Viper's Nest

by Rachel Ford

  “The pregnancy,” she said. “Trygve – oh god. Trygve, I think…I’m miscarrying.”

  The journey back was interminable. She’d started to bleed soon after they got underway. Crimson stains seeped through her stola, coloring her legs and forming a pool by her feet. Trygve felt as useless and miserable as a man could feel. Again and again, he shouted out the window, “Faster. Damn it, faster!”

  But the horses were going as fast as they could, and the coachman driving them as hard as he could. Still, it was not enough. No more were his efforts. He was not a doctor, and he knew nothing of pregnancy. All he could do was offer words as she cried out and hold her steady as the carriage bounced around them.

  “All-Father,” he said. “Cassia, hold on.”

  She clung to him, alternating between almost delirious cries of agony, and painfully coherent lamentations. And, always, it came back to Faustus. “I can’t be miscarrying. He wants a son so badly.” Or, “Oh, Trygve. What will I tell Faustus?”

  He could have murdered the man for being the source of so much of her grief, even now as she languished in pain and danger. “Don’t think of that now, Cass. It’ll be alright,” he told her. “Just hold on.”

  At last they reached the palace. She tried to stand but cried out at the effort and collapsed back into her seat. “I’ve got you,” Trygve said, lifting her. By now her clothing was covered in blood. So was his. “I’ve got you, Cass.”

  He carried her at a quick walk, shouting orders at the first men he came across. “The imperial physician, Tiberius: get him, now. Tell the priestess that the empress is taken ill.”

  “Faustus?” she murmured. “Where is Faustus?”

  “Is the emperor back? Does anyone know where he is? Send out riders.” He was swarmed by attendants, all of them turned gasping and pale at the sight of her. But he brushed them aside. “Out of the way. Stand aside.”

  Cassia spoke little. She seemed to be in too much pain for words. She clutched at his arm now and cried then. But she was trying not to make a scene; he could tell, in the way her jaw with clench with silent agony, or her knuckles go white against her now crimson stola.

  “It’ll be alright, Cass.”

  He was glad when they reached her rooms. Aemilia was waiting for them, and for perhaps the first time of their acquaintance, he was happy to see her. “What happened?” she demanded. “Minerva. Empress, what happened?”

  Cassia made a brief explanation through gritted teeth, and Trygve filled in the rest. “We need Doctor Tiberius,” she said. “If anyone can save the baby, it’s him.”

  “I sent for him already.”

  She nodded. “In the meantime, then, we will do what we can. Trygve, we need hot water, and towels. Lots of towels. And get new sheets too, and blankets.”

  Trygve cast a final glance at Cassia, saying, “I’ll be back.” Then, he threw himself into this employ with all the vigor of his ample nervous energy. He moved like a man on the run, buzzing to and fro in his quest to get what was needed. And each time he returned, she looked a little worse: a little paler, a little sadder.

  Finally, the doctor arrived. He was flustered and nervous, saying, “I don’t understand. It was such a healthy pregnancy.”

  Trygve, now, was ushered out of the room while Tiberius examined the empress. He paced in her study, like a circus cat trapped in his cage. He’d been there a few minutes when the door opened, and a frantic Faustus stepped in.

  In the moment, at the emperor’s disheveled appearance, Trygve forgave him all the ills he’d harbored against him, all the jealousy and resentment. There was a concern there that mirrored his own, a kind of desperation in his eyes that he understood.

  “My wife,” he said. “What happened? Where is she?”

  Trygve gestured to her private chambers. “In there, with the doctor.”

  Faustus flew past, and the Northman was alone again. He returned to pacing. He recalled all the prayers he’d learned as a child, and he offered every supplication he could remember. He wasn’t sure if his Northern gods would offer their protection to a Southern empress, but he entreated them, whatever favor they held for him, extend it to her instead. Let her live, and be well.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The minutes crawled by. Faustus was sent from the sickbed. He heard Tiberius saying, “We are doing everything we can, my lord. But we must be able to work uninterrupted.”

