by Karen Nilsen
"I can't help but think of it. My boyhood friend, my cousin--he took advantage of you, you couldn't say no or even know what was happening to you. That son of a bitch."
Abruptly, she let go of me, putting her hand over her mouth. She vomited in the basin, gagging. I stood up and held her shoulders as she finished. A sourness filled the air, and I felt the bile rise in my own stomach. I swallowed, my eyes watering as I emptied the basin in the slop jar and clapped the lid down on its contents. The smell still lingered. I cracked the window, and it quickly dissipated. I wished that my family was so easily disposed of.
Safire leaned against the wash stand, wiping her face with a damp towel. She dried her mouth, then lifted the pitcher and started to pour a glass of water.
"Here." I took the pitcher and finished pouring the water for her.
"I'm sorry, Merius."
"Why? It makes me feel sick myself--it's no wonder you retched, what with the baby and all."
"If I hadn't cried myself silly, you mean." She sniffed. “Now, let me finish healing your wounds.”
“You can finish in the morning--you should lie down, and I’m pretty exhausted myself.”
“We can’t leave your cheek till morning, Merius. I think the bone’s cracked.”
“That bastard Peregrine can’t hit that hard.” I winced even as I spoke--my cheek did hurt badly, worse than I’d realized.
Her eyes were narrow. “I’m sure you won the fight and that Peregrine looks a lot worse than you. But he still got in some nasty punches. Now get on the bed.”
“All right, but I didn’t know you could heal a cracked bone.”
“There are a lot of things I can do.” She grinned and pushed me towards the bed.
“Really? Like what?”
“You’ll see. Shh--just sit down here, on the edge.”
Cool hands encircled my head as Safire knelt on the bed behind me. "Be still now, my love," she whispered, her breath warm against my ear and neck. Her fingers were light as she gently massaged my temples, then my forehead, then my face, her deft touch tingling. It felt as if she were making new skin for me with her fingertips.
“Witch,” I muttered, closing my eyes. “You’ll make a fine warrior’s wife--you can patch me up after every battle.”
“Shh--I told you to be still.”
I drew a sharp breath when her fingers reached my cheek. She barely touched the bone, and I bit back a yelp. How could I not have noticed the pain before? It was the kind of pain that went straight to my gut and made me queasy.
“Picture the pain as a helmet that’s too tight,” she whispered, her fingers unbearable as she rubbed my cheek. I wanted to howl, pound the floor with my feet, but instead I gritted my teeth and pretended my father was in the chamber.
“Merius, forget your father, what he would think. Forget everything, everything except the helmet. It’s so tight--you can think of nothing else but how tight it feels, how much it hurts, how much you long to take it off . . .” She repeated this over and over, her fingers rubbing heat into my cheek, a tingling heat. Whenever she took away my headaches, her fingers were cool, blessedly cool, but now they were hot. The heat itched, and I longed to scratch. It reminded me of the itch I’d felt when my arm had started to mend after I broke it against the parapet wall, an itch that I couldn‘t reach to scratch because it was under the cast, under my skin, in my very bones as they knit back together.
“Merius,” Safire’s voice broke into my thoughts. “You’re starting to drift again. Helmet--remember the helmet, dear heart. It’s so tight it hurts, hurts . . .” I concentrated, remembered the confining weight of my helmet, how much I hated wearing it, how it would hurt if it were too small.
In less than a minute, Safire cracked the helmet with her magic hands, the pieces falling to my feet as the pain vanished. A liquid light filled my veins, and I felt then that everything was going to be fine.
Chapter Twenty-Seven--Safire
I awoke to the grayish light of a stormy dawn. We had forgotten to close the bed curtains last night, and I could see the silvery streaks of the rain on the diamond-shaped panes and hear the plinking of the drops on the slate roof overhead like a thousand tiny bells ringing at once. It was the perfect morning to snuggle under the blankets next to Merius and go back to sleep, but I found myself unable to close my eyes. Merius stirred then and murmured something unintelligible. I held my breath, waiting for him to wake. He turned over, pulling the covers with him, still talking and still very much asleep. I smiled. He was as restless asleep as he was awake, fighting with his pillow one moment and kissing me the next. I listened to his breathing settle back into an even, quiet rhythm.
