CHAPTER 17 — Avort Trees and Braids
STEPHANIE
Balayi’s little body is lowered at the end of a suspicious row of trees that I didn’t pay much mind to before, but now I can’t stop seeing.
Thin-trunked, branching, they give off a light fragrance, like cherry blossoms, and there are even cherry-looking fruits peeking out from some of the chartreuse tear-drop shaped leaves.
These trees are planted in a line with such precision.
Something about that, something about them, is disturbing, as is the fact that starting at the opposite end of the row, the trees get progressively bigger.
The furthermost tree is the most mature, with the most cherries.
Then each successive tree is a little smaller, a little younger, until your eye arrives at this tiny sapling we’re planting over Balayi today.
I worry my lip, painfully aware that these are the very same trees Ulda barked at me to keep away from the day we weeded together.
And now I get why. This is the saddest garden I’ve ever stood in.
These are grave trees for Ulda’s babies.
***
The house is eerily quiet after Balayi is buried.
Roarg announced his intention to take time off of work to be with Ulda, but she basically chased him out of the house. Partly because he’s got orders to finish, but also because he was driving her nuts. She’s hurting too much to handle his overattention.
So over the next three days, Roarg lets his work consume him. Ulda holds Opkug constantly, rocking her and sometimes crying into her little neck softly.
And we all let her do that. Even Roarg. We just… let her cry, and leave her be.
What else can we do? It’s fucking heartbreaking.
Ulda isn’t left entirely to herself, though.
At least not at night. Roarg forces the issue, barging into her room and spending time with her, trying to comfort her—and clearly trying to comfort himself.
He’s hollow-eyed and haggard, and I worry for both of them when I curl up in my bed, which feels too big and too empty without Roarg sharing it.
But I don’t begrudge Ulda at all for having Roarg’s time. I really don’t.
Four days after Balayi is gone, I’m watching Ulda from the relative safety of her doorway.
I was passing by when I heard her sobbing quietly, and my steps ground to a halt.
I knew she’d want me to just keep going, to leave her alone for frick’s sake…
but it felt too wrong to abandon her to her grief.
However, as I stand here witness to her pain, I’m absolutely positive she’ll beat the snurf out of me if she knows I’ve seen this vulnerable moment. Biting my lip, I back away from her room without a word. Or rather, I start to.
“Get in here,” she orders, voice thick with tears.
I freeze, hoping she’s talking to—to anyone but me. I suddenly don’t feel like I’m who she needs right now. She needs someone who can help her feel better—and I am definitely not that person.
Clutching Opkug, she sees my hesitation, and her brows crash lower. “Don’t just stand there. Get in here and sit.”
She wipes her face and indicates a chair by her bed.
Wary, I tiptoe inside and perch my butt on the edge of the chair, poised to flee.
Ulda sighs heavily.
To my utter astonishment, she lays Opkug down on the bed and snags an ivory-handled brush from her dresser and moves behind me.
I brace for her to yank the brush through my hair, which I’m wearing loose around my shoulders, but she surprises me by setting the bristles in gently and pulling back with care.
It feels nice.
She doesn’t say a word though, so neither do I.
In no time, she begins to braid my hair. When I reach up to touch her work, she doesn’t slap my hand away.
“These braids are so small,” I muse. “This is going to take you forever.”
“Good work takes time,” she replies, sounding a bit congested. Understandably. “These are bride braids done in proper Orcian fashion for a kwa?ara,” she explains, and she slides something heavy up to the top of the braid that she’s creating.
“Open your legs,” she says.
I start to turn to give her wide eyes. “Open my legs? Whhhhy….?”
She makes a very loud silence. With Ulda, it’s a thing that can be heard. Felt, actually, which is rather impressive. So is the fact that she hasn’t hit me, I can tell that she’s thinking about it. “Because. I. Said so.”
The words are meant to be delivered threateningly. But her voice cracks on said, and it makes my heart wince for her.
