MIKAEL SAT ALONE in the office of the Daujom, reorganizing the files he’d ignored the day before to go hunting with Ensign Pamini. Morning light streamed in from the tall windows that looked out over the courtyard, shafts of light illuminating the fine dust in the air. It wasn’t as if cleaners came and went daily from this office. Instead, Dahar scheduled that only when he could have a dozen sentries watching over the staff. He didn’t like having servants in a place with so many sensitive files, so the dust built up.
Mikael didn’t complain. If he did, Dahar would likely order Mikael to clean everything himself.
He was distracted, though, his attention only halfway on the files. He’d forwarded Kassannan’s request for Shironne to come down to the army headquarters to Deborah himself the previous evening. Sooner or later, he should receive word from Kassannan about Shironne’s evaluation of Jusid’s body. Until then, he had to stew over it.
He took several deep breaths, pushing calm through his mind in the hope of not annoying any sensitives nearby, a regular morning exercise. This hall was kept mostly free of sensitive sentries, but a few worked in the attached offices of the Daujom farther down the hallway.
The desk across from his still stood empty. The month before, when Kai nearly died, it had caused Dahar’s son to reconsider his life. Once released by the infirmary, Kai had gone out to the countryside to one of the rarely visited Valaren estates near the border with Horn Province, taking his guard contingent with him. Three weeks later he returned and promptly withdrew himself from consideration as the king’s heir, then resigned his position with the Daujom as well.
Unfortunately, those actions had spawned waves of difficulties for everyone else.
First, with Kai no longer the heir apparent, that responsibility automatically devolved onto Dahar, who was not pleased. He loved his privacy, but now had to be accompanied everywhere by a team of guards. He desperately wanted to find another heir to take his place, but his time was occupied settling his half-sister’s affairs.
Since Kai had left the Daujom as well, that meant Mikael was handling all the paperwork forwarded by the second office. Before, it had been split between the two of them.
So Mikael settled at his own desk, quickly sorting through one pile left under a large stone paperweight. This was the pile sent up from the second office that concerned the squabbling of the various Anvarrid houses via the senior-most member of the Daujom, Anna Lucas. Mikael sorted through those to find the ones concerning the House of Hedraya, the house that most frequently made trouble for the Valaren. In his letters, Lord Hedraya often intimated to other members of the senate that the country would be better served if the throne was wrested from the Valaren and returned to the House of Anaracin, the family of King Imkhandrion, who’d ruled before the Valaren took the throne.
Mikael gave no credence to the idea that it would be better for the country. The king made decisions regarding the foreign affairs and relationships of Larossa, but the bulk of the day-to-day government of the country was handled by the Larossan authorities of each province and city. A king could use his power to enrich his coffers, though, which was what Mikael suspected Hedraya wanted.
Unfortunately, the sudden change of heir made the House of Valaren vulnerable in the senate, and Hedraya would be the first to point out that there was an Anaracin heir—his younger child, the grandson of King Imkhandrion. If the Daujom’s sources were correct, the boy had lived most of his life in the countryside, but a few months past his father had brought him to Noikinos to polish him, whatever that meant.
If Hedraya could muster enough votes in the senate, he could conceivably maneuver that son onto the throne. So Hedraya’s correspondences were regularly intercepted by the Daujom, decrypted if necessary, copied, and then sent on their way. Most of Hedraya’s letters ended up on Mikael’s desk, leaving it to him whether to inform Dahar of their contents. The majority weren’t worth Dahar’s, and subsequently the king’s, time.
A fist banging on the office door provoked him to set the letters aside and pin them underneath his stone paperweight. Mikael unlocked the door and opened it enough to peer into the hallway. Eli stood outside, his face perfectly calm, but impatience lurking in his mind.
“May I talk to you, sir?” Eli asked.
Mikael let the younger man into the office, wondering if somehow his thoughts about the Hedraya and Anaracin had somehow summoned his student.
Eli had been in this office dozens of times, so he ignored his surroundings, sparing only a glance at Kai’s empty desk. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to put off our next lesson for a day or two. We’ve got our hands full with the new girl.”
Mikael suspected it was Tabita who had her hands full, but Eli was probably picking up slack where Tabita fell behind on other duties. “That’s fine, Eli. Send me a note when you have time, and I’ll see if I can schedule around it.”
“I suspect this is going to be a regular issue,” Eli said. “Our new yeargroup member is in high demand.”
“Yes, I understood that the army wanted her to come out to their headquarters today.”
