Birth: A Novella (11 page)

***

Jana turns a bright shade of red and begins to howl.
I snatch her out of Dominic’s arms and put her over my shoulder,
patting her back and crooning to her. “It’s only gas, Amalie,”
Dominic says.

There’s a late arrival, the sound of barking
dogs. Friendly—it’s someone they know. Stefan forces his way
through the narrow entrance, fighting upstream against the outward
surge of Roger’s departing entourage. When Stefan gets too close,
Tariq shoulders him aside. “Make way for Lord Roger Zichmni,
cadet,” he says in a voice that has a hint of rough music
underneath the velvet baritone. He’s much stronger than he looks,
and more formidable.

Stefan bridles at the brusque command,
reaching automatically for his sword before backing off and bowing
as his brain registers the name of the acting Viceroy. When Stefan
lifts his head, he and Roger are face to face, sizing each other
up, the rivalry and sexual antagonism unmistakable. There’s no
doubt that as soon as he has seen Roger, Stefan knows what has
occurred between him and Dominic, and that Roger knows he
knows.

Roger laughs. “Cadet Ormonde,” he says,
“have I your permission to leave?”

Stefan blushes at the indirect snub, nods
and tries to laugh. “My lord,” he says. He shakes his head, unable
to think of a proper response. “Please, my lord, accept my
apologies—” But Roger is already gone.

Hoping that nobody witnessed the humiliating
scene, Stefan scans the crowd in the hall, sees me standing beside
Dominic, and heads in our direction.
Better get it over
with,
he’s thinking, none too subtly. Dominic follows the young
man with his eyes, the look on his face familiar. It’s the softened
yet intently focused regard of the lover seeing his beloved, a look
I have had from him myself so often I had come to think of it as
his habitual expression, until living in Eclipsia City taught me
how rare it was.

“We heard the news at Ormonde,” Stefan says
to me when he reaches us, ignoring Dominic. He studies the red,
squalling face with interest. From a large family himself, he’s
unperturbed by Jana’s screaming. “She looks like her father. And
she has his voice.”

Dominic edges closer to Stefan, tries to
embrace him and kiss him on the lips, as if nothing has happened.
“I missed you, Cadet Ormonde.”

Stefan doesn’t respond. He doesn’t reject
Dominic, but he’s unyielding to Dominic’s touch, not smiling. “No,
you didn’t,” he says, sounding like the sixteen-year-old boy he
used to be. “Major Aranyi.”

Dominic touches a finger to Stefan’s cheek.
“Colonel Aranyi,” he says, pointing to his collar. “I’ve been
promoted.”

Stefan flushes with anger.
So that’s how
it works
, he says in communion.
All you have to do is suck
the Viceroy’s dick.
He stammers an apology to me, knowing I
overheard, turns away and starts to move toward the entrance
again.

Dominic holds onto his hand, won’t let him
go.
It’s not that easy
, he says, trying to joke Stefan out
of it.
I had to fuck him, too
. One hand falls naturally to
caress the young man’s buttocks. Still no response. Dominic sighs.
“Take proper leave of Lady Amalie,” he whispers. “Then you can tell
me exactly what you think of me.”

Stefan remembers the messages he’s been
charged with delivering. “My parents send apologies for their
absence; my mother is not in condition to travel. But they join
with me in congratulations on the healthy child. May the gods bring
you many more, and a son next time, with luck.” It’s the
traditional wish for the mother of a daughter.

“Thank you,” I say, “but no thank you. One
is plenty.” Jana is still crying fitfully. She needs to be changed;
after a week, the smell is as familiar to me as my own. I scan the
room for Isobel.

Stefan is surprised at my odd remark, and
interested enough to forget his anger. “Don’t you want to give
Dominic a son?”

“Dominic has a son. Two, actually,” I say,
remembering Lady Melanie’s natural-born son, reminding myself as
well as Stefan. I have to look up to him now; he’s taller, more
filled out, and we’re no longer the perfect fit of that Midsummer
dance we shared. Seventeen is a long way from
sixteen-and-a-half.

“Yes, but I mean his trueborn son,” Stefan
says.

“Amalie is speaking for both of us,” Dominic
says. “At our age we need to regroup after a battle before charging
into the next.”

“But you’re younger than my parents! And my
mother’s expecting her twelfth child in the spring.”

