Gatefather (32 page)

When Prayard arrived, he had men-at-arms with him—the women had told him of the strange man, as well as Bexoi's sudden appearance in the midst of her travail.

“He came because I called for him!” cried Anonoei the moment Prayard came in. “Now come, husband! Help me deliver our child!”

“Frostinch!” Only in that moment did Prayard realize who the intruder was.

“Let this baby be born of cooperation between Gray and Iceway!” shouted Anonoei. “Let me say that my husband and my nephew both helped me bring forth this child of both nations!”

Then Anonoei raised a cry of pitiful agony and, on cue, she felt the baby begin to push down, felt her own muscles contract. Labor was beginning in earnest. Wad was coming through for her. Either that or Bexoi's body was unusually susceptible to suggestion.

Prayard gingerly came and took his place beside Frostinch. “What do I do?” he asked.

“I have no more idea than you,” said Frostinch. “She asked me to help brace her legs.”

“Then I'll take this leg,” said Prayard.

“Yes!” cried Anonoei.

The midwife came in, all a-bustle. “What are men doing inside this place!”

“I command it!” cried Anonoei, and the midwife had no more power to resist her than the two rulers did. “And let the men-at-arms be witnesses, that the king and the jarl both held me as the boy came forth!”

The midwife pushed her way between the men. “If the baby dies, it's not my fault,” she muttered to them.

But neither man faltered in his resolution to do what Bexoi—as they thought—demanded.

It was such a swift and easy birth. The boy was healthy and didn't have the scrawny, dwarfish look of one born too soon. The midwife was preparing to tie off the cord, but Anonoei cried out. “No! Prayard will tie the cord, and Frostinch will cut it! Let Gray cut the bondage that Iceway has been held in, and give us our freedom!”

Prayard took the string from the midwife's hand, and carefully followed her nervous directions. Then the midwife turned to Frostinch, holding out the umbilical cord for him to cut between the ties.

“Prayard must hold the cord!” cried Anonoei.

Frostinch was looking about for something to cut with.

Suddenly Anonoei felt the hilt of a dagger under her right hand. She picked it up by the blade and held it out to Frostinch. Of course he recognized it instantly as his own dagger, the one he had tossed on his bed in Graywald. But he took it by the hilt and made the slice.

The baby was crying lustily.

Prayard picked up the boy to try to still him.

Anonoei already had a bit of her outself in the baby, making him cry all the more fervently.

“Both of you hold him,” she said. “Both of you bring him to me.”

They were so clumsy, it was quite endearing. Terrified of dropping the baby, they sidled along the bed, carrying the baby tenderly between them. She hoped that Wad was ready to catch the child if he slipped out of their awkward grasp.

But they didn't drop the boy, and by the time they put him into Anonoei's arms, he had stopped crying at all—if there was one thing Anonoei knew how to do, it was ease the heart of a crying child.

“My husband of Iceway,” she murmured, now allowing herself to show the exhaustion of childbirth. “My nephew of Gray. My baby of both lands.” And then she closed her eyes.

The midwife felt a new burst of officious confidence. “Now, all you men, she's asleep,” the midwife whispered fiercely. “Get out and tell what you saw, while this great lady has the peace she needs to sleep!”

Frostinch fled the room immediately, handing the dagger to one of the men-at-arms as he passed. It would do him no good to be seen armed in the palace of Nassassa. Prayard paused only to kiss Anonoei's brow very tenderly, and to stroke the baby's head. What a loving man he is, thought Anonoei.

The word quickly spread throughout Kamesham, and people cheered quite sincerely. Except all the representatives of Gray who had thought their duty was to keep Iceway in subjection and prepare to be saboteurs when the invasion began. How had the jarl reached Nassassa without any of them knowing it? What did he want them to do?

