Olivia (112 page)

“So go talk to her if you want to,” Amy said, and started back for the birthing room.  “Tell her everything will be all right.  But just remember when you do that some people can take it.  And some people can’t.”

Olivia watched her go, wanting nothing but to leave the women’s tunnels entirely, even if meant going back to the Great Spirit and his endless erection.  At least he made it easy to forget about everything for just a little while.  But she was leader, wasn’t she?  And being a leader meant doing things you hated, meant doing things that made you hate yourself.  She’d lived with Vorgullum too long not to understand that.  So in the end, she went to the chamber in the clinic where Sarah B. was staying.

Sarah was on her side in the pit, while the two female gullan who were watching over her sat together on the far side of the cavern, stitching gullan robes and gossiping in low voices.  The subject matter, Olivia was irritated to hear, seemed to concern itself with which of the many suitors Olivia would take as her mate, now that Sudjummar had set her aside.

“Hodrub has said he means to court her.”

“Hodrub had best hurry up and do it, then.  Torumn is hunting his lone elk for trophy.”

“That didn’t impress her when Thugg presented her with the same.”

“That was when she had a mate.  Now she has none.  I think it may thaw her blood some to receive trophy again.”

“Of course you both would know by now,” Olivia interrupted, “that I have Doru to keep me free of suitors?”

Neither gulla remotely guilty to be caught gossiping.  Sarah B. rolled over with a tired smile, though, rubbing at her distended stomach.

“We’ve heard,” one of the gulla answered.  “But we’ve also seen that you are in no hurry to leave these tunnels and fly to his arms.  I think you’re a friend who seeks the appearance of a mate, and Doru is a strong male loyal to Vorgullum.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that on, the next time we’re coupling,” Olivia said.

The gulla snorted cheerfully.  “The last night you slept in his lair, you came out with no scent of seed on you at all.”

In English, Sarah B. said, “They’ve been talking about you for days.  It’s like a soap opera—at first the relentless banality irritates you, and then it kind of hypnotizes you.  Pretty soon, you can’t live without your morning dose of
The Days of Our Olivia
.”

At the sound of the human-speech, the two gullan exchanged glances—trying to share a What-did-I-tell-you? moment, but clearly a little hurt—and excused themselves from Sarah’s pit.  They did not leave the chamber, but did retreat to the wall to continue their gossip, pointedly not looking in their direction so that the humans would know they could speak freely.

Olivia sat down in the pit and began to rub Sarah B.’s shoulders. 

After a moment or two, Sarah sighed and said, “I suppose you think I’m a bitch, huh?  Not talking to them.”

“We all have our coping mechanisms.”  Olivia followed that with a short, tactful silence, then said, “They’re worried about you, you know.”

Sarah B. shrugged, but the shoulders under Olivia’s hands stiffened.

“How have you been?” Olivia asked softly.  “Really.”

“Really?  It’s awful.  Amy said I was due three days ago, but nothing’s happened yet.  You brought back everything from that stupid hospital but a shot to get this damn thing out of me.  I just want to get it over with!” 

“It’s going to be okay, Sarah.”

Sarah B. laughed shrilly.  “Okay?  How do you figure that?”  She was quiet for a little while, leaning back into the gentle massage.  “I could just deal with it if only I wasn’t pregnant.  I’m not happy, but I could be okay, you know?  God, isn’t that awful?  I can live with them, but I can’t…can’t deal with the…It’s like it isn’t even a baby, not a real baby.  It’s just something huge and ugly and awful bloating up my body and making me sick all the time.  I hate it!  I hate having to lie here and feel it swelling up like…like a cancer.”

“It’s almost over,” Olivia said.  Her hands moved gently, calmly.

“They used to kill witches in the Middle Ages by making them swallow rocks until their stomachs burst.  That’s what this feels like—like a big, hot rock that’s ripping me open.  Sometimes I think I can feel myself getting heavier.  I want to puke and puke until I sick everything out of me and run away skinny.” 

“Oh, Sarah, it won’t be so bad.”  Olivia groped for something comforting to say about sixteen hours of labor.  “They’re little and fuzzy, and kind of cute.”

Sarah B. uttered a thin species of laughter that held very little humor, but Olivia was encouraged.

“Thurga says, if you want to, they’ll take the baby and do everything to raise it, if you’ll only nurse…?”