  Now the emperor joined him in pacing. “They’re trying to save the baby,” he said. “Sometimes – sometimes this kind of thing happens.” He was chewing on the knuckles of his hand. “Minerva, if she had only stayed home!”

  “Tiberius said she was well,” Trygve pointed out.

  Faustus turned a frown to him. It only deepened as he looked him up and down. “You’re covered in blood, Northman.”

  Trygve glanced down at his clothes. He’d forgotten about that. “Oh. Yes.”

  “Is it…hers?”

  He nodded, and the emperor shivered.

  “Go and change.”

  He wanted to protest, to argue that he could not leave his post; but he supposed Faustus was in no mood to be countermanded. And the truth was, aside from the comfort of being as near to her as he could, it didn’t much matter where he stood. There was nothing he could do.

  So he did as he was bid, returning a few minutes later in fresh clothes. Faustus had settled glumly on a divan, a glass of wine in his hand.

  “Any word yet, Highness?” Trygve ventured.

  The emperor shook his head. “Nothing.”

  They maintained a quiet watch for some time after that. Faustus rose now and again from his seat to refill his glass, but otherwise they were stationary. Finally, the door opened and Tiberius emerged.

  Blood stained his toga, and his forehead was creased in a worrying fashion. “You can come back, Emperor,” the doctor said. “But I must tell you…I believe your wife is miscarrying.”

  Faustus sounded a cry, a kind of half-strangled groan. “There’s nothing you can do?”

  “I’m sorry, my lord. We’ve done what we could. Now nature must take its course.”

  “What about Cassia?” Trygve asked.

  The two men glanced at him. Tiberius raised an eyebrow at the query, but he answered. “She has lost a lot of blood. But once the fetus passes, she should live.”

  Faustus groaned again. “My son.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord.”

  The emperor said no more but went into his wife’s room. Tiberius followed, and the door was closed again.

  Trygve sunk onto a seat, burying his head in his hands. He would have given his right arm to be in there with her now, instead of stuck out here, with no more idea of what was happening – of how she was – than a stranger on the streets.

  He’d spent this morning entertaining foolish, selfish hopes. Now, what he wanted most was nothing more than to know that she’d be alright, that she’d emerge alive and unharmed. He had never felt quite as alone and hopeless as he did now. Not when he was fighting to keep his head above water on the shores of Blackstone island; not when he was fighting for his life in the arena. Not even when he’d boarded his longship to flee his home.

  All-Father, he thought. Keep her safe.

  “Miscarriage. You’re losing the baby, Empress.”

  Cassia heard the doctor’s words with sorrow, but her physical pain was more immediate. If she’d swallowed razors, she couldn’t imagine it hurting worse. Her abdomen seemed to be rending with every breath.

  Faustus was holding her hand, his eyes wet with tears. Whether he wept for her or for their baby who would never be, she couldn’t say. He spoke more of the son he might have had, but he kissed her hand with the tenderness of a husband.

  Time seemed to crawl. Every moment was fresh agony, and the seconds stretched out like minutes. Faustus rose from her side and began to pace. He got a glass of wine and drank it down. Then he was back; and then again pacing.

  She was aware, vaguely, that the
Northman was nowhere to be seen. That surprised her, not least of all for the care he’d taken of her earlier. “Where,” she asked Aemilia as the nurse wiped the sweat from her brow, “is Trygve?”

  The other woman grimaced, and said with a gesture to the rooms beyond, “Out there. Demanding to know how you are, every time I leave.”

  “Call him in, Aemilia. Please.”

  Trygve emerged a minute later – though it seemed longer to her, in the moment. “Empress.” He knelt by her bedside. The curtains were pulled over her bed so that her body was veiled; but her face, and her visitors, were unobstructed. He looked, she thought, very haggard.

  She tried to smile. “I should have listened to you, Tryg.”

  His forehead creased, as if the words pained him. “How are you, Empress?”

