The Elf Wife Ch 06

Chapter 6

The Midwife and the King

Urragn did not bother Aris for the next few days. He didn't even speak to her.

In fact, Aris did not speak to anyone at all, except for Rintag who just used her as a dumping ground to drop his complaints. His wife was acting anxious and needy. His child was spoiled. The Jarl and the captain were working the soldiers too hard during drills. Aris absorbed the complaints with little commentary, refusing to offer complaints of her own.

When Urragn called her to his bed again, he did so with a simple firm hand on her shoulder. "My chambers. Come," were the only words he said.

She followed him to his room like a lamb to slaughter, the eyes of the servants, guards, and other wives following after her. He whisked her inside, locked the door, and removed her clothing himself.

She sunk into his expensive mattress and felt the softness of his fine sheets. But the luxurious setting didn't make the sex any more interesting. He entered her, humped her and grunted for a few minutes until she was successfully filled, while his enormous companion dogs watched awkwardly from the other side of the room. It was uncomfortable and left her a bit sore and chaffed, but she didn't complain, and he didn't care. Exactly as she wanted it to be.

But even as they tried to keep the act as sterile and wordless as possible, there were still brief moments of pleasure that troubled Aris. He still teased her before he entered her. His chest and stomach still felt warm on top of her. She still enjoyed being stretched and filled.

When he rubbed her stomach afterward, it still relaxed her. Despite trying not to, she fell asleep with her knees in the air and his hand on her belly. He covered her with a blanket and let her rest there till long after midnight.

When Arris finally returned to her room, a basket was waiting for her on her table. It contained some of the items she'd asked for, including books and stationery. Wrapped in paper was a braided loaf of bread that smelled heavily of rosemary, a King's Day roll, and Urragn's attempt at a sense of humor.

There was also a tiny vial made of blue blown glass. Aris uncorked it, took a sniff and poured a drop on her hands. It slid over her finger and felt strangely smooth on her skin, a subtle sensation that was somehow both warm and cool at the same time. It was certainly Tagash oil.

Over the next couple weeks, she and Urragn developed an awkward and shameful routine of wordless insemination. After each time, Aris would curl up in bed alone, feeling the jarl's seed leaking between her legs, and she would question what she was doing and why. She needed a pair of ears to listen to all her mixed emotions, but she had no one. The other orc wives would not understand her objection, and any elven confidant would call her a traitor and a whore. She poured the thoughts into her journal and then hid the journal deep under her mattress.

When Aris was in the army, the army physician had given her a potion to stop her monthly bleeding. Elvish magic had made great technological advancements in the past few decades, and old indignities and inconveniences could be abandoned to history. There was even a version that could prevent pregnancy, but Aris had not needed that as she had been celibate for the past few years. It was so complicated keeping a lover during wartime and she could not bear the headache and heartache.

Aris had taken her anti-menstrual potion dutifully, and even on her most remote and complex missions, she always made sure to pack a supply of it. She had not bled since she was a teenager, and had almost forgotten it was even a possibility. But she had not taken the potion since she was captured and taken to Katkasad. She had forgotten all about it with so many other things on her mind.

Urragn noticed the blood before she did. His nose wrinkled when he undressed her.

"What is it?" she asked him.

He took a cloth from the nightstand, dabbed it in between her legs. "It's so red. For a moment, I thought you lathered yourself in strawberry jam," he said. "Very red indeed. I am reminded again of our differences."

Aris took the cloth from him and looked at it. "I apologize," she said. "I hope I haven't gotten any on your sheets. I didn't realize it was going to start so soon."

Urragn took back his cloth and then laughed. "Of all the thousands of little ways you have offended me, you will apologize for a drop of blood on a bed sheet. Not for speaking to me coldly, not for disrespecting my other wives, not for refusing to make conversation with me. Blood on a bedsheet?" He poured a couple drops of water onto the cloth using the pitcher he kept on the nightstand. Without even thinking about it, he cleaned the rest of the blood from her body, the way a nurse would clean a sickly patient.

Aris had no response. She wished that he would get angry instead of laughing. The fact that he was laughing showed that he didn't care. And it disturbed her that she wanted him to care.

"I will make a note of the day, and I will have Vrish bring you some fresh rags," he said. He handed her her clothes and then shooed her off his bed.

