White Blood (3 page)

Siwell dropped to her side with one of the wooden bowls the healers used to capture blood. It was polished to a glossy shine and ornately carved with sacred symbols. She pressed it into Maryn’s hands.

Maryn drew back. “I couldn’t. Wouldn’t it be sacrilege?”

Siwell shrugged. “Just don’t let the priests see. I don’t think it’s inappropriate. Milk’s a lot like blood. White blood, some call it. It has its own power. Now, let me show you what you need to do.”

Though Maryn’s shift was stiff with the milk that had leaked from her overfull breasts, it wasn’t easy to coax more out. But Siwell was a patient instructor. She showed Maryn how to position her fingers well back from her nipple, behind the edge where darker skin met fair, and first push back in toward her chest, then roll down and out. Maryn doubted at first that the awkward motions could work, but after a few attempts she managed to produce a dozen thin white streams, and felt the relief of eased pressure.

Siwell kept her under a watchful eye until she was sure Maryn had mastered the technique. “I suppose you should drink it. I don’t think milk attracts specters, but no use taking chances, and you’re too tired to work the releasing ritual safely. Besides, you’ll be lucky if you get much decent to drink for a few days.”

Maryn nodded her understanding. The bowl was nearly full already. She raised it to her lips and sipped. It was sweeter and lighter than the milk from cow or goat. The taste took her back to her own childhood, when she had climbed into her mother’s lap and drunk deeply of the rich warm liquid. Whatever scrape or bruise or fit of temper troubled her was forgotten as she snuggled safe, and all was again right with the world. Tears came to her eyes at the memory, and she had to struggle to swallow the last few mouthfuls.

Siwell delicately probed Maryn’s breast. “That’s much better. Get the other side as well, now.” She hesitated. “No need to take much; just until you’re comfortable. You’ll need to cut back a little at a time, as a weaning child does, to let it dry up gradually.”

Maryn wanted to protest, to exclaim that of course she couldn’t let her milk dry up. Frilan needed it. But she was so tired. No matter how hard she tried to keep believing this was all a horrible dream, she couldn’t anymore. Everything was too real. Her breasts hurt, the floor was hard and cold beneath her, the air reeked of smoke, and the sobs of her fellow refugees rang in her ears. The truth was still too terrible to face, but she knew. Frilan would never need her milk again.

She grunted and went on drawing the milk from her breast in long, rhythmic strokes, trying to get the maximum amount with each effort, before repositioning her fingers and pressing again.

“No, wait. I just had a thought.” Maryn glanced up, startled by the change in the midwife’s voice. Siwell gave her a searching look. “Go ahead and get as much out as you can, for now. There will be time enough later to cut back. But there’s something you might be interested in…” She rose. “I must go help the other healers. Until I get back, don’t nurse any other babies, if someone should offer, or ask for help.”

That was an odd instruction. Surely there were babies orphaned by this disaster, or separated from their mothers. Why wouldn’t Siwell want her to help them? Not that Maryn wanted to. Under normal circumstances she’d be glad to nurse any child in need, but right now she couldn’t even think of letting some other child take Frilan’s place.

Once she had drained both breasts, she drank the last of it, set the bowl aside, and did up the tie of her shift. She set her back against the wall and stuck her legs out in front of her. All around were other refugees from the devastation. Some of them huddled together in tight little groups, but many, like Maryn, sought solitude for their distress. Near the altar where Siwell had gone healers moved among the wounded. Blue sparks flared often, and a nearly constant dim echo of the buzzing emanations of magic came up through the polished stone of the floor.

She closed her eyes and tried to think about nothing. Eventually the numb emptiness that had gripped her earlier returned. Later she sank into fitful sleep.

When she woke, the noon bells were ringing. Robed brothers and sisters of the abbey moved among the refugees, offering coarse brown bread trenchers with meager scoops of lentil pottage. The fare was a significant step down from even the modest meals she was used to, but she was so hungry she didn’t care. She made the food last as long as she could, breaking off tiny bits of bread and chewing until nothing was left but the gritty residue of the millstones.

With her energy restored by rest and food, it was much harder to steer her mind away from dangerous thoughts. She jumped to her feet and went in search of some task to occupy her attention.

