Disclaimer: I'm only playing in Pat's beautiful playground.
A/N: This chapter may be particularly triggering to some. All warnings listed on chapter 1.
Chapter 4: Malignancy
.
In those next few span, Denna put on the bravest face I had ever known and faced each day with a smile, and it didn't matter very much that the smile was often fake, and that it had often cracked by midmorning. She put it on at first light just the same, and we followed her lead best we could. She worked in the apothecary with Father in the mornings, then returned home to assist me in chores. In her free time, she dug through Mother's old things, pulling out clouts, tunics, and small blankets, and washing them all painstakingly until they smelled of fresh lavender. Lannis faded slowly to Reaping, and all the while she didn't speak of Trent, and we too refrained from mentioning him.
The pain of it all was well evident, though. It was hard for Denna. I reckon it was bearable… but only just. For one, I knew her heart was broken, and though her free moments to dwell on it were few, I still found her in tears more often than I want to recall. For another, the sickness that came with bearing children hit her hard. Denna was ill most every day. She walked around in a progressive state of paleness, often dashing off when a wave of sickness took her, and none of the medicines or herbs in Father's apothecary seemed to help at all. Neither did any of the other remedies that Mother sought out for her. For another, she bled often. So much so, that Mother feared she would lose the child, and ordered her to remain home and rest after two span had passed.
The fear was exacerbated by the local doctor, Tim, who held a rounded tube to her slightly swollen belly for a long silent moment, before confessing that he couldn't hear anything beating inside, and that the child was likely no more.
"It will be expelled soon," he told Denna, before leaving her to cry in the ensuing silence, for the baby had shown her the true face of love despite existing only inside her. And she cried for days as the intermittent bleeding continued, staining all the sheets we owned and the mattress beneath. But nothing in the shape of a baby ever made an appearance, and for all that, Denna's belly grew. It was noticeable after three span, and significantly bigger after another two had passed, putting her fears of losing the child to rest.
"It is growing," she told us over and over, smiling weakly as she pushed through the ever-lingering sickness. "It is strong."
"Perhaps you are having twins," Mother told her, looking her over in contemplation. "Your belly is growing too fast."
Denna smiled at that, her pale face lighting up. "Or perhaps I'm carrying something more than simply a child.."
"What do you mean?" Mother said, frowning.
I, however, was quicker to catch on.
"Tehlu anyway!" I cried, using my favorite phase. "Denna's going to give birth to Menda!"
Mother looked between us, wary. "Come, girls, you are too old for faerie tales."
"But, Mother," I said, with all the appropriate levels of excitement, "Perial gave birth to Menda after just three months! She was innocent and pure and perfect, just like Denna! Denna's alone, just like Perial. And her baby is growing bigger and faster than anything! Even after the doctor couldn't find his heart. Can't you see? Denna will—"
"That is just a story," Mother admonished me, and I fell into a sullen silence. "And even so, Menda has served his purpose and returned to Tehlu and the earth. Tehlu appears to us when he is needed, and the need that calls him is bigger than Denna and some fool of a noble, or you and I.
"And do not curse, child. It's unbecoming for a lady."
I scowled, appropriately shamed, but after Mother left, Denna and I exchanged brilliant smiles. Hers was a little strained against her pale face, but there just the same. From that moment on, we decided the child would be a boy, and called him Menda. Though not in front of Mother.
In another span and a half, Denna could barely leave her bed. She stumbled dizzily upon standing, and complained of a sharp pain blazing all across her belly. After finding her unconscious towards the end of Fallow, Mother and Father called another doctor in a state of near panic.
The new doctor was unlike the old one. Rather than old Tim, who treated all manner of ailments for the commoners, Eamon treated the nobles. He was well practiced, with a fine education from Renere's School of Medicine, its teachings second only to The University in the Commonwealth. And anyway, practitioners from The University were not to be trusted, for it was well known that in the west they consorted with dark forces better left alone.
Eamon was tall, well-groomed, and narrow-faced. His hair was darker than mine, nearly black as coal, and he cut a rather striking figure with his black robes swirling dramatically upon entry. Mother and Father had paid him a whole noble to secure his services; more than we could comfortably afford.
