The Pattern Scars (50 page)

The midwife is too young to know this
, I thought.
How many Belakaoan births can she have attended? How can she sound so certain,
be
so certain, as she puts her hands into the water and kneads at Zemiya’s belly?

And yet she was right. Only a few hours after the queen had left the library she finally cried out—a high, unwavering sound that brought the king to the doorway and the midwife back to the side of the tub.

“Out you get, now,” the midwife said to Zemiya as her cry turned into a low, guttural grunt. “The baby’s coming.”

The queen raised her head. Her eyes were as black as if she had been Otherseeing. I wanted to push past Haldrin and run, but the Pattern I longed to flee held me there.

“I know,” said Zemiya. “And I am staying. Here. This place has no tides, no currents . . . no waves. But my child will be born in water.”

She closed her eyes. Lowered her head back down against the tub’s rim and groaned again, again, pausing only to take breaths that drew her whole body up.

“My king,” Lord Derris called from the other room. “Come away—leave them.”

“No.” The word was loud, but it shook. I saw the king’s shadow leaping on the wall where all the other shadows were—the fish bones and crab shells and seaweed—but I did not look over my shoulder at him.

Zemiya threw her head back and gave a yell that became a laugh. The midwife’s hands and arms were in the water; she pulled them out, and she was holding a small, limp, dripping thing. She grasped it in one hand by its ankles, and with her other hand reached for the length of ribbon she had set beside the tub hours ago. I moved forward to help, but the midwife was already looping it around the cord that joined the baby to Zemiya. The midwife grasped at the ribbon with her teeth and fingers and suddenly it was a knot, cinched tight around fleshy stuff that pulsed and then did not. She took hold of the knife that had been next to the ribbon—a little knife, just a sliver of blade. She sawed at the cord until it separated with a gout of dark blood. Zemiya was still laughing, softly now. The whites of her eyes were webbed with red.

The baby was a girl. When I saw this I felt a rush of relief, thought,
Of course that dream I told the queen of was false; that child was a boy.
But my relief ebbed as I looked at
this
child. She seemed to have no bones. She only moved because the midwife was rubbing her with a piece of cloth (soft and thick and white; it came away yellowish-green). The midwife stopped and leaned close to the baby. She swept her finger inside the tiny mouth, pressed gently on the chest, puffed breath between the parted lips. The baby lay splayed and glistening and still did not move.

Moments passed. Haldrin was next to the tub. His hands were on Zemiya’s shoulders because she was clawing at the metal, trying to rise. She was sobbing words that I did not understand; Jamenda, behind them all, was speaking the same ones. Zemiya sagged back into the water when the midwife folded the cloth over the baby’s face.

“Give her to me,” the queen said, as firmly as if she had never been sobbing.

“My Queen,” the midwife began, and Haldrin said her name, but Zemiya snarled, “
Give her to me now
,” and the midwife did. The baby was a formless bundle until Zemiya unwrapped her and tossed the cloth on the floor. She held her just above the water. All I could see was the head, with its wet black hair, and two curled hands that rested on Zemiya’s breasts.

“Leave me,” the queen said.

“No.” The midwife was twisting her hands in her dress, just as Jamenda might have. “There is still the afterbirth; I must attend you until it comes.”

Zemiya cupped her hand over the baby’s head as if she did not want her to overhear. “I will take care of myself. You have been here long enough.” She looked at everyone in turn. “All of you—leave me.”

The midwife backed out of the room. The king hesitated by the tub, one hand hovering, as if he could not decide where to put it. He did not notice me when I knelt on the wet floor near him. The queen did not notice me. I picked up the knife. I watched the king’s face, as I did; saw his lips making silent words.

“Go, love,” Zemiya said.

Haldrin whirled and walked into the other room and Jamenda went after him.

I pierced the tip of my own forefinger.

“You.” The queen sounded weary, disgusted, but I rose up on my knees and leaned close to her.

“
Moabe
. Please give me your baby.”

Another laugh, this one incredulous.

“My Queen, please. I must look at her—just for a moment, and then I’ll give her back to you.” Zemiya did not move. “The Patt—
isparra
will show me more than anyone else could see. Your sister would know this. You know it.”

Zemiya’s hands came up out of the water. They supported the baby’s head and bottom, but the rest of her hung.

I took the body. It was slippery and smooth and warm, but only from the water. I arranged it on the cloth and crouched over it so that Zemiya could not see. I watched a thread of blood ooze from the stump of the cord that was attached to the baby’s navel. A thin thread, barely pink, but it would be enough. I touched the baby’s palms, which were lying open on either side of her head. I gazed at the bloody smudges my fingertip left on the pale, creased skin. I gazed at the rows of ribs that jutted in the swell of chest.

Princess
, I thought,
we must be quick—
and then the room melted around me
.

Her Otherworld is small and dim. Not dark or glaringly white, like the dead places I have already been. Just vague, shrouded in red mist that parts every time I breathe, so that I can see the little hills and the low, curved sky. I feel the seeping of my blood, and hers too, and I watch it eddy in the air before me. Two streams, mine and hers; I reach for them and fill myself with metal and wind and I breathe and weave until the mist blows away completely and the bones of the hills are covered with green.

I opened my eyes. I was kneeling exactly as I had been.