Alert and cautious, I open my legs, wondering what the heck—
“Hold these,” she orders, and dumps a handful of metal into my skirt which is spread tight, the fabric anchored by each knee, which forces it to work as an excellent surface to catch and hold things.
“Hey, wow!” I exclaim. “That’s handy.”
She sighs. It’s a very long, fast-growing-irritated sound—but weirdly, it makes me relieved to hear it. It’s quintessential Ulda, and I’d rather have her annoyed than heartbroken.
Strangely, she sounds even steadier when she grumbles, “Hand me one, pest.”
I pass one up to her, touched. Because they’re the braid rings Roarg made me. Ulda is installing them in my hair.
Opkug makes a fussy noise from the bed, and Ulda grunts at me, “Take your hair and pinch it. Right where my fingers—yes. Don’t let go.”
Arms raised in the air behind my head, I hold my braid-in-progress and wait for her to retrieve Opkug. She drops her in my lap (gently) with the rings.
“I’ve heard of babies with silver spoons and even silver rattles, but silver teething rings…” I tease as Opkug grasps one of my braid rings and brings it to her slobbery mouth. “But really, you probably shouldn’t put that in your mouth. Don’t want you sick.”
“Why would it make her sick?” Ulda asks, brushing my fingers away as she takes up my braid again.
“Well… okay, my thought was the metal might be toxic, but from your tone, I’m guessing it must be solid silver, right?”
“You can rest assured that our husband uses the finest materials in his gifts for us,” Ulda informs me in offended, lofty tones.
“Sorrrry,” I say.
“Sometimes I could just cuff you,” she shares under her breath. Then her voice loses a bit of her irritation when she asks, “Did you have silver spoons and rattles?”
“Me? Heck no. But, where I’m from? It was kind of a tradition for well-to-do families to commemorate their baby’s first pair of shoes or their rattle or whatever by dipping it in silver and turning it into a keepsake.”
“Families do this here too,” she shares. “It is a good thing. Keepsakes are… good to have,” she says softly.
And I try to cut this conversational landmine off before I step in something. “Of course! I can see why, for people who are wealthy, they’d do that. What’s the weather going to be like today?” I ask lamely, unable to think of anything else to say.
Ulda’s fingers pause halfway down my hair. “Stephanie, we own a beautiful home, we have flocks and gardens aplenty, Roarg’s trade is in high demand giving us gold for our needs, and our pantry is ever full. We are wealthy.”
‘We’ are? I very nearly ask. Thankfully, I don’t. I pause. I think about that. “Then why is Roarg so hung up about money?”
“Because that’s an Orc man’s way. Tres?s,” she prompts, and it takes me a second to realize she needs me to pass her the next ring for my hair. “And he wouldn’t have money if he was always spending it. We believe frugality is a virtue. Unlike the damn Dragonkind,” she adds in a mutter.
I tickle along Opkug’s ribs, making her giggle as she scrunches up her limbs. “What exactly have the Dragonkind done that makes you guys dislike them so much?”
Ulda snorts. “They ‘disliked’ us first. Our kingdoms are separated by waterways called the Straits of Michilimackinac. We built a mighty bridge to span the Straits, connecting the Ogemaw peninsula to Morvika, which is the peninsula of the Dragonkind.”
“Whoa. Why did you guys build a bridge to their territory?”
“Because their land is a place rich in natural resources. Their territory includes Iron Mountain, which, as you can imagine, Orcs such as our house are keen to trade with. We also wanted easier access to their zealously guarded copper mines.”
“To steal?” I breathe.
She tugs my hair. “To trade.”
“Oh.”
I can almost hear her shaking her head. “But trade routes to other kingdoms like the Elven lands and the Dire Wolves’ island were also incentives for us to build the bridge. Therefore, the bridge benefits us all.”
“You’d think the Dragonkind would have appreciated your effort.”
“They did. They don’t appreciate the tolls we charge for them to use it.”
“Ah.” I bite my lip, then decide to go ahead and ask. “Why charge them?”
