At the Sign of Triumph

by David Weber

  “Do you know, I think that might not be such a bad idea. Thanks, Zosh. And I don’t care what anyone says about you—for a Chisholmian, you’re not a bad fellow at all!”

  “Just sucking up to the Captain, Your Grace,” Hahlbyrstaht told him with something far more like a grin than a smile, and excused himself from the cabin.

  Hektor smiled after him, then pushed back from the cabin table. He looked around the compartment, taking in its familiar confines in the light of the lamp swaying gently from the overhead, then walked across to the wide-open stern windows. Unlike larger vessels, Fleet Wing boasted no sternwalk, but he settled on one of the bench seats built across the windowsills and leaned back against the inward-curving hull that framed the schooner’s oval stern. He thrust one leg over the windowsill and gazed out over his ship’s bubbling wake, listening to the water laugh and gurgle around her rudder as Fleet Wing made good almost seven knots on a stiff topgallant breeze from broad on her starboard quarter. The wind scoop sent enough fresh, clean breeze through the cabin to ruffle the pages of the book lying open on his cot and pluck at his dark hair like a lover’s gentle fingers, and the newly risen moon rode broad and bright on the horizon, like a polished silver coin, while its reflection danced on the moving mirror of the sea.

  Anyone looking at him could have been excused for thinking he actually saw a single bit of it.

  “I’m here, love,” he said to the vista of the sea. “How are you feeling?”

  “A little nervous, frankly,” Irys Aplyn-Ahrmank replied from far distant Manchyr. She leaned back in an armchair, wrapped in a soft, warm robe, with her feet propped up and a carafe of hot chocolate at her elbow. The sky outside her bedchamber window glowed with the first faint brushstrokes of a tropical dawn, but she’d been up for the last two hours, timing the contractions.

  “God, I wish I could be with you!” his voice murmured in her earplug. “I should’ve stayed, damn it!”

  “We both agreed you needed to go with Sir Dunkyn.” There was a trace of scold in her tone. “And I’m not some frightened little farm girl wondering if the sisters will get there in time, you know! Besides, with the exception of Alahnah, there’s never been a pregnancy on all of Safehold that was more closely monitored than this one.”

  “And I’m still the father and I should still be there,” he argued. Then he sighed. “Which doesn’t change the fact that I can’t be. Or that God only knows how many billions of fathers over the years haven’t been able to be there, either. For that matter, I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of other Navy and Army fathers are in exactly the same boat right this minute?”

  “Probably a lot. And there are probably even more who know they’ll have a child they’ve never met waiting when they get home again, too.”

  “A child they’ve never even seen before.” Hektor inhaled deeply. “At least I’ll have one hell of a lot more than that,” he continued, gazing up at the silver moon while his contact lenses showed him Irys’ nod.

  “Yes, you will. And if you can’t be here physically, at least we’ve got this, too.” She touched her ear and the invisible plug nestled deep within it and smiled a bit tremulously. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much it means to hear your voice just now!”

  “Well, of course you can, thanks to Zosh for being so tactful!” Hektor chuckled. “And to you for being so clever with the timing! If you get a move on, I’ll be able to be with you for the actual birth.”

  “Get a move on?!” Irys glowered, then inhaled sharply as another spasm went through her abdomen. She paused, waiting out the contraction, then shook her head. “Listen, sailor—this is all your fault. Don’t you go getting smart-arsed now that I’m stuck doing all the work!”

  “Nothing smart-arsed about it,” he said virtuously, with a lurking smile. “Just making a point. I’ve got maybe thirteen hours before Stywyrt’s going to come banging on my cabin door with a pot of that horrible cherrybean he’s gotten so besotted with.”

  Hektor shuddered fastidiously. He didn’t have a formal steward—schooners Fleet Wind’s size didn’t run to enough personnel for that—so Stywyrt Mahlyk had assigned himself to that duty, as well as captain’s coxswain. And he’d turned out to have rather … robust ideas about what the job entailed.

  “It’s a good thing he makes you eat properly!” Irys scolded in a voice that was commendably stern, despite the twinkle in her hazel eyes. “I think it was wonderful of Sir Dunkyn to lend him to you!”

