Title: Lonely at the Top Ch 8/?
Author: Kate,
Disclaimer: I do not own Kalasin, Lianne, Buri, Kaddar, Carthak, Tortall or any of the people/places named in this story. I am not making a profit and no infringement is intended.
Rating: Strong PG-13 to light R –
Author's Notes: Description of Kalasin's labor is more suggestive than graphic, but if you have an active imagination, as I tend to believe readers do, this might make you squeamish. Many of my facts come from helping a friend who is a nursing major study for a final on labor and delivery and from talking to another friend who had a baby on the 19th of this month.
Also, this chapter is a combination of two. Buri and Lianne couldn't decide if they wanted their own chapter. For a while they did, but then they wouldn't talk, so the highlights of their conversation are interwoven in this chapter. I think that there is a spoiler for Trickster's Queen in this chapter as well—I mention one of Kaddar's relatives from that book in this chapter. As always, feedback is adored.
Ch 8
Buri used a poker to adjust the position of a log, which was burning a bit too high to heat her tea. The flames were too cool to cook anything, so she had to concentrate the heat. Plus, the hungry tongues of light threatened to scorch the painted flowers right off the delicate little teapot, which had been waiting for her and Lianne in the central room of their quarters upon their arrival.
Buri knew that Kalasin's mother-in-law and the palace servants disapproved of the teapot. Most of them assumed that nobles didn't know a cooking implement from a chamber pot, and were suspicious of anyone who belied that axiom. By its presence Buri read Kalasin's desire for her guest's comfort, and her position as true mistress of her home. She may have left daily details to Varice Kingsford, but Kalasin knew exactly what happened in her home. The Empress was a thoughtful hostess. She remembered many small details of the preferences of her childhood and adolescent friends, including Buri's fondness for strong tea in the mornings.
A small box of the warrior's favorite green tea sat next to a sweet fruit and berry blend that Lianne had enjoyed as a child. Though the princess didn't say anything to Buri or to her sister, it underscored the growth that had occurred during their separation. It wasn't an event worth noticing long enough to mention in a coded letter, but Lia had long outgrown her fondness for the overly sweet tea. Its presence here reminded Lianne that she was not the same little girl who had crawled into bed beside her older sister when lightning flickered and Stormwing scent drifted through the windows. By the same token, Kalasin was not the same girl who had comforted her little sister's fears and whispered stories so Lianne could rest.
Buri looked around the elegantly comfortable sitting room, allowing her eyes to light on the objects within. The Tortallan delegation had found a few books "casually" left in each bedroom. The rooms were relatively simple by Imperial standards, but elegant and clean. Lianne's walls were hung with rose and pink drapes, almost like a fairy bower from a minstrel's tale. The pink walls were broken by two good paintings. One was a depiction of Old One's burial pyramids, deep in the desert. It was a commentary on the inevitable erosion time wreaked on everything, even those who feared and fought aging.
A Tyran genius had traveled to Carthak to study artistic techniques at the world famous university when he was just fourteen years old. He had painted the scene at eighteen when he had learned what the Carthaki masters had to teach him. The Emperor had claimed the painting as his tax on the young Tyran's time at the University, so the Tyran had left it and returned to his home. It was widely accepted that the Tyran had gotten the better of the bargain, as he had brought home the secret to closely guarded art techniques and materials, but the Tyran had never painted another landscape, claiming he could never recreate the power of that place and that moment. The painting was quite literally priceless to art lovers and historians. Lianne boggled a bit every time she truly stopped to look at it.
The other painting in the room was a delicately rendered oil, done by a Gallan who had also studied at the university. The artist was less famous than the Tyran, but the Gallan was well regarded for bringing oil paints from Tusaine and the Eastern Lands to the South. It was lit in the style of a Chardin and showed two little girls helping their mother to spin and weave. It was a study for a more famous allegorical painting, which Lia had always admired in the great art books of the palace library. It was a casual, almost careless display of wealth, to leave such a priceless object in a guest room. Lianne had lived a privileged life as the Princess of a large, healthy nation, but the extravagances of these simple quarters left her a bit unsettled.
Though Lianne understood that Kalasin meant the paintings in the spirit of sharing a rare treat with her sister, the princess also understood that the Empire had recovered financially from Daine's temper tantrum more than a decade earlier. Their census was taken, their taxes gathered, their inventories of treasures established. Though Lianne knew that Kally would never wish to fight her family, the display of wealth showed that Carthak had regained its power as a strong ally or a dreadful enemy. Lianne also realized that the subtle message might not have originated with her sister. Kalasin couldn't personally oversee every detail of their suite. But who else would know of the princess's delight in these particular paintings? It was a troubling puzzle—was she being warned about Carthaki wealth or receiving a rare opportunity to study the work of Gallan and Tyran masters? It hurt her head to contemplate the possibilities. She had little of Aly's subtlety and none of Nora's delight in playing Court games.
Buri's room was wrapped in soothing blues and greens, but it was not cluttered with knickknacks and paintings and valuables the way Lianne's room was. Though an outsider would read it as a nod to Lianne's status as Princess or as a snub to the warrior, Buri understood that it was Kalasin's recognition of her simple tastes. Buri did not scorn luxury. She had slept enough nights in fields and forests to appreciate beds, but she preferred the kind of practical luxuries that most nobles took for granted. She enjoyed wearing dry clothes that fit her well and eating warm or cool meals that she didn't catch, skin, and cook herself. Indoor privies and hot baths felt almost decadent in comparison to hand dug trenches and icy streams.
Buri had little use for art, but she enjoyed books (though not with the same fervor as a scholar). One book that Buri found in her room was a detailed and illustrated retelling of K'miri legends, with special emphasis on the horse lords. An appendix, written in a precise hand hypothesized on connections between the four Horse Lords and the Carthaki wind deities. Attention had been called to the fact after Emperor Kaddar's stallion, Westwind, bred with Empress Kalasin's mare, Chavi, to produce the foal Bian. Buri found herself impressed by the filly's bloodline, and made a mental note to speak to the horse trainer in greater detail about the filly's future.
