Birth: A Novella Read online

  I stood, still holding my dagger, transfixed by this tall, avenging demigod of a man I had somehow got myself married to, vaguely wondering why his touch hadn’t led to communion.

  “I told you to sheathe your dagger.” Voice flat, harsh, like a command to an insubordinate cadet.

  He moved toward me, and I held the dagger toward the fire, angling the light and heat toward my eyes. “If you come any closer,” I said, “I’ll blast you.”

  He took another step forward and I formed a directed beam of light and sent it toward him, but he had his own dagger out by now and he swatted my feeble effort away with a light beam of his own. The two glowing columns soared like slow-motion arrows, colliding near the ceiling with a clap of thunder and raining plaster dust on our heads. Katrina shrieked next door, and Stefan, who had been waiting for Dominic after the ceremony, came running in.

  “Out!” Dominic roared before he saw who it was.

  Stefan jumped back about three feet, saluted and shouted, “Sir! Yes, sir!” and turned and ran.

  Dominic startled at his companion’s voice. “Stefan!” he said. “Wait.” But Stefan had gone beyond the range of his enraged lord’s voice and thoughts.

  Dominic turned back to me where I sat on the bed. I had to pee, but I wouldn’t go to the bathroom with him there. I was hungry and tired, and I wanted to crawl into bed and bury myself under the covers like a bear in a cave and never emerge until spring, after the child was born.

  He hovered over me, staring down like a vulture waiting for the dying prey to stop moving. “Is that what you want?” he asked. “Do you want to make trouble between me and my companion?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course that’s what I want. And I want to have you cold and hating me and never making love to me anymore, too. Who wouldn’t want that? Why do you think I married you, if not to be miserable and wishing I was dead?”

  “Oh, Amalie,” Dominic said, sighing. I could feel his anger melting away like the snow on the Aranyi greenhouse roof on a summer morning. “You can’t– You mustn’t– Why did you have to go out unguarded? Don’t you understand? It’s for your protection. What would you do if you were attacked by robbers or—” He decided not to list all the things that could have happened, to be grateful that they had not.

  I sat up. “Use my prism and zap them in the nuts,” I said to his one answerable question.

  Dominic laughed. “Cute,” he said. “But they work in gangs, large groups. You couldn’t ‘zap’ more than one or two before the others overpowered you.” At least he was laughing.

  “And how many of these ferocious gangs are there roaming the wild streets of Eclipsia City?” I asked. “With all these guards around.”

  Dominic was sulky again. “You don’t know what’s out there. And I don’t want to find out the hard way that there’s something we missed. Now promise me.” He took my hand. “Promise me to uphold your marriage vows.”

  “There’s no marriage vow about guards,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “About keeping faith.”

  We had been getting there, then I wrecked it. “You don’t,” I said, animated by the thought of all the wrongs I have endured. “When have you stayed home for me, kept me company, backed me up at those horrible supper parties?”

  “Oh,” Dominic said, “so that’s what this is. Payback. Because I’m not a doting husband who loses his position and the respect of his peers when he can’t tear himself away from his wife’s side.” The jokes still rankled, apparently.

  “Why does it have to be anything other than what it was?” I said. “I went out with Katrina because it was a nice day and all the guards were busy.”

  “A decent woman would have stayed in,” he said.

  “Decent?” I said. “So now I’m indecent?” I jumped up, lifting the skirts of dress and petticoat and shift, and ran at Dominic, flapping the hems over my exposed pubic hair. “This was decent enough for you in Aranyi. How did it become indecent all of a sudden in the city? Or maybe it’s just not worth your time anymore because you’ve already stuffed it.”

  Dominic stared at me then, as at the travelers’ shelter, when there was no possible response to my ravings, turned his back and went out. He did not slam the door. What was much worse, he rotated the handle and closed the door gently, as on an invalid. He called Katrina and sent her in to me, saying that ‘Gravina Aranyi was tired and would go to bed early. He had not referred to me as Lady Amalie since we arrived in Eclipsia City.