When Aris returned to her room, she felt humiliated and confused in a thousand different ways. She actually began to weep. Her face was tearstained when Lady Vrishtagna knocked on her door. Vrishtagna was not sympathetic to Aris's tears.

"I never thought a soldier like you would cry over a little blood," Vrishtagna said.

Aris clenched her jaw and took the bundle of rags from Vrish.

"Or maybe you're just upset it's your own blood and not one of our people's you've spilled," Vrish said. "Is that the problem, Lady Aris? Is it the wrong color?"

Aris tried for an answer that walked the line between diplomatic and stern. "I've gone through a lot in the past few weeks. You know that, Lady Vrishtagna. You wouldn't understand."

"I understand war well enough," Vrish said. "Just because I've never swung a sword doesn't mean I've never been threatened by one or lost anything to one."

"I wasn't talking about the war," Aris said.

"Of course, you were," Vrish said. She paused and took a deep breath. "My husband is... he's being nicer to you than you deserve. I wish you would just...." She shook her head. "I don't care. I have nothing to say to you. I will gain nothing from discussing this with you." And then she walked away.

The day after, Aris awoke to belly cramps that she hadn't suffered since her youth. But no mercy was shown to her. Lady Vrishtagna finally decided that Aris was well adjusted enough to be added to the chore list. Aris was given a brush and a bucket of soapy water and ordered to wash the baseboards throughout the entire great house. Rintag followed behind her as ordered.

"You could help, you know," Aris said to Rintag as she worked.

Rintag sat down on a stool behind Aris and lit his tobacco pipe. "I could, but I'm not going to," he said.

Aris was now one of the ladies of Fud Faragna, with all the privileges and duties that came along with that. A new routine developed. In the morning, she would complete whichever chore Vrish assigned to her, while Rintag followed her around uselessly, occasionally complaining about his marriage or his job or the weather. Aris would eat dinner with the family silently, as the family members talked to everyone except to her. After dinner, she would complain to her journal.

And every few days, Urragn came to her bed or called her to his. She would pretend not to enjoy the warmth of his body pressed against hers. But she did. His skin would grow so hot, and she could feel that heat in her bones whenever he wrapped his arms around her. When they finished and she drifted off to sleep alone, his absence felt freezing cold, even under her mink blanket.

To Aris's horror and relief, her mind adjusted to this routine, to the point that she felt as if she had been doing it her whole life. She thought less and less about the army. She worried less about what they would do to her if she returned to the elven world, or whether she could ever forgive herself for her choice. She went to sleep planning out the next day's chores, and what mind-numbingly stupid activity she would do to enjoy her free time. This wasn't the same thing as being happy, and certainly wasn't the same as feeling at home at Fud Faragna. But it was routine, and for now that was good enough.

When summer first showed signs of fading, and the first truly cool breeze came through Aris's window, Ugamat went into labor. A servant was sent to fetch the midwife. The wives gathered in her bedchamber, except for Rintag. And since Rintag could not attend, neither could Aris.

Aris sat with Rintag in a sunlit drawing room while they awaited news. He was completely quiet. His normally greenish skin looked even greener, and his knee bounced rapidly.

Aris recalled a memory of visiting an elvish infirmary as a child, sitting with her anxious parents while her aunt gave birth in one of the curtained-isolated beds. Aris remembered not understanding why they were there, until she was allowed to meet her baby cousin a few hours later. She had lost contact with the aunt and cousin after she and her brother were evacuated from her hometown. She did not know where her aunt and her cousin went, and had no way to contact them. Last Aris had heard, they were living near the southern coast, but she was unsure if that was true.

Urragn joined them.

"You look calm," Rintag said to him.

Urragn shrugged as he sat down next to Aris. "So many children have been born into my house. I know what to expect by now."

"She could die," Rintag said.

"And is working yourself into a nervous fit going to stop her from dying?" Urragn said.

Rintag was somewhat annoyed by this answer. He leaned forward in his chair and shaded his eyes with his hands.

"Elvish husbands are usually allowed to watch their wives give birth," Aris commented.

"I was allowed to bear witness when Ugamat herself was born," Urragn said.