If he hadn’t known to look, Mikael would have missed the quick line that appeared between Eli’s brows, then vanished. “No sir,” Eli said. “She’s with the infirmary today.”
No mention of the army at all? “I misunderstood, I suppose,” Mikael said quickly.
Eli nodded once. “I will send you a note with a time,” he suggested. “And we can try to set up another session then?”
“That would be fine.” Mikael didn’t want to miss his swordsmanship lessons with the young man. He and Eli often chatted for a while after their lessons. Despite the difference between their ages, they got on well.
And even though he was forbidden to ask, it would give Mikael some clue as to how Shironne was getting along among the sixteens.
Eli went on back to his duty post, and Mikael left the office as well, locking the door behind him. If Shironne wasn’t going to visit the army’s headquarters, then he would.
* * *
Shironne walked down the hallways of the Fortress Below, her gloved hand trailing along the smooth wall.
She knew now where to expect to feel a breeze touching her face. She knew where she should hear voices. As long as she stayed out of the large rooms, she could negotiate her way back and forth to her barracks. The mess hall confounded her with its echoing cavernous roof, but she could avoid it. She followed the carved indicators along the hallway wall, away from the refuge and toward the center stairwells.
The wells always had warmer air coming up. Voices drifted up on it, sometimes sounding like two lone climbers, and sometimes sounding like thousands. This time she heard a group of men approaching from a lower level. The voices sounded older, adults, so if they passed her, they would ignore her, the proper reaction for most adults coming across a brown. She came out of the stairwell onto One Down before they caught up to her, though, making it moot.
On all the other levels of Below, the upper row of chevrons pointed toward the main stairwells in the center of the Fortress, and the lower toward the refuge. On One Down, the top floor of Below, the upper chevrons pointed toward the grand stair that led up into the palace above. Therefore, on this floor the two chevrons pointed in opposite directions at all times, providing the least guidance. For a moment Shironne stood still, trying to sense if anyone was near her. No, she was sure there was no one nearby. “Where am I?” she asked herself in a whisper, trying to recall whether the infirmary was to the left or the right.
“One Down, Hall One, Junction Seven.”
Shironne jumped, startled. The Fortress had answered silently, whispering into her mind in its strange tongue. She might not understand the words it said, but she understood its meaning.
She borrowed the map of the Fortress that Mikael kept in his mind. Junction Seven, to her left, was the seventh one to split off from the main central hallway. The infirmary was located on Hall Eight, one hall closer to the refuge and chapel. Shironne resumed walking, her fingers trailing against the chevrons.
Another person approached along the main hallway. His footfalls were solid on the hard floor, a long stride, so a tall man probably, but she couldn’t catch any sense of him other than mild curiosity. Coming as he was from the direction of the chapel, he was probably a chaplain.
“Brown, do you need assistance?” he asked when he’d gotten close enough that she could hear the fabric of his uniform move.
It was a perfunctory question. Browns rarely went anywhere alone unless it was to a duty station. “No, sir. I’m headed to infirmary duty.”
“Very well,” the man said and went on his way.
The man was a chaplain, she was sure now. It was likely he knew her name and where she was going; he’d simply wanted confirmation. Or he wanted to see what she’d say.
Shaking her head, Shironne walked on. She reached the junction for Hall Eight and turned left toward the infirmary. The hallway itself wasn’t a challenge, but once she reached the door of the infirmary, she would need someone to lead her. Or at least give her hints. She’d been there before but hadn’t memorized the layout then. There were rows of beds, much like at the army hospital, and she didn’t want to stumble over one.
She passed other doorways as she went along the hall. Each one had a guideline, a strip of the floor rough enough that she could follow it across to the opposite side of the doorway. The Founders had designed the Fortress to be navigable in pitch blackness in the case the lights failed. A fortunate circumstance for her, since that made it easier for a blind person to find their way here. She didn’t use the guidelines, though. Most of the doorways were narrow enough that she didn’t need to bother to feel her way across; she just followed her trajectory until her outstretched hand touched another wall. Once she had this area memorized, she wouldn’t need that, either, but for now she kept her fingers on the chevrons.
After crossing eight doorways, she reached the wide entry that led into the infirmary. Unlike some of the other rooms she’d passed, the infirmary was busy at this hour, voices speaking inside. It wasn’t a large enough space to have an echo like the commons or the sparring floor, but it was going to take her a while to get her bearings. Shironne stopped and listened.