“Thank you,” I whispered to the air. The air was a presence today, heavy and dark with the rain. “Thank you that he came back, that he‘s alive and safe and beside me now.”
The air grew still for a moment, as if listening to me, and I felt the brush of invisible fingers on my forehead, smoothing my hair. My mother. I instinctively reached up to grasp her hand, but she was gone, so fleeting that I wondered if I’d imagined her.
I sighed and turned over, my hand drifting to my belly. Already I could feel swelling, a ripe tautness under the skin that hadn't been there before. I prayed that Mother would return, tell me what to do, but the air had fallen still, and I knew I would sense her no more today. She had crossed over, and until I died and crossed over myself, I could only talk to her in dreams and sense her in fleeting flashes like that one that had just happened. So Merius and I were left to sort this mess out ourselves--we didn’t dare tell anyone living, even Dagmar, lest it ruin our chances to marry, and the dead with wisdom to impart were beyond our reach.
I glanced over at Merius’s long shape under the covers, his hair sticking out in all directions, his arm clutched around his pillow as if he thought someone would snatch it from him. When he had left to kill Whitten last night, perhaps never to return, I had lit every candle in the chamber and then sat on the bed, my arms around my knees as I stared at the light flickering over the wall. I had sat like that for over two hours, terrified to move, even to cry. I had to be still--if I moved, my cracked heart would break into a hundred pieces, never to be whole again. I understood now the ancient stories of shock turning people into statues. It had happened to me last night. Then Merius had returned with his quicksilver aura, the very air around him sparkling, and I had found myself able to move and speak again. My heart was still cracked, but I knew even if I jarred it and the pieces fell apart, he would be there to help me put it back together.
My brash, brilliant, sweet-tempered, not-quite husband. I sighed again and combed my fingers through his hair. The dawn of our wedding day, and Merius was estranged from his family and position because I carried his drunkard cousin’s get in my womb. This was supposed to be a grand day, filled with feasts and dances and merriment, not a day for us to sneak off and find the first priest who didn’t ask too many questions. Dagmar wouldn’t even be there to stand behind me at the altar as I said my vows. I had been at her wedding and shared her joy--what had Merius and I done so wrong to warrant fate cheating us out of a public celebration of our union? The all-too-familiar prickle of tears stung my eyes, and I savagely swallowed them back, wiping away stray drops with the corner of the sheet. If Merius woke and found me crying yet again, he really would leave me, and I wouldn’t blame him.
What kind of bride was I, anyway? How could he still want me after all that had happened? He should marry a chaste, demure beauty from one of the first Houses, not some unruly witch with another man’s seed growing in her belly. Of course, Merius was unruly himself and likely would have found the chaste beauty dull after five minutes, so it seemed we deserved each other. But we didn’t deserve to start our life together with another man’s child in my womb.
It was so unfair, first to have Whitten take advantage of my witch fit, and then have his seed take root . . . I found myself curling up in a ball, my hand knotted in the folds of the shift
over my belly, as if I could somehow will myself to miscarry. My whole body shook as I concentrated on my womb. Perhaps I could make my monthly blood come, and it would be like Whitten had never touched me. Never touched me . . . a sudden weight pushed me deep into the feather tick, and all went dark and airless. I choked, something pressing hard against my throat, so hard I could barely get breath. He had held his arm against my throat to keep me limp while he . . . the memory mercifully ended as soon as it began, one of those flashes that had been coming more often since Merius’s return. I uttered a low, guttural whimper like an animal in pain in an effort to keep from sobbing. No more tears, not yet--my eyes already felt raw as peeled onions from tears, and I was sick of crying.
“Safire?” Merius muttered, letting go of his pillow and reaching for me. He suddenly surrounded me, his arms tight against my back, my cheek against the rough warmth of his bare chest. “Wake up, sweet--I think you’re having a nightmare.”
“I’m awake.” I took a deep breath, the searing liquor of his quicksilver air in my lungs.
“What is it?”
“It’s just not fair, Merius. Your seed should have taken root, not his.”
He sighed and turned over on his back, pulling me with him so that my head still rested on his chest. I could hear his heart beat, my head rising and falling with each breath he inhaled. He stared up at the bed canopy for a long while before he said, his voice hoarse, “’And so the nightmares gallop along/Their black hooves pounding, pounding in our sleep. . .’”
