Very carefully and very quietly Diora examined the leg, seeing it as if it existed in isolation. It was oddly angled, but no bone jutted through skin, or just beneath it, as it had done with her brother. She was afraid for just a moment, and suppressed it as she could, but the fear of failure lingered: If she failed, and Deirdre limped, she would be ruined as a wife for a man of the kai Leonne"s importance; the flaw would be too obvious to hide beneath the folds of perfect silk. Grace and beauty were everything in the harem of an important man, and if beauty could be judiciously added by paints and jewels and combs and cloth, grace could not so easily be faked.
But to do nothing was to guarantee failure; it was the weaker course. Clenching her jaw, she nodded to herself, and then, carefully, she set the bone, straightening the leg, pressing her hands firmly into skin and muscle in a search for the awkward hump of misaligned bone. It was hard; the flesh there was swollen and dark with bruising, and unlikely to get better before it got worse. But it was not the most difficult thing she had ever had to do, and she remembered, for the first time in almost two months, that she was the Serra Diora, niece to the Serra Teresa.
She splinted the leg, and bound it as tightly as she dared, remembering Ona Teresa"s admonishment about the free flow of blood from one part of the body to another. "Well done, Diora," Serena said. She started, remembering that she was en"Leonne now, but not diminished for all that was true. Had she forgotten? Turning to Faida, she said simply. "Please, go and bring me my harp."
It was such an unexpected request that Faida"s brows creased unpleasantly over the bridge of her nose, mirroring her confusion. But she nodded and acquiesced, not because the request was an order from her Serra, but because it gave her something to do.
Serena rose; Ruatha offered her the waters, and she drank them almost greedily. Then she did what Diora could not do; she examined the unconscious Deirdre looking for signs of the child in the turn of her flesh, and the feel and color of it. She took almost as long as Diora had to set the leg.
"The baby," Serena said at last, and Diora heard the strength of the fear in those words more clearly than she had ever heard fear in Serena"s words. She realized, with a start, that she was deliberately listening for it; that she was using her gift, when she might need the strength of it for later. "Serena?"
Dead-eyed, the older woman turned to the harem"s Serra, her gaze bypa.s.sing Ruatha as if it dared not rest upon her for even a second. As if it might burn. "The baby is coming" she said, "And the leg-she cannot move it."
"Then she will not move it."
At that, Serena offered her a bitter smile. "You"ve never seen a birthing, Diora. There might be some very small chance that we could deliver her of child if this were her third or fourth-but it"s her first, and the pain is always greatest, the labor hardest, with the first."
"No, Serena, you don"t understand. If the movement will cost her, she will not move." Gray eyes met brown ones, and it was the gray that fell away.
"You give me hope, Serra Diora," the eldest wife said faintly. "Because I almost believe you."
"What-what will you do to her?" Ruatha spoke as if speech were not voluntary. The words were punctuated with a brightness of eye and a quickness of breath. "No matter what you do for the leg, you can"t bind it whole when it"s that newly broken. And you can"t bind her if she"s to give birth."
"I will... sing," Diora replied. "When Faida brings me my harp, I will wake Deirdre, and she will be in pain."
"We have the waters," Serena said, "both of the Tor and of distance; she will have both, together. Ruatha," she added softly, lifting a hand and then letting it drop, as if remembering just who Ruatha was. "More than that, we cannot do. Believe that we care about Deirdre as much as we are capable of caring, and bring me my philters."
Her hands shook as Faida delivered the harp into them. Sweat came from heat and nervousness as she settled herself down upon the flat mats, taking only enough care to find a position which was comfortable for the body, not the eyes. This was her harem"s most private place, this birthing room; if she could not be herself-whatever that meant, in this place-here, she could not lower her guard anywhere.
And even the greatest of warriors put their shields up and went home when the time was right.
She smiled almost bitterly at that a.n.a.logy, wondering why she had chosen it; it wasn"t particularly fitting this night, of all nights-for if she lowered her guard, she did it at the very moment that she lifted her greatest weapon, in a land where the Serras did not wield a weapon more graceful or deadly than a dagger. Did she trust these women?
No.
But she wanted to.
She could hear Ona Teresa"s admonition; the warning of years, of a decade and a half, never wavering and never changing. Never tell anyone, Diora. Not even your father. Especially not your father.
Had that driven a wedge between them, she and her father? She did not know; he had grown stranger and stranger as he had traveled the Widan"s path-less the man that she remembered loving so completely, more the powerful clansman. But she could say, of all living men, she trusted only one, and that man, her father, Sendari di"Marano.
But she had not trusted him with the knowledge of her gift.