  “Starting to look more like a permanent adoption,” Hektor retorted. “But you’re right; I’m lucky to have him,” he acknowledged. “Which doesn’t change the fact that once he decides it’s time for wakey-wakey, I won’t be able to sit staring soulfully up at any moons while I talk to myself and encourage myself to ‘Breathe, sweetheart! Now push!’ So, since I’d really like to be able to do just that, could you just speak to the children about possibly moving right along now?”

  * * *

  “I don’t want to sound impatient or anything,” Irys Aplyn-Ahrmahk panted, “but I’d really like this to be over!”

  She didn’t look what anyone would have called her best just at the moment. Her dark hair was spiky with sweat, fatigue shadowed her hazel eyes, and pain tightened her mouth as the sun slipped steadily below the western horizon. She’d had a long, wearying day … and looked like having an even longer night.

  “Of course you would, dear,” Lady Sahmantha Gahrvai said, wiping her forehead with a damp cloth. “Now breathe.”

  “I am breathing—I am breathing!” Irys panted even harder. “I’ve been doing it for hours now! And while I’m thinking about it, this is a damned undignified way to go about this! Why hasn’t someone invented a better one?!”

  “Do you know, Mairah,” Lady Sahmantha said, “she probably thinks she’s the first one to think of that. Scary, isn’t it?”

  “I imagine it goes through most women’s minds about the time they try motherhood for the first time,” the tallish woman on the other side of Irys’ bed said with a smile. Her golden hair and gray eyes marked her as a foreigner here in Corisande, but the Prince of Corisande’s older sister clung tightly to her hand, gripping even harder whenever the labor pains peaked. “Of course, I wouldn’t know from personal experience, you understand. Yet, at least. I was clever enough to marry someone who already had five children. Acquired an entire family without going through all of this … botheration.”

  Lady Mairah Breygart lifted her nose with an audible sniff, and Irys laughed. It was a rather breathless, exhausted laugh after eleven hours of labor, but a laugh nonetheless.

  “And the fact that your husband’s been off on the mainland for the last year has nothing to do with how you’ve continued to avoid all this ‘botheration’?” she demanded.

  “It does rather require the prospective father and mother to spend a certain amount of time in one another’s company, Your Highness,” Lady Sahmantha pointed out. She gave Mairah a look that combined humor and sympathy in equal measure. “And there’s a certain degree of enthusiasm involved, as well. Of course, some of us seem to have more of that enthusiasm than others … judging from the results, at least.”

  “Oh, my! I see she knows you even better than I thought she did, you shameless hussy!” a beloved voice from the Gulf of Dohlar murmured in her ear.

  “Oh! Oh!” Irys shook her head. “Don’t you dare make me laugh … Lady Sahmantha!” she added a bit hastily.

  “Best thing for you, actually, Your Highness,” the Pasqualate sister standing beside her bed said pragmatically before anyone could notice the delay. “These youngsters have their own timetable. They’ll get here when they get here, and anything that helps you pass the time while we wait is worthwhile.”

  “I’m glad everybody else can be so … prosaic about this, Sister Kahrmyncetah,” Irys said a bit tartly. “It’s just a little more exhausting from my perspective.”

  “Of course it is.” Lady Sahmantha leaned closer to lay a cool hand
on Irys’ cheek. “As the Archangel Bédard said, ‘That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.’” The hand on Irys’ cheek stroked gently. “Trust me, you’ll never esteem these children ‘too lightly,’ Your Highness. I promise you.”

  “I know.” Irys reached out with the hand that wasn’t clutching Mairah Breygart’s. She gripped Countess Anvil Rock’s free hand tightly, and Rysel Gahrvai’s wife smiled down at her, the streaks of silver in her dark hair glinting in the steadily fading sunlight pouring through the chamber windows. “I know, and I’m so glad you’re here!”

  “I promised your mother I would be years ago, Irys. Just before she died, when we knew we were losing her. She’d be so proud of you, love. You and Daivyn both.”

  Tears welled in Irys’ eyes for just a moment as Sahmantha dropped the formality she normally observed since Irys’ return to Corisande, but then a fresh spasm went through her, and she grunted in pain and panted harder than ever.

