16. The First Mother #3
I made myself speak. The slithery, foreign movements of my tongue still felt wrong. “I sound strangely right now, with the magic. I didn't want to startle you.”
“Ah, like the sorceress!” She waved a hand in the black. “No, no, the magic is fine. Go on. It does not bother me. You will speak right soon enough.”
I gathered myself. My head was spinning. “I have not gotten to speak with Grezha yet. It would be hard for me to help here, with so little of the language, and being an outsider to the women.”
“Tch, you can learn! And Grezha will not be bothered by the—" she made a hissing sound, mimicking the sorcerous speech.
“The sorceress can help you. And Vrathgar will help you.
Won't you, Vrathgar?” There was a scolding in her tone.
“She has to speak Orcish; she can't be left all alone. What about the children?” Her hand touched mine, warm and smooth, like stone.
“Vrathgar will help you. He has so many friends.”
I nodded, found my voice. “...yes. They're very kind.”
She moved back. “Eat, eat. Brathka left soup—"
The warm broth soothed the knots in my belly as they talked. He avoided every topic that could be upsetting to her, the trial, the response to me coming here, why we got married at all.
“And this?” Firelight played over both of them now, and he stayed very, very still as she tapped his cheekbone. She clucked again. “And where did my son get this decoration? Are you getting in fights with the other boys again?”
“Now, Mother,” he said. “Who would dare mess with me while Annora is here? She’s too terrifying.”
She scolded again. I sipped the soup.
At first I’d thought he was careful because she would be frightening, that she’d be like Drazha, and he walked on eggshells to keep her from flying into some rage. I was familiar with that kind of careful. But as he kept parrying worries and joking away questions, this felt different.
He hadn’t touched his soup.
“Annar-zha,” she said my name wrong, but the magic still caught. “You like the food? This is like what you’re used to?”
“It’s very good,” I murmured. Vrathgar’s tension felt catching. Or maybe this was my own. Maybe every word from her felt like an undeserved kindness, for someone who’d entrapped her son.
“The outlands keep you too thin. You need hearty foods if you’re going to bear daughters.”
Vrathgar coughed, but it seemed like the least outrageous thing that had been said to me in the last fortnight.
She reached to take the bowl out of my hands, and I moved wrong.
It slipped.
The pottery shattered across the floor, bits and pieces, all the way to the hearth. I was on my feet. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll help—"
But my speech was cut off by a sound, high, warbling, like it didn’t know whether to be a wail or a scream. Fenha’s gaze was fixed on the crockery, frozen, her mouth open.
“Mom, it’s alright.” Vrathgar was on his feet. Fenha dropped to her knees, breathing fast. I didn’t know what to call her. Did I say Fenha? Vrathgar’s-mother? Was I supposed to call her mum?
“It’s alright,” she repeated. “It's alright, it's alright, it's alright, we will fix it, it's alright—" She started grabbing up the pieces, slow and then faster, like she had to scoop all of them up in a race against whatever was hanging over us.
Her hands were bleeding, both her hands now, grabbing up the shards.
“Mom. Mom, it’s okay.” Vrathgar grabbed for her wrists. “Mom—"
With a ragged gasp, she yanked free, her hand in an arc, a sound as it hit. Blood slid from the fresh slice in his cheek.
She froze, her gaze only on him, so much fear. “No, no, your face…”
“I’m fine. We’re cleaning the bowl up. I’m fine—"
She was touching his face, more blood smearing onto his cheek from her hand. Her hand moved to that scar, the dark purple, down his brow.
“Mum—"
She curled in on herself, a high, keening wail like someone had died. He pried the shards out of her fists, more blood, threw them down with the rest.
“Mum, I’m okay. It’s alright. Mum—"
Bogdana would have had a draught for this, something to put her to sleep.
Bogdana would have had what she needed, what he needed, trying to hold his mother as her mind went somewhere we couldn’t follow.
And I didn’t even have my own voice, the magic strangling and muddling my tongue, turning everything I even tried to hum into something else.
As much as I needed the magic to help me, I hated it.
She didn't need words and reason; she needed comfort. I found in my mind the tether that held Rowena’s magic here, and I broke it.
I felt the flooded heat drain, felt its grip loose on my tongue.
I reached for a song I remembered, the lyrics long lost and unimportant, and I sang. I sang the rhythm and the call, the heartbeat and the breath. It was a lullabye my mother had taught me, a song she’d hummed when I was in her arms.
