Child of Flame

Page 20

From outdoors, she heard the rhythmic chop of an ax start up as Weiwara’s husband spun what men’s magic he could, splitting wood in the hope that it would cleave child from mother in a clean break.
Weiwara began grunting frantically, and Agda spoke sternly. “You must hold in your breath and push, and then breathe again. Follow Orla’s count.”
Adica found a tiny pot of ocher, and with a brush made of pig bristle she painted spirals on her own palms. She slid over beside Agda. “Give me your hands.”
Agda hesitated, but Orla nodded. Weiwara’s eyes were rolled almost completely up in her head, and she whimpered in between held breaths. Adica swiftly brushed onto Agda’s palms the mark of the moon horns of the Fat One, symbolizing birth, and the bow of the Queen of the Wild, who lets all things loose. She marked her own forehead with the Old Hag’s stick, to attract death to her instead of to those fated to live.
With a sprig of rowan she traced sigils of power at each corner of the house. Pausing at the threshold, she twitched up a corner of the hide door mantle to peek outside. Weiwara’s husband split wood beyond the gate, his broad shoulders gleaming in the sun. Sweat poured down his back as he worked, arms supple, stomach taut.
Somewhat behind him, looking puzzled, stood Alain.
Adica was jolted right out of her trance at the sight of him, all clean and pale and rather slender compared to the men of her village, who had thicker faces, burlier shoulders, and skin baked brown from summer’s work. Her cousin, Urtan, had a hand on Alain’s elbow, as if he were restraining him, but Alain started forward just as his two black dogs nosed up beside him, thrusting Urtan away simply by shoving him aside with their weight. They were so big that they had no need to growl or show their teeth.
“Aih!” cried Weiwara, the cry so loud that her husband faltered on his chopping, and every man there glanced toward the forbidden house, and away.
Adica stepped back in horror as Alain passed the gate. As the hide slithered down to cover the door, an outcry broke from the crowd waiting beyond the fence.
“It is born!” said Orla.
“Yet more!” cried Weiwara, her words more a sob of anguish than of relief.
Agda said: “Fat One preserve us! There comes another one! Hallowed One! I pray you, take this one. It has no life.”
Adica took the baby into her arms and pressed its cold lips to her own lips. No soul stirred within. The baby had no pulse. No heart threaded life through its body. Yet she barely had time to think about what she must do next, find the dead child’s spirit and show it the path that led to the Other Side, when a glistening head pressed out from between Weiwara’s legs. The sight startled her so profoundly that she skipped back and collided with Alain as he stepped into the birthing house. He steadied her with a hand on her back. Only Getsi saw him. The girl stared wide-eyed, too shocked to speak.
What ruin had Adica brought onto the village by bringing him here? The baby in her arms was blue as cornflowers, sickly and wrong. Dead and lost.
The twin slipped from the birth passage as easily as a fish through wet hands. Agda caught it, and it squalled at once with strong lungs. Weiwara began to weep with exhaustion.
Orla took her hands from Weiwara’s shoulders and, at that moment, noticed the figure standing behind Adica. She hissed in a breath between her teeth. “What is this creature who haunts us?”
Weiwara shrieked, shuddering all over as if taken with a fit.
Agda sat back on her heels and gave a loud cry, drowning out the baby’s wailing. “What curse has he brought down on us?”
Oblivious to their words, Alain gently took the dead baby out of Adica’s arms and lifted it to touch its chest to his ear. He listened intently, then said something in a low voice, whether to her, to the dead child, or to himself she could not know. All the women watched in horror and the twin cried, as if in protest, as he knelt on the packed earth floor of the birthing house to chafe the limbs of the dead baby between his hands.
“What is this creature?” demanded Orla again. Adica choked on her reply, sick with dread. She had selfishly wanted company in her last days and now, having it, wrought havoc on the village.
“Look!” whispered Weiwara.
The dead baby stirred and mewled. Color swept its tiny body Blue faded to red as life coursed back into it. Alain regarded the newborn with a thoughtful frown before lifting the baby girl to give her into Weiwara’s arms. Weiwara had the stunned expression of a ewe brought to the slaughter. Living twins were a powerful sign of the Fat One’s favor.
“Aih!” she grunted as the last of the pains hit her. Without thinking, she gave the baby back into Alain’s arms before gripping the stool one more time. Getsi expertly swaddled the other newborn in the birthing cloth.