‘You don’t trust me.’ He said it with such sadness that I almost felt rebuked. Except that he had taken the words from my thoughts and said them aloud. He wasn’t to be trusted. Not at all. I knew that, down to my bones. I desperately needed an ally, but Vindeliar was not one. I don’t believe you, I don’t trust you, I don’t believe you, I don’t trust you.
‘Poor Dwalia.’ He was staring at the closed door, a look of dismay on his face. ‘He just goes on and on! She must blame me. I made Captain Dorfel see her as the most beautiful woman he could imagine.’ He scratched his head. ‘It has not been easy, to keep him convinced of his desire for her. At all times, I must be aware of all who see her. It’s very taxing.’
‘What does he see when he looks at her?’ Damn curiosity! The question had been on my lips before I had recalled I must not speak to him. I tried to think only of the birds again.
He smiled, pleased that I’d spoken to him. ‘I don’t tell them what to see, exactly. I tell them they see something they like. For Dwalia, I told the captain he would see a beautiful woman he wanted to help. I don’t know exactly what she looks like to him.’
He looked at me, waiting for my questions. I held them all back and thought of how the tip of every wave sometimes sparkled so brightly that I could not look at them for long.
‘For me, I told them all to see “just a serving man”. Unthreatening. Nobody to worry about.’
He waited again. I held my silence.
‘I told them you were homely and dull and smelled bad.’
‘Smelled bad?’ Again, I had not meant to speak.
‘So they would leave you alone. On the boat before this there were some who looked at you and wanted … wanted what he does to poor Dwalia now.’ He crossed his stubby arms on his chest. ‘I protect you, Bee. Even when you hate and mistrust me, I protect you. I wish you could open your eyes and see that we are taking you to safety, to where you have always belonged. Dwalia has suffered so much for you, and you have rewarded her only with difficulty and physical attacks.’
As if she had heard him and wished more of his sympathy, we heard a series of rising moans from within the cabin. Vindeliar looked from me to the door and then back to me. ‘Should we go in? Does she need us?’
‘They’re nearly done.’ I knew that they were mating, but had no clear idea of the mechanics of it. My days as sentry had taught me that it involved a lot of bumping noises and moans and left the cabin smelling sweaty. For a few hours, Dwalia would doze and be uninterested in persecuting me. I did not care what the captain did to her in his afternoon visits.
Vindeliar seemed both foolish and patronizing as he told me, ‘She must allow this. If she refused, it would be harder for me to keep him believing that he loves her. She endures this to win us safe passage to Clerres.’
I started to tell him that I doubted it, but bit back my words. The less talk we exchanged, the better for me. Sunlight on the waves. Gary birds flying.
The moaning reached a higher pitch and pace, and then suddenly dwindled away in a descending sigh. A galloping series of thuds and then all sound from the chamber abruptly ceased.
‘I will always wonder what it is like. I will never do that.’ He spoke as wistfully as a child. Gary birds sliding across the blue sky. Wind in our sails, waves sparkling. ‘I barely remember what they did to me. Only the pain. But they had to do it. They saw very soon that I should not make children for Clerres. Girls like me they kill. And most of the boys. But Dwalia spoke for me and my sister, Oddessa. We were twins, born of one of the purest White lineages, but … flawed. She kept me alive when all others thought I should die.’ He spoke as if I should marvel at Dwalia’s goodness.
‘You are so blind to her. So stupid!’ Anger demolished my self-control. ‘She cut you like a bull calf, and you grovel with thankfulness. Who is she to say you should never make a child? She strikes you and calls you names and you sniff along behind her like a dog nosing another dog’s piss! She feeds you filth to give you power, a magic she does not understand, and you let her decide how it will be used! She thinks nothing of you, Vindeliar! Nothing at all! But you are too stupid to see how she uses you and how she will discard you the moment you become useless. She hits you and calls you names, but the moment she smiles at you, you forgive it all and forget it! You call me brother but you do not care that she intends to hurt me and then kill me. You know it as well as I do. You could have helped me. If you cared for me, you would have helped me! We should have fled when that last ship made port, and I could have gone home to my family and you could have chosen a life for yourself! Instead you helped her kill a woman who had done nothing bad to you and had been kind to me. And you threw aside the Chalcedean, and left him to die for you after you compelled him to kill for her! You’re a coward and a fool!’
But I was the fool. From somewhere in a distant darkness, I heard a wolf’s long howl fade. Then Vindeliar was inside my mind. Be calm, I won’t hurt you, just let me see your secrets, what do you fear, be calm, my brother, I won’t hurt you, just let me see. He babbled excitedly as he whirled through my mind, stirring and flinging memories as if they were dead leaves and he an autumn storm. Wall after wall I raised to him, and each he tore and parted as if they were paper. I was dizzy and sickened with the assault of memories, each with an emotion attached to it. My mother fell and died, my mouth was torn when I was slapped, a cat purred still and warm as I stroked him, I smelled bacon and fresh bread in a winter kitchen lit with candlelight and hearth fire, FitzVigilant shamed me, and Perseverance fell as an arrow tore through him. Vindeliar was a greedy child rummaging a platter of sweets, taking a bite of this one and a lick of that one. Dirtying my memories with his eager sampling, as if he could own me by knowing me. You do dream! He was exultant.
I felt pushed out of my own mind. I could not find a voice to shriek at him nor fists to batter him. I was writing in my dream journal –NO, he must not see that, he must not read those! And suddenly all I knew were long, sharp tearing teeth and a mouth that breathed hot breath. A father shouted, ‘Beware! He is more dangerous than you can know!’ and I was suddenly in a cage where I could not retreat and a stinking human hammered my ribs with fierce jabs of a stick I could not avoid. I had never known such pain! It did not stop. Over and over the man shouted curses at me and poked me savagely with the stick, as if he strove to thrust it right through me. I howled and shrieked and snarled, I leapt and fought the bars of the cage, but still the stick struck me, always looking for the softest parts of me, my belly, my throat, my anus and sex. I fell at last, yelping and whining and still the beating went on.