Authors: Elaine Isaak
HER BODY
immense with child, Asenith leaned against the wall, breathing hard. Fionvar turned away, allowing her this private moment to collect herself. She had trouble walking long distances, and stairs did her in every time.
“In the future, if you need something from the kitchen, have someone fetch it for you,” he said mildly. This woman and her arbitrary needs had been grating to begin with, but now were a part of his daily routine. Summoned from a tedious meeting, Fionvar might even be grateful to her if she had anything other than spite for him.
“I’m not a cripple, my lord, just a pregnant lady. I’m sure you’ve seen one before.” She gasped and was silent a moment, one hand pressed to her belly.
Fionvar remembered well the day Brianna had begun her labor. He remembered because he had not been there, because some stupid crisis or another had taken him away, and no one had thought to call the Lord Protector to the queen’s bedside. Not that he would have been allowed into her room, but at least to wait nearby, to be among the first to hear the prince’s voice. If there were anything in the past he could do again, he would not have ridden out that day. “I’ll take you to the birthing room.”
“You’ll leave me bloody well alone!” Her body shuddered, and she beat the wall with her fist.
With a jerk of his head, Fionvar called over one of the guards who had accompanied him. “Fetch the midwife and get a message to the queen.”
“Aye, sir.” The man set off at a sprint.
“Come on, then.” Fionvar took her arm, but she slapped him.
“Did I not just tell you to leave me alone? Can’t you see I’m in pain?”
“I won’t have this baby born in a hallway,” Fionvar snapped, rubbing his cheek. “Your choices are walk or be dragged. Pick one.”
Asenith gathered her skirt in both hands and lurched upright. “I hate you.” Her beautiful face twisted with venom, showing every one of her thirty-seven years.
“That way.” He gestured to the left. “Just be grateful it’s on this floor.”
With Asenith stopping to curse every few minutes, their progress was slow. Halfway there, the guard reappeared, followed by the midwife, Lady Catherine, and Duchess Elyn.
“Is it time?” Elyn crowed. “Get me some tea and bread, I’m hoping for a long wait.” She grinned, her eyes flashing. “Heir it may be, but no better than the last one, I’ll wager.” These past months, Elyn had taken to punctuating her remarks by rapping her cane against the floor. She did it now with a gleeful air like a child impatient for a party.
“Perhaps Your Excellency would like to wait in her own chambers,” Fionvar suggested. He could feel a headache coming on.
“No, I want her there,” Asenith panted. “Her time’s over; she needs to know it.”
“Great Lady,” he muttered, as the strange parade reached its destination, a small suite of rooms reserved for birthing. The outer chamber held benches and tables for those who would wait. Fionvar followed Asenith as far as the door of the inner chamber. Already, servants hurried to light the fireplace and bring water. A maid, carrying a load of linens that she dropped beside the birthing chair bumped into him. Curious, Fionvar leaned closer. Made of sturdy wood, the chair had a cut-out seat providing just enough support for the mother. Dark stains marked the legs of the chair, and Fionvar
wondered if Brianna’s blood had made them, mingling with that of generations of her ancestors.
“Two days I suffered with my son, and five hours struggling to get him out,” Elyn said, inspecting the room. “Such pain, I cannot describe it. Donal swore he’d cut me open the next time, rather than hear me screaming.”
Asenith, already pale, reached blindly and caught Fionvar’s arm as she panted.
“Squat down, it helps some,” the midwife advised. “Walk when you can.”
Asenith clung a moment longer, earning Fionvar a dark look from the midwife, then she released him and stumbled around the room, her hands pressed to her back.
Leaning over to Catherine, Fionvar whispered, “Was it so for the queen?”
She nodded grimly. “Took it better, though, she did. Polite to a fault.”
“Praise the Lady that I was born a man,” Fionvar said, turning away.
“Oh, you’ve seen nothing yet, my lord. You’ll be waiting?”
“I’m the Lord Protector. I lost the last heir, I won’t lose this one.”
Catherine lost her smile, and bobbed a curtsy.
