Page 330
Wintrow faced what he felt squarely. He wished with all his heart he had no bond to this man.
“I brought some wash water,” he told him. “Not much. Fresh water supplies are very low just now. Are you hungry? Shall I try to get some hard-tack for you? It's about all that is left. ”
“I'm fine,” his father said flatly, not answering his question. “Don't trouble yourself on my account. You've more important friends to pander to just now. ”
He ignored his father's choice of words. “Kennit's sleeping. If I'm to have any chance of healing him, he'll need all the rest he can get to strengthen him. ”
“So. You'll truly do it. You'll heal the man who's taken your ship from you. ”
“To keep you alive, yes. ”
His father snorted. “Bilge. You'd do it anyway, even if they'd fed me to that snake. It's what you do. Cower before whoever has the power. ”
Wintrow tried to consider it impartially. “You're probably right. But not because he has power. It would have nothing to do with who he is. It's life, father. Sa is life. While life exists, there is always the possibility of improvement. So, as a priest, I have a duty to preserve life. Even his. ”
His father gave a sour laugh. “Even mine, you mean. ”
Wintrow gave a single nod.
He turned the gashed side of his head toward his son. “May as well get to it, then, priest. As it's all you're good for. ”
He would not be baited. “Let's check your ribs first. ”
“As you will. ” Moving stiffly, his father drew off what remained of his shirt. The left side of his chest was black and blue. Wintrow winced at the clear imprint of a boot in his flesh. It had obviously been done after his father was already down. The rags and the water were the only supplies he had; the ship's medicine chest had completely disappeared. Doggedly, he set out to at least bind the ribs enough to give them some support. His father gasped at his touch, but did not jerk away. When Wintrow had tied the final knot, Kyle Haven spoke.
“You hate me, don't you, boy?”
“I don't know. ” Wintrow dipped a rag and started to dab blood from his face.
“I do,” his father said after a moment. “It's in your face. You can scarcely stand to be in this room with me, let alone touch me. ”
“You did try to kill me,” Wintrow heard himself say calmly.
“Yes. I did. I did at that. ” His father gave a baffled laugh, then gasped with the pain of it. “Damn me if I know why. But it certainly seemed like a good idea at the time. ”
Wintrow sensed he would get no more explanation than that. Perhaps he didn't want one. He was tired of trying to understand his father. He didn't want to hate him. He didn't want to feel anything for him at all. He found himself wishing his father had not existed in his life. “Why did it have to be this way?” he wondered aloud.
“You chose it,” Kyle Haven asserted. “It didn't have to be this way. If you had just tried it my way . . . just done as you were told, without question, we'd all be fine. Couldn't you have, just once, trusted that someone else knew what was good for you?”
Wintrow glanced about the room as if looking about the entire ship. “I don't think any of this was good for anyone,” he observed quietly.
“Only because you muddled it! You and the ship. If you both had cooperated, we'd be halfway to Chalced by now. And Gantry and Mild and . . . all of them would still be alive. You're to blame for this, not I! You chose this. ”
Wintrow tried to think of an answer to that, but none came. He began to bind his father's head wound as best as he could.
They worked her decks well, these brightly clad pirates. Not since Ephron had sailed her had she enjoyed a crew so swiftly responsive to her. She found herself in turn accepting their competent mastery of her sails and rigging in a sort of relief. Under Brig's direction, the former slaves moved in an orderly procession, drawing buckets of water and taking them below to clean her holds. Others pumped the filthy bilge out while still others worked with scrubbing stones on her deck. No matter how they abraded the blood stains, her wood would never release them. She knew that, but spoke no word of it. In time the humans would see the futility of it and give it up. The spilled food had been gathered and restowed. Some few worked at removing the chains and fetters that festooned her holds. Slowly they were restoring her to herself. It was the closest she had felt to content since the day she had been quickened.
Content. And there was something else she felt, something unset-ding. Something much more fascinating than contentment.