“No. It is his,” Mal said, and almost smiled. She stroked Modh's arms and turned away. “I will be good, Modh,” she said. “You must not let this trouble you-you and your husband. It is not your trouble. Don't worry. What must happen will happen."
Cowardly, Modh let herself accept Mal's reassurance. More cowardly still, she let herself be glad that it was only a few days until the wedding. Then what must happen would have happened. It would be done, it would be over.
She was pregnant; she told Hehum and Nata of the signs. They both smiled and said, “A boy."
There was a flurry of getting ready for the wedding. The ceremony was to be in Belen House, and the Belens refused to let the Bals provide food or dancers or musicians or any of the luxuries they offered. Tudju was to officiate. She came a couple of days early to stay in her old home, and she and Modh played at sword-practice the way they had done as girls, while Mal looked on and applauded as she had used to do. She was thin and her eyes looked large, but she went through the days serenely. What her nights were, Modh did not know. Mal did not send for her. In the morning, she would smile at Modh's questions about the night and say, “It passed."
But the night before the wedding, Modh woke in the deep night, hearing a baby cry.
She felt Bela awake beside her.
“Where is the child?” he said, his voice rough and deep in the darkness.
She said nothing.
“Nata should quiet her brat,” he said.
“It is not Nata's."
It was a thin, strange cry, not the bawling of Nata's healthy boys. They heard it first to the left, as if in the hanan. Then after a silence the thin wail came from their right, in the public rooms of the house.
“Maybe it is my child,” Modh said.
“What child?"
“Yours."
“What do you mean?"
“I carry your child. Nata and Hehum say it's a boy. I think it's a girl, though."
“But why is it crying?” Bela whispered, holding her.
She shuddered and held him. “It's not our baby, it's not our baby,” she cried.
All night the baby wailed. People rose up and lighted lanterns and walked the halls and corridors of Belen House. They saw nothing but each other's frightened faces. Sometimes the weak, sickly crying ceased for a long time, then it would begin again. Mostly it was faint, as if far away, even when it was heard in the next room. Nata's little boys heard it, and shouted, “Make it stop!” Tudju burned incense in the prayer room and chanted all night long. To her the faint wailing seemed to be under the floor, under her feet.
When the sun rose the people of Belen House ceased to hear the ghost. They made ready for the wedding festival as best they could.
The people of Bal came. Mal was brought out from behind the yellow curtain, wearing voluminous unsewn brocaded silks, with golden jewelry, her transparent veil like rain about her head. She looked very small in the elaborate draperies, straight-backed, her gaze held down. Ralo ten Bal was resplendent in puffed and sequined velvet. Tudju lighted the wedding fire and began the rites.
Modh listened, listened, not to the words Tudju chanted. She heard nothing
The wedding party was brief, strained, everything done with the utmost formality. The guests left soon after the ceremony, following the bride and groom to Bal House, where there was to be more dancing and music. Tudju and Hehum, Alo and Nata went for civility's sake. Bela stayed home. He and Modh said almost nothing to each other. They took off their finery and lay silent in their bed, taking comfort in each other's warmth, trying not to listen for the wail of the child. They heard nothing, only the others returning, and then silence.
Tudju was to return to the Temple early in the morning. She came to Bela and Modh's apartments. Modh had just risen.
“Where is my sword, Modh?"
“You put it in the box in the dancing room."
“Your bronze one is there, not mine."
Modh looked at her in silence. Her heart began to beat heavily.
There was a noise, shouting, beating at the doors of the house.
Modh ran to the hanan, to the room she and Mal had slept in, and hid in the corner, her hands over her ears.
Bela found her there later. He raised her up, holding her wrists gently. She remembered how he had dragged her by the wrists up the hill through the trees. “Mal killed Ralo,” he said. “She had the sword hidden under her dress. They strangled her."
“Where did she kill him?"
“On her bed,” Bela said bleakly. “He never did keep his promises."
“Who will bury her?"
“No one,” Bela said, after a long pause. “She was a Dirt woman. She murdered a Crown. They'll throw her body in the butchers’ pit for the wild dogs."
“Oh, no,” Modh said. She slipped her wrists from his grip. “No,” she said. “She will be buried."
Bela shook his head.
“Will you throw everything away, Bela?"
“There is nothing I can do,” he said.
She leaped up, but he caught and held her.
He told the others that Modh was mad with grief. They kept her locked in the house, and kept watch over her.
Bedh knew what troubled her. He lied to her, trying to give her comfort; he said he had gone to the butcher's pit at night and found Mal's body and buried it out past the Fields of the City. He said he had spoken what words he could remember that might be spoken to a spirit. He described Mal's grave vividly, the oak trees, the flowering bushes. He promised to take Modh there when she was well. She listened and smiled and thanked him. She knew he lied. Mal came to her every night and lay beside her.
Bela knew she came. He did not try to come to that bed again.
All through her pregnancy Modh was locked in Belen House. She did not go into labor until almost ten months had passed. The baby was too large; it would not be born, and with its death killed her.
Bela ten Belen buried his wife and unborn son with the Belen dead in the holy grounds of the Temple, for though she was only a Dirt woman, she had a dead god in her womb.