Frostflower and Thorn

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Frostflower would not have time to wish that, actually. The only safe way to kill a sorceron was with a surprise attack from behind. Unless some fool could be found who would risk taking her virginity.

  As if she had not heard the warrior’s last insult, Frostflower bit into her peach, without sucking loudly or dribbling juice. She swallowed the bite before speaking again. “My retreat is ten days’ journey from Three Bridges. We will do best to return there—”

  “No!” A little sorcering Thorn would risk, laws or no laws, to get the brat out of her quickly and cheaply. But she would hang herself with a bellyful of stones before she would follow anyone into a retreat full of sorceri with their dung-larders and secret pits of crazed animals.

  “It would be safest and most nearly comfortable. We have a cottage—”

  “I’ve heard of your damn cottages. We’ll find someplace here in Three Bridges, or I’ll take my chances with a borter.”

  The sorceress ate more of her peach, slowly, keeping her gaze lowered so that Thorn no longer saw her eyes. “I can partly guess the things that are told of us. But whatever you have heard, our houses are clean and what few guests come to us in peace we treat with courtesy.”

  The warrior snorted, but Frostflower went on,

  “The child can be little extra burden to you as yet. Travel with me for ten days, and we will both be safe. But for a sorceress to journey with a child whose existence none can explain—”

  “Wrap it up in your blight-herb box and carry it in your sleeve.”

  Frostflower sighed. “Will you come with me as far as Frog-in-the-Millstone? I have friends there—not sorceri—a family of weavers who worship all your gods. They will lend us a place.”

  Frog-in-the-Millstone was half a day’s walk from Three Bridges, but the weavers might share a meal or two, and the walk would give Thorn time to figure out how nearly she trusted this sorceress. Besides, it was that much closer to Maldron’s Farm, and rumor said that Maldron was almost always ready to hire a new warrior or two. Thorn shrugged. “I’m getting sick of Three Bridges anyway.”

  * * * *

  The weavers’ graincellar was cool and clean. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling beams to keep away insects, and a fragrant candle burned in a wall niche before a statue of the Wheat Goddess. Thorn lay on a slated, makeshift bed near the wall, propping herself up on one elbow and watching Frostflower warily.

  All the way from Three Bridges to Frog-in-the-Millstone, the sorceress had not only refused to answer, but had seemed not to listen to Thorn’s questions about the animal pits and dung-stews of her retreat or the sorcerous tricks of blighting crops and stuffing the eyes of sleeping folk with mustard. But her friends the weavers, Brightweave, Yarn, and Small Spider, seemed honest enough—eight rooms to their house above, and a statue of one god or other in every room—and Small Spider cooked a good stew of cow brains and bacon. So here, dinner over, the swordswoman waited.

  She intended to close her eyes and ears when the sorcering began, to get the thing done without letting it dirty her mind. So far, however, the sorceress might have been any midwife (for all Thorn knew of midwives), moving around with her basins of water, cool or steaming, and her armloads of clean rags, while her dog lay in one corner and thumped its tail against the bags of flour.

  “You have not removed your belt yet?” asked Frostflower.

  “I’ve loosened it. How much do you want?” The warrior felt naked enough already, with Slicer and Stabber out of reach on one of the foodshelves. The borter in All Roads West four years ago had made her take off nothing but trousers and sword; and, drunk as she had been for one of the few times in her life, she had kept Stabber ready in her grip the whole bloody time.

  “Your belt must be off completely,” Frostflower insisted, bending down and unbuckling it herself. “And your tunic…”

  “I’m trusting you very far, sorceress.”

  “Your tunic is loose enough, if you truly wish to wear it, but it would stay fresher if you removed it for now. You have never given birth, Thorn? I think you do not understand—”

  “No, and I don’t want to understand your bloody sorcering! Just hurry up and get the grub out of me. No longer than a winter afternoon, you said.”

  “Yes; you are young, healthy—yes, it should take no longer, even though you will not—”

  “Damn you!” shouted Thorn. “Do you know what the Hellbog you’re doing?” In the corner, the dog whined and lifted its ears.

  Frostflower met Thorn’s gaze without blinking. “I have studied carefully for this, as only sorceri can study. Will you drink more wine?”

