Exile's Song (56 page)

Ariel stood in the doorway, holding something and howling. She stepped into the hall, and Margaret could see the still form of little Domenic draped across her cousin’s outstretched arms. Behind the woman the faces of the other children were white with terror, their eyes enormous.

“You tried to kill my child!” Ariel screamed.

A
dreadful silence followed Ariel’s words, and everyone in the entry seemed to freeze for a moment. The child in her arms stirred feebly, one arm flexing slightly. Then everyone began to speak at once, and chaos followed. Ariel trembled and shivered, then began to scream in greater hysteria while Javanne and Piedro tried to calm her. Margaret felt as if her feet had rooted to the floor until Mikhail touched her elbow. She felt battered, and more, she was angry. At that moment she would gladly have consigned the entire Lanart clan, root and branch, to the farthest reaches of hell, and not been at all contrite.

“Be quiet!”
Old Jeff came into the entryway from the living room and bellowed these words, and everyone stared at him as if he had grown horns and a tail. “What is going on?” He was angry, and Margaret was so glad to see his stern face that she wanted to cry. She was sure Uncle Jeff could get things calmed down.

“She killed my baby,” Ariel howled. She clutched the now limp body of Domenic, and Margaret heard a little cry of protest. Javanne tried vainly to get the child away from her daughter, but that made Ariel even more hysterical. Piedro tried to speak, but the voices of his wife and mother-in-law were too shrill.

“What happened?” Jeff shouted.

Piedro drew away from trying to comfort his wife. His voice trembled. “The storm. I knew we should not leave. This is my fault, not Marguerida’s.”

“I doubt it is anyone’s fault, Piedro,” Mikhail said.

“We were driving toward home,” Piedro went on, as if his brother-in-law had not spoken, “and it began to thunder. Lightning struck a tree just as the horses passed under it, and they bolted. Jedidiah tried to stop them, but they pulled him right off the coachman’s bench, and onto the ground. He fell beneath the wheels, and that overbalanced the coach, and it rolled onto its side, while the horses continued to run. They must have dragged the coach three hundred feet before they stopped. I could hear Ariel and the children screaming, and I could do nothing. My son is injured, and Jed, my coachman, is dead.” Tears poured down Piedro’s face.

Piedro stopped speaking, and his shoulders shook with sobs. His frightened children looked at him, and the eldest, Damon, rubbed the tears off his own face and straightened his little shoulders. “We were all inside with Mother,” the lad said, “when the coach fell over. It was dark, and the rain came in through the window. It was broken, and there was glass all over.” He held up a small hand, and Margaret could see it was cut in several places.

“It seemed like it was all right when the horses stopped. Father came and opened the door, and I handed Kennard out to him, then Lewis. Donal climbed out on his own, and I reached over to give Domenic my hand. It was still warm, but he felt weird.”

Piedro nodded. “His neck is broken, I think. When the coach overturned, he must have fallen wrong.”

“Then we must get him into bed immediately,” Jeff announced. “If his neck is injured, having his mother clutch him will not do him any good.”

Margaret wanted to shrink into the shadows, to be away from this horror. She wondered what could be done for a broken neck with Darkover’s fairly primitive medical technology. Herbs and simples were fine for stomach upsets, but this was beyond that sort of remedy. If only she could think of something to do to help, so she could escape the choking feeling that she was responsible for the accident.

Then she remembered the foam splint in her medkit. It came with instructions for immobilizing broken bones, didn’t it? Of course it did—the Terrans had instructions for everything. It was how they did things! But the chances of relaying that information in the midst of the uproar, or getting close enough to the injured child to apply the tool, seemed impossible .

Ariel had continued to moan all during this, and now she began to scream again. “I fell on him! I felt him underneath me. But it isn’t my fault. I love my children! You did this,
you . . .”
She pointed an accusing finger at Margaret.

Margaret shrank against the wall, devastated.

Liriel appeared from behind the group in the entry, rubbing her eyes as if she had been napping, and took in the scene. As her sister screamed, she walked forward and slapped Ariel smartly across the face. “That is quite enough! If you hadn’t dashed out of here when a storm was coming, none of this would have happened.”

“She frightened me,” whimpered Ariel “Marguerida frightened me. This is her fault, not mine.”

“Accidents are not anyone’s fault, Ariel,” Jeff said sternly. “We know you love your children,
chiya,
and that you care for them. This is a terrible tragedy for everyone.”

Instead of calming down at Jeff’s words, Ariel turned red with fury. “What do you know, old man. You are on her side. Everyone is against me! Everyone thinks I am just a silly woman, but I know things you’ll never know! I know you can’t understand what it is to be a mother.” Ariel’s tirade degenerated into sobs. “My baby . . . my baby . . .”

Liriel pursed her generous lips and looked at Jeff for a moment.
She is going to lose the child she bears if she doesn’t calm down, and that will finish her. We have to get her into bed before she gets sick. My poor sister. If only I had realized how unhappy she was.

Margaret felt her continued presence was more of a hindrance than a help, and started to withdraw from the entry. Mikhail’s hand on the small of her back stopped her.
Don’t leave yet.

I don’t think so. I know she is blaming you, but I think she knows that Domenic’s injury is as much her fault as anyone’s.
She sensed his strength beside her, his strength and clear-headedness. It was wonderful—or would have been if she had not felt quite so shattered.