He appraised Denna in silence for such a long time that I nearly burst out screaming at him to fix her — to fix her now! Please… — but Mother placed her hand on my shoulder and I kept my tongue. He examined her, pulling out several metallic and glass tools that carried various degrees of severity, before banishing us from the room. Father took my hand, pulling me out. Immovable, Mother remained.
When we were allowed to return, the mood in the room was somber. Denna sat leaning against the back of the bed, tears streaming silently down her cheeks. Mother's face was pale and drawn where she stood, and Father let go of my hand to stand beside her. I slipped around them, approaching Denna.
"It is not a child," Eamon said calmly, his voice slightly accented with a foreign lilt I couldn't place. "Certainly it grows, but that is exactly the problem. This growth is malignant. Do you understand? It must be removed at once."
"No!" Denna gasped, from where she sat huddled upon the bed. "I won't kill my child. I won't! You're wrong!" She started crying in earnest then, harsh sobs wracking her whole frame.
"There is no child," Eamon repeated. His tone was still calm, even detached, but he turned to face Denna, his dark eyes looking into her tear-stained blue ones. "I am sorry to say, but if there was ever a child at all, it is long gone. There is no heartbeat. No shape of a human. I have seen this before. There is something insidious growing inside you. A tumor. And it will kill you if left alone. Young lady… Denna. You must stop this foolishness. If you want to live, I must cut it out immediately. It has had a long time to root, but I do believe I can still save you."
"Cut it out?" she gasped, paling. "You want to cut out my child?"
"Denna," Mother said, stepping forward. "Denna, please. Listen to the doctor."
"No," Denna cried, shaking her head harshly. "No, no, no…" She trailed off weakly, the words fading to sobs. "No, I won't. I won't kill him."
Eamon sighed, turning to my parents. "She will not listen to reason. If you value her life, you will agree. It can be done today. I have ample anesthetics that will sedate her for the duration."
"You mean, force her?" Mother said sharply. "We can't just—"
"Denna, you must do this," Father said, cutting across Mother. His tone was harsh. Urgent. "This child is not worth your life."
"There is no child," Eamon repeated, an edge of exasperation creeping into his voice. "It will not be—"
"Yes, there is!" Denna burst out. "Can't you see it growing? He's right there. Right there!"
"Denna," Father tried again, "you must calm down."
"Ask Trent then!" she cried, her voice breaking. "Ask him what he would do. Ask him to send a real doctor from the court. You'll see."
"Sweet, you are being ridiculous," Father began. "Eamon is a very skilled practitioner."
"She's in shock, Harlan," Mother said softly, taking his arm. "We need her to understand that…" Their voices faded into the background as Denna sobbed harder. I edged closer, reaching out to take her hand.
"Denna," I said quietly, pulling at her arm. "You can't die. Please." My voice trembled.
"Don't be silly," she managed through her tears. "No one's dying. You just need to ask Trent—"
"Denna, Trent left you," I whispered, my own eyes tearing up. "He's gone. Please."
"He'll come back for this," Denna said stubbornly. "If he knows what's happened, he'll send a doctor. The best there is. He'll do that much."
"He said he didn't love you!" I said, crying with her. "Why would he help you now?"
She didn't reply. She didn't seem to hear.
In the end, there was no convincing Denna. Mother and Father sent Eamon away, all three of them conversing in hushed whispers. Mother was adamant that Denna be persuaded rather than forced to proceed with the doctor's recommendations.
"If you cut a child from an unwilling mother, she will fall into darkness and lose the will to live," she said with uncharacteristic ferocity. "And then she'll be just as dead either way. She just needs a day or two to process the shock. I will convince her."
Father, for his part, spoke harsh words to himself and hit the wall with his fist until his hand was bloody and cracks ran through the plaster.
And Denna talked of nothing but Trent, murmuring his name like a prayer all night in our shared bedroom as if she had fallen into delirium. Perhaps she had.
I lay there, quite awake as the night lightened softly into the feathery grey light of dawn, and tried to shut out the litany of her voice while terrified tears ran down my cheeks in silence.
