Tortall (13 page)

Keeket’s father stared at Nawat. “
This
is my flock now, our people,” he replied. “I can’t return to being a crow in a wild flock. There are too many thoughts in my head. How would I get hot cooked food, or see plays, or hear human music? And mating is so—”

“Short,” someone muttered.

“Boring,” a woman added.

“Humans have a much better way of mating,” a third crow-man said.

“If I’d had a human wife, Keeket would be alive now,” Taihi said angrily. His face twisted and he turned away from the others. Two human women of the war band went to comfort him. The crow-women huddled with each other.

The door at the east end of the barracks smashed open. Rifou’s wife, Bala, was there, her eyes red with weeping. Taybur Sibigat stood with her, unshaven, his hair unruly.

“Rifou hanged himself last night!” Bala cried before Taybur could stop her. “He did it because those vile birds turned on him!” She collapsed in her grief.

*     *     *

Nawat stayed with his people long after the noon meal, talking to each of them, crows and humans. The crows were badly shaken. Parleen was not the only one to leave the war band before dawn: five others had gone out of fear that they might become outcasts from a true flock. The humans did their best to console their sword-brothers and -sisters, feeding them and preening them with their fingers.

When he felt he could leave his people, Nawat went to see Taybur. The guard captain had recovered the bodies of Rifou and Keeket and had told Nawat he could find them, and Taybur, at the Black God’s temple. Nawat arranged for their funerals with the priests, then learned the facts of Rifou’s death from his friend.

“What happens if the Rajmuat flock throws you out?” Taybur asked, letting his darking travel from one arm to the other as they left the death-god’s temple. “I would think it’s a greater risk for
you
than for any of your people.”

“I’m not worried,” Nawat said, determined to put the best face on things. “I know of nothing that would make me break crow law.”

Taybur arched an eyebrow at him. “Whistling in the dark?”

“No, truly. My little ones are fine and healthy and I will teach them crow ways. My war band and I will be sure to find work that takes us far from those caked-rump croakers,” Nawat assured Taybur. “And if I catch them talking with my people without me again, I shall teach them respect.” He meant it. He would wage war against them if he must, to keep the outsiders from wreaking the kind of havoc they had done with his flock today.

He understood that the ties between crows and humans in his flock frightened the Rajmuat crows. They disliked change. They wanted things to be the way they had been for their ancestors. Nawat and his war band were too new, and too different.

That understanding did not mean that Nawat would not do what was necessary to make them keep their beaks to themselves. There would be no more Rifous or Keekets. Everyone would hold to crow law and crow tradition while staying out of the rival flock’s way. He would see to that.

This state of anger and energy sustained him up until the moment the guards opened the door to his rooms. A small darking that sported a strand of tiny red beads within its body stood there, obviously leaving as Nawat arrived.

“Not fun today,” it called as it rolled around him and outside.

Nawat did not have to ask what it meant. The noise from the nursery was unmistakable. He strode in, scowling. “What is the meaning of this?” he called.

He had meant for the answer to be silence. That was how it went with his war band. Here, it only caused all four infants, counting Terai’s baby, to scream louder. The darkings that held two bounced them, which made one stop crying to giggle—it was Junim, Nawat saw—while Terai’s baby howled and began to hiccup. Two nursemaids and the younger wet nurse were cleaning a mess off the floor while Ulasu waved her fists and wailed.

Aly’s hair was a complete tangle. It hung around her face and down her back. She tried in vain to toss it out of her
eyes while keeping her grip on Ochobai. Their firstborn screamed loudest of all.

“I don’t understand!” Aly cried. “She hates me!”

“Her diaper may be full, my lady,” Terai said grimly. She glanced at Nawat. “I trust your day away from us has been a bright and sunny one, my lord.”

Somehow Nawat did not believe she meant it in the way the words fitted together. “Darkings, set Terai’s boy down. Where is Trick?”

“Trick run away when Aly yell,” a darking—Nawat couldn’t see which one—replied. Those that tended the largest infant obeyed Nawat’s order, placing the wailing child in a new crib that had come during the day. The moment he felt a solid bed beneath him, the boy stopped crying.

“Don’t bounce him anymore,” Nawat ordered those darkings. “He doesn’t like it.”

