The Rain Wild Chronicles: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Robin Hobb
were suffering. And then we had a war. If Tintaglia hadn’t appeared and come to our aid, well, I think we’d all be speaking Chalcedean now. And then she locked us into that bargain that we’d help her serpents get up the river and tend the new dragons when they hatched. Well, we certainly discovered that the reality of a dragon was far different from any fantasy you might have imagined.’
He gave a small snort of disdain. Tucking his book under his arm, he wandered across the room to the windows and looked out over the gardens below. ‘We were fools,’ he said quietly. ‘Thinking we could negotiate with a dragon! Well, she got the best of us, didn’t she? We’re as close to being at true peace with Chalced now as we’ve ever been, trade is rebuilding, Bingtown rejuvenating, and Tintaglia has found a mate for herself and hardly ever comes to call. It should be a better life and time for everyone! But the Rain Wilders are still dealing with her errant offspring and the expenses they create. They eat constantly, trample the earth to muck, foul everywhere, and hamper efforts to explore the underground ruins. They are pathetic cripples, unable to hunt or care for themselves. All the Traders must contribute to pay for hunters to keep them fed. With no return for us! No one thought to write an end clause for that agreement. And from what I hear, it will never change. Those sorry creatures will never be able to take care of themselves, and who knows how long they will live? We’ve waited five years for them to grow up and become independent. They haven’t. It would be a mercy to put them down.’
‘And profitable, too,’ Alise said coldly. She felt silence growing in her. Sometimes it reminded her of a fast-growing ivy; silence covered her and cloaked her and she suspected that one day she would smother in the silences Hest could create. It was an effort to break through that strangling quiet, but she did it. ‘All have heard how much the Duke of Chalced would pay for even one scale of a real dragon. Think how much he’d give for a whole carcass.’ When she thrust a cutting remark into one of Hest’s pauses, it was like trying to stab a knife into hardwood. It never seemed to stick and left scarcely a mark.
Now he turned toward her as if startled. ‘Did I hurt your feelings, my dear? I didn’t mean to. I forgot how sentimental you are about those creatures.’ He smiled at her disarmingly. ‘Perhaps I’m too much the Trader this day. You should expect it of me when I’ve just returned from a trip. It’s all I talked about with anyone for the last two months. Profitability and tightly-written contracts and well-negotiated bargains. I’m afraid that’s what fills my mind.’
‘Of course,’ she said, looking down at her desk. And, Of course she said to herself as her anger slipped away from her. It wasn’t gone, only sunken in the bog of uncertainty that engulfed her life. How could she hold onto her anger when, in an instant, he could sidestep it in a way that made her feel it was unjustified? He had been preoccupied, that was all. He was a busy man, immersed in trade negotiations and contracts and social details. He undertook those things for both of them, so that she could live in the quiet social backwater that she seemed to prefer. She could not expect him to be perfectly tuned to her life. More than once, he had gently pointed out to her that she always seemed to put the worst possible interpretation on his words whenever they had even the mildest disagreement. More than once, he had expressed bewilderment that she sometimes resented how he sheltered her.
A tiny childish part of her stamped and gritted her teeth. And he has side-stepped your question as well. Demand an answer. No. Just tell him you are going. You have the right. Just tell him that.
Hest was already drifting toward the door. He stopped by a tobacco humidor, opened it and scowled. Evidently the servants had not replenished it since his return.
‘I’ve planned my journey to the Rain Wilds. I’ll be departing at the end of this month.’ The words leapt out of her mouth. Lies, every one of them. She’d made no specific plans, only dreamed.
He turned to look at her, his brows arched in surprise. ‘Indeed.’
‘Yes,’ she asserted. ‘It’s a good time to travel to the Rain Wilds, or so I’m told.’
‘Alone?’ he asked, sounding scandalized. And a moment later, annoyed as he said, ‘I’ve made commitments of my own, my dear. It would be impossible for me to break them. I can’t go with you at the end of the month.’
‘I hadn’t given that part much thought,’ she admitted. Any thought at all. ‘I’m sure I can find an appropriate companion for the journey.’ She wasn’t sure of that at all. It had never occurred to her that she might require such a person. She had thought, somehow, that marriage had put her beyond the need for chaperonage. ‘I cannot imagine that you could doubt my fidelity to you,’ she observed. ‘I am not chaperoned in the months when you are away on your trading journeys. Why should I be chaperoned when I travel?’
‘Perhaps we should avoid the topic of “doubting” anyone’s “fidelity”,’ he observed cuttingly. ‘Or perhaps we should discuss it in terms of presenting a proper appearance. After all, it takes very little for someone to assemble tiny bits of “evidence” and then see wrongdoing where none exists.’
She looked away from him. He seldom missed a chance to remind her of her ill-founded allegations against him. She pushed the stinging memory of that humiliating day away and struggled to think of a sufficiently respectable matron to accompany her as chaperone. ‘I suppose I could ask Sedric’s sister Sophie. But I have heard she is with child and in delicate health, not disposed to visit, let alone travel.’
‘Ah. Her husband, I see, is far more fortunate than I am in that regard. And your health, Alise?’
‘My health is excellent,’ she replied pointedly.
Hest shook his head in disappointment. He cleared his throat and then asked wryly, ‘I am to assume, then, that our latest efforts have come to naught?’
‘I’m not pregnant,’ she said bluntly. ‘I assure you if I were it would be the first piece of news I would give you.’ She stopped short of asking him how he could possibly imagine she would be pregnant. He’d been away three months, and in the two months he had been home prior to that, he’d visited her bedchamber exactly twice. The infrequency and brevity of his performances were more relief than disappointment now. He visited her, she thought, with the regularity of a man performing a scheduled task, and with all the enthusiasm. Sometimes she wondered if he kept a ledger of his efforts. She imagined him ticking an item on his social calendar. Attempted impregnation. Results still in doubt. It humiliated her now to recall her brief and girlish infatuation with him before their wedding.
In the months and then years that had passed since she had realized that neither love nor lust would have a place in her marriage, she had never denied herself anything in her quest for knowledge. To balance that, she had never denied Hest on the occasions when he came to her chambers to assert his marital rights. She had never wept over his lack of romantic interest in her, nor tried to charm him into changing his mind. She had made only two failed and shameful attempts to pique his sexual interest in her. She did not allow herself to dwell on those humiliating memories. They had prompted him to a mocking cruelty that had branded those two nights forever in her memory. No. Better to submit, almost ignore his efforts, for then his services to her remained brief and perfunctory.
After each visit that he paid her, he waited until she had reported the failure of it before he visited her again. Only twice in the five years that they had been married had she announced a pregnancy. Each time, Hest had greeted the event with great excitement, only to express his frustration and annoyance with her when, a few months later, she had miscarried.
So Hest now greeted her blunt dashing of his hopes with only a small sigh. ‘Then we shall have to try again.’
She quietly considered the weapon he had just handed her, and then, coldly, employed it. ‘Perhaps when I return from the Rain Wilds. To undertake such a journey while pregnant might endanger the birth. So I think we shall wait until I return before we make another attempt.’
She saw her target quiver. His voice was stronger, touched with indignation as he demanded, ‘Do not you think that producing a son and heir is more important than this harebrained journey of yours?’