Next morning, Father didn't open the apothecary. Instead, he put on the nicest set of clothes he owned and made his way to the royal palace. I accompanied him, clad in my best church dress with my short hair done up all proper. Inside, my small heart beat out of time, tattooing a frantic rhythm against my chest. I think I knew, even back then, that it was futile. But for Denna, we would have walked all the way to The University if that would have helped her.
If there had been time.
They allowed commoners to enter the palace in the mornings so they could petition the royal court. Usually, requests were directed to the king, and were overseen by his advisers. It was unusual to petition an adviser directly, but it was allowed. As part of the court, they had to at least appear to be accessible to the common people. So Father stood tall and requested a private audience with Lord Trent, son of Lord Leander.
"What is the nature of this request," a court attendant asked in a rather nasal tone.
"It is of a personal nature, my lord," Father said, his voice booming across the cavernous receiving chamber. "As it relates to my family."
I remember thinking how impressive he looked, standing tall and confident, clad in his best in this beautiful room of gold drapings and artful tapestries and tall columns that reached a ceiling high as mountains, as he requested an audience with the only son of a high-ranking adviser of the king's own court. It is only now, as I look back, that I see how shoddy his best cottons looked in that room full of silks. How he shied away from their words and whispers. Only now do I see that the confidence was a mask, no more a part of him than Denna is a part of me. But still, he wore it well.
After two painful hours had passed, Father and I were finally led along a succession of grand hallways by two guards dressed in crisp red tunics with long swords at their sides. I stared at the massive colorful tapestries that adorned the walls, at the paintings that graced the ceilings. At the large windows, through which sunlight filtered through. The palace was majestic, even at its edges. Unimaginably spectacular.
We didn't belong there.
We walked deeper into its bowels, until the windows were replaced by flickering lanterns that were spaced too closely together for shadows to take root. The light glittered off the paints in a rich sheen. At last we entered a room along the eastern wall. It was smaller than the receiving hall, though still grand and spacious. Large floor-to-ceiling windows covered the far wall, which flooded the room with light. The floor was plush, layered with a thick, soft carpet that sank beneath our feet. It was like royals-made-fabric. The ceiling was tall as sky, dressed in a swirling pattern of gentle colors. There was a slightly raised platform along the wall to our right, offset with suits of armour that were polished so much they gleamed. And in the center of the platform, stood Trent.
He looked stunning. His hair was thick and smooth, perfectly framing his face. He was dressed in garments much finer than anything I'd ever seen him don before. A rich blue cloak hung about his shoulders, the material flowy with a casual grace our cottons and linens could never achieve. The buttons fastened under his chin glinted gold in the sunlight. His tall boots were shiny — polished black leather that looked soft to the touch. For all that, his face was set in a nervous scowl. Beside him was an older man with cold, hard eyes; dressed even more finely and gazing upon us with displeasure. The guards that had walked us in stopped by the door and remained there, looking straight ahead in silence. Their hands, however, came to rest loosely on the hilts of their swords, sending chills down my spine.
Father faced the hard stares of the nobles, standing still before them. Beside him, I could feel the trembling in my hands. It seemed to take Father an age to find his voice.
"Lord Trenton," he murmured demurely, addressing the boy my sister had loved with a show of propriety that cut right through me. He bowed low, his eyes falling to the floor for a full minute before he raised his head again. Behind him, I stumbled into a jerky curtsy, my hands shaking slightly as they grasped at the thin cotton of my dress.
"Why did you call upon my son?" the older man said flatly, and I realized he was Lord Leander himself. Trent's father, and advisor to the king. I gasped, and the small sound seemed to dance around the cavernous room forever. Trent's eyes moved to me for just a moment before snapping back to staring loftily ahead. Lord Leander didn't spare me a glance at all.
"Lord Leander." My father bowed low to him as well. "I am here on behalf of my daughter, Denna, to ask Lord Trenton for… for a small favor. You see, they are acquainted, and she believes there is a matter with which he can assist her. It is of no consequence to you, your lordship, but it would mean the world to my family."
Lord Leander spared me a calculating glance at Father's words. "Is this your daughter here? I can't imagine what my son and your child would have in common. How old is she?"
His lip curled slightly as he looked at me, and I shrunk back at the harshness in his tone.
