“Do you know, I think that might not be such a bad idea. Thanks, Zosh. And I don’t care what anyone says about you—for a Chisholmian, you’re not a bad fellow at all!”
“Just sucking up to the Captain, Your Grace,” Hahlbyrstaht told him with something far more like a grin than a smile, and excused himself from the cabin.
Hektor smiled after him, then pushed back from the cabin table. He looked around the compartment, taking in its familiar confines in the light of the lamp swaying gently from the overhead, then walked across to the wide-open stern windows. Unlike larger vessels, Fleet Wing boasted no sternwalk, but he settled on one of the bench seats built across the windowsills and leaned back against the inward-curving hull that framed the schooner’s oval stern. He thrust one leg over the windowsill and gazed out over his ship’s bubbling wake, listening to the water laugh and gurgle around her rudder as Fleet Wing made good almost seven knots on a stiff topgallant breeze from broad on her starboard quarter. The wind scoop sent enough fresh, clean breeze through the cabin to ruffle the pages of the book lying open on his cot and pluck at his dark hair like a lover’s gentle fingers, and the newly risen moon rode broad and bright on the horizon, like a polished silver coin, while its reflection danced on the moving mirror of the sea.
Anyone looking at him could have been excused for thinking he actually saw a single bit of it.
“I’m here, love,” he said to the vista of the sea. “How are you feeling?”
“A little nervous, frankly,” Irys Aplyn-Ahrmank replied from far distant Manchyr. She leaned back in an armchair, wrapped in a soft, warm robe, with her feet propped up and a carafe of hot chocolate at her elbow. The sky outside her bedchamber window glowed with the first faint brushstrokes of a tropical dawn, but she’d been up for the last two hours, timing the contractions.
“God, I wish I could be with you!” his voice murmured in her earplug. “I should’ve stayed, damn it!”
“We both agreed you needed to go with Sir Dunkyn.” There was a trace of scold in her tone. “And I’m not some frightened little farm girl wondering if the sisters will get there in time, you know! Besides, with the exception of Alahnah, there’s never been a pregnancy on all of Safehold that was more closely monitored than this one.”
“And I’m still the father and I should still be there,” he argued. Then he sighed. “Which doesn’t change the fact that I can’t be. Or that God only knows how many billions of fathers over the years haven’t been able to be there, either. For that matter, I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of other Navy and Army fathers are in exactly the same boat right this minute?”
“Probably a lot. And there are probably even more who know they’ll have a child they’ve never met waiting when they get home again, too.”
“A child they’ve never even seen before.” Hektor inhaled deeply. “At least I’ll have one hell of a lot more than that,” he continued, gazing up at the silver moon while his contact lenses showed him Irys’ nod.
“Yes, you will. And if you can’t be here physically, at least we’ve got this, too.” She touched her ear and the invisible plug nestled deep within it and smiled a bit tremulously. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much it means to hear your voice just now!”
“Well, of course you can, thanks to Zosh for being so tactful!” Hektor chuckled. “And to you for being so clever with the timing! If you get a move on, I’ll be able to be with you for the actual birth.”
“Get a move on?!” Irys glowered, then inhaled sharply as another spasm went through her abdomen. She paused, waiting out the contraction, then shook her head. “Listen, sailor—this is all your fault. Don’t you go getting smart-arsed now that I’m stuck doing all the work!”
“Nothing smart-arsed about it,” he said virtuously, with a lurking smile. “Just making a point. I’ve got maybe thirteen hours before Stywyrt’s going to come banging on my cabin door with a pot of that horrible cherrybean he’s gotten so besotted with.”
Hektor shuddered fastidiously. He didn’t have a formal steward—schooners Fleet Wind’s size didn’t run to enough personnel for that—so Stywyrt Mahlyk had assigned himself to that duty, as well as captain’s coxswain. And he’d turned out to have rather … robust ideas about what the job entailed.
“It’s a good thing he makes you eat properly!” Irys scolded in a voice that was commendably stern, despite the twinkle in her hazel eyes. “I think it was wonderful of Sir Dunkyn to lend him to you!”
“Starting to look more like a permanent adoption,” Hektor retorted. “But you’re right; I’m lucky to have him,” he acknowledged. “Which doesn’t change the fact that once he decides it’s time for wakey-wakey, I won’t be able to sit staring soulfully up at any moons while I talk to myself and encourage myself to ‘Breathe, sweetheart! Now push!’ So, since I’d really like to be able to do just that, could you just speak to the children about possibly moving right along now?”
* * *
“I don’t want to sound impatient or anything,” Irys Aplyn-Ahrmahk panted, “but I’d really like this to be over!”
She didn’t look what anyone would have called her best just at the moment. Her dark hair was spiky with sweat, fatigue shadowed her hazel eyes, and pain tightened her mouth as the sun slipped steadily below the western horizon. She’d had a long, wearying day … and looked like having an even longer night.
“Of course you would, dear,” Lady Sahmantha Gahrvai said, wiping her forehead with a damp cloth. “Now breathe.”
“I am breathing—I am breathing!” Irys panted even harder. “I’ve been doing it for hours now! And while I’m thinking about it, this is a damned undignified way to go about this! Why hasn’t someone invented a better one?!”
“Do you know, Mairah,” Lady Sahmantha said, “she probably thinks she’s the first one to think of that. Scary, isn’t it?”
“I imagine it goes through most women’s minds about the time they try motherhood for the first time,” the tallish woman on the other side of Irys’ bed said with a smile. Her golden hair and gray eyes marked her as a foreigner here in Corisande, but the Prince of Corisande’s older sister clung tightly to her hand, gripping even harder whenever the labor pains peaked. “Of course, I wouldn’t know from personal experience, you understand. Yet, at least. I was clever enough to marry someone who already had five children. Acquired an entire family without going through all of this … botheration.”
Lady Mairah Breygart lifted her nose with an audible sniff, and Irys laughed. It was a rather breathless, exhausted laugh after eleven hours of labor, but a laugh nonetheless.
“And the fact that your husband’s been off on the mainland for the last year has nothing to do with how you’ve continued to avoid all this ‘botheration’?” she demanded.
“It does rather require the prospective father and mother to spend a certain amount of time in one another’s company, Your Highness,” Lady Sahmantha pointed out. She gave Mairah a look that combined humor and sympathy in equal measure. “And there’s a certain degree of enthusiasm involved, as well. Of course, some of us seem to have more of that enthusiasm than others … judging from the results, at least.”
“Oh, my! I see she knows you even better than I thought she did, you shameless hussy!” a beloved voice from the Gulf of Dohlar murmured in her ear.