  ***

  Oh, Amalie, my love. We are in synchrony now, the same thoughts and memories flowing between us, our minds porous as mesh. You don’t know how much I wanted to beg your forgiveness for all my neglect, take you in my arms, kiss you and get you to talk dirty to me all night.

  Why didn’t you? I remember how the communion had not formed at his touch.

  With you eight months gone? And tired and uncomfortable? He smiles, bringing back the image from his thoughts. And when you get angry like that you fluff up, like a kitten seeing its first dog—

  Is that a version of ‘you’re beautiful when you’re angry?’ I ask.

  That’s a cliché? His mind is all innocence; Eclipsis has not caught up to Terra in its understanding of sexist platitudes. You are beautiful when you’re angry. And frightening. A kitten with the claws and teeth of a tigress. And it makes me want you so— He doesn’t like to say it now, any more than he could have admitted it at the time.

  Fiercely? I suggest. Like with Roger?

  Oh, gods. He laughs, ashamed. Yes. It’s why I blocked the communion, wouldn’t let it start.

  “Shit! Shit fuck!” The strong contraction catches us unprepared, and I curse and swear out loud in Terran. “Shit, fuck, piss!”

  The contractions are coming closer together, lasting longer and hurting more. Dominic renews the communion, pulling the pain from me into his own belly. He sweats in the warm room, grinding his teeth, lying beside me on the wide mattress, soft and thick with its multitude of absorbent layers.

  Someone is giggling, trying to stifle it, but not totally succeeding. Magali. What could be so funny, I wonder, angry with self-pity, with us in such pain?

  It’s Dominic, shouting in his deep voice, my Terran obscenities translated perfectly and literally into Eclipsian, and delivered in his crisp aristocratic pronunciation, that makes Magali choke with strangled laughter.

  “Fuck a duck!” I shout when another one hits, and Magali whoops out loud as Dominic, in deep communion, renders the phrase in his own language.

  A window blows open on a gust of freezing air, pushing against the shutters. Snowflakes dance in, swirl wildly in the draft, and immolate themselves on the hearth. Magali runs to close the casement and fasten the shutters. How short the days are, I think. It’s dark outside, I have seen through the open shutters, although it seems as if my labor has only just begun, during the after-dinner siesta, while Dominic and Roger—

  “He won’t make it,” Magali says. “He’ll be caught in this fucking blizzard.” Concern for her son Wilmos makes her speak like that, imitating Dominic’s and my shouted words. Her eldest son, barely fifteen, has been sent to fetch Naomi the witch back to Aranyi to help me.

  Dominic lifts his head from kissing my brow. “Wilmos grew up in these mountains, Magali. He can take care of himself in a storm.”

  “Sometimes,” I say, sorry to think of the boy forcing his way through the storm on a pointless errand, “women have contractions days or even weeks before they actually give birth.”

  “Lady Amalie,” Magali says, “that doesn’t happen very often.”

  “SHIT! SHIT A BRICK! GODDAMN FUCKING ASSHOLE BULLSHIT MOTHERFUCKER—OOOWWW!” Dominic shouts it with me, in Eclipsian, making Magali explode with laughter despite her worries.

  Something very large is forcing its way into a very small part of my insides. This is it, I can tell. I leap out of the bed, finding the strength through the communion, moving instinctively to squat on the stone hearth. Dom
inic follows, squatting behind me, buttressing me with his body, bracing my back, his hands under my armpits.

  “‘Gravina,” Magali says, “you should stay in the bed—”

  “It’s all right,” Dominic says. “It’s better like this.” Magali starts to argue and Dominic interrupts. “How did you birth your own, Magali?”

  She laughs. “Squatting, my lord. Cursing and shouting and squatting on the hearth.”

  But it’s too big for me. It ruptures something inside—I feel it pop—and blood and fluid run out of me, down my legs and spattering on the hearthstones.

  Dominic can’t help laughing at my exaggerated ideas. No, beloved. It’s only your water breaking. His eyes meet Magali’s across my bowed head. “I don’t think we have to worry about weeks,” he says.

  CHAPTER 3: Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me?

