by Pam Uphoff
What was he going to do? The king had sent troops after him, and there was nowhere to go except Auralia, or maybe off to some island somewhere.
He rather liked the sound of islands, himself. He cast another look out the window as the shrieks rose higher. Now two of the brothers were holding the girl and laughing while a huge black goat mounted her. He'd feel sorry for her, if he wasn't feeling so sorry for himself.
The shrieks turned to sobs, and the men were still laughing. Pack of sadists. Old gods, what was he to do?
Chapter Twelve
Late Fall 1352
Somewhere in the New Lands
Lefty put one foot in front of the other and kept the wind on his left. That was as good as he could do for steering. The snow was so thick and blowing so hard he couldn't see a thing. He'd finally just closed his eyes, wrapped himself, head and all in the bison hide and walked. And walked. This first storm had taken him by surprise, both in its early arrival and its ferocity. He knew the flats stretched for three days behind him. He could only hope for something, anything, to break the wind somewhere in front of him. Or if the wind would stop, and let the snow lie, he could build a snow house. But this howling whiteout . . .the ground failed to exist underneath his foot. He threw himself backwards, releasing the bison hide as he frantically grabbed the edge, kicked and found a foot hold, another handhold. He scrambled gratefully down the rough wall, so relieved by the absence of the wind that the icy rock didn't bother him, until he almost slipped. He edged out of his pack, and turned around to sit on a thin ledge. He warmed his hands in his armpits while he looked around. The snow was falling straight down, once it dropped below the lip of the wall. As he sat with his back to the wall, it curved outward to his left, blocking the north wind. A rubble filled slope started about ten feet below him. He took a deep breath and smelled the sulfur. He'd found another hot spring. He dropped his pack, grabbed icy rock and scrambled down to the rubble. A brown thing lurking in the snow and rocks turned out to be the bison hide. The rubble leveled out, the snow started getting wetter, and finally, soaked to the bone, he found the fumarole in a small pond of steaming water. There was a slight breeze through the canyon, so he moved upwind, wrapped the bison hide around him and laid down on the warm rock until he was thawed. He was still soaking wet, as the snow melted several feet above his head and rained down on him. But he was thawed enough to trust his fingers to test the water. He jerked back. Very hot. He sat in the rain under his damp smelly hide for a few more minutes, then reluctantly pushed himself to his feet to look around.
The steaming pool overflowed and trickled down to another, also with a fumarole bubbling under it. The cliffs closed in then, and he followed another hot rill down to a third, larger, pond. This one had ice on the far rim, and on the left a slab of cliff had fallen and lodged at an angle, creating something resembling shelter. It was dry underneath it.
Lefty shucked his pack and looked at the angular, rough, tilted floor. "Home sweet home."
He looked out through the rain. Something large stirred the waters of the pond. "And tomorrows dinner!"
He started moving rubble to level the floor.
***
Answer knitted quietly in the corner, keeping an eye on the girls.
One of the magewives was brewing tea. They gave up their names, when they married. The mages pretended they were the opposites and equals of the witches, but try and find a man who could live without a woman! So they pretended the magewives were non-persons, switching them about indifferently. The witches took a great deal of amusement, watching the nameless women manage the arrangements right under their "betters" noses. Fool men thought that because the magewives' magic was subtle it was weak, a powerless shadow of their own. Silly sods might find out some day.
Generally the men were possessive of their children, and kept track of who sired which child.
Gisele had certainly thrown a beehive into that house!
But these two. They are too young for this!
Juli and Fava paced, encouraging each other, reassuring each other that the babies would be fine. Paced wasn't perhaps the right word, they were both so huge. Their mothers, large with child themselves, were worried, but old Lady Gisele had just patted their tummies and started laughing. Answer wasn't sure how reassuring that was, but no doubt she'd find out soon enough. The babies were coming. It was two weeks early, but not early enough to worry anyone, given the sheer density of magical ability in the valley.
