Forest Mage. Робин Хобб
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not resist his impulse to begin immediately on Epiny’s letters. It was like watching a plant revived by a rainfall after a drought to watch him first smile and then chuckle over her descriptions of her adventures. As he carefully folded the last page of the most recent missive, he looked up at me. ‘I think she is finding life as a frontier wife rather different from what she supposed it to be.’
‘I cannot imagine a greater change in living conditions than leaving your family home here in Old Thares for a poor cottage in Bitter Springs.’
He replied with grim satisfaction in his voice, ‘And yet she does not complain. She does not threaten to run back home to me, nor does she whimper that she deserves better. She accepts the future that she made for herself. I am proud of her for that. Her life, indeed, is not what I would have chosen for her. I would never have believed that my flighty, childish daughter would have the strength to confront such things. And yet she has, and she flourishes.’
I myself thought that ‘flourish’ was far too strong a word to apply to what Epiny was doing, but I held my tongue. Uncle Sefert loved his unruly daughter. If he took pride in her ability to deal with harsh conditions, I would not take that from him.
I was willing to leave Epiny’s letters with him, but he insisted I take them back. Privately, I resolved to rebuke her for making her father suffer so; what had he done to deserve such treatment? He’d given her far more freedom than most girls of her age enjoyed, and she’d used it to arrange a marriage to her own liking. Even after she had publicly disgraced herself by fleeing his house and going to Spink’s sickbed, my uncle had not disowned her, but had given her a modest wedding and a nice send-off. What more did she expect of the man?
As I bade my uncle farewell, he gave me a letter to my father and some small gifts to send to my mother and sisters and I managed to find room for them in my panniers. I made a brief stop at my father’s banker in Old Thares to change my cheque into banknotes, and then went immediately down to the docks. My ship was already loading, and I was glad I had arrived with some time to spare, for Sirlofty received the last decent box stall on board the vessel. My own cabin, though very small, was comfortable and I was glad to settle into it.
My upriver passage on the jankship was not nearly as exciting as our flight downriver had been the previous fall. The current was against us, and though it was not yet in full spring flood, it was still formidable. The vessel used not only oarsmen, but also a method of propulsion called cordelling, in which a small boat rowed upstream with a line threaded through a bridle and made fast to the mast. Once the small boat had tied the free end of the line to a fixed object such as a large tree, the line was reeled in on a capstan on the jankship. While we were reeling in the first line, a second towline was already being set in place, and in this way, we moved upriver between six and fifteen miles a day. An upstream journey on one of the big passenger janks was more stately than swift, and more like spending time at an elegant resort than simple travel.
Perhaps my father had intended that part of the journey to be a treat for me, and an opportunity to mingle socially. Instead, I chafed and wondered if I would not have made better time on Sirlofty’s back. Although the jankship offered all sorts of amusements and edification, from games of chance to poetry readings, I did not enjoy it as I had the first time I’d taken ship with my father. The people on board the vessel seemed less congenial than the passengers my father and I had met on our previous journey. The young ladies were especially haughty, their superciliousness bordering on plain rudeness. Once, thinking only to be a gentleman, I bent down to retrieve a pen that had fallen from one young lady’s table by her deck chair. As I did so, one of my ill-sewn buttons popped from my jacket and went rolling off across the deck. She and her friend burst out laughing at me, the one pointing rudely at my rolling button while the other all but stuffed her handkerchief in her mouth to try to conceal her merriment. She did not even thank me for the pen that I handed back to her, but continued to giggle and indeed to snort as I left her side and went in pursuit of my wayward button. Once I had reclaimed it, I turned back to them, thinking that they might wish to be more social, but as I approached them they hastily rose, gathered all their items and swept away in a flurry of skirts and fans.
Later that day, I heard giggling behind me. A female voice said, ‘Never have I seen so rotund a cadet!’ and a male voice replied, ‘Hush! Can’t you tell he’s with child! Don’t mock a future mother!’ I turned and looked up to find the two ladies and a couple of young men standing on an upper deck and looking down at me. They immediately looked away, but one fellow was unable to control the great ‘haw’ of laughter that burst from him. I felt the blood rush to my face, for I was both infuriated and embarrassed that my weight was a cause of so much amusement.
I went immediately back to my stateroom, and attempted to survey myself in the tiny mirror there. It was inadequate to the task, as I could only see about one eighth of myself at a time. I decided that they had been amused by how tight my uniform jacket had become on me. Truly, it had grown snug, and every time I donned it after that, I feared that I cut a comical figure in it. It quite spoiled the rest of the voyage for me, for whenever I attended one of the musical events or cultural lectures, I felt sure that the ladies were somewhere in the audience, staring at me. I did catch glimpses of them, from time to time, often with the same young gentlemen. They all seemed comfortable staring at me while avoiding my company. My annoyance with them grew daily, as did my self-consciousness.
Matters came to a head one evening when I was descending the stairs from one deck to the next. The stairs were spiralled to save space, and quite tightly engineered. My height as well as my new weight made them a bit tricky for me. I had discovered that as long as I kept my elbows in and trusted my feet to find their footing without attempting to look down, I could navigate them smoothly. Even for a slender passenger, the stairs did not allow users to pass one another. Thus as I descended, a small group of my fellows were waiting at the bottom of the steps for me to clear the way for them.
They did not trouble to lower their voices. ‘Beware below!’ one fellow declared loudly as I trod the risers. I recognized his voice as the same one that had declared me pregnant. My blood began to boil.
I heard a woman’s shrill and nervous giggle, followed by another male voice adding, ‘Ye gads, what is it? It’s blocking the sun! Does it wedge? No sir, it does not! Stand clear, stand clear.’ I recognized that he was imitating the stentorian tones of the sailor who took the depth readings with a lead line and shouted them back to the captain.
‘Barry! Stop it!’ a girl hissed at him, but the suppressed merriment in her voice was encouragement, not condemnation.
‘Oh, the suspense! Will he make it or will he run aground?’ the young man queried enthusiastically.
I emerged at that point from the stairwell. My cheeks were red but not with exertion. There I encountered the familiar foursome, in evening dress. One girl, still giggling, rushed past me and up the steps, her little slippers tapping hastily up the stairs and the skirts of her yellow gown brushing the sides of the stair as she went. Her tall male companion moved to follow her. I stepped in front of him. ‘Were you mocking me?’ I asked him in a level, amiable voice. I cannot say where my control came from, for inside, I was seething. Anger bubbled through my blood.
‘Let me past!’ he said angrily, with no effort at replying.
When I did not answer him or move, he attempted to push by me. I stood firm, and for once my extra weight was on my side.
‘It was just a bit of a joke, man. Don’t be so serious. Allow us passage, please.’ This came from the other fellow, a slight young man with foppishly curled hair. The girl with him had retreated behind him, one little gloved arm set on his shoulder, as if I were some sort of unpredictable animal that might attack them.
‘Get out of my way,’ the first one said again. He spoke the words through gritted teeth, furious now.
I kept my voice level with an effort. ‘Sir, I do not enjoy your mockery of me. The next time I receive an ill glance from you or hear you ridicule me, I shall demand satisfaction of you.’
He snorted disparagingly. ‘A threat! From you!’ He ran his eyes over me insultingly.