Haste is our friend now. We are only a week and a half from the capital. The urgency of our errand suffuses the men down to the most mind-numbed mongrel and the celerity with which our camp packs in the morning is commendable. Colblain goes with us, in fetters and under guard. Him I’ll take care of once we’ve gotten Chordwain.
As for the messages I sent to prepare for the plan that has now fallen aside—well, their fruit I will pare when they roll into my basket.
Through a few soft rains and gentler days we march. The Winds are silent; the Stars distant. Only the Land sometimes reminds me that I have more claims on me than when I left, its cradling touch softening the pain I’d always ignored at my distant joints. And that is how I see it: some folk would say they had become “more” than they were when they left, or better, or more powerful. I know better. “More claims on me” is exactly what it is, and in my darker moments a macabre humor inspires me to wonder just which of my limbs each god will take before the end.
“Mistress,” Ragna says. “Magwen is here to see you.”
“Pardon?” I ask, surprised. He’s been cooking for me all this time, of course, but to be honest I’d put him out of my mind.
Ignoring my lapse, Ragna says, “Shall I see him in?”
As if my tent has some sort of glorious antechamber. “Yes.”
She leaves me alone with him. This is the first I’ve seen of Magwen outside a few glimpses here and there for many a day, and I’d forgotten what a magnificent specimen he is. Stripes and muscles that glide beneath his short coat as he moves and breathes, those heavy antlers, the long tail with its intriguing tufted tip. He’s kneeling to me and here I’d missed it, too drawn to the specifics of his powerful body in motion.
“Magwen,” I say.
“Mistress,” he replies. “May I speak?”
“I wouldn’t have let you in otherwise,” I say, ears canting outwards. I’m expecting this to be awkward and the fact that it isn’t makes me uncomfortable.
“I just wanted to say...” He pauses, then rushes on. “That not all of the followers of the true religion are as Captain Colblain was.”
Now I am tautly alert. “How do you mean?”
“We do not think you a traitor just because other gods have chosen you,” he says, keeping his head bowed. “We know that in the end, the Godkindred will surpass other gods in our own ascension. That you have supernatural hangers-on only proves your worthiness in our eyes.” He takes a long breath. “And shows me the magnitude of my mistake, Mistress. Obviously, your child is blessed. It may even be the final step to godhead. And that is why the Captain had so much consternation. He felt you might supplant the Godson’s lineage. Maybe even the Godson himself.”
I hold myself still, but the surprise...it’s still there. It still chills my flesh. The thought had occurred to me that I might be forced to be Shraven’s queen if the Godson decided he hated me enough. But the notion that I—or my daughter!—might end up the Goddaughter?
Empress Angharad. What a ridiculous thought.
“One might say you are blaspheming,” I say after recovering that lost breath.
“Some might,” Magwen says. “But I am not the only one who thinks this way. Just as the Captain was not the only one who thought as he did. You have made things …difficult for the devout, Mistress.”
And I used to think I was one of the devout—I suppose I’m actually one of the expedient. Or have I changed so much? “I appreciate what you’ve said. If there’s nothing else?”
He says, “There is, Mistress.”
I lift a brow.
He clasps his hands together, bowing his head. “Please, Mistress, put me under Gavan’s command.”
Both my brows go up now since he can’t see my face. “I thought you had no wish to be a soldier. That you preferred cooking and service.”
“There are more ways than one to be of service,” he says. “And I am not deficient with a sword.” With his face lowered, the only way I can see the shaky breath he takes in is by the quiver of his shoulders. “I beg to prove myself worthy again, Mistress. I have wronged you and only acts of courage can redeem me.”
It’s not as if we can’t use him. We’ve lost some good men, gods carry their souls. “Go to Gavan, then. If he can use you, tell him he may have you.”
“Thank you, Mistress,” Magwen says and rises. He bows to me and leaves me with my thoughts. Which are curious. I suppose that’s how I summon the corvid messenger who—yes, truly—walks into my tent, swaying side to side on those bird legs, right through the tent flap so much taller than he.
“Back, then,” I say, offering my arm. He hops onto it and preens my hair, which is an activity far more familial than he usually indulges in. “And well-pleased with yourself. I suppose you noticed that the plan has changed.”
He clacks his beak a few times. Derision, maybe.
“And you have been up to no good,” I guess.
He looks toward the tent flap. So do I. And in waltzes…a gray crow. A large gray crow, nearly his size and just as insouciant-looking.
“What’s this?” I ask. “A friend of yours?”
The corvid messenger grins at me. No other word for it, for the glitter in his eyes and the quick gape of his beak.
I chuckle. “So even you are settling down with one of the natives, eh?”
The messenger puffs up his feathers and looks very pleased with himself. So does his new female friend. Dear gods, what am I to do with two of them?
* * *
The days pass. We ride as swiftly as we can without giving the appearance of rushing. I watch the skies for gods and weather and clench my reins to keep from petting my belly. My girth is obvious enough without calling attention to it.
