Phoenix Ashes (The Landers Saga Book 3)

by Nilsen, Karen

  I noticed the hard floor under my knees and nodded. She dumped my history books and notes from a small chair we kept by the wardrobe, an thing of twisted willow boughs and a raveling cane-woven seat. I perched on it at first, dubious that such a delicately dilapidated affair could support my weight. However, despite or perhaps because of their flexibility, the willow wands proved unexpectedly strong. I soon found myself tipping the chair back against the wall and then forward again as I cracked my joints, the resultant creaks and pops mingling with Safire's moans and cries in a strange symphony. Father would have yelled at me after a few moments of this, but Helga and Elsa were a more patient audience, and Safire was too focused on what was happening with her body to care what I did. So I eventually settled into a calmer state, calmer at any rate than I had been in the dining hall, punctuated only by occasionally rocking the chair back and forth and snapping my knuckles when Safire had a particularly intense pang.

  "Never seen so many books," Helga remarked as she lifted a candle and examined the cracked bindings of the volumes on the mantel. "Never did learn to read myself--no time or need for it, I suppose, though as I get older, it seems a shame."

  "I'm the only girl in my family who learned, and that was by accident," Elsa said. "When my father died, my mother had much to do, and she left me in the charge of my older brother. He taught me to read so I could amuse myself and not bother him."

  "So that's how you learned," Safire exclaimed, startling all of us. "I always wondered. I would have taught you if you hadn't already known how. So many girls in this country go without any book learning--it makes me sad."

  "Oh, don't fret, my lady," Helga said stoutly. "There's lots of things worth knowing that weren't ever put down in a book."

  Safire smiled. "That's true enough, and sometimes too much book learning can make one forget the old knowledge."

  "Or help one remember it," I retorted. "Don't forget the journals, sweet."

  "There isn't anything in those journals that's going to help me, Merius." Safire's eyes flared in the flickering candlelight as she looked at me. "I know what I need to know, just like Helga here knows how to be a midwife."

  "Stubborn," I muttered. "How is it you just know? You can't even articulate in words what it is you know so you can explain it to me."

  "Some things are beyond words to express," she sniffed with infuriating serenity. "It's called instinct. It's called faith. It's called love. I know you understand love--you have great gobs of it that you fling around like a madman blindly flinging paint at a canvas, and somehow your glorious mess turns beautiful in its chaos without you even realizing it."

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean? You speak in these crazy stories--I don't know how you expect me to understand . . ."

  She cut me off with a wordless yell--it took me an instant to realize she was having another pain. Her fingers ground my bones to dust as she bore down hard, all her muscles straining in a great push. I wanted to yelp myself at the diamond-crushing pressure on my hand--I had no idea she was so strong.

  "Don't push so much yet, my lady--you'll do yourself harm. When it's time to push, I'll tell you." Helga's voice rumbled over Safire's yell, and Safire slumped back against the pillows with a moan, tears slipping down her cheeks. She freed my hand. It was limp and soft as kneaded bread dough, and I shook it until the blood flowed back into my fingers with a sharp tingling. Then I ran my fingertips over her clammy brow and smoothed back her hair.

  "Don't see many husbands here for this part," Helga said. I raised my gaze to find her watching me closely.

  "I unwittingly left her to face a great trial alone when I shouldn't have, and I don't mean to do it ever again."

  "Oh dear heart." Safire caressed my hand with her icy fingers.

  "Why are your hands still so cold, even after I chafe them?" I grumbled. I didn't say it aloud, but I couldn't help thinking of my mother's hands in her casket, so still and perfect and cold.

  "All the blood goes to her middle for the birth," Helga explained as she lifted the hem of Safire's shift and held up the candle as she peeked between her legs.

  "Oh--that makes sense."

  Helga patted Safire's knee and pulled the hem back down to preserve her modesty. "Only a few more hours, I'll be bound. I can't believe how fast you are."

  The few more hours felt like an eternity as the night wore on. Elsa went out at one point, only to come back a few minutes later to report that Rankin and Father were engaged in a game of chess, and Lady Rankin, Eden, Jared, and Birdley played cards, half-full bottles of wine, scraps of cheese, and bread slices scattered across the table.