“Junim likes,” pointed out a darking who wore bright orchid petals under its skin. It braced Junim’s head while its fellows bounced the rest of the lad gently.

“Then that is something we know about Junim,” Nawat told them. “It may not be true of all babies.” While he spoke to the darkings in and around Junim’s crib, the women finished cleaning up and restored their area to order. Terai handed the sobbing Ulasu to the other wet nurse. The infant fell silent as the young raka cradled her in her arms.

Ochobai’s howls split into howls and gasps. “I suppose you’re going to wave your magic—
feathers
at this one and make her all sugar and cream,” Aly said crossly. “I suppose you’ve had a splendid day with the war band while we appease these hungry, pissing, manure-making, screaming
things
!”

Nawat gaped at the wife who had been so at ease that morning. Terai leaned over to whisper in his ear. “The humors that help her bring children to term are still in her body, my lord. With no children to work upon, they affect her temper and feelings. You must be easy with her. A nursemaid is fetching medicine from the midwife.” Her voice was anxious as she gripped Nawat’s shoulder. “This is normal in a mother, sir. You
must
treat her well.”

Nawat blinked at the head wet nurse. “I never treat her otherwise,” he said quietly. Looking around, he called, “Trick! Come here, or I will send you to Lombyn Isle to herd sparrows!”

Nawat went to Aly and took Ochobai from his mate. Tucking the sobbing, weeping infant in one arm, he gently began to draw his fingers through poor Aly’s hair, tugging knots free and letting the loose pins fall to the floor. “I enjoyed no splendid day, dear heart,” he explained, kissing tears from her eyes. “We had two deaths. I could send no message that would make sense or that would not frighten you. My people needed me.”

She turned her face against his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I thought you didn’t want to look at me in daylight.”

“You are beautiful,” Nawat whispered, cuddling the weeping Ochobai against his side. The infant was getting quieter.

“My baby hates me,” Aly said, pointing to Ochobai. “She hits my breast when she nurses. When I hold her, she cries.”

“She does not know you yet,” Nawat said. “Would you like mango rice? You always feel better when you have
mango rice.” A black head-blob rose over Aly’s shoulder: Trick. Nawat glared at the darking. “Trick will fetch it for you, since Trick left you in distress.”

“Trick hate to see Aly cry,” the darking replied, hanging its head. “Aly cry almost all day.”

Aly clung to her earlier thoughts. “I hated my mother, but at least I waited until I was old enough to know who she was
before
I hated her,” she said, and sniffed. “Ochobai hates me right away.”

Trick bounced in shock. “Baby not hate Aly!” it cried. “Baby hate being baby!”

Nawat thought the darking was probably right. “Ochobai is too young to know what hate is,” he told Aly soothingly. “She loves you. She just is not sure that she loves nursing, or being outside her wonderful mother.”

Aly began to sob. “You think I’m an idiot.”

One of the nursemaids slipped behind Aly with a brush and gently began to work on her hair. The messenger arrived with the medicine from the queen’s healer. Nawat persuaded Aly to take some, with a promise of mango rice to be delivered soon. Trick rolled out of the room, on its way to fetch a kitchen servant with Aly’s favorite dish. Calmer, Aly let the attentive nursemaid take her to the bedroom for a wash and a change of clothes.

“She will improve,” Terai said over Nawat’s shoulder. “Having a child is complicated for the body. Many women are unable to shake it off right away. Your lady is very lucky to be under the care of the best mages in the Isles.”

Thinking of everything that had changed within Aly’s
skin and outside it during her pregnancy, Nawat shivered. “Men do not know when we are well off,” he murmured, kissing Ochobai’s forehead. The baby struck him in the nose.

Terai looked at him strangely. “You are an odd man,” she remarked at last.

“I am a crow,” Nawat said without thinking. “Did the queen visit?” Aly’s upset would not have been helped if Queen Dove had seen her in disarray. She believed that the queen depended on her to be cool and unshakable, when Nawat knew that Dove liked Aly to laugh and joke with her. It was something few members of the court did with the fearsomely intelligent queen.

Terai shook her head, to Nawat’s relief. “The Duchess Winnamine came in Her Majesty’s place,” she said. “She told us that Her Majesty would wait until my lady felt up to guests.”