It was the custom to have two midwives for every birth, a witch and a magewife. Gisele was a last resort. Once, just once, she had sent for the Sheep Man. Answer smiled a bit in memory. That had been for Curious's birth; the mother, Zero, had been sixty-four years old. She sincerely hoped she wouldn't need the Sheep Man. Gisele and her fertility spells. I'll never underestimate her again!
The two girls were healthy, but so young. Not mature enough in body or mind. They were leaning on each other for support, making it hard to tell which one was having the contraction, or maybe they both were. She could hear a whispered, "It'll be fine. The babies will be fine," and wondered uneasily why they were so worried. Mages had some rather nasty ideas about how to concentrate power in their children. They literally were a bunch of inbred . . . she hoped their own fathers hadn't . . . no, some things were beyond even mages.
"Oh, oh!" Water rilled, and then poured, down the legs of one of the girls. Fava.
"There now. " She rose and pulled clean linens from the waiting pile. "Your water's broken, it won't be long now."
Fava's contractions were coming hard and fast now, so Answer guided her to the birthing stool. "Just sit and try to relax, it'll be a little while yet, as it's your first."
"And only!" she grunted, then bearing down. Juli hovered, grasping Fava's hands as she yelled. "Nnnngh!
Answer took a quick look and then grabbed more linen. "It's coming fast," she called to the magewife.
"Nnnggh! I hate this! Damn it, I'm never never never going to even kiss a boy ever again! Nnnngggh! Ahhhh!"
The tiny boy slipped into Answer's waiting hands. "Oh, he's just beautiful! Look at all that black hair!" The baby gasped and protested his eviction into the cold with a healthy wail.
"Ahhggh! Black hair?" the girl whimpered. Her own hair was light brown with golden highlights. Answer shrugged away the question of the father. After all, despite what the mages thought, the father didn't really matter. "Nnnngggh! Why isn't it stopping?" the girl pleaded.
"Now, we talked about the afterbirth, Fava." The magewife tied the cord and cut it, then took the baby in her arms.
"Nnnngh!"
Answer probed the girl's tummy gently. "Ah, I should have guessed. Twins."
"What! Ahhhggh!" She panted. "Twins? Two babies? Nnnngh!"
"Yes, and here comes the second. Give us a good long push now."
"Nnnnnnggggghhhhh!"
"It's a girl. Another beauty!"
"Black hair?" the girl whimpered.
"Umm, light-colored fuzz, right now." Juli wheezed, clutching her own belly, now, water dripping down her legs.
The magewife shook her head. "You two always did do everything together. I might have known you'd both deliver the same night."
Fava's womb expelled the afterbirth with a few more contractions, then the magewife tucked her into the waiting bed, rubbing her tummy, no doubt with some blood magic to help.
She broke off to assist as Answer helped Juli deliver a wrinkled little red-headed boy.
Juli took a breather, touching the thin red curls gently. "Oh my. Ahhh!"
The magewife and Answer traded looks.
"Oh, surely not!"
Juli's second baby arrived minutes later. A beautiful black-haired girl.
Mothers and babies finally all cleaned up, ministered to and fed, Answer breathed a sigh of relief and stretched. "It's going to be every bit as bad come the Winter Solstice. Eighteen babies are due right then." She patted her own tummy. A hundred and twenty years old. G
isele had a lot to answer for. Answer had drunk a glass of that wine before the sheer mass of spells registered with her. She'd left the party in a dignified fashion, fighting spells all the way home. Then Delight practically dragged the Auld Wulf into the house and Happy had followed them in and they'd all three just . . . pounced. The poor god had had a tough time escaping. Eventually.
The magewife nodded, and rubbed her own distended abdomen. "I hope we space them out. I'd hate to have to ask the Sheep Man to come deliver a dozen babies or so, no matter how many lambs he pulls every year."
Answer nodded. She could hear the girls—the mothers—whispering to each other as they rested, each with two babes beside them.
"Your redhead must be Bran's" Fava was saying. "And my little girl is either Oscar's or Bran's."
