The Mapmaker's War (9 page)

You enjoyed every moment in spite of yourself.

TELL THE TRUTH.

You wished you had been taught plant lore. That knowledge power you needed but didn't know who to safely ask. When you walked alone in the forest, leaves seemed to reach out. You chewed them and made teas. They tasted of bitter freedom but failed to give release. You no longer hit yourself because of the pain it caused you. No matter the method, you are not the only woman who ever has or ever will do what you intended. What would have been lost would have seemed routine. Men take so little notice of the spill of women's blood.

Women concerned themselves, though. You noticed how other women reacted when they learned of another losing a child. Miscarriage, stillbirth, any manner of death. They clutched their chests and bellies. Their hands and lips fluttered uncertain as moths. The anguish they felt with the mother. The sincerity of the pain. You would not understand this for many years, until Wei.

The life inside engorged.

You were perplexed by the women who came up to your swollen body. Remove your hands, you wanted to say. Don't touch me. What a blessing, said they. What a blessing? No, you were an animal, you thought, a heatless bitch, ewe, cow, doe. You carry one of your own kind. The conception is nothing. That happens whether chosen or not. It is the persistence of life. One is begotten. One begets.

Beasts easily make more of themselves. Almost effortless.

You felt like a beast, but you weren't simply one. Once you accepted the pregnancy was yours to bear, you did become vigilant. They were to grow. You were to tend them. But you were mystified by other women's joyfulness at your condition. You remembered overhearing, as a girl, their talk of how a young woman would hear a coo one day that would turn her soft and make her want a baby. Such a thing had never happened to you.

In their presence, you felt flawed. Not with guilt but curiosity. You wondered if women lied to each other. So little was allowed them. A home, the people in it. Through generations, out of necessity, complicity transmogrified into desire. Separate the act, the biology, that inevitability. Consider the will, the awareness, that consequence. Where did the true power lie?

Surely you didn't feel as you were supposed to feel. The terrible ambivalence. The dread. Surely you would grow to love the children. Oh, no, you did not wish this to happen, but there it was. A result of your beastliness. You acted with non-sense. If you would have stopped to think, you would not have done what you did. But Wyl was so beautiful.

Somehow, you thought it might be possible, after the birth, to return to mapmaking with the company of a nursemaid. You spoke this aloud to your husband one night.

Are you earnest? Am I to join you? asked Wyl.

You did before.

That was before. You are soon to be a mother, no longer a maiden. Besides, we have what we both wanted now, don't we?

His response, composed, almost mirthful, was clear. For a moment, you thought perhaps Wyl would acquiesce in time. Certainly he wouldn't take that from you for good. He rolled you toward his muscular body. You stiffened under your soft flesh.

Your mapmaking days were numbered, whether you married me or another. A man wants his wife at home where she's safe, said he.

I see, you said.

This is your place now, said Wyl, but it was your mother's voice you heard.

Stay in your place. Take your place. Know your place.

But Mother, what if my place is not here?

You were once slapped for saying that. Your father's tined hand caught your cheek and raked your mouth bloody.

Boundaries drawn, invisible. The line in the bed you shared with Wyl. One's sphere of influence. The domain of woman, the domain of man. Where a nobleman's holding began and another ended. The kingdom's edge. Your place in the world shrank tight as the skin of your belly. You felt breaths away from bursting. You thought of the freedom you had known, soon to be denied.

Tell the deeper truth.

That was all a ruse, a lie. Your skillful mastery was immaterial. You were only as free as the King had allowed you to be. You made maps for him. Any displeasure or disfavor, that would have been the end. He made an exception but that didn't change the rules. What a fool, to believe yourself beyond such constraints.

For weeks you lay confined with the reasons why you would never be so indulged again.

THOSE WHO COUNTED THE DAYS BETWEEN YOUR UNION AND THE births might have thought you more
ewe cow doe
than woman. None said a word. Wyl married you after all.

You were unprepared. Never had you cared for an infant or small child. Once, twice, by accident or necessity, you may have held one. Ciaran was older by seven years. There was a dead child before and after you. Spared of sibling supervision, you spent time among other children as a playmate rather than a caretaker. You understood the basics. Mouth to breast, wet hungry cold, swaddle to shift to shirts and dresses. The women claimed a mother knew what to do when the time came.