Buri was surprised to see that the author of the appendix was Kaddar's sister, Countess Nadereh of Vasha and Iliniat. Kalasin had mentioned the woman sadly, as though she regretted what had passed between them. At the time of Buri and Lia's arrival in Carthak, Nadereh had been participating in a summer research project far to the South with her children. The countess and her daughter and younger son had returned for Fazia's annual University banquet, some days before.
Buri and Lianne were hosting a sewing party, a fact that Buri felt sure would cause laughter at home. Buri knew how to sew and mend, but her fingers were accustomed to twisting lengths of leather together and rough patching or mending required on the road, not to the fancywork of embroidery and tapestry making.
Little Alina, Nadereh's daughter and Kalasin's niece, was sitting on a stool beside a setee, carefully practicing her needlework. The girl had more patience for working with the thread than Buri expected, but the girl was still a child, and (in Buri's opinion) spending a day indoors with a pregnant aunt, a quiet mother, a critical grandmother, two strangers and a housekeeping mage couldn't be very interesting. Right now, the girl was playing with one of her long braids and waiting to try some of the sweet pink tea.
Buri had received the impression that Kalasin had been surprised by the cool reception from Kaddar's family and Court. Buri felt a twinge of guilt. Whose fault was that?Her conscience gnawed, as she sliced bread for toasting, ignoring Varice and Fazia's mild disapproval—Fazia for the work, Varice for the relatively rough style in which it was done. You only promised her a thousand times that they would love her as much as you and Thayet and Cythera. You only told her not to worry, that rumors lied about Carthaki superficiality. You only convinced her that there would be intelligent compassionate women anywhere she went, that she could find and befriend them.
Nadereh of Vasha and Iliniat was undoubtedly intelligent. She had scrabbled up through Carthaki and academic elitism to earn a place as a scholar. She had married a professor, her primary advisor, and had become his partner in every area of life. She had borne three children before a fever widowed her, and now she continued her husband's work. But while ideal scholars shared knowledge and built off one another's ideas and experimented to create new theories, Nadereh had worked alone since her husband's death. She jealously guarded her reputation as the premier scholar in her corner of the field of bardic arts. She expended enormous effort to keep her work and processes a secret. She left little time for friendships, or even her children.
Buri understood that the Carthaki countess had retreated into her work after her husband and oldest son were taken to the Black God by the same fever one year before. That she took the time to notice her brother and sister-in-law's horses and their names and a connection between their disparate heritages struck Buri as a peculiar softness, though the use of the knowledge to produce a remote piece of writing was perfectly in character for the academic who isolated herself from companionship by choice.
Nadereh's two remaining children spent their days in the capital with a nanny and tutors, while they spent the long days of the expedition whining about the heat. Though Buri didn't know it, the girl, Alina, had vowed to be a priestess for the Great Mother and then a noble wife, never an academic. She spent many days with her grandmother, learning the management of great households. Whenever permitted, she tagged along on Varice's heels, adopting certain mannerisms and absorbing ideas constantly. Alina showed some talent with thread and kitchen magics, which pleased her grandmother. If Nadereh felt disappointment with her daughter's inclinations, she didn't show it. She reacted very little to her daughter, which was why Alina preferred the company of Varice and Na-Na, who both fussed over her fine looks and pretty manners and clothes and interest in women's work.
The younger son, Farouk, claimed that he wanted to earn a position as a knight, but the boy really needed to escape his mother and his brother's memory, which dogged him as a ghost. Gazanoi had planned to follow his parents to the university, so Farouk would go to the palace for the opposite path. Though Fazia reprimanded her daughter for it, every scolding Nadereh uttered included the phrase "Gazanoi would never have ," with the blank filled by whatever infraction the boy had committed (playing ball in the house, leaving his shoes in front of the door, speaking disrespectfully to a tutor, etc.)
Buri was troubled by the puzzle of Nadereh. Surely she was lonely sometimes? The K'mir understood that grief could consume one's attention, but even before the loss of husband and son, Nadereh had kept women who would befriend her at a distance. Buri wondered if Kaddar's sister assumed that all Court ladies were superficial and unworthy of conversation, or if she feared manipulation, or if she simply preferred men's company? Buri herself had little use for the type of female who believed herself useless or incomplete without a man, but she understood that women who chose life at Court did not lose their individuality or their talent for outside pursuits.
Varice Kingsford was a prime example. The pretty blond had received any number of marriage proposals, but she had elected to serve as hostess and housekeeper for the Emperor Mage and then for Kaddar and Kalasin. Though Kalasin now performed the duties of a hostess, she relied on Varice for day-to-day management and party planning and advice. Against the odds, the pretty mage with a penchant for pink, who had so thoroughly irritated Daine, had befriended the Empress.
Though in the beginning Varice was in her thirties and Kalasin was only eighteen, the women had discovered a common interest in certain types of sewing. They had begun meeting once a week to discuss household business, and would bring work with them to keep their hands busy as they spoke. Eventually, the tradition evolved to a regular weekly sewing party. Sometimes, noble women were invited to attend, sometimes healers or priestesses, but Kalasin and Varice agreed it was a positive step towards a women's culture in Carthak.
While she had daydreamed over the puzzle of Kalasin's sister-in-law and housekeeper, the water had boiled. Though technically it was Kalasin's home, since Buri and Lianne were hosting the sewing party, they prepared and served the tea.
"That's a lovely piece you're working on." Lianne commented to Varice. The women had removed their veils, since no men were present. It was a symbol of the women's culture and of being among friends to allow others to see the face. It was also a bow to practicality—it was hot and the veils made it hard to see well to do fine embroidery.
"Thank you." Varice said, holding up the baby outfit for all to see. "I thought the prince or princess might wear it on his or her Naming Day." She said, almost shyly.
Fazia emitted a scandalized sound. "That will not be necessary; I will provide something appropriate."
Buri and Lianne looked to Kalasin. The Empress's face tightened. "The gown Varice has made is lovely." Kalasin touched a finger to the fine fabric. "Perhaps he can wear this to the Naming Day, if you will provide something for the ceremony in which we announce that he is our heir?"
