priesthood and live aboard a ship so that our family may prosper financially. I am not even sure it is your will. I think it is my father’s will. To get his way, he proposes breaking a promise, and breaking my heart. Nor am I unaware that this unwelcome “gift” he thrusts upon me was snatched but yesterday from my Aunt Althea’s hands.’
For the first time he turned his eyes to Althea. Despite the pain and bruised skin, for an instant her father seemed to look out of those eyes. The same infinite patience cushioning an iron will. This was not some frail, cowering priest-boy, but a man’s mind in a boy’s changing body, she realized in amazement.
‘Even your own son recognizes the injustice of what you do,’ she accused Kyle. ‘Your snatching Vivacia from me has nothing to do with whether or not you believe I can command her. It is solely a matter of your own greed.’
‘Greed?’ Kyle shouted in disdain. ‘Greed? Oh, I like that! Greed makes me want to take over a ship so ridiculously in debt, I’ll be lucky to pay her off before I die. Greed makes me want to step forward and take responsibility for a household with no concept of wise money management. Althea, if I thought you had any capacity to be useful aboard the Vivacia, I’d seize on the chance of making you work for a change. No. More than that. If you could show me but one sign of true seamanship, if you had a single ship’s ticket to your belt, I’d make you a gift of the damned ship and all her debts with her. But you’re nothing but a spoiled little girl.’
‘You liar!’ Althea cried in infinite disgust.
‘By Sa, I swear it’s so!’ Kyle roared angrily. ‘If but one reputable captain would vouch for your seamanship, I’d hand the ship over to you tomorrow! But all of Bingtown knows you for what you are. A dabbler and a pretence.’
‘The ship would vouch for her,’ Wintrow observed in a wavering voice. He lifted a hand to his forehead, as if to hold his head together. ‘If the ship vouched for her, would you do as you’ve sworn? For by Sa, you’ve offered that oath, and we all witnessed it. You’d have to live up to it. I cannot believe this quarrelling and anger was what my grandfather willed for us. It is so simple for us to restore a balance. If Althea was on board Vivacia, I could go back to my monastery. We could all go back to where we belong. Where we were happy…’ His voice trailed off as he realized that all eyes were on him. His father’s look was black with fury, but Ronica Vestrit had lifted her hand to her mouth as if his words had cut her to the quick.
‘I’ve had enough of this whining!’ Kyle suddenly exploded. He crossed the room in a few strides, to lean on the table and glare down on his son. ‘Is this what the priests taught you? To twist things about to get your own way? It shames me that a boy of my own bloodlines could use such tricks on his own grandmother. Stand up!’ he barked, and when Wintrow stared up at him wordlessly, bellowed, ‘Stand up!’
The young priest hesitated a moment, and then came to his feet. He opened his mouth to speak, but his father spoke first. ‘You are thirteen years old, even if you look more like ten and behave like three. Thirteen. By law, in Bingtown, a son’s labour belongs to his father until he is fifteen years old. Oppose me and I’ll invoke that law. I don’t care if you wear a brown robe, I don’t care if you grow sacred antlers from your brow. Until you are fifteen, you’ll work that ship. Do you understand me?’
Even Althea was shocked at the near-blasphemy of Kyle’s words. Wintrow’s voice quavered as he replied, but he stood straight. ‘As a priest of Sa, I am bound only by those civil laws that are just and righteous. You invoke a civil law to break your promise. When you gave me to Sa, you gave my labour to Sa as well. I no longer belong to you.’ He glanced about, from his mother to his grandmother, then added, almost apologetically, ‘I am not even truly a member of this family any more. I have been given to Sa.’
Ronica stood to block him, but Kyle brushed past her with a force that sent the older woman staggering. With a cry, Keffria sprang to her mother’s side. Kyle gripped Wintrow by the front of his robe and shook him until his head whipped back and forth. His words were distorted by rage. ‘Mine,’ he roared at the boy. ‘You are mine. And you’ll shut up and do as you’re told. Now!’ He stilled the boy’s body and then hauled him up on his toes. ‘Get yourself down to that ship. Report to the mate. Tell him you’re the new ship’s boy, and that’s all you are. The ship’s boy. Understand?’
Althea had watched in horrified fascination. She was dimly aware that her mother was now holding and trying to comfort a sobbing, near-hysterical Keffria. Two servants, no longer able to restrain their curiosity, were peeping around the corner of the door. Althea knew she should intervene, but all that was happening was so far outside her experience that she could only gape. Kitchen servants gossiped of having squabbles like this at home, or one heard of tradesmen apprenticing their sons against their wills. She’d heard of ship’s discipline like this on other vessels. Things like this simply never happened in the homes of Old Trader families. Or if it did, it was never spoken of.
‘Do you understand me?’ Kyle demanded, as if shouting louder at the boy would make his words more comprehensible. Dazed as he was, Wintrow still managed a nod. Kyle let go of his shirt front. The boy staggered, then caught at the table’s edge. He stood, head hanging.
‘Now means now!’ Kyle barked in angry triumph. His head swivelled to the door and a gaping serving man there. ‘You! Welf! Stop your gawking and escort my son down to the Vivacia. See that he packs and takes everything he came here with, for he’ll be living on the ship from now on.’
As Welf hastened into the room to take Wintrow’s arm and lead him out of the room, Kyle rounded on Althea. His success at bullying his son seemed to have bolstered his courage, for he challenged her with, ‘Are you wise enough to take a lesson from this, sister?’
Althea kept her voice even and low. ‘I’d be very surprised if we had not all learned something about you today, Kyle. Chiefly that there is very little you won’t do in your ambition to control the Vestrit family.’
‘Control?’ Kyle stared at her incredulously, and then turned to the other two women to see if they were as astonished as he was. But Ronica met his gaze with a black stare, while Keffria sobbed against her shoulder. ‘Is that what you think this is about? Control?’ He shook his head and gave a brittle laugh. ‘This is about salvage. Damn me, I don’t know why I try. You all look at me as if I were a criminal, when all I’m trying to do is keep this family afloat. Keffria! You know what this is about. We’ve talked about this.’
He turned towards his wife. She finally lifted her tear-stained face to meet his gaze, but there was no understanding in her eyes. He shook his head in disbelief. ‘What am I supposed to do?’ he asked of them all. ‘Our holdings are losing money every day, we’ve a liveship we’re still paying the money-lenders for, our creditors are threatening to start confiscating our holdings, and you all seem to think we should genteelly ignore it and take tea together. No, I take that back. Althea seems to think she should hasten our progress toward ruin by keeping the liveship as a toy for herself, while she spends her evenings getting drunk with the local water rats and having a bit of slap and tickle on the side.’
‘Stop it, Kyle,’ Ronica warned him in a low voice.
‘Stop what? Telling you what you already know but refuse to recognize? Listen to me, all of you, just for a few moments.’ He paused and took a deep breath, as if trying to set aside his anger and frustration. ‘I have my children to think of, Selden and Malta. Just like Ephron, I, too, will die some day. And I don’t intend for them to inherit naught but a mass of debts and a bad name. Ephron left you no sons to protect you, Ronica, no men to take over the running of the holdings. So I step up, as a dutiful son-in-law, to do what must be done, however painful. I’ve given it a lot of thought these last few months, and I believe I can get us back