A child’s voice could be heard to her left, along with a pair of adults. One of the doctors and perhaps a sponsor, judging by the concern Shironne sensed. Perhaps a parent, if the child was under eight.
Were there beds on both sides of the doorway? She listened harder, trying to judge the pattern of air moving about in the room, where she sensed others, how things smelled.
“Why don’t you come join us?” Deborah’s voice came from ahead of her. “There’s a clear path if you come straight toward me.”
Shironne considered that a test. She walked toward the infirmarian’s voice, confident that someone would worry loudly if she was about to fall over a bed.
“Good,” Deborah said from only a few feet away. “I suppose one of the things that you’ll need to do is take some time to familiarize yourself with the layout here, but I have someone I’d like you to meet with first.”
Shironne felt her brows drawing together. “Um, I thought there might be a request from the army.”
She could sense the doctor’s clever mind turning that statement over and over. “There was a request made last night, but it was withdrawn this morning.”
“Oh,” she said in a whisper. Mikael must not know that last bit, since he still expected her to go out there. Had the army simply decided she was no longer useful? Or was it too much trouble to transport her from the palace with a dozen guards? “Did they say why?”
“I was told the case isn’t in the army’s jurisdiction.”
And therefore she wasn’t needed after all. But Mikael had been so certain. . . .
Deborah’s hand touched her sleeve, drawing her attention back. “Why don’t you follow me? There’s someone I’d like you to look at. Think of it as your first lesson here.”
She led Shironne by the sleeve through the beds. “Ruth, I’d like you to meet Shironne Anjir. She’s in the sixteens, so she knows Gabriel.”
There was a woman before her, possibly seated. She was curious about Shironne, but more tense about something else. “I am pleased to meet you,” she said in a mild voice, and added, “Gabriel is my son.”
“Ah,” Shironne said. “He’s very nice.”
The woman laughed softly. “He is.”
Shironne turned her head in the direction she thought Deborah had gone. “So what am I supposed to do?”
A scraping sound approached them, something dragging on the floor. Deborah took Shironne’s gloved hand and laid it on the back of a chair. “Why don’t you sit down, dear? I have no idea how long something like this will take. Ruth, why don’t you move closer? This is to be an exploration of sorts.”
Ruth moved closer, and Shironne’s nose caught a pungent tang about the woman’s uniform that suggested someone had been violently ill. Ruth sighed, tiredness spilling about Shironne’s perception of her. It had to have been her. “What’s wrong?” Shironne asked. “Is that what I’m supposed to find out?”
“That’s what I’d like you to try,” Deborah said from somewhere behind Shironne. “Why don’t we start with you touching Ruth’s arm?”
Shironne tugged off her right glove and laid it in her lap. “Um, if I touch you, I’ll pick up some of your thoughts. It’s not intentional, but it will happen.”
“I don’t have secrets,” Ruth said with a merry laugh. “Go ahead.”
Well, I warned her. Shironne reached forward and located the woman’s forearm. Her shirtsleeve had been rolled back, baring skin that spoke to Shironne’s fingers only for an instant before the woman’s active mind overwhelmed that sensation.
She’s going to tell me I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant again. She’s going to tell me I’m pregnant, I know it. . . .
The woman’s mind rattled on and on, and Shironne withdrew her hand. “Can you still your thoughts, ma’am? I know what you think this is, but I need to make that judgment myself.”
Embarrassment flared around the woman, quickly calmed. “I’ll do better.”
The Family prided itself on control—a well-earned pride.
This time when Shironne laid her hand on the woman’s arm, the woman counted in her head. Firmly. Repetitive, so Shironne could ignore it. Instead of listening to the woman’s thoughts, she pushed her senses through her light touch into the woman’s skin. She’d only encountered a handful of pregnant women in her work for the army, but there had been something about their skin, a specific quality in them being more intense than before, although she had no name for it. There was often more blood flowing through their bodies as well.
Shironne sensed that combination of factors in this woman’s skin. It could mean she was pregnant. But Captain Kassannan had always warned her against jumping to conclusions, particularly when she had little basis for comparison. “It seems likely that she’s pregnant, ma’am,” she hedged.
Ruth seemed pleased with that verdict.
“I see,” Deborah said. “Can you think of a way to make a better guess?”
“Well, I could try touching her belly, if she doesn’t mind. To see if I can actually sense the child.”
“I’m willing to give that a try,” Ruth said to Deborah. “I’m curious now.”