It didn’t make sense that good people suffered and were cut on the edges of how the world broke.
I couldn't be a shield from blows, couldn’t fix this for her or him, but I could be a balm.
I could beg what needed begging from my own heart that also screamed.
I could put a blanket of song, this melody that rose and fell, between her and the pain, and I could make her not alone.
Slowly, her fists unclenched. The wailing became sawing breaths, then quiet, and he caught her as she dropped into his arms. He looked at me.
“This is magic?” he said. “You gave her sleep?”
He hadn’t given me permission to help. Fear clenched my ribs. I nodded.
He was holding her, shook his head. “Then we don’t need Grezha. If she’d fainted, I’d think…” he swallowed.
“I’ll clean this up,” I whispered. “You take care of her.”
I found a broom, swept the fragments into a pile while he carried her to a small bed. I found a rubbish pail for the pieces, a rag to mop the blood away. The cut on my own thumb stung. How many times had this happened, for his reaction to anything breaking to be stopping someone's hands?
My voice was hoarse from the force of the song, like more power had been running through me than I was used to using, but I felt steadier moving task to task.
He leaned against the fireplace. He still looked shaken.
“Her hands,” he said. “If I could ask…” And it was the first time he’d asked it of me, the first time he hadn’t acted like my magic was a curse.
My throat was strained, but I crouched over his mother’s small hands— she had such frail wrists— and I hummed again, crooning for the knicks and slices to heal, for the trouble to ebb away, for her to be spared pain.
And there wasn’t much left of me, and even the little knicks didn’t heal all the way, but the scabs closed and browned.
Perhaps it would hurt less, like having old cuts instead of fresh.
“That’s all I can do,” I squeaked.
He nodded, again. “Thank you. I…thank you.” He was staring at her face, so young-looking on the pillow, despite the shock of silver in her hair.
When he spoke it was a croak. “If you would stay here, please, a moment.
I need to talk to my aunt. She shouldn't be alone when she wakes up, and I… I shouldn't be here.”
When he returned we left the little house covered in flowers, him carefully closing the door behind him. On the path again, out of the garden, he spoke. “It's better for her not to see me,” he said. “My aunt visits. She's not alone. She's not always like that.”
“I believe you,” I whispered. Because what was there to say?
“She won’t switch that way on you as often,” he said. “You don’t look like…” and then he stopped speaking, only our footsteps crunching.
His looks came from his father.
“She seemed kind,” I murmured.
“She is,” he answered, at once. “She never wants to hurt anyone. She just…doesn’t do well with reminders. Or threats. Or accidents. And I’m…” he let out a breath. “I’m all of those.”
What a wretched way to know who you were, with the person who loved you most.
I should say something, interrupt his silence. “That’s why you don’t live there, then?” I fumbled.
He nodded curtly. “It got worse when I grew taller. I got taller than her when I was…ten summers? I found other places to be.”
Our footsteps reached the same path as before, sloping upwards towards that ring, voices near enough to hear. The way towards the wooden bridgeway would be there beyond. People crossed our line of sight, a happy older woman, a man with a basket on his arm.
He lurched to a halt. “I can’t…” he said, and just stopped. I waited. Children crossed the path, chasing and shrieking. “...I don’t want to go back,” he said. “To that house.”
I blinked. “Your mother’s?”
“No, the…mine.” He took a breath. “I will take you back there, if you wish. But I don’t want to be there.”
“I don’t mind,” I said. “Not going back.” It was an empty room. It held no significance for me. I had no idea what significance it held for him. “Is there somewhere else? Somewhere we could go?”
He stood there, staring forward. I put my hand on his.
“Vrathgar!” A woman down in the square waved.
He muttered a curse. She crossed the packed earth towards us.
She wasn’t alone. There was the young woman from the ring with the scar on her throat, and there was the one who’d challenged Vrathgar in the trial, hanging back and glaring.
There were others, all of them dressed in the orc fashion, with skirts above the knee or trousers, hair braided back or chopped short, arms bared.
I’d never had to wonder if I could take another woman in a fight before, but now I knew I couldn’t take any of them. Even the smallest could kill me if she tried.
The woman in the lead— I hadn't seen her before, her hair in thick waves chopped off below her ear— she had bangles on her lithe arms, and her necklace clacked with teeth. She said something, cheery, despite the glares and discomfort behind her.