Dominic winces involuntarily and I laugh,
shaking Jana, whose crying intensifies by the octave and the
decibel. My husband manages to put one arm around Stefan without
provoking a duel, and pretends to slap his face. In a voice
unsteady with laughter, Dominic says, “In this house, cheri, I
suggest you keep such fascinating observations to yourself.” I
notice, wishing I hadn’t, how fragile Dominic still is.

Isobel appears at my side. She’s been
invaluable this past week, one of Magali’s many great deeds,
finding this competent, cheerful young widow who likes to work,
loves children and seems to have the strength of two, maybe three
plow horses. “I’ll change her, my lady,” she says, scooping Jana
out of my arms before I can demur. We’re comfortably past that
point, after a week in which getting out of bed has been my
greatest accomplishment. Isobel grins at Stefan. “Welcome home,
Master Ormonde. We did miss you at Midwinter. Just a bunch of old
trolls, begging your pardon, my lord.” She winks at Dominic,
knowing she’s safe from his sharp tongue. He likes her bold
highland speech, just as he enjoys my coarse Terran outbursts.

Stefan smiles nervously at the woman’s open
interest—ten years his senior, buxom and ruddy, her thoughts
unambiguously sexual. He’s remembering the disappointing festival
at home, the young girl he chose to see what that was like, the
first time for both, clumsy and too quick, painful for her,
unsatisfying for him.
Next time,
he thinks,
a married
woman, someone safe, not this one who’d sink her teeth in like a
starving wolf and never let loose…

Dominic’s protection is still valuable.
“Hands off, Isobel,” he says. “I may be an old troll, but I hold my
own.”

Isobel laughs. She can’t read, but everyone
who lives here knows the words of the Aranyi motto,
I hold my
own,
carved into the stone battlements above the entrance.
“Fair enough, my lord,” she says over her shoulder as she carries
Jana off. “And if you’re an old troll, the gods help the rest of
us.”

Berend hovers in the background, watching
and waiting to see which way Stefan will turn. There’s an ache in
Berend’s thoughts, a yearning expression on his face that’s a
visible translation of Dominic’s emotions. I can feel it myself, a
longing for something unattainable, like the poor on Terra, the
advertising constantly flaunting another kind of life before them,
the knowledge of its existence souring any enjoyment of what they
have.

Dominic is swaying like a skyscraper in a
gale, his face lined and white. I look around, sending my thoughts
to Stefan to help, sorry for Berend but choosing the way I must.
Stefan stands oblivious, and I wonder if he’s shielding his mind
out of anger or is simply no longer attuned to his former lover’s
being.

I’ll be fine, Amalie
, Dominic says,
hating to show any infirmity in front of Stefan.

It’s Ranulf who helps Dominic to a chair
while Stefan, shocked out of his own resentment by the change in
his powerful companion, is left on his own as people continue to
press their congratulations on us.

“Welcome home, Master Ormonde,” Berend says.
“We missed you at Midwinter.”

“Hello, Berend.” Stefan has a ready smile
for an old friend, his manner easier than with Isobel. “It’s good
to be back, although I may not be staying.”

***

Later that day, during the siesta, which Dominic is
actually using to rest, I ask Stefan to sit with me in my room
while I lie propped up in bed to nurse Jana. Katrina chaperones us;
settled in a well-cushioned armchair, she dozes off early in my
account of recent events. At the end, as I express my gratitude for
Roger and Tariq’s act of healing, Stefan scowls. “I should have
been here.”

Supposing he had been,
I think. I
would not have invited Roger and Tariq to visit.
Would Stefan’s
gift alone have been strong enough to save us?
I’m caught in a
momentary, after-the-fact panic I don’t wish to betray. With Stefan
ambivalent, ready to go whichever way is less dishonorable, I
dislike manipulating him. Or rather, I know how ultimately futile
it would be for me to choose. He’ll do what he wants once he’s sure
what that is, and no false decision made before then will be
binding.

“Dominic said you were the one to break with
him,” I say.

“I was,” Stefan says. “But he didn’t waste
much time before finding someone else.”

“That was my brilliant idea,” I say, already
weary of rehashing my less than inspired notion. “Honestly, I wrote
the invitation myself, let Lord Roger know what I was planning. And
it was only once. And it didn’t work out.”