They turned to Fazia, as if watching a tennis match. Kalasin had done an admirable job of returning that volley. The Emperor's mother inclined her head.
Varice smiled. "So, Lady Lina, what are you working on this morning?"
The small girl eagerly showed a handkerchief that she had hemmed and embroidered. "It's for Farouk." She explained. "For when he starts being a page. In case he sweats, and needs to get it out of his eyes."
"How thoughtful." Kalasin praised. "And you've put on his initials. What a good idea."
Nadereh said nothing, but Fazia smiled at her granddaughter. "Your brother will be very pleased to have something made by his sister."
Buri puttered around the room, as though looking for something.
"Did you misplace this?" Lianne asked wickedly, holding up a workbasket.
Buri managed not to groan. She was in no mood to waste her own time with fussy work, so she selected some yarn and began to work it into a blanket. Quiet conversation flowed, but overall the mood was slightly awkward.
Fazia was still horrified over Lianne's stunt on horseback and disturbed that Buri had sliced the bread herself. Alina was profoundly impressed. Lianne had ridden bareback, K'miri style, carrying a crossbow. The horse had galloped at breakneck speed, while Lianne shot at targets. She hit every one, without losing her seat or her breath.
Nadereh had simply nodded, as though such events were not particularly uncommon or worthy of note. Buri and Kalasin had been enthusiastic supporters, while Varice had kept a hand over her heart, worrying.
Buri and Lianne were having trouble finding good words for one another, after their heated talk that morning.
"It's true, I'm not soft. But I'm glad you had so many strong women to see as you grew—you got to see that there are many ways to be strong, almost all equally valid." Buri responded to Lianne.
"But not all equally effective." The princess picked up a skein of yarn and began to work at winding it more tightly.
Buri looked at the girl in front of her, sorting out the bad mood and the fifteen-year-old need to assert independence and personhood from the truth. "Your mother and Alanna convinced themselves that they could do and have it all—work, men and children. They believed they could be the best in every area, and I honestly believe they did the best anyone could. Their methods may be unconventional, but you all turned into strong, independent, good young men and women. And even if some of you have no earthly idea about what you're going to do with the rest of your lives, that's okay. I didn't know ten years ago where I would be today."
Lianne grinned. "We kind of thought you were single for life, and look at you now. You surrendered the Riders to Evin Larse and you married the commander of the King's Own. Tell me, are you going to ride with them carrying a baby in your arms?"
"In a sling on my back." Buri deadpanned. "Yes, I "retired." But I'm K'miri, and we fight until we die." She evaluated Lianne's dark hair and hazel eyes. "I don't know if your mother and I did much to help you appreciate that part of your heritage."
Lia sighed. "I get it, I get it. Women can be soft and strong. We can choose, we can have love and duty united. I've heard the stories all my life." In a petulant gesture, she shut the lid of her sewing box and set it aside. She pulled her knees to her chest and bowed her head.
"You don't believe them." Buri observed, with raised eyebrow. She wasn't much for drama or hysterics—if Lianne were looking for an audience, Buri was not about to oblige.
"Kally didn't get to choose love before she chose duty." Lianne finally answered.
"She didn't. But she found love and she's making a life here."
"What kind of life?" Lianne demanded angrily. "She's pregnant but she works like a horse and gets no credit. She doesn't have any real women friends—only servants who are awed and nobles who are jealous. Varice comes closest, but she can't converse on equal footing about much more than cooking and making things pretty. And yeah, Kally is surrounded by fabulous wealth, but do you see her enjoying any of it? I'll give you that she loves Kaddar. She even likes him, most of the time anyway. But she's not comfortable with him. They're strangers even though they're lovers. Is that the wonderful thing she learned from you and Mother and Cythera and Alanna and Daine and Eleni and all the others?" Lianne demanded. "It's just not right. Kally wanted to be a knight, Papa should have let her."
"Did she really want it?" Buri popped the growing balloon of Lianne's anger with a soft, even question.
"Of course." Lianne said. It was one of the truths of her life: Kally sacrificed her personal dreams to Tortall and peace.
"Really?" Buri pressed. "If she had truly set her heart, do you think one long conversation with your father would have dissuaded her?"
Lianne frowned. "You mean to say she didn't really want it and Papa gave her a way out?"
"I mean to say that Kally was enormously eager to please, and she saw that it delighted her mother and Alanna and even me when she said she wanted to be the next Lady Knight. For a while, she probably believed that she wanted to do it. But she didn't have that fierce, obsessive, single-minded determination. If she had had it, Jonathan never could have dissuaded her. I believe your father merely laid his cards on the table about his goals and hopes for her, and then he asked her to examine her true life's ambitions without her mother and I clamoring that he was distracting her from what she really wanted." Buri shrugged. "Of course, it's also possible that he frightened her out of trying it by telling war stories. But does that sound like your father to you?"
Lianne pouted, but conceded. "Not really."
"Tell the truth, did he ever stop your trick riding?"
"No, but he flinches every time he sees me mount up."
"And he doesn't flinch when he sees Roald in armor, or Liam with sword in hand?" Buri stood. "You don't have to agree with me today. Just think about whether you're angry on Kalasin's behalf or your own."
Buri sat again, and poured out another measure of tea. She waited.
"I don't mean to be unfair," Lia confessed. "It's just," She tried to articulate her problem, then burst out with "I hated the prince in Maren. He was stupid and he isn't fit to guide a country and I don't ever want to marry him or let him touch me. He stinks, always, of drink and cologne to cover it."
Buri nodded, not sympathetically, but in understanding.
Lianne grimaced. "How was Kally so calm? I panic at the thought of spending the rest of my life in that country, with him. I was so grateful when Mama agreed to let me come with you here, just because it's at least six months that the marriage has to be delayed. But now that I've seen Kalasin's life here, I'm even more frightened. I only want a comfortable life: good friends, food, horses, and such. What if I don't make any friends there? Liam and Alan can't visit me every summer. Kally went four years without us. But look at these rooms—she had to think about us a lot. She didn't even know exactly who was coming, but these rooms are custom made for us."