  "I hate to think of the Rankins waiting, any of them waiting--we could be here half the night," Safire said.

  "I said that too, but they insisted. Apparently, they're enjoying themselves. I think all the wine has something to do with it." Elsa sounded disapproving, but I noticed a twinkle in her eyes.

  "You should go get a bottle and some goblets for us," I said. "Do you take wine, Helga?"

  "I've been known to take a sip now and again." Like one wick catching flame from another, the twinkle in Elsa's eyes appeared in Helga's eyes. "When you get the wine, make sure there's some water ready to heat, Elsa. We'll need it soon enough."

  "Don't worry about that. We've got plenty of hot water from Sir Merius's contraption." Elsa flounced from the chamber.

  "What does she mean?" Helga asked.

  So I explained about the water tank in the fireplace, how it was hooked up to the rainwater barrel. Helga's brows knitted as she nodded politely, but I knew she didn't understand. No one except Rankin or Jared understood until I showed them. Having a tank in the fireplace was apparently such an odd thing that most people regarded it with puzzlement, if not outright suspicion. I sighed inwardly, and Safire ran her fingers down my arm, her aura surrounding me. Even in the midst of her pain, she knew I felt frustrated and wanted to offer comfort.

  "You really do have the most generous heart of anyone I know," I murmured as I leaned over and kissed her forehead.

  Her mouth softened and turned upwards in a tender smile. "You'll be a magnificent father."

  I grinned and examined my hands, ink-stained as usual, the skin rough from writing, practice, and riding. "Magnificent--I like the sound of that. Far too regal a word to describe me, though. I sometimes think Eden was right--I would have made a good jester."

  "Jester or not, I think you're magnific . . . oh God." She inhaled and exhaled in a series of sharp pants as another pain took her.

  I concentrated on her and tried to draw away her pain the way she drew away mine, but all that happened was that I felt an uneasy twinge in my gut, the same twinge I felt the instant before I hit the ground in my dreams after a long fall.

  "Don't do that again. I could hardly breathe--there was no air," she gasped.

  "I'm sorry--I thought I could help."

  "I know. If you want to do something, maybe you could read out loud to me. Some of Sirach's verse perhaps?"

  I picked up her battered copy of Sirach and flipped open to "The Song of the Sea," her favorite poem. The words jumped up and down on the page and seemed to change colors--from black to blue to red to black again. I stared at the page and tried to focus, but the more I tried, the more violently the unruly words danced. I got through the first few lines, halting after every word.

  "Damn them," I muttered finally.

  "That's not part of the poem," Safire said severely. "What's wrong now?"

  "The words keep shifting."

  She sighed. "Poor dear heart. I think this is worse for you than me. Maybe you should go play cards with the others."

  "I won't be able to concentrate. I'm not leaving you."

  "All right then. Maybe Elsa can read to us both when she gets back."

  I set the book aside. "You know, hearing Elsa describe how she learned her letters made me wonder how Jared learned his."

  "You've never asked him?"

  I shrugged.
"No. He knows so much about calculations. The monks teach basic figuring to the peasants, not the kind of calculations he knows how to do."

  "You'll have to ask him." Safire stretched. "I'm surprised the Landers don't have a tutor for the more promising peasant boys."

  I laughed. "Oh sweet, none of the estates have anything like that."

  "Well, I don't see why not," she said, sounding rather cross. Then her face contorted in a grimace as she wrung the blankets and sheets. As her pang deepened, I tried desperately to call a poem to mind that I could at least recite to her. My memory, usually sharp when it came to poetry, failed me tonight. Hell, if I had been in this state when I met Safire, I might never have won her--I had wooed her with poetry. Our tutors had made us memorize endless lines of verse--I couldn't believe that I couldn't recall any of it at this moment. Of course, neither Selwyn nor Whitten likely remembered any of it at any time, and they had been there memorizing with me. I wagered Eden remembered, though--unlike Selwyn or Whitten, she seemed to have enjoyed books as much as I did. But for the happenstance of being the only girl in our generation of Landers, she might never have learned any of it. If there had been other girls born besides her, our fathers would have found a governess for the girls, which meant she would have likely learned only the rudiments. It was a shame to think of someone with such a quick mind relegated to the bare essentials, while dullards like Selwyn and Whitten had knowledge jammed down their throats that they would never use or appreciate. It was a shame to think of someone like Jared languishing forever as a peasant. Perhaps Safire's notion of a school for peasants wasn't so farfetched after all. It would help us identify the Jareds more quickly and perhaps train them for more practical use than laboring in the fields. I'd have to mention it to Father--if I emphasized the pragmatic aspects, he might actually listen.

