Authors: Unknown
“I have some
grave news.”
Amihan, who had just returned from one of their client holdings, didn’t seem very concerned as he stepped onto the mounting block.
“
Now
, Amihan!” Krystállina tugged on his hand. The Thunder God remained strangely silent as his wife dragged him into the manor and locked the privy chamber door behind them. She wordlessly directed him to take a seat, but he finally interrupted her.
“What is this all about?”
“Sit and I’ll tell you.”
When he did so, Krystállina cautiously eased herself into her favorite chair. Amihan raised an eyebrow.
“I am pregnant,” she confessed at last. “I paid the imperial physician and the astrologers great sums and they have all confirmed it. The astrologers agree that it will be a girl, and one seems particularly set on
twin
girls.” Krystállina bowed her head. “They started kicking yesterday.”
Amihan leapt out of his chair, picked her up and twirled her about the room.
“That is
wonderful
, Krystállina!
Twin
girls?
My
twin girls? That is the best news I have heard since you said you would come away to Milano with me!”
She glared at him. “Put me down.”
“Why are you so upset?” he asked, gently placing her back into her chair.
“This is a
disaster!
” she hissed. “Your father will find us for certain! I should’ve noticed I was missing my courses, but I was too busy helping you manage this damn estate!” Krystállina shook her head. “It’s too late now. I can’t rid myself of them or the gods will find out and They will never bless us with children again!”
“Is
that
what you are worried about? My father? He is no threat to us!” The Thunder God sat down across from his wife. “Have you not noticed that we have been gone for a year and he has yet to track us down?”
“Then why have we been running?” she demanded. “Why didn’t we stay in Thessalonica, where we could’ve gotten married publicly and my father could enjoy his granddaughters?”
“I thought my father was using his best men to track us,” Amihan admitted. “I thought he had imbued them with special powers, so that they would find us wherever we ran. We would still be living in Milano if it was not for Cardinal Mindanelli.”
“So you’re saying that your father can never find us?”
“Gods can only orient on others of their own bloodline, or we would forever be at each other’s throats. Obviously, if L
éi Shēng has not gotten off his lazy ass to find me at this point, we have nothing to worry about.”
“What about the girls? Won’t their blood alert him to their birth?”
“That I do not know,” Amihan admitted. “I am sure they are safe while they are carried i
n the womb of a mortal; but after that, I do not know.”
After a moment, he raised Krystállina to her feet and kissed her.
“Go to your rest, my love. Carrying twins will take a toll on your body.”
She smiled, kissed her husband on the cheek and headed for bed, the locked door barely stopping her.
“The only way Léi S
hēng will find out,” he murmured after she left. “Is if there is someone at the Emperor’s court who is a bearer of tales.”
February 1227
They were born in the blue veil of the night, to a manor empty, save for the Thunder God and his
wife. The servants had been sent to wait at the steadings of the clients for the summons of the chief steward. No one was to return before then, upon penalty of death.
Krystállina’s labor wasn’t long, as such things go. Her water broke in the morning and she was lying on the birthing couch by midafternoon.
“What a fool I was, letting you send the midwives away!” she growled, hoisting herself to a sitting position. “They could be giving me herbs to speed the delivery and wine to dull my mind!”
“No mortals can be present!” Amihan snapped in reply. “With the birth of demigoddesses, the risk is too great! Besides, the time for herbs has past. It will not be long now.”
He made her lay down so that he could check the baby’s progress.
“You are crowning,” the Thunder God said after a moment. “Grab the sides of the couch and bear down.”
Krystállina did as she was instructed, accompanying it with a loud moan.
“I see her head! Push again—
hard!
”
She sucked in a great breath and gave a heave. It was enough—Krystállina was rewarded with the sound of a crying infant.
“Can you see the other one?” she demanded. “Am I
really
going to have twins?”
Her husband grabbed a candle and held it between her legs. “Yes, I think so. I think we have just enough time to wash and swaddle this one.”
He put on a burst of superhuman speed and his daughter was scrubbed and swaddled in an instant. When Amihan returned to Krystállina’s side, the second baby was already crowning.
“
Aha!
One big,
long
push!” he instructed.
His wife complied. That, accompanied by another, smaller push, brought their other daughter into the world. Amihan had the second infant cleaned, wrapped and both brought back to Krystállina before she could even ask for them.
“They’re beautiful,” she sighed. The one nestled in her right arm had a downy tuft of black hair, while the daughter in her left seemed to have blonde hair like her own.
“What will you call them?” Amihan asked in English. They had been practicing their languages in the last few weeks in preparation for their inevitable return to court.