Buri did look around the rooms and considered their suite. The books and paintings and tea spoke volumes about Kalasin's loneliness and thoughtfulness.
Buri sat next to Lianne on the sofa. "It's all right to be afraid. But your situation is very different than Kalasin's. Your sister was calm because she was well prepared. From the time she was ten or eleven, Carthak was negotiating for her hand in marriage. She studied to become Empress for the same amount of time many study to become knights. And then on another note, she didn't fall in love with anyone in Tortall." Buri began to get closer to what she really wanted to discuss with Lianne.
The princess shied away. "She was in love with Tortall itself." Lianne said. "The trees and the earth at home, the sea in the east, the desert in the South and the snow in the North. There wasn't one man, there was the entire country."
Buri replied, "Trust your parents to see the Maren prince for what he is and trust them to trust Liam and Alan and Lord Martin."
"What if they can't convince them that Maren is not my place?" Lianne asked. "Most of us go all our lives without speaking to the gods, but I know that a lifetime in the breadbasket of the Eastern Lands is not my fate. I'll die first."
Buri rolled her eyes at the fifteen-year-old's drama. "So what passed in Maren between you and Squire Alan?" Buri asked, curious despite herself.
Lianne groaned. "Nothing!" She insisted. "Why would you ask?"
"Well, since you found out that he and Raoul are traveling here, your moods have been…" Buri searched for a polite word, "unpredictable," She found. "Is it because he reminds you of Maren?"
"No! Alan and Liam were the best parts of my time there. Some of my favorite memories are of walking with him-them- along the wheat fields and talking about everything and nothing."
"You don't want to talk to me about how you feel about Alan, do you?" Buri's teeth glinted in a quick smile.
Lianne blushed. "You're right, we really shouldn't be late."
"I rather thought that you were interested in Thom, since you flew off the handle whenever Nora flirted with him."
"I did not fly off the handle." Lianne looked stung.
Buri gave her a long, measuring glance. Lianne felt as she has when she was eight years old and had been caught helping Liam smuggle the puppy Bean into the royal nursery.
"Well, maybe a little tiny bit. But it wasn't because it was Thom. He's not interested in marrying a royal girl—not interested in marrying anybody for a good number of years. Since Alan earned some more freedom and privileges, he has accompanied Thom and Thom's University buddies to the City. Apparently, the University lads have just discovered wine, women and song."
Buri smiled a little. "Thom's mother will be delighted, I'm sure."
"Baron George has been trying to convince her that he's well brought up." Lia smiled.
"You're not answering me." Buri teased.
"I didn't get angry because Nora flirted with Thom. I got angry because she could flirt and I can't. I can't do it without meaning something a little more serious, and I don't want to flirt with anyone but Alan." Lianne stood up suddenly. "We're late. And Kally wants you to reason with the horse trainer and she's going to let me do some trick riding to show her niece that learning how to be physically active is not unladylike."
Lianne certainly had shown Alina a thing or two on horseback, Buri reflected, though the conservatives would probably be moralizing the tale for the next three generations.
Suddenly, Kalasin gasped and doubled forward in her chair. Her cup of tea fell and smashed. Tea splashed on the carpet. Buri tossed aside her work to kneel next to the Empress. "What is it?"
Varice came to attention, setting her china cup down more decorously. "Have your pains begun?"
"It's too soon." Kalasin's blue eyes locked onto Buri's. "It's too soon." She insisted, panic entering her voice.
"How long?" Nadereh grabbed her sister-in-law's arm with a grip like a vice.
"Breathe." Buri coached, trying to suggest the Nadereh loosen her grip.
"Part of last night and most of the morning. The pains have been coming closer together and stronger, but it can't be time yet." Kalasin insisted. "There's at least a month left. I'm not ready."
"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Fazia demanded, the saucer and cup clicking together.
"I didn't want to raise a false alarm." Kalasin said. "The hospital dedication is an important ceremony, and the due date is far away. Why would I send for Kaddar at such a great distance before I was sure?" She winced.
"Are you sure now?" Lianne asked, in awe.
"Yes. The water broke." Kalasin tried to sit upright.
Fazia fluttered and Alina jumped up in great excitement. "Is it time for my cousin to come?" She hopped up and down.
Lianne grabbed the door handle. "I'm going for a healer." She announced.
"A healer is not the custom." Fazia corrected the Northerner, not mentioning that there were no healers in the palace that day. "Midwives attend births."
Nadereh laid a hand on Kalasin's belly, felt the muscles under the skin bunch. "Send for a priestess of the goddess, and bring a healer." She said gravely.
Fazia flinched and Varice withheld a gasp. In Carthak, healers generally tended to men and midwives tended to women. The Tortallans noticed nothing unusual, because no such separations existed in their minds. Duke Baird cared for female patients, and Alanna cured men as often as the other way around. But in Carthak, sending for a healer during a birth indicated an extremely difficult time.
Varice threw a veil to Lianne, while covering her own hair. "You don't know the way. I will go for the priestess and healer. Take Alina and find a manservant to send for the Emperor." She ordered. "He will know to send for a priest of Mithros to begin those rights."
Kalasin tried to breathe, but another pain hit her. "The baby can't—,"
"Hush." Fazia said. "It's not too soon."
"Now you need to stand up." Nadereh coaxed.
"Ring for a servant and a tub of cool water. Quickly." Fazia ordered crisply. Lianne, Alina and Varice fled. "We'll go back to your rooms, quickly now."
Nadereh supported Kalasin on one side and Buri held the other arm. Nadereh explained. "You have to cleanse yourself, especially if the water broke. Then you can put on a fresh nightgown-- light and cool. Won't that feel better?" She asked her sister-in-law, who looked terrified and confused.
"And we'll get you some nice cold water to drink." Fazia promised. "You'll be fine, little daughter."
