Prince of Demons

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Kevral considered carefully.

  “In confidence, of course.”

  “You mean you’re not going to tell the king or his ministers?”

  The healer met Kevral’s gaze with sweet yellow-brown eyes. “Certainly not. It would violate my healer’s oath.” The cat leaped from her arms and sniffed along the edge of the rug. Aside from its color, it little resembled Mior in figure or action.

  “Then you may ask.”

  “You’ve been vomiting, my lady?”

  “Was vomiting,” Kevral corrected. “I told you that went away.”

  Charra nodded her understanding. “Have you noticed anything else abnormal?”

  Kevral shook her head.

  Charra pressed. “Fatigue?”

  Kevral considered. “Tireder than usual, yes. I suppose. Been working harder, too. Explains that well enough.” She deliberately minimized the discomfort in case word returned to the king. She had not let the fog that pressed her over the last several months interfere with her lessons.

  “How about your courses?”

  “My what?”

  “Your courses, my lady.” Apparently realizing it was the term, not her volume, Charra rephrased the question. “Your monthly bleeding.”

  Kevral shook her head. “Monthly?”

  Charra stared, her expression mingling confusion with surprise. “How old are you, my lady?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “And you’ve never had a bleeding time?”

  “Once or twice,” Kevral admitted. “Not monthly.”

  Charra turned her gaze to the ceiling. Several moments passed in consideration.

  Kevral supplied Matrinka’s theory. “A friend of mine, who’s also a healer, thinks it has something to do with Renshai developing slowly. And with the harshness of our training.”

  “Oh,” Charra said. “Well.” She fidgeted more.

  Kevral watched the cat slither under her bed. With the animal out of sight, the woman in front of her seemed more like one of the flouncy adolescents that bored her than a potential partial replacement for the Béarnide she missed.

  “Lady Kevral, I don’t know how to say this, except to just say it.”

  Kevral listened to the arrhythmic thumping of the calico chasing dust beneath her.

  “I think you’re pregnant.”

  The words drifted past Kevral, mostly unheard.

  “Like me.”

  Gradually, the ensuing silence seeped into Kevral’s consciousness as the words had not. “What?” she finally said.

  “Like me,” the healer supplied.

  Kevral shook her head, uncertain whether she wished to restir the waters. “Before that.”

  “Oh.” Charra fidgeted more than the first time. The cat shot out from under the bed, paws thumping against the floorboards, then darted back beneath her again. “You’re . . . we’re . . . pregnant?”

  This time, the words seemed to overregister, echoing through Kevral’s head, the meaning all too clear. Her eyes narrowed, and fear clutched at her chest. “That’s impossible.”

  “It is?”

  “I’m not married.”

  “Neither am I, my lady.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Charra turned Kevral a strange look. “Lady Kevral, I’d know if I was married.”

  Kevral gripped her knees tightly. Matrinka would have properly intuited the meaning of her question. “I mean are you sure about. . . .” She lowered her eyes to her abdomen.

  Charra followed Kevral’s gaze. “Pretty sure. I can examine you and know for certain, my lady. You’re big enough to have felt something moving in there by now.”

  Kevral shook her head, hope fluttering to life. “I haven’t. Does that mean I’m not?”

  Charra shook her head, without a verbal reply. “Lady Kevral, I apologize if I’m insulting you. But if no one ever told you how things like this happen—”

  Kevral cut her off. “I know.” And she did, although certain aspects did not fit the situation. She had believed that creating a baby required intention on the part of both parties. Even then, it did not always happen. Colbey himself had lost a marriage to infertility.

  “All right, my lady.” Charra accepted Kevral’s claim without asking for a recitation. “So it’s impossible because you’ve never been with a man?”

  Kevral needed time to think. She hoped, but doubted, Charra would leave if she answered the question affirmatively. Ultimately, lying would catch up to her, and it seemed ludicrous to alienate the one person in Pudar who might share her predicament. She had never met an unmarried pregnant woman before and doubted she could easily find another. She opened her mouth to admit the truth, but the words seemed to stick to her tongue. Her mind could not accept what her heart had already admitted. When the proper words did not escape, she finally managed others. “Do your exam.”