  “I’ve drunk half a cup already,” the warrior grumbled, subsiding a little. That was a bloody borter’s trick, getting a woman drunk first.

  The sorceress nodded, set down her last armload of rags, and knelt beside Thorn. “Lean back now. Do not let your tunic bunch under you—it must be loose. So.”

  The warrior lay back on the sloping mound of old sheets and cushions. She closed her eyes and spread her legs.

  The sorceress touched her on the belly—unexpectedly, lightly—and left her hand there. Then, nothing. Not even a mumbled chant. Nothing but a few weak drafts in the air and a strange vibrating in the warrior’s guts.

  For a few moments Thorn kept her resolution not to watch any sorcering, even—especially!—any done to herself. But the silence…even the dog had stopped beating its mangy tail…the bloating in her stomach…what was Frostflower doing? What was the sorceress waiting for? Thorn opened her eyes.

  Frostflower knelt above her, free hand quivering in the air, mismatched, unmoving eyes reflecting the candle flame, moisture glistening on the pale forehead.

  Thorn glanced down from the sorceress to her own belly, stifled a gasp, and stiffened. Beneath Frostflower’s hand, Thorn’s body was swelling, growing before her eyes, mounding up like a lump of warm yeast dough. Frostflower had lured her here to take vengeance for all the sorceri stoned, gutted, and hung up to die! She was growing stones in her stomach—lumps of coal—something to burst her open—set fire to her guts—and her weapons on the other side of the room, out of reach—

  It kicked! Some kind of little monster—a baby mountain lion to claw her insides, a cat-sized donkey kicking its way out… Thorn tried to speak, tell Frostflower she had never helped execute one of her kind, had never—The sorceress remained still, fixing her gaze on the candle, her strange eyes unblinking. In a panic, as more kicks came from inside her belly, Thorn grabbed one of Frostflower’s wrists.

  The sorceress turned her hand slightly and answered the warrior’s grip. Otherwise, she remained unmoving, staring at the candle flame. Her fingers were thin, frail, cold…but calm.

  Suddenly Thorn understood. She lay back again, grinning. Sneaky little bitch of a sorceress. No choice now but wait it out and hope Frostflower had the sorcering to get her belly flat again as fast as she made it bulge out.

  The kicks came quicker now, one after another. The grub was trying to do some kind of stamping dance. Succeeding—it was moving all around in her belly, peaking it up, wiggling it lower. Maybe it was a damn pair of twins in there, humping already! It was pushing hard enough now, hammering at her groin, squeezing her lower guts… Thorn rocked up and squatted on her hams, looking for relief. The pressure was pulsing and fading with almost every breath. Gods! She would get this thing out and be done with it. She strained down fiercely. Something gushed out.

  Water. Nothing else. She fell back with a grunt of disgust.

  The sorceress bent and began to gather up the layer of soaked rags.

  “It’s stopped,” said Thorn. “It’s not pushing any more.”

  Frostflower spread a new layer of rags beneath Thorn’s body. “It is wisest to allow the birth its normal speed now.”

  “Damn you to Hellbog, I want it out and over with!”

  The sorceress tried to dab Thorn’s face with a moist rag. The warrior thrust her arm away. “I said I want it out!”<
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  “I will hasten it as much as I dare.”

  Frostflower bent again and put her hand beneath Thorn’s tunic. She began to press and rub.

  “What are you doing now?”

  “I only try to learn its position. Shhh, now.” Nodding, the sorceress removed her hands, returned to her kneeling pose, and touched Thorn’s shoulder.

  At once, the pushing started again, the bloody squeezing inside. Filthy little bugger! Thorn rocked back and forth on her arms, pushing back. Every few moments, the damn grub would give up, but Thorn kept on, straining hard enough to push out her guts, pausing only to catch her breath. By the gods, she would push it out of her whether it wanted to come or not—whether the sorceress was going to help or not!

  “The rhythm is wrong!” cried Frostflower.

  “Just—make it—faster!”

  “This is too fast. You should push only with the child, rest between. You exhaust yourself this way—speed confuses us now.”