Kalasin's knees buckled, and Buri and Nadereh barely caught her. They walked her through the corridors to her own suite, where maids waited with a full tub. Somehow, Buri and Nadereh wrestled Kalasin out of the restrictive clothing and into the bath. Despite the heat, she was shivering. With her skin exposed, the women could see the muscles moving in constant contractions. Kalasin moaned in pain. Buri, Fazia, Nadereh and the maids shivered and made the sign against evil.
In later years, no one remembered how they finished the bath or dressed Kalasin in a night gown and settled her in bed. A parade of maids traipsed through, bringing drinking water, washing water, ice, herbs, ointments, cloths and bowls. Each tried to make herself invisible. Old habits ran deep, and at a time as charged as this, no one wanted to set off Fazia. No one remembered how long it took to realize that the priestess and the healer would not arrive in time, but everyone remembered the moment that the Empress turned to stare at a dark empty corner of the room. "The Black God's in the corner." She whispered.
Buri shivered at Kalasin's certainty, but all she could do was hold Kally's hand. She'd never seen a labor come on so hard and so fast with so few pauses. And she had never seen the hollow dread in Kalasin's face on the face of an expectant mother. She was accustomed to anger, fear, even drugged confusion, but not hollowness.
Nadereh took it upon herself to argue. "And the Goddess is in the other corner. During every birth life must fight death." She adjusted a pillow behind Kalasin's back. "When my time came, every time, with Gazanoi and Alina and Farouk, I was certain I was going to die. But I didn't." Her eyes clouded slightly, perhaps remembering that one of her sisters had died in childbirth.
Kalasin shook her head. "I don't see the Goddess." Her face went white and she squeezed Buri's hand as though life itself depended on it.
A frightened maid tried to back out of the room. Fazia held her there by the shoulders. "Find that priestess, girl, or I will make sure your life isn't worth living."
The maid dropped the basket of towels and fled. "Kally, you're a healer. How do we slow this? Your body is working too hard too early—you'll be exhausted before it's time." Buri said.
"Draw the curtains." Fazia said. "We need to create a soothing, sleepy environment. Then the hyper-labor will end." The women did so, as Kalasin breathed.
Nadereh looked at her mother and shook her head. Things didn't look good. They left the bedchamber to speak in the sitting room.
When the pain released its grip on Kalasin, she released Buri's hand. Buri found a bowl and some cold water. She sprinkled in lavender, for its pleasant smell and soothing properties. She bathed Kalasin's sweaty face with cool water, and wished she weren't so utterly out of her element.
"I'm not ready for this." Kalasin rasped.
"What are you talking about?" Buri smoothed the black bangs to the side.
"All of it." Buri held a glass of cold water to Kalasin's lips, steadying the young woman's trembling hands as she soothed her parched throat.
"There's no way to prepare for the pain." Buri said frankly. "Your mother got angry when she had Roald. She felt like she'd been lied to, that no one had told her the truth."
Kalasin panted a little. "She told me. The midwives told me. My mother-in-law told me. Everyone did. I just couldn't believe them."
Buri nodded, wishing for words.
"I'm scared." Kalasin whispered. "Not just of the pain—lots of women do that. And the healer will bring herbs to ease it." Buri laughed a little, patted more cool water on Kalasin's face, and dried the skin. "But what happens after?" She grimaced. "I'll be a mother. I'm not ready."
Buri laughed. "No one's ever ready, and if you think you are, you get a nasty surprise. You just have to muddle along as best you can."
Kalasin did not speak again for a long time, as another contraction threatened to rip her body apart. "Where's Kaddar?" She asked.
"He's praying, according to the custom of these people." Buri lied. In actuality, he was still at the hospital dedication, utterly unaware of the proceedings. "Praying for a healthy baby."
"A healthy heir you mean." Kalasin gritted her teeth, closed her eyes and endured.
"That may be in the thoughts of the courtiers, but all your husband wants is you, safe and sound." Buri said, as Nadereh and Fazia reentered the room.
Nadereh came up to the bed. "Take a break." She counseled Buri. "Drink some tea. Talk to my mother. I'll stay with the Empress."
Kalasin clung to Buri's hand. Tears were gathering at the lashes of her tightly closed eyes. "I'll stay a little bit." Buri said, humming Kalasin's favorite lullaby from those long ago days of cradlesongs and nurseries. Kalasin's body relaxed a bit, but after a few minutes, she began wiggling, trying to get comfortable. The unceasing contractions began to separate into more reasonable intervals.
Nadereh's eyes drilled into Buri's, and the warrior frowned in deliberation. So there was something Nadereh and Fazia knew that Kally shouldn't know. And they wanted to tell Buri. "Actually, I do need to visit the privy." She untangled her fingers from Kally's. "I'll be back soon. Until then, your sister is here to take care of you." She reassured her friend's daughter.
Nadereh looked slightly pleased at the term "sister." "Birth makes us all sisters." She lectured. "I didn't believe it, until it happened. But then, it was hard to believe that I was any better than the maids who bathed my face. Those ladies seemed like angels of mercy, you know? Even so, I wanted my family."
Buri slipped out of the room. Fazia was sitting on a sofa, holding what amounted to a counsel of war with maids, Lianne and Alina. Buri sat. "The healer and the priestess haven't arrived yet?"
"Nor the priestess of the Goddess, ma'am." A maid wrung her hands.
Alina looked disturbed. "That's wrong. They always welcome an heir."
"Darling, go into the hall and see if she got lost." Fazia "suggested."
Alina protested, but she left. Lianne's hands twisted a handkerchief in her lap. "They're not coming, are they?"
"It always seems that way." Fazia didn't answer the question. "The babe has not had time to turn in the womb yet." She said flatly.
"Then he'll either have to come feet first or by the knife." Buri realized aloud.
Maids exchanged titillated glances. Fazia's face was horrified.
Buri forged ahead. "The knife is quicker, but there's danger with it."
Fazia explained. "No one but a trained healer may wield a knife against a member of the Imperial house without paying for it with his life. And as you can see, there are no healers here."
"In this entire palace, there's not one healer?" Lianne felt close to exploding.
