Page 39 of Salt in the Wound

"Yes."

"And he thinks he's not worth saving."

"That's what I said."

Bohdi is quiet for a moment, processing. Then he asks, "Was he a slave? To King Armond?"

Eskil says, through his teeth, chewing every word to get it out, "It seems to be the case. When the advisor said they'd bought him and paid too much, I assumed the man meant his services. That they'd hired a healer and were disappointed in the results. Not that they'd purchased him."

The distinction is significant and they both know it. Hiring a healer who can't cure an incurable disease is an employer's poor expectation. Purchasing a human being and beating him for failing to do the impossible is something else entirely.

"So when Erlan offered him to you as a show of good faith —"

"He was selling property." Eskil's voice is flat. Dead. The kind of voice he uses when the alternative is breaking something. "And I took delivery."

Bohdi is quiet for a while. The ship rocks beneath them in the gentle post-storm swell, and the crew moves around them in the rhythms of repair and recovery, and the world continues to function normally despite the fact that its foundations have just shifted.

"If we want Indrie to live in Valen with us," Bohdi says carefully, "and heal our sick and injured, we can't have him think he's there by force."

Eskil knows this. He's been thinking about nothing else since the door of his cabin closed behind him.

"Not only is it psychologically detrimental," Bohdi continues, his tone measured, "but word will get out very quickly that their king has taken a slave." He lets that land. "Which, beyond being unprecedented, our people haven't practiced slavery in generations, Eskil, your own grandmother outlawed it, is not the kind of thing you want to be known for."

"I know, Bohdi."

"And your brother —"

"I know."

"Morgan will have opinions."

"I said I know."

Bohdi raises both hands, palms out, and waits. When Eskil's breathing has evened from furious to merely angry, he asks, "Did you explain to him that he's free?"

"I tried." The words come out bitten, clipped. "I'm going to have Dagny explain it properly. Since I don't have the temperament for pantomiming such a thing to someone who only understands half my language."

The eyebrow goes up. Just one. It's worse than both. "Oh. So you're blaming this misunderstanding on the abused healer who has been in our care for a little over two weeks and had never stepped foot off shore?"

"It's not —"

"The man who was sold as property as a child and has never known anything else? The man who was dragged from the ocean last night and woke up naked in a strange bed? That's who you're faulting for not grasping the nuances of your culture's position on personal liberty?"

Eskil's grip on the wheel could forge diamonds. "I'm not faulting him."

"What are you doing, then?"

"It's not that simple," Eskil snaps, and the volume draws a glance from the nearest deckhand, who immediately finds somewhere else to be. Eskil lowers his voice to a register that vibrates with restrained fury. "Every interaction we've had has been tarnished. Every one. When he learned my language, it wasn't because he wanted to, it was because he thought I'd punish him if he didn't. When he brought my meals and helped my crew and smiled at me, he was performing. Surviving. The way he survived Armond."

The words are ash in his mouth and he hates every one of them.

"He's been treading so lightly," Eskil continues, quieter now, the anger collapsing under its own weight into something worse, "because he thinks I'm the kind of king who will treat him the way Armond did. And I can't —" He stops. Breathes. "I can't know what's real. When he looks at me, when he, I can't know if any of it is genuine, or if it's what he thinks I want to see. Because that's what he was trained to do. Give the king what he wants. And the fact that I —"

He cuts himself off before the sentence goes somewhere it shouldn't. Not here. Not on the open deck with crew within earshot. Not even to Bohdi, who already knows more than Eskil would like.

Bohdi steps forward. His hand closes on Eskil's shoulder, firm and sure, anchoring him to the present.

"Then show him you're not."