It occurs to me that Dominic has changed, in
the time since we met, from merely accepting my small, female form,
in thrall to the communion between us, to actively desiring it. He
selected that girl of festival night for her looks, because in his
mind now my size and shape signify the true love of communion.
Perhaps there is something of the same association for him with
Stefan and the stable boy, finding a more satisfying substitute for
love in a partner who at least physically resembles the absent
beloved. Appearance can be duplicated more easily than communion,
and can be abandoned without regret when the original is once again
available.
From now on,
I tell myself,
I will let Dominic
choose his own companion.

Stefan listens intently, hearing the
thoughts that continue after the words trail off. When he speaks,
his response surprises me. “I think you love him more than me. I
mean, more than I love him.”

“Maybe,” I say. “And maybe, because I’m
older, and a woman, and just had his child, it’s only natural that
I should. But you must love him a little, or you wouldn’t be here
now.”

“Yes.” Stefan acknowledges the possibility.
“But sometimes I think it’s just that I was flattered, Margrave
Aranyi wanting
me
, a younger son with no land or title. And
then in Eclipsia City I saw what that amounted to. When he was
always going to dance halls, it just seemed like all he wanted was
whatever asshole was available. Literally.”

He sits quietly after his bitter words,
watching Jana suckle. I’ve been pressing my breast with my fingers;
Jana drinks in such gulps my milk doesn’t flow fast enough. I want
to reach for his hand, attempt some form of communion, wondering if
he’ll allow it.

“You swore an oath to Dominic, didn’t you?”
I ask. “A serious, binding oath.” I pause, pretending to collect my
thoughts, so he won’t suspect I’ve been planning this speech from
the beginning. “You know, he wouldn’t have let you swear it if he
didn’t value you. If you were nothing more to him than a body for
sex, he wouldn’t have called you his
companion
and asked you
to be his second at our wedding.”

Stefan nods, mulling it over, still at the
age where love and sex and marriage are impossible to distinguish
as separate acts and entities. “I guess I should take it as a
compliment,” he says, “that you picked Lord Roger to be my
substitute.” He doesn’t feel honored. He’s worried that he can’t
measure up to so illustrious a rival.

“You should be very proud,” I say, straight
on, the answer he hadn’t looked for. “And grateful. Don’t you see?
Dominic’s wanted him for years.
Lord Roger Zichmni.
If they
had never come together it would have grown into an obsession.
You’d never measure up to that. You’d feel like the second wife to
a widower whose first wife died, young and beautiful and perfect,
on their wedding night.”

That makes him laugh. “What should I do,
then?” he asks.

“Be honest with yourself. You must decide
whether you love Dominic enough to forgive him—and me. And you must
be fair to Berend.”

“Oh, he’s harmless,” Stefan says, the first
selfish statement I’ve ever heard from him.

“But you’re not,” I say. Does he truly not
know how handsome he is, what an attractive package he makes, youth
and beauty, good manners and background, all wrapped up in a
cadet’s uniform? “Berend’s in love with you, or thinks he is. You
must put him out of his misery one way or the other. If you’d
rather be with Berend, go back to Ormonde and meet him on neutral
territory. But if you’re going to stay here with Dominic, don’t
screw around.” I can feel my words seeping into his thoughts,
giving rise to the novel idea that even Dominic may need
consideration in affairs of the heart. I never believed it was
Stefan who took the initiative. Now I’m not so sure. “Why did you
break with Dominic?”

He answers me honestly, as I’ve requested.
“I couldn’t live like that, with the two of you so angry with each
other, fighting all the time.”

“That’s it?” I can’t keep the incredulity
out of my voice. “Not because of any serious trouble between the
two of you?”

“Only then, when I said– when I told
Dominic—”

I stare at him mockingly, my eyelids
drooping, thinking of what Dominic told me.
Show her who’s
master
, Stefan had said.

“Don’t you want him to?” Stefan asks,
confused by my obvious derision. “Don’t you want Dominic to be the
master?”

“No,” I say, “I’m not in the Royal Guards.”
I regret my acerbic tone as soon as I see its effect on Stefan. He
hangs his head, not used to having to be afraid of me, still seeing
me as on his level, someone he can talk to without having to watch
his every word. He’s only repeating what everybody says about
marriage. The fighting, that was bad enough for me and Dominic,
must have been devastating for him, the age difference just right
for him to regard us as surrogate parents.