  “I’ll live. Or so they tell me.” She paused as another spasm wracked her frame. Then she said, “Husband, you should know: I would not have made it back without Trygve. He saved my life.”

  Faustus, from somewhere behind him, clapped him on the shoulder. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with emotion. “You’ve done well, Northman.”

  Trygve remained after that, stationed near the door. Somehow, even though she could barely see him through the veil around her bed, his presence made her feel safer.

  The day wore on and became night. Still, her body tortured her. She felt a fever mounting in her blood. She felt her strength slackening. She began to think she might not survive the night. She began to fear that she would lose more than a pregnancy. Tiberius and Aemilia conversed in low, worried tones.

  Faustus alternated between pacing the room and drinking quietly on a seat across from her. When, at last, the sun went down, he rose. “I’m sorry, Cass. I can’t – I can’t do this anymore. I have to get some air.”

  She was in and out of consciousness now, but she heard the words and murmured a plea for him to stay.

  He did not stay. Quick footsteps rang out against the marble, and the door opened and then closed; and he was gone.

  She tried to repress the sob that welled in her chest, and tears ran hot down her cheeks. “Faustus. Oh, Faustus.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Trygve watched Faustus leave with surprise that quickly became anger. Hearing Cassia’s sobs from across the room heightened his anger, until it burned white hot in his chest.

  He came to her now and watched her drift in and out of consciousness. He heard cries, even in her delirium; and he saw the pain, all the more potent in her lucidity.

  Finally, he headed toward Tiberius, demanding, “For the love of the gods, is there nothing you can do?”

  The physician regarded him with cool disapprobation. “Do you think I would not have already done it, guardsman?”

  “She’s in pain, damnit!”

  “She’s miscarrying,” Aemilia declared, as if it was self-evident.

  “But why is it taking so long? She looks like she’s dying.”

  Tiberius sighed. “She may be. The fetus is dying, but it hasn’t died yet. And she hasn’t rejected it yet. If it does not happen soon…” He shook his head.

  “The blood of emperors flows through that child’s veins,” Aemilia added. “He will not surrender to death easily.”

  “Sometimes a miscarriage happens all at once,” the doctor explained, more to the point. “The fetus is passed, either dead or to die. But sometimes the mother’s body struggles to maintain the pregnancy. As if it doesn’t realize the fetus is dying. And when that happens, there is risk of infection of the blood.”

  “Can’t you do something, though? There are herbs – doctors in the North use them – to aid a miscarriage. Do you have nothing like that here?” His knowledge of medicine was limited, but he’d heard of such things. Just last year, his father’s diviner was credited for saving one of the village women with such a potion.

  Tiberius and Aemilia exchanged glances. “There are medicines of a kind.”

  “Poisons,” the priestess sniffed.

  “They affect the uterus, causing it to – well, abort a fetus. It will cause a miscarriage in a healthy pregnancy.”

  “A murder, you mean,” Aemilia put in.

  “But it can speed a miscarriage already underway, too.”

  “All-Father’s beard,” Trygve fumed. “Why haven’t you given it to her already?”

  Tiberius shifted in place. “I was not granted leave to do so.”

  “Prepare it,” the Northman said. “I will see to the permission.” Again, the priestess and physician exchanged glances. But Trygve, seizing upon some glimmer of hope, was in no state to be turned from his purpose. “Do it.”

  The physician sighed. “I will prepare it. But I will not administer it without consent.”

  This seemed reasonable enough to the Northman. The physician stepped out to fetch his supplies. “I can get what I need in about half an hour. I’ll be back.”

  Trygve, meanwhile, turned his attention to Cassia. She seemed to have slipped into a period of incoherence, as she was breathing low and muttering under her breath. Her forehead was slick with perspiration, her hair wet to the touch. “Cass,” he said, his voice low so as not to startle her. “Cass, can you hear me?”

  “Trygve?” her eyes fluttered open. “Trygve, you didn’t leave.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I dreamt you left. With Faustus.”