"They've gone with my son and Zaimid to dedicate the new children's hospital."
"All of them?" Lianne demanded.
The maids and Fazia nodded.
"What about in the city?" Buri tried.
A maid shook her head, and Fazia explained. "They'd forfeit their lives by touching a noble woman with a knife. But Lady Varice is undoubtedly there looking now."
With difficulty, Buri held her tongue. "You're a member of the Imperial house." The K'mir said. "Would you be executed?"
"No, but I have no skill with the knife. If I tried to bring the baby that way I'd probably cut too deep and hurt it, or permanently destroy the womb. It's not a risk I'll take."
"If someone doesn't take a risk soon, we will lose them both." Buri said. "Is that what you want?"
"You nursed her. She is like your child." Fazia set aside delicacy. "Do you mean to tell me you want an unskilled butcher to take a knife, cut open her belly, pull out the baby and sew her back together?" Lianne gulped. "The chances for infection or bleeding are too great." Kalasin's mother-in-law insisted. "It's better to wait."
"Kalasin is like my child." Buri agreed. "And I don't want her harmed. But her pains are barely separated, her body is closed and the child has not moved at all. If labor continues, her heart will beat into a frenzy, or the blood will stop pumping. The time is near, whether we are ready or not."
Fazia swallowed. She was sweating, a thing Buri had never imagined she would see.
Lianne trembled. "I'm going in to see her." She stood, and left the tense sitting room. The bedchamber was dark, with the shades drawn, though sunlight edged in around the curtains. Nadereh sat on a stool beside the bed, arms locked with Kalasin as the Empress struggled through another pain.
Lianne stood helpless as her older sister sweated and grunted. The Tortallan-turned-Carthaki woman's eyes were closed, but tears were collecting on her cheeks. "I don't think the healer's going to get here in time." Lianne's voice sounded disconnected to her own ears.
Kally's eyes opened. She nodded once. Nadereh lifted her eyes to meet Lianne's. Kalasin's sister-in-law mouthed "Talk."
Lianne fished an ice chip out of a bowl and offered it to Kalasin. The Tortallan princess stood by the bed. "So this is my future?" She asked, to lighten the mood.
"Goddess I hope not." Nadereh said.
"Kaddar?" Speech was difficult for Kalasin, but she managed the one word.
"Not yet." Lianne said. She turned and fetched more water. "Drink." She ordered, sitting down on the bed, facing Kally. Her knees brushed Nadereh's as she ruthlessly poured water down Kalasin's throat.
Nadereh patted Kalasin's face with the lavender water. "You're being very brave, little sister." She crooned, pushing Kalasin's damp hair off of her face. "And soon you'll have a little baby, and you'll forget it all."
Kalasin convulsed as her legs cramped. Lianne rubbed at her sister's legs, overwhelmed by the feeling that this was not what she had envisioned from a visit to Carthak.
Nadereh began to sing a soothing Carthak song. The rhythm helped potential mothers to regulate their breathing. Fazia joined in the song as she and Buri entered the room, apparently having brokered some sort of a deal.
Nadereh ceded her stool to Buri. "Kally, your pains are close together."
"I noticed." Kalasin tried to say, but a contraction hit and she could not speak.
"We don't think that the priestess or the healer will arrive in time." Fazia said.
Kally gritted her teeth and nodded.
"It's necessary to do certain cleansing rites, before the birth of an heir." Fazia said.
"Alina wants to be a priestess someday." Nadereh said. "Why not bring her in and let her assist you?"
"She's too young to see this." Lianne protested. "I'm fifteen and I think this is horrible."
"We all think it's horrible, but Alina'll see worse." Nadereh guaranteed. "As a priestess, she'll see girls your age, who can't afford healers, laboring to bring another child into poverty and squalor." Nadereh continued relentlessly. "At least this child is welcome. His parents have the resources to provide for him. Whatever his mother suffers, there are people to care for both of them."
Kally made eye contact with Nadereh, then Buri, and finally Lianne. "Watch my son." She said with effort. "Swear it."
"You'll do that." Lianne's protest was cut in half by Fazia's glare.
"The mother of this child is dear as blood of mine. Her child is of my clan." Buri said, in ritual K'miri. "I pledge my service to him and his mother, for as long as it is required of me."
"I swear it." Nadereh agreed. "Now you swear to me that you will live. My brother will be a broken man if he loses you." And perhaps it was the ghost in her eyes, a residual memory of something the widow knew all too well, that convinced Kalasin.
"I swear." And Kalasin closed her eyes again. She sank into herself, but she was facing the corner she had identified earlier as the Black God's.
Kalasin felt as though she were falling through a well of shadows. Her father had described the place once, brokenly, when he was trying to tell her why he and Alanna were friends. She fell forever, but it was over in seconds. She felt as though she were floating, but she did not feel unsafe. And she recognized one of the shades. "Emry?" She asked in wonder, reaching out to touch him, and failing.
"Kally." The shade of the Queenscove knight changed from joy to concern. "It's too soon for you to be here."
"I fell, I think. Is that a baby?" Kalasin heard a faint crying. "It is—it's my baby, the one I lost—I have to find her." She began to run. In seconds, she was flying past thousands of shades. She was running the way she had when she was a child, before high heeled sandals and heavy robes, before her body became an ungainly stranger to her. But she could not move fast enough because the baby was still wailing.
Emry grabbed her. "Kalasin, your daughter is in good hands. But you have other children who need you now."
Her eyes locked with his, and he released his hold. "You touched me." She wondered. "I couldn't touch you."
"You've been here too long." He explained and warned, pleasure at seeing her mingling with fear for her safety.
"Not until I see my daughter!" She turned wildly. A woman appeared, cradling a little girl. Kalasin didn't know the woman, but she did recognize Kaddar's nose and her own ears on a pretty little girl. Kally reached out for the child, but Emry jumped between them.
"No!" He said. "No, the longer you're here the harder it is to go back." And you have to go back. He chokes on the words.
