Consequence

Paragus found out very fast that a widower who suddenly acquires a newborn baby is going to be asked questions. He went straight to his sister-in-law's house as soon as he had left the Field of Ash and Bone, holding Brolli in his arms. The first thing she asked him, before she even said 'Hello,' was,

'Where did you get that baby?' Paragus couldn't tell her the truth, so he went for the lie that seemed simplest.

'I found him,' he said. 'By the side of the road. He must have been abandoned by his parents.'

The sister-in-law, who was called Kellery, leaned in and stared at the baby.

'What are you going to do with it?' she asked.

'I'm going to look after him,' he said without thinking. Then he paused. 'I'll ask around for his parents, of course. But if they abandoned him, they probably won't want anything to do with him. So I'll bring him up.'

'But Paragus,' Kellery said. 'Do you really think you'll be able to bring up this baby on your own?'

'I've got Mehetabel, haven't I?' he asked defensively. He hadn't thought that his right to bring up this child might be contested.

'Exactly,' she said. 'You've already got your hands full. Don't you think the child would be far better off in a family?'

'I- I found him,' Paragus said uncertainly.

Kellery shook her head. 'Its parents might still want it,'

'Him,' Paragus said quickly. 'His name's Brolli.' Kellery sighed.

'Paragus, I know you're going through a lot at the moment, but you can't just pick a baby up off the roadside and call it your own,' she said slightly patronisingly. 'You've become much too attached to this child. You've already given him a name. You probably won't be allowed to keep him.'

Paragus stepped back from her, holding Brolli protectively. 'But he's my son!' he protested. 'Look at him!'

'He does look a little like you,' Kellery said, squinting at him. 'Even a little like poor Cochise. But a child needs a mother.'

'You can't take this child away from me,' Paragus snapped, his desperation rising. 'Now where's Mehetabel? I'm going.' A small head appeared from behind Kellery's legs. A little girl with long, stringy hair looked up at him.

'Daddy,' she said. 'Why are you holding a baby?'

'This is your new baby brother, Brolli,' he said, looking down at her uncertainly. Mehetabel stared in shock.

'You didn't say I was going to have a brother!' she said, scandalised.

'Well- I didn't know.'

'Does he have a mother?'

'No, he doesn't,' Paragus said quickly, and then paused. 'Well- no, he doesn't. Not really.'

Mehetabel shrugged. She was only two and a half years old. 'How old is he?'

'About one day.'

'How do you know that, Paragus?' Kellery asked.

'He just looks very new,' Paragus said vaguely.

'He doesn't look very new to me,' Kellery said. 'He looks quite strong for such a little baby. Look, he's holding his head up all by himself. I'd say he's six months old at least.'

Paragus looked down at Brolli. He hadn't considered it before, but Mehetabel hadn't been able to lift her head up until she was two months old, but Brolli seemed to be having no problems with it. Yet Paragus had seen him being born- well, sort of- that very morning.

'Can I hold him?' Kellery asked. Paragus stopped, looked down at the child, looked over at her and shrugged.

'I suppose so,' he said reluctantly. 'Be careful with him.' He passed the baby over to her. She picked him up and held him close to her shoulder, his little hand grasping the fabric of her shirt.

'See?' she said. 'He can support himself very well. And he's very heavy as well. He's definitely not a newborn. He must be at least- hey! Stop that!' Brolli had tried to suckle from her. She pulled him back, looking mortified.

'He must be very hungry,' she said, struggling to sound casual. 'I'll try and find some milk.'

Paragus watched, his face reddening. Somehow he had forgotten that babies must be fed. How long would it have been before he had remembered to feed little Brolli? Feeling awkward, he followed Kellery into the kitchen, Mehetabel trailing in their wake. Perhaps he really couldn't bring the child up on his own. Men couldn't breast-feed, after all.

However, Paragus could barely contemplate the idea of leaving Brolli with someone else. The boy was his son, not an abandoned baby he had found by the roadside. He sat on a wooden chair in the kitchen and watched Kellery boil some goat's milk. He could do that. He could change the baby's clothes. He could even change its nappies, hellish a task as that was. How hard could raising this child be?

Kellery showed Paragus how to feed the baby without choking it, and it turned out Brolli was skilled in the art of projectile vomiting. She even found some baby clothes left over from the childhood of her own son, now fifteen and living in a boarding school. Brolli ended up wearing a little suit that had once been black but was now a very dark grey. Paragus thanked his sister-in-law profusely and headed home, feeling distinctly worried about the next few weeks.

His fears turned out to have been justified. The next few days were a nightmare. It wasn't, however, as bad as it could have been. Brolli was a rather well behaved child, hardly ever crying an only occasionally retching all over Paragus' clothes, but Paragus had forgotten how physically exhausting raising a very small child could be- waking up at all hours of the night, changing nappies, warming goat's milk. It was time consuming and physically demanding. The introduction of solid foods into Brolli's diet only made things worse. With constantly explaining where the child had come from, looking after Mehetabel and the upkeep of the inn to worry about as well, Paragus was greatly preoccupied for most of the day and night. It was amazing he got any rest at all.

But while Paragus was up to his ears in baby vomit, other problems were brewing. He had been careless on the morning he had found the tree. He had wandered onto the Field of Ash and Bone without even looking around to see if he was being watched. And unfortunately, someone had been glancing at the conifers at that moment he had emerged.

The Field of Ash and Bones was watched by a Starservant, a lonely woman named Auba who lived in a tower on the Tersee moor. Her duties was to prevent anyone from crossing the Field of Ash and Bone, but most importantly just to watch the field, to monitor it for any kind of change. It was a sacred site and required a guardian and scribe. The job, unfortunately, was excruciatingly boring, but Auba liked being out on the lonely moor, free to think and to watch the animals and plants.

Preoccupied with the rites of Burning Night, Auba had managed to entirely miss Paragus' shocking act of desecration. On the morning afterwards, she had, however, looked out of the tower window and caught a glimpse of a dark figure walking across the sand of the field, cutting through the conifers and disappearing over a hill.

Auba's first reaction had been shock. Not only had she never seen anyone break the taboo and cross the field, but she had never even heard of anyone doing so before. There was not a single historical record of something like this happening. It was the most outrageous thing she had ever witnessed. She stood by the window, reeling with a horror that slowly changed to fury. Who was this stranger? How dare they do this, an act of desecration such as had never been committed before? She pulled on her shoes and ran out of the tower.

Unfortunately, by the time Auba reached the hilltop the stranger was nowhere in sight. She scanned the moor all around her but whoever had crossed the Field of Ash and Bones seemed to have left the area fairly fast. Angrily, Auba brought down her right foot. Perhaps they had disappeared, she told herself, evaporated as a punishment for the terrible thing they had done.