  He took her hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She smiled, and it was such a frail expression that he felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach. “I think I am, Tryg. I think I’m dying.”

  “No,” he said. “You’re not. There’s a medicine. Tiberius is preparing it now. It will speed the miscarriage.”

  She stared uncomprehending. “I don’t understand. Why not prepare it earlier?”

  “It’s an abortifacient,” Aemilia said behind them. “Tiberius would not kill the emperor’s child. Not without being ordered.”

  “But she’s dying already.” There was sadness in her tone as she spoke the words, but confusion too.

  “Then you want the medicine?” Trygve pressed.

  “Of course.”

  The nurse harrumphed, but he smiled. “Then you will have it, Cass. Hold on. It won’t be long now.”

  It was longer than Tiberius had said, and far too long for Trygve, before the physician finally returned. Cassia drifted in and out of a fevered sleep in the meantime, and he had remained with her all the while, holding her hand. Aemilia came and went, bringing new linens and fresh water.

  At last, though, the doctor did return with a vial of liquid in tow. “I’ve got the tincture,” he said.

  “And I have Cassia’s permission.”

  “And the father’s?” Tiberius glanced around the room. “Where is Faustus?”

  “Faustus?” Trygve wasn’t sure what he had to do with this. “I don’t know.”

  Tiberius frowned. “You said you would get his consent.”

  “His consent?” It was Trygve’s turn to frown. “I got Cassia’s.”

  The physician surveyed him with wide-eyed astonishment. “You don’t expect me to kill the emperor’s child-to-be without his consent?”

  Confusion was making way for anger in Trygve’s breast. “I expect you to save Cassia’s life,” he said hotly. “That’s your job, damnit.”

  Tiberius’s demeanor, though, had changed. “You must be mad,” he said. “If you want me to give her this, you’d better get Faustus’ approval.”

  “Faustus is gone,” Aemilia piped up. “When the Northman did not seek him out, I did. I knew you would want his consent before administering such a thing.” She shook her head. “He left two hours ago, in his carriage. The stables did not know where he was headed.”

  Tiberius sighed. “Well, then I can do nothing.” To Trygve, he said, “If you can find him, and get his consent, that’s different. But until then…” He shrugged.

  Anger overrode every other consideration in the moment. The Northma
n was on his feet, and a moment later had crossed the distance between himself and the physician. Tiberius retreated, but Trygve was quicker, and he grabbed the vial. “Give it to me,” he said. “If you’re too much a coward to save her life, then I will.”

  The other man did not relent, though, and he tugged at the vial with one hand and slapped at the Northman with the other. “Take your hands off it, damnit.”

  Trygve saw red. Holding fast to the medicine, he balled his other hand into a fist, and let it fly, powered by every ounce of anger he felt at the physician’s delays and refusals. He heard bone and cartilage crack. He felt hot blood run down his knuckles. He heard Tiberius cry out and saw him fall back.

  But most importantly, he felt the doctor lose his grip on the vial. The medicine – that precious liquid that would save Cassia’s life – was his.

  Aemilia stood in his path, but as he spun around, she seemed to think better of blocking his way. “You’ve no right,” she said. But she stepped aside all the same.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Cassia took the medicine gratefully. The minutes ticked by slowly after that. For a while, he saw no change. But then it seemed to work its magic. First, her spasms grew less random. Then labor began in earnest.

  The fetus passed before sunrise. It was small and strange to behold, a ghostly pale manner of creature with tiny, threadlike limbs and translucent skin. It seemed like a spirit from another world. Cassia cried when she saw it.

  The fever receded, and her bleeding stopped. “I believe,” Tiberius said stiffly, “the worst is behind you, my lady.” The physician’s nose was broken, and the Northman suspected – and rather hoped – that he’d shattered more than that.

  Faustus still had not returned. Trygve remained with her, comforting her when she cried, and keeping vigil over her when she slept.

  The sun was warm and bright when she woke. “Trygve,” she said, and there was something like gratitude in her voice. “You’re still here.”