Ship of Magic

Page 96

“He'll be all right,” Althea told Vivacia comfortingly, despite the jealousy she felt over the ship's concern. “It's a hard and boring task for a green hand, but he'll survive it. Try not to think of his discomfort right now. ”

“It's worse than that,” the ship confided quietly. "He's all but a prisoner here. He doesn't want to be aboard, he wants to be a priest.

We started out to be such wonderful friends, and now I think they are making him hate me. "

“No one could hate you,” Althea assured her, and tried to make her words sound confident. “He does want to be somewhere else; there's no use in my lying to you about that. So what he hates is not being where he wants to be. He couldn't possibly hate you. ” Steeling herself, as if she plunged her hand into fire, she added, “You can be his strength, you know. Let him know how much you value him, and what a comfort it is to you that he is aboard. As you once did for me. ” Try as she might, she could not keep her voice from breaking on the last words.

“But I am a ship, not your child,” Vivacia replied to Althea's unvoiced thought rather than her words. “You are not giving up a little child with no knowledge of the world. I know in many ways I am naive still, but I have a wealth of memories and information to draw on. I just need to put them in some sort of order, and see how they relate to who I am now. I know you, Althea. I know you did not abandon me by choice. But you also know me. And you must understand how deeply it hurts me when Wintrow is forced to be aboard me, forced to be my companion and heart's friend when he wishes he were elsewhere. We are drawn to one another, Wintrow and I. But his anger at the situation makes him resist that bond. And it makes me ashamed that I so often reach toward him. ”

The division within the ship's heart was terrible to feel. Vivacia battled her own need for Wintrow's companionship, forcing herself to stand still in a cold isolation that was gray as fog. Almost Althea could sense it as a terrible place, rain swept and chill and endlessly gray. It appalled her. As Althea searched for comforting words, a man's voice rang out loud and commanding over the ordinary dock yells and thuds. “You. You there! Get away from the ship! Captain's orders, you aren't to come aboard her. ”

Althea tipped her head back, shielding her eyes against the sun's glare. She stared up at Torg as if she had not recognized his voice. “This, sir, is a public dock,” she pointed out calmly.

“Well, this ain't a public ship. So shove off!”

As little as two months ago, Althea would have exploded at him. But the time she had spent secluded with Vivacia and the events of the last three days had changed her. It was not that she was a better-tempered person, she decided detachedly. It was that her anger had learned a terrible patience. What good was wasting words on a petty and tyrannical second mate? He was a little yapping dog. She was a tigress. One did not waste snarls on such a creature. One waited until one could snap his spine with a single blow. He had sealed his fate with his mistreatment of Wintrow. His rudeness to Althea would be redeemed at the same time.

And with a wave of giddiness, Althea realized that while her hand rested on the planking, her thoughts were Vivacia's and Vivacia's were hers. Belatedly she pulled free of the ship, feeling as if she drew her hand out of cold wrist-deep molasses. “No, Vivacia,” Althea said quietly. “Do not let my anger become your own. And leave vengeance to me, do not soil yourself with it. You are too big, too beautiful; it is unworthy of you. ”

“He is unworthy of my deck, then,” Vivacia replied in a low, bitter voice. “Why must I tolerate vermin like him while you are put ashore? You cannot tell me it is the Vestrit way to treat kinsmen so. ”

“No. No, it is not,” Althea hastily assured her.

“I said, move on,” Torg shouted once more from the deck above her. Althea glanced up at him. He was leaning over the railing, shaking his fist at her. “Move along, or I'll have you moved along!”

“There's really nothing he can do,” Althea assured the ship. But even as she spoke, she heard a muffled cry and then a heavy thud from within Vivacia's hold. Someone cursed fluently on the deck, followed by cries for Torg. A young sailor's voice floated up clearly. “The hoist tackle's pulled free of the beam, sir! I'd swear it was set sound enough when we started work. ”

Torg's head disappeared and Althea heard the sound of his feet running across the deck. The unloading of Vivacia's cargo ground to a halt as half the crew came to gawk at the smashed pallet and crates and the scattered comfer nuts. “That should keep him busy for a time,” Vivacia observed sweetly.