The Mad Ship

‘Most of being a woman hurts,’ Keffria told her daughter pragmatically. ‘This is what you wanted. Get used to it.’ She tugged at the weight of shining black hair in her hand, then deftly tucked a few stray strands into place.

‘Please don’t fill her head with nonsense like that,’ Ronica said irritably. ‘The last thing we need is her going about the house feeling martyred simply because she is a female.’ Malta’s grandmother set down the handful of ribbons she had been sorting and paced a restless turn around the room. ‘I don’t like this,’ she said suddenly.

‘What? Getting Malta ready for her first beau?’ There was bemused, maternal warmth in Keffria’s voice.

Malta frowned to herself. Her mother had initially refused to accept Malta being treated as a woman. Only a few weeks ago, she had said her daughter was much too young to have men courting her. Did she now approve of the idea? Malta shifted her eyes to try to see her mother’s face in the looking glass, but Keffria’s head was bent over her hairdressing task.

The chamber was light and airy, perfumed by hyacinths in small glass vases. Sunlight spilled into the room from the tall windows. It was a lovely afternoon in early spring, a day that should have brimmed with promise. Instead, Malta felt weighted with the listlessness of the two older women. There was no lighthearted chatter as they readied her to meet her first suitor. The house seemed stagnated in mourning, as if her grandfather’s death last spring had visited a permanent desolation upon them.

On the table before Malta were small pots of paints and creams and perfumes. None of them were new. They were leftovers from her mother’s rooms. It rankled Malta that they thought she deserved no better than that. Most were not even from the bazaar. They had been made at home, in the kitchen, rendered down like soup stock from berries, flowers, cream, and tallow. Her mother and grandmother were so disappointingly old-fashioned about these things. How could they expect Bingtown society to respect them if they lived as meagrely as paupers?

They spoke over her head as if she were a baby incapable of understanding them.

‘No, I’ve surrendered on that.’ Her grandmother sounded more irritable than resigned. ‘I don’t like that we haven’t heard anything from Kyle and the Vivacia. That is what worries me.’

Keffria’s voice was carefully neutral when she spoke of her husband and the family ship. ‘The spring winds can be fickle. No doubt, he will be home in a handful of days…if he chooses to stop in Bingtown. He may pass us and go directly to Chalced to sell his cargo while it is still in good condition.’

‘You mean while the slaves are still alive and marketable,’ Ronica observed relentlessly. She had always opposed using the family liveship as a slaver. She claimed to oppose slavery on principle, but that did not prevent her from keeping a slave in the house. Ronica had claimed it would be bad for the ship to be used as a slaver, that a liveship could not cope with the dark emotions of such a cargo. Vivacia had quickened only a short time before she set out on this voyage. Everyone said that liveships were very sensitive to the feelings of those who lived aboard them and young ships even more so. Malta had her doubts. She thought the whole thing about liveships was silly. As far as she could see, owning a liveship had brought her family only debt and trouble.

Look at her situation now. After she had begged for months to be allowed to dress and socialize as a young woman instead of a little girl, her family was finally giving in to her. And why? Not because they had seen how reasonable her request was. No. It was because some stupid contract said that if her grandmother could not keep up the payments on the family liveship debt, one of the family’s children would have to be offered to the Rain Wilds in place of the gold.

The unfairness of the whole thing rose and choked her. Here she was, young, lovely, and fresh. Who would her first suitor be? A handsome young Trader like Cerwin Trell, a melancholy poet like Krion Trentor? No. Not for Malta Vestrit. No, she got some warty, old Rain Wild Trader, a man so hideously deformed he had to wear a veil if he wished to come to Bingtown. Did her mother and grandmother even care about such things? Did they ever stop to think what it might mean to her to have such a man foisted upon her? Oh, no, not them. They were too busy worrying about the ship or what was happening to her precious brother Wintrow or where her Aunt Althea was. Malta counted for nothing. Here they were, helping her dress, doing her hair, and still not paying attention to her. On what might be the most important afternoon of her life, they were arguing about slavery!

‘…doing the best he can for the family.’ Her mother spoke in a low even voice. ‘You have to admit that much. Kyle can be thoughtless of feelings. I admit that. He has injured mine more than once. Nevertheless, he is not an evil man, nor selfish. I have never known him to do anything that he did not believe was best for all of us.’