"This is my other daughter, my lord," my father said quickly. "For Denna, the matter is rather delicate, and—"
"I'm not acquainted with any Denna," Trent said abruptly, his voice ringing across the room. "I don't know your daughter. You must be mistaken." He looked resolutely away from us, gazing out across the room.
"Well, there you are," Lord Leander said, a sharp smile grazing his features. I noticed that it didn't quite reach his eyes. "You must be looking for another young Trenton. Perhaps it's best if you be on your way." He shot a glance at the guards behind us. "With grace, of course."
Father stared at Trent, who was continuing to avoid eye contact with us. I seethed inside with all the fury of an eleven-year-old scorned. How many times had we seen him in our home over the summer? How many times had he broken bread at our table?
"My lord," Father tried again, taking a half step forward. "Trent."
There was an instant uproar at his words.
"How dare you!" Lord Leander said, his face drawing together in fury. "Who do you think you are, pleb?"
He motioned to the guards, who drew their swords with metallic clangs and took several steps in our direction. Trent blanched away from Father's beseeching tone.
"Please," Father said, ignoring the guards behind him. "Trent— my lord. You ate at our table. You've courted our daughter—"
"Enough!" Lord Leander snapped, his tone as hard and brittle as ramston steel. "Take him away!"
The guards hurried forward. One raised his sword threateningly, the other grabbed Father by the arms.
"The child is killing her!" Father cried, his eyes searching wildly for Trent as he struggled with the guard. "She has asked for a doctor. Please! Trent—"
"REMOVE THEM FROM THE PALACE!" Lord Leander thundered, his face a furious red. The guard was dragging Father now, with his sword held at his throat. The second guard grabbed roughly at my arm, and I let out a terrified scream, kicking at his shins. He slapped my face, hard, until my ears rang and my vision momentarily pulsed black. When I could see straight again, the guards had dragged us to the door. Lord Leander was still raging at Father.
"If you step one foot inside the palace again, I will have your shop burned to the ground. I will have you blacklisted in all of Vintas and expelled from the city, and your license revoked. Get out of my sight!"
In that last moment, before they shoved us roughly through the door, my eyes found Trent's in the chaos. The mask of indifference he had been hiding behind had shattered, leaving the face of a scared boy underneath. He looked at me for a long moment. I like to think that I saw a flash of shame or sadness in his eyes. Something. But the guard yanked on my arm, and Trent turned abruptly away, leaving us — leaving Denna — behind. And then the door was slammed shut before my face. And it was over.
Denna cried for days when we returned with the news. We sat in the kitchen in silence, listening to her wrenching sobs as Mother applied a poultice to my throbbing cheek. The mood was somber, making the air about us so dense it was hard to breathe, and darkness settled like lead in my stomach.
For the next several days, Mother pleaded with Denna. Father raised his voice and attempted a commanding tone. I held her hand and cried, and begged her to please, please, do what the doctor said. Finally, she relented. Half a span had passed.
Euphoric, my parents called once again for Eamon. It cost them another noble, but at that point even I understood that money meant nothing unless it was spent on something worth valuing. And two nobles seemed a bargain for a life.
He appeared at our door next morning, clad in his familiar blacks and followed by a young Cealdish man with an austere expression, who carried Eamon's case. I watched them make their hurried way towards our bedroom, where Denna lay waiting. She met my eyes through the gap in the doorway and smiled weakly in my direction before Eamon's assistant closed the door with a definitive thud.
And then there was nothing to do but wait.
We sat, all of us silent. I twisted my hands together nervously, fidgeting with the waterskin I held in my lap. Denna had asked for a sip of water just that morning, but Eamon arrived before I could hand it to her, and now I couldn't seem to put it down.
She was surely asleep now, medicated into unconsciousness with Eamon's expensive medicines while he made crude, perfect incisions in her gentle skin. I couldn't stop imagining it with perfect childish horror. What would it look like. Would she have scars? Would they heal like the scrape on my elbow from falling off the tree when I was nine, or would they remain, like the jagged scar below my hip from when I had grabbed at Denna while she was holding a kitchen knife. It had jabbed crookedly into my thigh, slicing off a small chunk of skin. I had screamed bloody murder then, until my throat was hoarse and my eyes were nearly swollen shut from the endless tears. Father had fed me several scruples of bitter, chalky medicine until the bleeding lessened and the pain became nearly bearable, and then Old Tim had stitched me up while Denna apologized profusely over and over again, crying in her own right. The wound had long healed, but the scars remained. Would Denna's scars be like that?
