The Rain Wild Chronicles: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Robin Hobb
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He spoke in a matter-of-fact way that wasn’t condescending. He didn’t think less of her for being afraid; he accepted it that she would naturally be apprehensive. Somehow that made it easier to take his advice. She firmed her grip on his arm and matched her stride to his, so that soon they were clomping along in rhythm. Suddenly, it was almost like a dance they were partnered in. They reached the lowest point of the bridge and then they were climbing up the gentle rise, the planks becoming a sloping ladder until they abruptly reached the next platform. She halted there to breathe, and Captain Leftrin paused with her.
‘Only three more to go,’ he told her, and although she felt a bit frightened, she didn’t feel daunted by the prospect. Challenged, she thought. Challenged, but not afraid to take up that challenge.
‘Well, let’s go then,’ she said.
She nearly lost her courage on the second bridge when they encountered a group of workmen heading in the opposite direction. She and Leftrin had to move closer to the edge to allow them passage, and the rhythm of their strides made the whole structure waggle like a friendly dog being petted. But by the third crossing, she had recovered her sensation of dancing with Leftrin. They reached their final platform with her slightly out of breath but feeling triumphant.
Cassarick had ambition. That was evident from the size of the Traders’ Hall they had built all around the trunk of the largest tree she had visited yet. The platform that supported and surrounded it served as an esplanade. It circled both Hall and tree, and four staircases wound up from it to platforms in adjacent trees. Early as it was and dim as the light was this far below the treetops, sputtering torches still lit the walkways. Their journey had led them away from the riverbank, and less light from that open area penetrated the settlement. Alise felt that she had journeyed into a twilight city of fantastic people.
She had grown up in Bingtown among the descendants of the original Trader families who had settled there. She had always known of their Rain Wilds kin and respected the bonds between Rain Wilds and Bingtown. Only here in the Rain Wilds were the magical treasures of the ancient Elderlings to be unearthed. But living in the Rain Wilds and working in the buried Elderling cities exacted a toll on the folk who settled there. Almost all Rain Wilders had some disfigurement at birth, and it increased with each year of their lives. Sometimes it was a bit of scaling on the scalp or lips, or a fringe of wattled growths along the jawline. With age might come a change in eye colour and a thickening of nails; those were typical of the sorts of things one might see on a Rain Wilder who visited Bingtown. Even Captain Leftrin had his share of marks. The skin on the backs of his hands and on the knobs of his wrist was bluish and lightly scaled. Behind his bushy eyebrows and on the back of his neck, she thought she had glimpsed more scaling. It had been easy to ignore.
Here in Cassarick as in Trehaug, the majority of the Rain Wilders went unveiled. This was their city and if folk who visited here did not respect them, such folk were swiftly encouraged to leave. She had tried not to stare at the workmen who had passed them earlier. The backs of their hands and their elbows had been heavily scaled, and the scales had not been flesh coloured, but blue or green or shocking scarlet. One man had been completely hairless, scales like fine mail over his bared scalp, and outlining his brow and replacing his lips. Another had sported a heavy fringe of fleshy growths along his jaw and some that overshadowed his eyes, thick and floppy like the comb of a rooster. She had averted her eyes from them, grateful that keeping her balance on the galloping bridge demanded all her attention.
But now she was on a solid platform and it was difficult to know where to put her gaze. This early in the day, there were not many folk about but all were unmistakably marked as Rain Wilders. Many cast curious glances her way, and she desperately told herself that it was her attire, so different from what they wore, that drew their eyes. The men had been wearing almost a uniform of heavy blue cotton shirts, thick brown canvas trousers and loose canvas jackets. The boots they wore were heavy things, still clotted with dried mud from their previous day’s work. They’d carried their lunches in canvas sacks. Thick gloves and woollen hats protruded from their trouser pockets. ‘Diggers,’ Leftrin had told her as they passed. ‘Headed off for a long day’s work underground. Cold down there, and damp, winter or summer.’
Now, as they passed a woman clad in soft leather trousers and a leather vest tufted with fur, Leftrin said, ‘She’s a climber. See how she goes barefoot for a better grip. She’ll be headed up into the canopy today, to gather fruit or hunt birds.’
Just as she nearly decided that the women of Cassarick led hard, lean lives, two chattering girls passed them going the other direction. They wore morning dresses and were perhaps going off to call on a friend or to visit the early markets. Their flounced skirts were shorter than those currently worn in Bingtown, and showed off their soft brown shoes. They wore lacy little shawls and their hats were designed to look like large, softly folded leaves. She turned her head to look after them, and for a moment a familiar envy flooded up to drown her spirits. They looked so cheery and busy, chattering away together. When they came to a bridge, they linked arms and clattered across it together, whooping like hoydens when they reached the other side.
‘What makes you sigh?’ Leftrin asked her, and she realized that she was staring after them.
She shook her head, smiling tightly at her own foolishness. ‘I was just thinking that somehow I skipped being that age, and I’ll always regret it. I often feel that I went from being a girl to being a settled woman, with none of that giddiness in between.’
‘You talk like you’re an old woman, with your whole life lived.’
A sudden lump rose in her throat. I am, she thought. In a few days, I’ll go home and settle down to what I’ll be the rest of my life. No adventures ahead, no changes to anticipate. Nothing to anticipate except leading a proper life. She swallowed and by the time she could speak, she had more appropriate words. ‘Well, I’m a married woman with a settled life. I suppose what I miss is a sense of uncertainty. Of possibility waiting just around the corner.’
‘And you’re saying you never had that?’
She paused because the truth was somehow humiliating. ‘No. I don’t think I did. I think my life was more or less mapped out from the beginning. Getting married was a surprise for me. I didn’t think I’d ever marry. But once I was a married woman, my life settled into a routine that wasn’t much different from when I was single.’
He was silent for longer than was his wont, and when she glanced over at him, his mouth was strangely puckered as if he strove to keep words in. ‘Just say it,’ she suggested and then wondered if she was brave enough to hear whatever judgment he held back.
He grinned at her. ‘Well, it’s not polite to say, but if I were a man and married to a woman such as you, and she said to another fellow that her life as my wife wasn’t much different from her life when she’d been single, well, I’d wonder what I was doing wrong.’ He raised his eyebrows at her and whispered in a ribald tone, ‘Or not doing at all!’
‘Captain Leftrin!’ she exclaimed, genuinely shocked. Then, when he burst out laughing, she was horrified at joining in.
When they both paused for breath he held up a warning hand. ‘No. Don’t tell me! Some things a wife should never say about her husband! And here we are, anyway, so our time for chat is over.’
They