Sarah B. closed her eyes, her face a mask of anguish.  “Does that mean they’re going to make me touch it?”  She began to cry, quietly, helplessly.  “If I asked them nicely not to?  If I
begged
them?  Oh Olivia, make them find someone else, okay?  I don’t want some horrible little
thing
gnawing at me!  I don’t want to have to go home and let it—”

She reached up and clamped both hands over her leaking eyes, as if she could push back her tears with bodily force.  She dragged out several breaths until she was calm again, then cut her eyes across the room at the two gullan, both of whom were very deliberately not looking at them.  “Those poor furballs,” she said.  “They haven’t seen a healthy baby in a hundred years, and all I can do is cry about mine.  You must think I’m horrible.”

“You’re not horrible,” Olivia protested, but it was a weak protest and she knew it.  “Please, Sarah.  It’s really not that bad.”

“Of course it’s that bad!  Of course it is!  I don’t want to be here for the rest of my life!  Things would be so much simpler if that stupid Mojo Woman was still around.  If you hadn’t killed her, Vorgullum would have, along with all her followers, and me.  I was hoping for that.  I was
counting
on it!”  Sarah B. made a face and twisted into the bedding.  “Is it just me?  Am I the only one who remembers how awful all this really is?”

Olivia thought of Cheyenne.  “No.  But…Is it Burgelbun?  I mean, would you maybe consider—”

“Someone else?  Oh yes.  That’s so much better.  Instead of lying there while Burgelbun rubs on me with his hand, I can lie there with a complete stranger.”  Sarah B. laughed a little.  “No, it’s not Burgelbun.  And I don’t hate him, you know.  It’s just that…I came home once and found him with Carla, and I didn’t care.  After she left, he asked me if it was all right.  And it was.”  She sounded vaguely surprised by this.  “I mean, I didn’t feel like he was cheating on me or…or anything.  I asked him if I could think about it for a while.  I spent two nights trying to drum up some feeling for it.  I couldn’t.  It was just…all right.”

Sarah B. rolled into an upright position.  She took Olivia’s hand and searched her face.  “You were hurt when Vorgullum left, weren’t you?  Even though you kind of liked Sudjummar, you were hurt.  And I don’t think you love him, either, but at least you seem like you feel something.”

“I can’t live here for the rest of my life without feeling anything,” Olivia said honestly.

Sarah B. nodded, but sadly, as though it were bitter but not unexpected news.  “Neither can I,” she said.  “But everything I feel is awful.  I don’t want the baby, Olivia.  Make them give it to someone else, okay?  If I have to see it… or feel it…gumming at me…”

“All right,” Olivia said and looked away.  “All right, I’ll find someone.”

“And tell Amy when it’s out.”  Sarah B. lay back in the bed, both hands on her stomach and lightly pushing, although she did not seem to be aware of it.  “Tell Amy I’m ready.  She’ll know what that means.  I want to get it done before Burgelbun gets back so he doesn’t have to, you know, care.”

“All right.”  She stood numbly to go.

“I’m ready,” Sarah B. said again.  Her hands flexed over her stomach, pushing as her face twisted.  “Just as soon as it gets out of me.  I’m so ready.  Just…Just get
out
!”

2

Olivia could think of nothing to speed Sarah B.’s pregnancy along, but Liz gave her a delivery to think about the very next morning.  It went smoothly, all things considered, much more so than Olivia’s own, but she was very grateful to have several gullan mothers with her as the labor progressed.  It was right there at the end, as Olivia knelt between Liz’s thighs and cupped the emerging head of a very small baby, that one of them excused herself to answer a summons in the tunnel and returned to say, “Doru has come.  He says Wurlgunn has returned with Tina.”

Olivia started, took a moment to recover from the force of unexpected good news for a change, and then grinned.  “Oh thank God, send her in!”

“Oh yeah, sure.  But you say there’s nothing wrong, right?” Liz panted.

“Not that I can see.  Keep pushing.”

Amy, wiping Liz’s face, remarked, “That Tina.  Excellent sense of timing.  Is she going to be pissed, or what?”

“You can blame me,” Liz offered.  “I don’t think she’ll hit a lady with a baby.  Unnnhhh!”

“One more like that,” Olivia urged.  “We can quick get it born and hide it before she gets here.”

Amy found that very funny.  She was still laughing when Tina and Tobi came together into the birthing room.

“What the hell!” Tina said with a snort, already scrubbing her hands.  “I turn around for two seconds and you’re sneaking babies out of people.”

“I told them not to,” Liz gasped.

