CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The Unwinnable Game

I’m scared.”

Della sat with her feet dangling over the edge of her bed. Her body felt too warm, flushed behind the ears. Her belly was a heavy knot of horror that folded against her upper thighs, and moved all on its own.

“Would you feel more comfortable if I took off my coat?” the doctor asked.

“I don’t know.” There was a rolling stand with medical things on it by the foot of her bed, and she wasn’t wearing underwear, so feeling comfortable was just not going to happen.

The doctor’s name was Kartunnen Wint, and she sat in a brass chair at what distance the small room allowed. She had wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her expression was kind. They’d had a conversation yesterday; that hadn’t been so difficult. Della had explained the pain that had started all of this, and Wint had assured her it was just a common early contraction, not a sign of disaster.

Still, this was the road that led to screaming.

“Lady,” said the doctor, “we’ll do this at your pace.”

Lady Selemei sat in a chair by the head of her bed. “I’m here for you, Della,” she said. “I know this is hard for you. Wint is my doctor, and she’s been through a lot with me. I trust her. I promise, she will be kind.”

“I wish Tagaret were here.”

“Of course you do.” Lady Selemei’s voice took on a note of sadness. “I entirely understand.”

“Lady,” said Doctor Wint, “I’m happy to wait for your partner’s return, but I want to make sure you’re certain his presence will help. For your protection, I’m not planning to take his orders.” She glanced at Selemei, who nodded firmly. “Do you remember what I explained yesterday? You understand what I’m hoping to do?”

Images flooded in. Kartunnen hands, grabbing her, pulling her backward, holding her down. Needles, instruments. Pain. Della started shaking. She clasped her hands together, tightly.

No.

No, that wasn’t Wint. Selemei was here to protect her. Wint had told her what she wanted to do. Remember. Say it aloud, grasp it.

“To—” She squeezed until her knuckles turned white. “To make sure my womb is not weak. To make sure it’s capable of sustaining.”

“That’s right, Lady,” said Wint gently. “With your permission, I will observe its opening with my eyes.”

“Also, to examine the, the—it.”

“The germinal, Lady. May Elinda bless it.”

What was it? A growth, or a child? Was she a failure to the Race, again? Or a victory against the decline? She shook her head. Then someone knocked on the door. She yelped and covered her mouth with both hands.

“Who’s there?” Lady Selemei asked.

“May I come in?” A sweet, welcome voice: Tagaret.

It seemed like he understood, now. He’d apologized, at least, and promised to do better. Yes, he had panicked when the doctor came, but so had she. Her breath felt shallow, and the way her bottom clenched reminded her of her lack of underwear. Tagaret didn’t know about that. She nodded.

“Come in,” said Lady Selemei.

The door cracked open. Tagaret looked nervous. He wasn’t alone; shadows blocked light behind him. “Mother wanted to be here for you, Della, if you think that’s all right.”

She glanced at Wint. The doctor’s face was solemn, cautioning.

But Tamelera was the one who had made Tagaret understand. “I think that’s all right. Thank you for caring, Mother.”

Tagaret came to the near side of the double bed and sat down on it. Tamelera didn’t stay with him. She walked closer, behind Lady Selemei’s chair, and gave the Lady’s shoulder a quick pat.

Doctor Wint crossed her ankles and leaned forward. She didn’t look at the newcomers, but square at Della as if to say, you and I are the ones who matter here. “Lady, may I have your permission to use an instrument to take images?”

Della pressed a hand against her belly without thinking. “What kind of images?”

“Do you mean photographs?” Lady Tamelera asked. “I’ve had photographs taken before.”

“Photographs are permanent images, Lady,” the doctor explained. “These are temporary ones. The instrument allows me to see the germinal and assess its health.”

A twisted, quivering mass covered in blood.

“Holy Mother of Souls,” Della whispered. Was it a child, or not? “Yes, you may.”

“I ask your permission to begin.”

Della’s heart beat against her throat. She tried to gulp it down.

“Lady,” the doctor said, “as I told you yesterday, I will always tell you what I’m going to do before I do it. You may ask to stop at any time.”

Part of her mind was already screaming, Stop, stop . . .

But if I stop now, I learn nothing. I only wrestle with this fear until the blood starts.

She took a shuddering breath. “You may begin, Doctor.”

“Thank you, Lady. I would like to do the visual examination first. It will proceed smoothly if you lie down on your back with your legs bent. I will go into the bathroom and wash my hands while you do this. Please tell me when you are ready.”

Della’s body twitched in fear, but it was all right—see, the doctor was leaving, pushing the bathroom door mostly closed. Yesterday, she’d told Wint about her terror: the hands, always the hands, grabbing, pushing her down. Now the doctor was nowhere near, and she would lie down by herself. She eased down sideways until her shoulder landed and her ankles came up to the bed, and then rolled slowly to her back. Her belly shifted disconcertingly, and the interloper jabbed her. She hissed, but resettled.

She glanced toward Tagaret.

“I love you,” Tagaret said. He was wringing his hands.

The bathroom door opened; the doctor had apparently opened it with her foot while keeping her gloved hands clasped together. “May I approach, Lady?”