Kalasin reached around him, as the woman and baby drifted back. "Kalasin." He said. "Listen to me now. Your grandmothers are watching after her, I swear. But you have to go back to the mortal world NOW. You will get lost and trapped here if you don't."
Tears choked her. "But…"
"Lianne and Kalasin are very devoted. She wants for nothing. Go back." He took her hand and they began to run. But she wasn't flying like before, and it was hard to pick up her feet. Nevertheless, she fell up through the well of shadows. Emry blew kisses at her, ordering her to give them to his parents and siblings.
Fazia left and got Alina, who was carrying the staff of a priestess of the Goddess. The child looked vaguely excited and frightened. She repeated the ritual words her grandmother whispered to her, flinching at the smells and the groans. The ritual took only five minutes. Fazia hustled Alina out amid protests, and then returned. Buri had boiled and sanitized a knife, but suddenly she hesitated.
The fear in Lianne's eyes mirrored the anxiety in Buri's own heart. For all her brave words, she was not a healer. She could do field surgery, but that was nothing like the delicate arts that healers worked so hard to perfect. In the very center of Carthaki learning and education, why couldn't they find a healer?
Before making a cut, Buri conducted an examination of Kalasin's lower body, trying to determine the baby's position. Fazia ran manicured hands over the bared skin, in silent support. At least the abdomen remained firm. Fazia had never officially been a priestess, because of her brother's reign, but she had learned some healing from the women who dedicated their lives to serving the Great Goddess. "His head is here." She touched a spot. "It ought to be there." She indicated the other location.
Buri looked at her. "Are we agreed that no other choice exists?" She asked, the knife suddenly feeling too heavy to lift.
The door swung open, and Alina flew in. "Uncle Emperor is here, with the priests of Mithros and Cous- Lord Zaimid! But the priestesses say that no men should enter, and the Mithran priests say they should be on hand but the Goddess's priestesses won't let them since we did the purification already."
"Bring Zaimid in." Buri dropped the knife as if it were a hot coal, promising the Horse Lords good behavior for all of her days in recompense. "He's a talented healer."
"He's a man." Nadereh's eyes were slightly wide. "She has been sanctified. No man may touch her until the heir breathes."
Buri almost bit her own tongue in half. "Can he come in here and instruct me in what to do?" She choked.
Lianne gaped. Indomitable, fierce, peppery Buri was not going along with this madness, was she?
"The priestesses won't like it." A maid who had followed Alina whispered.
"Well I don't see a priestess here." Buri's tone could have stripped paint off of walls. "Get him quickly."
"Alina, come with me." Fazia took her granddaughter's hand. "We must go and pray with the Emperor."
"He's not allowed in here?" Lianne asked, as they left.
"How many times do we have to tell you? Men do not attend births in Carthak." Nadereh snapped. She swept back Kalasin's hair. "She'll need to drink gallons when she wakes. Tell Kaddar she wants an orange. Searching for a perfect one will keep him occupied."
"Not till she wakes up. She's my sister." Lianne warred against her awe and terror. "How can I help?"
"Get her to suck on an ice chip. And bathe her face." Buri said. "She's very hot, but she's not aware enough to drink. We'll probably need you to hold her leg too, soon."
Zaimid entered, robed in white. "It appears I have a patient I may not touch?" He asked.
"She's in bad shape. The pains aren't even separated by a minute, but the head is still there." Buri indicated the place. "But the feet aren't presenting."
Zaimid assimilated the information in a businesslike manner. "Is she conscious?"
"She lost it about ten minutes ago." Buri said briskly. "It was more merciful. I have a knife sanitized, but I'm no healer." Nadereh moved away, as Buri arranged blankets around Kalasin's unconscious bulk.
The emperor's cousin nodded. "Have you tried turning the child?"
Nadereh glared. "We're not fools. We couldn't."
"This stupid custom…" He grumbled.
Lianne turned to Nadereh. "I know you're a Carthaki, but I'm Tortallan and so is my sister." She said firmly. "As the princess of Tortall, a foreign dignitary, I am ordering this healer to cure my sister and deliver her child, using any effective or necessary practices."
"You don't understand! She hasn't touched a man since she conceived this child. That is the Carthaki way. To do so now defiles the labor." Nadereh tried not to notice that Kalasin's breathing had changed and that the color was draining out of her face.
"After that father plants the seed, nothing changes the child. Please, let him save her. No one but we three will ever know." Lianne begged. "Do you want to watch your brother lose his life's companion and his child?" She attacked.
Nadereh fell back.
"Do you want to lose another sister to this? When there's someone here to help?" Lianne badgered.
Nadereh bowed, and Lianne felt a brief stab of remorse.
Buri pointed out: "He'll be up to the arms in blood."
"I'll bathe with the babe." Zaimid said. "Each of you hold a leg. I need to examine her." He reached and performed an exam. "Goddess, there isn't room to fit half a noble in there. No wonder the labor hasn't progressed."
Kalasin moaned softly. Lianne gagged.
"If you can't do this, leave." Nadereh said fiercely.
"I will not leave my sister." Lianne said.
A tense, bloody quarter hour later, Nadereh was washing a squalling infant boy, while Zaimid worked on the mother. Buri was talking to Kalasin, trying to bring her to an alert state. Buri rubbed ice over the heated skin and prayed that it would end swiftly. Kalasin was sweating. He face and lips were white and her eyes were fluttering. "There's another baby." Lianne whispered. "That's why there was no room for this one to turn. It's why they came early."
"Is it alive?" Nadereh asked her cousin, as little Kirabo took a prepared bottle.
"It's head first at least." Zaimid responded tersely. "Won't know more until we actually have him."
"Or her." Lianne insisted.
"Are the smelling salts ready?" Buri asked Lianne, who proffered the vial.
"Should we wake her up?" Lianne indicated Kalasin. "Maybe she could help. Push or something."
"Not just yet. This one has a shoulder out in the world, might as well wait till Mama can hold it." Zaimid said. He left unsaid that he wasn't sure Kalasin would wake up. The baby finally exited the womb.