  Elsa returned with the wine and poured a goblet for each of us. Safire only managed a few sips of hers. It seemed like she was caught by an invisible giant who enjoyed tormenting her by squeezing her body in his fist, each squeeze going longer and harder than the last. And I couldn't rescue her. All I could do was sit here and drink. In that spirit, I drained my wine without even registering whether it was red or white.

  All of a sudden, things changed. After a particularly nasty pang, Helga set down her goblet and came over to the side of the bed. She lifted Safire's shift, rolled it up past her belly, and then pulled it over her shoulders and head, exposing her to God and the world. I knew she had to do so in order to help Safire, but I was still intensely glad that besides her, only Elsa and I were in the chamber to witness this. I couldn't imagine how the poor queen gave birth, the king, councilors, ladies-in-waiting, and the court physician all in attendance. Of course, maybe the queen didn't notice--Safire seemed too hot and in too much pain to care that she was naked.

  Helga looked between Safire's knees, her brow furrowed. "All right, my lady, it's time to push," she said. "When the next pang starts, I want you to bear down with all your might like you did before."

  Safire nodded, and a new kind of hell began. She sucked in breath and then exhaled with a high-pitched yell during each pain, an unholy battle cry as if she marched to war over rough terrain and wanted to terrify the enemy miles before she ever got there. At the first of these, the goblet flew out of my hand, wine the color of blood staining the floorboards.

  Helga shouted. "Good, keep at it. A few dozen more of those should do it."

  A few dozen? I didn't know how she'd survived one without splitting in two. Had it been this bad when Sewell was born? It didn't seem so, but then again I only allowed myself a few scant memories of that distressing event. I clutched my hands together and then popped my knuckles so hard it felt like I disjointed them.

  Elsa mopped up the wine, lifting her head to meet my gaze. She smiled, then rose and touched my shoulder. "It'll be all right, sir," she whispered. "Just encourage her the best you can. It's enough you're here--I'm sure that means more to her than you'll ever know."

  So I mopped Safire's brow with a damp cloth Elsa found for me and told her how well she was doing and kissed her and held her hand between pangs and did my best to keep my dinner down. The last thing she needed was me running out of the chamber, retching.

  "Do you have a dagger, Sir Merius?" Helga asked at one point.

  "Yes," I said, worried she needed it for some kind of crude surgery on Safire. "Why?"

  "After the babe's born, it's tradition for the father to cut the cord."

  "Oh." Of course, the cord. The nuns had done something with Sewell's cord before the afterbirth came out, but I didn't remember what. I had been too distracted by the squalling Sewell and all the blood. In my ignorance, I had thought Safire was having twins at first when she delivered Sewell's afterbirth. Hence, the sight of it had horrified me to the point I started cursing, and the nuns had kicked me out of the cell until I calmed down. At least now I knew better.

  "Elsa, time to fetch the hot water and some leather thongs or candle wicking if you have it." As Elsa left the chamber, Helga rubbed Safire's right arm and shoulder, and I imitated her motions on Safire's left side. Safire whimpered a little. "Just a few more minutes," Helga murmured over and over again in a rough lullaby. "Just a few more minutes, dearie."

  I jumped when Elsa came through the door a few minutes later with several leather strips wrapped around her wrists, carrying two steaming pails. She set down the pails near the stack of towels and linens already on the washstand and then proceeded to unwind the leather from her arms. At that instant, Safire lifted her head from the pillows, scowling, her teeth gritted. She grunted, then opened her mouth in a howl that seemed to last forever. Helga knelt at the foot of the bed, one hand under Safire's rump, the other hand positioned like a tray to catch whatever emerged between Safire's legs.