Deborah must have given her some signal because the woman moved, and Shironne heard the creak of a metal frame shifting. The woman was lying down on one of the beds. Shironne waited until the movement stopped and then moved her chair closer. Once Shironne settled, her knees snugged up against the frame of the bed, Deborah grasped her sleeve and guided her bare hand toward the woman’s belly.
Ruth was, fortunately, accustomed to being examined. Shironne was sure of that, given the woman’s lack of consternation over having her bare belly touched by a stranger.
The woman’s mind fluttered, her thoughts thrusting their way into Shironne’s mind, asking loudly what Shironne sensed but quickly fading as she controlled herself. Shironne extended her senses through the woman’s skin. She could sense the baby now. A tiny heart fluttered. Shironne explored the baby’s undeveloped body, fascinated by the delicate, still-incomplete structure. “It’s a girl.”
In her glee, the mother lost control again, her thoughts blaring through the contact of Shironne’s hand on her belly. Shironne jerked her hand away.
“Are you certain?” Deborah asked.
“I think so. The baby feels female to me.”
“How do you tell the difference?”
“I don’t know,” Shironne admitted. “When I touch a corpse, I can tell if it’s male or female just by feel. Mostly.”
Deborah’s mind spun quickly, and Shironne heard the scratching pen, caught a hint of the scent of ink. “What do you mean by mostly?” the doctor asked.
This is as much a test for me as it is for Ruth. “Uh, sometimes you have people who are not . . . absolutely male or female. With most people I can tell, but every once in a while, I can’t.”
“Interesting,” Deborah replied, the pen continuing to scratch.
“It is a girl, then?” Ruth asked eagerly.
“Yes,” Shironne told her. “I’m fairly sure.”
“That’s wonderful,” Ruth breathed. “Nik will just have to be disappointed.”
“Does he know yet?” Deborah asked.
“I told him I suspected.”
“Well, by now you should definitely recognize the symptoms, Ruth.”
The woman laughed again. “They sent me up here because I became ill,” she admitted. “Just to be certain it wasn’t something catching.”
Ruth was a carer, Deborah explained to Shironne, one of the people who worked with the youngest children, watching over them and teaching them while their parents served duty in the Fortress or palace. A contagious illness would have been worrisome.
“Ruth, it would be very helpful for us,” Deborah continued, “if you could come in regularly, perhaps once a week or so? That way Shironne can become more familiar with how the child develops.”
Ruth agreed to that proposal. On further questioning, Deborah determined she must be between six and eight weeks into her pregnancy. Shironne stored that information away in her mind, hoping she could recall how the baby seemed.
When the woman left, Shironne sat down on the bunk. “I didn’t know, ma’am, but the baby isn’t . . . um, complete, yet.”
“It’s early yet, dear. Ruth has had so many children, I’m honestly surprised it’s taken her so long to come see me.”
“This will be her eleventh?” That seemed like an excessive number, although she had known Larossan families with that many children in the past.
“Terrifyingly enough, yes. You’ll find out as we go along that childbirth and pregnancy is very easy for her, as it’s not for some other women.”
“Was it difficult for you?” Shironne asked, and then wished she hadn’t. She felt a flash of sorrow from Deborah, something the doctor rarely allowed to escape her control.
“Not unusually so,” Deborah admitted, her voice calm.
Shironne had known the first time she’d touched Deborah Lucas’ skin that the doctor had once borne a child herself. Something about a woman’s body changed once that happened, although Shironne couldn’t pinpoint what—there were so many things about the human body for which she simply didn’t have names. From Mikael’s mind, she knew Deborah’s daughter had died young, of influenza.
“I don’t know that I’d want to have eleven children,” Shironne finally said, changing the topic.
Deborah’s hand touched Shironne’s face, stroking back her shorn hair. Through the contact, she could sense the doctor’s steadfast refusal to fret over what might have been. “Well, we’ll have to wait and see.”
“Definitely not eleven,” Shironne told her.
Deborah chuckled, her earlier distress fading away. “Family boys are notoriously prolific, dear.”
Shironne didn’t know that word, but a quick foray into Mikael’s mind told her the meaning.
“Oh, dear.” Shironne clapped her hand over her mouth, embarrassed she’d let that slip out.
“I was only joking,” Deborah said. “Also, in the future it might be prudent not to compare our patients with corpses. Some might find it disturbing.”
She’d spent the last few years studying with Captain Kassannan, but the army hadn’t been keen on letting a girl treat their mostly male patients in the hospital. Therefore, the vast majority of her experience was with dead bodies, not living ones.
The living ones were a lot finickier.