I decided it didn't matter. Denna would still be beautiful, no matter what scars she had. That's what she'd always told me, after all. It would be extra true for her. And besides, scars were cool. They showed you were strong and had survived hard things and walked out on the other side. She'd said that to me too, after I saw the ugly scar beneath the bandages. And these things she was surviving, I knew they were hard. Really hard.
She'd said as much the previous night, as we both lay awake until the early morning hours, our shared anxiety scaring all thoughts of sleep away.
"Even if the doctor says it's not a child," she told me softly, "it's still a child to me. Do you understand?"
"No," I whispered back, shaking my head emphatically against my pillow until my hair rustled in a counterharmony. "How can it be a child if it isn't? The doctor said it's a mistake. A bad…" I struggled for the word. "A malignancy. And if you don't take it out—"
"Then I will die," she said quietly, and her matter-of-fact tone stunned me into silence. "But in my heart it's always been a child, you see? And even though my mind understood what Eamon said, my heart did not." Her voice broke a little then, trembling beneath the heaviness carried in her words.
"But now?" I asked, after a lengthy pause. "Does your heart understand now?"
"It understands," she whispered. "But it hurts just the same."
I nodded, my hair rustling softly in my ears again. That, I thought I could understand.
"I love you, little bird," she added gently.
I turned, glancing at her profile. She was just visible in the moonlight spilling in through the window. Her face looked pale, almost ghostly, and her eyes were glazed. Teary. But if she was crying, I couldn't hear.
"I'm so sorry about all this," she said, after a long moment had passed. "For leaving you for Trent. For scaring you with this. When this is all done and I'm better, we'll play together again, okay? We'll do our chores together, and I'll listen to you sing. Like before. And when you're older, I'll help you find a nice boy. Not like Trent. A good one. I promise."
"Okay," I whispered, my throat feeling suddenly tight as tears sprang into my eyes. "But I don't want any boys, Denna. Just you."
"You will," she said resolutely, a smile gracing her voice. "You'll see. You'll fall in love and get married, and then you'll have children, and I'll be the aunt. And I'll spoil them rotten." Her voice sounded wistful. "Like little princes."
And I had responded, amused, that she wouldn't have time to spoil my children, because of course she'd have more of her own, and she'd be busy spoiling them. But I didn't have time to dwell on what she said next because at that moment the door opened and I jumped to my feet to see Eamon step out of the bedroom, and then my heart just froze in my throat. Because his blacks were all dark and stained, and smelled strangely metallic, and as I was trying to sort out what the smell was, I saw the red. It was everywhere. It was splashed onto the bridge of his nose, onto his arms, above where his gloves had been. It was behind him, smeared on what I could see of the bedroom floor through the gap in the door. It was everywhere, except on his robes, because the red there just made the black darker. Maybe that's why he wore it. So his patients could bleed, and no one would see the blood.
I saw the blood though. And then I saw Denna on the bed, pale as paper. Still as a doll. And blood. Blood everywhere. And the smell of it hung on the air. Thick. Heavy. Iron. Like a sword made liquid.
And Mother was sobbing, Father was yelling, and Eamon's voice was a low, incomprehensible murmur. There was a sudden burst of cold seeping across my hands from the waterskin, broken beneath my murderous grip.
And then there was only darkness. Only red fading to black.
Until there was nothing at all.
A/N: Thank you for sticking with this story and D so far. Especially in a fandom that has fallen so quiet as we wait for Pat and DoS and wonder if it will ever come (I hope so). This chapter was difficult to write in ways I can't even voice. I didn't use the wording because it didn't feel appropriate to the time and universe, but what happened to Older Denna is called a molar pregnancy. It's something I'm intimately familiar with, and in exploring how that situation could have ended without the proper medical care and medicines we have today, I've wandered down a particularly dark road. One I hope no one will ever have to face. Most molar pregnancies now are treatable, but that makes them no less horrible. No less upsetting. And no less terrifying. And if this is something you've experienced, I'm so sorry. You aren't alone.