Part 21 (2/2)

The princess brought Fire to Cellar Harbour to tell her, so that the roar of the falls would keep everyone, even Fire's guard, from overhearing the conversation. Clara was dry-eyed and straight about it. And once Fire had adjusted to the news, she found that she was not particularly surprised.

'I was careless,' Clara said. 'I've never liked those herbs; they nauseate me. And I've never fallen pregnant before. I suppose I convinced myself I couldn't. And now I'm paying for my stupidity, for everything nauseates me.'

She hadn't seemed nauseated to Fire; in recent weeks she'd seemed nothing but calm and well. She was a fine actress, Fire knew this, and probably the best woman for this accident to befall. She was not lacking in money or support, and she would do her work up to the very day the child was born, and start again right after, and she would be a strong mother, and practical.

'Archer is the father,' Clara said.

Fire nodded. She'd a.s.sumed this. 'He'll be generous once you tell him. I know he will.'

'I don't care about that. What I care about is your feeling. Whether I've hurt you, by jumping into his bed, and then being stupid enough for this to happen.'

Fire was startled by this, and touched. 'You've certainly not hurt me,' she said firmly. 'I have no hold on Archer, and no jealousy where he's concerned. You mustn't worry on my account.'

Clara's eyebrows rose. 'You're very strange.'

Fire shrugged. 'Archer has always had enough jealousy of his own to turn me off to the feeling of it.'

Clara looked into Fire's face, into her eyes, and Fire looked back, quiet and matter-of-fact, determined that Clara should see that she meant it. Finally Clara nodded. 'This is a great relief to me. Please don't tell my brothers,' she added, sounding anxious for the first time. 'They'll all rise up determined to hack him to pieces, and I'll be furious with them. We've too much else to be thinking about. This couldn't have been more ill-timed.' She paused for a moment, then spoke plainly. 'And besides, I don't want any harm to come to him. Perhaps he didn't give me everything I hoped he would. But I can't help thinking that what he did give me is rather marvellous.'

IT WAS NOT the type of gift everyone could welcome in such a way.

Fire's guard Margo slept in Fire's bedchamber, and Musa and Mila did too on alternating nights. One dawn Fire woke to the feeling of someone out of place, and perceived that Mila was vomiting in the bathing room.

Fire rushed to the girl and held her pale hair away from her face. She rubbed Mila's back and shoulders, and as she came fully awake, began to understand what she was seeing.

'Oh, Lady,' Mila said, beginning to cry. 'Oh, Lady. What you must think of me.'

Fire was, indeed, thinking a great many hurried thoughts, and her heart was bursting with compa.s.sion. She put an arm around Mila. 'I have nothing but sympathy for you. I'm going to help you however I can.'

Mila's tears turned to sobs and she wrapped both arms around Fire. She held on to Fire's hair, speaking raggedly. 'I ran out of the herbs.'

Fire was horrified at this. 'You could have asked me for them, or any of the healers.'

'I could never, Lady. I was too ashamed.'

'You could have asked Archer!'

'He is a lord. How could I trouble him?' She was crying so hard she was choking. 'Oh, Lady. I've ruined my life.'

And now Fire was furious over Archer's lack of trouble, for most certainly, all of this had happened at little inconvenience to him. She held the girl tight and rubbed her back and made hus.h.i.+ng noises to soothe her. It seemed to comfort Mila to hold on to her hair.

'There's something I want you to know,' Fire said, 'and you must remember it now more than ever.'

'Yes, Lady?'

'You may always ask me for anything.'

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IT WAS IN the coming days that Fire began to feel the lie in her words to Clara. It was true she was not jealous of Clara or Mila for anything they'd done with Archer. But she was not immune to the feeling of jealousy. Though she was brainstorming, plotting, planning with the royal siblings, her outward self focused on the details of the coming gala and the war, inside, in her moments of quiet, Fire was grievously distracted.

She imagined what it would be like if her own body were a garden of brown soil sheltering a seed. How she would warm that seed if it were hers, and feed it, and how ferociously she would protect it; how ferociously she would love that dot, even after it left her body, and grew away from her, and chose the way it would wield an enormous power.

When she became nauseated and fatigued, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s swollen and sore, she even began to think of herself as pregnant, even though she knew it was impossible. The pain was a joy to her. And then, of course, her bleeding came, and tore her pretending apart, and she knew it had only been the usual symptoms of her pre-bleeding time. And she found herself crying as bitterly to know she wasn't pregnant as Mila had cried to know she was.

And her grief was frightening, because it had its own will. Her grief filled her mind with comforting, terrible ideas.

In the middle of December planning, Fire made a choice. She hoped she chose right.

ON THE VERY last day of December, which happened to be Hanna's sixth birthday, Hanna appeared at Fire's door, tattered and crying. Her mouth bled, and bleeding knees peeked through holes in both trouser legs.

Fire sent for a healer. When it was determined that Hanna was not crying over any injury to her body, Fire sent the healer away, knelt before the girl, and hugged her. She deciphered Hanna's feelings and gasps as best she could. Finally she came to understand what had happened. The others had taunted Hanna about her father, because he was always away. They'd told Hanna that Brigan was forever leaving because he wanted to get away from her. Then they'd told her he wasn't coming back this time. That was when she'd started hitting them.

In her gentlest voice and with her arms around the girl, Fire told Hanna over and over that Brigan loved her; that he hated to leave her; that the first thing he always did on his return was go find her; that indeed, she was his favourite topic of conversation, and his greatest happiness. 'You wouldn't lie to me,' Hanna said to Fire, her sobs coming quiet. Which was true; and which was the reason Fire said nothing on the point of Brigan coming home this time. It seemed to her that to a.s.sure anyone Brigan was ever coming home was always to risk a lie. He'd been gone now nearly two months, and in the last week, no one had heard a word from him.

Fire gave Hanna a bath and dressed her in one of her own s.h.i.+rts that made a long-sleeved dress that Hanna found quite funny. She fed Hanna dinner, and then, still sniffling, the girl fell asleep in Fire's bed. Fire sent word with one of her guards so that no one would be alarmed.

When Brigan's consciousness appeared suddenly in her range, she took a moment to calm her own shaking relief. Then she sent him a message in his mind. He came to her rooms immediately, unshaven and smelling of the cold, and Fire had to stop herself from touching him. When she told him what the children had told Hanna, his face closed and he seemed very tired. He sat on the bed, touched Hanna's hair, leaned down to kiss her forehead. Hanna woke up. She said, 'You're cold, Papa,' crawled into his arms, and fell asleep again.

Brigan rearranged Hanna in his lap then, and looked over her head at Fire. And Fire was so struck by how much she liked having this grey-eyed prince on her bed with his child that she sat down, hard. Luckily there was a chair behind her.

'Welkley tells me you've not been out of your rooms much this week, Lady,' Brigan said. 'I hope you're not unwell.'

'I was quite ill,' Fire croaked, and then bit her tongue, because she hadn't meant to tell him.

His worry was instant. He opened the feeling of it to her.

'No,' she said. 'Don't fret, it was a small thing. I'm recovered.' Which was a lie, for her body was sore still and her heart raw as Hanna's knees. But it was what she hoped would be the truth, eventually.

He studied her, unconvinced. 'I suppose if that's what you say, I'll have to believe you. But do you have the care you need?'

'Yes, of course. I beg you to forget it.'

He lowered his face to Hanna's hair. 'I'd offer you birthday cake,' he said. 'But it looks like we'll have to wait until tomorrow.'

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