Ship of Destiny. Робин Хобб

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       6 AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN

      A DRIZZLING RAIN WAS falling from the overcast sky. Water dripped endlessly from the bushes in the gardens. Wet brown leaves carpeted the sodden lawns. Serilla let the lace edge of the curtain fall back into place. She turned back to the room. The greyness of the day had crept inside the house and Serilla felt chill and old in its embrace. She had ordered the curtains drawn and the fire built up in an effort to warm the room. Instead of feeling cosier, she felt muffled and trapped in the day. Winter was creeping up on Bingtown. She shivered. Winter was always an unpleasant season at best. This year it was an untidy and unsettled time as well.

      Yesterday, with a heavy guard attending her, she had driven from Restart’s estate down into Bingtown. She had ordered the men to take the carriage through the town, along the old market, and past the wharves. Everywhere she had seen destruction and disrepair. She had looked in vain for signs of repair and rebirth in the shattered city. Burned homes and shops gave off their clinging odour of despair. Piers ended in charred tongues of wood. Two masts stuck up from the sullen waters of the harbour. All the folk out in the streets had been hooded and cloaked against the day’s chill, all hurrying somewhere. They looked away from her carriage as it passed. Even those streets of the city where the remnants of the City Guard patrolled seemed edgy and repressed.

      Gone were the bright teashops and prosperous trading companies. The bright and busy Bingtown that she had passed through on her first trip to Davad Restart’s house had died, leaving this smelly, untidy corpse. Rain Wild Street was a row of boarded-up shop fronts and deserted stores. The few places that were open for trade had a guarded, anxious look to them. Thrice her carriage had been turned back by barricades of rubble.

      She had planned to find merchants and neighbours who were making an effort to restore the city. She had imagined she would dismount from her carriage to greet them and praise their efforts. They were supposed to have invited her into their struggling shops, or walked her through their efforts at rebuilding. She would have congratulated them on their stout hearts, and they would have been honoured by her visit. Her plan had been to win their loyalty and love. Instead, she had seen only harried refugees, sullen-faced and withdrawn. No one had even offered her a greeting. She had returned to Davad’s house and simply gone up to her bed. She had no appetite for supper.

      She felt cheated. Bingtown was the glowing bauble she had always promised herself that she would someday possess. She had come so far and endured so much, simply to behold it so briefly. As if fate could not allow her any joy, the moment it seemed she might attain her goal, the city had destroyed itself. A part of her wanted simply to admit defeat, board a ship, and return to Jamaillia.

      But there were no ships sailing safely to Jamaillia any more. The Chalcedeans lay in wait for any ship that tried to leave or enter Bingtown harbour. Even if she could somehow reach Jamaillia, what welcome would she receive? The plot against the Satrap had its roots in Jamaillia. She might be seen as a witness and a threat. Someone would find a way to eliminate her. She had been suspicious from the time the Satrap proposed that he leave Jamaillia on this jaunt to Bingtown and then visit Chalced afterwards. His nobles and advisors should have loudly protested such a move; it was rare for the reigning Satrap to travel so far outside the borders of Jamaillia. Instead of objections, he had received encouragement. She sighed to herself. The same set of sycophants who had taught him so young about the pleasures of flesh and wine and intoxicating herbs had encouraged him to leave the governing of his land completely to them while he travelled through hostile waters, in the care of dubious allies. Gullible and lazy, he had accepted the bait. Enticed by the invitations of his Chalcedean ‘allies’, promised exotic drugs and even more exotic fleshy pleasures, he had been led away from his throne like a child baited with candy and toys. His ‘most loyal’ followers who had always encouraged him to have his own way had done so to unseat him.

      A sudden realization shocked her. She did not much care what became of the Satrap or his authority in Jamaillia. All she wished to do was to preserve his power in Bingtown, so she could claim it for her own. That meant uncovering who in Bingtown had been so willing to aid in his overthrow. The same people would try to depose her as well.

      For a fleeting moment, she wished she had studied more about Chalced. There had been letters in the cabin of the Chalcedean captain, written in Jamaillian lettering, but in the Chalcedean language. She had recognized the names of two high Jamaillian nobles and the notation for sums of money. She had sensed then that she held the roots of a conspiracy in her hands. What had the Chalcedeans been paid to do? Or were they the ones who had paid? If she had been able to read those letters when the Chalcedean captain had held her prisoner there…then her mind shied away.

      She hated what those nightmare days of confinement СКАЧАТЬ