“When will the baby come?” Ragna asks.
“I don’t know,” I say tersely. At her look, “I’m Godkin. I’m part bird. I’m part cat. I’m part many-things. I might give birth in six months . . . or lay an egg tomorrow.”
So we ride and watch the rumors of civilization grow on the road and surrounding plains. The land is plush here with green grain and thin trees that break in graceful swirls from soil streaked red and brown and yellow.
Silfie rides at my side, silent and apart from me. I mistrust her calm.
“How far?” I ask Ragna.
“Not long now,” she says. “Two days. Maybe three.”
“Why don’t we see more? Where is the capital?”
“Patience.”
And then we come to a crest in the road and I realize we’ve been on a low hill, so gradual an incline none of us noted it. Spilling before us are the plains and the white coast. At its very edge is a city and rivers run through it, cutting it on their way to the glittering sea. I smell brine, even from days away, and storms. The wet wind laughs and tugs at me, whispering about the joys of flight…but I have a baby to protect and I am not feeling very light these days.
That night, my attempt at sleep is interrupted when my tent fills abruptly, words and wings and confusion. I jerk upright.
“The camp is full of people!” Donal is saying—reporting. The corvid messenger is flying laps in my tiny tent, chasing his new lover. And standing before me, indefatigable and enigmatic, is Negrat.
“How’d you get in here?” I ask, hoping one of them will answer.
“I saw him going in,” Donal says. “I followed.”
I look at Negrat. “Your errand was successful.”
“I have brought the people you sent me to get,” he says. “And there are more on the road behind us, on their way.”
“And in your all-knowing sight you didn’t realize I wouldn’t need them?” I ask, pushing my hair out of my face. “The plan has changed.”
“I’m sure you will find something to do with them,” Negrat says with a broad grin. “You do not waste anything that comes to hand.”
“And for this you woke me up?” I ask, irritated.
The corvid messenger laughs, a kaw of a thing.
“No,” Negrat says. “I woke you up because it’s time for you to deliver your burden.”
“My what?” I ask. And then I have a sudden cramp. I don’t move, but my face betrays something because Donal is easing me back on my bunk.
“Lie down—”
“No!” I say, and sit up again. “I’m not sick, curse it all!”
“I will need hot water and towels,” Negrat says conversationally to the two birds, who glide out of the tent.
“It’s too early,” I say.
“It’s exactly the right time,” Negrat counters cheerfully.
I sigh. This is going to be a long night. “You’re not staying too, are you?” I ask Donal.
“You could order me to leave,” he says.
“But?” I ask, hearing it in his voice.
“But I helped with my sisters and the farm animals,” he says. The farm ani—oh, he’s got a glint in his eye. He’s teasing me.
I sigh. “At least tell Silfia to welcome the new people.”
“Already done,” he says.
I eye him. “Are you bucking for promotion?”
“No,” he says and grins. “I’m happy right where I am right now.”
“You might not be glad of it by the time we’re done. I make a very angry patient.”
He laughs. So does Negrat. Why in the name of the gods am I being attended while in labor by two men and a pair of birds?? Where is Ragna? Where is—well, Silfie wouldn’t be here. Ah gods, maybe men would be better anyway, less fussy…another cramp seizes my middle. Augh, well, the men are definitely better than nothing!
“Her first,” Donal tells Negrat conversationally.
The shaman nods. “So I see.”
I start laughing.
The birds swoop inside my tent, towels clutched in their feet. Behind them is Ragna with a pail of steaming water.
“You picked a fine time to wander off,” I say to her.
“I had an errand,” the pard says, unmoved by my agitation. To Donal, she says, “Let her pace. It will help.”
“I’ll pace if I want to,” I say.
“You should,” Donal says.
“I should walk off a baby,” I say with asperity. “Like some sort of mare in a stall.”
Donal, Negrat and Ragna exchange looks while the birds cackle.
“We forgive you,” Ragna says to me.
“For what!” I exclaim as my body wrinkles in the middle with another cramp. “I haven’t done anything to you!”
“In advance,” Ragna finishes. “For the rest of the night.”
I growl at her and pace.
Pain—I’m accustomed to pain. I’ve heard stories about childbirthing. All of them led me to expect I would die of it…such melodrama! The hours pass, each one bringing worse. As promised, it does feel like my body trying to rip open. But bad pain is your body actually ripping open in a way it won’t recover from without intervention, and I’ve been there.
“Keep walking,” Donal says as I scrape my beak together. “It’ll help.”
“Is it usual for men to attend childbirth where you come from?” I ask. I am sweating now, so much that my nightshirt is stuck to my body. I stink.
“Among the nobility, no,” Donal says. “But I’m countryfolk. We don’t have so many doctors that anyone can afford to be ignorant about these things.”
I look at him, amused—I am between contractions. “Your accent comes and goes.”