“Mistress Nola.” The midwife’s voice; her shadow looming, and Haldrin’s behind her. I blinked at them. I looked down and blinked at the blur that was the baby.

“There is no point, Mistress—nothing can be done. Here, now. Let me take the child. And my Queen, I see that the afterbirth has come; I’ll—”

The baby gurgled. Perhaps the sound was from her stomach, or perhaps her lungs, but all that mattered was that it was loud enough to silence the midwife and stop everyone moving. Everyone except Zemiya, who pulled herself out of the tub in a surge of water and fell to her knees beside me.

My vision was already nearly clear. I saw the rise and fall of the baby’s chest. I saw the thick milky froth that poured from her mouth and nose. I saw my fingers wiping at the liquid and then resting on the lips, which twitched and pursed.

“Pattern protect us,” hissed the midwife.

The baby’s eyes opened. They were smoky grey beneath a translucent layer of white. They blinked back at me, even though I knew they could not see me.

“What have you done?” Zemiya murmured. I might have been the only one who heard her. I did not look at her, or at Teldaru when he called my name from the doorway. I did not look at the king, who was kneeling too, and sobbing.

“Welcome to your place,” I said, steady and strong, as the baby began to cry. “Welcome to the Path that is yours.”

Only it is not yours
, I thought.
You were dead and I remade you, and the only Path you have now is mine.

“You are mine.” He ran his hands down my arms and rested them on my hips. I was in bed, naked; I had bathed, earlier, and had not had any clean shifts to put on afterward. So he stroked my hips and thighs and I murmured—not a word, because I was still mostly asleep. A question-sound.

“I taught you, Nola. I showed you the Pattern that can only be seen with blood—and you have disobeyed me and obeyed me, but never until today—until that baby’s birth—have you used it on your own. Not like this.” He dipped his head. His hair glinted red in the firelight. I felt him kiss my belly, and lower, lower, and I was awake and fever-flushed.

When he lifted his head I saw that there were tears on his cheeks.

“I am glad I have made you proud.” My voice was rough. The neck of his tunic gaped. I could not look away from his collarbone, which was beautiful—gleaming, curved, smooth. I ached with the need to touch it. My mouth tasted of sickness.

“I wish I could give you something,” he said.

I swallowed. “You could.” I swallowed again, and tried to think—but not too much, or I would not be able to say anything more. “You could remake
me
. You could give me my words back—now, not later.”

I expected him to laugh but he did not. He gazed at me for a moment and I saw no gold in his eyes; maybe the tears had drowned it. Then he eased himself off me. He put his hands on my hips again and pressed; I let him, even when the pressure turned me over and out of bed. I was lying with my cheek against the blanket and my knees on the floor. He pinned my arms straight on either side of me, along the edge of the bed. I kept my hands motionless, somehow. My fingers did not tense when he moved in behind me. His naked flesh was on mine. I felt heat, and muscles bunching; his hands stroking me and himself.

He took my ear between his teeth and moaned. His breath whooshed and tickled and I could not help it: I wriggled, which made him moan again, and thrust against me (but not in). I went still. I had to be still, no matter what he did.

He shifted, and cold air rushed over me. He was standing. I was not looking at him, but I saw his shadow on the wall. He put on a shadow-tunic and bent. I felt him one more time, breathing words, now.

“Good girl,” he said. “Good, sweet Nola. I will think on your request.”

And then he left me kneeling in the dark.

I had a few nights of peace after Princess Layibe was born. I did not know why—Teldaru had told me over and over that we would not rest until Ranior too was breathing. But I did rest; I slept, with Borl stretched out beside me, and nothing woke me until Leylen came just after dawn. I taught my lessons with a clearer mind than I had had since the summer. I noticed the taste of food again. I took a long, scalding bath, and when I was out and dry I imagined that the smell of rot had gone away.

A few nights—and then he was at my door, smiling and holding out his hand.

Ranior
, I thought as we walked with our heads bent against the snow.
The War Hound’s time has come
—but if this had been the case we would be going to his tomb, and instead we were weaving into the city. To the house.

“I have been thinking about what you asked for,” Teldaru said as he lit the lanterns in the front hallway. “I promised I would, and I have.”

“Oh?” I stepped away from Borl, who was shaking the wetness from his fur. I shook my own cloak out and hung it from a hook by the door. When I looked at Teldaru he was on the stairs, bobbing on the balls of his feet.
The excited boy
, I thought, and my throat went dry.

Selera was not in my old bed; she was sitting in a chair beside it, and Laedon’s chair was beside hers. I looked past them, and past the rumpled bed, at another chair that had been placed by the windows. A rough wooden one that had not been here before, and a girl in it.

“I will give you back a little,” Teldaru said to me. “You deserve this.”

The girl’s wrists were tied to the chair arms. There was a twisted piece of red velvet wedged between her jaws. The bodice of her dirty brown dress was unlaced; dark coils of hair—escaped from braids—were touching her small breasts. My eyes shifted back to the bed, with its strewn pillows and churned bedclothes. To Selera’s eyes, and Laedon’s, which blinked and stared. The girl moaned. Her fingers scrabbled at wood and her feet thrust at the floor and she stared at me too, from behind a sheen of tears.

“Let her go,” I said.

Teldaru snorted. “Do you want me to remake your Paths or do you not?” He was by the window now, pulling a second wooden chair to face hers. “I will do this for you. Sit, Nola.”