“Did you write that?” I moved my head so I could see his expression.
He nodded, his face pale in the gray light, his eyes dark and sad. “Nightmares shouldn’t come when we’re awake--it‘s bad enough we have them when we‘re asleep.”
I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut. “Maybe if I miscarried, it would be like this never happened.” He fell silent again, his fingers moving lightly up and down my back. He was quiet for so long, his heartbeat louder and faster in my ears, that I finally said, “Merius?”
“How would you do that?” he asked, his voice neutral.
“What? Miscarry?” When he nodded, I continued, “I don’t know exactly--I know some women do it deliberately, but no one’s ever said how. I thought maybe I could use my talents somehow--I tried last night, but it didn’t work. I’ve never been able to heal myself, and I think this is the same kind of thing.”
“You tried last night?”
“Before you woke and found me crying, I tried.”
“Safire . . .” His hand tightened against my back.
“I couldn’t bear to tell you, I was so ashamed and scared you’d go off in a rage if you knew, but I knew that I could never in good conscience marry you without telling you. I thought if I could make myself miscarry, you’d never have to know what Whitten did.”
“Safire, if you ever conceal anything like that from me again . . . damn it, I can’t stand being lied to or deceived. It reminds me of Father’s dealings, and I won’t tolerate that kind of behavior from my wife.”
“Why do you think I told you when I did? If deceiving you was my motive, I would have waited until well after the ceremony to tell you.”
“I know that--I just hate the thought of you hurt and bearing this alone. You should have turned to me first instead of pretending happiness this past week.”
“Pretending happiness? Merius, I’m not that good an actress. Being here with you, away from everything--how could I help but be happy? All you have to do is take me in your arms to make me forget. Perhaps only forget for a little while, sometimes longer, but it’s enough. More than enough--it‘s sustained me.”
He leaned over and kissed the crown of my head, then my lips. It was a gentle kiss, our mouths barely open to each other--we hadn’t kissed since before I’d told him about Whitten, and the truth now lay between us, an invisible barrier that only time and desire could breach. Knowing myself, much less Merius, I doubted it would take us long to breach it. Not just breach it, but bound over it. I smiled to myself, feeling him already warming to me with growing eagerness, his lips taut against mine.
I pulled away at an opportune moment. “We’re not married yet, you know.”
He chuckled. “If you insist, my lady, then I suppose we should get ourselves to a chapel.”
“That’s right. I’ll do things in the wrong order every other day, but not our wedding day.” I settled back on his chest, and we were silent again for a long moment, listening to the rain and each other’s breathing. “Do you know . . .” I trailed off, hesitant.
“Know what, sweet?” His hand moved in my hair.
“Anything about miscarriages?”
There was another long moment of silence, and then he shifted under me, as if choosing his words carefully. “My father, some of the men at court--they’ve said some things.”
“Like what?”
“There’s something called bloodweed--courtesans take it a lot.”
“Would you know where to get some?”
“No.”
“Could you find out?” I craned my neck and looked at him.
“No.” He met my gaze, his eyes unblinking.
“Merius, I don’t believe you. Surely you could find out where to get some.”
“I probably could. That doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”
“Why not? You want me to bear some other man’s child . . .” He sat up, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me towards him so that our faces were within inches of each other. His eyes suddenly held a wild light, the same light I’d seen in them last night when he’d went off to kill Whitten. I swallowed. “Merius . . .”
“Listen, Safire. Believe me, I don’t want to see you bear this child, but I’d rather see you bear it than see you die.”
“Die? But the bloodweed sounds safe enough.”
His mouth worked as if he couldn’t find the words for he wanted to say. Finally, he said, his voice low, “Everyone except Father says it’s safe, but I don’t believe them.”
“What does that mean? Why doesn’t your father think it’s safe?”
“He’s never said, but I heard the servant women’s whispers after Mother died. They said . . . said she took bloodweed, and that’s what caused her to die in childbed. I glimpsed the sheets afterwards, soaked with blood.” He broke off abruptly and sank back against the headboard, his face turned away.
