The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny. Robin Hobb

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СКАЧАТЬ in such abject fearfulness. Obviously the threats had been carried out more than once, for the slaves to so fear them.

      ‘Good day, Ronica Vestrit.’

      She did not startle. She had that much poise. Cerwin was before her, nodding his head in a gentleman’s bow to her. She nodded gravely in return. ‘Good day, Cerwin Trell. I hope you enjoy our garden room. And if you enjoy the trumpet vine, perhaps Keffria can give you a cutting from it. As harsh as it may seem, we cut ours back quite severely to encourage it to bloom and to have a graceful shape.’

      ‘I see,’ he said, and she was sure that he did. He thanked her and then followed Keffria from the room. Malta and Delo, heads together, followed them. Malta’s pent frustration showed in her flared nostrils and flat lips. Clearly she had expected to get Cerwin alone, or at least in no more than the company of his sister. To what end? Probably the girl herself did not know.

      Possibly that was the most frightening thing about all this; that Malta had flung herself into it so aggressively with so little knowledge of the consequences.

      And whose fault was that, Ronica was forced to ask herself as she watched them go. The children had been growing up in her household. She had seen them often, at table, underfoot, in the gardens. And yet they had been, always, the children. Not tomorrow’s adults, not small people growing towards what they must someday be, but the children. Selden. Where was Selden, at this moment, what was he doing? Probably with Nana, probably with his tutor, supervised and secure. But that was all she knew of him. A moment of panic washed over her. There was so little time, it might even now be too late to shape them. Look at her own daughters. Keffria, who only wanted someone to tell her what to do, and Althea, who only desired that she do her own will always.

      She thought of the numbers on her ledgers, that no act of mere will could change. She thought of the debt she owed the Festrews of the Rain Wilds. Blood or gold, that debt was owed. In a sudden wrenching of her perceptions, it was not her problem. It was Selden’s and it was Malta’s, for were not they the blood that might pay the debt? And she had taught them nothing. Nothing.

      ‘Mistress? Are you all right?’

      She lifted her eyes to Rache. The woman had entered, gathered up the coffee things on a tray, then come to stand next to where her mistress stared black-eyed off into the distance. This woman, a servant-slave in her own house, entrusted with the teaching of her grand-daughter. A woman she hardly knew at all. What did her mere presence in the household teach Malta? That slavery was to be accepted — was that the shape of things to come? What did that say to Malta about what it meant to be a woman in the Bingtown society to come?

      ‘Sit down,’ she heard herself saying to Rache. ‘We need to talk. About my grand-daughter. And about yourself.’

      ‘Jamaillia,’ said Vivacia softly.

      The word woke him and he lifted his head from the deck where he’d been sleeping in the winter sunlight. The day was clear, neither cool nor warm, and the wind was leisurely. It was that hour of the afternoon designated for him to ‘pay attention to the ship’ as his father so ignorantly put it. He had been sitting on the foredeck mending his trousers and quietly conversing with the figurehead. He did not recall lying down to sleep.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, rubbing his eyes.

      ‘Don’t be,’ the ship said simply. ‘Would that I could truly sleep as humans do, turning away from the day and all its cares. That one of us can is a blessing to us both. I only woke you because I thought you would enjoy seeing this. Your grandfather always said that this was the prettiest view of the city, out here where you cannot see any of its faults. There they are. The white spires of Jamaillia.’

      He stood, stretched and then stared out across the blue waters. The twin headlands reached out to surround the ship like welcoming arms. The city lined the coast between the steaming mouth of the Warm River and the towering peak of the Satrap’s Mountain. Lovely mansions and estate gardens were separated from one another by belts of trees. On a ridge behind the city rose the towers and spires of the Satrap’s Court. Commonly referred to as the ‘upper city’ it was the heart of Jamaillia City. The capital city that gave its name to the whole Satrapy, centre of civilization, the cradle of all learning and art, glistened in the afternoon sunlight. Green and gold and white, she shone, like a jewel in a setting. Her white spires soared higher than any tree, and so intensely white were they that Wintrow could not look at them without squinting. The spires were banded with gold and the foundations of the buildings were rich green marble from Saden. For a time Wintrow gazed out on it hungrily, seeing for the first time what he had heard of so often.

      Some five hundred years ago, most of Jamaillia had burned to the ground. The Satrap of that time had then decreed that his royal city would be rebuilt more magnificently than ever, and that all of the buildings should be of stone so that such a disaster could never befall Jamaillia again. He called together his finest architects and artists and stonemasons, and with their aid and three decades of work, the Court of the Satrap was raised. The next to highest white spire that pointed to the sky denoted the residence of the Satrap. The only spire that soared higher was that of the Satrap’s Temple to Sa, where the Satrap and his Companions worshipped. For a time Wintrow gazed at it, filled with awe and wonder. To be sent to dwell in the monastery that served that temple was the highest honour a priest could aspire to. The library alone filled seventeen chambers, and there were three scribing chambers where twenty priests were constantly employed in renewing or copying the scrolls and books. Wintrow thought of the amassed learning there and awe filled him.

      Then bitterness came to darken his soul. So, too, had Cress seemed fair and bright, but it had still been a city of greedy, grasping men. He turned his back on it and slid down to sit flat on the deck. ‘It’s all a trick,’ he observed. ‘All a rotten trick men play on themselves. They get together and they create this beautiful thing and then they stand back and say, “See, we have souls and insight and holiness and joy. We put it all in this building so we don’t have to bother with it in our everyday lives. We can live as stupidly and brutally as we wish, and stamp down any inclination to spirituality or mysticism that we see in our neighbours or ourselves. Having set it in stone, we don’t have to bother with it any more.” It’s a trick men play on themselves. Just one more way we cheat ourselves.’

      Vivacia spoke softly. If he had been standing, he might not have heard the words. But he was sitting, his palms flat to her deck, and so they rang through his soul. ‘Perhaps men are a trick Sa played on this world. “All other things I shall make vast and beautiful and true to themselves,” perhaps he said. “Men alone shall be capable of being petty and vicious and self-destructive. And for my cruellest trick of all, I shall put among them men capable of seeing these things in themselves.” Do you suppose that is what Sa did?’

      ‘That is blasphemy,’ Wintrow said fervently.

      ‘Is it? Then how do you explain it? All the ugliness and viciousness that is the province of humanity, whence comes it?’

      ‘Not from Sa. From ignorance of Sa. From separation from Sa. Time and again I have seen children brought to the monastery, boys and girls with no hint as to why they are there. Angry and afraid, many of them, at being sent forth from their homes at such a tender age. Within weeks, they blossom, they open to Sa’s light and glory. In every single child, there is at least a spark of it. Not all stay; some are sent home, not all are suited to a life of service. But all of them are suited to being creations of light and thought and love. All of them.’

      ‘Mm,’ the ship mused. ‘Wintrow, it is good to hear you speak as yourself again.’

      He permitted himself a small, bitter smile and rubbed at the knot of white flesh where his finger had been. It had become СКАЧАТЬ