AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I apologize in advance if Dis's vagueness confuses anyone. That is her intent at the moment. Her objection will become clearer in the next chapter(s).
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"Oliada, are you certain the raven was sent?" Meisar inquired on the morn. She walked toward the terrace gardens briskly, in hopes that the seedlings from the fall harvest could still be preserved and the Stonefoots taught how to store them, before another round of wintry cold came. The sky above was the sharp, unforgiving blue that oversaw the serenity of a crisper, more serene setting below, but one that tiptoed along the outer edge of a winter coming too early. The saplings struggling to life on the slopes of the Desolation were shedding their buds in shades of orange and brown already. The walls of Dale continued to rise.
"Sent, no reply," the sentry answered.
"Perhaps we ought send another, to be certain," she suggested, careful not to convey the urgency that burned in her breast.
"There trouble, my queen?" Oliada inquired.
She thought herself so stiff and controlled, Meisar observed silently of her loyal sentry. But her nose, narrow for a dwarf's, twitched against her better judgement when that certain curiosity got the better of her.
She stopped and smiled at Oliada serenely, if something stirred inside more ominous than the northern winds. "There is always trouble, Oliada. A king and a queen are bound to know every trouble, in all corners of the world. We must keep up with it, no?"
Oliada drew a quick breath that ached to say something, but didn't. "Yes, my queen. Must."
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Without Freyda or Dwalin petition days had been madness. At the turning of the seasons they came one and all, dwarrowdam and tall-woman alike. The queen's council had seen to them, breaking their fast at the table in the presence chamber, crumbs sprinkling down over their carefully-drafted petitions. By suppertime it was Urdlaug's well-seasoned cheese soup that did the same, but her hearty food was welcome by then.
In the last hour the door came open after much protestations were made by a woman on the other side. Then, pattering up awkwardly to the table was Elsa, her goldenrod pinafore bearing a dark stain that ran in reddish rivulets down its front.
"Might I call you away, my queen? The lady princess..." Elsa was wizened in the face and her lines and wrinkles bespoke care to anyone paying attention, but the visage was cruelly torn off. The nursemaid was on the verge of tears.
Leaving Emli and Siv to the rest of the petitioners, she followed Elsa briskly. The nursemaid lamented hoarsely all the way back to the royals' hall. "Drinking wine- Elvish wine! And rambling all morning, what about I cannot comprehend. I am afraid," Elsa confided. "I do not know sometimes whether grief or true madness ails her."
"Have you told Thorin of this?"
"No," Elsa answered, guiltily. "My lady... he hasn't handled her very well before when she's in this... mood. I thought maybe you could have a try at her."
"Why me?" Meisar inquired, tacitly dismal.
"I begged her to lie down and rest. I thought to take the wine from her and she, well," Elsa gestured dispiritedly to her pinafore. "Elvish wine. Foolish." Elsa took Meisar's arm urgently. "But she seems to onto something. I have a feeling it may be better to your reckoning."
When she arrived Dis was serene and settled at her writing table. She rose, staid in her black overgown with the puffed, exaggerated sleeves, but her hair was loose and unkempt. On the floor lay a cracked goblet and a puddle of red liquid.
"I did not know to expect you, sister, but I am glad you are here," Dis pushed in her seat and crossed the room into the light toward her, with a parchment in hand. "I believe this belongs to you. I apologize."
Meisar took it from Dis's pale hands. The seal was broken.
Gathering the dishes, Elsa harrumphed at her in frustration. "Uzbadnatha, you were in a right tizzy not fifteen minutes past, and now you show yourself calm as a millpond. What sorcery is this?"
"No sorcery, at least I hope not," Dis regarded the parchment in Meisar's hand sideways with the clamber of one black brow. "I will clear the mess. Would you leave us a moment, Elsa?"
The hearth beckoned to both of them. They sat in the chairs opposite each other, Meisar's hands in her lap holding the parchment, urging to tear it. She sunk deeper into the chair, a secret shame washing over her.