Could she, she thought, trust them? Ruatha with her sharp tongue, her poor discretion, her quick anger, Serena, the distant woman who had helped to raise Illara and might well choose his interests over his wives", Faida, soft-spoken, quiet, and too trusting by far. Of the three, she thought Faida was the most dangerous, because she would act without intent.
"Diora," Serena said softly, "wake her soon."
She began to play. Softly at first, a Northern tune that she had learned from no less a man than Kallandras of the mythical Senniel College. But as the Northern tune pa.s.sed from her fingers to the strings and from the strings to the ears, she continued, seeking her own tune, giving the strings the imperative that lay beneath the wordless, perfect harmony she sang.
She opened her eyes, for she closed them often while playing; things seen were less subtle than things heard, but they caught the eye"s attention almost before one realized one"s attention had wandered. And to sing like this, to use her gift to command, required a focus that was as sharp as a blade"s edge; once she had it, it could not easily be wrested from her, but gaining that ground was not simple.
She saw Deirdre laid out against the mats, her body exposed, her chest rising and falling rhythmically. The silks that had been so expensive now lay at her side in a rent and jagged bundle; small red beads were scattered across the floor, catching light like drops of hard liquid. "Diora?"
Almost imperceptibly, Diora nodded at the sound of the voice. She wove her awareness of it into her song, and as she did, she felt that she understood Serena en"Leonne perfectly; she was a distant mother, a woman who loved her sister-wives and dreaded their loss enough that she hid behind the veil of age, distancing herself where she could. As if it helped. As if it ever helped, this forced distance, this fear of pain. She sang a gentle benediction to the tense and waiting woman, and then she turned her words, and all that they held, to Deirdre. Deirdre en"Leonne and her almost-born infant. Who was Deirdre en"Leonne? Was she black-haired and brown-eyed and delicate of frame? Was she lovely, was she supple, was she the woman who danced, within the harem"s confines, more sensuously now that she carried the promise of life than she had ever danced without? Was she a mother, if not these things, a woman who would sing the cradle song in the dusk after the pa.s.sing of the Lord"s dominion, holding child as burden and blessing and broken heart while praying, all the while, for the Lady"s mercy, or was she a wife who hoped to gain her husband"s favor, and his mother"s favor, by giving him a son-a son that might not be, might never be, superseded? Or did she desire instead, a girl, a girl she might keep as her own until the day that she was old enough to be presented, as a gift, to the harem of another Tyr?
All those things, was Deirdre, but she was more than that. She was more than woman; she was girl at heart, hidden from the critical eye of all save those who loved her enough to indulge her. She could not read, of course; few women could. But if read to, she would listen, her face wreathed in the serious lines that Sendari di"Marano would have approved of in a daughter.
She was not Serena, and yet, of the three women- Faida, Ruatha, and Deirdre-it was Deirdre who was the anchor, the hidden, quiet strength. Ruatha had the ferocity of desire and protectiveness, and Faida the singsong quality of her open joy; it was Deirdre who bound them and held them together.
Diora wondered when she had noticed this, or if it came to her only now, as she sang a song of Deirdre"s life, a song made of words bound together by the strength of her voice. By the strength of a love that she was almost afraid to reveal, that she had no choice but to reveal if she was to wake Deirdre and bind her.
If she was to touch what no longer slept within the rounded hallow of her body.
The song broke twice. She picked it up each time, and the third time it faded, she was ready.
"Wake, Deirdre, wake; Ruatha is waiting, and Faida, and I."
Deirdre"s eyelashes lay heavy upon her pale cheeks. Diora spoke again, and they fluttered; a third time, and they opened wide. She turned her face at once, propped shaking hands to either side and began to rise. Ruatha was at her side immediately, with waters from the Tor. And with the waters that Serena called the waters of distance. Something to dim the pain.
Diora smiled, but the smile was difficult to offer; she was listening more intently than she had ever listened to anything in her life. "Serena," she said at last, "I hear the child." She closed her eyes to gather strength and distance.
Serena nodded.
"I can... sing calm," she told the harem eldest. "I can sing stillness, and it will be done-but you must explain it to her first-why it"s necessary. If she doesn"t know, she won"t be as-it will be harder, for me."
Serena nodded, the lines around her thin lips white with pressure. But she spoke gently to Deirdre en"Leonne. She touched the leg, the curve of the stomach, the matted stickiness of her sister-wife"s brow. Her voice, low and inseparable from the tone of the music Diora played, seemed to calm the young woman. And in calmness, her best chance lay. "How long?" Serena asked the woman who played the Northern harp.