Both girls stared down at the babies. Neither of them said a thing about the black-haired pair. Hmmm.
The magewife heard as well, her lips thinning. "Those girls! We tried to make them wait, but they went off on their own. We gave them . . . but as we all found out it didn't work. We figured it was Bran and Oscar, no doubt why they cleared out."
"Well, they've delivered safely, so all's well."
"Except for the matter of husbands. And since Bran's a redhead and Oscar's blond, the question of who the other father or fathers are is still open. They must have had a fine orgy, but they refuse to talk about it. They refused to consider the husbands we arranged for them, and now with four babies! The compass isn't going to like this at all."
Answer frowned. "That's right. None of your men will support a mother and her children unless they get sex regularly from the woman. Hmph. Well, rather than me say something about you lot, perhaps I should suggest it's time for a new house in the village. The girls can assist each other, and no doubt it will all work out in the end."
The magewife frowned. "Well, as they didn't marry into our compass, that may be for the best. I'll mention it as a solution to the problem."
Two weeks later, Answer found Never pacing the floor.
"Probably a false alarm." Her granddaughter stopped and took long slow controlled breaths. "Or maybe not."
Rustle was born minutes past midnight on the Solstice, the first of thirteen witch daughters and eight mage babies born over the next two weeks. Justice had twins, and even Answer delivered without complications.
***
To Oscar's regret, schooling was cut short as the King sent more people south to deal with Duke Rivolte. 'Nothing is more important than your schooling . . . ' his old teacher's words echoed in his mind. Nothing but a better watch for sneak attacks and assassins. He sighed and tried to close his mind to the past.
Oscar and Bran mostly acted as couriers, and hadn't yet seen a real battle. The Duke had packed up his family and retreated from Royal wrath as his troops were defeated. Seeing the size of the duke's estates, Oscar was astonished that the Duke would risk so much for what seemed a small advancement for a daughter. And according to the retainers who had fled the duke, rather than abandon their king and country, the duke had married that daughter to a new adviser.
"Some foreigner they say. Auralian? Veronian?" Colonel Rufi Negue paced.
The colonel's uncle, General Kersh Negue, sat down stiffly. There had been mention of him taking over the duke's estates and properties. A gift from the king as he resisted retirement. "From what the servants all say about how this 'Lord Raide' and his associates behaved, I expect they're Auralian. Perverts, the lot of them."
"I have their descriptions, sir. I'll hang them all before bringing the duke back to answer to the king."
The general nodded. "I've sent a dispatch to the king. I'm not sure but that the old magician needs to look into matters down here. So if anything uncanny happens, send couriers both here and the city, in case Selano is here, close to hand."
His scribe finished writing, the general read the sheets over quickly, signed and sealed the two notes. Oscar dropped them into his couriers' pouch and saluted.
He loved being on the road. Riding free and far.
***
Never juggled Rustle and watched wistfully as the two working triads started the foundations of the new house.
The spate of babies and Particular's and Opinion's awakenings had scrambled the Triads. Experiencing their daughters grasping power for the first time had bunmped Idea and kindly up to the level of the Full Moon. So Never and Justice were the only Sisters of the Half Moon, but Likely and Mostly would be joining them in another few weeks when they gave birth. Then the new members of the oversized Triad would have to practice working together as the youngsters trained their new skills.
It had been fun, working the powers to raise the new Dry Goods store. Today she could only watch.
The Triad of the Full Moon, witches whose daughters had grasped power, was well up to the basic work of excavating the basement of the new house. The soil and accompanying rocks poured out of the square in a smooth reverse avalanche, the dirt settling in a larger square around the perimeter, the rocks pirouetting to return to the hole in the ground.
Juli and Fava had tactfully, well, gleefully actually, chosen a location in between the village and the first of the farm houses, hopefully linking them, not isolating themselves from both groups.