This caught Rintag's attention, and Urragn explained. "We were living in Delmogdale, just the two of us. We were squatting in the forest of one of the local chieftains in a little abandoned hunting cabin. We had fled from my family, and could not go back to hers because she had married me against her father's wishes. It was a complicated situation."

"And that's where she was born?" Rintag said.

Urragn nodded. "I caught her with my own hands. We were very lucky that she was as fat and healthy as she was, because had things been less fortunate, I would have been useless."

"And you go from that... to this?" Rintag said, gesturing at the great house around them.

Urragn almost laughed. "I joined the army for the salary. I had a wife and a tiny daughter hiding in an old hunting cabin, and I needed to feed them. I did not think it through very well, but it was the brightest career move I ever made."

Aris hoped, and also did not hope, that Urragn would elaborate further. To rise from such humble beginnings, he truly must have proven himself a deadly soldier indeed. He had won his wealth and prestige through killing elves.

But the image in her mind was not of Urragn on the battlefield. Instead she pictured him with Vrish, long before she had any right to call herself "Lady Vrishtagna," or anything of such importance. Likely their little home in the hunting cabin was even less glamorous than the treehouse where Aris had grown up.

One of the midwife's assistants came into the room. She was dressed in very clean linen, cleaner than any Aris thought an orc could wear. Lady Vrishtagna, bearing her first child in a tiny hunting cabin, certainly would not have been treated by someone that clean.

"She has asked for the Jarl to visit her bedside," said the nurse.

Urragn stood. He did not hesitate or ask further questions. He simply followed the nurse back to his daughter's room, leaving Aris and Rintag alone together.

"Why him?" Rintag said. "He's allowed to break the midwife's rules to be there, but I can't."

"When it's your parent, it's different," Aris said. "My child won't be so lucky. My parents won't be there for me when it's born."

"You don't strike me as the sentimental type," Rintag said to Aris.

Aris shrugged. "We're talking about babies, Rintag. I can be sentimental when we're talking about babies," she said. "Although, to be honest, until I married Urragn, I had never really considered the concept of a baby orc before."

"Did you think they cooked us up out of mud pits underground?" Rintag said with a smirk.

"Kind of," she said.

And Rintag laughed. "That's what we tell children when we don't want to explain to them about sex."

When the midwife came to fetch Rintag, all of his complaining and resentments he had expressed the past few days dissolved completely. He ran to the room. Aris followed him.

He saw his woman on the bed, her new son clinging to her breast.

Rintag shoved everyone aside, he leaned over Ugamat and he kissed her, deeply and truly.

***

Urragn announced the baby at dinner, though Ugamat herself could not be there, since she was still under the care of the midwife.

Its name was to be "Hamig, Urragn's son," because it had been born into Urragn's house. Aris asked Rintag about this, if he was offended that he would not be honored with the patronym, and why he would not be. But Rintag did not understand the question despite Aris rephrasing it repeatedly.

Bed, roof, and walls. Urragn had told Aris she would soon understand how this worked. So far she was as confused as ever.

While they were eating, one of Urragn's soldiers politely entered the hall to deliver a message to his lord. Urragn read the letter briefly and then rested his face in his hands. Lady Vrishtagna rubbed his shoulder.

"What does it say, dear?" she said.

"The king is coming," Urragn said, quietly, not intending for anyone else to hear.

"Well that isn't so bad," Vrish said.

"Tonight. He's coming tonight. And he wants to meet Aris."

"So, we have to cook a second dinner, and change our clothes. Is that so bad?"

"There are things I haven't told him yet."

"Well you can tell him tonight, and all will be forgiven."

Urragn then turned to the Dame. "Did you write to your uncle?"

"Which one?" The Dame said.

"You know which one, Fayani," Urragn said. Aris realized that was the first time she had actually heard the Dame's name. "The uncle. What have you told him?"

"I wrote to my father. I tell my father everything, as is my right. And what my father tells my uncle, well, that's my father's right."

Urragn sighed heavily while Vrish tried to comfort him. A couple of the older children watched the interaction but knew better than to ask questions.

Urragn stood.

"The king is going to arrive at Fud Faragna shortly after nightfall. After supper, servants, you take the children to their rooms and remake the table for a second supper. Wives, you will change into your finer clothes and leave the busywork to the servants. We will meet him at the front gate. Eat quickly."