It wasn't until late that night, in a conference around her bed while Anonoei nursed the baby, that she helped the two rulers work out the terms of the new arrangement. Frostinch would go home to Gray, accompanied by all his agents. In case he was tempted to cheat a little, Anonoei carefully named every single one of Gray's spies, including a few of his father's old agents that Frostinch hadn't even known about. Both nations would be free to put into each other's ports to buy provisions, and any ship in distress would be well-treated by the people of the other land.

It was all written up and signed before anyone went to bed, and at noon the next day, Frostinch led his thousand men and women down to the docks of Kamesham. King Prayard made sure they were well supplied on their journey, and he made sure that the ships' captains knew that they must deliver this cargo safely to ports in Gray, without any unfortunate incidents on board ship.

There was an hour in the late afternoon of the following day when Anonoei sent everyone out so she could be alone with her new son.

Wad came almost at once. “You did it better than I would have thought possible,” he conceded at once. “Though I still don't trust Frostinch as far as I can spit.”

“No sane person would,” said Anonoei. “But I can promise he won't betray me.”

“I see Bexoi's lips move, and her voice make that promise,” said Wad. “But she would mean that she meant to kill Frostinch at some opportune moment before he could break his word.”

“Naming this boy,” said Anonoei, changing the subject before he remembered that Anonoei would still deprive Frostinch of any freedom of choice. “I thought of naming him after the son of yours that Bexoi murdered. It's so unfortunate that you called him ‘Trick.' That name just wouldn't sound right to the people of either kingdom.”

“It's sweet of you to think of naming him that way,” said Wad, his eyes filling with tears even though Anonoei had done nothing to enhance his emotions. “But no child can replace my little boy. I knew him well, and I doubt I'll have much chance to know this lad of yours.”

“Well,” said Anonoei, “not
mine
…”

“Not a child of your original body,” said Wad, “but a child of the body you have now and for the rest of your life. And you
will
raise him to be the best man he has it in him to be.”

Anonoei nodded. “But what about my own sons? My first two sons? The ones that were really made by King Prayard and me?”

“They're remarkable boys. Very smart and highly talented. When things become clearer, we'll both know whether they should remain in Mittlegard.”

“They can't come here,” said Anonoei. “They will always be in danger here, because extra sons will always attract would-be rebels.”

“Wherever they are, you can go to them from time to time. Now that Hermia has proven that this new kind of gateless movement works between the worlds.”

“I didn't think of that.”

“Something you didn't think of!” said Wad in feigned amazement. “I hope you saw how loyally I followed your lead. As I moved the baby outward, by tiny relentless fractions of an inch, your body responded magnificently. It was a completely natural childbirth, by the end.”

“You've been loyal to me even when you didn't trust me.”

“That's what puzzles me,” said Wad. “Your plan required my compliance, and not just to retrieve Frostinch's dagger. Yet you never managed me. I still had all my misgivings every step of the way.”

“Why should I try to compel a willing friend?” she asked.

It was even mostly true.

 

15

Danny North took little pleasure in high school anymore. It was a refuge, where he had meant it to be an adventure. After a school year treading its halls, everything was familiar, including the faces of the other students. He didn't feel the disdain of the Families for drowthers; rather it was the disdain of high school students for their fellows. It was the tribe he dwelt with, but could never fully join. How could he? To them, their classes and grades mattered; or if not those, then their position in the social hierarchy of the school, or the college they would go to, or the job they planned to get. To Danny, all these things were the business of children.

“What are you thinking?” asked Pat.

Danny could hardly hear her over the din of the other students milling about at the end of the school day.

“That my life was better when Coach Bleeder was on my case and the worst problem I faced was whether to compete with the track team.”

“Oh, well,” she said. “Feeling sorry for yourself is always an entertaining train of thought.”

“I allow myself a half-hour a day of self-pity,” said Danny.

“I was noticing the cloud of unrelated prets that seem to cluster around some students, and not others.”

Danny hadn't even been noticing prets. Familiar as the faces were, he had been looking only at the people, not the prets they were composed of, and certainly not unrelated prets dogging them through the halls.