  The brat had stopped pushing again. Frostflower put both hands to Thorn’s shoulders and half-shoved, half-lowered her to a reclining position on the rags. Thorn, already exhausted, accepted a moment of rest. Everything seemed to be wet—the rags, her tunic, the smells of blood and hot body slush. It wasn’t a brat, it was a bloody lump of mush leaking out in spurts and dribbles. What was the sorceress doing about it? Nothing. Fussing with the rags again, wiping Thorn’s face with wet cloth…

  The brat started pushing once more. With a cry, Thorn rocked forward and strained. The thing was not trying to get out, it was trying to grind her guts loose. She squatted, hands on the floor to steady herself, fighting the brat to push it out and away from her bowels, until it gave up again and she fell back panting. “It’s trying to kill me! What the Hellstink are you doing?”

  The sorceress seemed to be pressing around Thorn’s undermouth with her fingers. “Soon now,” she said quietly. “Very soon, and in its own time. No!” as the grinding began again and Thorn started forward. “Lie back now. Push, but lie back.”

  The warrior obeyed. She felt numb between her legs, but she also seemed to be a field’s length wide down there, and crammed up with something. She was vaguely aware of Frostflower’s fingers adding to the pressure. Something burst out—a big hard lump. Her leg muscles jerked in reflex, but the sorceress was between, holding the thighs steady. Thorn opened her eyes and looked down. It took her a minute to realize that the dark lump Frostflower was fussing with between her legs was the brat’s head. She was amazed it was so small.

  The sorceress glanced up, met her gaze, and smiled. “The hardest is over. Lie still…do not try to sit up next time. Let it come straight.”

  “Stink in Hell,” mumbled the warrior. Frostflower was more concerned about the brat than about Thorn. Well, the swordswoman remembered groggily, she had wanted it for her pay. Let it come the rest of the way out, and Thorn could stop bothering about it. Already it was squalling. Stop squalling, you little bastard, and push!

  It pushed. Not so hard as before, but hard enough, with Thorn’s efforts added, to get it all the way out.

  “It is born,” Frostflower said above its wails. “Ah, what a fine child! You will want to keep him…” she added wistfully.

  “It’s a grub,” said Thorn, glancing at the slimy, purplish, wrinkled thing. “What do I want with it? Is that one of my bowels it’s pulled out with it?”

  Frostflower turned the grub so that Thorn could see the intestine was growing out of its own navel. “You have never seen a young animal being born?”

  “I’m not a stableworker. Its navel cord?”

  “Yes. The cord that joins mother and child.”

  “Then cut it. Unjoin us. Get rid of it.”

  The brat had stopped squalling at last and lay wiggling. Frostflower watched the long gutlike cord for a few moments until it stopped pulsing. Then she twisted a couple of knots in it, close to the brat’s belly, and sliced it between the knots with a silly little dagger. “Can’t you do anything simply?” said Thorn.

  “Shhh.” The sorceress was fussing with the brat, putting it in a basin of water and rinsing it off as carefully as if it were an eggshell blown hollow. As she worked, she hummed. The dog was thumping its tail again. Thorn felt both the humming and the thumping through the pillows when she turned her head.

  She shivered in her wet tunic, and sat up to peel it off, then fell back once more, naked and sweaty, on the rumpled sheets. Messier than my first man, she thought foggily. She drowsed for a while, until yet another pushing started inside her. A small one this time, but annoying. She tightened her muscles, and felt a hot gush. “Anything else left to come out?” she asked, glancing with disgust at the big, spongy bloodclot lying between her legs.

  “No.” The sorceress had finally finished with the brat and put it somewhere for a while, leaving her free to clean up the afterbirth.

  “Then how soon before my belly’s flat again?”

  “It’s flattening now.”

  Thorn tried to tighten her stomach and abdomen. It was not comfortable, and they still felt flabby. “Can’t you hurry it up, the way you hurried the grub?”

  Frostflower began to wipe the warrior’s face and body with warm, damp rags. “Rest now. It is nearly time for supper. Sleep here tonight. In the morning, if you are still dissatisfied with your body’s own speed, I will hasten the muscles. Will you suckle your child?”

  Let the brat get on her chest like a bloody leech? “Hellstink, no!”