"As long as it takes," Diora replied, almost as fierce in her answer as Ruatha might have been. But her answer was followed by a momentary silence, and then a forced and quiet question. "How long will it take?"
"I don"t know. Hours, Na"dio. At least, I think, the full half-day. This child will be born under the moon"s face, in the Lady"s time. Can you... sing... for that long? She will need our help in all things; she cannot put weight on that leg, and she will not be able to curl or crouch as she should."
Twelve hours. "Yes," Diora replied, although she had never done it before. "And longer."
Faida came to offer her water, and she stopped only long enough to drink it; she found the waters of the Tor Leonne to be the only balm for her aching throat, her tired hands. She cursed silently; had she been Ona Teresa, she would have been able to dispense with the harp-but when she did not have the focus of the strings and their beautiful song, she did not know how to offer a gentle command. She could speak, but the power in her voice was almost binding; even Kallandras said that hers was a voice to rival his own had she but been given the opportunity to hone it.
She vowed she would learn; she was learning, in bits and pieces, all the time. Lady"s whim.
But she could not learn quickly enough for this. Like all else in life, the lesson would come too late for Deirdre.
The sands ran. She could see their even trickle as the gla.s.ses were turned and turned again. The lamps were lit, that Serena might see better; Deirdre herself seemed preternaturally calm. She answered every question that Serena asked.
But it was not until the moon was high that Serena rose and buried her face in her hands.
Diora was tired. She thought, at any moment, her voice might crack.
"Serena?" Faida said, making of the name a question.
"The baby is turned," Serena said. It lies feet first, and I fear-" She fell silent.
"Are they out?" Diora asked, although the speaking of the words was costly. She stumbled; her
fingers seemed to collide with each other as her hands gave in to cramping."Are they out? What do you mean, Na"dio?""The feet.""Not yet. Very soon.""Feet are bad?""Now? Yes."She was so tired. She had never been tired in her adult life; the weariness was like a drug or a poison. It made her hands heavy. As they fell against the strings, she thought she had dropped
them, that they were no longer a part of her body.
She thought she could not keep playing; her hands were numb and p.r.i.c.kly. She could not command with any subtlety at all unless she did. Rising, stumbling as if the weight of her own body was completely unfamiliar, she spoke two words.
"Turn over."
She could see the sudden bulge, the twisting, in Deirdre"s body, as the infant obeyed. Deirdre made an animal sound, a grunting in the well of her throat. Diora picked up the harp again.
Two hours later, she heard it: the baby"s cry.
Her eyes were closed; she did not see it come, candlelit and wet, into the world, head and shoulders cradled in the hands of Serena en"Leonne. To hear it was enough. To hear its voice, the whisper of its cry.
Faida"s cry was louder, sweeter; she leaped and landed at least once in sheer joy. Serena was weeping; she could hear this, too, almost as clearly as she could hear Deirdre"s exhausted and happy plea to hold- her son.
A son.
She stopped playing when someone pried the harp from her hands. Without the harp to steady them, they shook; they shook terribly. The room was filled with a bitter wind, a cold one. A son.
But, no, it wasn"t the wind; the screens and the hangings did not whisper at all with the breeze"s voice. What was it? she thought as she attempted to rise. Her legs buckled, awkward and stiff beneath her; they would not carry her weight. She fell; she could not even put her arms out to stop the mats from striking her.
But someone else offered their arms instead, and she took to them, like a child lost in the grip of a terrible fever.
Ah. A fever. Something about the word was familiar. A warning, perhaps, about fevers. Something Kallandras had said. "Don"t let them see me," she said, pressing her face into the warmth and the softness of another woman"s cheek. "Don"t call them. Don"t let anyone see me."
And she heard, to her surprise and amazement, the voice she least expected to hear. "I won"t. I promise." Ferocity, truth, and blessed protectiveness.
Ruatha"s voice.
The chill took her, and the darkness; the lights dimmed. I want to see the baby, she thought, but perhaps they won"t let me because it"s a boy.
As if she had spoken-and perhaps she had, the person carrying most of her weight drew her to where Deirdre sat. To where Deirdre held a small, reddened little infant, face almost lost to the swell of his mother"s breast.
"Look, Diora." Candles made twin trails of light down the cheeks of Deirdre en"Leonne; she had never smiled so radiantly in all the time that Diora had known her.
Mother and child were the last thing she saw before she gave herself over to the darkness of exhaustion. And the mage-fevers that, Kallandras had warned her, could strike anyone born with the gift if they attempted to do too much, for too long.