"That I am as surly and boorish as a child some days is no cause for alarm, I assure you. There may come a time when you will find me as disagreeable as Elsa has," Dis reckoned caustically.
Meisar's hands twisted around the still-rolled parchment. It was the same she had sent Oliada to the rookery with that morning. The seal was still malleable, more pulled apart like taffy than broken cleanly. "You opened it?"
Shrugging, Dis poured herself a glass of honey-wine. "I thought it was something else. I went after the wrong one I'm afraid," Dis replied, un-rattled.
"Wrong one?"
"If there is something you want to tell me in confidence, you may," Dis coaxed. Her sad, clouded blue eyes were wide and crystalline with interrogatory intent.
Meisar poured the rest of the honey-wine for herself. "If you insist on knowing, I wrote to Gandalf."
"I do not insist on anything, sister. But I suppose now that you've told me, you'll tell me why?"
Hands moved without her over the middle of her body, cradling her stomach, defensively. The demanding aire of Dis's gaze eased enough that the words came eventually. "To see what magic may do to move my... fortunes. Perhaps a wizard has a cure for barrenness, or some insight."
"Sister, I cannot imagine the wound that Freyda's situation puts upon you inside," Dis's cold hand covered hers. When she pulled her hand away, there were soot stains on the back of Meisar's. "But Alfhilde was correct about one thing. Magic is dangerous. Even in the hands of the righteous. Do not employ it hastily."
"Freyda is younger than I am, and her being with child is none to do with me," Meisar answered defensively. She rubbed the stain on the back of her hand, more graphite than soot. A carpenter's hand that wielded a hammer many hours a day looked like Dis's did in the palm when he drew it away from her cup.
"Why are you so angry with Elsa? You threw your cup at her."
"I think better and more clearly when I've had some wine some in me. She dislikes it because it is Elvish I suppose. Alas, I regret it. But do not think with or without it that I cannot see. You." She cocked her head queerly.
"I am right here, Dis," Meisar met her eyes, nervously.
"You have desires the same as anyone else, and they torment you inside. Do not think I cannot see to those ends. I am a mother myself, or was, anyhow," Dis recalled glumly. She reached for her empty cup, shook it, and opened a new wineskin that was hidden beneath her seat.
"Perhaps you shouldn't drink so much, sister. I might dare agree with Elsa," Meisar murmured under her breath, uncertain if she wanted Dis to hear.
"Do you have an alternate suggestion of how to get through my days intact?" Dis snapped suddenly.
"No," Meisar shook her head, timidly.
"Ale or wine, it does not matter. I toil along to my ends, nonetheless. There is no trick a wizard can render that... I cannot imagine alternate paths toward. I have thought of you so much that way."
"Well then," Meisar said, mustering a bit. Dis's rebuke still stung her like a slap from a stone hand. "What exactly are your thoughts? If you believe I have sought the wrong path in Gandalf's help."
"Seek out the guidance of your own creator and your own people. Not a wizard's meddling; yes, I do tell you that. At least for now. It will not please the Creator. He desires differently, as does his Giver of Fruits. But you were right in writing to Gandalf. He may well tell you the same."
"You can presume to know what Mahal and Yavanna desire of us?" In the dimming firelight there was almost no space between them now. Up close she tried to read Dis's thoughts, her hands, the frightened way a person's eyes might dart or dodge hers. But Dis was entirely tranquil, icy, not quite spiritless.
"I do not presume," Dis contended at last. "There were thinkers of old that my grandfather found quite disagreeable. They demanded it then, and when it was not done, the dragon came." She looked into the fire and could not look back at it again.
"They demanded what? Dis?"
"An exchange. A sacrifice."
"A sacrifice? What do either of us have to sacrifice?" Meisar asked disjointedly. "Have you not been deprived of your husband, your father, grandfather, brother... sons! Is there anything left to take?"
Dis sat stonily and with set eyes as Meisar stood and paced in front of the fire before her. "And I," she fingered the onyx-and-pearl about her neck. "I have some new dresses, and jewels, and... you know I would forsake it all if..."
