Chapter Seventy-Nine
With every step, the pain worsened. I drew in air through my nose, which I exhaled out whenever a new surge struck.
I would feel well when I was sitting, I told myself.
That was what I needed. Yet when I reached the chamber, I could not bring myself to sit.
I paced from one window to another, only to change my mind.
Any of the women could easily look up and see me there.
I could not have that. So I waited, my back braced against the brick walls, hidden in the shadows until the door opened and Althea entered.
“Otrera, what is it? Did the men do something to you?”
“Althea. It is the baby. I believe it is coming, and it is too soon.”
Rather than agreeing, Althea took my hands and forced a smile to her lips.
“You will be fine, Otrera. You will be fine,” she said, but it was too late, for I had already seen the truth in her eyes. “We need other women,” she said next.
I shook my head. “No, no one can know. If the baby… If I… No other women can know…”
Althea bit down on her knuckle. “Otrera, I cannot do this on my own. We need someone here with you.”
“Thalassa.”
“Thalassa?” Althea questioned my sanity.
I had kept Thalassa by my side, not out of choice but out of logic. The closer she remained to me, the less trouble she could cause. To have her there, at this moment more intimate than any other, did not make sense. Not to Althea at least.
“Why not let me fetch Sotiria? Or Damaris? They have birthed children too. They will be able to help us.”
“Thalassa will not lie to me. She will not give me false hope. Thalassa is my choice, Althea, so fetch her. And be fast.”
Althea sprinted away, though several more surges squeezed my body before she returned with Thalassa, and the mattress upon which I now sat was bloody and wet.
Thalassa gaped at the sight.
“Otrera, what is this? How?”
“The how does not matter.” I spoke through gritted teeth. “They are coming, and they are coming too soon. You have birthed children. You can help.”
“I… I…”
“Yes or no, Thalassa?” I snapped.
“Yes, yes.” She came toward me and took my arm. “Come. Crouch down. That is it. Legs wide. Let us make this easy on the little one.”
I did not scream as my body was ripped open from within. I snarled and growled and snapped at my companions, yes, but I did not scream. For a scream would have traveled, and I refused to let anyone beyond those walls know what was happening.
Instead, I closed my eyes and thought of my daughter.
I thought of holding her against my breast for the first time.
Of kissing the soft downy top of her head and allowing her tiny fingers to wrap around mine with enough strength to pull back a bow.
I thought of Cleon too. How I would tell him of our child and the joy he would feel.
That was what I thought of until the pain slipped through me and my child appeared in the world.
She was the tiniest baby I had ever seen, no longer than the length from my wrist to my fingertips. Her lips, minute and perfect, were slightly parted, while her eyes were closed and her skin held the palest blue tint. Around her neck was wrapped a white pulsing cord.
“A knife. Fetch me a knife.” Thalassa barked the order, and Althea obeyed. Before I had even taken my eyes away from her, the line between my baby and me was broken.
She was so perfect. That was all I could recall thinking in that moment.
How was it possible that such a perfect thing could be created by a human and not a god?
I do not have the answer to such a question even now, but as I took her in my arms and felt the warmth of her damp skin seep into me, I thought that perhaps I might have passed into Elysium, for I had never felt such love and wonder.
It was in that moment of reflection that Althea spoke.
“I am sorry, Otrera. I am so sorry.”
I stiffened my back and frowned, unsure as to why she would make such a remark.
“She is a girl? Is she not? She is a girl. She can stay with us?”
They did not reply. A single tear trickled down Althea’s cheek, and I believed it to be a tear of joy, but then I noticed Thalassa’s eyes were glazed too, and deep furrows creased her face.
And when I looked down at my daughter, I saw that the paleness of her skin had deepened.
There was no drumming heartbeat. No warm breath against my skin. She was gone.
“No… No…” I turned the baby over onto my knees and slapped her back as I had heard so many women before had needed to do. Yet even when my hands stung, she remained limp and lifeless.
“She is gone. She has gone.”
“No, she cannot be. She cannot be.”
“She was too young, Otrera,” Thalassa said. “She would not have survived. Perhaps it is kinder this way. So that you do not have to suffer her loss later.”
“Kinder? You believe this is kinder?”
If a knife had been within my reach, I swear I would have plunged it through Thalassa’s heart, but Althea was ready.
With both hands, she held me back. At any other time, I would have fought her off, but my body was too weak from the birthing and my hands filled with the child I could not let go of.
“No…no…please, gods, no.” No air entered my lungs as I looked back down at my child, though my vision was so deeply blurred I could barely see her outline. How? How could I have come this close?
I moved to stand, only for a spasm of pain to shoot through my gut. I stumbled backward.
“Something is wrong. Something is wrong with me,” I gasped.
In the days of Morsimus’s beatings, I had become accustomed to my body not being my own, to him taking control, breaking parts of it, using others. But now I knew so much about myself. This sensation was as unknown as childbirth had been only minutes before.
“It is the afterbirth. It is nothing to fear.” Thalassa was at my side, kneeling so that her eyes were level with mine. “It will pass. This is a good thing. You will be fine. You are fine.”
Such compassion after her previously brutal words was more than I could take. I wept as the last thing that joined my child and me slipped from my body.
We remained there in silence. No soft cries of a baby, no deep sobbing like that which could be expected from one in my situation.
Just silence. Beyond our room, I could hear movement and hushed conversation, wondering, perhaps, about their leaders but more likely whether they would be expected to go and fight another man’s battle.
They would not be thinking about my child. The child who had passed to the underworld before her eyes had even seen the first light of life. My child, who would never know the touch of her mother’s lips upon her skin or hear her name said aloud.
Her name. That was the impetus I needed.
She had no name, but worse still, she had no need for one.
Swallowing back my tears, I pushed myself up to standing.
The body in my hand was merely that: a shell.
Her spirit had moved on, to be guided through the underworld, with Aina and Melitta at her side.
That was the vision I chose to see as I handed her to Althea.
Perplexed, Althea accepted the offering and stared down at the limp body.
“Bury her,” I said.
“Otrera?”
“Bury her. Choose a place in the land you believe she would love. Perhaps where the rabbits play. Children love rabbits, do they not? Yes, that would do well.”
“Otrera, you are making no sense. This is your child. You will bury her.”
Her words drifted by me as if I were unable to even hear.
“You will ensure it is done right. Give her and the gods all the offerings that she deserves. You will see to the rites and ensure that she passes through to the underworld. Can you do that?”
Althea’s frown deepened as she looked between me and the child.
“This is your daughter, Otrera.”
“I understand, Althea. That is my daughter, and for that reason, I cannot be the one to lay her to rest. I cannot have this land remind me of her. I cannot know that the earth I walk upon is the same earth that holds her body. I have done my part. I brought her into the world. Now the gods have taken her from me. The next part I give to you.”
The two women remained silent, staring at the child, barely noticing as I wiped the blood from my thighs, crossed the room, opened the door, and stepped out into the sun.
Time had stopped for us in that room, and had you asked me, I would not have known whether a single hour, day, or moon had passed. But when the blazing sunlight struck my damp skin, I felt a coldness of clarity. The men were still waiting in anticipation of our answer.
With the agony from the loss and labor clenching at my body, I called out with all my strength.
“Women! Get your weapons and horses ready. We are riding to war!”