by David Weber
“He’s an only child, Sharley,” Nimue said. “He’s his father’s sole heir. He says that’s not important to him, but I know it’s important to Rysel. And not just because Koryn’s his son. The Earl despises most of the alternative heirs. And even if Koryn says it isn’t important to him, even if he means it, what will he feel like in twenty or thirty years?”
“I think he’ll feel exactly the way he feels now, honestly,” Sharleyan said. “He’s not a fickle man, Nimue. He knows his own mind … and his own heart. And he’s not going to lie to you about what he thinks and feels.”
“No, he’s not,” Nimue acknowledged, and Cayleb heard the almost forlorn pride in her voice. “But I won’t … close off that avenue. He may not care about heirs, but I’ve seen him with kids, Sharley. This is a man who wants, needs, to be a father, and who’d be a damned good one. I’ll be his lover, but I can never marry him, take that away from him. I just … can’t.”
“Oh, don’t be silly!”
More than one of the people on the circuit twitched at the bubble—the amusement—in Nynian Athrawes’ voice.
“I’m not being silly!” Nimue snapped. “This is important to me!”
“Yes, it is,” Nynian replied. “In fact, in some ways, I think it may be more important to you for him than it is to him. For that matter, there are some … issues here for you, too, whether you’ve faced them all or not. And before you bite my head off, let me point out two or three things to you if I may?”
“Go ahead,” Nimue said after a few fulminating seconds.
“Thank you,” Nynian said rather more gently. “First point. I’m married to another version of you. I know why Nimue Alban knew she’d never be a mother, and I know what kind of scar that leaves. Trust me when I say that, because I truly do.
“Second point. Whatever ignorant people who haven’t tried it may think, there’s no difference between a parent’s love for a biological child and her love for an adoptive child. I’ve never had a baby of my own, either, but I do have a daughter and I do have a son, and no one could possibly love anyone more than Merlin and I love them. I never thought I’d have children any more than Nimue Alban did, Nimue, and for a lot of the same reasons, really. I wasn’t worried about the Gbaba, but I wasn’t going to offer them up as hostages to Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s Inquisition. Now you and Merlin have made it possible for me to change my mind about that, and I’m not going to sit here and watch you throw away the same opportunity you brought me. I can’t. I’m sorry if that pisses you off, but you’re going to need a better reason than that to tell the man who loves you you won’t marry him.”
Unlike Nimue, all of them could see Nynian’s face, and Merlin felt his eyes soften as he looked into his wife’s gaze and remembered a long-ago conversation with Ohlyvya Baytz. A conversation Nynian Rychtair had forced him to confront in ways he would never have imagined were possible.
And now she was doing it all over again for a different iteration of Nimue Alban.
“I … hadn’t thought of that,” Nimue said after a long stillness, her voice soft.
“Of course you hadn’t,” Nynian told her simply. “Nimue, you’ve had a lot of reasons to hold that door closed, including the fact of his mortality. But you’ve come far enough to admit you love him and to share his bed, sweetheart. So what about opening the door a little wider? Sharing his entire life—openly, at his side—as well?”
“I still don’t know how that would work for the succession,” Nimue said.
“Probably not very well,” Cayleb said a bit unwillingly. “Corisandian inheritance law’s not quite as bad as it was with Hektor when I adopted him, but I’m not at all sure the Corisandian peerage would accept an adoptive heir when there are legitimate heirs of the blood available. And this is one issue Daivyn couldn’t overrule them on. He could create new titles for your child—and I’m sure he’d insist on doing just that, given how he feels about both of you!—but unless the ‘legitimate heir’ is attainted for treason, he can’t arbitrarily hand an existing title to someone else. On the other hand, I think you might be wronging Rysel a bit. I think he’d care a lot more about his son’s being happy than he would about who’s going to inherit any titles after both of them are dead.”
“I think Cayleb’s right, Nimue,” Nynian said, “but it doesn’t really matter, because that brings me to my third point. Which is that the question doesn’t have to arise at all.”
“I beg your pardon?” Nimue asked a bit skeptically.
“You’re a PICA!” Nynian laughed. “I’m married to a PICA, so I’m what you might call intimately—in more than one sense of the word—familiar with his ability to reconfigure himself physically. If you can transform yourself into a man, like Dagyr Cudd, do you expect me to believe you couldn’t pretty perfectly simulate a pregnant seijin? Without the minor disadvantages of things like morning sickness, I mean.”
“Minor?” Sharleyan snorted. “Now there speaks an adoptive mother!”
“Details, details!” Nynian waved one hand in a graceful dismissal, then bent and planted a kiss on the top of her namesake’s head. “Don’t distract her.”
“Well, yes,” Nimue said. “I could simulate a pregnancy, but the endpoint of the process is supposed to be a child, Nynian, and simulating a delivery would be just a tad more difficult!”
