Marguerite tried to speak, to ask for help, but she could only manage a strangled croak. Her limbs continued to twitch uncontrollably. Her stomach leaped and jumped, as if the child within were trying to punch its way out.
Jacqueline studied Marguerite with a puzzled expression. "Stop thatl Stop it once!" she commanded. "This. . this demented farce will not save you. I am not so easily fooled."
Marguerite felt her tongue slip between her teeth, then a sharp pain. Her mouth filled with the taste of copper-her blood. She had bitten her tongue. A warm stream spilled from her mouth and began to run down the side of her chin.
Jacqueline's eyes widened in shock. "What is this?" she exclaimed. "This isn't right. This Is-" She stepped away from the box. "Well, I'll not have this on my shoulders!"
She slammed down the lid and rattled the pin into the hasp. A moment later, the carriage began to turn.
By the gods, no, Marguerite thought. Her body was shuddering less violently now, but she still felt weak- terribly weak, as feeble as an invalid. Please, no, she pleaded silently.
Like a cold black shadow, despair slipped into the box and covered her. They were heading back to the keep, back to Lord Donskoy, who would go mad when he discovered what she had attempted. Perhaps he already knew. Marguerite's hand scrabbled feebly against the wood overhead, pushing at the lid. She searched again for the missing dagger, but it had slipped away and lay lost somewhere in the cramped darkness. She heard her own voice echoing inside the box, moaning more in fear than pain. They were heading back to Lord Donskoy's keep. And she was too weak to do anything about it.
The landmarks passed in her mind slowly like the scenes from a nightmare-the marsh, the trickling stream, the arched stone bridge. Every few minutes the crushing pain returned, like a great fist squeezing her swollen belly, each time worse than the last. She trembled and screamed and convulsed, battering against the coffin walls until her limbs ached with bruising. At length, she began to experience a new sort of agony: something inside, tugging at her entrails like a tiny claw, dragging at her muscles until the small of her back burned with anguish, pulling and pulling until it felt as if her sinews would rip free of their roots.
Finally, the carriage wheels began to rumble more slowly, announcing their arrival at the keep. In moments, the coach drew to a halt, it rocked once, then Jacqueline's muffled voice sounded just outside the coffin.
"Never mind the horses, Ljubo Fetch your master. Tell him to come at once!"
A soft rasp sounded near the foot of the crate-a rope being loosened. Marguerite's pulse pounded in her ears, filling them with a roar so loud that everything she heard seemed to come from a distance. Her body was in constant agony now, a burning weariness punctuated every few minutes by the cramping aches of labor. She pushed at the lid one more time, making a final, feeble attempt to escape the casket. Then she let her hands drop back over her face, too weak to continue.
Marguerite heard Jacqueline undoing the rope at the head of the coffin, then the crunch of boots on gravel.
"Jacqueline?" It was Donskoy. Marguerite's husband. "What are you-"
"Milos," Jacqueline interrupted. The pin clattered from the hasp. "Have you tost something, perhaps?"
The lid opened.
Marguerite saw Ljubo's face leaning over her, eyeing her quizzically. Then a black glove grabbed him by the shoulder, jerking him aside, and Donskoy's face appeared where the stagehand's had been before.
"What is this?" he gasped.
Marguerite was too weak, too frightened, in too much pain to answer.
Donskoy's skin darkened to the color of a Kartakan beet, then he seized Marguerite's hair and lifted her head.
"Did you think you would run off with my son? Better not to think at all, you little wretch! This will be the last time you disobey me." He began to pull Marguerite out of the coffin. "Get out of there-and quit shaking like an imbecile."
Jacqueline laid a hand on his arm. "Milos-"
Donskoy shook her off. "What?!"
Jacqueline flinched and stepped back, raising both hands in mock surrender. "Far be it from me to come between a man and his wife, but you may wish to take care," she said. "I have never seen a woman shake like that. Something is not going quite right."
"Going?" Donskoy asked. "What do you mean?"
"Just look at her," Jacqueline said evenly. "What do you see? She is not shaking from fright alone. Open your eyes, Milos. Can't you see through your own anger? Her water has broken and her labor has begun."
The color drained from Donskoy's face as rapidly as it had appeared. He released Marguerite's hair, leaving her head to drop limply back into the coffin, and then he leaned in close. He ran his gloved hand over her heaving stomach. Marguerite recoiled at his touch, wishing that she had her dagger in hand, wishing she had the strength to plunge it into her husband's throat. But she did not. She could do nothing but lie beneath his rummaging fingers.
"Is this true?" Donskoy demanded. His breath was heavy with the acrid smell of hookah smoke. "Is the baby coming already?"
Marguerite nodded weakly.
Donskoy turned and grabbed Ljubo by the neck of his tunic, then pushed the plump man toward the keep. "Get Zosia," he growled, "and Ekhart as well. Get them now." He turned back to the coffin and peered over the edge at Marguerite, his sunken eyes burning with anger-no, it was more than anger. Hatred. "So, you chose to depart in a coffin. Well, if the child is harmed because of your stupidity, you'll know this box again soon enough. Soon enough!"
Marguerite struggled to pull herself up out of the crate, but fell back.
"Lie still," Donskoy hissed. "Wait till the old woman comes."
It was only a moment before Zosia's black-kerchiefed head peered in at Marguerite. Beside her stood Yelena, pale and trembling, her slender fingers pressed to her mouth in horror. The wrinkles in Zosia's brow deepened and her mouth bent downward.
"How long have you been feeling the pains?" she asked.
"I don't know," said Marguerite weakly. "A few hours. Maybe more. Please help me, Zosia. Help the baby."
Zosia's dark eyes narrowed. "Take her upstairs," she commanded.
Ljubo and Ekhart placed the crate on the ground, then reached inside and lifted Marguerite. Their rough handling touched off another convulsion, but so exhausted was Marguerite's body that they had little trouble restraining it. They carried her up the long flight of steps and into the keep. Ljubo looked down at Marguerite, grinning reassuringly even as her back arched up with the unnatural paroxysm and a hoarse scream rose once again from her raw throat. The pain swallowed her, and Marguerite fell into a strange, dreamy state. She was like a boat on a wavering sea of air, floating round and round up the wide circular stairs. The figures and faces around her seemed distant, muffled. Hands carried her, but they did not really touch her.
Ljubo and Ekhart bore Marguerite to her chamber and laid her on a clean sheet that Yelena had hastily spread upon the mattress. Zosia gently rolled Marguerite onto her side, till she lay facing the edge of the bed.
"Bring me rags and a tub of hot water," she boomed at Ljubo. And to Yelena, she said, in a lower intonation, "and bring my black bag from below."
Donskoy loomed behind the old woman. "She is quiet now. Is she dead, dead with her eyes open?"
"Of course not," said Zosia. "See how her chest yet rises and falls."
"And what of my son? Will he live?"
"I have not foreseen his death-but then, I have not seen this either. Who can say, Lord Donskoy?" Her tone was almost taunting. "Not this old woman. Not your tamed Vistana."