Besieged (2 page)

‘Besides, females don’t feel as we do,’ Nitzel added. ‘They are simpler creatures, closer to animals. The gods did not give them finely-attuned minds and souls like ours so they could endure childbirth.’

The brothers did not look convinced. Sorna panted, face contorted with pain.

‘Don’t worry,’ Nitzel advised. ‘Once this is over, she’ll have her baby and forget. I’ve seen it time and time again.’

Perhaps that was true, but why did the gods inflict the agony of childbirth on women?

The answer was simple.There were no gods. No matter how he searched, he could find no proof for the Seven: the Father, his five sons and the Mother. The heretical thoughts terrified Oskane and he kept searching, hoping for a sign.

The pattern of Sorna’s breathing changed. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her body arched. Belly stretched under the sheet, hands clutching the pillow beside her head, Sorna gulped a breath and drew her legs up, grunting with effort.

‘It’s time, baby’s coming,’ Oskane said.

‘I must see this!’ King Charald gestured to Etri, who drew back the cover.

Her nightgown had ridden up to her breasts, revealing the swell of her belly stretched tight as a drum. The lips of her vulva bulged outwards. Oskane remembered thinking last time that surely a baby’s head could not pass through; he’d been proven wrong. However, according to the midwife, sometimes the baby became wedged and both mother and child died. Fear made Oskane’s heart race. A midwife should be present, but Charald would not hear of it. He wanted his son born under the Warrior’s patronage.

Trapped between horror and fascination, Oskane could not look away. What happened to the bones of her hips? No wonder women screamed.

Sorna did not scream. She held her breath and bore down with total concentration. The assembled men watched with terrible fascination as a crown of wet, matted hair appeared, then slid back in.

‘The head, my king!’ Healer Etri announced as proudly as if he was the one producing the child. ‘Your son is about to come into the world.’

Sorna gulped another breath, preparing to bear down again.

The infant arrived face down. Etri took the baby’s head and turned him, pulling one shoulder through, then the other.

Carried on a tide of blood and fluid, the baby’s legs slipped out easily, and Sorna gave a guttural groan of relief. No caul covered the baby’s face, which was just as well. The child had to be physically perfect to rule.

The long, ropey cord still pulsed with life as Etri turned the babe around to display his genitals. ‘A boy!’

‘A boy...’ Charald whispered. ‘Praise the Seven, a boy!’

‘Look at those balls, pouch as big as a peach,’ Etri crowed. ‘What a man he’ll be. And he looks just like you.’

With his little face bruised from the birth and his skin slippery and red, it was hard to tell who the newborn resembled. The babe threw out his arms, screwed up his face and screamed.

‘Give him to me,’ Charald commanded.

‘A moment.’ The saw-bones tied off the cord and cut it, then wrapped the babe in a cloth despite his struggles. ‘A fine, strong boy. Look how he fights me. Just listen to those cries. Here, my king.’

Charald took the proffered baby, holding his son out towards the Warrior symbol above the bed. ‘My heir, Prince Cedon of Chalcedonia, son of Charald, grandson of Cedon. One day he will be King Cedon the Sixth. May the Warrior’s fire fill his heart, may the Warrior’s guile guide his judgement on the battlefield.’ The king lifted his voice addressing the servants by the door. ‘Bring us wine!’

They hurried to pour goblets and distribute them.

Oskane glanced to Sorna, lying on the bed in a pool of blood and birthing fluid. There was still the afterbirth, but Healer Etri had left her side to celebrate with the king. Twenty-seven years ago, things had gone wrong at this point. Charald’s mother had died three days later of child-bed fever – that, or a broken heart.

‘It’s starting again. What’s happening?’ Sorna whimpered, eyes wide with fright. ‘Is there another baby?’

Was there another baby? Oskane hoped not, not after last time. He hoped it was just the after-birth.

‘Didn’t your mother tell you, Sorna?’ he asked, then recalled the girl’s mother had died giving birth to a stillborn boy seven years ago. ‘It’s the after-birth.’

Her hand reached for him as she gulped and bore down again. He pushed her hair from her forehead. The exertion of childbirth had made her hair dark at the temples, but the ends were still the colour of honey in sunlight. A sprinkling of freckles stood stark against her pale skin.

With a grunt of relief, she expelled the after-birth. ‘That hurt.’

‘You must have torn.’ Which reminded him – they needed a midwife to sew her up. But Sorna had other thoughts.