Malta was a bit surprised to hear her mother defending her father. They had clashed badly right before her father sailed, and her mother had spoken little of him since then. Perhaps in her own dowdy, homebody way she still cared about her husband. Malta had always pitied her father; it was a shameful waste that so handsome and adventurous a sea captain should be married to a mousy little woman with no interest in society or fashion. He deserved a wife who dressed well, one who orchestrated social gatherings in their home and attracted fit suitors for their daughter. Malta felt she deserved a mother like that too. A new thought filled her with sudden alarm.

‘What are you planning to wear today?’ she asked her mother.

‘What I have on,’ her mother replied tersely. She added suddenly, ‘I will hear no more about that. Reyn is coming to visit you, not I.’ In a lower tone she added, almost reluctantly, ‘Your hair gleams like night itself. I doubt he will see anyone else but you.’

Malta did not allow the rare compliment to distract her. The simple blue woollen robe her mother was wearing was at least three years old. It had been well cared for and did not look worn; merely sedate and boring. ‘Will you at least dress your hair and put on your jewellery?’ she begged. Almost desperately, she added, ‘You always ask me to dress well and behave appropriately when I am about Trader business with you. Will not you and Grandmother do the same for me?’

She turned away from the mirror to confront them. They both looked surprised. ‘Reyn Khuprus may be a younger son, but he is still a member of one of the most wealthy and influential Rain Wild Trader families. You told me that yourself. Should not we dress as if we are receiving an honoured guest, even if you are secretly hoping he will find me unappealing and simply go away?’ In a lower voice she added, ‘Surely we owe ourselves at least that much self respect.’

‘Oh, Malta,’ her mother sighed.

‘I do believe the child is right,’ her grandmother said suddenly. The small dark woman, burdened in her widow’s robes, suddenly straightened herself. ‘No. I know she is right. We have both been near-sighted in this. Whether or not we welcome Reyn’s courtship of Malta is not the issue here. We have given permission for it. The Khuprus family now holds the note for the Vivacia. Our contract is with them. Not only should we treat them with the same courtesy we did the Festrews, we should present the same face to them as well.’ Ronica paced a quick turn about the room. She ticked off her concerns on her fingers. ‘We have prepared a fine table, and the rooms are newly freshened for spring. Rache can wait upon table; she does well at that. I wish Nana was still with us, but it was too good of an opportunity for her to ask her to let it go. Do you think I should send Rache to Davad Restart’s, to beg the loan of other serving folk?’

‘We could,’ Malta’s mother began hesitantly.

‘Oh, please, no!’ Malta interjected. ‘Davad’s servants are horrid, unmannered and impertinent. We are better off without them. I think we should present our household as it truly is, rather than make a false show with ill-trained servants. Which would you find more genteel? A household with limited means who chooses the best their budget allows, or a household that borrows lackadaisical help?’

It pleased Malta to see both her mother and her grandmother surprised. Her mother smiled proudly as she said, ‘The girl has sense. Malta, I am sure you have seen to the heart of it. It pleases me to hear you speak so.’

Her grandmother’s approval was more wary. She pursed her lips at Malta, and gave a brief nod. Malta looked at her mirror, turning her head to see how well her mother had succeeded with her hair. It would do. She glanced once more at her grandmother’s reflection. The old woman was still perusing her. Malta decided it was hard for Ronica Vestrit to accept anyone else as clever. That was it. Her grandmother was jealous that Malta could think things through as clearly as she could. More clearly in fact. Her mother, however, had been proud of her. Her mother could be won over with her cleverness. Malta had never considered that before. A sudden inspiration came to her.

‘Thank you, Mother. I love what you have done with my hair. Now let me fix yours for you. Come. Sit down.’ She rose gracefully and drew her startled mother to her seat before the mirror. She pulled the long pins from her dark hair. It cascaded to her shoulders. ‘You dress your hair as if you were a dowdy old woman,’ she said artlessly. She did not need to point out that her grandmother wore hers in an identical fashion. She leaned down to put her cheek beside her mother’s, and met her eyes in the looking glass. ‘Let me arrange it with some flowers, set off with your pearl pins. It is spring, you know, and time to celebrate the blossoming of life.’ Malta lifted the silver-handled brush and drew it through her mother’s hair. She cocked her head to smile at her mother’s reflection in the mirror. ‘If we cannot afford to buy new robes and gowns before Father returns, perhaps we could brighten some of our older ones with new embroidery. I am sure it would please him. Besides, it is time I learned your rosebud stitch. Perhaps, after Reyn’s visit, you could teach me.’