Picking out a comfortable leather chair, Fionvar sat heavily. Wolfram had been gone so long that sometimes he suddenly sprang to mind, and Fionvar knew he had not thought of him for hours. Once, a whole day passed in some frustrating negotiations, and Fionvar realized he had not remembered his son. When it happened, he went down to the temple and lit a candle at the Cave of Life, listening to the scratching of birds on the roof and mice in the floor. Messengers and emissaries had been sent, queries unanswered. The Hemijrani refugees continued to trickle into their makeshift city by the temple, and Lyssa’s letters from abroad expressed her growing frustration. She didn’t know if they’d taken Wolfram, or where he was, but she was sworn to try. Sometimes, he feared his sister wouldn’t return. She would find some news
of Wolfram’s death and, fearing to tell him, leave Fionvar waiting in vain.
Asenith cried out, and a few more maids bustled in, while the manservants fled.
Elyn hobbled over to a seat near a little table. “The prince takes too much after the wrong father, I think. Sticking it in, where he should leave it alone. King Rhys had certain advantages in that respect.”
Fionvar threw his head back and laughed. “Great Lady, you say the most astounding things.”
“There’s nothing remarkable in what I’ve said.” She leaned her cane against the wall as a servant approached with a tray of tea things.
Breathing in the Terresan tea, Fionvar coughed. “You and Rhys are the only people alive who could drink that foul stuff.”
Sniffing, Elyn raised the mug to her withered lips and took a sip. She frowned, then took another. “I think this lot is past its peak,” she complained.
“We’ve just got it in this morning, Your Excellency,” the servant informed her.
“Be off then, and fetch me some honey.” She took a long swallow of tea, and followed it with a bite of bread. “But I was saying about the prince, she must take a firm hand with him. When he was younger, I could paddle him myself, and did, but now he’s just too much for any of us.”
Fionvar leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “You did what?”
She looked up, eyebrows raised, with a prim smile of satisfaction. “Well, so he obeyed me in keeping that secret, if nothing else. I knew if he told you, you’d coddle him like you always do.”
“Sweet Lady.” Fionvar knotted his hands into his hair. All the times he’d not been there when his son needed him.
“It’s a good thing Rhys wasn’t here,” Elyn continued. “He’d’ve been worse than you are. I don’t blame Brianna, poor thing, she has the kingdom to run. I did well raising her, I think. That boy was twelve before he could get away from
me. Had some mettle, he did. Where’s he got to anyhow? He should be told his bitch is whelping.”
Feeling sick, Fionvar stalked to the far end of the room, planting himself on a bench with his feet up, his back pressed against the wall. When he was too young to take on the family, his own father had died, leaving him the charge of the lot of them. He’d been strict enough then to suit anyone’s taste, and Orie, the next eldest after the two between had died, had taken the brunt of it. After Orie’s death, Fionvar swore he wouldn’t do that to his son. He would not make his own son fear him.
They passed a few hours in silence, listening to the curses and murmurs beyond the door, and picking at lunch from trays brought up to them. Needing the exercise, Fionvar walked to his chamber to retrieve Wolfram of Bernholt’s journal, opening to a passage just after the prince had angered his father by claiming that Woodmen had the same needs and dreams as they did.
“
I could sit no longer and hear him saying these terrible things
,” Wolfram had written. “
I knew he’d be furious. We have never dealt well with each other, my father and I.
” Fionvar sighed, with a small ironic smile. Years after this incident, King Gerrod would cast out his son as a traitor. “
Oh, Father, there are things in my heart I would share with you, and I wonder what things you would tell me, if you could just see me as I am, and not as you would have me be
.”
Shutting the book, Fionvar slipped it into a pouch at his side. He shut his eyes and rested his head against the wall. If—no, when—he met his son again, he would ask what was in his heart and truly listen to the answer.
Dinner arrived from the kitchens, along with the queen’s messenger checking for news. They had none to give him. Elyn mumbled to herself, and scribbled in a little book of her own, taking frequent trips to the privy, but always returning.
Shortly after, Dylan appeared in the open door, fingering the bump from his broken nose. “They’re still in there?”
Fionvar nodded.
From the inner door came a shriek of pain, followed by cursing.
“Finistrel preserve us,” Dylan gasped, turning pale. After wavering a second more, he hurried away.
Suddenly the door popped open, and Catherine stormed out, her hair in disarray and red welts rising on one cheek. “Somebody get me a rope! I can’t hold the bitch any longer.” She touched the scratch marks on her face and winced. “We’ll tie her down.”