  Charra motioned for Kevral to lay down on the bed, and she complied. Removing her hands from her knees left blanched prints against the flesh. The healer looked and prodded, the scrutiny feeling strangely intrusive, even before it moved from abdomen to breasts. She had allowed her companions to investigate every part of her after taking wounds, and once poison, in battle. Those examinations had never bothered her; oddly, this one did.

  At length, Charra stepped back and motioned for Kevral to cover herself fully. Complying, Kevral sat up.

  “My lady, where did you get those scars?”

  “In battle,” Kevral replied impatiently. “Am I . . . you know . . . pregnant?” She finally squeezed out the word.

  The drawing of breath for reply seemed to take an eternity. “Lady Kevral, you are.”

  “I am?” Understanding still eluded Kevral.

  “Undeniably. Five months, at least. Maybe six.”

  Kevral counted back to when the elves imprisoned her and Ra-khir, then shook her head vigorously. “Now that really is impossible. Five months ago at most.”

  Charra took the news in stride. “Big baby, then.”

  Baby? Gods, there’s going to be a baby. My baby. The implications of the pregnancy only now went beyond the immediate. I’m too young. I’m not ready for this.

  “Is the father a big man? Big men make for bigger babies, I believe.”

  “He’s—” Kevral started, then choked on realization. Ra-khir or Tae? I don’t even know who the father is! “—big,” she managed to finish. Ra-khir is anyway. All of the bravado she showed in matters of warfare and sword work disappeared. She felt like a frightened child in desperate need of a mother.

  “Is he one of ours, my lady?”

  “You mean a Pudarian?”

  Charra nodded.

  “No.” Even at her most vulnerable, Kevral would not admit that she had slept with two men. She might lose the only support she might ever have. For now, she hedged. “Tell me about your man.”

  Charra sat beside Kevral, a wistful smile touching her features. “A visiting merchant from Hopewell. Handsome, rugged, intelligent. I spent the most blissful month of my life with him.” She lowered her head, and a curtain of mouse-brown hair fell over her face, hiding her eyes. “I loved him, and he said he loved me. He promised to marry me, which is the only reason I lay with him. But when he found out about this . . .” She placed a hand across her own abdomen with its small but definite bulge. “. . . he refused to see me again.” She quivered, probably crying.

  Taking her cues from her time with Matrinka, Kevral placed an arm around Charra’s shoulders. The healer grasped Kevral in return, face lost beneath hair and against Kevral’s sleeping gown. Her muffled voice barely reached the Renshai’s ears. “Men will say anything—promise ANYTHING—to get a woman to lie with them.”

  “I’m sorry you found a bad one.” Kevral placed her other arm around the healer. “You’re probably better off without him.”

  Charra jerked up suddenly, wiping her eyes so thoroughly, they scarcely appeared reddened. “You don’t understand, Lady Kevral. All men do that.”

 
Kevral shook her head, feeling odd in the role of comforter, yet glad for the distraction from her own maelstrom of emotion. She could feel pain and uncertainty, huddled and raw. The moment Charra left, she would have to confront affairs of the heart. She would rather have faced two dozen enemies weaponless. “Don’t let one bad man color your attitude toward all of them.”

  Charra’s features went deadly serious. “You still don’t understand, my lady. I’ve talked to a lot of women since then, and a lot of men. They tell things to healers they would never admit to anyone else. Nearly every woman has had at least one man profess undying love and marriage for the chance to lie with her. The smart ones forced the issue. Some of the men wanted it enough to marry them, but most did not.” Charra’s desperate gaze held Kevral’s. “My lady, this is the part that frightens me. Every man admitted he had or wanted to go into his marriage with experience. And not a single one was willing to marry a woman he knew was not a virgin. None would go near an unwed mother, unless she was the beloved widow of a brother.”

  Kevral shrugged, a tiny part of her considering what the rest dismissed as impossible. “Maybe Pudarian men are like that.”

