock me. You mock my priesthood, and in doing so you mock yourself and Sa.” His hand snaked out to seize Wintrow’s shoulder. The boy still gripped his father’s breakfast tray. He clutched it tightly to keep from spilling the crockery on the deck, but he stood his ground. “You forsake your priesthood and Sa in what you do here. This is a ship built of death, speaking with death’s tongue. A follower of the Life God should not be servant to it. But it is not too late for you, lad. Recall who you are. Align yourself once more with life and right. You know this ship belongs by right to those who seized it for themselves. This vessel of cruelty and bondage could become a ship of freedom and righteousness.”

“Let me go,” Wintrow said quietly. He tried to squirm out of the madman’s grip.

“This is my last warning to you.” Sa’Adar came very close to him, his breath hot and rancid in Wintrow’s face. “It is your last chance to redeem yourself from your past errors and put your feet on the true path to glory. Your father must be delivered to judgment. If you are the instrument of that, your own part in the transgressions can be forgiven. I myself will judge it is so. Then this ship must be surrendered to those who rightfully claim her. Make Kennit see that. He is a sick man. He cannot withstand us. We rose and unseated one despot. Does he believe we cannot do it again?”

“I believe that if I spoke such words to him, it would be death for you. Death for myself as well. Sa’Adar. Be content with what he has given you: a new chance at life. Seize it and go on.” Wintrow tried to writhe away, but the man only tightened his grip. He bared his teeth in a snarl. Wintrow felt his self-control slipping. “Now get your hands off me and let me go.” Suddenly, vividly, he was recalling this man in the hold of the
Vivacia.
Freed of his chains, his first act had been to take Gantry’s life. Gantry had been a good man, in his way. A better man than Sa’Adar had ever shown himself to Wintrow.

“I warn you—” the erstwhile priest of Sa began, but Wintrow’s pent grief and banked anger suddenly overwhelmed him. He shoved the wooden tray hard into the man’s gut. Taken by surprise, Sa’Adar staggered back, gasping for air. A part of Wintrow knew it was enough. He could have walked away. He was shocked when he dropped the tray, to drive two more blows into the man’s chest. In detachment, he saw his right, and then his left fist connect. They were body punches, connecting with satisfyingly solid sounds. Even so, Wintrow was amazed to see the taller man give ground, stumbling back against the wall and sliding partially down it. It shocked him to discover his own physical strength. Worse, it felt good to knock the man down. He gritted his teeth, resisting the impulse to kick him.

“Leave me alone,” he warned Sa’Adar in a low growl. “Don’t talk to me again or I’ll kill you.”

The shaken man coughed as he clambered up the wall. Puffing, he pointed a finger at Wintrow. “See what you’ve become! It’s the voice of this unnatural ship, using you as mouthpiece! Break free, boy, before you are damned forever!”

Wintrow turned on his heel and strode away. He left the tray and crockery where it had fallen. It was the first time in his life he had fled from the truth.

KENNIT SHIFTED IN HIS BEDDING
. He was damnably tired of being confined to his bunk, but both Wintrow and Etta had convinced him that he must endure it a bit longer. He frowned at himself in a bedside mirror, then set his razor aside. His freshly trimmed mustache and beard improved his appearance, but the swarthiness of his skin had turned sallow and the flesh had fallen away from his cheeks. He practiced his hard stare at the mirror. “I look cadaverous,” he said aloud to the empty room. Even his voice sounded hollow. He set the mirror aside with a sharp clack. The action focused his attention on his hands. Veins and tendons stood out on their backs in sharp relief. When he turned them over, the palms looked soft as tallow. He made a fist and gave a snort of disdain at the result. It looked like a knot tied in a piece of old string. The wizardwood talisman, once strapped tightly to his pulse point, now dangled about his wrist. The silvery wood had gone gray and checked as if it, too, suffered from his lack of vitality. Kennit’s lips tightened in a bare smile. Good. It should have brought him luck and instead it had served him this. Let the charm share his fate. He tapped at it with his fingernail. “Nothing to say?” he jeered at it. It was impassive.