Lianne put the salts on the table. Nadereh handed the boy to her. Buri uncapped the wakeflower and wafted it under Kalasin's nose as Zaimid sliced the second baby's cord. Nadereh took the second slippery baby and washed her.
Zaimid helped Buri wake Kalasin, who was retching due to the wakeflower. They packed ice around her body—towels of it across her forehead and neck and stomach. Buri pedaled Kalasin's legs, keeping them elevated above her head. The Empress's blood pressure had dropped critically low. He faced was corpse pale. There was literally no color in her lips. Zaimid coaxed her to keep her eyes open and cough. Lianne reminded Buri that there was a flask of sweet fruit juice nearby. With the sugar, and the cold, Kalasin came back to herself at the same time the foul afterbirth spread across the sheets. She looked around, confused. "My baby."
Lianne grinned, rocking the little boy from side to side. At this point, no new smell could faze her. "See, all that work and you got two of them." She told her sister.
Nadereh brought the little girl forward. Kalasin reached out her arms toward her children. Lianne lowered Prince Kirabo to his mother's pillow. Kalasin began to cry in relief. "My baby." She repeated. "I saw her with Emry."
Buri's eyes teared. "Thank you Goddess." She whispered, then turned respectfully to bow to the Black God's corner. Everyone with a free hand made the sign against evil.
Nadereh placed Princess Gzifa between her mother and twin.
"Kaddar?" Kalasin asked, pleading with her eyes.
Zaimid had already thrown open the door. The Emperor ran into the premature dusk of his wife's bedchamber. He knelt beside her, barely noticing that Fazia and Alina and Varice had followed. His frightened eyes canvassed her sweaty, pale face and ice-packed body and shaky hands. His nose registered the lavender and the herbs and the afterbirth and the blood.
"Surprised?" Her blue eyes met his, trying to say 'it's okay.'
He put his hand on top of her soaked head. He rubbed her forehead with his thumb. "I love you." He told her, because it was the only thing that mattered.
She nodded once. Fazia gathered Kirabo in her arms and Nadereh took Gzifa again. "Everybody out. The Empress needs to wash and rest before there's a parade. You'll all get a chance to hold the babies." Buri managed to shoo out the crowd. Zaimid followed the babies to do a more thorough exam. As Kalasin was cleansed, Buri stripped the soiled linens off the bed. She whipped a fresh gown over Kalasin and worried at the pallor of her skin. "How do you feel?" She asked.
Kalasin's mind ran through genuine answers. Frightened. Hot. Light headed. Tired. Confused. Sore. Relieved. "Good." She answered.
Buri laughed. "You are your mother's." She kissed Kalasin's clean, wet hair. "And now, you are a mother."
"Can I see them?" Kalasin begged. Her head ached, her entire body was heavy and too hot, her hands were cold, but she had to see her babies. The miscarriage had felt eerily similar to this, but there had been no child to fill her arms and wash away the pain. The images of the shadowy place were fading, but not the urgency of her run and search.
After Kalasin was nestled in the bed, well propped by cushions, Buri summoned Kaddar and the fed, washed, diapered, wrapped babies. Fazia and Varice, both of whom were reluctant to surrender the children to Buri, had replaced Nadereh and Lianne. Relentlessly, the K'mir chased the well-wishers away. She settled Gzifa in her mother's arms and helped Kaddar support Kirabo's head. Then, with misty eyes, Buri left the family alone for a few precious minutes.
The entire room smelled of lavender. Forever after, the scent of lavender called this perfect moment, stolen out of time and place, to their minds. Kalasin was still shaking. She touched Kirabo's cheek, and let Gzifa curl perfectly shaped fingers around her own long index finger. "Is it real?"
"I think so." Kaddar kissed his daughter's temple, gazing in awe at their miracles. He kissed his wife over the heads of their children, and for one moment her knew that he had more than he had ever thought to ask for.
The next moment, Gzifa mewed and Kirabo followed her lead and Kalasin's head drooped in exhaustion and Kaddar found himself up to his ears in new situations. But they always had that single, perfect moment.
Responses to feedback:
Hanakazari: Thank you for your compliment on my characterization! It's one of the points I worry about most as a writer. I'm also glad you like Linn and the Players—I thought they deserved a mention. Thanks for your feedback.
Princess81: Thank you for your compliments. I'm blushing! Thank you for saying that you think it's good to write about some less developed characters—I'm glad we agree that there's a story in Kaddar and Kalasin. Thanks for your honesty about the last chapter. I was going to make a separate vignette about Thom, but then Alan and Roald wanted to have a say, so I gave it to them. Thanks also for saying you think I deserve reviews. I'd like to get a lot, but I think quality reviews that explain both what a reader likes and doesn't like are more valuable than a large quantity of "update now!" reviews. Thanks for your feedback, please keep reading.
Trickster666: Aw, I think that is the first time anyone has told me I update fast! :). Thanks for your feedback, it's much appreciated. I'm glad you liked looking at the world through Alan's eyes and I'm very flattered that you wouldn't call Linn a Mary Sue. Good luck with your own awesome fiction—I'll read and review whatever you post next. Thanks for reading.
Lady Silvamord: Thanks for your feedback! I've very sorry about the spoiler; I marked it here. I'm glad you enjoyed this chapter and that getting multiple points of view enriched the story for you. I'm flattered that you like my take on sibling interactions so much! We're going to be in Carthak for the rest of the story, so that should make you happy. And I've been seeing lots of Kaddar Kalasin ficlets cropping up—hopefully it's feeding your muse. I took your idea about oranges for this chapter too. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing, I really appreciate getting your feedback.
Razzberrycat: Thanks for your feedback! I'm glad you like Alan. It was hard to guess who Aly's twin might be, but I wound up really liking him. Thanks for reading.
Evilloveberry08: Wow. Thank you so much for your feedback. I'm honored that you think I'm weaving the details and the motivations together. I think in real life, people often act from deep, if hidden motives. "original and stunning story"—I think I'm stunned. Thanks for reading, please continue to do so.
Chips1314: Thanks for deciding to review! I'm really glad to hear that you're enjoying the story!