  Charra would not let the matter rest. “My lady, I tend foreign dignitaries, diplomats, and their families. Men everywhere are the same.” She leaned toward Kevral conspiratorially. “If I were you, I would find a man swiftly, before your condition becomes too obvious, and marry him.”

  Kevral blinked. The possibility had never occurred to her. “Why haven’t you done that?”

  Charra shook back her hair. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? I spent too long chasing after the baby’s father. He seemed so sincere, I just couldn’t believe he would abandon me. Lady, we were soul mates. He loved me. I was positive. Now, I’m looking, but it’s too late for me.” She placed her hands over her abdomen. “Men get frightened off when they hug you and feel something move inside you.” She pointed at Kevral’s gut. “That, my lady, is a baby. It’s also a symbol of shame. It tells the entire world what you did.”

  Warmth came to Kevral’s cheeks unexpectedly. “I don’t care what others think.”

  A knowing nod from Charra followed the words. “I didn’t think I did either. But when your family disowns you and people call you whore, you may find feelings you didn’t know you had. You need to at least think about your future. That baby needs a father.”

  “The baby will have a father. When I get back to Béarn, Ra-khir will marry me.”

  Charra’s glance was patronizing.

  Kevral smiled. “He’s a Knight of Erythane. His honor wouldn’t have allowed him to lie to me about his feelings. And it won’t let him abandon his child.”

  The cat slunk out from beneath the bed, dust clinging to its spotted fur. Charra stared at Kevral, the condescending creases smoothing and eyes widening. “The father of your baby is a knight?”

  Kevral confirmed the half-truth with a nod. Probably.

  Charra paused, silent for longer than politeness allowed, seeming torn between congratulations and other thought. Finally, she cleared her throat. “That’s good news, Lady Kevral. But you had best hope that baby looks exactly like him.”

  “What do you mean?” Kevral watched the cat bathe itself with its raspy, pink tongue.

  “Because a man’s best defense is that a woman who would lie with him before marriage would lie with others. If he can convince himself the baby isn’t his, he has no responsibility toward it. A knight’s honor would never allow him to marry a woman carrying another man’s baby.”

  Alarm trickled through the facade of assurance Kevral built. Behind her bland expression, her thoughts boiled, begging consideration. “I need some time to myself.”

  “I understand.” Charra rose and hefted the calico. “If you need me, you need only ask for me.” She headed toward the door but stopped with her hand on the latch. “Don’t wait too long, though. When my pregnancy becomes obvious, they’ll throw me out of the castle for certain. You may not be able to find me.” She whirled quickly, as if to hide tears. The latch clicked, and the door swung open.

  “You can always find me,” Kevral returned, uncertain whether Charra heard as she exited and pushed the panel closed. The click of the closing door released the tidal wave of thought Kevral had, so far, held at bay. She blew out the candle, darkness turning the furniture into familiar shadows. Moonlight filtered through thin curtains, providing enough illumination for Kevral to see the patterns in the coverlet but too little to show colors. Crawling beneath them, she sought the sleep she needed. Tomorrow would place the problem at a distance; and she would make better decisions when, through sword practice, she could pray to the gods for guidance.

  But thought hounded Kevral. She considered Charra’s words, though she would have found them nonsense just a day before. Tae’s love seemed too sincere to deny, yet the healer had said the same about her own lover. Logic fought memory, of moments he surely could not have feigned, details better kept to himself that he had chosen to share only with her. Was it really only with me? Kevral knew she was not the first woman to lie with Tae. Perhaps he had perfected the words to talk women into his bed. She would never have doubted her skill in warfare. He or she who bested her would kill an opponent eager to die for Valhalla. But affairs of the heart befuddled her. Meager experience and knowledge made for terrible uncertainty. She wished for Matrinka’s expertise and knew she had little choice but to settle for Charra’s.

  Kevral’s thoughts turned to Ra-khir. He would marry her, she felt certain. Nothing would allow him to abandon his honor. Yet doubts pecked at her assurance again. Tae and Ra-khir looked so completely different, there would be no mistaking the baby of one for the other. Eventually, she had planned to tell Ra-khir about her nights with Tae; but she did not know if the knights would allow him to marry a woman with another man’s baby.

