Zip was at his side before he had the torch pulled from the wall.
"Forking, loud fools," he snarled.
"Maybe we should give up our respective trades and build walls or unload barges for a living," Walegrin mused.
"Listen to them. They must be halfway into the square and you can still hear them! They'll get eaten alive."
The garrison commander raised one eyebrow. "Not while they're traveling in packs like that," he challenged. "You backed off quick enough."
And Zip stood silent. There were big men in Sanctuary. Tempus was about the biggest; Walegrin and his brother-in-law, Dubro, weren't exactly small-boned either. But, save for the Stepsons, the newcomers were the biggest, best-fed men Sanctuary had seen in a generation or more. Even if they were only common laborers, another man-a native man like Zip -would have to think seriously before bothering them.
"They're ruining the town," the PFLS leader said finally.
"Because they work for their bread? Because they pay fairly for what they need and save to bring their families here to live with them?" Masha interjected. "I thought you were bringing me down here to see a woman."
With a half-glance back toward the square, where the newcomers were still singing. Zip grabbed the torch from Wale-grin's hands and plunged into the Shambles backways.
The safe-house was ominously quiet as Zip doused the torch and led the way to the deeply shadowed stairway. He stopped short in the doorway to the upper room; Walegrin bumped into him. The girl was still lying in the comer silent and motionless. Her young lover squatted beside her, his face shiny with unmanly tears. The garrison commander scarcely noticed as Masha shoved him aside. Her movements did not interrupt the invective he privately directed to such gods and goddesses as should have taken a care in these matters. Like many fighting men, Walegrin could understand the sudden death that came on the edge of a weapon but he had no tolerance for the simpler sorts of dying that claimed ordinary mortals.
He watched, and was faintly curious, as Masha took a glass hom from her kit and, with the solid stem of it to her ear and its open bell against the girl's skin, performed a swift, but precise, examination.
"Get the torch over here!" she commanded. "She's still breathing; there's hope, at least, for the babe."
None of the men responded. She stood up and grabbed the nearest, the young man who had been crying.
"There's hope for your child, you fool!" She shook his tunic as she spoke and a glimmer of life returned to his eyes. "Find a basin. Make a fire and boil me some water."
"I... we have nothing but this." The young man gestured at the crudely furnished room.
"Well, find a basin... and clean rags while you're about it."
The young man looked at Zip, who stared blankly back at him.
"Your fish-eye, Muznut-next door," Walegrin suggested. "He'll have all that, won't he? Even the rags, I imagine."
Zip's face twisted unpleasantly for a moment, then, with a sigh, he turned back to the stairway, and the warehouse. The other men followed.
Masha hung her delicate shawl over a huge splinter in one of the wall beams and began unlacing her gown. There was messy work to be done and no sense to ruining her own clothing as well. She tore off the bottom panel of her shift and used one strip to bind her already dripping hair away from her face. With the rest she mopped up as much of the blood as she could and plotted the tasks before her.
They built a fire in the courtyard using some of Muznut's fine charcoal and such bumable rubble as was scattered about. The flames turned the ruined gardens into an inferno but the men stayed close by the fire, returning to the upper room only when Masha demanded fresh water or cloths. They said nothing to each other, choosing positions within the courtyard that allowed a clear view of the midwife's flickering shadow and yet shielded them from each other's casual glance.
Toward dawn the bats returned to their normally deserted lairs, their shrill peeps echoing off the walls and the men themselves as they protested the occupation of their homes. The day-birds took flight as well and the small square of sky above them turned a dirty gray that betokened another round of oppressive heat. Walegrin wanted a beaker of ale and the limited comfort of his officer's quarters in the palace wall, but he remained, rubbing his eyes and waiting until Masha was through.
"Arbold!" she called from the window.
The young man looked up. "Water?" he asked, giving the neglected fire a prod.
"No, just you."
He headed into the house. Walegrin and Zip exchanged glances before following him. Masha had expected them and was at the doorway to block their entrance.
"They've only got a few moments," she said softly.
The midwife had washed the new mother's face, smoothed her hair, and surrounded her with the last of Muznut's fine-woven fuse-cloth. Her eyes were bright and she was smiling at both her swaddled child and her lover. But her lips were ashen and her skin had a milky translucence in the dawn light. The men in the doorway knew Masha was right.
"The baby?" Zip whispered.
"A girl child," Masha replied. "Her leg is twisted now, but that may come right with time."
"If she has-" Walegrin began.
A final spasm racked the girl's body. A red stain spread swiftly across the cloth as she closed her eyes and gasped one more time. The child she had cradled with her waning strength slipped through her limp arms toward the floor; Arbold was too stunned to catch it.
"It killed her," he explained, his hands balled into fists at his sides, when Masha tried to place the infant in his arms. "It froggin' killed her!" His voice ascended to screaming rage.
The infant, which had been sleeping, awoke with the short-breathed cries peculiar to the just-bom. Masha held her protectively against her own breast as the young man's rant-ings showed no sign of abating.
"Killed her!" she shouted back. "How should an innocent child be held accountable for the chances of its birth? Let the blame, if there is any, fall on those fit to carry it. On those who left her mother here without care for three endless days. On the one who fathered her in the first place!"
But Arbold was in no mood to consider his own part in his lover's death. His rage shifted from the infant to Masha and Zip moved swiftly across the room to restrain his comrade.
"Is there one you trust to care for this child?" Masha asked Zip. "A mother? A sister, perhaps?"
For a heartbeat it seemed there might be two irrational men in the cramped, death-ridden room, then Zip emitted a short, bitter laugh. "No," he answered simply. "She was the last. No one's left."
Masha continued to hold the infant tightly, rocking from side to side across her hips like an animal searching for a bolthole. "What then?" she whispered, mostly to herself. "She needs a home. A wetnurse-"
Walegrin chose that moment to step between them. He looked down at the infant. Its hands were red and impossibly small-scarcely able to circle his forefinger; its face was dark-mottled as if it had taken a beating just in entering this life-which it probably had.
"I'll take her with me," Masha concluded, daring Zip or Arbold to challenge her.
"No," Walegrin said-and they all stared at him in surprise.