Chapter 47
In my swollen fingers, the knitting needles felt like foreign objects.
Fintrus' chill settled into the Lady’s Chamber despite the roaring fire.
My back ached. Hells, everything did. It was all I could do to try and distract myself, but so late into my pregnancy, I couldn’t even manage a simple baby blanket.
Lady Maeve had perfected the craft since adopting the boy from Molehill. He was renamed Elliott, too young to remember his true name. Little El, we called him. “You’re holding them too tightly, Your Majesty.”
“She shouldn’t be knitting,” Angharad grumbled, massaging her head from a hangover. “She’s our queen. She oughtn’t lift a finger in this delicate stage.”
“You are more than welcome to—” I dropped a stitch after managing three crooked ones, and cursed under my breath. “To join us, Angharad.”
Angharad made a crude noise of dismissal. Winnie sat beside me, embroidering (or trying to), tongue partly hanging out as she worked the thread back through its cloth. I wondered if she could feel my temperature rising.
Maybe there was such a thing as too much time in the Lady’s Chamber, but there wasn’t much else for me to do.
Nicolas was out hunting red deer, not that he’d been able to provide me much comfort in the last couple of weeks anyway.
Any time spent in that shared room of ours was dedicated entirely to either massage or attempts at distraction, whether they be games of chess or cards.
Quinn was around, left behind in case of emergency. By the way he paced the corridors this morning, muttering and grumbling, it was clear how he felt about that.
“I remember being on bedrest for both of my little angels,” Angharad lamented, throwing her head back. Her voice was a constant drone in the past hour, every comment or complaint grating on my nerves. “Do you even have the faintest idea of what’s coming, Alana?”
“Your Majesty,” corrected Marcy from her position near the door.
“Do your books talk of the pain?” Angharad continued. “It gets so bad, you can’t hear. Can’t think of anything, really, but that ache in your back and hips, like your bones are being pulled apart—”
Now Florence spoke up, her voice carrying from that little corner she flocked to on the rare occasion she joined the rest of us in here. “Watch yourself, woman.”
Across from her, Sahra leaned forward with curiosity.
Likely she’d tuned out the commotion; she, too, kept to herself, though ironically, she seemed to enjoy Florence’s companionship.
Florence had been terribly anxious as of late, but she did a remarkable job at keeping herself free of the Banewights’ suspicions.
“Are we lying to her, now?” Angharad replied. “She should know it’s going to hurt.”
“I know it’s going to fucking hurt!” My temper snapped.
I cast the needles down to the floor and stood up, slower than I’d have liked to.
“I’m not stupid, Angharad! Even if I hadn’t read medical texts, or spoken to my mother who helped deliver babies in Finn’s Hollow, or talked with every mother in this room about their experiences, that wouldn’t change the fact that what is currently in my womb must come out somehow, and only a complete, bumbling idiot would be unaware of the implications! ”
The room fell quiet, all looking at me. My chest heaved, and even though I was already starting to regret my outburst, I kept on glaring.
Angharad measured me up. “Apologies, Your Majesty. I am recovering from a rough evening.”
“Every evening’s a rough evening for you.
Sober up, woman! You’re insufferable!” I stamped my foot.
“Have you ever considered that you’re just too much for some people?
! That maybe not everyone wants to go around talking about cocks and balls and suffering and sadness every gods-damned day?
! Some of us would actually like to talk about the weather, or the flowers, about love and happy things! ”
“Oh? You want to talk about love, Your Majesty?” Angharad perked up, crossing her legs. “I’ve heard you’ve got more than your share of it.”
What did she mean by that?
I opened my mouth, baring my teeth, and—
A collective gasp escaped the women. Warmth flooded my legs, pooling at my slippers, and I froze with terror.
Angharad was partly right. I had no idea what was coming for me. I’d heard it time and again, but such a thing was far beyond the realm of my imagination.
Florence hurried over, taking my arm.
“All right,” Florence said. “We’re heading for the tower. I saw to it that the fires remained stoked. How do you feel?”
Most of the women scattered out into the hall, shouting alarms that echoed from person to person. The whole castle would know in minutes.
