SfS Chapter 20
The night was still. Alanna slid soundlessly out of bed, lifted her wrap from where she had laid it ready, and swathed herself in the folds of cloth before drifting out of the tent.
At the first shift of her weight on their bed, Xanir had cracked his eyes open. He watched her listless movements in the dim light then moved to the doorway to track her solitary shadow until it ducked inside the stable-tent. He let out a long sigh, hand clenched on the cloth.
The guilt dragged at him. She couldn't sleep. Still. Despite how sweetly he had exhausted her, and then cuddled her, his wife's subconscious mind wouldn't relax around him. Pregnant women were not supposed to lose weight.
Kurim slunk to his post on guard outside the stable and nodded across at his Tahl. Xanir sighed again and turned back to his empty bed. He had whipped Lord Merik in the face yesterday for making a coarse joke about horse cock. His household were treating it as commonplace: here in the desert, finding the Tahl-Matla curled up beside her horse every morning didn't really raise eyebrows. But how would she survive when they returned to the palace?
He sat on the edge of the mattress, head in hands. The chief healer, the Shitraz, had told him to make her stay in his bed, that exhaustion would drag her to sleep and in time she would grow accustomed; he should not indulge his wife's megrims. Xanir clenched his fingers in his hair, blood scouring at the memory of trying to soothe her out of a nightmare a week back, the echo of her flinch as she had lunged away, screaming. Shivering, she had cuddled into him once awake. But she hadn't told him what she had been dreaming about.
She told him less and less. Sometimes he could feel her struggling to share something, knowledge behind her eyes, but she would hesitate, wariness closing over her, and the moment was lost.
He clung to the memory of the good times they still shared - exchanging caustic views on the actions of those who came to greet the Tahl - and there were hundreds, on this circuit of the desert tribes to confirm allegiance and thank each for their service in the recent war. She often told him what the lords approaching whispered to each other, and they shared a laugh or a significant look.
And she had let him comfort her when she had wept over the lives she had taken, saving him from Beguine's ambush. She had clung to him.
And the sex, her body still couldn't help but melt in response to his touch.
Unless she was asleep, when she screamed.
And now she just couldn't sleep. The distance, the silence between them had been steadily growing over the last weeks.
Xanir stood, yanked on his clothes, snatched up his sword, and strode off to find Zander. He needed a fight.
In his bleak moments, he wondered if she would have talked to Limaq.
*
Alanna leaned against Rigal, carefully penning her note in the faint light under the flap of roof open to the stars. With this distance between them, she feared Xanir's reaction to what she suspected may be afoot in the palace. She didn't want him to draw even further away. But she had to tell him what she had observed from the Graune Tower. He could draw his own conclusions.
As usual.
Thrice in those interminable ten weeks, one of the Tahl-Mat's attendants had hidden beneath the canvas in her garden, staying behind when the rest of them had left with the lady. At night, they then had climbed the great central tree and harvested the fruits. They hadn't taken them away, instead splitting them open and scooping the seeds out into a pouch similar to the one she had seen Beguine pass to Rebeqa months ago. The pulp and rind they buried in the flower beds.
She didn't know why, what use the seeds were, but the secrecy, and similarity to Rebeqa's actions, had made Alanna watch night after night, and take note. The absentee attendants each rejoined the entourage the following day, but the Tahl-Mat didn't seem to bat an eyelid at their dishevelment.
Which was why Alanna suspected that Tahl-Mat Panya knew why they had stayed.
She had finished her note. Alanna waited for some feeling - of satisfaction, worry, hope, but nothing stirred the dullness. The baby kicked. She looked down at it, a flicker of irritation instantly swamped by guilt. And misery. She was supposed to love her child. Limaq's - Xanir's, whoever was the father, at least she was definitely its mother. She should love it.
It
.
She feared this resentment: it was unnatural. But if Limaq had impregnated her - the nausea rose in her throat and she stared out into the night, swamped in the dull misery. Everyone believed it. Maybe it was true. Eventually, Rigal nudged her and she struggled to her feet, turning to hug him around the neck and press her face into his hair. The bile made her swallow, again, and she turned and sicked up what little supper Xanir had enticed her to eat, wiping her mouth with hay.
That was the fear. Limaq would never have done anything that the Great Tahl didn't want - but Xanir had said it himself, he had wanted to keep her, by whatever means. He was promising to rewrite the law that enforced the Tahl to repudiate fruitless brides, so that no descendent of his would have to live as he had, but now - had Xanir told Limaq to impregnate her? Had her friend drugged her one night, his loyalty to his Tahl eclipsing her trust in him? Gemma shivered, the sickness surging in her again.
Xanir needed a son. She feared having a girl. Had nightmares where she was asleep, and Zander was rutting on her while Xanir watched, making sure she was impregnated by his chosen surrogate.
Weakly, Alanna turned and retched again, although nothing came up.
God, she missed sleeping.
If only she wasn't pregnant, she could go home to her father. Safe. The tears leaked again, while she stared out into her bleak future. Xanir had claimed the child, so she would be taking war with her if she returned home now. She had to stay.
More tears. She wanted to stay. Wanted the old days, before the pregnancy - to laugh with Xanir, tease him, play. She wanted Xanir. But the Great Tahl needed a son.
Resentment surged again, the fear swamping her: even if it wasn't a girl, he refused to name his firstborn as heir. What if he didn't like the second one either?
Her breath was shortening into hoarse pants, gulping back sobs.
Stop it, she told herself. You're getting hysterical. Nonsensical.
She did this every night now. Worked herself up to the point where she was hyperventilating, spraying sobs, until she eventually exhausted herself and fell asleep with the dawn, curled against the only protection she had in this damn camp.
Rigal nudged her.
They would wake her scant hours later, to sponge and dress her for the first tribesmen who would come to congratulate Xanir both on his victory and his impending child. The interminable hours of smiling and murmuring thanks for well-meaning advice from the women as she sat a little to his left, beside him, in the place of honour.
Honour. Hah.
A noise outside the canvas walls, someone walking past. Alanna staggered, realising she'd been sinking into a stupor leaning against Rigal, mind blank, for far too long. She shivered, glancing around the quiet stable. She could cry a bit more. Maybe she would then fall asleep.
