gown kept her comfortably warm, and the sun sparkling on the water dazzled her eyes. Without quite meaning to, she was leaning up against Rapskal’s shoulder when he asked her, “What are you thinking about so quietly?”
And then the words popped out of her mouth. “What if I’m pregnant?”
He spoke confidently. “Girls don’t get pregnant the first time. Everyone knows that.”
“Girls DO get pregnant the first time, and only boys say that stupid thing about how it can’t happen the first time. Besides, what about the second, third, and fourth time last night?”
Despite the seriousness of her question, a smile threatened her face.
“Well.” He appeared to consider her words carefully. “If you are pregnant, then a fifth and a sixth time would do no harm. And if you aren’t, well, then you probably aren’t ripe right now, and a fifth and a sixth time wouldn’t get you with child.” He turned toward her, his eyes both merry and inviting.
She shook her head at him. How could he be so tempting and so annoying in the very same instant? “You can talk like that and make jokes about it,” she told him sourly. “You don’t have to wonder if something you did in a few minutes last night will change the entire course of your life. Change your whole world.”
When had he put his arm around her? He gathered her in tenderly, tucking her head under his chin. “No,” he said, in a voice more serious than she had ever heard him use. “I don’t have to wonder. I know that my whole world changed last night.” He pressed a kiss onto the top of her brow.
“I feel so useless.” Reyn sat down cross-legged on the deck beside Malta. Despite the darkness of his words and tone, he was smiling at her, captivated by the sight of his beautiful wife nursing his son.
She looked at him. “At least you can move about freely.”
“It’s safest for both of you if you stay here. And Leftrin doesn’t want me coming and going from the boat any more than is absolutely necessary. And he wants you and the baby to remain invisible.” He’d said the words before and he didn’t doubt that he’d say them again before they managed to depart. Logic did not always have a great deal of influence on Malta, especially when it did not agree with her preferences. “The other Chalcedean may very well be looking for you. And even if he isn’t, the word is out that a man was murdered in a bagnio last night. They are looking for his killer.”
“Do the reports say that he was a Chalcedean and here illegally?”
Reyn gave a small sigh. “I’ve done my best to feign great lack of interest in the tidings. Instead, I’ve been doing all I can to help Leftrin beg, borrow, and almost steal every sort of supply we can load on this ship. Tillamon insisted that we had to send a bird to my mother, to let her know what has happened so she will not worry about us. As if such tidings could make her not worry! We have begged her to do nothing until we are safely under way, but I do not know if she will listen to that advice.”
“Did you get extra messenger birds for us to take with us?”
“Oh, as if that were easy! Good messenger birds are highly prized and valuable. And the Guild is very fussy about who flies birds. I still managed to strike a bargain with the bird keeper here. He told me he cannot sell Guild birds, but he had some of his own that he said he was actually raising for meat. Evidently they grow very large and are not as swift on the wing. They looked like sad creatures to me, but he says they are just in a molt stage and will be very handsome when their new feathers grow. He sold me a few and said no matter where we release them, they will fly back here to him. He gave me message capsules also, and the scrolls that go in them, but swore me to absolute secrecy about all of it. So. When we arrive in Kelsingra, we can at least tell my mother that we are there, and she can pass the news on to Keffria and Ronica. And that, my dear, was the very best I could do about that.”
Malta nodded, then gave all her attention to their baby. He had fallen asleep at her breast. She wrapped him and set him in a little wooden biscuit box, well cushioned with a rough ship’s blanket. As she covered herself, she said, “I had packed a supply of things for him when we came here, just in case he arrived early. Can you. .”
“Tillamon is taking care of all that. She has gone back to our rooms and will repack as much as she can into a couple of cargo boxes and then have them carried down to the boat.”
“Why is everything taking so long? I will not know a moment’s peace until we get him to a dragon that can help him.”
“He looks much better to me already. The ship is doing all he can.”
“I know.” She set her hand to the wooden deck and hoped Tarman could sense her gratitude and would not take her words amiss. “But I can feel what he is doing and it frightens me. Reyn, he reminds our baby to breathe. He listens to his heart beating.” She reached over and set her hand on her baby’s chest, as if to be certain for herself.
Reyn was silent, and then asked the question that he must. “And if Tarman did not remind him?”
“I think he would just stop,” Malta said.
Reyn slid across the deck to gather her into his arms. “It won’t be long now,” he told her and prayed he was not lying. “As soon as we are loaded, we’ll depart. Captain Leftrin promised us this.”
He sat still, listening to the busy sounds of freight coming aboard the ship. There was a bed in the tiny boxlike cabin that Leftrin had provided for him, and part of him longed to be there. But the baby needed to stay here on the foredeck where Tarman’s wizardwood was thickest in order to remain in contact with the liveship. Malta, he reminded himself, had been here all night. “Would you like to go to the cabin and sleep for a bit? I’ll stay here with our son.”
She shook her head. “Maybe once we are out on the water and I know we are on our way, maybe then I can relax. But not yet.” Then she smiled. “Our son. How strange and wonderful it sounds to say it aloud. But he needs a name of his own, Reyn.” She looked down at the sleeping infant. “Something strong. A tough name to carry him through.”
“Ephron,” Reyn suggested promptly.
Malta’s eyes widened. “Name him after my grandfather?”
“I always heard good things about him. And for a second name?”
“Bendir,” she suggested.
“My brother’s name? My elder brother, who has spent his entire life bossing me around, sitting on me when we were children, even mocking me for falling in love with you!”
“I like Bendir,” she admitted, grinning, and for the sake of that smile, so unexpected on her weary face, he nodded. “Ephron Bendir Khuprus. A large name for a small boy.”
“He will be Phron until he grows into it. It was what my father was called as a boy.”
“Phron Khuprus, then,” Reyn said and touched the sleeping child’s pate. “You have a big name to live up to, little one.”
Malta covered her husband’s hand with her own and smiled at her son’s small face. Then she gave a brief, choked laugh.
“What’s funny?” Reyn demanded.
“I was remembering Selden when he was a baby. He was the only one in the family younger than me, so he was the only baby I really knew.”
“Did you love him from the moment you saw him?”
Her smile grew wider as she shook her head. “No. Not at all. My mother was horrified the day I carried him into the kitchen and showed her that he would fit exactly in a baking dish.”
“NO!”
“Yes. I did it. At least, so I’ve been told repeatedly. I don’t remember it myself. I do remember when Wintrow was sent off to be a priest. Because I asked if Selden couldn’t go with him.”
Reyn shook his head. “A bit jealous, were you?”
“More than a bit,” Malta admitted. Her smile faded a little. “And now I would give anything to know where my little brother is. Or to at least know that he is safe.”
Reyn put his arm around her and pulled her closer. He kissed her forehead. “Selden is tough. He’s been through a lot. He was just a little boy when we watched Tintaglia hatch. Any other child would have been terrified and weeping at our dilemma. Selden just kept on trying to work out how we could get out of it. And now he’s a man. He can take care of himself, dear. I have a lot of faith in Selden.”
Lantern light woke him. Selden half opened his eyes. They were gummy, and the figure before him was a blur. He pulled one hand from under the coarse blanket to rub at his eyes. They stung. He coughed abruptly, and then coughed more. He leaned as far from his bedding as he could before spitting out the