“Tie her? But she’s in childbirth,” Fionvar protested.
Catherine shot him a withering look. “And it gives her strength to fight me, my lord. She’s like a mad thing.”
“There must be another way.”
“It’s been done before, my lord. If she won’t let us do our work, there won’t be any baby. It’s got turned about somehow. Midwife needs me to assist.”
“I could hold her,” he volunteered, stepping forward.
“A man, in the birthing room?” She stared as if he’d grown another head.
“You can’t bind her, what must the Lady think of binding a birthing mother?”
“What would the Lady think of a man’s being present, that’s what I say.” Catherine snatched the rope from the hurrying servant and ran back inside.
Another shriek rent the air, followed by the sound of something flung against the wall. “No, you can’t! I’m not in prison,” Asenith yelled. “Get away from me!”
“Goddess’s Tears!” someone cursed, then Catherine’s voice called, “My Lord Protector, get in here!”
Fionvar entered a room of chaos, linens and spilled water making a hazard of the floor while a pair of frantic servants tried to gather the herbs from a broken pot. The midwife towered with her arms bare to the shoulders, blood on her hands. In the chair, Asenith had turned sideways, clinging to the back, kicking with all her might when someone came near. “You vixens, you want to kill my baby, I won’t let you—you’d kill me if you could.”
Fionvar went to Asenith’s face and pushed the hair back.
She raised a hand to claw at him, and he snatched her wrist. Kneeling beside her, he whispered urgently, “Nobody wants to kill that baby, do you hear me? Lady Asenith!”
She jerked her head up, her blue eyes searing into his, then the mask of fury broke, and she was weeping. “I can’t do it,” she whimpered. “Don’t make me, I can’t do it.”
“You’ve come a long way to this moment, and you need to see it through. Don’t give up. You haven’t given up in almost twenty years, have you?”
Shaking her head, she buried her face in her elbow, her arm straining against him.
“Then turn around and have this baby.” When she didn’t move, he leaned closer and said, “Just think how Duchess Elyn will laugh if you give up now.”
Her head shot up at that, and she bared her teeth. “Don’t let them tie me.”
“They won’t, I’ll hold you.”
For a moment, Asenith looked uncertain, then the pain shot through her body, and she nodded desperately. Not letting go of her wrist, Fionvar lifted her arm to cross over her chest. He caught her other hand and knelt behind the chair, her head resting on his shoulder. Her body shook with release, then grew rigid with the strain.
“Push!” the midwife shouted, resuming her place on the floor, with Catherine beside her.
Forever Fionvar knelt there, until his arms were weak with the effort of holding her, and his ears numb with her screams and curses. When he thought he could take it no more, the midwife shouted in triumph.
“Praise the Lady!” Catherine called out. “It’s a girl!”
Asenith collapsed against him, sobbing.
Servants rushed about, water splashed, then the baby cried. She wailed for a moment, testing her new lungs, protesting this cold, strange place she had been brought to. Then she fell silent, and Fionvar risked a glance.
A tiny pink bundle scrunched up in Catherine’s arms, the baby’s dark eyes could barely be seen, but she was looking. As if she knew she must understand this place, and these
people, she peered about, the rest of her body still with the intensity of her looking.
Asenith raised her head, and smiled, even as tremors shook her body.
“Blankets, quickly,” the midwife called, and maids draped the new mother.
Fionvar released her arms, drawing back and straightening carefully. Before he could rise, Asenith reached out and caught his shoulder, pulling him back toward her. “Thank you,” she said, and kissed him.
Stunned, Fionvar jerked free, but the tenderness that had softened her for an instant was gone, and Asenith turned away, clutching the blankets.
Lady Catherine stared at him as he faced her. “I’ll take this one to the nurse, my lord.” She curtsied, and he nodded his leave to go.
Standing still in the busyness, Fionvar watched a group of men carry Asenith to her own bed. Even a woman like that was strong enough to bear such agony. Even she had been given the Lady’s gift: to pass on life to another. Dazed, Fionvar walked out.
“A girl, eh?” Elyn said at his sleeve. “Let’s hope she’s more biddable than that boy of Rhys’s.”
“She’s baseborn,” he said softly, not looking at her. “There’s no guarantee she’ll ever be the heir, nor that it would be allowed.”