Varien smiled into my eyes. "No, he is not," he said. "And you also are not a plain anything." He leaned over and kissed me, his hands warm and comforting on my back, his lips hard and passionate against mine. Lady knows I felt awful and the last thing I was thinking of was passion, but—well, as distractions go it was a fine one.
Especially when he continued in truespeech. That has never ceased to sway me to hjs will, the combination of simple physical passion and the wonder of that glorious voice echoing in the silence of my heart, that ancient mind blending with mine to make something new. "You are my beloved, my Lanen, the song of my soul made complete at last. When I thought I could never love you more, when I thought that already you possessed all there was in me to give, behold! I learn that you bear our child below your heart, and love beyond reason springs forth, young and wild, overflowing like a stream in the spring thaw and all, all thine, my Lanen, Lanen Kaelar, Kadreshi naVarien—"
Just as well the Healer came in then, I thought, despite the way I was feeling. I wondered briefly if Varien had done it on purpose. When I thought about it I realised that he most certainly had.
The Healer introduced himself as Jon and asked what troubled me as he summoned his power and sent it gently into my aching bones. I felt it this time, felt the cool blue strength of his work and welcomed the end of pain with a sob. Once the worst was past I could relax and let him work, but even after he finished he gazed long into my eyes, frowning. "Lady, you do know that this child is killing you?"
"Yes, I do. Can you do anything about it?" I asked. He sent his power into me once again and looked long and hard. He tried something, Goddess only knows what, but the moment he put forth any real power it was agony. I cried out from the pain and he stopped, apologising.
"Lady, I know not what to do," he said, sending power again to soothe the pain he had caused. He had a good, kind face, and it was full of sorrow. "There is only one Mage I know of who can help you—Magistra Erthik of Verfaren. She is wise and strong, and her greatest skill is in assisting with childbirth." He would have stopped, but his conscience made him go on. "Lady, I cry you mercy, but I must tell you. I have stopped the pain and the bleeding for now, but it will not last, especially if you insist on travelling. You—forgive me, I must prepare you." He was desperately distressed. He was also a very brave man. "You must realise how near to death you are, Lady. I can see your strength, but you must believe me. What I have done will keep you alive for a few days. If you insist on riding as you have this day, it might only keep you until this time tomorrow. You must stop and rest!"
I was sitting up. I felt a bit ill and very weary and fuzzy-headed, but surely he must be wrong. "I don't feel that dreadful, master," I said. "I cannot believe you. Of what should I die? I am strong, I've hardly had a sick day in my life. Why should this be so dangerous to me?"
"I fear it will come in the end to loss of blood, lady," he said. "The rejection must soon be complete. In a normal pregnancy your body would have miscarried long since, but this is not a normal pregnancy. There is a conflict between something in your blood and something in the blood of the child, and it is stopping the natural process that would protect you." He bowed. "I fear that only a Mage can help you now."
Varien stood beside me and his face was like carven stone. "Is there nothing that can be done?" he asked, his voice calm and quiet even then.
"Unless you find a Mage able to treat the very blood in her veins, then no, there is nothing to be done," said the Healer. "That kind of skill and power are rare indeed, if they exist at all, and where you would find them outside of Verfaren I could not say. And Verfaren is a full week's travel from here." He knelt before me, his genuine concern writ large across his face. "Lady, let me send for help from Verfaren. If I keep working on you while the Magistra comes to us, then perhaps—"
"No," I said. I felt dizzy and confused, but I knew in my bones that I could not stay there and just wait.
"We will consider it, master," said Varien. "My lady wife is weary and needs rest."
The Healer rose to his feet and bowed. "Very well. I have done what I can for you but it will not last. Be warned, lady. You must know what will happen. The pain will return and it will increase. The bleeding will get worse. Your back and your head will ache unmercifully."
I nodded. "I expected as much," I said.
He spoke wearily now. "When you start to pass clots, lady, know that your end has come upon you. May the Lady keep you, for I can do no more."
"I thank you," I said. Varien paid him his fee and let him out.
I had held back the tears very well while the Healer was there, I thought, but I was shaking by the time Varien sat beside me on the bed, and when he put his arms around me I began sobbing in earnest.
For a time he simply held me and let me cry out my fear. However, when I had calmed down a bit, he sat back from me a little and took my hands in his.
"Dear one, forgive me," he said quietly, "I know how you feel but I must say this. What if he is right?"
"No!" I cried. "How can you say that? I am not going to die!"
"Everyone who has ever died has said the same," he replied. I was shocked at the calmness in his voice, but when I looked at him I saw the tears streaming down his face.
"Why should we not at least wait here, dearling? The Healer can wait upon you while Rella and Jamie fetch this Magistra Erthik here." He never took his eyes off me for a second. "And here at least you will be able to rest, to take your ease."
"While I wait for death?" I snarled. "No, I will not! If time is going to be my enemy, at least let me spend it getting as close to help as I can. The Post horses are fast, my love, Verfaren is but a day away at the speed they make."
He stood at his full height, I could almost see him draw the mantle of his years about him as protection as he gazed down at me. "Lanen, you are putting your life in danger. You must consider this again."
"Why?" I asked, growing angry. "I will not sit here and wait for death to take me!"
"And I cannot sit by and watch you die!" he shouted. "Lanen, I cannot bear this! How should I live if you were to die? Kadreshi, have mercy on me, I beg you." He knelt before me, his face twisted with grief. In that moment all his protection was gone, all his armour of centuries stripped away in the instant, leaving only a desperate man. "Lanen, do not leave me," he said, that glorious voice all broken with weeping. "I could not bear this life alone."
I took his face in my hands. "I am not going to die," I repeated.
"You cannot know that!" he cried, rising swiftly, angrily to his feet. "And yet you would put what time you have left at risk by riding like a madwoman. What if this Mage Erthik at Verfaren cannot help you? What then? Shall I hold you in my arms as you bleed to death?"
"Varien!" I was shocked.
"Well, what would you? You will not take counsel, you rush headlong into danger for no reason, you refuse to listen to a Healer who has offered to do all in his power to aid you. What is left for me to do but curse the child of our making, or wish we had never met?" He could barely contain his rage, he was shaking with it. "I have kept silent, Lanen, for you did not need to concern yourself with it, but it has been terrible for me to know you in such pain for so long." He stood before me and his eyes locked, blazing, on mine. "Do you forget, Lanen Kaelar, that I hear your every thought? You have not been careful to shield of late. Every jolt, every gasp, every drop of blood and every shooting pain that you have known has shaken me also this last moon."
His truespeech was like a sword in my mind. That did it.
"Damn you, Varien," I cried. "What, think you I did that on purpose? I haven't bespoken you so that you wouldn't have to hear it or feel it. Maybe it's good that you have, after all, for the danger is of your making!"