“Oh, dear heart.” I ran my fingers through his hair, down his neck.
“I’ll not procure bloodweed for you. In fact, I forbid you to take it.” He glanced back at me, his eyes narrow.
“Forbid? That’s a strong word for a not-quite husband,” I said, and we glared at each other. Merius’s aura swirled around him, so strong it reminded me of a bracing wind from the sea, filling sails and blowing away anything insubstantial.
Merius’s glare softened, and he grinned. “Bold witch. Shall we dance or duel, sweet?”
I smiled, traced his lips with my finger. “That depends. Which ends with a kiss?”
“Both.” He caught my finger in his mouth and nipped my knuckle. “And such a kiss--it’s forbidden even between husbands and wives.”
“Indeed. Forbidden--such a strong word. It makes me feel defiant.”
“I like you,” he paused. “Defiant.”
I lifted myself off his chest and propped my elbow on the pillow beside his head, my chin against the palm of my hand. We stared at each other for an eternal minute, the rain a lulling rhythm in the background.
“You’re so lovely,” he said quietly. He ran his fingers down the side of my face. I caught his hand in mine and kissed the perpetual ink spot on the side, my fingertips brushing the ropes of his veins and muscles under their coat of coarse hair. “I should never have left you to go on campaign,” he continued. “This would never have happened if I‘d been here.”
“But you had to go, Merius. You can’t take responsibility for something someone else did while you were across the sea, fighting and getting ta
ken hostage and God knows what else. You had no way of predicting what happened, no more than I did, and I have witch talents.”
“I should have been here to protect you. I’ll never leave you like that again.”
“What if Herrod orders you to go on campaign?”
“I’ll not go.” He gripped my back, holding me tight against him. “I’ll not leave you alone for so long again,” he repeated, the force of his words rumbling through both of us.
“It’s backwards arrogance to hold yourself responsible for everything. What if a bolt of lightning came through the window and struck me dead this instant? Would you blame yourself for that?”
“No, but this isn’t a bolt of lightning. This is Whitten, who never would have thought to touch you if I’d married you when I should have.”
“All the ifs in the world won’t take away what happened.” I paused, hesitant to say what I said next. “Killing him won’t take away what happened, dear heart.”
His gaze was steady, unrelenting. “A miscarriage won’t take it away either, Safire.”
I sighed and laid my head on his shoulder. “Nothing will take it away,” I murmured, closing my eyes. “We don’t deserve this.”
“No, we don’t.” He clasped me in his arms, his warmth all around me. “My friend Roland didn’t deserve a SerVerinese arrow in the neck, either. Yet that’s what he got. Now he’ll never hold a woman the way I’m holding you.”
“So you feel fortunate, despite what‘s happened?”
His arms tightened. “I still have you, and that makes me the most fortunate man I know.”
“After today you’ll always have me, and I’ll have you. Always, Merius.” I glanced up at him. “Always--I can’t comprehend it. Always is a long time.”
“Not long enough. What are you thinking, sweetheart?”
“I’m not thinking, I’m feeling.”
“What are you feeling?”
“I love you.”
I could hear the smile in his voice. “I love you too.” We fell silent then, holding each other. The rain lashed against the window, a cozy sound when I was safe and warm in bed with Merius, so cozy that I began to feel drowsy. He yawned and clutched me to him like he had clutched his pillow earlier, as if he were afraid someone would snatch me away. I nestled against him with a grin, my thoughts drifting lazily over the few frocks and gowns I had brought with me. Which would be suitable to wear when we married? Dagmar would have said none of them, but she could be so fussy sometimes. I already knew which article of clothing Merius preferred to see me wear, and it wasn’t anything that was suitable for church. So that left me to make up my own mind. I finally settled on one of my simplest frocks, a cream-colored gauze and silk concoction with a green ribbon sash as its only adornment. Only adornment . . . it would be perfect . . . perfect. Sleep was almost upon me when I felt a flame flare to life deep inside at the very root of my being. My mind, on the edge of dreamland, concentrated on that flame, mesmerized by its minute flickers. The flame was so tiny and frail that I would never have noticed it amidst the distractions of the waking world. But it was there. It was no dream, even if I couldn‘t see it yet with my eyes. And it would grow. My son.
