And Nana did. Large and implacable as she had been when Malta was a child, she took her wrist and dragged her from the room. Malta went quietly, for the sake of her own dignity, not out of any acquiescence. She did not fight as Nana disrobed her, and she climbed herself into the steaming bath that Nana poured for her. She did not, in fact, speak a word to her large and imperious nanny, not even to interrupt Nana's boring monologue about how ashamed of herself she should be.
Because she was not ashamed, Malta told herself. Nor cowed at all. When her father came home, they would all have to answer for their mistreatment of her. For now, she would be satisfied with that.
That, and the shivery sensation that Cerwin Trell's glance had awakened in her. She thought of his eyes and felt it again. Cerwin, at least, knew that she was no longer a little girl.
“Does it hurt much?”
“Can you feel pain?”
“Not as men do, no, but I understand the distress you must-”
“Then why do you ask? Any answer I give will have no real meaning to you.”
A long silence followed. Vivacia lifted her smooth arms and crossed them over her breasts. She stared straight ahead of herself. She fought the rising tide of grief and despair inside her. It was not getting any better between Wintrow and her. Since Cress, with every passing day his resentment of her increased. It made what might have been pleasant days into torture.
The wind was blowing from the north, pushing them southwards to warmer climes. The weather had been fair, but all else had been ill. The crew was at odds with Wintrow and hence with her. She had picked up from the men's talk the gist of what had happened on the beach. In her limited way, she understood it. She knew that Wintrow still believed his decision had been correct. And she knew, with the wisdom of her stored memories, that his grandfather would have agreed with him. But all it took to make him miserable was for him to know that the rest of the crew considered him a coward, and that his father seemed to concur with their opinion. And that was all it took for her to feel a misery as deep.
Despite his misery, he had not given up. In her eyes, that spoke greatly for the spirit inside him. Shunned by his ship-mates, consigned to a life he could not relish, he still continued to work hard and learn. He jumped as quickly to orders as any of them did, and endeavored each day to shoulder a man's share of the work. He was now as capable as any ship's boy and was moving rapidly to master the tasks of an able deckhand. He applied his mind as well as his body, comparing how his father managed the sails to the commands that Gantry issued. Some of his eagerness was simply the starvation of a mind accustomed to learning opportunities. Bereft of books and scrolls, he now absorbed the lessons of wind and wave instead. He accepted the physical labor of his ship-board life just as he had once accepted the menial work of the monastery's orchard. They were the tasks a man must do when he was part of such a life, and it behooved a man to do them well. But Vivacia also knew that there was a second motivation for his mastering of seamanship. He strove to show the crew by his deeds that he was neither fearful of necessary risks nor disdainful of a sailor's work. It was the Vestrit in him that kept his neck stiff and his head up despite the scorn of Torg and his fellows. Wintrow would not apologize for his decision in Cress. He did not feel he had done wrong. That did not keep him from smarting under the crew's contempt for him.
But that had been before the accident.