  “You’re coming along exactly on schedule, Your Highness,” Sister Kahrmyncetah said reassuringly. “Trust me. You’re almost through transition now. I know it’s exhausting, but it always takes a little longer with twins, especially for a first-time mother, you know. Everything looks just fine so far.”

  Irys nodded, even as she panted, and her hazel eyes glowed with gratitude for the reassurance.

  The risk of complications with twins, she knew, was higher than with singleton births. Despite the deliberate limitations of the Holy Writ, however, the Order of Pasquale turned out superbly trained obstetricians and midwives. Pasqualate physicians might not know a thing about germ theory, but they knew all about the Book of Pasquale’s instructions for the consecration of hands and instruments with Pasquale’s Cleanser (otherwise known as carbolic acid), alcohol, and boiling water and they were well taught on every conceivable complication. They also knew how to abstract the natural antibiotic in fleming moss and scores of other effective drugs from dozens of Safeholdian plants, many of which had been carefully genegineered by Pei Shan-wei’s terraforming team for that very purpose. They even understood blood-typing and transfusions, and Pasqualate surgeons had at least as much knowledge of human anatomy as any pre-space doctor of Old Terra. There were still complications and conditions they couldn’t cure, simply because they lacked the tools, but however short of advanced technology Safehold might be, deaths in childbirth were extremely rare, and the infant mortality rate compared favorably with Old Terra’s mid-twentieth century. So when a Pasqualate midwife offered reassurance, she knew what she was talking about.

  In this particular Pasqualate midwife’s case, however, rather more than the Book of Pasquale was involved. Captain Chwaeriau was going to be very upset when she discovered Princess Irys had gone into labor less than ten hours after her own current undisclosed but undoubtedly important—and highly secret—errand had taken her away from Manchyr, yet Irys had accepted it philosophically. No doubt she missed the seijin assigned to watch over her brother and her—Nimue Chwaeriau had become at least a much a personal friend and member of her household as Mairah Breygart—but in this case, Sister Kahrmyncetah made a satisfactory substitute.

  No one seemed entirely certain where the sister had come from, and Lieutenant Hairahm Bahnystyr, the head of Irys’ personal protective detail, had made no secret of his initial qualms when she suddenly … turned up yesterday evening. It was obvious he would have felt much happier if Captain Chwaeriau had been there to vouch for her. Unfortunately, the captain hadn’t been available and he’d had to settle for a mere archbishop’s judgment.

  To be fair, while Klairmant Gairlyng might not be a seijin and highly trained armswoman, he was the senior prelate of the Church of Charis in Corisande. That gave him a certain authority in the eyes of even the most suspicious bodyguard. Despite that, Lieutenant Bahnystyr might have felt a bit less reassured if he’d known Archbishop Klairmant had never met Sister Kahrmyncetah until six hours before the two of them turned up at Manchyr Palace.

  By now, however, Gairlyng, like virtually everyone else in Corisande, realized there’d always been dozens of seijins working their hidden ways, discharging their hidden tasks, all about Safehold without anyone ever seeing them or, at least, recognizing them for what they were. Indeed, the archbishop had had rather more experience with seijins than most, and while Seijin Nimue hadn’t been around to introduce Sister Kahrmyncetah to Lieutenant Bahnystyr, she’d at least warned Gairlyng the Pasqualate was coming. And she’d made it clear, without ever quite coming out and saying so, that Sister Kahrmyncetah might also legitimately have been called Seijin Kahrmyncetah.

  Under the circumstances, Archbishop Klairmant had felt no qualms about introducing Sister Kahrmyncetah to Father Zhefry, Irys’ attending physician. And if the sandy-haired, Siddarmark-born Pasqualate under-priest cherished any suspicions of his own about Sister Kahrmyncetah’s origins, he’d kept them to himself. He’d cheerfully accepted her assistance, and it had quickly become evident that she was one of the finest midwives he’d ever encountered.

  Which I darned well should be, Sister Kahrmyncetah thought, touching Irys’ wrist lightly to monitor her pulse and respiration with an acuity even the best-trained, most experienced flesh-and-blood human being could never have equaled. Unlike Merlin’s, my high-speed data interface works just fine, and as good as the Pasqualates are, Owl’s medical files are a hell of a lot better! Irys’ pregnancy’s been almost textbook from the beginning, but no way is the inner circle taking any chances with this delivery!