He grins. “I don’t turn it off, if that’s what you’re thinking. I start sounding like people I listen to.”
“The people you listen to don’t sound like books,” I say, walking from one end of the tent to the other. Ragna has long since found a seat. Negrat is snoring in the corner—such patent lack of concern. I should be comforted. Surely if I was destined for horror and death he’d be awake.
“Have you listened to your captains talk?” Donal asks with a laugh. “Have you listened to yourself?”
I eye Ragna. “Do I talk like books?”
Ragna shrugs, a bare movement of a shoulder. “Sometimes.”
I lean against one of the tent poles, sweating more. My wings feel cramped; my body stifled. “It’s too hot in here. Can we go out?”
Ragna drapes a cloak over my shoulders and between my wings; somehow we all get out of my tent quietly, without fuss. The camp still feels too close; it’s only when we pass the silent guards at the perimeter and make it onto the fields that my breath starts getting easier. The wind dries the sweat on my brow as fast as pain beads it there. I smell the distant ocean…better, I can see it. I sit on the grass and let the earth hug me.
“Better?” Donal asks.
“Yes,” I say.
Negrat laughs. “Daughter of sky and earth and stars. Of course you feel better.”
I don’t even have the energy to glare at him. Instead, I ask, “And what about the sea?”
“And what about it,” Negrat says. “The sea is the most choosy of all.”
“More choosy than the stars?” I ask, laughing breathily. It is getting harder.
“Even more,” Negrat says. “After all, the stars have already chosen but the sea remains aloof.”
The birds land nearby. My hand...maidens? Handmisters? My caretakers arrange themselves loosely around me. But I stare toward the capital and the sea, and close my eyes through the waves of pain as they rise and fall, incessant as the tides.
“We will have to build you a new palace,” Donal says, from a great distance, muffled. “Something with open spaces.”
“Just raze the existing one,” Ragna says. “That’s all it’s good for anyway.”
I’m having a baby and they’re discussing politics.
“Is it all that bad? Or is it just Chordwain?” Donal is chasing the thread, of course.
“It’s full of politicians.”
He laughs.
I close my eyes. Will this be over soon?
Soon, the Land promises.
Soon, soon, the Winds whisper, caressing my parti-colored ears.
NOW, the Stars say, and I cry out.
* * *
I open my eyes again, lying on my side. The Land is cushioning me from cheek to hip, and the Winds are steadying the rest of me. I feel limp and disoriented.
“Damnedest thing I ever saw,” Donal’s voice floats past the ear that’s not crushed against the soil.
“Lucky,” Ragna opines. I wonder when someone is going to tell me what’s going on when Negrat crouches in front of me.
“You were unconscious,” he says to me, “and produced your egg while in that state.”
“Lucky,” Ragna says again past my shoulder.
“Strange as anything I ever saw,” Donal repeats. “It rolled out on its own, perky as you please.”
“R-rolled?” I still have a voice.
“It’s an egg,” Negrat says.
“We could candle it,” Donal offers. “But I’m fair sure it’s fine.”
The crows laugh. Even I smile at the notion of holding my egg—my egg!—up to a fire and checking it, like some market offering.
“You just lie there,” Negrat says, patting my shoulder. I am not minded to disobey.
There must have been sweat, because I’m cold and my fur is spiky. There must have been exertion because my entire body feels depleted and sore. I feel empty, emptied, calm, exhausted.
Clear-headed.
Behind me, the three murmur, no doubt conferring with the amused but silent birds. I stare out to sea, toward the hazy place where it meets the starlit sky, and wonder when dawn will bloom behind me.
We are sisters, you and I, something whispers into my head.
I stare out at the sea as it gathers folded sunlit highlights from the green sky behind me.
“Somehow I doubt that,” I say.
Oh no, you should not. We are true-kin.
“What color are you going to turn me?” I ask, fearing the explanation. It comes anyway.
You are strong as I am strong. So strong that we are feared. We long to be known and put our mysteries on our surfaces for the brave to explore, but no one dares. We feel obvious and yet people call us enigmas.
I hesitate.
We are beautiful, but people think first of our power. We long for love, but the weaknesses of others interpose. We are lonely. Worshipped from afar but never gathered close.
I think of Silfie. “I know love,” I say.
And where is this love of yours when you writhed on the breast of my brother the Land?
My ears flatten.
Come see me, she whispers. We have never met, but we will be soul-friends. I promise you.
“I need to clean up,” I say. “I can’t fly like this.”
“Did you say something?” Donal asks, coming into focus.
“Ah…no,” I say. “I just need to clean up. I feel depleted.”
“You need rest someplace less exposed,” Ragna says, draping my cloak back over my body and helping me sit up.
“I’ll carry the egg!” Donal says with enthusiasm. I look at him, amused at his eagerness.
“Come,” Ragna says, an echo…but she pulls me in the wrong direction. I follow her, ignoring Negrat’s serene gaze. At my back, I feel Her watching. Patient.