Ship of Destiny. Робин Хобб

lifted her great wizardwood hands to her temples and pressed her palms there. ‘So often I have told myself that I no longer need Wintrow. I know who I am. And I believe I am far greater than he could ever grasp.’ She gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘He can be so irritating. He mouths platitudes and ponders theology at me until I swear I would be happier without him. However, when he is not with me, and I have to confront who I truly am…’ She shook her head again, wordlessly.

      She began again. ‘When I got the serpent’s slime from the gig onto my hands –’ Her words halted. When she spoke again, it was in an altered voice. ‘I am frightened. There is a terrible dread in me, Kennit.’ She twisted suddenly, to look at him over one bare shoulder. ‘I fear the truth that lurks inside me, Kennit. I fear the whole of my identity. I have a face I wear to show the world, but there is more to me than that. There are other faces concealed in me. I sense a past behind my past. If I do not guard against it, I fear it will leap out and change all I am. Yet, it makes no sense. How could I be someone other than who I am now? How can I fear myself? I don’t understand how I could feel such a thing. Do you?’

      Kennit tightened his arms across his chest and lied. ‘I think you are prone to flights of fancy, my sea lady. No more than that. Perhaps you feel a bit guilty. I know that I chide myself for taking Wintrow to the Others’ Island where he was exposed to such danger. For you, it must be sharper. You have been distant with him of late. I know that I have come between you and Wintrow. Pardon me if I do not regret that. Now that you have been faced with the possibility of losing him, you appreciate the hold he still has on you. You wonder what would become of you if he died. Or left.’

      Kennit shook his head at her and gave her a wry smile. ‘I fear you still do not trust me. I have told you, I will be with you always, to the end of my days. Yet still you cling to him as the only one worthy to partner you.’ Kennit paused, then ventured a gambit to see how she would react. ‘I think we should use this time to prepare for when Wintrow will leave us. Fond as we are of him, we both know his heart is not here, but at his monastery. The time will come when, if we truly love him, we must let him go. Do you not agree?’

      Vivacia turned away to stare out over the sea. ‘I suppose so.’

      ‘My lovely water-flower, why cannot you allow me to fill his place with you?’

      ‘Blood is memory,’ Vivacia said sadly. ‘Wintrow and I share both blood and memories.’

      It was painful, for he ached in every limb, but Kennit lowered himself slowly to her deck. He put his hand flat on the bloodstain that still held the outline of his hip and leg. ‘My blood,’ he said quietly. ‘I lay here while my leg was cut from my body. My blood soaked into you. I know you shared memories with me then.’

      ‘I did. And again, when you died. Yet –’ She paused, then complained, ‘Even unconscious, you hid yourself from me. You shared what you chose to reveal, Kennit. The rest you cloaked in mystery and shadow, denying those memories even existed.’ She shook her massive head. ‘I love you, Kennit, but I do not know you. Not as Wintrow and I know one another. I hold the memories of three generations of his family line. His blood has soaked me as well. We are like two trees sprung from a single root.’ She took a sudden breath. ‘I do not know you,’ she repeated. ‘If I truly knew you, I would understand what happened when you returned from Others’ Island. The winds and sea itself seemed to answer to your command. A serpent bowed to your will. I do not understand how such a thing could be, yet I witnessed it. Nor do you see fit to explain it to me.’ Very softly, she asked him, ‘How can I put my trust in a man who does not trust me?’

      For a time, silence blew by with the wind. ‘I see,’ Kennit replied heavily. He got to his knee and then laboriously climbed up his crutch to stand erect. She had wounded him and he chose to let it show. ‘All I can say to you is that it is not yet time for me to reveal myself to you. I had hoped that you loved me well enough to be patient. You have dashed that hope. Still, I hope you know me well enough to believe my words. Wintrow is not dead. He shows signs of recovering. Once he is well, I have no doubt he will come to you. When he does, I shall not stand between you.’

      ‘Kennit!’ she cried after him, but he limped slowly away. When he got to the short ladder that led from the raised foredeck to the main deck, he had to lower himself awkwardly to it. He set his crutch flat on the deck and scrabbled his body around to the ladder. It presented difficulties for a one-legged man, but he surmounted them without help. Etta, who should have been at his side to aid him, was nursing Wintrow. He supposed that she, too, now preferred the lad’s company to his. No one seemed to care how his exertions on Others’ Island had exhausted him. Despite the warm weather, he had developed a cough from their long and arduous swim. Every muscle and joint in his body ached, but no one offered him sympathy or support, for Wintrow was hurt, the skin scalded from his body by sea serpent’s venom. Wintrow. He was the only one that Etta and Vivacia noticed.

      ‘Oh. Poor pirate. Poor, pathetic, unloved Kennit.’

      The words were drawled sarcastically, in a small voice. It came from the carved charm he wore strapped to his wrist. He would not even have heard the tiny, breathless voice if he had not been climbing down the ladder, his hand still gripping the rung by his face. His foot reached the lower deck. He held to the ladder with one hand as he tugged his coat straight, and corrected the fall of lace from his cuffs. Anger burned in him. Even the wizardwood charm he had created to bring him luck had turned on him. His own face, carved in miniature, flung mockery at him. He thought of a threat for the beastly little wretch.

      He lifted his hand to smooth the curl of his moustache. Carved face close to his mouth, ‘Wizardwood burns,’ he observed quietly.

      ‘So does flesh,’ the tiny voice replied. ‘You and I are bound as tightly as Vivacia is bound to Wintrow. Do you want to test that link? You have already lost a leg. Would you like to try life without your eyes?’

      The charm’s words set a finger of ice to the pirate’s spine. How much did it know?

      ‘Ah, Kennit, there can be few secrets between two such as we. Few.’ It spoke to his thoughts rather than his words. Could it truly know what he thought, or did it shrewdly guess?

      ‘Here’s a secret I could share with Vivacia,’ the charm went on relentlessly. ‘I could tell her that you yourself have no idea what happened during that rescue. That once your elation wore off, you cowered in your bed and trembled like a child while Etta was nursing Wintrow.’ A pause. ‘Perhaps Etta would find that amusing.’

      An inadvertent glance at his wrist showed him the sardonic grin on the charm’s face. Kennit pushed down a deep uneasiness. He would not dignify the ill-natured little thing with a reply. He recovered his crutch and stepped swiftly out of the path of a handful of men hastening to reset a sail that was not to Jola’s liking.

      What had happened as they were leaving Others’ Island? The storm had raged about them, and Wintrow had been unconscious, perhaps dying in the bottom of the ship’s boat. Kennit had been furious with fate that it would try to snatch his future away just as he was so close to realizing it. He had stood up in the gig, to shake his fist and forbid the sea to drown him and the winds to oppose him. Not only had they heeded his words, but the serpent from the island had risen from the depths to reunite the gig with its mother ship. He exhaled sharply, refusing credulous fear. It was difficult enough that his own crew now worshipped him with their eyes, cowering in terror at his slightest remonstrance. Even Etta quivered fearfully under his touch and spoke to him with downcast eyes. Occasionally, she slipped back into familiarity, only to be aghast with herself when she realized she had done so. Only the ship treated him as fearlessly as she always had. Now she had revealed that his miracle had created another barrier between them. He refused to surrender to their superstition. Whatever had happened, he must accept it and continue as he always had.

      Commanding a ship demanded that the captain always live a detached life. No one could fraternize on equal terms with the ship’s captain. Kennit had always enjoyed the isolation of command. Since Sorcor had taken over command of the Marietta, he had lost some of his deference for Kennit. The storm incident had once more firmly established Kennit as above Sorcor. Now his former second-in-command