She wanted to sink to the floor in a heap. Enough had been taken. From me, from this wretched princess, from Thorin.
"That is not what the Creator, or the kingdom, asks." Dis sat across from her and touched the edge of her naked jawline. "Several years ago, Thorin had a chance. He did not take it. Would he if he had known the price would be the princes? My sons?"
"You are frightening me, Dis," Meisar whispered.
Dis's eyes regarded her benevolently in return. "Look at you. Pure and un-corrupt, untouched by dwarvish afflictions, the shepherdess my brother brought beneath the mountain. Your arrival has pleased many. Nonetheless, you are a hostage of larger forces."
"I do not appreciate your vagueness, in the same breath as words like 'sacrifice,'" Meisar shuddered. "Pure and uncorrupt as the maidens the north-men once tossed to the dragons for supper. I hear the wyrms preferred them that way."
"No, perhaps the wrong word," Dis relented, tiredly. "An exchange, if you will. It has been asked before and left unfulfilled. I fear worse things than your barrenness will result if it is not heeded now."
"Now you worry me, with everything else there is to trouble our minds," Meisar complained, warily. "Tell me of this, plainly."
"Never you mind that, or worry. Send your raven, and be sure to let me know when and if you receive a reply," Dis all but ordered.
"And what shall I tell Thorin?"
Aroin was knocking on the door outside, stentorian in her notice that it was time for Dis's walk. She treated Dis like a child, or a dog, Meisar had thought since the day they met, and only now was she beginning to see why.
"There will be a time when my brother is parry to this," Dis assured, rising irritably.
"He is my husband. I do not wish to keep secrets from him," Meisar protested.
"My dear," Dis cooed, darkly, fastening her girdle chain and her cloak. "You already have."
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II
"It is the forty-first day. I hope they have not forgotten," Meisar remarked gently. They waited at the hexagonal landing that stood at the end of the hall where Dwalin and Freyda not dwelt. She wanted nothing more in the moment than to be away from Dis, and close to Thorin. Leaning on his powerful forearm, formal and stiff as the presence of the sentries about them called for, still felt like a shield from every ill of the world. Even the ones within. She felt the weight of a certain silence on her part, grotesquely.
But she had sworn once to honor and to protect him, and would protect him, from strife and from grief and despair he did not need to know.
Now was a time for joy. From the forty days Freyda emerged, less vigorously than Dwalin, pale and growing slightly puffy in the cheeks beneath her unadorned beard. She wore her green cape with the fox trim and a gray fine wool dress cut beneath the bosom and belted comfortably there. Dwalin seemed restless, ready to return to some semblance of normality. But something just as well had smoothed out in his countenance. The lines across his brow no longer seemed so taut.
"Welcome back," Meisar said, embracing her lightly. "I trust your forty days were at least relaxing." She took her arm as Thorin trod off with Dwalin elsewhere. Up close the puffiness was more a swell of robustness and that very particular glow. She looked happy, if slightly woozy from idleness and being indoors so long. She smelled of the hearth fire and clean linen, and only less slightly of sour milk.
"Not much of a honeymoon, really. Spent a good deal chucking-up into a pail 'stead o' a morning kiss," Freyda guffawed. "Dwalin cares for me so, but I have missed ye is for sure."
"Is he settling into this new reality well?" Meisar inquired.
"Aye, as best he can. He is glad for this, but some things only dwarrowdams can give ye the comfort ye seek about. I'm a bag o' nerves. I donna know what to... think sometimes. It's a strange feelin', this," she gestured sheepishly to her belly.
"That anyone can be certain of," Meisar smiled thinly.
"You'll know soon enough," Freyda consoled. "There's not in ye lacking, not for yer... health or cycles, nor for your love."
"I lack none for the latter, that is for sure," she laughed, easily. "Come then, the others have been waiting for you."
