"Are they gone?" Rehan asked.
"Yes. You didn't like them being here?"
"Not at all, they're a delightful family, you're very lucky to have them, but to be sociable is beyond my energies at the moment. Will they return?"
"They've promised to, yes, after the birth." Elthrinn found a small chair, and pulled it over so that she could sit in front of Rehan."Do you have all you need, I mean..."
"Yes." Rehan gave a weak smile. "Dechard and the boys are making sure that I eat, and that I don't fall into morbidity. You've caught me in a rare moment of solitude."
"I wasn't sure that you would want to see me."
"My dove, my door will never be barred to you."
"I would have understood..." Elthrinn began, but Rehan interrupted her.
"You had no part in this." Rehan held up a hand to stop the protest that lingered on Elthrinn's lips. "No, I know you feel responsibility, but your presence here has been a joy to me, and the schism in our family existed long before we ever even knew of you. I'm glad you're here, I'm glad that he has you by his side, I only hope... I only hope that you never have to witness such a sight again."
"Does it always have to happen that way?" In the dark recesses of her mind, there were images from that day, already morphing into her fear that Gorren would meet a similarly violent fate.
"No. The king can step down when the challenge is issued, or before, if he sees it coming. There does not always have to be death, but power blinds man until he cannot see when he should give it up. That is where I failed and where you must succeed. When it comes time for him to relinquish the crown, you must keep him humble."
"Do you hate him for what he did?" Elthrinn asked of his mother, the question that Gorren had asked of her.
"No," Rehan shook her head until her rich hair flowed around her shoulders. "I could never hate him, and I have seen this coming for many years. I tried to warn Dorll, but he was always blinkered by his jealousy. He never saw Gorren for the challenger he was destined to become. This could all have been avoided, it all seems so... futile."
"Will you come back to us?"
"Yes, I think I must." Rehan smiled then, and leaned forward, placing her palm gently on Elthrinn's belly. "After all, life goes on, sometimes whether we want it to or not."
Epilogue
Elthrinn screamed. It was the most unnatural sound that Gorren had ever heard, and it chilled him to the marrow of his bones. She was dying, he was sure of it. Nothing that was not dying could ever make a sound such as that.
"I'm going in."
"No." Jorm grabbed his arm. "Let the women do their work."
Gorren wrenched his arm free. "No, if she's dying, I will be with her."
"She's not dying." Delban was lounging in a chair, picking his fingernails with the blade of his smallest dagger.
"And what would you know about it?"
"I have five sisters, remember? The stories of their screams are fucking legendary. Every time they're in a room together, they feel compelled to share their battle stories. I know a lot more about this process than I wish to, and I can assure you, that that," he pointed the tip of the blade at the closed door, "is perfectly normal."
"But her mother..." Gorren began obstinately.
"She told you the truth of that," Ornef offered. "Elthrinn is strong. You shouldn't be so concerned."
Another scream rang out. The tone of it was strange, grunting and yet piercing, a sound to wake the dead, and bid them rise. Gorren was through the door before any of his friends could lay hands on him.
The sight that greeted him was nothing less than he'd seen in the operating tent on the battle field, maybe with marginally less blood, and fewer severed limbs. At first, he couldn't make sense of the scene. He'd had a vision in his mind of what it might look like, and it was not like this. Elthrinn was not on her back, clutching his mother's hand. She was on her hands and knees on the bed. His mother was by her side, rubbing her back in wide circles. A woman from the town, a woman they'd told him was experienced in birthing, was sitting on a chair at the end of the bed. Well, not sitting, leaning forward, hunched over, her arms outstretched, and...
"One more push, my dove." His mother looked up and frowned. "Well, if you're going to interrupt, don't stand there like an imbecile. Get over here."
Gorren's feet were moving without the will of his mind. When he reached the bed he looked down... and immediately regretted doing so.
His mother made a sound of disgust. "Men. Fine in battle, but present them with a birthing woman and they faint. Stroke her back," she instructed, "if you can do so without passing out."
Gorren crouched down, the better to see Elthrinn's face, but it was awkward. She seemed so small, and yet somehow majestic. He was about to speak to her, but she let out that terrible shriek once again. He could see that she'd torn the sheets with the strength of her grip. She was leaning back, almost kneeling. The woman at the end of the bed was muttering, and he wanted to ask if that was the right thing to do, if Elthrinn wouldn't squash the baby, when a different tenor of cry rang through the room.
"That's it, that's it, my dove." His mother soothed Elthrinn, as she collapsed into a sweaty, tangled heap on the bed.
"Is she...?"
"She's fine," Rehan growled, as she helped Elthrinn to twist over.
Gorren knew that he'd been all but useless in the whole process, but when Elthrinn was finally propped against the pillows, she sought his hand, and clutched it, and gave him a smile of pure relief and joy.
"Your son, my lady."
The woman that had been crouched over the end of the bed presented Elthrinn with a bundle of swaddling. At first Gorren couldn't see the significance, but when it was in her arms, Elthrinn tenderly moved some of the covers to better reveal the baby's face, and Gorren fell in love all over again, perhaps for the first time, because he was sure his heart had never held this particular emotion before. He had no name for the thing that filled him to the point of overflowing, the thing that made his eyes prick, and his heart swell.
He didn't think he'd even seen a new born, certainly not a new born, still covered in the fluids of its mother's womb, but the little, wrinkled, pink being tucked into the roll of blankets was the most precious thing he'd ever beheld.
