Page 483

FAMILY REUNION

W INTROW BLINKED AWAY the pouring rain and stared. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said again quietly. He thought he spoke to himself and was startled when Etta replied. He had not heard her soft tread through the downpour pelting the deck.

‘Stop trying to guess at what happened. Kennit will explain it all when next we see him.’

‘I just want to know what happened,’ he said stubbornly.

He stared disconsolately at the faint smear of flame that had been the Paragon.

He had watched the battle, but still could not grasp what had occurred.

Why had Paragon so foolishly challenged both the serpents and the Vivacia?

How had the fire broken out and why had Kennit abandoned such a valuable prize?

Had he taken any prisoners? The emptiness of not knowing threatened to devour him.

The storm that had threatened all day had finally broken.

The heavy rain was a billowing grey drapery between them and the blazing Paragon.

Cold and drenched, he stood on the deck and stared at the foundering ship his family had sent.

It would take their hopes of ransom and rescue to the bottom.

The rain was a relief. He had not been able to find tears of his own.

‘Come inside,’ Etta suggested, her hand warm on his arm.

He turned to look at her. If there was any comfort left for him at this miserable point in his life, it was Etta.

She had put on Sorcor’s oilskin; it hung huge on her slender form.

She peered at him from the depths of the hood.

A few drops of rain had found her face and jewelled her lashes.

She blinked and the drops ran down her face, mock tears.

He stared at her, dumb with desire and with the necessity of never acknowledging that desire.

She tugged at his arm again, and he allowed her to lead him away.

Sorcor had surrendered his stateroom to her.

The steaming pot of tea on the table, and the two waiting cups touched him.

She had prepared this and brought him to share it.

She indicated a chair and he sat, his clothes dripping, while she hung the oilskin on its peg.

Once this chamber had been Kennit’s and some of his furnishings remained.

Elsewhere, Sorcor’s taste for the bright and showy overpowered Kennit’s more simple choices.

The embroidered and tasselled cloth obscured the elegantly simple lines of the table beneath it.

Etta shook some drops of rain from her hair and took the other chair.

‘You look as woeful as a stray dog,’ she commented as she poured the tea.

Pushing his cup towards him, she added rebukingly, ‘I do not understand why I must remind you to have faith in Kennit. Whatever happened, we should trust his judgement. Long ago, you told me he was Chosen of Sa. Do you no longer believe that?’

He sipped the tea and tasted the warmth of cinnamon.

Despite his deep melancholy, it gave him pleasure.

Etta seemed to know well that the small delights of the flesh were sometimes the most potent medicine against the deep pains of the spirit.

‘I don’t know what I believe any more,’ he admitted wearily.

‘I’ve seen the good he has done everywhere.

He is a powerful force for freedom and the bettering of people’s lives.

He could build himself a majestic house full of riches and servants, and folk would still lionize him, but he continues to sail, to do battle with the slavers, and to free the imprisoned.

Given all that, how can I doubt the greatness of his soul? ’

‘But you do, don’t you?’

Wintrow sighed. ‘Yes. I do. Sometimes, at night, when I try to meditate, when I try to find my place in his world, I cannot make it all fit together.’ He pushed his wet hair away from his face and looked at her frankly. ‘There is something missing in Kennit. I feel it but I cannot name it.’

A shadow of anger crossed her face. ‘Perhaps what is missing is not from him, but from you. Perhaps you lose faith whenever Sa’s path for you carries you where you do not wish to go.’

Her words numbed him. He had never expected to hear such a rebuke from her, let alone to have it ring so true.

She spoke on. ‘Kennit has his faults. But we should look at what he achieves in spite of all his own doubts and pains.’ Her eyes swept up to his accusingly.

‘Or do you think that a man must first become perfect before he can do good?’

‘Sa’s hand can fit around any tool,’ he muttered.

Then, an instant later, he burst out, ‘But why must he take my ship from me? Not just take her, but change her to a creature I don’t even recognize?

Why must he kill those who came only to take us home?

