“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“There is no need for you to apologize, Lord Regent. Perhaps I could have a courier sent when she is more herself? Or if there is something I can do to be of service?”
“No, that’s fine. I was only stopping by on a whim. Casual. Between friends.”
“Of course,” Lady Skestinin said, her hands clasped tightly before her like a singer about to begin a performance. Geder nodded, unsure what to say. He wished Basrahip were with him.
“I’ll just… I’ll just see myself out,” Geder said.
“Do let me walk with you,” she said. From the drawing room to the door, neither said anything. Geder bowed a bit when he left her at the door, but he didn’t know what words to say, and she didn’t offer any. He walked down the steps to his palanquin slowly, his brow furrowed. His head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton ticking. Something was bothering him, but he didn’t know what it could be. It wasn’t as though Lady Skestinin had been rude to him. If anything, by arriving uninvited and unannounced, he’d been the rude one. Except it hardly seemed to be a serious offense. Friends stopped by to visit with each other all the time. And he was the Lord Regent, after all. And Sabiha could at least have sent a note instead of her mother…
He paused with one foot in the palanquin and looked back. The footmen stood with a formal stiffness. The door slave sat, his head bent and his hand on his chain. Something wasn’t right. Geder motioned to the captain of his guard.
“I’m going back,” he said. “I need to see Sabiha.”
“My lord,” the captain said and gestured for the others to follow them.
The door slave’s smile was tight and anxious as Geder walked back up the steps.
“I need to see Sabiha Kalliam,” Geder said.
“I will call for Lady Skestinin again, my lord, if you—”
“No. No, I need to see Sabiha,” Geder said, his tone growing harder. “Why can’t I just see her?”
“She is… she is with the cunning man, my lord.”
“Oh,” Geder said. And then a moment later, dread blooming in his chest. “Why?”
The solarium was filled with light. Darkness might have been better. Sabiha Kalliam lay on the cunning man’s table. Her sweat-soaked nightgown clung to her, and her face was the color of clay. The swollen arch of her belly looked huge, but Geder hadn’t spent enough time around women in the last days of their pregnancies to know if it was alarming or normal. Everything else about her seemed like a sign of panic, so maybe it was too large somehow. He couldn’t imagine that it could be too small. The cunning man stood with his hands over her belly, his thin fingers glowing with something that was not quite light. He was an old Firstblood man with scars on his face and arms and white hair that swept up and back from his temples like he was always facing into a stiff wind.
Geder must have gasped, because Sabiha turned her head toward him. Her eyes were glassy and flat. When she saw him, there was no flicker of recognition. Geder’s heart thudded in his chest and he stepped forward like he was moving into a nightmare. Sabiha’s eyes tracked him, but he didn’t have the sense that she saw him. Not really.
The cunning man slumped, put his hands on the table, and looked up. Sweat dripped off him like he’d sprinted through the whole city. He nodded to Geder and spoke between gasps.
“Lord Regent. How can I. Help you?”
“I came to see Sabiha,” Geder said, his voice small. It struck him how inane the statement was. “Is she… all right?”
“I will not lie to you. She is not well,” the cunning man said. “And the baby within her is struggling.”
“It’s because of the first one,” Lady Skestinin said from behind him. Geder turned to her. The older woman’s face was a blank. All emotion was gone from it but a deep terror. “She had the first baby. The wrong one. And it’s poisoned her.”
“No,” Geder said. “That’s not right. It doesn’t work that way. I mean… does it?”
“I cannot speak to what happened before,” the cunning man said. “For now, I am doing everything that can be done.”
“No,” Geder said. “No, you aren’t. We can do more. We’ll do more. Captain! Get Basrahip. And my cunning man. All the physicians.”
“Your personal physicians?” the captain asked.
“Yes,” Geder said. “Why are you still here?”
The captain nodded once so deeply it was almost a bow, then turned and ran from the room. Geder took Sabiha’s hand. It was cold and damp.
“It’s fate,” Lady Skestinin said, her voice breaking on the words. “It’s the punishment that’s come for the first one. It is the price of her sins.” A tear dropped from Sabiha’s eye, tracking back to her hairline.
“No,” Geder said. “It isn’t. It’s just she’s sick and needs help.”
“She was unchaste,” Lady Skestinin said, tears flowing down her cheeks. “My poor baby’s going to die because she was unchaste.”
“What are you talking about?” Geder snapped. “People are unchaste all the time. This doesn’t happen to them. Guard! See Lady Skestinin to her drawing room. Get her some… I don’t know. Wine. Read poetry to her.”
“My lord, our duty is to guard you.”
“Don’t fucking tell me what your duty is. I tell you. I tell you what your duty is. You do as I say.”
“Lord Regent,” the cunning man said. “It might be better not to shout.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Sabiha, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be loud.”
Behind them, Lady Skestinin’s cries and wails receded. Sabiha blinked slowly, her eyelids clicking audibly when they opened. Geder was still holding her hand. The cunning man’s smile was exahsuted. “My thanks, Lord Regent.”
“How long has she been like that?”
“Lady Kalliam or Lady Skestinin, do you mean? The young lady became ill last evening. I have been here since they called me. The older lady… well. Grief makes the best of us mad.”
“No no no,” Geder said, fear rising in him, clutching at his chest. “No grief. This is Jorey’s baby. This is Sabiha. There can’t be grief.”
“As you say, my lord,” the cunning man said, then spread his hands across her belly and closed his eyes. The not-light began flickering again. Geder squatted beside the table, holding her hand because it was all he could do.
It felt like hours before his physicians arrived. There were four of them, two Firstblood women who looked as if they could be mother and daughter, a Yemmu man with his tusks carved in intricate patterns, and a Kurtadam man so ancient and stooped his pelt was grey with a few strands of rust red still showing here and there. They came through the doorway behind Geder, nodded to him, and turned to Sabiha. Her eyes seemed a little less distant now, but she still hadn’t spoken. The Yemmu man gently pulled the original cunning man aside, and began a rough-syllabled chant of his own. The older woman took a silver box from her waist, opened it, and began drawing white symbols on Sabiha’s forehead and hands. The smell of honey and marigolds filled the room.
“It’s going to be all right,” Geder said softly. “You’re going to be fine.” Sabiha turned to him, as if seeing him for the first time. Her eyes went wide and her mouth twisted into a mask of disgust. Who knew what she was seeing now? He smiled reassuringly. “It’s all right. It’s me. Geder. I’ve come to help.”
“Jorey—”
“It’ll be all right,” Geder said, and the younger woman pulled up Sabiha’s dress, exposing her thighs and hips and distended belly. Geder felt himself getting lightheaded. His gorge rose, and he looked away. “It’ll be…” He swallowed. “It’ll be all right.”