“Here it comes!  Bear down, bear down!”  Olivia let out a little cry as the baby slid into her hands, and in the very next instant, Tina was there to take him away.  Before the cord had been tied and cut, Tina had flipped the baby, swabbed its mouth, and started it wailing with a few expert pats to its back. 

“It’s a boy, Liz,” Tina said, examining the baby with a critical eye.

There was a collective gust of relieved breath, followed by Tobi’s cheerful, “What’s his name?”

“He’s a little small…grip’s okay, pulse is strong…sure doesn’t seem to be much wrong with his lungs.”  She dried the damp pelt and cradled him in the crook of her arm, inspecting the tiny face.  “I want you both to stay here for a few days, just to be safe, but I’m thinking maybe he’s not quite as early as we thought.  Maybe only two or three weeks.”

“Can I hold him?”

“Give me a second with him first, okay?” 

“What’s his name?” Tobi asked again, peering over Tina’s shoulder.

“I haven’t even met him yet,” Liz protested weakly.  “Oh, look at him.  He’s kinda cute.  Where’s Rumm?  She’ll want to see her nephew.”

Amy trotted off obediently and returned with Rumm just as Liz was finally taking her son into her arms. 

“He looks just like you,” were Rumm’s first words, a remark that caused the humans present to exchange a group glance.  “What will you name him, since Gormuck is not here to do so?”

Liz stared at her infant son as though expecting him to answer for her.  At last, she looked up again with a lopsided smile.  “How about Levonal?”

“Fitting,” said Tina wryly, as Amy and Olivia laughed.  “Very fitting.”   She withdrew from the birthing bench to allow the gullan to crowd in a little closer, and crooked a finger at Olivia.  “A private word, o exalted one?”

They retreated to the women’s commons and sat down together on a convenient bench.  Tina immediately bent to unbind the thongs on her leather foot-wrappings.  Freed of them, she stretched out her legs and wiggled her toes with a sigh of relief before getting down to business.  “Vorgullum is all right, but all bullshit aside, he lost a lot of blood and got one hell of an infection.  No fault to Tordurk, who got the bullet out like a champ with nothing but his own claws and an awl to use as a probe, but I about killed the damn fools who were tending him afterwards.  One does not wash bullet wounds with bear fat and lye.  Thank God for you and Doru and all that stuff you brought back.  We probably saved the man’s life with a five dollar tube of Neosporin and a couple Tylenol.”  Tina rubbed her eyes and smiled faintly.  “Anyway, he’s sitting up now, walking around a little, which means the risk of pneumonia is a lot lower.  He’s young and in damned good health.  I think he’s going to come out of it good as new.”

“Thank you.”

“You bet.  How are you holding up?”

“I’m coping.” 

Tina looked at her without speaking for a long time.  Quietly, she said, “Tobi tells me you’ve taken up with Doru.”

“Informally.”

“I don’t blame you for wanting out of the meat market, and it ain’t too likely anyone else will bug you with Doru hanging over you, but don’t hurt him, okay?  I’m kind of fond of the big guy.”

“So am I.”  Olivia half-shrugged and smiled helplessly.  “I mean, if I’ve got to hide behind someone, it might as well be Doru.  I like him.”

“Okay.  Well, now that we’ve got that out of the way…”  Tina took a deep breath and looked distinctly uncomfortable.  “I promised Tobi I wouldn’t tell Doru this, but she didn’t say I couldn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?” Olivia asked.

“Tobi’s about three months along.”

Olivia stared at her, stunned.

“Don’t look at me like that.  I didn’t know until just now.  I mention it solely because the dumb bunny’s been going hunting.  Like I say, she made me promise, then she told me, and now I’m telling you.  I want her grounded.”

“I’ll mention it.”

“Casually.”

“Right.”

“But quickly.”

“Tonight.”

“Thanks.”  Tina slapped her thighs and stood up.  “So I guess I’m gonna be a mommy, too.”

“Congratulations.”

“Yeah, thanks.  I’m more nervous about it than I thought I would be.  God, I hope it takes after Doru.  Can you imagine a furry little Tobi hopping around?”  Tina shuddered, and Olivia didn’t think it was an affectation.  The healer raised one hand in mingled farewell and dismissal, and then headed back to Liz’s birthing room, where a growing group of females was collecting.

Olivia went out at once to announce the birth and greet Wurlgunn.  She found him in the commons with Beth and Anita, looking panicked as the women worked with obvious fortitude to comfort him.