Answer and Blissful, the Dark Crescents, moved in, shaping the field boulders into squares and rectangles, laying a floor and erecting the basement walls. When they needed more stone, the Sisters of the Full Moon pulled them from the ground where Juli and Fava were planning to plant a garden. Sunk head height into the ground, and reaching half that above it, the foundations needed just one more thing. Answer and Blissful watched alertly as the Triad of the Waning Half joined forces and pulled power and channeled it into heat. The stone quivered and for the blink of an eye was liquid. The Triad channeled the power back into the Earth, and the younger witches crowded in to admire the solid, seamless, stone foundation.
Fava eased her sleeping daughter back onto the blanket under the oak tree, and walked out to run her hands over the stone. "That is amazing," she breathed.
"We'll just do a bit of fireplace and chimney work, then the rest of the house will be up to the Mages, dear." Answer looked smug, and Never rather thought that the Mages would do their best, if for no other reason than to not be shown up by the expertise of the witches.
Juli finished nursing her second baby, and joined her friend and house mate with the little boy on her shoulder. "It's incredible!"
Never stayed back at the tree that would shade the house—once the house existed—and kept an eye on the three other babies. Fava and Juli were so young, and with two babies each their attention was a bit stretched. Fava seemed to lavish most of her attention on her daughter, and Juli on her son, with the other two babies getting by with whatever was left over. She really ought to point that out to them, but the babies were doing fine and everyone was helping out. They were beautiful babies too. Never rocked her own fair darling thoughtfully. The babies the girls spent time with were both fair—and she'd heard rumors about Bran and Oscar being the fathers. The other two babies were black haired, and their eyes had developed into the most striking honey brown.
What other man—and she was thinking there was probably only one, the two babies looked so much alike—had attended their little unauthorized orgy? Black hair. The Mages tended to blonde and red—they were all disgustingly closely related—and it was hard to imagine Harry, the Auld Wulf or the Sheep Man joining a teenagers' orgy. And anyway, their coloring was wrong. She leaned over the crib and studied the babies. No. That hair was as dark as midnight in a mine, but the babies' skin was fair. She didn't think any of the trio of unmarried older men could have produced this pair.
She snorted in amusement. It hardly mattered who. What mattered was that the mothers had reservations about those two babies. At least there was no problem finding someone to nurse a baby while the mother was busy elsewhere—or catching up on sleep.
Black hair, black
hair . . . Mostly's Lord Merc had hair like that, black as a goat, but Mostly'd kept him busy.
Never choked suddenly.
Black as a goat.
The goats that she'd seen rape their way through an army.
She'd watched the Inquisitor General's fight on the hill through her seeing glass, and had examined the dead body, the honey brown eyes staring sightlessly. Yes. All those goats had had eyes that color. Earth, Moon, and Sun! What had happened? Maybe she would cut the girls some slack, and help out with the babies as often as she could. Because all witches knew the fathers didn't really matter. But Juli and Fava might have a problem separating the child from the father.
She turned back to the empty foundations, and watched the chimney rise in the center, where it could heat the whole house.
Brock, the young man they'd built the store for, was watching open mouthed. He hadn't quite adjusted to life in the middle of a village full of magic users. He was surrounded by his usual stable of admirers. Particular and Opinion, Catti and Zam. Everyone had sort of wondered if Juli or Fava would take to him, but they seemed a bit male-phobic. Now she understood.
The Mage Compass had been up in the forest, and now they were bringing down the lumber.
The weather was crisp and cold, above freezing today, and now, a moon past the winter solstice, they still didn't have any snow on the ground.
Good for building a new house, bad for next summer's water supply.
She wondered if Coo Miller was a strong enough Storm Mage to call the snow. He was the only Storm Mage in the Compass.
They had cut tall straight trees, and transported the whole logs, first down the river, and now they were showing off. The Blood Mages' control of water was strong enough to defy gravity in a small area. The logs floated up hill on a churning layer of water that gushed up to the foundations, then suddenly poured away.
The Mages circled the first log and it split, falling into beautifully smooth planks. The Mages hummed and water oozed out as the boards shivered a bit but didn't warp.