  “I think it would help pull your womb tight once more.”

  Rolling over to let Frostflower change the rags and sheet beneath her, the warrior somewhat nervously felt her breasts. Were they swelling up? The last thing she needed was a sucking baby for a year or more, but if she was going to have a sore, swollen chest otherwise—Damn the sorceress! At least with a borter Thorn would not have had this worry. “I suppose if I don’t let it leech me, I’ll be going around like an unmilked cow?”

  “I do not think so. I concentrated on your womb and the infant. Your breasts may not have kept pace; and even if they have, without sucking, your milk should dry within a few days. Indeed, it may never come.”

  The warrior grunted in relief. “Then don’t let the grub near me. I’ll take care of my own belly in the morning.” The graincellar seemed chill now that she had stopped working. Frostflower spread a couple of thick linen sheets over her.

  The sorceress removed her black robe, sat down in her white smock on a pile of meal-sacks, unlaced her bodice and bared one breast. Carefully she picked up a bundle of linen and held it to her little bump of a nipple. Thorn watched lazily for a few moments before she realized what Frostflower was doing. “You don’t think you’re going to suckle it?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I thought you sorceri were supposed to be virgin.”

  “Sometimes even one of our men can suckle an infant.” The sorceress did not take her gaze from the baby. “It will be several days, and in the meantime we must feed him goats’ milk from a spoon, but if he will continue to suck, milk may finally come even from my breast.”

  “You’ll feed him from a spoon,” said the warrior. “It’s your worry now, not mine.” She closed her eyes. A night to spend in the weavers’ house, gods knew how long to work her belly back as flat and tight as it should be (how could such a tiny grub have bulged her up so high?), days, maybe, of tender, swollen breasts…well, probably it had still been preferable to a borter with his stinking tongs and scrapers. But…“Damn it, short as a winter afternoon, you said,” Thorn muttered as she fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 2

  “I think I will call him Starwind,” said Frostflower, gazing down at the little one who was nuzzling with his soft, insistent mouth at her breast.

  “Quite a name for an ugly little bugger like that,” said Thorn, lounging back on the trunk of the fallen tree. “Just call it Grub or Stinkbeetle until it grows up.”

  Frostflower shook her head and touched one of t
he infant’s cheeks with her free hand. “We who are raised among the sorceri always keep our child-names.”

  “Unh! So did I!”

  Dowl, with his head on Frostflower’s lap, pricked up his ears and whined questioningly at the swordswoman’s laugh, but Starwind did not even blink. All sensations would still be much the same to the infant: either equally strange or equally prosaic. Perhaps he did not as yet even connect his diligent sucking with the milk he should draw; perhaps that was how he could continue to work so trustingly at a dry nipple.

  “You, Thorn?” asked the sorceress. “You kept your child-name?”

  “Well, almost. The whole thing was Rosethorn, and I never did like the Rose, but the rest of it seemed to fit well enough. You really think you’re going to wetnurse the grub?”

  “Perhaps.” She had been trying for only two days. The infant’s sucking brought her pain; but the young sorceress thought her sore nipples were enlarging somewhat, her tissues swelling. Sometimes she seemed to feel a small trickle, even an occasional tiny spurt, deep within. God grant it was not her imagination, pricked on by hope. Imagination was a dangerous thing to sorceri, who must see reality if they would use their powers without twisting it.

  “How much longer are we going to sit here like turds in the shade?” asked the swordswoman as Frostflower shifted the infant to her other breast.

  “Not much longer.”

  “Not much longer. That’s what you kept saying the whole damn time you were messing around getting the grub out of me. Not much longer! Now you’ll let it play around at that tit until it finally gives up and starts bawling, then you’ll still have to get half a skin of goat’s milk into it with your silly spoon.… Ten days to your blasted retreat? We’d walk it in five if we weren’t always stopping to play with the bloody brat.”

  “You are good to come with me.” It had not taken as much effort as Frostflower had feared, persuading the warrior to escort her; Thorn had even agreed to do it cheaply, at the payment of one dreamberry for every day spent on the trip. But she still insisted she would bring her only within sight of Windslope Retreat and no farther.