The Mad Ship. Робин Хобб

suppose,’ Brashen reluctantly acknowledged the compliment.

      The smuggler laughed throatily. ‘But you don’t want to be good at it, do you?’

      Brashen shrugged again. Captain Finney mimicked his shrug, and then went off into hoarse laughter. Finney was a brawny, whiskery-faced man. His eyes were bright as a ferret’s above his red-veined nose. He pawed his mug about on the ring-stained table, then evidently decided he had had enough beer this afternoon. Pushing the mug to one side, he reached for the cindin humidor instead. He twisted the filigreed glass stopper out of the dark wooden container. He turned it on its side and gave it a shake. Several fat sticks of the drug popped into view. He broke a generous chunk off one and then offered the humidor to Brashen.

      Brashen shook his head mutely, then tapped his lower lip significantly. A little plug of the stuff was still burning pleasantly there. Rich, black and tarry was the cindin that was sending tendrils of wellbeing throughout his bones. Brashen retained enough wit to know that no one was bribed and flattered unless the other party wanted something. He wondered hazily if he would have enough willpower to oppose Finney if necessary.

      ‘Sure you won’t have a fresh cut?’

      ‘No. Thanks.’

      ‘No, you don’t want to be good at this trade,’ Finney went on as if he had never interrupted himself. He leaned back heavily in his chair and took a long breath in through his open mouth to speed the cindin’s effect. He sighed it out again.

      For a moment, all was silent save for the slapping of the waves against the Springeve’s hull. The crew was ashore, filling water casks at a little spring Finney had shown them. Brashen knew that as mate he should be overseeing that operation, but the captain had invited him to his cabin. Brashen had feared Finney had a grievance with him. Instead, it had turned into drinking and cindin at midday, on his own watch. Shame on you, Brashen Trell, he thought to himself and smiled bitterly. What would Captain Vestrit think of you now? He lifted his own mug again.

      ‘You want to go back to Bingtown, don’t you?’ Finney cocked his head and pointed a thick finger at Brashen. ‘If you had your wishes, that’s what you’d do. Pick up where you left off. You was quality there. You try to deny it, but it’s all over you. You weren’t born to the waterfront.’

      ‘Don’t suppose it matters what I was born to. I’m here now,’ Brashen pointed out with a laugh. The cindin was uncoiling inside him. He was grinning, matching the smile on Finney’s face. He knew he should worry that Finney had figured out he was from Bingtown, but he thought he could deal with it.

      ‘Exactly what I was about to tell you. See that? See? You’re smart. Many men, they can’t accept where they end up. They always go moping after the past, or mooning towards the future. But men like us,’ he slapped the table resoundingly. ‘Men like us can grab what we’re offered and make a go of it.’

      ‘So. You’re going to offer me something?’ Brashen hazarded slyly.

      ‘Not exactly. It’s what we can offer each other. Look at us. Look at what we do. I take the Springeve up and down this coast, in and out of lots of little towns. I buy stuff, I sell stuff, and I don’t ask too many questions. I carry a good supply of fine trade goods, so I get the deals. I get fine quality stuff. You know that’s true.’

      ‘That’s true,’ Brashen agreed easily. Now was not the time to point out the pedigree of the goods they trafficked in. The Springeve and Finney traded throughout the Pirate Isles, buying up the best of the pirates’ stolen goods and reselling them to a go-between in Candletown. From there, they were passed off as legitimate goods in other ports. Brashen didn’t know much more than that and he didn’t really care. He was mate on the Springeve. In exchange for that, and for acting as a bodyguard on occasion, he got his room, board, a few coins and some really good cindin. There wasn’t much else a man needed.

      ‘The best,’ Finney repeated. ‘Damn good stuff. And we take all the risks of getting it. Us. You and I. Then we take that stuff back to Candletown, and what do we get there?’

      ‘Money?’

      ‘A pittance. We bring in a fat pig and they throw us back the bones. But together, Brashen, you and I could do better for ourselves.’

      ‘How do you figure?’ This was starting to make him nervous. Finney had an interest in the Springeve, but he didn’t own it. Brashen didn’t want any part of genuine piracy. He’d already done his share of that early in life. He’d had a gut full of it back then. No. This trading in stolen goods was as close as he wanted to get to it. He might not be the respectable first mate of the liveship Vivacia anymore—he wasn’t even the hard-working second mate of a slaughter ship like the Reaper anymore, but he hadn’t sunk so low as piracy.

      ‘You got that look to you, like I said. You are Trader born, ain’t you? Probably a younger son or something. But you would have the connections in Bingtown, if you wanted to use them. We could take a good haul up there, you would hook us up, and we could trade some top quality merchandise for some of that magical stuff that the Traders have. Them singing chimes and perfume gems and what not.’

      ‘No.’ Brashen heard too late how abrupt his reply was. Quickly he softened it. ‘It’s a good idea, a brilliant idea, except for one thing. I don’t have any connections.’ In a burst of generosity that was probably due to the cindin, he gifted Finney with the truth. ‘You’re right, I’m Trader born. But I tangled those lines a long time ago, and my family cut me loose. I couldn’t get a glass of water begging at my Da’s door, let alone cut you a trade deal. The way my father feels about me, he wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire.’

      Finney guffawed and Brashen joined with a wry smile. He wondered why he spoke of such things at all, let alone why he made them a cause for levity. Better than being a crying drunk, he supposed. He watched Finney compose himself, laugh once more and then take another drink of his beer. He wondered if the older man still had a father of his own somewhere. Perhaps he had a wife and children, too. Brashen knew next to nothing about him. It was better so. If he had an ounce of sense he’d get up now, say he had to check on the crew, and leave before he told Finney any more about himself. Instead he spat the soggy remains of the cindin into the bucket under the table and reached for the humidor. Finney grinned at him as Brashen broke another plug from the stick.

      ‘Wouldn’t have to be your own father. A man like you has chums, old friends, eh? Or you know someone with a bent for this, you’ve heard rumours about him. In any town, there are some that wouldn’t mind adding a few coins to their purses, quiet-like. We could go in there, once or twice a year, with a load of our very best, held back from our usual buyers. Not a lot, but of the finest quality. And that’s what we would ask in return. Confidentially. Only you and I would need to know.’

      Brashen nodded, more to himself than Finney. Yes. The man was planning on going behind his partner’s back, to make a bit more money for himself. So much for honour among thieves. He was quietly offering to cut Brashen in on the deal, if Brashen would help him find the sources. It was a low trick. How could Finney look at him and believe he was that sort of man?

      How long could he pretend he was not? What was the point of it any more?

      ‘I’ll think about it,’ Brashen told him.

      ‘You do that,’ Finney grinned.

      In the late afternoon, Wintrow crouched on the foredeck beside Kennit. ‘Ease him off the blanket,’ he directed the men who had borne him there. ‘I want him to be lying on the planking of the deck, with as little between him and the wizardwood as possible.’

      A short distance away, her arms crossed on her chest, Etta stood, apparently impassive. She would not look towards Vivacia. Wintrow tried not to stare at the pirate woman. He wondered if anyone else noticed her clenched fists and tight jaw. She had battled his decision to do the cutting here. She had wanted privacy and walls around this messy, painful business. Wintrow had brought her here, and showed her his own bloody handprint on the deck. He had promised her that Vivacia could help Kennit with the pain as she had