Della swallowed. “Yes.”

Doctor Wint moved carefully to the foot of the bed, to her rolling stand of instruments. There were small sounds. Della winced with each one.

If she touches me I’m going to scream.

She wrestled with the urge that climbed up her throat.

“Please take a breath, Lady,” said Doctor Wint.

She gasped.

“Excellent, thank you, and one more, please.”

Another breath gave her the ability to speak. “Tagaret?”

Tagaret startled out of his tight posture. “Yes, love?”

“Can you come here?”

He only had to stand and take a step. She grasped his hand in both of hers, and pressed the back of it against her face.

“Squeeze as hard as you like,” he whispered.

She nodded, and remembered to breathe. “What comes next?”

“Lady, I’m holding an instrument that will allow me to inspect the opening of your womb,” the doctor said. Over her own fabric-draped knees, Della couldn’t see it, but its glow lit Wint’s face. “With your consent, I will introduce it. I understand this may be difficult, and if you wish me to stop, say, ‘stop.’”

Della held tight onto Tagaret’s fingers; they kept her from falling into the fear. “I consent.”

“I’m moving your nightgown,” said the doctor. “In a moment you will feel the instrument touch you. It’s no wider than my little finger.”

A whine escaped her lips; she clutched Tagaret’s fingers. The touch came, warm, wet-feeling and entirely impersonal. It pressed at her, invaded.

“Stop!”

“I’ve stopped, Lady. Please take a deep breath for me.”

She took a breath. Tears pushed against her tight-shut eyes, and one ran away down her cheek. What if her womb was weak? What if there was no hope? What would they do then?

“When you’re ready, I will need to push a little bit farther, and then you will feel a slow expansion. I will wait for your word.”

“Tagaret . . .”

“I love you,” said Tagaret. “I will stand with you against the whole world.”

She managed a breath, too shallow; another. “All right, Doctor.”

The feeling of the instrument moving sent a shudder up her back, and then came the expansion—weird, oh, gods it felt so weird . . . “Stop!”

“Well done, Lady,” the doctor said. “We’re all done with that part. I can see what I need to.”

Two seconds of concentrated doubt filled the silence.

Della pressed her forehead into Tagaret’s hand. “Heile, have mercy . . .”

“It looks normal, Lady,” the doctor said. “I see no sign of thinning or weakness. I will collapse my instrument and remove it now.”

“Yes.” She clung to Tagaret’s hands. More tears escaped her eyes as her insides slid back together. By luck or mercy, the interloper seemed to have had no reaction to the invasion at all, though she could hear both Tamelera and Lady Selemei murmuring Heile’s name.

Remember to breathe. Yes—breathe.

At last she was able to release her awful grip on Tagaret’s fingers. He slipped his hand free and gave her the other one. She used it to sit up. That restored some sense of control. Seconds passed, placing merciful distance between her and the invasion. But a new question had lodged in her mind.

“Doctor, if I don’t have a womb weakness, then what’s wrong with me?”

“That’s not a question I can answer clinically, Lady,” Doctor Wint said. She frowned, removed her gloves with a snap-snap, and bent out of view for a few moments. Clicks and mysterious noises came from the rolling stand. Then she came up again. “Lady, may I ask you to please cover your legs and expose your belly while I set this up?”

Della nodded. Tagaret moved closer to her knees and helped her to arrange a sheet covering while Doctor Wint moved an instrument from below to the top shelf of her stand. It was strange, with a screen in its upper half.

“Della,” said Lady Selemei from her chair, “I don’t think it’s fair for you to ask what’s wrong with you. We don’t know that anything is wrong with you at all. The basic tests your Yoral and others have given you have always been normal.”

Della shook her head, tucking the sheet around her legs and trying to pull her nightgown up so it wouldn’t fall over her belly. “But there must be something. I never feel right. There’s always something wrong.”

“I never felt right when I was pregnant,” Tamelera said softly. “And for you, it’s been so many, many times . . .”

Selemei was angrier. “Della, I’ve heard an awful lot of people tell you there’s something wrong with you. They never once think of you; they think only of whether or not you can fulfill your duty to the Race. When you hear that enough times, it’s easy to start believing it.”

So many, many times. “But I think there must be, though,” she said. “With the decline . . .”

“Lady,” said Doctor Wint. “Decline or not, every person is different. And every pregnancy is different, because every germinal is different. I’ll need permission to touch you, so I can apply this cream to your skin, and then this instrument.” She held up a small blunt thing the size of a bar of soap.

This instrument was nothing. What terrified her was the question it would answer. Was this a child, or not?

“Tagaret,” she said. “I don’t know how to do this.”

He took her hand again. “Think of something else. Think of Selimna.”

Selimna. The cold air, the cliffsides, the Ride. That was better.

“Doctor,” she said, “you have permission to touch me.”

The cream was warmer than she expected, and the soap-device tickled. The interloper appeared to notice it, though, and started jabbing her. As if in response, her womb hardened into a stone.

Della gasped. “It’s happening again—”

The doctor paused the movement of her device. “Please breathe, Lady. We’ll wait for it to pass.”