The healers were too deeply absorbed in their work to notice her. She stood for a moment, watching them. Victims of the fire lay everywhere. Maryn had to avert her eyes from their raw burned flesh. A healer chanted as he untied a blood-soaked bandage from around a deep cut on one woman’s arm. The blood erupted into a fountain of blue fire, and the woman’s moans subsided as the gaping edges of her wound drew together and began to scab over.

Two brothers pushed past Maryn, bearing on a stretcher the still form of a large, well-muscled man. One side of his face was a blackened ruin. Though he wore the leather apron of a smith, something about the dead man’s heavy build and the lank blond strands of his soot-streaked hair reminded her suddenly and forcefully of Edrich. She had to sink her teeth into her lower lip to keep from screaming.

She snatched at a passing sister. “Please, give me something to do. Anything, I don’t care, I just have to stay busy…”

The sister patted her hand. “There, there, dear. You don’t need to fuss. We’ve got things well under control. You go lie down and rest, and stay out of the way.”

Maryn grabbed the sister’s arms and shook her. “No! Give me something to do! I don’t want to lie around and—I want to help! You have to let me do something!”

The woman stared at her, shocked, and tried to pull free. Maryn clung to her arms. The sister raised a frightened voice. “Brother Ohwich, help!”

A large, stern brother was at their side in an instant. “What’s the matter? Girl, step back and settle down. We’ll have to put you out of the church if you don’t—”

Siwell hurried up. “Maryn, child, I heard you shouting. It’s all right, Brother, I know her.”

Maryn dropped the sister’s arms and stepped back, the looming dark wave of her pain threatening to crash over her. “Siwell, I just want to help…”

“Of course you do.” Siwell turned to the sister. “Can’t you find the girl some useful task?”

After a good deal more chiding from Siwell, a brother brought Maryn a mop and a bucket of water. She seized them and set about zealously scrubbing every exposed inch of beautifully inlaid floor. Some of the refugees cursed at her as she pushed them out of her way or dripped water onto their precious blankets. The healers were more welcoming of her presence, shifting cots and tables out of her way so she could remove the frighteningly large quantities of power-emptied blood residue and other less palatable body fluids. Maryn didn’t care how noxious the task was; it felt good to scrub the filth away and leave behind glistening clean floors.

Near sunset she was going over the stretch of floor nearest the altar for the third time, certain there were still a few spatters of mud and soot she had missed, when Siwell came to fetch her. She took the mop from Maryn’s hand as she tried to push past to reach one more dirty spot. “Maryn, that’s enough. Stop now. Come, they’re bringing around dinner; I’ll sit with you while we eat.”

Reluctantly, Maryn complied. Siwell frowned as they walked toward the spot by the wall where Maryn’s blanket lay. “Have you taken care of your breasts since this morning?”

Maryn ducked her head. She had ignored the gradually increasing need. Her breasts felt full and sore again. “No.”

“Do it now. You have to keep your supply up.”

Maryn gulped and looked away. “What…what does it matter?” She rushed on, trying to keep ahead of the flood of misery that crashed in through the opened gate. “If Frilan…if I don’t need to nurse him, what’s the use? I might as well let them dry up. I’ll never…never…” She swallowed hard.

“Sit down.” Siwell put her back to the wall and slid down with a sigh. She kept her gaze fixed on Maryn until she sank to the floor as well.

Siwell leaned her head against the stone and closed her eyes for a moment. “Have you given any thought yet to what you’re going to do next?”

Maryn stared at her. Next? What did that mean, anyway, besides the next spot of dirt on the floor, the next task she could beg them to assign her? Once she had thought effortlessly, without fear, about days and years to come, when they had stretched in peaceful happy abundance far into the hazy future. Now it was difficult to consider what even the next sunrise might bring. Only more misery, and greater danger of being overwhelmed by the fierce grief she must constantly struggle to control.

Maybe she should just give up. If she stopped fighting the pain, would it destroy her? Would it drive her so far into madness she could lose all thought and feeling? Would it kill her, so her soul would be free to seek out Edrich and Frilan in the courts of the Holy One? Perhaps that was the best she could hope for. She couldn’t imagine that she might ever come out on the far side of this endless night of grief to anything resembling her former innocent contentment.