“More details,” Nynian told her, but her tone was far less airy. She straightened, wrapping both arms around the baby in her lap, and her expression was focused and intent.
“Listen to me, Nimue. There are quite a few women in the inner circle now, the majority of them of childbearing age. I’m not anymore, I’m afraid, but any one of those other women would happily—lovingly—donate ova to you and Koryn. Surely you don’t doubt that! And have you actually forgotten what ‘Doctor Owl’ has already done for Zhain Howsmyn? Trust me, he has everything he needs in the Cave to fertilize those ova with Koryn’s sperm and bring the baby to term in an artificial womb. So the two of you can have children, and that child will be Rysel’s biological grandchild and heir … and every inch as much yours as she is Koryn’s. Nimue, love, the two of you can have as many children as you want!”
“We … we could, couldn’t we?” Nimue’s voice was soft, tears floating within it. “This … this never even occurred to me!”
“That’s because Nimue Alban would never have been cruel enough to create a child only because she wanted one so badly,” Maikel Staynair told her, his voice as gentle as Nynian’s had been. “But it’s also because you were so focused on protecting Koryn and Rysel. That’s always your first instinct, just like it is Merlin’s—to protect others, not yourself. You’re too busy creating possibilities for us to think about how desperately we wish we could create them for you. But Nynian’s right. I’m positive of that.”
“Of course she is!” There were tears on Sharleyan’s cheeks, as well, and she reached out to grip one of Nynian’s hands. “Of course she is! In fact, I’ll volunteer my ova right now, Nimue. And I’m sure Elayn or Irys—or any of us—will do exactly the same thing.”
“You would?” Nimue’s tone sounded wondering, and Sharleyan laughed through her tears.
“Oh, Maikel is so right about you and Merlin!” she said. “After everything the two of you have done for us, for our world, for everyone and everything that matters to us, we finally have the opportunity to do something for you! How could you think for an instant we wouldn’t take it?”
APRIL YEAR OF GOD 904
.I.
Nimue’s Cave, The Mountains of Light, Episcopate of St. Ehrnesteen, The Temple Lands.
Wake up, love.>
Nynian Athrawes opened her eyes as the beloved voice flowed through her.
The smooth stone ceiling above her had become a familiar, almost comforting sight over the years, but not as comforting as the face smiling down at her. She smiled back, then stiffened as she realized Merlin’s lips hadn’t moved.
“Is this—?” she began, only to pause as another face appeared beside Merlin’s.
“I … I see,” she told the AI, then looked back at Merlin. “This is going to take some getting used to,” she said. “Especially for an old woman like me!”
Nynian laughed, reassured by the familiar tartness of the exchange. It was true that she was sixty-four years old, her dark hair lightly threaded with the first strands of silver, but sixty-four was only fifty-eight in the years of long-dead Terra, and she’d received the enhanced basic medical nanotech Merlin and Owl had made available to all of the inner circle. It wasn’t remotely the same as the antigerone therapies which had allowed the original “Adams” and “Eves” to live as much as two or two and a half centuries, even without the booster treatments still available to the “Archangels” in Eric Langhorne’s command crew. It did, however, assure she would be disease-free, immune to Alzheimer’s or any form of cancer, that any injuries would heal with near-miraculous speed, and that she could expect to live to at least a hundred and fifty years. If they hadn’t managed to overthrow the Church of God Awaiting by then, her longevity would undoubtedly raise a few eyebrows. On the other hand, if they hadn’t overthrown the Church by then, raised eyebrows would be the least of their problems.
Then there was always the minor fact that while Nimue Alban might have been born over a millennium ago, Merlin had been in existence for less than fifteen years. So which of them did that make a cradle robber?
“So how do I talk back to you?” she asked.
“You only thought I was giving you grief before,” she warned him, then looked past him to Owl’s head. “Owl? How does this work?”
Nynian frowned as she focused her attention on the flashing image. It felt a little odd, because she discovered she wasn’t actually “seeing” it with her eyes at all. The image was projected into her field of vision, much as Owl had projected data and video onto her contact lenses for years, but there was still a subtle difference, although it took her a moment to realize what that difference was. This image was projected directly into her mind, with a sharpness and clarity that bypassed the actual optic nerve. It had a … solidity, although that wasn’t really the word, greater than anything she’d ever actually “seen.”
And yet, sharp as it was, it snapped into even greater sharpness as she concentrated on it.
she “said.”
Merlin extended a hand and lifted her into a sitting position. He was very gentle about it, and she felt only a minor twinge of discomfort as a reminder that she’d just undergone the most intrusive neurosurgery any native Safeholdian had ever experienced. his voice continued somewhere inside her brain, completely bypassing her eardrums and yet “sounding” exactly like himself,
She nodded slowly, her eyes intent.