"Is he...?" Gorren asked no one in particular.
"He's perfect," the woman answered him. "Absolutely perfect, and very healthy. Why don't you hold him a spell? Mother here still has some work to do."
"There isn't another one?" Gorren asked, horrified. He didn't think he could ever stand to hear again the sounds that Elthrinn had made. If she decided she never wanted more children, that would be absolutely fine by him.
"By the Grey Wolf no, don't be silly. It's the afterbirth she needs to shed."
Gorren didn't want to think about what any of that meant, and he certainly didn't want to see it happen. He'd assisted doctors with the removal of limbs, and the cauterisation of wounds, but he was determined that he would not look, would not see, whatever was happening, there...
"Here." There was only a touch if impatience to Rehan's tone as she gently lifted the bundle from Elthrinn's arms, and brought it around the bed.
"Are you sure...?"
"Yes," Elthrinn gasped. "There's no better time to get used to it."
His mother stood in front of him, and with no small amount of irritation, instructed him how to hold his arms out so that she could place the baby into them. There was some fumbling, and his mother cursed, which was a first in Gorren's memory, but eventually he was holding his son. He almost dropped the child when the realisation occurred to him.
There was some grunting, and a prolonged gasp from the direction of the bed that Gorren determined he was not going to think about, at all, ever.
"So," his mother said, stroking her fingers over the tiny puckered forehead. "Does he have a name?"
"Yes, " Gorren murmured, entranced by the pouting, serious expression. "Sorll."
He
felt his mother go completely still, as if frozen. "You don't have to..."
"We want to..." Elthrinn said, in a voice that was stronger than Gorren imagined anyone could boast after the hours of torment that she'd endured. "He's named for both of his grandfathers."
Gorren looked directly at the woman, whose name he was going to have to learn because he needed to thank her profusely every day of his life. "Is my wife well?"
"Fit as a fiddle. I've heard the concerns, and I see no reason why the queen can't birth as many pups as you can give her. Get your army doctor to confirm if you want, but that's my opinion."
Assured that his greatest fear, his darkest nightmare, was not about to come to pass, Gorren felt his knees weaken. He needed to sit. He walked around his mother, and carried the precious bundle over to the bed. He perched on the mattress, trying not to jostle Elthrinn. She was pale enough to concern him, and her skin was bright with sweat. Her hair was plastered in damp tendrils over her forehead. Gorren reached out to smooth them back, and almost snatched his hand back when he realised he was holding his son one-handed. And then, as he realised that he hadn't actually dropped the baby, he continued to minister to Elthrinn.
"Thank you. I can't ever say..."
She reached out and put her hand on his knee. "And you never need to."
Sensing the stillness in the room, Gorren looked around. His mother and the other woman had left, closing the door behind them, giving this new family some much-needed privacy.
"I don't think I'll ever be able to tell you..." Gorren tried and failed to swallow past the lump that had lodged itself in his throat."You've been so brave. You must have been so scared when you came to Dorvek. You would have been forgiven for hating everything about the place on principle."
"There was nothing to hate."
Gorren reached out, and wiped away the tear that traced down Elthrinn's cheek.
"But still..."
"No." Elthrinn shook her head. "However it happened, or why ever it happened, if I'd have known this was the path that my life was to take, I'd have chosen it. Do you hear? No more apologies."
She reached out, and Gorren belatedly realised that she wanted to hold their son. The baby squirmed, and began to fuss. Frightened that he was doing something wrong, Gorren swiftly passed the baby over. He watched in amazement as Elthrinn pulled back the blanket and settled the baby to her breast, as if she'd been nursing children all her life.
"You're going to want more of these, aren't you?"
"You don't sound as though you do," Elthrinn commented, without taking her eyes from the suckling babe. Gorren couldn't stop watching, either; the child seemed to have quite the appetite.
"I don't think I can stand to hear you go through that again."
Elthrinn lifted her eyes at that. "If I can birth them, majesty, you can listen to the birthing. Better yet, you can be in here helping me through it."
Gorren knew he was helpless to deny her anything she asked. "Very well, my queen. Let's fill this home with the family it should always have welcomed."
Gorren was silent awhile, simply glorying in watching Elthrinn mother their child. "Time will heal the wounds that still bleed, won't it?" he murmured, mindful that his mother was nearby, likely reliving her own experience of this moment, and remembering what had been lost to her, her husband dead, her eldest son vanished.
"Time and love, and we'll fill this home with love." Elthrinn assured him.
"And we have all the time in the world," Gorren promised his wife."All the time in the world."
Catherine Johnson
Catherine lives with her husband and two children in the north of England, in the foothills of the Pennines, surrounded by the remnants of the Industrial Revolution, bleak moors and lush river valleys; a vast wealth of inspiration for any daydreamer with an overactive imagination.
Powerless, the first self-published novel by Catherine, was the result of a journey that started in Fan Fiction, and surged through the catalyst that is National Novel Writing Month.
Catherine is privileged to be part of a group of women who, as well as being soul friends, are all inspirational, motivating and supportive writers. They are the Freak Circle Press and you can find more information at their blog: http://www.freakcirclepress.comand on Facebook: www.facebook.com/freakcirclepress
Searching the Darkness (Erythleh Chronicles Book 2) Page 34