But now that Pat pointed them out, Danny could see that several of the students had dozens, and some hundreds, of prets that didn't seem to belong to anyone or anything. Not even particles of dust. Yet it was no accident they were there, and it took only a moment's thought for Danny to realize.

“Sutahites,” he said.

Pat looked at him with that weary look that said, Maybe that meant something to you, but not to me.

Then she remembered. “The slaves of Set.”

“Rather his fellow travelers. They don't have his power to take over people's minds or bodies. But they still insinuate themselves, destructively, into people's minds. I wonder what they're whispering to that poor girl—look, the prets are almost a raincloud all around her head.”

“I know exactly what they're saying. You're so ugly, nobody really likes you, even your friends would hate you if they knew what you're really like, no boy will ever want you, why are you even alive, if there's a God he's sick of you and your sad little prayers, why do you bother getting out of bed, just get home and sleep, that's the only place where you get relief, sleeping, only why should you wake up? Why not sleep and sleep forever?”

“Stop it,” Danny said softly. “You know that monologue all too well.”

“Do you suppose I had my own cloud of Sutahites around me all these years?” Then a thought crossed her mind and she said, “Danny, look at me and tell me—do I have one now?”

“No,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Because I haven't thought like that in years. Before I met you, when I was still in middle school, I decided to be content with myself. To revel in the things I was good at, like classes and reading and seeing how ridiculous everything is.”

“I wonder if they left you alone after you made that decision,” said Danny. “Or if they didn't abandon you until you died.”

“You really shouldn't say that out loud here,” said Pat. “We might be overheard.”

“And I'm sure whoever heard us would believe it,” said Danny. “Besides, I can barely hear you, so I doubt anybody else can.”

“You'd be surprised what you can hear if you're standing in just the right place.” And she gestured toward a freshman a little way down the corridor. “For all we know, the lockers are transmitting our voices like a megaphone, right to him.”

“Hello, Tillman,” said Danny, remembering the boy's name.

Tillman probably didn't hear him. But he did turn and walk away along the corridor right at that moment. So … maybe.

“All these Sutahites,” said Pat. “How strong are they?”

“They only have the power to bring thoughts into your head,” said Danny. “To remind you of desires you already have. So … they're only as strong as their victims let them be. How strong were they with you? Back when you still listened?”

“Oh, I never actually
planned
a suicide attempt. Mostly, my despair led me to oversleep and do badly in class and alienate anyone who might have become a friend. Normal middle school things. I wonder what it's like for thirteen-year-olds in Westil.”

It took Danny a moment, but then he smiled. “That's right. That was Loki's whole project. To keep the Sutahites out of Westil.”

“I get the impression that life there can be perfectly miserable without any help from the Sutahites,” said Pat.

“Maybe,” said Danny. “The woman who murdered the boys' mother, or tried to, anyway—”

“Her body died,” said Pat.

“Murdered her, then. She didn't need any little voices seducing her. Nothing but her own naked ambition.”

Pat was silent for a moment. “What about you, Danny? Do you have any ambitions?”

Danny thought about that. “Well, I … not specific ones. I don't even know what I want to major in in college.”

“By all means, let's go see the school counselor! You're only a year from graduation, it's time to decide where you want to go to college and whether you're premed or, I don't know, aviation? Astrophysics? Maybe you can figure out faster-than-light travel, or interstellar voyages, or maybe just the ability to travel instantly from one place on Earth to any other place.”

“Now you're being silly,” said Danny. “That's just sci-fi stuff, you can't actually
do
those things.”

She clung a little closer to his arm. He was aware of how her body pressed against his.

“I'll tell you my ambition,” said Danny. “To be with you, living in the same house, raising the same ugly little children—no, wait, your genes might prevail.”

“You can heal their acne for them. I don't think that's cheating. Acne doesn't build character, it prepares you to buy a gun and shoot people.”