Nawat chuckled. Trust their friend Winnamine to know what was right! He would send a darking to thank her. He knew that properly he should send a note on some of Aly’s elegant paper, but since everyone called his writing crow tracks, he would rather that a darking carried his message in his real voice.

He distracted Terai by pointing to a nursemaid who struggled to pull a bundle of diapers from a group of darkings. The blob folk thought it was a game. As the wet nurse, who obviously had taken command of the nursery, went to establish order, Nawat carried Ochobai to the nearest open window. He had her blanket and diaper off in one smooth movement, now that he knew the trick of both, as his
firstborn batted his chin with miniature fists. He dangled her from the open window as she released her body’s waste, then brought her back inside so he could use the diaper to clean her. As he did, she managed to dig one fist into his eye.

By the time Aly returned to the nursery, groomed and calm, servants had brought supper for everyone, including Aly’s promised treat. The adults even had a quiet time in which to eat while the infants dozed.

Within a week Aly was nearly her former self, if her former self had been breast-feeding three infants. While Terai and the other wet nurse shared those duties, everyone impressed upon the new mother and her mate that a mother’s first milk, before the heavier milk came in, had particular strength in guarding children from illness. It was important that Aly feed each triplet equally, though the breast that Ochobai had blistered that first day was off limits briefly while the midwife’s salve healed it. In that time, those darkings who had taken an interest in baby care learned to amuse their charges, lift them so they were more easily taken from their cribs, hold the insect netting around the cribs at night, and announce dirty diapers. They fetched things for wet nurses and maids alike, conveyed orders to other areas of the palace, and made Aly laugh. For that alone Nawat would have considered them well worth the confusion they caused on occasion.

Aly soon heard of the death of Keeket. Nawat had not hoped to keep it from her for long, not when she was the chief of the realm’s spies. He learned of her discovery when she woke him from a nap—they were both living on naps,
the triplets taking their sleep in two-hour doses only—by shoving him.

“They
killed
that nestling, and you didn’t tell me!” she snapped. Nawat checked: the door to the nursery was closed.

“Bad Nawat!” piped Trick, looped around Aly’s neck as a thin rope.

“You said crows take care of ones that are hurt,” Aly said, giving Nawat a second shove. He struggled to sit up. “You said they nurse them like humans do.”

“If they’re slashed, or hurt in a way that heals,” Nawat said. “But a defective nestling must be culled. It hardly ever happens.” Only now, as he sat up, did he see that Aly was crying. Of course she would cry for her friend and for her godschild.

“I’m sorry,” he said, abashed. “I should have told you sooner, but I could find no time that was good.”

Aly raised her hands as if to hit Nawat, and collapsed against him instead, sobbing. Trick slid off her neck. “Bad Nawat,” it whispered before it dropped to the floor and wriggled out of the room. “Badbad.”

“Keep doing that and I’ll feed you to one of my band as a worm,” Nawat whispered loudly. He cuddled Aly and kissed her head.

“I can’t stand being this way,” Aly said at last. “Weepy and yelling. Mother would laugh. She always said I’d be more sympathetic once I had children of my own.”

“You will get better,” Nawat consoled her. “Terai says, and she knows.”

“Until then, promise me you will never drop our children
to their deaths, or give them to a flock to kill,” Aly said, gripping him by the arms. “You must
promise
, Nawat.”

“Aly, this is foolish!” he cried, offended at last. “Our children are fine, healthy nestlings! I would no more cull them than I would you! Just because I am a crow does not mean that I have no human feelings!”

She stared at him for much too long, her green-hazel eyes intent. At last she threw up her hands. “Megrims and vapors, that’s what my nursemaid at home called them,” she said. “I try to get a grip, but my inside is far too close to my outside these days. My da would be so ashamed. He taught me better.”

“I like your emotions where I may see them,” Nawat told her. “It is good to know how you feel in truth, for a change, without talking around you too much.”

“But you always know how I feel in truth,” Aly protested. “That’s why I married you.”

“I don’t mind it when it is easier,” explained Nawat with a kiss.

A wail from the nursery brought them both out of bed. Ochobai was awake and hungry, which meant the others would soon be wailing, too.