Her frown is evident in her voice. “Because the bridge was damned expensive to build—both in coin and in life. We still lose good Orcs who fall during routine repairs, almost as many as we lost during the initial construction. It takes much to keep a bridge in good order. Why shouldn’t we charge for its use? ”
I raise my shoulders. “Makes sense from your perspective, I hear you.”
She tweaks my hair again. “It would make sense to anyone’s perspective.
If you don’t think the Dragonkind would do the same, you don’t know them.
To answer your initial question, we take grievous issue with their long history of raping, pillaging, oppression, and permanent slavery in their damn metal mines. ”
Cold settles in my stomach. “Esther is in the Dragonkind king’s castle.”
Ulda’s fingers pause before they start my next braid.
“I’ve heard. Roarg told me. The good news is her mate is the king’s Dire Wolf knight.
He is the king’s unwilling but loyal right hand.
A very unwilling one by the stories we’ve heard, but the king relies upon him heavily and is said to give him great rewards.
As his mate, your friend should be safe enough. ”
“Not so safe that Roarg thinks I can visit Esther in her castle,” I murmur worriedly, stroking Opkug’s smiling cheek.
“No. And don’t think for a minute that it’s her castle. If you knew anything about Dragonkind, you’d know it’s likely her prison. But if the wolf knight can bring your friend to our woods, she is welcome to visit you here, where Roarg can protect you.”
Opkug’s hands pinch me; she’s using various parts of my body as handholds, trying to pull herself to a sitting position. I slide my forefingers under her palms, peeling her off of my tender fleshy areas to help her stand on my lap. She makes a happy noise, eyes bright.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” I ask carefully.
Ulda sighs. “I permit you to ask.”
“Do you… is um, is Roarg not doing a good job about… about not finishing… in you?” I stumble lamely. “Do Orcs have ways—other than pulling out—that prevent pregnancy?”
Her fingers fall still in my hair, and I grimace, wanting to punch myself. “Sorry, I just—”
“Yes, we have ways,” she says softly. “I have refused them. I have always refused them, but now…” Her inhale is shaky. “Now Roarg has told me that after I recover, he will give us only one more chance, and then he will no longer share with me his seed.”
Why did I ask? WHY?
“Should I manage,” she continues tonelessly, “to conceive despite his efforts, and if I lose that miracle too, then he will go to the Elves and he will secure the herbs to close my womb before I end up like my mother.”
“What happened to your mother?” I ask with apprehension. Because sometimes Ulda wears tusk earrings. She told me they were her mom’s.
“She died,” Ulda shares. “In childbirth.” Her voice betrays her with a quaver that shoots into my heart like an arrow.
“She only ever managed to have me. Her mother before her also struggled, but she eventually birthed twin daughters. Both healthy. Both alive.” Ulda’s breath is choppy, and I close my eyes, just listening, because there’s nothing helpful I can say.
“I only… I only want one. Of my own,” she finishes softly, reaching over my shoulder to brush a touch over the top of Opkug’s Gerber baby perfect-haired head.
“And it tears Roarg apart that this is the one thing he can’t buy or barter for, the one thing he knows I want most in the world—the one thing he can’t simply give me. It’s all in the Eternal’s hands.”
“Oh,” I whisper.
Namak?ga peeks into the room—and does a double-take at the threshold when she sees the three of us.
“Get in here,” Ulda orders her in a rough voice. And I’m struck with the realization that the roughness isn’t because she’s grumpy. It’s emotion that’s strangling her, not irritation.
Namak?ga doesn’t say anything. She just quietly moves in beside her and companionably starts braiding the other side of my head.
Something in the air gets heavy, and after a minute, I hear a soft sniffle. I resist the urge to turn my head. It helps that four hands have hold of hanks of my hair; if I did try to twist, I’m pretty sure Ulda would rip my hair out.
She’s the one who’s crying.
Even Opkug’s gone serious again. So I hug her to my chest, and Namak?ga and I stay quiet while her and Ulda braid my hair.