Kennit snatched up the mirror again and peered into it. His leg was healing; they all told him he would live. What was the good of that if he could no longer command respect from his crew? He had become a withered scarecrow of a man. His haggard reflection reminded himself of a street beggar in Divvytown.

He slammed the mirror down again on the bedside table, half daring himself to break it. The ornate frame and heavy glass defied him. He flung the covers back from his legs and glared down at his stump. It lay on the creamy linen like a badly stuffed sausage, slightly withered at the end. He poked it savagely with a finger. The pain had receded substantially, leaving behind an obnoxious sensation between a tingle and an itch. He lifted it from the bed. It looked ridiculous, a seal’s flipper, not a man’s leg. Total despair washed over him. He imagined drawing cold salt water into his mouth and nose, pulling icy death into him, refusing to choke or splutter. It would be quick.

The passion of his despair retreated abruptly, stranding him in helplessness. He did not even have the wherewithal to take his own life. Long before he managed to drag himself to the ship’s railing, Etta would clutch at him, whining and imploring and bearing him back to this bed. Perhaps that had always been her aim in maiming him. Yes. She had chopped off his leg and fed it to the sea serpent so that she could finally master him. She intended to keep him here as her pet while she secretly undermined his command and became the true captain of the ship. Teeth clenched, fists knotted, the anger that rushed through him was intoxicating in its fierceness. He tried to feed on it, imagining in detail how she had probably planned it for months. Her eventual goal was to keep the liveship for herself, of course. Sorcor was probably involved in it as well. He would have to be very careful to conceal from them that he suspected. If they knew, they’d—

Ridiculous. It was ridiculous and silly, the product of his long convalescence. Such thoughts were unworthy of him. If he must put such intensity of feeling into something, then let him put it into regaining his health. Etta might be lacking in many things, including breeding and courtesy, but she was certainly not plotting against him. If he was tired of his bed, he should tell them so. It was a fine spring day. He could be assisted to the foredeck. She would love to see his face again. It had been so long since they had talked.

Kennit had dim, resentful memories of his mother’s gentle hands carefully unfolding his chubby fingers from some forbidden object he had managed to possess. So had she spoken to him then, softly and reasonably as she took the gleaming wood and shining metal of the knife away. He recalled he had not succumbed to her gentleness but had screamed his displeasure. He felt the same defiance now. He did not want to be reasonable, he did not want to be consoled with something else. He wanted his fury to be justified and proven.

But Vivacia was inside him, weaving herself through his being. He was too weakened to resist her as she took his angry suspicions and set them out of his reach. He was left with a sourceless dissatisfaction that made his head ache. He blinked the sting of tears from his eyes. Weepy, like a woman, he jeered at himself.

Someone tapped at his door. He took his hands away from his face. He flipped the blankets back over the remains of his legs. A moment, to compose himself. He cleared his throat. “Enter.”

He had expected Etta. Instead, it was the boy. He stood uncertainly in the door. The dim companionway framed him and the light from the stern windows fell on his face. His tattoo was hidden in shadow. His face was unflawed and open. “Captain Kennit?” he queried in a low voice. “Did I wake you?”

“Not at all. Come in.” He could not say why the sight of Wintrow was like balm to his spirit. Perhaps it had to do with the ship’s feelings. The boy’s appearance had improved since he had been in Kennit’s care. He smiled at the youth as he approached the bed, and had the pleasure of seeing the boy shyly return it. His coarse black hair was sleeked back from his face and bound into the traditional seaman’s queue. The clothing Etta had sewn suited him well. The loose white shirt, a bit large for him, was tucked into his dark blue trousers. He was small for his age, a lean and supple youth. Wind and sun had weathered the boy’s face. The warm color of his skin, his white teeth and dark eyes, the dark trousers merging into the darkness of the corridor behind him: it was all a chance composition of perfect light and shadow. Even the hesitant, questioning look on his face was perfect as he emerged from dimness into the muted light of the chamber.