"I know you are. But what is happening is natural. People have been having babies for thousands of years."
Amber felt another contraction hit her, with the force of a kick in the stomach. "Lina, I have to tell you. It's my husband's child. He's dead. Moragon just thinks the child is his."
"Quiet," Lina hissed, looking around her in both directions. "Not another word, do you hear me? You stay silent about that. You're going to be fine. Let him continue to believe. You know it's the better way."
Amber nodded, grimacing against the pain. "I know."
Lina pinched Amber's arm. "The guards are here. They'll take you somewhere clean and safe." Lina leaned in close. "If you can get out of here, do it. Even if it means leaving the babe."
Amber groaned. Two men took her shoulder on either side, leading her through the camp.
Amber repeated Lina's words like a mantra. She was going to be fine.
~
JUST before dawn, in the dim light of the infirmary tent in the guards' quarters, Amber gave birth to a strong baby boy.
She lay back on the pallet, exhausted but happy. It was like some great weight had been taken from her, and given back to her in the form of pure joy. She held out her arms and spent the next hours in bliss, amazed by the delicacy of the baby's tiny features, in awe of the life she held at her breast.
He suckled almost immediately, feeding hungrily, gurgling and pawing, his eyes blue as the sky. Amber never wanted to let him go.
They took him from her sometime around mid-morning.
"Shh," said the Tingaran battlefield surgeon, a man more used to dealing with lost limbs than women. "He will have a wet-nurse. He won't go hungry."
"Please," Amber begged. "Please, don't take him away."
Her strength had given out, and they easily pried the baby away from her arms.
"High Lord Moragon wants to see his son," said the surgeon.
"No," Amber cried. "No!"
"Shh," the surgeon said again. "No one's going to send you off to the vats; you'll still be taken care of. But the camp is no place to raise a baby. You can see that, can't you?"
Tears rolled down Amber's cheeks. She watched the surgeon's departing back as he took her baby away, then slumped back down to her pallet, wondering how she was going to find the strength to go on.
The guards returned shortly and made her dress herself while they turned their backs. Amber was taken back to her tent, where she feared she would never see her baby again.
~
"I'M SORRY," Leopold said. "They took your baby."
Amber was taken aback when he spoke to her as she walked past; Leopold was surprisingly lucid today. She opened her mouth to respond, when suddenly she was overcome with emotion. Amber sank to the ground next to the former prince of Altura, her sobs accompanied by great wracking motions. Weeks had passed, but still she never knew when the grief would hit her.
"I don't blame you," Leopold said, making no move to comfort her. "There is no hope. This resistance will be crushed. Altura will soon fall."
Amber looked up. "What resistance?"
"They sent word to me," he said desultorily. "You know who Rogan Jarvish is, don't you? He's leading them, back in Ralanast."
"Blademaster Rogan?" Amber demanded. "Didn't he die at the Battle for Ralanast?"
"Apparently not." Leopold shrugged.
"Can you get word back to him?"
"I suppose so. One of the guards is a sympathiser," Leopold said. "He's in love with a Halrana woman, and doesn't want to go back to Seranthia."
"Can you tell me which guard?"
Leopold nodded, before returning to his contemplation of the dirt at his feet.
Amber stood up and straightened. She left Leopold behind and swiftly found Lina, Samora, and three other women, asking them to come to her tent.
She then sat inside the tent and pondered.
Amber knew who Rogan Jarvish was; every Alturan knew his name. And he was near, in Ralanast, barely half a day's walk from this prison camp!
The Halrana women arrived.
Without preamble, Amber spoke. "I've asked the five of you to come here because between you, you know many of the Halrana here, while I know most of the Alturans."
"What's this about?" Lina asked.
"The fact that I've called this gathering, and no one can see us, should tell you something. I'm in a unique position here, and we should take advantage of that fact."
"To do what?" Samora demanded.
"To organise ourselves. I've learned that there is a resistance in Ralanast, and the man leading them is one of my people, an Alturan, one of the best men we have. If we can get word to him I think he'll help us."
"You're talking about escape? We'll get ourselves killed!" one of the other women said in a shrill voice.
"No, we won't," Amber stated. "Not if we meet here, where no one can see us, and we continue to be nice to the guards. We can all do that, can't we? There's something you need to know. The people who are vanishing… I don't know where they're going, but the surgeon said they're being taken 'to the vats'. I believe the rumours are true. If we don't escape from here ourselves, we'll all be dead before the year is over."