On the far side of the room, Illy said, “She’s a slave! He didn’t marry her!”
Paula raised her head. The furniture hid her from the other women.
“No,” Boltiko said. “But he says we’re supposed to treat her like a wife.”
“She’s ugly. He’ll get tired of her. He’ll sell her.”
“Sssh, she’ll hear you.”
Paula was behind a chair. She leaned against it, staying out of their sight. Illy said, “She’s gone.”
“If you ask me,” Boltiko said, “he’s already tired of her—he just feels responsible for getting her that way.” Her skirts swished. She and Illy went to the door into the hall. “That’s all the more reason to be nice to her.”
“At least he didn’t marry her.”
They left, and Paula let them get down the hall before she followed. The baby rolled up in her body anchored her down. Her back hurt. Slowly she waddled back toward the kitchen.
Boltiko was putting covered dishes on a tray. Illy sat in one of the big chairs inspecting her beautiful hands. Paula lowered her eyes. For a moment she hated them both; she burned to say something to wither them. She climbed up into the chair beside Illy’s.
“Pedasen,” Boltiko called, out the back door.
A dark man came in from the yard. He wore a loose white quilted tunic. For an instant he and Paula stared at each other. He was of her race, with Tony’s coloring, and he had pale eyes like Tony’s. Boltiko tapped the tray.
“Take this to the Akellar. See I get all the dishes back this very watch.”
“Yes, mem.” His voice was satiny. He kept his eyes away from Paula and took the tray out. Paula watched him go.
“Pedasen will help you fix your house,” Boltiko said.
“He isn’t—” Paula wet her lips. “I don’t want him.”
Illy giggled. “He is an it.”
The nerves crawled in the backs of Paula’s hands. She sat rigid in the chair that did not fit her, that held her far away from the table. That was why Pedasen’s voice was so smooth: he had been gelded. The two women talked about things she did not understand, in words she did not know. She closed her eyes.
When she had been there long enough to have her walking strength back, she told Saba she wanted to go out, to look at the city. He refused. They were sitting on the swing couch in her front room, reading through the trade contract, and she let him go on two or three paragraphs before she said, “When can I go out?”
“The street is no place for a woman. If you want something, send a slave for it. On this bond, here—” he tapped the page, “I wanted you to make that forfeit if they break the law, remember?”
“That’s the next paragraph.”
He read the next paragraph. She watched his face. The baby was kicking her hard up under the ribs. The baby’s father sat back, holding out the page to her.
“You’ve spelled it out too much—I want it vague, so I can get rid of somebody I don’t like.”
Their eyes met. She said, “Do you think I’m going to stay locked up in here the whole ten years?”
“Boltiko and Illy never go out.” He put the contract on her lap. “Finish the contracts and I’ll talk to you about things like that.”
Paula grunted at him. She reached for the thirty close-printed pages of the contract. “I’m getting bored. Sril could go with me.”
“I just told you. I won’t discuss it until you finish the contract. And if you try to sneak out, I’ll use my belt on you.”
She threw the contract onto his lap, slid off the couch, and went down the hall to her bedroom. She heard him go out of the house through the front door.
When she went into labor, Boltiko called the midwives. Paula lay in her bed, wrapped in a heavy blanket. The women held her hands and stroked her hair back. There were three of them, all very old: one was slave, but the other two were Styth. The pain made her whimper and bite her lips. She clung to the slavewoman’s hands, afraid.
Saba came in. He had been away in the city. The woman moved back and he sat on the bed beside her and put his hands on her body.
“Does it hurt?”
She nodded; she could not talk.
“It’s supposed to hurt. Don’t be frightened. I’ll be in the next room.” He left.
She shut her eyes. The women moistened her lips with a sponge. They murmured to her, crooning, and sang her songs and said little charms. When she curled up they made her lie straight. A bell rang. The low watch had begun. She panted, trying to catch her breath. Her body knotted around the baby. She screamed, and Saba came in again.
“Akellar,” a woman said. “She is too small. We have to open her.”
He leaned over her, one hand on her belly. “No. It’s moving. Let her kick. She’ll get it out.” He stroked her face. “Don’t worry, Paula. They think every birth is the first.”
She closed her eyes, terrified. She clutched his fingers but he disengaged himself and went out of the room. She lay in a web of pain. The baby was tearing her apart. She heard two bells ring. Her throat was raw from screeching, she was so tired she could only moan.
“She is too small. She’ll die if we don’t cut her open and take it that way. The baby will die.”
Saba had come in again. Dopey with pain, she had not noticed him, and she could not care. He handled her. “No. Give her time. It’s a big baby. She’s getting it out.”
The pain was blinding. She lay in its grip for two watches more. At last David was born. The women took the howling baby away. Paula lay in a dazed feverish half-dream, blood pooling under her hips.
“You can’t bring a strange man in here,” Boltiko said.
Saba lifted the blankets off Paula’s body. “She trusts me. I have to do something.”
“It’s disgusting. Hasn’t she suffered enough?”
“Get out if you don’t like it.”
Paula’s mouth and throat were papery dry. Her strength was gone. She could barely turn her head. She wondered where the baby was. A man she had never seen before sat down on the bed beside her.
“There,” Saba said. “Over her womb.” He threw the blankets back. She whimpered in the cold.
“Saba—” The stranger bit his lip. “I—”
“Damn you, she’s bleeding to death,” Saba got the man’s hand by the wrist and slapped his palm down on Paula’s belly. She shut her eyes. She was cold. Saba pulled her legs out flat on the bed, her feet apart.
“Mikka. Let off, let me see what happens.”
The hand left her belly. Saba said, “She’s bleeding like a river. Here.” The cool hand fell on her body again. Saba was bending over her, between her legs. She saw him in a mist. She could not breathe deep enough to fill her lungs.
“Massage her. Rub her, hard.” He stooped over her and rammed his fist up through the torn channel of her body into her womb and put his free hand over the other man’s.
She cried out. The deep pain burned like salt. He squeezed her into another hard contraction.
“Good girl. That’s a good girl. One more.”
He massaged her, his arm buried in her halfway to the elbow. “Come on, girl, damn it, break the law and live.” She whined. Her body clenched. He drew his hand out of her. “Good. Good.” Her womb tightened again of itself, and she whimpered.
“I’m cold.”
“A little longer,” he said. “Just a little longer and you can rest.” He was sitting on the bed between her spread legs. In his hand was a tool with jaws, like a staple gun. “Don’t worry. I’ve clipped together men with wounds a lot worse than this. Mikka, stay there.”
The stranger stared off in the opposite direction. His hand was spread over the soft empty hill of her belly. She shivered in spasms, in fits. Distinctly she felt the grip of the stapler in her skin. The tool clicked steadily. She was too tired to cry. Finally he put her legs together.