want brandy,’ Gantry told him harshly. The man’s heart was a deep trembling inside him. Vivacia was glad he was not unfeeling about this.
‘No.’ The boy’s word was soft.
‘He may want it. Afterwards.’ She dared to speak up. Wintrow did not contradict her.
‘I’ll fetch it,’ Kyle said harshly.
‘No.’ Both she and Wintrow spoke the word together.
‘I wish you to stay,’ Vivacia said more softly. It was her right. But in case Kyle did not understand it, she spoke it aloud. ‘When you cut Wintrow, I bleed. In a manner of speaking,’ she added. She forced her own nervousness down. ‘I have a right to demand that you be here, with me, when something as unsettling as this is happening on my deck.’
‘We could take the boy below,’ Kyle offered gruffly.
‘No,’ she forbade him again. ‘If this mutilation must be done, I wish it done here, where I may witness it.’ She saw no need to tell him that no matter where on the ship it was done, she would be aware of it. If he was that ignorant of her full nature, let him remain so. ‘Send one of the others.’
Kyle turned to follow her gaze, and almost startled. The rumour had spread quickly. Every hand that was not occupied had somehow found an excuse to draw closer to the foredeck. Mild, white-faced, almost jumped out of his skin when Kyle pointed at him. ‘You. Fetch the brandy and a glass. Quickly.’
The boy jumped to the command, his bare feet slapping the deck as he hastened away. No one else moved. Kyle chose to ignore them.
Wintrow took a deep breath. If he had noticed those who had gathered to watch, he gave no sign of it. His words were spoken to Gantry. He lifted his left hand and pointed carefully to his injured right. ‘There is a place, right here… in the knuckle. That’s where I want you to cut. You’ll have to go in… with the point of the knife… and sort of feel as you cut. If you feel the knuckle of your own hand, you can find the spot I mean. That way there will be no jag of bone left… And afterwards, I want you to draw the skin together over the… space. And stitch it.’ He cleared his throat and spoke plainly. ‘Careful is better than fast. A clean slice, not a chop.’
Between each phrase, Wintrow drew a steadying breath. His voice did not quite shake, nor did his hand as he pointed carefully to what had been the index finger of his right hand. The finger that might have worn a priest’s pledge ring some day, had he been allowed to keep it. Sa, in your mercy, do not let me scream. Do not let me faint, nor look away. If I must do this, let me do it well.
The undercurrent of the boy’s thoughts were so strong, Vivacia found herself joined with him. He took a final breath, deep and steadying as Gantry chose a knife and held it up. It was a good one, shining and clean and sharp. Wintrow nodded slowly. Behind him came the patter of Mild’s feet and his whisper of, ‘I’ve brought the brandy, sir,’ but it seemed to come from far away, as faint and meaningless as the cries of the sea-birds. Wintrow was doing something, Vivacia realized. With each breath, the muscles of his body slackened. He dwindled inside himself, going smaller and stiller, almost as if he were dying. He’s going to faint, she thought, and pity for him filled her.
Then in the next instant he did something she did not understand. He left himself. He was not gone from his body, but in some strange way he was apart from it. It was almost as if he had joined her and looked through her eyes at the slender boy kneeling so still upon the foredeck. His hair had pulled free from his sailor’s queue. A few strands danced on his forehead, others stuck to it with sweat. But his black eyes were calm, his mouth relaxed as he watched the shining blade come down to his hand.
Somewhere there was great pain, but Wintrow and Vivacia watched the mate lean on the blade to force it into the boy’s flesh. Bright red blood welled. Clean blood, Wintrow observed somewhere. The colour is good, a thick deep red. But he spoke no word and the sound of the mate swallowing as he worked was almost as loud as the shuddering breath Kyle drew in as the blade sank deep into the boy’s knuckle. Gantry was good at this; the fine point of the blade slipped into the splice of the joint. As it severed it, Wintrow could feel the sound it made. It was a white pain, shooting up his finger bone, travelling swift and hot through his arm and into his spine. Ignore it, he commanded himself savagely. In a willing of strength unlike anything Vivacia had ever witnessed before, he kept the muscles of his arm slack. He did not allow himself to flinch or pull away. His only concession was to grip hard the wrist of his right hand with his left, as if he could strangle the coursing of the pain up his arm. Blood flowed freely now, puddling between his thumb and middle finger. It felt hot on Vivacia’s planking. It soaked into the wizardwood and she drew it in, cherishing this closeness, the salt and copper of it.
The mate was true to Wintrow’s wishes. There was a tiny crunch as the last gristle parted under the pressure of the blade, and then he drew the knife carefully across to sever the last bit of skin. The finger rested on her deck now, a separate thing, a piece of meat. Wintrow reached down carefully with his left hand to pick up his own severed finger and set it aside. With the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, he pinched the skin together over the place where his right forefinger had been.
‘Stitch it shut,’ he told the mate calmly as his own blood welled and dripped. ‘Not too tight; just enough to hold the skin together without the thread cutting into it. Your smallest needle and the finest gut you have.’
Wintrow’s father coughed and turned away. He walked stiffly to the railing, to stand and stare out at the passing islands as if they held some deep and sudden fascination for him. Wintrow appeared not to notice, but Gantry darted a single glance at his captain. Then he folded his lips, swallowed hard himself, and took up the needle. The boy held his own flesh together as the mate stitched it and knotted the gut thread. Wintrow set his bloodied left hand flat to the deck, bracing himself as the mate bandaged the place where the finger had been. And the whole time he gave no sign, by word or movement, that he felt any pain at all. He might have been patching canvas, Vivacia thought. No. He was aware, somewhere, of the pain. His body was aware, for the sweat had flowed down the channel of his spine and his shirt was mired in it, clinging to him. He felt the pain, somewhere, but he had disconnected his mind from it. It had become only his body’s insistent signal to him that something was wrong, just as hunger or thirst was a signal. A signal that one could ignore when one must.
Oh. I see. She did not, quite, but was moved at what he was sharing with her. When the bandaging was done, he rocked back on his heels but was wise enough not to try to stand. No sense in tempting fate right now. He had come too far to spoil it with a faint. Instead he took the cup of brandy that Mild poured for him with shaking hands. He drank it down in three slow swallows, not tossing it back but drinking as one drank water when very thirsty. The glass was bloodied with his fingerprints when he handed it back to Mild.
He looked around himself. Slowly he called his awareness back into his body. He clenched his teeth against the white wave of pain from his hand. Black dots swam for an instant before his eyes. He blinked them away, focusing for a time on the two bloody handprints he had left on Vivacia’s deck. The blood had soaked deep into the wizardwood. They both knew that no amount of sanding would ever erase those twin marks. Slowly he lifted his gaze and looked around. Gantry was cleaning the knife on a rag. He returned the boy’s gaze, his brow furrowed but a small smile on his face. He gave him the smallest of nods. Mild’s face was still pale, his eyes huge. Kyle gazed out over the rail.
‘I’m not a coward.’ He didn’t speak loud, but his voice carried. His father turned slowly to the challenging words. ‘I’m not a coward,’ Wintrow repeated more loudly. ‘I’m not big. I don’t claim to be strong. But I’m neither a weakling nor a coward. I can accept pain. When