Ronica Vestrit was sceptical of her granddaughter’s sudden sweetness. She felt diminished by her own pessimism, but dared not set it aside. She cursed the circumstances that had put her family’s reputation and finances into the awkward hands of this giddy girl. Even more frightening was that those awkward hands were greedy and grasping, and that Malta’s foolishness was fuelled by cunning. If the girl had only applied her keen mind to doing what was genuinely best for her family and herself, she would have done the Vestrits proud. As it stood, she was a dangerous liability.

As Ronica silently withdrew from the room where Malta plaited her mother’s hair into coils, she reflected sourly that if luck favoured her, perhaps Reyn Khuprus would take Malta off their hands. It would be restful to have the conniving little wench out of the house; then Ronica imagined Malta as Jani Khuprus’ daughter-in-law, and winced. No. Malta was a Vestrit problem. It was best to keep her at home until she had been taught to behave as befitted her family. Sometimes Ronica thought the only way to do that would be with a strap.

She sought the relative peace of her own chambers. With the coming of spring, Ronica had had the room cleaned and freshened as she did every year. It had not helped. The memory of the odour of sickness lingered. The sunlight spilling in the tall windows seemed false. The clean linens on the bed looked glacial white and cold, not fresh and inviting. She went to her own dressing table and sat down. She looked at herself in the mirror. Malta was right. She had become a dowdy old woman. She had never considered herself beautiful, but when Ephron had been alive, she had maintained herself. Since he had died, she had forgotten. She had stopped being a woman at all. The lines in her face had deepened; the skin of her throat sagged. The few pots of cosmetics on the table were dusty. When she opened her jewellery chest, the contents seemed both familiar and foreign. How long had it been since she had last taken pains with her appearance? How long since she had cared at all how she looked?

She took a deep breath. ‘Ephron.’ That was all she said, simply speaking his name aloud. Part plea, part apology, part farewell. Then she reached up to release her hair. She shook it down to her shoulders, frowning at how it had thinned. She lifted her hands to her face, prodding the papery dryness of her skin, and trying to smooth away the lines that framed her mouth. She shook her head at herself and then lowered her head to blow the dust off the cosmetic pots. She opened the first one.

She was just finishing by applying perfume when Rache’s hesitant tap came at her door. ‘Come in,’ Ronica called casually. Since Nana had left, Rache was the sole remaining house servant in the formerly bustling household. When the slave-woman entered, Ronica instantly knew why she was there. Only a visit from Davad Restart put such a look of guarded hatred in the woman’s eyes. Rache still blamed him for her son’s death on board Davad’s slave-ship. Any mention of the Trader wakened that look in her; it was the only time when the young woman seemed truly alive. So although Ronica sighed and begged, ‘Please, no,’ she knew the man was already in the sitting room.

‘I am sorry, ma’am,’ Rache said in a nearly toneless voice. ‘It is Trader Restart. He insisted he must see you.’

‘It’s all right,’ Ronica replied with a deeper sigh. She rose from her dressing table. ‘I’ll be down as soon as I’m dressed. No. Do not trouble to go and tell him that. If he cannot be bothered to send a runner ahead of a social call, then he can simply wait until I am ready. Help me with dressing, please.’

She tried to make it a joke on Davad that the two of them could share, but Rache’s mouth remained in a flat line. He had deposited Rache at the Vestrit household when Ephron was dying, ostensibly to help. Ronica suspected it had been to get rid of Rache and her murderous gaze. Technically, she supposed the woman still belonged to him, a slave under Jamaillian law. Bingtown did not recognize slavery. Here in Bingtown, she was genteelly referred to as an indentured servant. There were a great many ‘indentured servants’ about Bingtown lately. Ronica treated her as she would any hired servant.

Ronica took her time choosing, finally selecting a dress of pale green linen. It had been so long since she had worn anything but a loose household robe. She felt oddly naked in it, even when the skirts were sashed about her waist and the over-blouse laced up from behind. She paused to look at herself again in the mirror. Well. She did not look lovely. She did not look young. However, she once more appeared as a matriarch of a Bingtown Family should present herself. She looked both groomed and dignified. She paused at her jewellery cask, to rope her throat recklessly with pearls and hang more from her ears. There. Now let the little minx insinuate she was a dowdy old woman.

She turned from the mirror to find Rache watching her with widened eyes. Ronica felt almost flattered by the serving woman’s surprise. ‘I will see Davad now. Would you bring coffee and simple cakes from the kitchen, please? Nothing elaborate. I do not wish to encourage him to linger.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Rache sketched a curtsey and left silently.