  A baby. What am I going to do? Kevral rolled, now all too aware of the bulge. A million questions and concerns pounded her in a wild and painful avalanche that went far beyond thoughts of marriage. Maybe Charra’s wrong. Maybe I’m not pregnant at all. The idea quelled some of the worries, and Kevral tried to convince herself of the truth of the words, but her thoughts would not release reality. A retreat into self-delusion would not work for Kevral. Her mind would not allow it.

  I have to sleep. Kevral flipped to her other side, using Renshai mind techniques to empty her head of thought. Sleep slid gradually within her grasp. A baby. The thought slipped through the walls she had built, widening a gap that admitted all. Again, she found herself assailed. Worry mingled with fear. She alternated between sorrow and rage, feeling fire and icy terror at once. Eventually burning hatred swallowed all, directed at the unwanted thing growing inside her. Maybe it’ll die. Maybe if I double my practices, I’ll miscarry it. Maybe if I stop eating, I’ll starve it.

  Words Colbey had spoken burst through the muddle, as if directed by another’s intent. “Each month I hoped with a desperation that tore holes as painful as any weapon. Each month, I mourned the death of the baby that could have been but wasn’t.” A child is a blessing that the ill-fated never experience and others never learn to appreciate. A baby is a gift from the gods. The thought seemed distressingly foreign, yet Kevral could not help but contemplate it. I’m too young. I’m not competent to raise this baby. The best, the most loving, thing I could ever do for him or her is to find a mother and father whose failure to conceive has taught them the value of the treasure that is a child—someone who will love and care for this baby as I cannot.

  Though Kevral knew finding such a couple would prove difficult, she trusted Colbey to assist the search. His pain ran deep, even centuries later and sixteen years after the birth of his own son. Yet something more stayed her. When she considered only the baby and herself, the plan seemed perfectly sound. The child would find a proper home and she could return to Béarn without obvious change. No one there had to know about the baby.

  Words Ra-khir had spoken came next to haunt
Kevral, based on the bitterness he harbored against the mother who had tried to replace the father he loved, and who loved him, with another man: “If and when I have a child, no man or woman could take him from me.” Ra-khir might excuse her lying with Tae, but he would never forgive her stealing his child. He has the right to know about the baby, and so does Tae. For so long, Kevral had hoped circumstance would make the decision between the men for her. Now it had, and she felt no better. If he would still have her, she would marry whoever turned out to be the baby’s father. If he refused her and the baby, she would then do whatever she felt in the best interests of the child.

  The moment of decision and resolve broke down a moment later. Thoughts raced through her head, none sensible. She saw a life of whispering, banishment from the Renshai, and a baby hated by all for being the offspring of a whore. Terror battered at self-worth, fueled by the quiet desperation of Charra’s concerns. In this irrational world that Kevral created, Tae and Ra-khir despised her along with other friends, family, and strangers. For hours, snippets of idea assailed her, and the moments she managed to doze brought dreams as absurd as her waking thoughts.

  At length, Kevral sat up, throwing the covers aside. Rage became an inferno, directed at the men, herself, the baby, and circumstance in turn. It became a wheel, rolling eternally. Even the Renshai mind techniques could not rescue her, and Kevral sought other distraction. Not wishing to disturb Charra’s sleep, she glanced around the room for something on which to focus. As her gaze swept her desk, the answer came. In the top central drawer, Minister Daizar had placed the agreement she had signed for the king. Several times, she had attempted to read it, the flowery language so dull her thoughts had always slipped off in other directions. Now, she hoped, she could force herself to read it.

  Rising, Kevral jerked open the drawer. She found the papers on top of an assortment of inks and styluses and a pile of parchment. Taking the sheaf of pages, she returned to sit on the pillow, legs splayed out in front of her. She reread the first two pages as an exercise at directing her attention. Here, the Renshai mind techniques helped, funneling strength from body to thought, a weird phenomenon she had never believed practical. Always before, she had needed to channel in the opposite direction. Where they had failed her earlier, now her practices paid off. The passages that had once seemed discouragingly unreadable gained comprehension after two or three readings.