  But I outdid myself at the ‘Graven Military Academy Tournament. The swordsmanship tournament is the event of the late autumn season. It’s prime entertainment, a monumental gambling opportunity, and an educational show all in one. Dominic had surprised me by inviting me to watch it, since women are in general discouraged from attending these masculine rituals. As ‘Gravina Aranyi, I was considered an exception, a great piece of condescension I must not be so ungrateful as to turn down.

  The few women in the audience were mostly brothel and tavern workers. I did not sit with them, but was given a box to myself, with Katrina of course, a knot of guards surrounding us, in the center among the ‘Graven sections; arranged, like the Assembly seats, by Realm and family.

  “Oh, ‘Gravina!” Katrina’s eyes were sparkling. “We should see something fine today!”

  I had not thought about what we would see. Dominic hadn’t talked much about it, only mentioned it once to Stefan, saying he hoped he would be given leave to attend. Stefan had said he wouldn’t miss it, he’d go AWOL if he had to. Dominic’s wrath had been as brutal as it was sudden. “Don’t you ever use that term around me!” he said. “Not even in jest. I could have you court-martialed.”

  “But, Dominic—”

  “Major Aranyi,” Dominic said. “When you speak to me of Royal Guards or Military Academy business, you must address me correctly. Surely, Cadet Ormonde, you know this by now, in your second year.”

  “Sir,” Stefan said, his voice breaking, barely audible, “Major Aranyi. Request permission to withdraw.”

  “Granted,” Dominic said.

  It was my first hint that all was not right there, either. I didn’t notice Stefan in the audience now, but it was hard to see through the guards. Only my view of the little fighting arena was unobstructed.

  The audience was impatient for things to begin, and the men whistled and stamped their feet. An official came out eventually to explain the rules to the crowd, who knew it all by heart. There would be ten fights, he said, or as many as there were challengers. Choice of weapon to the challenger.

  “Get on with it,” someone shouted.

  The champion was allowed five minutes rest between challenges. Should he be defeated—

  “Then we’ll all have to sell our firstborn to pay off the bookies,” another man yelled. “Get on with it.”

  Should the champion be defeated, the referee continued, the new champion can choose to retire or take on the remaining challengers. This last part was drowned out by a whole chorus of “Get on with it!” After a hurried recitation of the few rules of combat, the champion was announced and the booing began.

  But it was only Dominic who walked out. He was dressed for weapons practice, his boots replaced by softer footwear with flexible soles, his shirt and breeches partly covered by a quilted tunic, gloves up to the elbow and a fencing helmet carried in his arm. A whole arsenal of his weapons—foils, sabers and broadswords—was carted out by an attendant.

  I waited to see what Dominic would do. He must be here in some official capacity, perhaps as a referee. But the catcalls intensified, people wishing failure on him, using expressions they would not have dared even to think to Margrave Aranyi, that were somehow permissible here, in this arena. Dominic ignored it all, a cold smile on his face, nose jutting proudly as his eyes scanned the crowd. He saw me, bowed with the slightest inclination of the head on the slender neck, fastened his helmet, and announced through the mesh of the mask that he was ready. “Bring on the first challenger,” he said.

  He was the hated champion, the one the crowd wanted to see defeated even though they didn’t dare bet against him, who had never lost a match.

  The first bouts were indistinguishable to me. Dominic was—magnificent was all I could think. He moved as gracefully as when he danced, although his knees were bent in the fencer’s crouch, and he was so quick that one might suspect him of using his gift unfairly. But he wasn’t; I knew, even if his thoughts had not already proved it, that his innate sense of honor would be outraged at the idea. He whirled and thrust, advanced and slashed, all as if performing a great choreographer’s masterwork, except this was unscripted.

  I had never seen him practice this noble craft to which he had dedicated so much of life, at which he shone. He had spent an hour or two each morning at Aranyi training with Stefan, confiding once to me that his companion would never make much of a swordsman, but needing the exercise so as not to grow stale. I had not watched the two of them practice; it was not something a man did in front of his wife. When I saw him now, the supreme master of his art in glorious action, I knew only that the crowd, that hated him so, must hate beauty and grace and excellence. They were pigs, brutes, morons. I despised them with all the force of their own hostility to Dominic.