‘My baby. I want to hold him.’ She tried to push herself up the bed, to sit against the headboard. Even as she did this, she adjusted her nightgown and reached for the sheet, wincing. More blood gushed from between her legs. It worried Oskane. The midwife would know what to do.

‘Here, let me.’ He lifted the sheet, pulling it up and moving a pillow so she could sit comfortably. ‘I’ll fetch the women now. They’ll clean you up. By then, the king should be finished admiring his–’

A roar of outrage made them both stiffen. Everyone feared the king’s temper, so violent and unpredictable.

‘What’s this?’ Charald turned, holding the baby out. One little arm had worked loose from the swaddling cloth. Fingers splayed, the newborn reached for something to hold onto and wailed so loudly, Charald had to shout. ‘What have you done, Sorna?’

She shrank back, growing even paler. Her mouth opened soundlessly and she shook her head.

‘The babe has six fingers!’ King Charald declared.

Oskane felt sick.

As Charald strode across the chamber to the end of the bed, everyone looked horrified. Everyone but Nitzel. For a heartbeat his face was unguarded; he was delighted.

‘Six fingers!’ King Charald thrust the baby forward. ‘A filthy Malaunje, a half-blood. This is no son of mine!’

And he threw the wailing baby towards her. Sorna shrieked.

Swaddling cloth trailed the writhing infant as he sailed through the air. Acting on instinct, Oskane lurched forward, catching the newborn before he could hit the headboard.

The baby fell silent.

‘There’s no Wyrd blood in our family!’ Sorna’s father insisted, as his two sons reached for their weapons, only to recall they were unarmed. ‘You insult our honour!’

‘Are you saying there’s Wyrd blood in the royal line?’ Charald demanded, his skin purpling with fury.

Nitzel, who had also been at Charald’s birth, glanced to Oskane. They both knew the truth, a truth Charald had never been told.

‘Father,’ the younger brother cautioned, putting a hand on the baron’s shoulder. Oskane marked his maturity, changing his assessment of Matxin.

‘Your daughter cuckolded me!’ Charald flung a hand in Sorna’s direction.

‘No. Never!’ Her father spoke over Sorna’s denial.

The chamber filled with bellowed accusations and counter-accusations.

Oskane felt a tug on his arm. Sorna reached for her baby. Eyes feverish with intensity, she unpeeled his little furled hand to find... ‘Six fingers.’ Next she freed a tiny foot. ‘Six toes, too.’ Terrified, she looked up to Oskane. ‘But I never... I’ve never lain with anyone other than the king.’

Oskane sat on the edge of the bed to get a better look. The babe was a half-blood, no doubt about it – an accursed six-fingered half-blood. Just like Charald’s twin, who had been whisked away, never to be spoken of again.

‘Before the Seven, I swear this is the king’s son,’ Sorna insisted.

‘I believe you. Sometimes it happens. No one knows why.’ Once, Oskane would have said it was the Seven’s punishment. ‘It happens in the best of families.’

‘It’s never happened in my family,’ Sorna insisted.

‘Are you sure? How do you know the babes weren’t declared stillborn and taken away?’

That made her pause.

He noticed the king slip outside with the others. What were they up to?

Tears spilled over the young queen’s cheeks. ‘His eyes... I can’t tell. Does he have the T’En eyes?’

Oskane tried to pry the baby’s eyelids apart, but his fingers slipped on skin still streaked with blood and birthing fluid. He shuddered, repressing a True-man’s natural repugnance for anything to do with Wyrds.

‘Are his eyes as dark as old blood?’ Sorna whispered.

‘Dark blue, I think.’ Not that it made a difference. The six fingers and toes were enough to condemn him. Oskane moved so the light from the tall window fell over the baby’s face, and then he saw clearly. He met Sorna’s sky-blue eyes. ‘They will darken to mulberry. He has their eyes.’

Sorna sank against the headboard, arms falling aside so that the baby lay across her body unsupported. The infant was quiet, staring up at the window as if fascinated by the light.

Oskane heard the door open, then close. Charald had returned without Sorna’s father and brothers. This was a bad sign. Etri and Nitzel were one step behind the king.

The king radiated determination. ‘Stand back, Oska.’

Twenty-seven years ago, he had stood back. Then he had believed in the Seven and the wisdom of men. Now he doubted both. Now he had so much more to lose. He fingered the precious ruby King Charald had given him after the defeat of the barons. As he came slowly to his feet, Oskane felt every one of his forty-seven years.