Three days she shivered in darkness with an uncontrollable chill. Serena did not come the first day, nor did Deirdre or Faida. But Ruatha was there almost constantly, holding the waters of the Tor Leonne in a solid silver mug. It was a common thing, and Diora knew it-but she had broken two gla.s.ses of Northern crystal because her spasms came and went in a completely wild and unpredictable way, and she did not wish to break another- of any sort.
Besides, crushing silver was almost impossible, and if she pressed the vessel as tightly as she could between clenched palms, she could hold it. She found Ruatha a comfort and hated to see her leave, be it only to personally fetch more of the waters of the Tor-yet she also felt perversely guilty because if Ruatha was with her, she was not with Deirdre, and she remembered enough of her days in her father"s harem to know that after the first euphoria had faded into pleasant glow, the mother was often tired and in need of aid.
But when she mentioned it, Ruatha shook her dark head. "She doesn"t need me," she told Diora gravely.
"She has her son, and she has Faida with whom to share joy, and Serena from whom to take advice.
"I am not a mother," Ruatha added, staring a moment at hands that seemed, for all her strength, curiously unblemished and unhardened. "I don"t know how to share what she has to offer. I"m happy that she"s happy. I would kill to protect her baby." She raised her head, met Diora"s eyes with eyes that were just as dark. "But you need me.
So I"m here."
Awkward silence filled a room that would have been still if Ruatha had not picked up the large fan and begun to use it to send a gust of warm air across Diora"s fevered face. Diora broke it because she was the better taught of the two. "You wouldn"t have done this before."
"No."
"Why then? Why now?"
Hair fell down her shoulder and silk-clothed back as Ruatha en"Leonne shrugged tightly. "I don"t know. What you did-we all saw it. We haven"t spoken about it. Serena won"t let us. But even if she didn"t forbid it, I don"t know that we would. You were-you seemed like the Lady"s hand, Diora. Faida says you were sent to us by the Lady as an act of mercy." She smiled awkwardly, looking at the fan and not at the woman to whom she spoke. In anger, she was direct and forceful. But here-it was almost as if she dared not meet Diora"s eyes, not because of what she might see in the harem"s Serra, but rather, because of what Diora would see in her.
"I told her we deserve you. Or maybe she does. I"m not-I haven"t been kind. To you. I"m-I didn"t know what you"d do."
"Ser Illara?"
"He"s been-occupied. Samanta is desperate because Deirdre"s given him his first son; she has something to prove, and we"ve let her. We-Serena, that is-told him that you were unwell because of the heat, and that you did not wish to disgrace yourself by being less than the Serra that he had the right to expect. Or something like that. He seemed to accept it, so we"ve all been left alone. "Especially Deirdre."
"But the baby," Diora said softly. "The baby is a boy."
Ruatha met her eyes again. "Yes," she said, oddly gentle. She reached for Diora"s cup, filled it, and then moved closer, placing the back of her hand across Diora"s forehead. "Diora-you"re too hot. Are you certain-?"
"Yes. If they come," Diora replied, feeling lucid but oddly detached, "they"ll call the healers. If the healers come, they"ll know what it is that I-that I suffer. They"ll know what the fever means." Ah, no-Ruatha was right. She could feel the cold building within as her hands started to shake and droplets of precious water flitted across the sleeping silks like wasted tears. "That I"m gifted, somehow. The Lady"s gift or the Lord"s-it makes no difference. If they know, they"ll take me away, or they"ll give me to the Radann for cleansing, or worse, they"ll make a weapon of me, and nothing more than a weapon."
The words stopped as her teeth began to chatter. Ruatha brought blankets and pried the cup from between her hands before the water was completely spilled by her short, jittery movements.
"Sleep," Ruatha said. "There will be no healers here."
Diora believed her. And because she did, she slept peacefully.
Two days after that, Diora rose for the first time. She was exhausted by the fevers but hungry; her search for food brought her into the largest of the rooms: the harem"s center, where Serena en"Leonne usually held court. But it was not Serena who occupied the place of honor beneath the artist-rendered golden sun on the high ceilings above; it was Deirdre, and in Deirdre"s arms, wrapped tight and bound into stillness-which looked uncomfortable at best-was the babe.
"Na"dio!" Serena rose at once. "Where is Ruatha?"
Diora smiled. "Asleep. And she should be. I don"t think she"s slept for close to six days."
"She"ll be angry if you left while she was sleeping," Deirdre offered, a tired smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
"Oh. But she was exhausted."
"Well, yes." Deirdre looked down at the bundle in her arms; arms that were, now, a mother"s arms, and strong enough to carry the weight for as long as the Lady allowed.