“I like ‘Grace’ and ‘Serenity’. Or, in my tongue, ‘Chárí’,” here she bounced the left one. “And ‘Galíní’.” She bounced the other.
“Chárí and Galíní.” Amihan tumbled the names in his mouth to see if he liked the taste of them. “Unusual. But very pretty.”
Vienna
Holy Roman Empire
March 1227
“I have been told that some of you were more than impatient for this, but your weeks of waiting have come to an end.”
The Emperor gestured to a girl behind him, who shyly came forward and placed a small bundle in the Empress’s arms.
“I present to you our beloved daughter Margareta, Archduchess of the Holy Roman Empire.”
The courtiers shouted and moved forward as a heaving mass, causing a frantic scuffle among the guards in order to keep them back. Only the nobles who had wagered a small fortune on the birth of an Archduke slunk into the shadows.
“Our dear Empress Isabella has not been the only one bringing new life into the world,” Frederick continued. Amihan and Krystállina stepped forward. “I am pleased to present Caroline Bestwick, the Marquise de Queensberry and her twin sister, Grace, Lady Hartford.”
Very few of the courtiers stepped forward to see the ducal daughters; most had been reduced to an awed murmur that Catherine had survived the birth of twins.
“I do not mean to put Your Graces on the spot,” the Emperor added after a moment. “But I have a proposal.”
“We are listening,” Andrew replied.
“The Empress and I have been talking and we have decided that it would be beneficial for the Holy Roman Empire and England if we agree to a betrothal,” Frederick announced. “The first of us to have a son will betroth him to the others’ firstborn daughter. And, to show my good faith in the matter, I will make Lady Catherine the Grand Duchess of Berlin. Effective immediately.”
The crowd went into an uproar, but Frederick held up a silencing hand. “What say you, Your Graces?”
Dark Moon Palace
Wài
April 1227
“They have done it, My Lord!” The Queen of Hungary collapse
d breathlessly at Léi Shēng’s feet. “The Duke and Duchess of Hartford had twins!”
The Elder God’s countenance darkened, but he allowed her to continue.
“Frederick was so thrilled that he proposed that the first one of them to have a son would betroth him t
o the other’s firstborn daughter. And he sealed the agreement by making Catherine the Grand Duchess of Berlin.”
“Did they accept?”
Yolanda nodded vigorously and took a goblet of water from Telfer. “The Emperor is even now writing to Henry of England to see if he will transfer Andrew’s title to their eldest daughter. Now that the Bestwicks are the Grand Dukes of Berlin, Frederick means to see Lady Caroline named Duchess of Hartford and Lady Grace named Marchioness of Queensberry.”
“Thereby making any child o
f theirs a good match for his own,” Léi Shēng mused. “Do you still suspect that the Grand Dukes are frauds?”
“I do, My Lord. And I think the Emperor will learn for himself when King Henry responds.”
“You have pleased me greatly, Yolanda. I will see to it t
hat you are justly rewarded when this is all over.” He motioned for Telfer to take her cup. “You are dismissed.”
When he had shown her out, Telfer returned to kneel at his master’s feet.
“What news, Telfer?”
“No one has seen Prince Amihan in Tahanan, Śēśa
or Wài. I am waiting for one of our…
friends
…to report back on His attempt to contact Princess Aĺakána, but I imagine that even if He reached Her, the Princess will report that She has not seen Him, either.”
Léi Shēng sank into one of his customary silences
, so it was a while before the servant dared to speak.
“Shall I ready the guard?”
“Much as I would like to kill that insolent child for marrying a
mortal
and producing
vermin
—
twin
vermin—we must be careful. If we murder an innocent mortal couple, the other Elders would throw me off the council in an instant. And I do not doubt that Ní would be all too glad to take my life.
“No, take everyone off their usual duties. I want them to search every inch of the Three Worlds. Only
then
shall I be happy to plan for my son’s death.”
Vienna
Holy Roman Empire
June 1227
When Isabella found the Emperor in his privy chamber, his lips were pursed to whiteness.
“You summoned me, Husband?”
“Sit down.”
Although she had been afforded the privilege of sitting beside Frederick in the past, Isabella thought she might be safer on the other side of his desk.
“I have received a response from Henry of England. He says, in part:”
I have no knowledge of a couple called Andrew and Catherine Bestwick. If they are residents of England, they have certainly never been presented at court, for I would know them in an instant.
I can also tell you that there is no “Duke of Hartford”, nor of any other domain. I will not allow nobles in my kingdom. To appoint men to such titles such as “Duke” and “Earl” is to give them the illusion that I can be bought and sold in the back rooms of taverns all over the land. I am Henry the Third, appointed by God. No mortal shall ever have power over me.