Mikhail turned and charged up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and Margaret swallowed, trying to think of something she could say. Why her? She didn’t know Ariel very well. She heard the thump of his bootless feet on the wood of the floor above, and shook her head to clear her thoughts.

Liriel tried to get her sister to let go of the small, limp body. Domenic gave no further protest, but Margaret knew the boy was not dead, not yet anyhow. If his mother didn’t let go of him, he would be, though. Ariel resisted, continuing to insist that her family hated her, that she was misunderstood and a great deal more. It was pathetic, but it was also painful, for Javanne looked close to tears, and Jeff seemed helpless.

Margaret swallowed hard, her mouth very dry, and close to tears herself. She moved closer to Ariel, carefully, so as not to frighten her. “Cousin, you must think of the child within you,” she said quietly. The words came from some deep, caring place within her, someplace she had never known she possessed. “You would not wish to harm her, would you?”

“Her?” Ariel’s voice, raw from screaming, was feeble and raspy.

“Yes, it is the daughter you have longed for.”

“How do you know?” Ariel’s eyes were completely unfocused, and she did not seem to be aware that she was speaking to the woman she believed to be the author of her sorrow.

“Liriel told me earlier today.”

“Did you?” Ariel turned to her sister, and her arms began to sag.

Liriel took rapid advantage of this, and slipped her arms beneath the still form of the boy. His chest rose and fell slightly. “Yes, I did. I would have told you, but you ran off before I could.” She clasped Domenic’s body against her generous bosom. Then Jeff took the child from her in his long arms, supporting the lolling head with care.

“A girl. At last I will have a girl to love me.” Ariel seemed to steady then, and began to stroke her still flat belly, caressing it sensuously. “I have always wanted a daughter to love me.”

“And you will have her,” Liriel answered, giving Margaret a quick glance of approval, “but you must be calm for her.”

Suddenly, Margaret had the sense of vision she had experienced at the dining table a few hours before. “She will be beautiful,” she said, not thinking of the consequences of her words.

Ariel, who had been almost dazed a moment before, looked at Margaret intensely. “What do you see? Tell me!”

“I don’t think that would be wise,” Margaret answered, though nothing in her vision was at all alarming.

“I don’t care what you think!” Ariel’s voice rose. “You must tell me, right now! ’

“She will be beautiful and she will be healthy—what more can a mother ask for?”

“I don’t care if she’s beautiful,” Ariel whispered. “I just want her to love me.”

At these words Margaret saw her cousin’s unborn child as a young woman, tall and russet-haired and striking. She had something of Javanne’s look, the same strong jaw and fierce eyes, and there was something powerful in the gaze that stared back into Margaret’s inner eyes, powerful and willful. “Of course she will love you. You are a good mother, and she cannot help but love you.” As she spoke, Margaret knew she lied. Ariel was doomed to be disappointed in her daughter. She wondered if there was some way to make things better, to keep this unborn babe from becoming the wild, passionate, troublesome woman she foresaw. “You will name her Alanna, after your grandmother.”
Not an entirely felicitous choice. She should be Deirdre for all the sorrow she will bring to Darkover.
Perhaps she was wrong. Margaret hoped she was, because what she could see of that future told of a woman who could not love Ariel as she longed to be loved.

Javanne gave her niece a sharp look.
I thank you for being kind to my little daughter, and I hope you are wrong in your vision. I never knew she felt so . . . unwanted and unloved until today.

Mother, it is not your fault!
Liriel’s mental voice was firm and clear.
You did the best you could for her. You always did the best you could for all of us.

It is kind of you, Liriel, to say that, but I do blame myself. I am a mother, and I should have known how unhappy she would be without
laran.
Or, perhaps, the fault is in valuing that overmuch. And, in truth, I was not entirely pleased to have twins. Perhaps I did not want her enough.

Stop whipping yourself,
Jeff’s command startled Javanne.
It is a complete waste of time. You did the best you could, and you could not have done more. Regret will not change anything,

I hate it when you are right,
Javanne replied with something like her normal vigor.
But, we must see to the child. He may not have taken as much hurt as we imagine, but the danger now is that he will get an inflammation of the lung.

I sent Mikhail for my medkit, and he should be back in a moment. There is a device in it that might be useful.
Margaret felt anxious at holding out hope, but she knew it was the right thing to do. Indeed, Javanne looked at her with more favor than she had since she arrived.

Piedro had taken his wife’s hands and was talking to her very softly, so gently that Margaret felt something like envy stir within her. As he drew Ariel toward the stairs, she wondered if she would ever arouse such a fine tenderness in another person. She watched them move upstairs, and felt exhausted and miserable. Her wet garments clung to her skin, chilling her, and she noticed that she had dripped a large puddle on the floor.

Mikhail nearly crashed into them, rushing down the stairs, but neither Ariel nor Piedro seemed to notice his descent. He had the medkit in his hand, and his face was rather rosy with embarrassment. Of course—Rafaella was asleep upstairs! If she hadn’t been so tired and upset, Margaret would have been amused.

In a moment, Jeff had laid Domenic on the floor of the entry and stretched out his small limbs. His head rested crookedly above his slender neck. “This is no place for a field hospital, but I do not want to move the boy around any further,” the old man said. “Someone fetch some warm blankets—he is shocky, and that will do him no good. Now, Mik, give me that kit. Lord, it has been a long time since I saw one of these. Hmm. They seem to have added some things.” He started to sort through the contents, and Margaret knelt down beside him.