Breathe. Think about Director Aimali, and Venorai Castremei, and Melumalai Forder. All those people who deserve better. And Vant. He deserves better, too.

At last, the hardness released.

“May I resume, Lady?”

“Yes.”

The doctor scrubbed the soap-device repetitively over the same area. Della tried to shift her position to get the interloper to settle down. It wouldn’t. The doctor kept her eyes and one hand on the machine, never saying a word. Then, a wrinkle of puzzlement formed between her brows.

Name of Elinda—it was going to be bad news. Dread swept over her and nausea came with it; she panted, trying not to panic. What did it mean if her womb was perfect this time, if it was only perfectly able to hold in some kind of horror?

“Stop,” she said.

Doctor Wint’s hand stopped moving the soap-device, and she looked at her. “Lady?”

“I can’t do this. I can’t do this.” She clenched her fists and hit them against her forehead over and over. The banging was a barrier against seeing and feeling, but it wasn’t enough. “It’s going to kill me.”

“Della,” said Tagaret. “Della, listen.” His hand touched her shoulder. “You’ll live. I know you will. You traveled, and you survived. You went to the Venorai tributary, and you survived. You climbed out the window, and you survived. You saved Lady Falya and Arissen Melín from assassins, and you survived. You’re my Maiden Eyn, and you always come back.”

She nodded, the heels of her hands clutched against her tear-wet face.

“We’ll get out of here,” Tagaret said. “We’ll go back to Selimna, just you and me. We’ll drink tea at Bread in Hand.”

The memory of perfect bread helped her hear him. They would go back. Think of what they could do, now that she’d finally managed to see the entirety of the problem they were trying to solve!

But that was what would happen if she failed.

What would happen if she succeeded? Children didn’t travel. She’d have to stay in Pelismara. She’d have to relinquish everything they’d worked for.

This was a game. Just another game with no way to win. And that meant she had to find another way—a way to refuse to play.

Della opened her hands, and let them fall to the covers beside her.

“I won’t give up,” she said. “We will go back to Selimna, whether I bear a child or not. What I can do for Varin is more important than what the Society and the Race think of me.”

“Lady,” the doctor said. “It’s not bad news.”

“What?” She looked around. The doctor was no longer touching her, and the screen showed nothing.

“Lady,” Doctor Wint said. “I was confused, because I was led to believe you’d been pregnant for twenty weeks, but you’re further along than that. I believe you’ve passed the germinal stage.”

“I—I don’t know what you mean.”

“May I look again, please? You may look with me, or not, as you wish.”

Della gulped and nodded. When the doctor resumed scrubbing her with the soap-device, she looked. What the screen showed was nothing like a portrait; it was a changing fog of tiny green dots that suggested form gradually, a little at a time.

“Lady, the first three fifths of a pregnancy are the germinal stage,” Doctor Wint explained. “This one has reached early essential stage.” She stared at the screen while its dots fogged and changed. “The anchor is normal. The brain, heart, and spine are normal. Limbs are in good order.”

Normal—good order—there could be no words more unexpected or out of place. Della shook her head. “How is that possible?”

Doctor Wint pulled away, handed Della a towel, and began wiping her device with another. “Often when a pregnancy fails, it’s because of poor genetic health in the germinal. But on inspection, I suspect this essential will be born. You may yet labor early, but even if you began today, medical facilities might be able to sustain the essential into childhood. Mind you, I’d far prefer to see this one after four fifths, because one’s likelihood of confirmation would go way up.”

Confirmation. Seriously? Della wiped the film of cream from her belly with the towel. That was the word her own mother had always worried about when they’d discussed the future—whether her child would be able to join in the public life of the Pelismara Society. But, as Mai was her witness, it didn’t matter. She would love to have a private child. They required care, but like her own sister, would be safe from the Society’s predatory expectations.

That was a question for later. Today, by some miracle, Elinda had looked on her kindly for the first time. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“Wint,” said Lady Selemei, “do you have a recommendation for Della’s level of daily activity?”

The doctor shrugged, still looking at Della. “Lady, if you have sustained or repetitive contractions, lie down until they subside. But so long as you’re not having pain or bleeding, you can do anything you like.”

Anything I like. “I’m going to get up and take a shower, to start with.” Della slid off the hospital bed. “I don’t think we should be needing this extra bed.”

“Della, I’m sorry,” said Tagaret. “We should have done these tests long ago, whenever you were pregnant.”

She embraced him, listening to his heartbeat. “The tests didn’t make this child whole,” she said. “That was Sirin’s hand, and Elinda’s. The decline hasn’t stopped. You heard the doctor—every pregnancy is different.”

Tagaret pulled back from her and stroked her hair away from her face. “I know, but this isn’t about the child. This is about you. If we’d been doing this all along, we would have known what treatment you needed. When I think of everything you’ve been through in the name of the Race, just because I was telling doctors what to do, instead of listening—” His brown eyes glistened with tears, and he whispered close to her ear. “It shows me that our project is more important than ever. So you can never be hurt by my ignorance again.”