Sorna gasped and clutched the baby to her chest. ‘You can’t have him.’

‘It’s for the best. He will be happier amongst his own kind,’ the saw-bones told her.

It was true, but when Oskane glanced to the king, he recognised the grim line of Charald’s mouth. The king did not plan to send the child to the Wyrds. Did Etri believe what he was saying, or was his hunger to rise from battlefield saw-bones to the king’s personal healer powerful enough to justify killing an innocent newborn?

‘We could cut off his extra finger,’ Sorna suggested, ‘and hide his eyes somehow.’

‘Hide his eyes?
How?
You stupid girl!’ Charald grimaced, then beckoned the saw-bones.

Etri moved forward, his mouth forming a hard line, and Oskane had his answer. Etri would kill for the king, for ambition.

Desperate, Sorna looked to Oskane.

Chapter Two

‘W
AIT.
’

It was on the tip of Oskane’s tongue, then, to tell Charald about his twin but, seeing the king’s implacable expression, there was no point.

‘Take the brat, Etri,’ Charald ordered.

‘No. Please...’ Sorna hugged the newborn to her breast. She searched the king’s face, her eyes widening in horror. ‘Surely, you can’t mean to kill our baby?’

Charald did not bother to reply.

‘Give him to the T’En,’ she pleaded. ‘No one needs to know he’s your son. The T’En–’

‘No child of mine is going to serve the Wyrds. Filthy gift-workers, festering in their cankerous city. A pox on King Charald the Peace-maker for giving them that island. King Charald the Weak, I say. Because of him, we’re cursed with that Wyrd nest they call the Celestial City – Cesspit City, more like. I wish it would sink beneath the lake.’ He paced, working himself up. Oskane recognised the signs. ‘For nearly three hundred years, now, the T’En have gathered there, plotting against us, buying up the best farmland and mines in my kingdom, growing ever richer. And all because my ancestor was too weak to destroy them when he had the chance.’

He threw Nitzel and Oskane a filthy look. When he’d first inherited the crown, they had advised him to borrow gold from the T’En to fund his wars. It had been a life-saver, but now that the war was over, he had to pay it back. With interest.

‘They say not to look into a T’En’s eyes, that they can enslave a True-man and rob him of his will,’ Etri said. ‘They say their gifts can start fires, bring rain, shrivel a man’s–’

‘They say a lot of things,’ Nitzel snapped. ‘But who knows the truth? If their gifts are so powerful, why didn’t the T’En defeat us three hundred years ago?’

‘They are few, we are many. Even so, it was a battle that neither side won, and the kingdom suffered,’ Oskane said. ‘Back then, it seemed the king could afford to show mercy. King Charald the–’

‘Don’t mention his name.’ Charald rounded on Oskane.

‘If we do not learn from the past, sire, we are condemned to repeat it.’ Oskane stiffened, but did not back down; he could not afford to. ‘The silverhead T’En are few, but they are powerful.’

‘They must have a weakness,’ Nitzel insisted. ‘Everyone does.’

‘If they have a weakness, we are yet to find it.’

‘Because we have not looked hard enough.’

‘How do we do that, when they turn all True-men out of their island city at dusk every night?’

‘We–’

‘Enough! You two bicker like old women.’ The king pointed to the infant in the young queen’s arms. ‘I’ll see the brat dead before I see him serve the Wyrds!’

‘I’ll take him,’ Oskane heard himself say.

Everyone turned to him.

‘I’ll take him to study. Why should we hand over our half-blood babies to the T’En?’ Oskane found the words falling from his lips as though he’d been planning this for years and, as he spoke, he realised he had. The T’En and their half-blood servants had always held a sick fascination for him. ‘Why should our Malaunje grow up to serve them? I’ve been studying the Wyrd scrolls and–’

King Charald recoiled, making the sign of the Seven to ward off T’En power. ‘Unclean –’

‘The scrolls were written by True-men,’ Oskane protested. While he knew that simple folk believed anything related to Wyrds was tainted by association, he had not expected this reaction from an educated man.

Etri glanced to Nitzel, and Oskane realised the saw-bones was ready to denounce him. When had these two become allies? Nitzel wore an expression of sorrow, but Oskane knew him too well to be fooled. They had been uneasy colleagues for twelve years, and rivals for Charald’s trust. Now, Nitzel could see Oskane was destroying himself, and the baron was delighted.