I don’t understand that, Etta, and I never shall! ’

‘Perhaps, because you have already determined that you will not understand it?’ She met his gaze steadily.

‘I read, in a book you gave me, that our words shape our reality. Look at what your words have just done to what is. You have reshaped it to make it a grievance against yourself. Your ship, you say. Is she? Was she ever anyone’s ship?

Or was she a living creature, imprisoned in an unfamiliar body and then claimed as a possession?

Has Kennit changed her, or has he simply freed her to become who she truly was?

How do you know he has killed those who came to free you, if that indeed was what they intended?

As yet, we know nothing. Yet you have already decided it is a wrong done you, so that you can nurture your anger and feel justified.

That’s no better than wallowing in self-pity.

’ Her voice had grown angrier and angrier.

Now she folded her lips tight and turned aside from him.

‘I wanted to share something with you, something that must remain secret between us. Now I wonder if I dare, or if you will somehow twist it to be something it is not.’

All he could do was look at her. Although he had had a hand in her transformation, the changes in her could still astonish him.

She no longer flew at him with blows when he crossed her will.

She did not need to; the edge of her tongue was as cutting as any blade.

He had recognized her intelligence and respected her cunning and her courage from the first day he had met her.

Now there was schooling behind the intellect, and an ethic behind the courage.

It amplified her beauty. He turned his hand on the table, palm up, to indicate his surrender.

To his surprise, she leaned over and put her hand in his.

As his fingers closed on her hand, she smiled. He had not thought she could be more beautiful, but a sudden light shone in her face. She leaned closer to breathe her next words.

‘I’m pregnant. I carry Kennit’s child.’

Those words shut the door between them, closing him off from her life and her light. She was Kennit’s, she had always been Kennit’s, and she would always be Kennit’s. Wintrow himself would always be alone.

‘I wasn’t sure, at first. Yet, ever since a certain night, I have had a feeling it was so.

And today, when he sent me away, as he has never done before, I thought perhaps there might be a reason.

So I sat here and I tested myself with a needle on a thread held over my palm.

It swung so violently there can be no doubt.

All indications are that I carry a son, a man to follow after him.

’ She took her hand from his and proudly set it upon her flat belly.

Misery numbed Wintrow. ‘You must be very happy.’ He forced the words past his choking pain.

Her smile dimmed a fraction. ‘And that is all you have to say to me?’ she asked.

It was all he dared to say. Every other thought was better left unuttered. He bit his tongue and looked at her in helpless silence.

She gave a small sigh and looked aside. ‘I had hoped for more. Foolish, I suppose. But Kennit has so often called you his prophet that I – now do not laugh – I had fancied that when I told you I carried the King of the Pirates’ son, you would, oh, I don’t know, say some words that foretold his greatness, or that…

’ Her voice dwindled away. A faint flush rose to her cheeks.

‘Like in the old tales,’ Wintrow managed to say. ‘A soothsaying of wonders to come.’

She turned aside from him, suddenly embarrassed to have dreamed such large dreams for her child.

Wintrow made a valiant effort, to set aside the hurt boy in himself and speak as both a man and a priest to her.

‘I have no prophecies for you, Etta. No Sa-sent foretelling, no inspired prognostication. I believe that if this child is pledged to greatness, his heritage will come just as much from you as from his father. I see this in you, right now: that regardless of what other folk do or do not see in your child, he will always reign in your heart. You will see the value of him long before others do, and know that the greatest trait he will carry is simply that he is himself. A child takes root in his parents’ acceptance.

Your baby already has that gift from you. ’

His words moved her as if he had spoken a prophecy. She glowed. ‘I cannot wait to see Kennit’s face when I tell him.’

Wintrow took a deep breath. Sureness filled him, and if Sa inspired him to speak, he knew it was then. ‘I counsel you to keep these tidings secret for a time yet. His mind is so full of concerns just now. Wait for a time when he truly needs to hear it.’

‘Perhaps you are right in this,’ she said regretfully.

Wintrow doubted she would heed him.