Kari watched his hands tighten around the mug he was holding. There was something else going on behind those blue eyes, something too painful to share. She reached to stroke his cheek.
"Then keep good watch over him, Alec. You two share the same blood. Perhaps in his sadness he's forgotten that."
Alec sighed heavily. "He's forgotten more than that. The day he found me again in Plenimar, something happened, but now he won't—" Kari flinched suddenly as a sharp stab of pain lanced down one leg.
"What it is?" he asked, concerned.
Kari gasped through her teeth again, then grasped his arm to raise herself. "It's only the eight-month pains. A walk in the meadow will ease them and we can keep talking." The pain passed and she gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't look so worried. It's just the Maker's way of preparing me for the birth. You know, I've got a craving for some of that new cheese. Run and fetch us a bit from the dairy, would you?"
"Are you sure? I don't like to leave you."
"Maker's Mercy, Alec, I was bearing children before you were even thought of. Go on, now." Pressing her fists into the small of her back, she went outside by the kitchen door so as not to waken the servants still sleeping in the hall.
Alec was halfway to the dairy before he realized he'd forgotten to bring a dish for the fresh curds.
By the time he found one, Kari was already out of sight around the corner of the house. Going around to the courtyard, however, he saw that the postern was still barred.
A deep groan came from behind him, and he turned to find Kari sagging against the stone watering trough near the stable. Her face was white, and the front of her shift was wet to the hem.
"Oh, Dalna!" he gasped, dropping the cheese as he hurried to her. "Is it the baby? Is it coming now?"
"Too early and too fast! I should have realized—"
Kari grabbed his arm, digging her fingers painfully into his wrist as another spasm took her.
She was a tall woman and too heavy with child for him to carry. Getting an arm around her waist, he supported her as best he could to the front door.
It was still barred and he kicked at it, shouting for help.
The door opened at last. Elsbet and several servants helped bring her inside.
Beyond them, Micum limped from his bedchamber. "What is it?" he demanded anxiously, catching sight of Kari in the midst of the commotion.
"It's the baby," Alec told him.
"I'll go for a midwife!" Seregil offered, halfway to the door already.
"No time," Kari gasped. "My women can help me. We've delivered a whole house full of babies between us. Stay with Micum, you and Alec both. I want you with him! Elsbet, Illia, come to me!"
Arna and the other woman helped their mistress into her chamber and closed the door firmly, leaving the men stranded in the hall.
"She's not so young as she was," Micum said, lowering himself shakily down into a chair by the fire. Kari let out a cry of pain in the next room and he went pale.
"She'll be all right," Seregil told him, although he was looking a bit green himself. "And it's not so early for the child. She was due in the next few weeks anyway."
They sat exchanging uneasy glances as her cries echoed through the house. Servants drifted in and out, listening nervously. Even the hounds refused to be put out and lay whining at their feet. At last Seregil fetched his harp and played to soothe them all.
A final straining groan rang out just before noon, followed by a thin wail and exclamations of delight from the women. Micum pushed himself up as old Arna emerged beaming from the birthing room.
"Oh, Master Micum!" she cried, wiping her hands on a towel. "He's the sweetest little redheaded mite you ever saw. And strong, too, for an early babe. He's sucking already, nice as you please. It was Dalna's own mercy she brought him out early or she'd have had a worse time of it than she did, poor lamb. Give us a moment to clear up the bed and then come in, all of you. She wants you all!"
"A son!" shouted Micum, wrapping his arms around his friends" shoulders. "A son, by the Four!"
"He's all wrinkled up and red and covered in muck!" squealed Illia, bounding out to hug him.
"And he has red hair like you and Beka. Come and see. Mother's so happy!"
Kari lay tucked up in the wide bed with a tiny bundle laid to her breast. To Alec, the least experienced in such matters, she looked dreadful, as if she'd been ill, but the serene smile she greeted him with belied it.
Micum kissed her, then took the child in his arms.
"He's as lovely and strong as all the others," he whispered huskily, gazing down into the wizened little face beneath the damp shock of coppery hair. "Come on, you two, and greet my son."
"I'm so glad you were there this morning, Alec." Kari reached for his hand and laughed. "You should have seen your face, though."
Seregil peered over Micum's shoulder for a better look at the child, and Alec saw a smile of genuine pleasure soften his friend's drawn features for the first time in months.
"What will you call him?" Seregil asked. "We'd thought to call him Bornil, after my father,"
Kari replied, "but looking at him now, it doesn't seem to fit. What do you think, Micum?"
He laughed and shook his head. "I'm too fuddled to think."
Kari looked up at Seregil, who was still smiling down at the child. "Then perhaps you can help us again, as you did with Illia. As the oldest and dearest friend of this family, help us name our son."
Micum handed the baby to Seregil. Gazing at him thoughtfully, he said, "Gherin, I think, if you'd have another Aurenfaie name in the family."
"Gherin?" Kari tried the sound of it. "I like that. What does it mean?"
"Early blessing," was Seregil replied quietly.
Thank the Maker, Alec thought gratefully, watching Seregil with the child.
That's the most peaceful I've seen him since we got back. Maybe his spirit is finally healing after all.
A warm night breeze sighed in through the open window.
The sound of it seemed to echo Seregil's inner loneliness.
It was ironic, really. The first time he and Alec had stayed in this room, Alec had kept stiffly to his side of the bed; these past weeks Seregil often woke to find him lying close beside him, as he was now. Alec had thrown one arm across Seregil's chest, his breath soft at his bare shoulder.
Why can't I feel anything?
Lying there in the moonlight, Seregil stroked Alec's fair hair and summoned the memory of the kiss they'd shared that day in Plenimar.
Even that had been sucked pale and flat.
Since Nysander's death all his emotions seemed to have fled to a distance, felt dimly, as if through a pane of thick glass.
It was too late now, too late for anything. He was too empty. Covering Alec's hand with his own, he watched the stars wheel toward morning, thinking of Gherin.
His mind had ranged far these last weeks, turning round and round on itself as he struggled to reach some decision that would bring him peace. Looking down into the face of Micum's tiny new son today, he'd suddenly felt that the sign he'd been waiting for had been given at last. With this last thread of the past tied off, he could go.
An hour before dawn, he slipped out of bed and pulled on his clothes. Throwing his old pack over one shoulder, he took a small bundle from its hiding place behind the wardrobe, then closed the shutters to keep out the morning light. Alec mustn't waken until he was well away from here.
Moving with his natural silence past the sleeping servants in the hall, he went to Micum's chamber. A night lamp still burned there, and by its light he watched his old companion sleeping so peacefully in his wife's arms. Micum was home.