“I’m not supposed to be ready yet,” I whispered. “I had another two weeks.”
“Focus. Winnie, go fetch her parents.”
Without a word, Winnie obeyed, slipping through the door.
Marcy assumed my other side. “Your Majesty, can you walk? Are you in any pain?”
The water was still leaking from me, and I did feel a good deal lighter, but I wasn’t hurting. “No, I feel all right so far.”
“Okay. If you feel any pain on our walk, you just stop and breathe. We’ll be in the birthing tower in no time, free from an audience,” Florence said. Only Angharad remained in the room with us now, slowly rising to her feet.
“Let me help,” Angharad said.
“You’ve helped plenty,” Florence answered for me. “You stressed her out. Now we’ll have to send a rider to hunt down the king.”
“That’s not my fault! It happens when it happens!”
“Sit down, Angharad,” Florence warned.
Shadows seeped from behind the couch and wrapped around Angharad’s waist. They pulled her down, securing her to the furniture. She fought against them, shouting, but she couldn’t see what was happening to her. Nicolas and Quinn hadn’t.
“Fuck!” Angharad screamed. “I can’t move! Is this your doing?!”
“Stay there and sober up.” Florence turned to me, nodding, and I felt the deepest chill creep down my spine. We left the room, walking faster than I had in a month.
“What was that?” I whispered. I’d wielded shadows before, but never like that. “It wasn’t an incantation, it was a command—”
“Not now.”
“But—” I caught myself this time, the sight of Quinn stealing my breath. He came around the corner with enough speed that his boots skidded against the stone. Then he saw me, his eyes revealing his desperation.
I doubled over, caught by Florence, and stood utterly still at the sensation of twisting in my pelvis.
“Breathe,” she reminded.
It passed seconds later, and Quinn was finally beside me, taking my arm from Marcy. He examined me, cataloguing everything in an instant.
“Easy,” he soothed. “How far apart?”
“That was the first,” Florence said on my behalf.
“Good. We have time.” His jaw set with determination. Then he turned back to me and lowered his voice. “One step at a time, Alana. Lean on me.”
Our procession to the tower was met with migraine-inducing applause, as if I’d done anything noteworthy beyond soiling my clothes. We stopped again, halfway there, and another one of those waves thundered through me. Florence squeezed my arm, muttering in Hadrian before speaking again.
“Do you remember the night in the woods, Alana?” she asked, causing my heart to stutter with fear. “The pain you felt will render this insignificant. It will hurt, but you are strong.”
We kept going, reaching the stairs. That was the worst of it—every few steps seemed to bring on another contraction. Quinn and Florence held me through them, helping me to stay on my feet. Gods, it was getting hard not to scream. That final one made me bite my tongue hard enough to taste blood.
At last we reached the room, a calm and quaint setting where I would be confined for the following days. My parents were swift to arrive, readying their station. Then Winnie faced the viscount, touching his wrist.
“You have to leave,” she said.
Quinn’s lips trembled. He looked at me as I hunched over the bed, agonizing through another painful round.
Then he approached me, reaching into his collar and fishing out the wolf’s tooth necklace. He untied it, then fixed it around my neck.
His knuckle grazed my cheek. “Be brave, Nightingale.”
There was no thinking through this, and signing didn’t come naturally enough to me that I could think of a single phrase to reply to him with. I leaned into his touch, just barely, and managed a nod.
He hurried down the stairs. The door shut behind him, and Winnie quickly helped me recline
“Put this in your mouth,” she ordered, handing me a clean cloth.
My brow pinched, but I did as she said, though this time there was no stopping the groan that escaped me.
Then she nodded to my mother, who went out into the hall and shut the door.
“All right, Alana. I need you to make a loud noise with the next one.”
I nodded, and I wasn’t sure I could have done otherwise. I screamed into the cloth gag, and Florence held me. In the corner of my eye, I saw my father readying tonics and warming water.
Mother returned. “I heard nothing. We’re safe.”
“Mom,” I whimpered. She just smiled, came over and pushed my hair from my face.
“Look how many people are here for you.” She smiled. “It’ll be all right. Breathe.”