I stood up, bracing myself against the deck. The wind blew all around us. We hovered.
Then the ship tipped again and we were sliding downhill on the wet deck. I skidded past Vindeliar, shrieking. ‘Grab her,’ Vindeliar ordered Kerf. ‘Get her back to the cabin.’
Kerf stooped and seized a handful of the back of my shirt. He dragged me like a sack as he staggered aft toward the hatch with Vindeliar holding onto him. Men cursed as they avoided us. They moved purposefully but I could make no sense of the shouted commands. Sailors climbed masts and into rigging while storm winds slashed at them and the canvas cracked at each gust. The deck tipped again. We reached the hatch cover but it was closed. Vindeliar crouched and pounded on it, shrieking to be let in. Kerf dropped me and went to one knee. He groaned as he lifted the hatch cover and slid it aside. We more tumbled than climbed down the ladder. Above us someone slammed the cover shut. We were plunged into dimness.
For a moment, it felt safe. Then the rough plank floor tipped. In the darkness, I heard a cry of dismay, but someone laughed and mocked, ‘You’ll never be a merchant, boy, if a bit of rough water makes you yell.’
‘Put out that lantern!’ someone shouted. In an instant, the blackness became absolute and the world seesawed around me.
I could not tell in which direction our miserable cabin lay. But Kerf knew. Vindeliar said by my ear, ‘Follow us,’ and I did. I clutched at Vindeliar’s shirt and walked in short steps, bumping into beams, a hammock, a sea chest and finally stumbling through an opening that proved to be our cabin door. The floor tilted. I crouched and then sat flat, pushing my palms against the deck to try to stay in one place. When Kerf tried to shut the door, I discovered that I was sitting in the way. I scooted into the room on my rump, fearing to stand. I groped and slid until I found a corner and bracketed myself in it. There I sat in the dark, cradling my bruised hand in my lap. I was wet through, my hair dripping on my neck. Despite the closeness of the cabin, I felt chilled. And hopeless. Let Dwalia be as angry as she pleased. I needed a real answer!
‘Why did you steal me? What are you going to do with me?’ I spoke the words loud and clear into the dark.
I heard Dwalia shift in the bunk as the ship lurched in another direction. ‘Make her be quiet!’ she ordered Vindeliar. ‘Make her fall asleep.’
‘He can’t! I can block him out of my mind. He can’t control me.’
‘Well, I can! I can control you with a stick, so you’d best be quiet.’ It was a threat but her voice was misery laced with anger. And a trace of fear. The motion of the ship suddenly pressed me back into my corner. I felt like a kitten in a crate that someone was shaking. I didn’t like it at all. But I reminded myself that the sailors on deck had looked busy and challenged, but not terrified. I refused to be afraid. ‘You don’t have a stick, and you couldn’t see me to hit me if you did. Are you afraid to answer me? Why did you steal me? What are you going to do with me?’
She sat up suddenly in the bed. I knew because I heard the rustle of the blanket and the solid ‘thud’ as her head hit the upper bunk. I smothered my laugh, and then let it burst out of me. In the dark and the tossing storm, defying her, I suddenly felt strangely powerful. I threw words at her. ‘I wonder if the ship will sink. Then all your plans would be for nothing. Imagine if it sank with us stuck in her. Even if we got out of the cabin, we’d never find the ladder and the hatch in the dark. We’d all die here when the cold water came rushing in to find us. I wonder if it would flip upside-down first?’
I heard Vindeliar take in a ragged breath. Pity for him warred with satisfaction. Could I make them feel how scared and sick I had been when they stole me?
The ship tilted again. Then it felt as if we hit something, then passed through it. A moment later I heard Dwalia vomit. There had been a bucket by her bunk, but I heard the thin trickle of bile spatter on the deck as she strained and gagged. The smell grew stronger.
‘You thought I was the Unexpected Son. Then you thought I wasn’t! Well, I think I am! And I am changing the world, right now. You will never know how I will change it, for I think you will die before we reach port. You have certainly lost flesh and strength. And if you die, and Vindeliar is left alone with us? Well, I doubt I shall go to Clerres.’ I laughed again.
There was an instant of absolute silence, as if both storm and ship paused. She spoke into it. ‘What will I do with you? I will do to you what I did to your father. I will tear you into pieces. I will have every secret out of you, if I must take every inch of your skin off your meat to do it. And when I am done with you, I will give you to the breeders. They have wanted one of your lineage for a long time. No matter how I disfigure you, I imagine they will find someone willing to rape you until you conceive. You are young. I imagine they can get a score of babies out of your belly before your body gives out.’ She made a cawing sound.
I’d never heard Dwalia laugh but I knew it for what it was. Cold fear, colder than the wild seawater outside the wall of our cabin, rose in me. Confusion ruled me. What was she telling me? I tried to find that confidence again. ‘You did nothing to my father. You never even saw my father!’
A pause as the floor shifted in a new direction. In that silence, I heard the timbers of the ship mutter to one another. Then she spoke and she was the darkness itself. ‘So, you do not even know who your father was!’
‘I know my father!’
‘Do you? Do you know his pale hair and eyes? Do you know his mocking smile and long-fingered hands? I think not. But I do. I blinded those eyes; I put the mockery out of them forever! And I flayed the tips from your father’s long fingers. That was after I’d tugged out his nails, a thin slice at a time. He’ll never juggle again, nor make an apple appear from thin air. I ended his dancing and tumbling, too. I peeled the skin from his feet, oh so slowly. And I put his left foot between two blocks of a vice, one on each side, and slowly, slowly I tightened it, less than a quarter turn for each question. It did not matter if he answered me or not! I asked, and he shrieked or cried out words. And then I tightened the screw. Tighter and tighter, with the top of his foot bulging up until, crunch!’ She cawed again.
I could hear Vindeliar panting in the darkness. Did he try not to laugh? Was he on the edge of weeping?