The Rain Wild Chronicles: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Robin Hobb
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I’m scared of going and I’m scared of what I’ll have to face when I return home. But I’m not sorry to be doing it. I’m not walking away from my life, Sedric. I’m running toward the chance to have a little bit of a life of my own, for a little time.
‘I am sorry to drag you along, Sedric. I know it’s not the sort of thing you’d choose to do. I wish Hest hadn’t inflicted me on you. But I’ll admit that I’m glad you came back to the barge and you’re here. If I’m going to do a hare-brained thing like this, I can’t think of a better companion to have along with me.’
She sensed him fumbling for some sort of a reply. She had told him things that had made him uncomfortable, things he probably should never have heard about his employer. She tried to regret it and couldn’t. She only hoped it would not sever whatever it was between them. Almost she hoped that he would gather her into his arms and hold her, even if it was only for a moment, as a friend. She tried to recall the last time anyone had embraced her with affection. She recalled her mother’s quick hug of farewell. When had a man held her?
Never.
He took her hands in both of his, giving them a gentle squeeze before he released them. Then he made an awkward attempt at levity as he stepped clear of her touch. ‘Well, I suppose that should be a comfort to me. But it’s not.’
His words were harsh but the rueful smile she turned to see was not. It faded quickly from his face however, as if he did not have the strength to sustain it there. He shook his head at her and then said, ‘I’d best go get things settled in my room. It looks as if I may be living there longer than I thought.’
He left her as quickly as he decently could and walked briskly back to his compartment, trying not to appear to be fleeing from her. Even though he was.
He shut the door of the tiny room behind him. Earlier, he had opened the ventilation slots in the upper wall. He refused to think of them as windows. They were too high and too narrow to provide any sort of a view. But they did let in a flow of air, even if was tinged with the river smell, and admitted a murky light in his room. A reflection of the river rippled on the ceiling of the small cabin. He sat down on his trunk and stared at the closed door. His case with its precious cargo was on the floor. A fortune in dragon parts, and he was headed upriver with them. Away from all profit, and away from every reason he had for dreaming of making a profit. He hoped the salt and the vinegar would preserve the tattered flesh. They represented his last, best chance for an honest life. He lowered his face into his hands and retreated into stillness.
Hest. Oh, Hest. What have we done to her? What cruelty have I been a party to?
Hest’s hard hands.
He didn’t want to think about it and he could not stop himself from thinking about it. He didn’t want to envision Hest’s hands on Alise. He knew that Hest must be with her, that he must do his best to father a child with her. He’d chosen never to think of the mechanics of that, never to wonder if Hest was tender and passionate with her. He didn’t want to know, didn’t want his feelings stirred about such things. What would it matter? It had nothing to do with Hest and him.
But he’d never imagined Hest would be harsh with her, or rough. But of course he would be. That was Hest. The man had strong hands, with long fingers and short, well groomed nails. Sedric didn’t want to think of those hands gripping her shoulders and the nails sinking into her flesh. They’d leave little half-moon dents there that would be small bruises by morning. Sedric knew. Unbidden, his hands left his face to touch and then grip his own shoulders. It had been weeks since Hest had left small bruises on him. He missed them.
He wondered in desolation if Hest missed him at all. Probably not. He’d spurned Sedric relentlessly in their last days together. At the same time, he had been sure that his secretary handled all the details of whom Hest would invite to accompany him on his latest trading venture. Hest wasn’t alone right now, and almost definitely, he wasn’t thinking of Sedric. Redding. That damn Redding, always so obvious in his interest in Hest. Redding with his plump little mouth always quirking, and his little hands always patting his curly hair back into place. Redding was with him.
A thick choking lump rose in his throat. It would have been a comfort to weep, but he couldn’t. What he felt right now went beyond weeping. Hest. Hest. ‘Hest.’ He said the man’s name aloud, and it was a comfort that cut like a knife. He was the only one who truly knew Sedric, the only one who understood him. And he’d set him aside, sent him off on this ridiculous errand with the wife he didn’t love. The wife he gripped with his hard hands, the same powerful hands that had held him by the shoulders and pulled him close in that first squirming and desperate embrace.
Sedric hadn’t been much more than a boy, barely shaving, desperately unhappy, at odds with his father, unable to confide in his mother or his sisters any more. Unable to confide in anyone. Bitterly, he now reflected on how successful Hest had been in returning him to that isolation, the isolation that Hest had once shattered for him. Was that what he’d wanted to prove to Sedric? That he could put him right back where he’d been, all those years ago?
Their first encounter had happened at a Trader gathering, at a winter wedding. The bride had been seventeen, and the young husband-to-be had been his friend Prittus, an older neighbour who had tutored him in the Chalcedean language that his father had insisted he must learn. He had always been kind and patient with Sedric, their lessons much more social and enjoyable than the ciphering and history and basic navigation lessons that he received from his other tutor. The other tutor was a shared master, hired by a group of Trader families to instruct their sons. That man was an ogre, and his fellow students alternated between coarse mockery of one another and sarcastic comments on Sedric’s precise recitations and reports. He hated attending those classes, dreaded the snubbing and mockery of the other pupils. It was a wonder he had learned anything there. But Prittus had been different. He’d been a teacher who cared, one who found readings for his pupil that interested him. He’d treasured his hours with Prittus.
So he’d watched Prittus make his wedding promises in a sullen gloom of disappointment. He’d have no time to tutor Sedric now; he’d be following his father into the spice trade and he’d have all the concerns of a young man with his own household. Sedric’s sole island of company was sinking back into his sea of isolation.
Prittus had stood tall in his simple green Trader robe, the candlelight waking glints in his gleaming black hair. The vows spoken, he turned to the girl at his side and looked down into her face with that smile that Sedric had come to know so well. The girl’s face lit with a rosy blush of joy. He put his hands out and the girl set her small fingers in his; Sedric had to turn aside, choking with jealousy over all he could never hope to possess. The couple turned to face their guests and the applause washed around them like the breaking waves of a gentle sea.
Sedric had not clapped. When the applause ended, he’d finished the glass of sparkling wine he held, and set the glass down on the edge of one of the laden feast tables. The room swirled with smiling, talking people, all eager to wish the young couple well. Close to the door, a handful of young men were speaking in deep good-humoured voices to one another. He caught a leering reference to the night that awaited Prittus, and the round of bawdy chuckles that followed it. He’d made an excuse as he pushed past them to the door and left the crowded Traders’ Concourse to go outside for some air. He didn’t even bother with his coat; he wanted to feel the wind on his face. He wanted to be cold. It would match his mood.
A storm was threatening, one that couldn’t make up its mind between icy rain and wet, driven flakes of snow. The wind gusted and died, and then spat sleet again. The thick clouds were making late afternoon into early evening. He didn’t care. He’d left the shelter of the large porch of the Concourse, strolled past the line of waiting carriages and well-bundled drivers. He’d gone walking in the deepening twilight on the meticulously groomed grounds that surrounded the Concourse.
The gardens were desolate and deserted this time of year. Most of the trees had lost their leaves, and the unimpeded wind blew sharply. Fallen leaves littered the gravel paths. There was a stand of evergreens at the edge of a herb garden that had gone to seed. He headed instinctively