  “She’s right, you know, sweetheart,” another voice said in Irys’ ear. “I think I had an easier labor with Alahnah than you’re having, but there was only one of her, for Heaven’s sake!” A soft, sympathetic chuckle came through the invisible earplug, and Irys smiled, despite the exhausting pangs of birth, as she listened to the voice only she and Sister Kahrmyncetah could hear. “I wish I could’ve stayed for this,” Empress Sharleyan went on, “but you’re doing wonderfully, and Sahmantha’s right about how proud your mother would be of you. Of how proud I am of you!”

  “I appreciate the encouragement,” she gasped—to Sharleyan, as well as those who were physically present—as the current contraction eased. She sagged back, breathing hard and soaked with sweat. “It’s just that no one warned me what hard work this was going to be!”

  “Oh, nonsense!” Lady Sahmantha chided with a chuckle of her own. She disengaged her hand from Irys’ grip to change the cool compress on the princess’ forehead. “We did so warn you! You just didn’t believe us.”

  “Did too!” Irys retorted, than grunted harshly as the next contraction hit. She panted hard, face tight with pain, and her fingers squeezed Lady Mairah’s hand like a vise.

  “You’re doing fine, love!” Sharleyan said in her ear.

  “She’s right, sweetheart,” Hektor agreed. “I’m so proud of you! Now just breathe!”

  “And remember not to push yet,” Sister Kahrmyncetah reminded her out loud. “I know you want to, but the babies aren’t quite ready for you to start that yet.”

  Irys nodded convulsively, and one of the Pasqualate lay sisters began lighting the chamber’s lamps as the sun dipped completely below the horizon beyond its windows.

  * * *

  “Damn, I wish I could be there!” Hektor complained on a channel Irys couldn’t hear. “I know I can’t, but—”

  He broke off, still sitting in the window, although the moon had long since disappeared. It wouldn’t be that many more minutes until dawn, he thought, and once the first rim of the sun showed itself, Mahlyk was going to turn up with the pot of cherrybean. And when he figured out his youthful captain had been sitting up all night staring out the stern windows, he was going to want to know why.

  “I guess I’ve said that a time or two already, haven’t I?” he said ruefully.

  “Just a time or two,” another voice agreed.

  “Well, I’ve only got another hour or two before Stywyrt starts knocking on the door. If the ba
bies haven’t put in an appearance by then.…” He shook his head.

  “Stywyrt Maklyk’s a very good man, Hektor!” Sharleyan scolded him. “And he’s not going to take any nonsense when it comes to bullying you into taking care of yourself, either.”

  “No, Mother, he isn’t,” he agreed, never taking his attention from the images of a bedchamber in Corisande, projected onto his contact lenses. “But that doesn’t mean he’s not going to be a dead pain in the arse if he drags me away just about the time Irys is giving birth. I could love him like a brother and still want to drop him overside with a roundshot for company if that happens!”

  Empress Sharleyan chuckled. It was late morning of the next day in Tellesberg, but the afternoon outside her chamber window was gray and overcast. A steady, drenching rain sifted down—not heavy, but with a patience that suggested it meant to linger for a while—and she sat gazing out those windows with a cup of hot chocolate cradled in her hands. The fresh smell of the rain blew in through the open window and Princess Alahnah lay sleeping peacefully on the rug at her feet, favorite blanket clutched in one small fist and surrounded by a landscape of blocks, stuffed animals, and picture books. A pot of chocolate stood on a small burner at Sharleyan’s elbow, beside a plate of sugared almond cookies, and she’d informed her staff—including Sairaih Hahlmyn—that she would be enjoying a quiet day with her daughter. She took “working” time to spend with Alahnah only very rarely, and that staff—especially Sairaih and Sergeant Edwyrd Seahamper—could be counted on to guard her privacy like zealous dragons when she did.

  It was deeply ironic, she thought, but it was actually far easier for one of the most powerful monarchs in the world to find a moment of privacy than it was for a mere navy lieutenant. Surely it should have been the other way around!

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

  “We’re all keeping an eye on her, you know,” she said now. “And I hope you know how much we all wish you could be there with her in the flesh.”