She pushed open the door to the dwarrowdams' baths, steam rushing out and hitting the cold air like a wall, evaporating. The forty day sequestering was followed by a purifying bath for the bride, in which the dwarrowdams would joyfully commiserate or offer the first sympathetic shoulder for lamentations of the new things that marriage brought.
"Ah, here is the bride!" crowed Siv through the steam, cackling. "Returned to us in one piece."
"And the queen," added Emli officiously. The dwarrowdams nodded their heads in unison through the heavy veil of the steam.
The dwarrowdams, Eda with special care, studied her body carefully when she undressed. She kept her arms crossed over her stomach even though nothing could be seen to change yet, and glided into the heat of the water, shivering in relief for its warmth. There were no bruises to be seen, nor soreness that seemed to sting in the heat of the water, a revelation Eda crowed her pleasure at.
Freyda's lethargic bliss as she slid shoulder-deep into the water was a welcome sight. "My husband treats me very nicely, I should have ye know. We've a very happy time these forty days."
"Find his quimstick a bit much though?" Siv quipped, her elbows pressed back on the stone edge, steam withering her coiffure.
"Not your concern," Freyda answered flippantly. "For all your sauce-mouth, you would be… unequipped… toward handling such a…." The dwarrowdams all began to laugh with the backs of their hands to their mouths, red-faced from restraint. "…thing."
"Thing?" Siv guffawed. "Why I thought they were personalities all of their own. Don't men name them sometimes?"
"Oh my lass," Eds gasped, drifting across to water to embrace Freyda. "You have found a true conundrum in this world- a dwarf too large!"
"I did not say that!" Freyda squawked, splashing her. "I meant to handle the… responsibilities and duties of marriage and-"
"He's enormous, isn't he?" Brynja interjected, as doe-eyed as deadpan.
Wordlessly, Freyda poured cool water from the bath-side pitcher over her head and smiled in relief. "Not that that's important, but mind ye, I do have something to announce. I've missed my 'afana for certain now. I believe I am with child."
Ripples and splashes carried through the steam as they came rushing around her, even Siv, whose hair swiftly tumbled around her face in half-stiffened walls like the collapsing of a barn.
"I have given m'queen the news first o'course," Freyda's wrinkled hand held Meisar's in silent solidarity. "Now to the likes of you all."
She felt like a crone. Beside Freyda she was and knew it too well (and so did they), whose brawny youngish body seemed at once all the more feminine, the glow of her cheeks and the affectionate cloudiness of her stormy eyes, the roundness in her belly even now a little more pronounced, and how it would grow, and grow...
The dwarrowdams were very curious about this naturally. They were childless all, fascinated by the pale slump of Freyda's belly that was unchanged still in any real way, whispering rumors of sore bosoms and mornings of vile nausea, which Freyda confirmed with good humor.
Hers was the body Thorin worshipped in the night, that would never give him a child. Her only hope was on a raven's ankle, flying blindly to a place she was not even certain the gray wizard lodged within. Maybe Dis was right. There was still a price unpaid. But what more can you take, Mahal? She didn't want to know.
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When the heat in the baths became too oppressive and the morning too far gone, the dwarrowdams dressed and went back to their papers and petitions in the antechamber.
"A healer ought have a quick look at things," Eda urged, pushing Freyda through the bedroom door and shutting it quickly before she could dress.
"Secrets and silence; can't hide from some," Siv smirked over her inkwell. The tart knew nothing, but when she winked at Meisar out of the corner of one black eye it made her blood turn icy for a moment.
When Eda emerged, she took a close seat by Meisar, smirked on one side of her mouth just like her cousin did. "Further progressed than forty days, my queen," Eda confided quietly and with some amusement.
"You can tell?"
"Well enough; I have been doing this awhile long," Eda replied. "But a good thing it takes a woman to know exactly, and not for example, Freyda's father."
"Good thing for being a dwarf-woman then, I suppose."
"Mahal's greatest treasures," Eda concurred. "Though I think sometimes He asks so much of us."