You had overheard tales of labor full of pain and blood. What you imagined was difficult. What you experienced was violent. Agony. You felt terror when your body took over itself. A mounting relentless rhythm of contractions. No amount of will could stop it once it began. You could have ripped a man in half with your bare hands. You remembered a cow that had bellowed through an awkward birth, its calf a breech. And there you were screaming on a bed covered with straw in unreasonable summer heat. No better than a beast.

Dawn became noon became night.

Then there was the girl. When you heard the midwife declare her to be, an unexpected apology rushed to the back of your tongue. I'm sorry, Wyl. You swallowed the sounds. The sudden anger of your first thought upon hearing of your first daughter's birth stuck in your throat.

An apprentice took the girl, but the pain returned. You both screamed in unison as her brother was born. A prince, a prince, the midwife's herald.

The vessels closed. The two membranes were expelled. The midwife and apprentice peered over the gore. They brought the twins swaddled tight in linen, eyes open. You regarded their smallness. You felt a twinge of pity. So helpless, you thought. So the obligation begins.

With relief, you thought then you were not a monster. Your instinct wasn't to abandon them. Not at the moment. Not when they mewled like kittens and your breasts weighed heavy in their waiting function.

You were given the option of a wet nurse. She would attend the necessity of their nourishment. You might also preserve your shape. Too late, you thought, when you saw your belly and wondered how it would ever tighten again. Wyl, even before the twins arrived, had no complaints about how your chest had changed.

Wyl did appear to love the children. Even the girl. He would go into the room you shared with a nursemaid and the twins. The place lingered with the smells of vinegar and rosemary. He unswaddled them in turn. The nursemaid was aghast. He held their hands and feet in his palms. He talked to them, about what, you do not know, because he whispered.

Already there are secrets among you, you said.

He smiled, no malice, no hint of conspiracy. Strangely, he didn't hold them, not for any longer than it took to remove them from their crib to your bed. Always gentle, always, but he did not hold them. You didn't think to ask why. Babies, after all, as you witnessed, were women's work.

You soon grew bored of the castle and courtyard. Once your strength returned, you would leave the twins in the nursemaid's care and go into the forest to be alone. You stole moments away from what you had brought upon yourself. You were restless, exhausted, but resigned to their care. The beastly mother returned to her children when her teats began to leak. You would walk in just as their crying became wails.

What a good mother you are. You know when they need you, said the nursemaid.

The Queen saw them on the day of their birth and rarely again in your presence.

Your mother couldn't seem to keep herself away and visited almost daily.

Oh, they will settle you nicely, Aoife. Enough of the men's business and the company of common people. Do as you are meant to now.

You did as you were meant to do, as your mother might well have perceived it. Bared your breasts for the twins, at times for Wyl. He desired you but you lacked it for him. The intensity never returned. You assumed the disinterest was because the twins required constant use of your body. Perhaps you'd made a mistake not taking a wet nurse. However tired you were, your mind could still think. You had no carnal thoughts at all. With enough effort, Wyl could stir sensation without actual pleasure.

YOU BEGAN TO DAYDREAM MORE OFTEN OF THE SETTLEMENT AND HOW peaceful you felt there. You knew nothing of how they lived or how the people related to each other, but you sensed it. You thought of the young man who had led you in and out of the forest and settlement. You'd never met someone like him. He gave you immediate comfort. You weren't afraid of him after he encouraged you to breathe on the way there. He treated you with kindness. You felt it. It perplexed you how you and the cook and Burl the oarsman could all have similar reactions, almost as if you'd been under a spell. You'd learn it was no enchantment.

The events of your experience in the settlement weren't as important as the emotions you had about them. You wanted to live someplace where you could breathe and be. How could you possibly know the Guardians offered this and more? You wouldn't speak of the settlement to Wyl or anyone. Its memory was a refuge. You walked among their roads, stared at the Wheels in the settlement center, waved at the people, content in the quiet.

The daydreams surprised you. You were a woman of action, not reverie. They gave you comfort, however, because in the day-to-day you felt uneasy. You sensed danger.

WYL MENTIONED THERE HAD BEEN MOVEMENT ON THE RIVER TOWARD the settlement's presumed port. You knew as well as he did that a trade road connected to the river on the other side. Activity likely happened all the time without anyone watching. You realized there must be men stationed along your kingdom's bank who hadn't been there before. You asked Wyl why there was such attention on the border.