Court of Fives

I dodge around her and stride to the arch that opens into the central chamber. The taper burns hotly in my hand, its light revealing all.

Maraya sits on the floor, bracing up our mother.

Mother is ashy and drained of vigor, her body slumped.

Coriander kneels in the gloom beyond Maraya. How has she come to rest in a Patron tomb? Her face is streaked with smears of drying blood. She holds strips of torn linen, which she is plaiting to make pads to soak up blood.

Cook crouches between Mother’s spread legs. Her hands are blotched with stains. The taper’s flame is not bright enough to illuminate color but I can smell the overpowering scent. My mother lies in a seeping puddle of blood.

A dark globe crowns between her legs.

Cook says, “Hold your breath, Doma! You must hold your breath and push.”

“It is all for nothing,” murmurs my mother in a ragged tone that shatters my heart. “The baby is dead.”

Maraya can barely speak through tears. “There’s another baby coming, Mama. You must push.”

“It is better to die than chance the child will live in this tomb. You cannot wish such a death upon her. You cannot!” Despair ravages Mother’s voice.

From behind, the oracle brushes past me, a dagger in her hand. “Pregnancy defiles the tomb! You have brought death upon us!”

She lunges for my mother.

Slamming my shoulder into her, I shove her sideways, then punch her in the chest. The dagger is knocked loose. I scoop up the knife as the oracle stumbles over a naked newborn on the floor. My breath floods in bursts as I gape at the tiny, empty body. The poor little thing, given no chance to breathe, no spark to brighten its souls into life.

The oracle paws at the lifeless infant, cradles it lovingly in her skinny arms. “They tore him away from my breast and killed him. Why torment me with this memory of the past?”

Our scuffle has drawn attention. Maraya, Cook, and Coriander all stare at me, mouths open and eyes wide, too stunned by my appearance to speak.

A new contraction shudders through Mother but she does not even try to ride it. Her self-soul has fled her body, leaving her weak and apathetic. The thought of my mother dying from despair banishes every point of confusion in my mind.

“Mother, you have to push!” I say in the sharpest voice I have. “You have to give birth to the baby and the afterbirth. Do you hear me, Mother?” I am shouting because if I do not shout I will dissolve into wretched misery.

Her eyes roll back in her head as if she is passing out, but then they steady, and they track, and they find me. “Jessamy?”

“Jes!” cries Maraya. She can’t release Mother so she shakes her head over and over, blinking as if she expects me to vanish. “Is it really you?”

Cook squints into the light. “Doma Jessamy? How can you be here?”

Mother’s hand tightens on Maraya’s arm. “Did they trap you too, my darling Jessamy? Or is this your shadow who comes to bid good-bye?”

I kneel beside her, holding the light by my face. “I am not a shadow. I am here to get you out of the tomb. Coriander, help Merry hold her up so it will be easier for the baby to drop.”

“That’s right, listen to Doma Jessamy,” says Cook briskly. Maraya and Coriander lift Mother until she is in a crouch, supported by them. “Merciful Hayiyin, Mistress of the Sea, let this prayer unknot a birth that has grown tangled.” She slips her hands between Mother’s legs.

“Mother! Push!”

My words hit like spears. Awareness sharpens her gaze. A contraction rolls through. She holds her breath and pushes as Cook massages her below.

The baby’s head emerges, its cap of black hair smeary with slime and blood. With the gods as my witness I smell life amid this blood, not death.

“You can manage one more push, Doma!”

Mother sucks in a breath, tenses, pushes. The baby’s shoulders and little body slip free. Cook catches the newborn and gently places it on Mother’s chest.

“Here is your daughter, Doma.”

The baby lies so still that I am not sure it is breathing, but the umbilical cord pulses. Mother’s eyes are closed and for a moment of sheer blind terror I am not sure she is breathing either. Then her lips part and a broken whisper emerges.

“It was the lotus flower potion the priests drugged us with to make sure we could not fight or run. Infants haven’t the strength to survive it, for inside me they must have sipped as at the cup I was forced to drink. I wish I had died with them. Then I would not have to know.” Some wicked creature’s shadow has slipped inside her and means to swell and swell until the last of Mother is pinched into oblivion. “I made secret offerings to the Mother of All.…”