I heard awkward steps coming down the ladder and looked up to see Kerf descending with Vindeliar following him. ‘There you are,’ I said brightly. ‘I hurried ahead to be out of the rain.’
Kerf said nothing but Vindeliar regarded me with a scowl. ‘We’d best return to our cabin,’ he said stiffly. He walked Kerf past me. I stood where I was.
‘What will become of me?’ I demanded aloud. ‘What does Dwalia intend for me? Why did she come so far, destroy so much and shed so much blood? She sold Alaria into slavery to get us away from Chalced, without a thought for one who had travelled so far with her. Why didn’t she sell me? Or you?’
‘Hush!’ Vindeliar spoke in a soft whisper. ‘I cannot speak to you here!’
‘Is that because they cannot hear me? Or see me? And they will think you a madman, talking to yourself?’ I lifted my voice and spoke each word clearly.
I saw his control of Kerf slipping as one of the men turned his head, scowling, wondering if he’d heard something. An instant later, Vindeliar had Kerf blank-eyed again. He looked at me, trembling from the effort. There was a tremor in his voice as he said, ‘Brother, please.’
I should have felt only hatred for him. He had facilitated my capture and kept me subdued as they whisked me away. He had hidden Shun and me from any who might have helped us, and still he made me invisible. I was Dwalia’s prisoner, but he was my gaoler.
It was irrational for me to feel pity for him, yet I did. I tried to keep my stare icy as tears welled in his pale eyes. ‘Please …’ he breathed again, and I broke.
‘In the cabin, then,’ I said in a lower, more rational voice.
His voice was squeezed so tight with fear that it squeaked. ‘She will hear us. No.’
One of the merchants turned away from his fellows and stared at Vindeliar accusingly. ‘Sir! Do you listen in on our private conversation?’
‘No. No! We came in from the rain, to be dry for a bit. That’s all.’
‘And you have nowhere to stand but here beside us?’
‘I … we are leaving. Now.’ Vindeliar gave me a desperate glance, then prodded Kerf. It must have seemed strange to the merchant that they went right back up the ladder and out onto the stormy deck. I followed more slowly. Vindeliar was shivering as he led us back to the deckhouse. But one of the ship’s boys had claimed our spot and was enjoying a pipe there. He glanced at Vindeliar and then looked away. I cleared my throat loudly. The boy did not so much as startle.
‘Brother!’ Vindeliar rebuked me, and trudged down the deck, Kerf following listlessly. The rain had increased, driven by a rising wind. There was no sheltered place. He stopped and leaned miserably on the railing. ‘She will kill me if she finds I’ve answered your questions.’ He gave me a sideways glance. ‘If I don’t answer, you will push me past what I can do. It is harder and harder to hide you. I hid a troop of men from an entire town. Why are you so hard to hide?’
I didn’t know and didn’t care. ‘Why me?’ I demanded of him. ‘Why did you destroy my home and ruin my life?’
He shook his head slowly, deeply hurt at my failure to understand. ‘Not to ruin your life,’ he objected. ‘To set you on the true Path. To control you lest you create a false way and carry us all to a terrible future.’
I stared at him.
He sighed. ‘Bee. This makes you important! You are part of the true Path! For so long, there were dreams of the Unexpected Son. Hundreds of dream-scrolls mention him and some are very old. He is full of crossroads. His existence is a junction. A nexus, Symphe says. You create more and more junctions. You are dangerous.’ He hunched down to look into my rain-spattered face. ‘Do you understand?’
‘No.’
He put his hands to both sides of his head and squeezed as if to stifle a pain. Water slid down his face, tear or raindrops or sweat. Kerf stared out over the sea in bovine passivity, not sheltering his face from the driving rain. The storm was rising. The sails were making a slapping sound. The ship rose and then fell, making my stomach lurch.
‘More dreams mean something is more likely,’ Vindeliar went on. ‘The Unexpected Son brings change to the world. If you are not controlled, you will set the world on an inappropriate course. You are a danger to the Servants, to Clerres! In all the dreams, he changes things so much that no one can predict a future. You have to be stopped!’ He clamped his mouth shut on his words.
‘And you think I am him?’ I asked incredulously. I lifted my arms wide to show how small I was. ‘If you don’t stop me, I will ruin the world? Me?’ A gust of wind slapped me. ‘How do you stop me? Kill me?’ I snatched at the railing as the ship jolted. The wind roared and the rain pelted us harder.
‘You must be him.’ His words were a distressed plea. I thought he would crumple into tears. ‘Dwalia said if I found the wrong one she would kill me. She was so angry when she found out you were a girl. That was when she started to doubt me. And you. But it is simple to me. If you are not him, who can you be? I dreamed finding you in my only true dream. You are him, and unless we take you to Clerres, you will change the world’s path.’ He suddenly spoke sternly. ‘When we come to Clerres, we must make everyone believe that you are the Unexpected Son and we did a good thing. YOU must make them believe you are him. If we don’t—’
Then he clapped his mouth shut so suddenly and firmly that it made a popping sound. His eyes grew wide as he stared over my head at nothing. When he shifted his gaze back to me, I saw anger and betrayal in his glare. ‘You are doing it, aren’t you? Right now. You are making me tell you things, and then you will know and you will change things. Because you are him. You fight me when I try to hide you. You make Dwalia angry with me. You ran away, and so many died. And we caught you again, but Reppin died and Alaria was sold. Now there’s just Dwalia and me, and this Kerf. All those others … you changed all their lives into deaths! That is what the Unexpected Son would do!’ He looked furious.
Fear gripped me. He had come so close to being my ally. I choked on disappointment. ‘Brother,’ I said, and my voice wavered. ‘Those things only happened because you stole me!’ I didn’t want to cry but the sobs ripped from my chest. I shouted my words past my tight throat. ‘It wasn’t me! It was Dwalia! She came and she killed people. She brought all those luriks there to die. Not me. Not me!’ I sank to my knees. He couldn’t be right. All that death couldn’t be my fault. FitzVigilant. Per’s father. Revel. I couldn’t be the reason for that!
The storm rose with my fear. It felt as if it was coming out of my chest and blowing all around us. A wave leapt over the railing. It splashed over me and reflexively I grabbed Kerf’s leg. I heard someone shout a command, and three men went racing past us. The nose of the ship began to tip up as if we were going up a steep hill. One of the men shouted at Vindeliar, ‘Get below, you idiot!’ as he ran past.