Ronica’s skirts whispered as she walked down the hall to the sitting room. The pearls were cool against her skin. Strange how a change of garments and a bit of care for her appearance made her feel so different. Her deep mourning for Ephron was still there, as was her anger for all that had befallen her with his death. All winter she had done her best to cope with the blows as they fell. It had been staggering to find that her trust in her son-in-law had been misplaced. Kyle’s greed had driven away Althea and his need for ruthless control had all but paralysed Keffria. The discovery that his daughter Malta seemed set on growing up to be just like him had been unnerving. A few months back, Keffria had promised to take a hand with Malta and change her. Ronica snorted softly to herself. So far, the only changes were that Malta was becoming more deceptive daily.

At the entrance to the sitting room she paused, and put such thoughts out of her head. By an act of will she smoothed her brow and put a pleasant expression on her face. She straightened her back and shoulders, then opened the door and swept into the room with a ‘Good morning, Davad. Such a surprise to have you call on us like this.’

His back was to her. He had taken a book from the shelf and was standing by the window to peruse it. With his wide rounded back encased tautly in a dark blue jacket, he reminded Ronica of a beetle. He closed the book and spoke as he turned. ‘Not surprising. Rude. Even as socially inept a blunderer as I know that I should have asked if you had time to see me. But I knew you would say no, and I had to…Ronica! You look amazing!’

His eyes swept up and down her, quite familiarly, bringing an unexpected blush to her face. A returning smile broke out on his ruddy round face.

‘I had become accustomed to seeing you in such dreary clothes, I had forgotten how you truly looked. I remember that dress. It is quite old, isn’t it? Didn’t you wear it to one of the parties you gave to announce Keffria’s wedding to Kyle? It takes years off your face. You must be quite proud to be able to squeeze yourself into it still.’

Ronica shook her head at the old family friend. ‘Davad Restart. Only you can so completely ruin so many compliments in one brief speech.’ He stared at her, completely flummoxed. As was often the case, he was completely unaware of how tactless he was. She moved to a divan and seated herself. ‘Come and join me,’ she invited him. ‘I’ve asked Rache to bring coffee and cakes, but I warn you, I have only a brief moment or two to spare. We are receiving Reyn Khuprus this afternoon. He is coming to call on Malta for the first time, and I still have a great deal of preparation.’

‘I know,’ he admitted easily. ‘Bingtown gossip has been full of it. It’s a bit unusual, isn’t it, to allow a man to court her before she’s even been presented as a woman? Not that she doesn’t think she’s ready, I’m sure. After her escapade last winter at the ball…well. I don’t blame you for trying to marry her off quickly. The sooner that girl has a man to settle her down, the safer all of Bingtown will be.’ He paused and cleared his throat. For the first time, he looked a bit uncomfortable. ‘Actually, Ronica, that is why I’m here. To beg a very great favour from you, I’m afraid.’

‘You wish to ask a favour of me, and somehow it’s connected to Reyn’s visit?’ Ronica was both puzzled and uneasy.

‘Yes. It’s simple. Invite me, too. Please.’

She managed not to gape at him. She was saved from having to reply immediately by Rache’s entry into the room with the coffee tray. Ronica dismissed her almost immediately; there was no sense in forcing Rache to serve coffee to a man that she hated. The small business of pouring coffee gave Ronica some time in which to think. Davad broke into her thoughts before she could begin her graciously worded refusal.

‘I know it isn’t proper, but I’ve thought of a way around that.’

Ronica decided to be blunt. ‘Davad, I don’t want to find a way around impropriety. The Khuprus family is socially powerful. I cannot afford to give anyone in Bingtown offence these days, let alone the son of such a family. You have not said why you wish to be here when we receive him. Traditionally, only the family of the girl is present when the young man first comes calling. To make him more at ease, you know.’

‘I know, I know. But seeing as how Ephron is dead and Malta’s father is at sea, I thought you could present me as an old friend who was standing in…a sort of protector in the absence of your family men…’

Davad’s voice trailed off at the look on Ronica’s face. She spoke in a low, controlled voice. ‘Davad. You well know that I have never required a man to be my protector. When the girls were small and Ephron was often at sea, I never asked his friends to settle business transactions for him, or deal with unpleasant realities in his absence. I coped. All Bingtown knows that. It is who I am. Now that I am truly alone, shall I quaver and faint and hide myself behind you? I think not. Reyn Khuprus comes today to meet the family of the girl he wishes to wed. He shall meet us as we truly are.’