Out of the Darkness

She stepped toward him at the same time as he was stepping toward her. When they embraced, the top of her head didn’t come much past his shoulder. That sometimes bothered her. Today, it didn’t seem to matter.

It mattered even less when they lay down together. Pekka wondered if she would, if she could, take any pleasure. She wouldn’t have worried if she hadn’t; sometimes having arms around her was enough. But Fernao took his time and paid what seemed like special attention to her. The only thing that could have kept her from eventually arching her back and moaning was. . . She couldn’t imagine anything that could have. Certainly, nothing did.

As she lay with her legs entwined with his, she wondered how much that truly mattered. Well,

she thought, lazy in the afterglow, it can’t hurt.

All around Krasta, the servants at the mansion bustled like so many scurrying ants, getting the place ready for her brother’s marriage to the horrible, bloodthirsty peasant wench with whom he’d unaccountably become infatuated. That was how Krasta looked at the match, at any rate, and nothing was going to make her change her mind. Hardly anything ever made her change her mind.

A wedding invitation wouldn’t have done it. She was sure of that. It didn’t matter, though; no invitation had been forthcoming. Skarnu and Merkela expected her to stay in her bedchamber by herself while they celebrated. They had their nerve, as far as she was concerned.

Worst of all was that they would probably get what they expected. Had she not been enormously pregnant, she might well have done her best to interrupt, to upstage, the ceremony she so despised. Being about the size of a behemoth, though, did put a crimp in such plans. All she wanted to do was have the baby and get it over with. She’d been feeling that way for most of the past month.

Even Bauska was pressed into the service of Skarnu and Merkela, which infuriated Krasta afresh. Her maidservant did show her a little sympathy when she had time to make an appearance, saying, “Oh, aye, milady, before I finally had Brindza, I would have paid anything to get her the blazes out of there.”

“I should say so,” Krasta exclaimed. She rested her hands on her enormous belly; her arms seemed too short to go round herself, though of course they weren’t. And she had something else on her mind, too, something Bauska couldn’t have dwelt upon: “And once this baby finally comes out, everyone will see it’s a proper little blond, not some nasty Algarvian’s bastard.”

Bauska’s mouth tightened. She left, even though Krasta hadn’t told her she could. Krasta snarled something vile under her breath. To her way of thinking, having a normal, Valmieran-looking baby would automatically wash her clean of all the times she’d opened her legs for Colonel Lurcanio. Anyone would be able to look at the child and see at a glance that, when it really mattered, she’d lain with one of her own countrymen--and a nobleman to boot.

Her womb had been tightening every so often for some weeks. She’d got used to it, though she found it annoying--it squeezed on the baby, which was uncomfortable to her, and it evidently made the baby uncomfortable, too, for the little brat always did some extra thrashing and wiggling after things eased up. Krasta didn’t like that, either; by now, the baby was big enough to kick and poke hard, and didn’t care what tender parts of her it abused in the process.

Three days before her brother’s wedding, the labor pains started in earnest. They were rhythmic, they were regular, and they were much more irksome than any pangs she’d known before. She cursed before calling for Bauska. She’d hoped the baby would wait till the middle of the marriage ceremony. If she’d started screaming for a midwife then, that

would have taken everybody’s mind off the catastrophe befalling her family.

But no such luck. When she became convinced these pains weren’t going away, she shouted for Bauska. Her maidservant took her own sweet time getting there. When she did, Krasta demanded, “What was the name of that woman?”

“What woman, milady?” Bauska asked. Krasta had another pang then, and clenched her teeth against it. That told Bauska everything she needed to know. “Oh, the midwife,” she said. “She’s called Kudirka. Shall I have her summoned?”

“No, of course not,” Krasta snapped. “I just wanted to know her name for no reason at all.” And then, in case the maidservant was a fool or felt like pretending to be one, she made herself perfectly clear: “Aye, fetch her. This is going to be over, and I am going to show everybody what the truth is.”

Bauska didn’t answer that. She went away, which satisfied Krasta well enough. Presently, the carriage clattered down the walk and away from the mansion. After what was about an hour and seemed much longer, it came rattling back. By then, Krasta’s labor pains had advanced to the point where she hardly noticed its return.