  Eight times a young hopeful came out into the ring, and eight times Dominic, the embodiment of the perfect swordsman, defeated him. It happened so quickly the first few times I thought there had been some mistake, that the rules had been broken or that the challenger had defaulted, knowing he was outmatched, but it was just that they were not up to Dominic’s level. Dominic rarely took his full five minutes between bouts; he had barely broken a sweat. The crowd was ready to take him on themselves, en masse.

  The ninth challenger looked vaguely familiar. “Lord Roger Zichmni.” The announcer’s voice was breathless with awe. The crowd thrilled to see the handsome, fresh young face of their ruler. It had all the elements of a soap opera plot: youth against age, fair against dark, good against evil. Surely not, I thought. That’s overdoing it a bit. But the feelings were all around me. People saw Dominic as predatory and cruel, proud and ruthless, aloof and overbearing and—everything I had been angry with him for being. My last argument with Dominic was still fresh in my mind, words spoken that I wished had not been, important things left unsaid. I renounced my unwifely thoughts then and there.

  This fight went differently from the start. Roger was an excellent swordsman; Dominic had tutored him for years. And he was younger, I thought. And he hadn’t just fought eight matches with barely a break between them. It was the only fight that went more than one round. The officials danced around the pair, watching the blades and the feet for infractions. Twice they stopped it, awarded a penalty; once in Roger’s favor, the second time in Dominic’s. I thought the crowd was going to tear the place apart when the referees ruled for Dominic on the penalty.

  A few men jumped out of their seats, started to run to the front, to the ring. They had weapons—plain daggers and knives, not ‘Graven swords or with prisms in the handle—but bad enough. It was automatic with me, a reflex. I had my dagger out, the prism angled up to the light, and the weapons knocked out of their hands before they reached the ropes that separated the contestants from the front seats. The men ran on several yards before they could stop, staring stupidly at their empty hands, feeling at their waists. They looked around wildly for a few seconds until they saw their weapons lying on the ground behind them, and by then guards had surrounded them and were marching them away.

  Only now did people notice me. First the ones sitting on either side, who peeped in through th
e wall of the tall guards’ bodies. They shouted and pointed, while I stood frozen like the idiot I was, until the whole crowd saw ‘Gravina Aranyi on her feet with her dagger in her hand, protecting her husband, the champion swordsman. Only when the laughter began did I get a sense of how shamefully I had acted. I felt myself going so red my eyebrows almost melted off, and I sat down, trying to pretend nothing had happened.

  An official climbed the stairs to my tier, forcing his way between the laughing, roaring spectators, until he was close enough to verify my identity. He nodded once to Dominic, who had removed his helmet, whose third eyelids had turned to glass and whose mouth was a line with no lips, who was breathing so heavily I could see his ribcage expanding through the padding of the tunic. Dominic turned to Roger, and I received it through our communion, what I could not have heard over the shouts and laughter. “Your match, I think. Interference, from my side.”

  “No, Dominic.” Roger was laughing too. “Call it a draw.”

  “No, my lord.” Dominic spat the words out through clenched teeth. “It is your day, and you are champion. Pray all the gods you have better luck in your supporters than I have in mine.”

  ***

  I stare at the puddle of viscous liquid running sluggishly into the cracks between the hearthstones. My feet are cold on the bare floor, my upper body hot from the roaring fire, my lower body so filled with pain it’s like something outside me. If only I could get this burden off me, I think, this horrible, swollen belly of pain, I could breathe again, could become myself.

  Bear down when the pain comes, Dominic says. Breathe and push.

  I can’t, I say. It hurts. My earlier confidence is gone, has flowed out of me with my water. I’m spent, flaccid, being slowly ripped open by this thing inside me, that he has put there.

  Look at me, Dominic says. In my eyes. The full communion. I want to show you something. Once the communion has been reinforced, he motions Magali over to take his place and lies down on the hearth, looking up between my legs.