  A large head came first, the rest of the body twisting out behind it like a stubborn cork suddenly popping from a bottle we'd tried to open for hours. Gasping for breath, Safire wilted on the pillows. I rested my hand on her head as I stared at our son. He had looked huge coming out Safire's body, far too big for her to give birth to him, but now he seemed tiny in Helga's hands. She wiped her thumb gently over his mouth, and he opened it in a lusty bawl, his red, wrinkled face screwing up like Safire's face had when she had given birth to him.

  "Here, my lady," Helga said. "Hold him on your chest between your breasts. It will keep him warm until your first milk comes down."

  Safire's exhausted face lit up like a rosebud of flame bursting open. She took Dominic in her arms and cuddled him. His bawling trailed off as she kissed him, and he regarded her with a quiet gravity that unnerved me.

  "Isn't he supposed to cry more?" I asked, perching on the edge of the bed beside her.

  Safire giggled and nuzzled him with her nose. "No, no, no, Papa shouldn't complain, should he?"

  "Well, I don't know--I thought crying meant they're still breathing when they're first born." I scratched my jaw, remembering Sewell's hiccupping wail that seemed to last for days.

  "Just look at him, Merius--he's perfect."

  I leaned over her shoulder and reached out to touch his tiny hand, the skin wrinkled around his knuckles so it looked like an ancient hand. Immediately, his fingers fisted around my finger, his grip surprisingly tight. "He's strong," I exclaimed.

  "Here, dear heart." Safire gently placed him in my arms.

  I gazed down at him, expecting him to start crying now that he was no longer in the circle of Safire's witchery. Instead he stared up at me with eyes the gray of a mourning dove, his mouth pursed in a straight line, such a serious expression for such a small creature that it was comical. I found myself smiling in response, wild delight suddenly afire inside. "He is perfect," I muttered, my voice breaking as joy burned the backs of my eyes. I looked over at Safire, so many words on the tip of my tongue, yet when I spoke, all I could say past the lump rising in my throat was, "Thank you. Thank you so much, sweetheart," before I handed Dominic back to her so
he didn't get cold.

  "He's at least eight pounds, I'll be bound. Big babe for a woman her size," Helga said, sounding proud. "It's a treat to have both a mother and babe so strapping."

  We sat there in infant worship for several more minutes while Helga and Elsa hustled around the chamber. Elsa finally came over to my side, shyly holding out my dagger. "Helga says it's time, Sir Merius."

  I stood and pulled the dagger from its scabbard. Helga had tied off the white twisted cord in two places with the leather thongs. I sliced through the still warm flesh gingerly--even though I knew it was an irrational thought, I almost expected Safire or Dominic or both to give a yelp of pain.

  Safire handed me Dominic when she felt the twinge that meant the afterbirth was ready to deliver. Helga stuck a folded towel under her. Several pangs later, the coppery smell of blood filled the air. Helga whisked the afterbirth away and put it, cord and all, in one of the empty water pails. "It's the father's job to bury that under a young tree the day after the birth--it's good luck for the child," she informed me. I hid my grimace with a stoicism that would have made Father proud.

  "All right, my lady, let me bathe him while Elsa bathes you, and then we'll see how he takes to his first feeding."

  A half hour later, Helga declared Dominic a "sturdy duckling" as he finished nursing. "You're sure handy with him, my lady," she continued with a conspiratorial wink in Safire's direction. "You'll make a fine mother."

  "Would it be safe for me to take him to meet the others now?" I asked. Helga nodded and helped me wrap Dominic securely in a soft blanket we warmed on the hearth. Then I tucked him in the crook of my arm. He looked up at me with that solemn, old man expression as I carried him down the hall, Elsa beside me holding up a candelabra. Wild shadows from the flickering candlelight danced in our wake, a celebratory procession of spirits to guide us. Tonight, for once, I could believe what Safire told me about the spirit world and the other side, how we would exist there when our time here was over. Tonight, for once, I had no doubts, only faith.