Aris felt a small burn of resentment in her chest. She was not only one of several wives but she also was a simple cog in the machinery of the household. Urragn felt the need to order her about without even addressing her by name. Aris was used to taking orders as a soldier. But as a soldier she was not herself. To be ordered about in such an intimate setting was a different type of degradation.

Urragn did not finish his meal. He left the table, telling the soldier messenger to find the captain.

Aris took a few more bites of food and then returned to her room to get a change of clothes.

She had actually met the orc king once before. She and other members of the Crimson Battalion had been charged with guarding Fort Hashan while the Elf King had hosted his rival counterpart there for something akin to peace negotiations.

The negotiations had failed, and only a month later, Urragn had led his troops to capture Fort Hashan from the elves.

Aris and her soldiers had stood in line while the Orc King came with his guards into the fort. While Aris and her men were there as a show of force, the Orc King had actually come to introduce himself to them through a translator.

Her fellow soldiers bowed, unprompted, to the Orc King, because that was what one did for a king. But Aris had refused. And this had gotten the Orc King's attention.

"They allow women to fight, do they?" The Orc King asked his elven counterpart.

The Elf King had given a half-nonsense answer about how the Elven army was trying to live in the future, how old customs were no longer serving the Elves. The Orc King laughed at this.

"King Tironius, if you are so insistent on breaking the old gender norms, then why not yield the throne to your aunt? By orc customs, that crown of yours would be on her head."

That comment was probably not the only reason negotiations had failed, but it certainly did not help.

Aris pulled a nicer set of furs from her trunk and hurried to the bathhouse.

The other wives, except for Vrish, apparently were thinking the same thing because she was not alone when she got there. She hurried to bathe quickly as she had been trained to do.

Lady Yamash laughed at her. "He isn't getting here till nightfall, darling. No need to rush."

"No need to waste time either," Aris said. She didn't really care to make deep conversation with people while every inch of her naked body was on display, and she desperately tried not to look too closely at theirs.

Yamash laughed again. She sunk down into the warm water and let her greenish skin absorb its heat.

Lady Tsita also felt the need to comment. "Where did you learn to do it so quickly anyway? That's how soldiers bathe themselves."

"And I'm a soldier," Aris said.

Tsita had not expected that answer.

"You didn't know that, Tsi?" said the Dame as she combed out her long silky hair.

"Why would she be a soldier?" Tsita said.

"If you're asking me why I joined the army, it's a long story that I don't want to repeat now," Aris said.

"They let an elf woman join the orc army?" Tsita said.

The Dame sighed. "She was captured, Tsi, from the Elven army. That is how she and Urragn met at Katkasád. How come you didn't know this? You have to pay attention."

"I didn't know this either," Yamash said. "So how did he convince you? Why would an elf soldier marry an orc Jarl?"

"That's what Urragn was referring to when he asked what you had told your uncle," Tsita said. "The king doesn't know Aris is a soldier either."

"You two are some of the slowest women I've ever shared a roof with," the Dame said. "And I thought my sister was dense."

"So, you've killed people before?" Tsita said to Aris.

"Our husband has killed plenty of people, and you don't seem bothered by that," Aris said.

"That's different though," Tsita said.

"Is it, though?" Aris replied.

Tsita wrapped her hands around her body, as if worried that Aris might stab her.

"That's why he ordered Rintag to follow her around," the Dame said.

Aris realized that she was blushing, and realized that the reddish color of her blush only highlighted her alien nature. She concentrated on bathing and getting out of the water as quickly as possible.

When she was clean and dressed, she went to find Urragn. He was already waiting by the gate of the property. It was almost dark.

"The watchman already saw the entourage coming up the road," Urragn said. He held Aris at arms length and looked her up and down.

"Do I look nice?" she said with a sly grin.

"It's not about looking nice. It's about looking... correct." He grabbed the sash holding up her skirts, briefly untied it and somehow adjusted her clothing without undressing her completely. When he was done, the skirt was somehow longer and it was tied under her breasts and not over her hips. He then reached under the collar of her shirt to pull at the silk string of the medallion he had given her, bringing the pendant out of her clothes and leaving it to rest clearly visible on her collarbone.