"Is the garrison commandeering babes-in-arms now?" Zip sneered.
The blond man shrugged. "Her mother's dead; her father refuses to acknowledge her: That makes her a ward of the state-unless you're thinking of raising her yourself."
Zip looked away.
"Now, Mistress zil-Ineel's an upstanding woman-but she's raised her own children and's not eager to raise another."
His ice-green eyes bore down on the midwife until she, too, looked away.
"I know a woman whose children have been taken from her. You know her too. Zip know her very well."
"Gods. No." Zip inhaled the words so they were barely audible.
"You'd gainsay me?" Walegrin's voice was as cold as his eyes.
"What? Who?" Arbold interrupted.
"The S'danzo. The one in the alley. You remember: the pillar of fire and the riots afterward?" Zip replied quickly, never taking his eyes away from Walegrin, whose hand rested on the exposed hilt of the only sword in the room.
"What would a S'danzo want-" the young man began.
"You'd gainsay me. Zip, now or ever?" Walegrin repeated.
The PFLS leader shook his head and extended an arm across Arbold's chest, pre empting any untoward response from that comer.
"Say goodbye to your daughter, pud," Walegrin commanded, lifting his hand from the sword-hilt and fumbling through his belt pouch instead. "This is for you," he dropped a silver coin in Masha's hand, "for the birth of a healthy child. And this is for her," he gestured to the dead woman before dropping similar coins in Zip's palm, "to buy a shroud and see her properly buried beyond the walls."
His hands were empty now; he reached out for the infant. Masha had already assessed his determination and placed the squirming bundle gently in the crook of his off-weapon arm.
"Shipri bless you," she whispered, pressing her thumb against the child's forehead so it left a white mark when she lifted it, then she spun her shawl off the splinter and tucked her leather chest under one arm. "I'm ready," she told Walegrin.
They left before the two piffles could say another word. Walegrin was more nervous about dropping the child than about having Zip at his back. He could feel it struggling against the bands of cloth and the awkwardness with which he held it. Once they had clambered through the courtyard and warehouse to the Wideway, he offered to swap burdens with the midwife.
"Never held a hungry newbom before?" Masha guessed as she settled the infant under her breast. Her companion grunted a noncommital reply. "I certainly hope you know what you're doing. Not every man's mistress is eager to take a foundling."
Walegrin adjusted the sweaty hair under his circlet and glanced at the rising sun. "We're taking the child to my half-sister in the Bazaar. Illyra the seeress-her own child was slain and she took Zip's ax in her belly in the fire riots last winter. And I have no idea if she'll want to keep it at all."
"You are a bold one," she aveired, shaking her head in amazement.
The heat was affecting the Bazaar as it affected the rest of the city. Most of the daily stalls were shuttered or deserted and the vendors who made their homes in the dust-choked plaza were standing idly by their wares, making little effort to confront potential customers. Lassitude had even touched Illyra's husband, Dubro. The forge was still banked although the sun was well above the harbor wall.
The smith saw them coming, took another bite of cheese, then came forward to meet them. The months since Illyra's injury had seen a mellowing of the uneasy relationship between the two men. Dubro, who blamed his half-brother-in-law not only for the absence of his son but for all the flaws of the Rankan Empire, had been forced to admit that Walegrin had done all any man could do to save his wife and daughter. He missed his son, mourned his daughter, but knew that he cherished Illyra above all else. He greeted Walegrin and Masha with a puzzled smile.
"Is Illyra about?" Walegrin asked.
"Abed, still. She sleeps poorly in this heat."
"Will she see us?"
Dubro shrugged and ducked under the lintel of his home. Illyra emerged moments later, squinting against the sun and looking nearly twice her natural age.
"You said you were patrolling nights until this heat broke."
"I was."
He explained the night's events to her-at least those that accounted for his presence with a midwife and infant. He said nothing about his conversation with Kama or the anger that had swept over him when he saw the newbom girl's life being bartered among unwilling patrons. Illyra listened politely but made no move to take the infant from Masha's arms.
"I'm no wetnurse. I can't care for the child, Walegrin. I tire too quickly now, and even if I didn't-I'd look at her and see Lillis."
"I know that; that's why I've brought her," her half-brother explained, with a sincere tactlessness that brought fire to Dubro's eyes and a sigh through Masha's lips.
"How could you?"
They were all staring at him. "Because her mother's dead in some stinking room in Shambles Cross and no one wanted her. She didn't ask to be born any more than Arton asked to become a god or Lillis asked to die."
"No other baby can replace my daughter, don't you understand that? I can't take her in my arms and tell myself that all's well with the world again. It isn't. It won't ever be."
The elegance and simplicity of logic that had allowed him to face down Zip and the child's father ceased to support Walegrin as he stared back at his half sister's face. Words themselves failed him as well and a crimson flush spread quickly from his shoulders to his forehead. In desperation he grabbed the infant himself and thrust it into her arms as if physical contact and the sheer force of his will would be sufficient.
"No, Walegrin," she protested softly, resisting the burden but not backing away from it. "You can't ask this of me."
"I'm the only one stupid enough to ask it of you, Illyra. You need a child, Illyra. You need to watch someone laugh and grow. Gods know it should have been your own children and not this one...." He turned to Dubro. "Tell her. Tell her this mourning's killing her. Tell her it's not good for any of us when she doesn't care about anything."
So it was that Dubro, after a long moment's hesitation, put his arms under Illyra's to support the child. The girl child did not immediately stop struggling within her swaddling nor did the oppressive weather vanish, but, after she sighed, Illyra did smile at the infant and it opened its blue-gray eyes and smiled back at her.
SPELLMASTER by Andrew Offutt and Jodie Offutt
Wear weapons openly and try to look mean. People see the weapons and believe the look and you don't have to use them.
-CUDGET SWEAROATH
One thing led to another and swords came scraping out of their sheaths. Fulcris knew he was in trouble. The two men facing him with sharp steel in their fists had left the caravan yesterday afternoon when it halted here, just outside Sanctuary. They had gone on down into the town for a little of the partying he had denied them en route from Aurvesh. Now, just after midday, they'd come the short distance back out here to the encampment. Looking for trouble.
Fulcris wasn't the sort to pretend not to see them and be somewhere else, however wise that would have been. They had obviously been drinking their lunch. That was bad; these two, still cocky adolescents at thirty or so, were mean as sat-on spiders to begin with.
He spoke quietly and calmly and everything he told them was true. They chose not to accept any of it. Furthermore, they chose to push it. All three men knew that part of the reason was the sword-arm of caravan guard Fulcris. Only a few days ago he had taken a wound, high up near the shoulder. It still bothered him. The arm and its muscle were weakened, a little stiff. That made him a good man for two men to pick a fight with. Or a good victim.