Chapter 9

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Ada

Orlaigh squatted over a wooden tub beside the spring, running one of Enosh’s white cotton shirts down the washboard. She hadn’t noticed my approach since I’d outran the children while lifting the weight of my bony train. Her cheery caroling resonated in the cave, a song about a dragon who guarded a secret.

My breath shook.

How fitting...

I’d known she was hiding something, but never had I expected that it might affect me to a degree that my entire body vibrated with fury and fear alike.

Fury that I’d died pregnant.

Fear that I had not.

Or the other way around?

My stomach plunged to my knees. No, I was doomed either way, for the truth—either truth, really—would shatter my soul. If my theory proved true and I had died with a child in my belly—

I pressed a hand to my mouth, muffling a sob as agony, sharp and digging, spread around my heart. No, I could not possibly survive it. Might die a second time.

Same if my theory proved wrong.

My hand circled my belly again, every go round like a caress to a hope I could not afford, either. What if Lord Tarnem’s goal to get himself out of the throne had taken advantage of my situation? My desperation? What if I fell for a lie?

What if there was still no child?

My stomach clenched, shifting around the gases of decay once more. Mercy god, I would descend into a hysteria that would make Enosh look reasonable.

What was true? What was not?

Only one woman knew.

Taking a steadying breath, I opened the clasps of my hands and let the fringe of fingers clank to the ground where I stood beside the dark rock. “Foolish, foolish, Ada.”

Orlaigh spun around so fast, her soles squeaked on the stone floor, hands hovering wet and dripping over the ground. “What?”

My lungs hardened against the pressure of unease that expanded within my chest. “Who fathered Njala’s child?”

Face going still, shaky fingers disappearing into the checkered fabric of her dress, mouth a hard line, she glared at me in shock. “Whatever do ye mean?”

I took a step toward her. “Who was the father? Enosh or Joah?”

“Ach, lass.” Sliding one leg forward, she struggled up to stand. “Yer mind’s muddled.”

The roots of my teeth ached with how I clenched them. Of course, she would deny it all. Might even try to twist things around, unleashing doubt and confusion.

I would not let her.

“Oh, quite the opposite,” I said. “I feel as if I’m seeing things clearly for the first time.”

“It’s the grief talking.” A grandmotherly smile crossed her face—one I didn’t trust a bit. “Let me help ye out of this dress so ye can soak in the water and forget.”

“No doubt it would serve you well if I did.” And hadn’t she eagerly tried to convince me to let go of my grief? “I spoke to Lord Tarnem. He told me everything.”

“Dinnae go listening to lies, lass.” Her smile wavered around the edges. “Ach, the man will say whatever he can to get me Master to release his bones from the throne.”

“Just like you will say whatever you can to keep yours out of it.” Even if it came at the cost of my heart, not to mention my sanity. “Oh, if me Master ever finds out the truth. Foolish, foolish, girl. Do you think I forgot how I found you arguing with Lord Tarnem that day? You accompanied Njala when she left the Pale Court. Will you deny that she met with Joah?”

Her hands balled into fists. “Ye dinnae ken what the little lady was like—”

“I know that she chose death for herself and the child, likely because she feared what Enosh would do if he ever found out the truth.” My words triggered a spread of gooseflesh along my skin. “Do you deny it?”

“Lass—”

“Who fathered her child?”

“Ada—”

“Who?”

“I dinnae ken!” Her shout echoed off the stone, and deep furrows carved along her forehead as she fumbled with the cotton of her dress. “What was I but the old wet nurse to be shushed about as though I’ve never lived a day in me life? So many times, I warned the little lady…Oh, how I scolded her.”

“Yes, nobody listens to old Orlaigh,” I said. “Njala loved the commander, didn’t she? Never stopped loving him.”

“Ach, we women cannae afford to love. I told her so. Many times. But she would not listen! What could I do? Tattle to the god? See the little lady punished?” She pressed a hand against her sternum and swallowed. “I’ve nursed the lass from me own breast since she was a wee thing, as though she was me own. Only days after I lost me own child.”

My guts knotted up at the familiarity of her pain, but I couldn’t let that soften me in my determination to uncover the truth. Would not continue to care more about everyone else’s sorrows than my own.

And mine were dire, indeed.

“It’s true then.” My legs turned brittle underneath me, and I pressed a palm against the rock for support. “All this time, she secretly met with Joah. Was he the father?”

Orlaigh tsked, “Lass—”

“Was he?”

“Who can ken such a thing? Ach, the world is full of bastards, raised by their unknowing fathers, be it a king or a kitchen drudge.”

“But you knew it was possible, plausible, even. Especially since the baby was mortal.” And that fact brought precious remnants of tears to my eyes, not enough to pearl down my cheek, though they blurred my vision. “What if Enosh cannot sense a godly child? What if I died pregnant, after all?”

“What of it?” Orlaigh shifted from one leg to the other, lifting her arms and letting them flap against her sides. “What does it matter now?”

“It matters a great deal to me!” I shouted, hating how this ordeal leeched away the self-worth I’d finally found for myself. “All my life, I’ve been called barren, an unwoman. One husband called me worthless; the other calls me a liar. I’m sick of being at the mercy of everyone’s false judgment!” Against the tremble in my hand, I dared another heart-shattering caress of my palm around my belly. “I might be carrying a divine child in my belly.”

“Or ye might not.” The bite in her tone clawed at my narrowing throat. “Even if the babe was the commander’s...”

Sharp and harrowing, the potential truth of her words punctured straight into a heart that still hadn’t fully mended from the agony of losing a child twice. Oh, I was so stupid, it hurt.

There was a third option I hadn’t even considered.

What if all my assumptions about Joah and the baby were true, but not how it related to me? None of it made me any more likely of carrying a child in my belly, divine or otherwise.

My hand slipped off the rock.

The ground shook.

Or maybe not, but my legs snapped like twigs underneath me anyway, letting me sink to the damp, harsh ground. No, there would be no comfort in this mess, no liberating discovery.

Only agony.

Only suffering.

“Lass, it hurts me to see ye so.” Drying off her hands some more, Orlaigh walked over, squatted down, and stroked my arms. “Who says that gods can even sire children?”

“Who says they can’t?”

“Lass, three gods as old as time.” She arched a bushy brow. “Not one has a child, and the world is better for it.”

My stomach knotted into a hard ball beneath the pressure of my hand. I thought back to Eilam’s kiss, stiff and unskilled, as though his lips had never touched a woman’s before. Perhaps they hadn’t, but Yarin was a scoundrel who likely spent most of eternity beneath the skirts of women, dead and alive.

What if Orlaigh was right?

My stomach hardened.

But what if she was wrong?

“I had all the symptoms…” I whispered, clinging to the thinnest thread of faith. “I might be a poor fisher, but I’m a decent midwife.”