Siwell looked at her, waiting for an answer. Maryn turned away. “No. Not really.” She tried, tentatively, to consider the practicalities, at least. Her home was lost. She yanked her thoughts back from the image of the scorched pile of rubble that seared the back of her eyelids. Was there anyone she could stay with? One of her friends, perhaps? The women she knew had been her neighbors, or the wives of Edrich’s Weaver’s Guild colleagues. Most of them also dwelt in the south quarter. They would be in the same straits she was, if any survived.

The midwife still waited, but Maryn could think of nothing to say. She shook her head.

Siwell sighed. “Will you go back to your father’s house?”

“I could.” She hated the thought, but what other choice did she have? Her marriage to Edrich had let her escape the hard life of endless drudgery that was a serf’s lot. Mother and Father had been so pleased. Their whole family’s labor in Lord Negian’s fields earned them only a tiny strip of land. It had produced barely enough to feed them in years past, even before her younger brothers had grown into hungry youths. “I guess I’ll have to.”

“Maybe not, if you find a way to take care of yourself.”

“Take care of myself?” Despair weighed heavy as the lead that sealed a coffin in Maryn’s heart. “How can I do that? I have nothing. Everything was in our house. My spinning wheel, my wool…it’s all gone.” No, she still couldn’t let her thoughts venture so close to where the ashes of the sleeping loft lay buried under wreckage. “I even lost the basket of diapers. Maybe I could find them.” The thought of scouring the woods for the pitiful little pile of cloths was so funny she broke into giggles.

“Maryn.” Siwell’s sharp voice shook her back to sobriety. “Listen. I’m aware of an opportunity that could prove very valuable to you, if you choose to pursue it.” Her voice gentled. “I know nothing can come close to replacing what you’ve lost, but this could at least allow you to remain a freewoman, and independent.”

“What do you mean?”

Siwell picked up the carved bowl from where it lay forgotten among the folds of the blanket. “Here. We can talk while you take care of this. Your breasts must feel miserable.”

They did, though not nearly as bad as they had that morning. Maybe her milk was already starting to go away. Maryn untied the drawstring of her shift and lifted her breast free. She fumbled for a moment, but quickly remembered how to go about it. She let the rhythm of her motions and the hiss of the milk spraying into the bowl calm her as she listened to Siwell’s words.

“A few days ago I received a message from the head of my order in Loempno. The stewardess of the royal household seeks a wet nurse for Princess Voerell’s coming child. Ideally she would like a woman between twenty and twenty-five, who gave birth less than a month ago, and has an ample supply of milk. But most important, she needs someone who has no ties to land or family to bind her.”

Maryn blinked. “Are you suggesting I might—But I don’t fit that. I’m only eighteen. And Frilan is…was…” She had to stop and swallow, and search for words she could say. “Frilan was born more than six weeks ago.”

“Yes, but that’s not too far off. And the other factors matter more. It’s rare to find a woman anywhere close to those criteria who’s free to give the full commitment they’re looking for.” Siwell looked gravely at Maryn. “I’m going to be blunt with you Maryn, because I believe you’re strong enough to handle it. The Royal Stewardess is looking for a woman whose baby is dead. Recently, so her milk is still abundant. And no husband, though the church would frown on one who conceived out of wedlock. But a widow is perfect.”

Dead. Widow.
The stark words stabbed into Maryn’s heart, releasing a gush of anguish. She squeezed her eyes shut against tears, and her hands trembled until her milk almost spilled and she had to put the bowl down. Siwell was quiet while she scrubbed at her wet cheeks and drew deep breaths, trying to regain her composure.

Calm came more quickly than she would have thought possible. It was almost a relief to have the words out in the open. Their truth settled on Maryn, cold and empty and final.

She picked up the bowl and concentrated on sending a few more jets of milk streaming into it, until she was sure her voice would not fail her. “I see.”

“Have you ever nursed another child? A sister’s, a friend’s? One you were minding for pay?”

“No. There was one neighbor, we had planned, after hers was born, that we might help each other sometimes, but she’s…” Most likely lost, along with so many others.

“You’re quite sure? Not even once, not even a drop?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Why? What does it matter?”