The artifex glowered down at the comtesse like a judge at a trial. The glow from his artificial eye cast her in a bloody crimson hue. With aspergillum in hand, he sprinkled her with blessed water while delivering the ritual litany of admonishment given to all women on their birth bed. “Remember that this is your duty, your penance for Iav’s great sin. She thought to steal the secret of life from the Builder, and so must new life be torn from your flesh.”
“Silence, wretched cur!” the comtesse snapped, her mouth as foam flecked as a rabid dog’s.
The artifex paid her no heed but continued in a gravelly voice, “This pain is your due. This trial is your judgment. Succeed and you may be forgiven, your soul restored when the Savior comes. Fail and you shall fall into the pit from which there is no salvation.”
“Jean-Claude,” said the comte blandly, “how good of you to join us. I trust your mission is accomplished.” Only a slight tightening of his stance hinted at how desperate he was that his statement be confirmed; if le roi had rejected his petition, then these last nine months had been a waste, along with all the resources he had dedicated to shoring up his leaky dam.
“You … servants’ … entrance,” the comtesse spat at Jean-Claude, her normally eloquent venom reduced to breathless grunts.
Jean-Claude bowed to her. Vile harridan. “Your Excellency, forgive me, but I did not think you wished to insult le roi by bringing him through the chicken yard. By his decree, I present His Imperial Majesty le Roi de Tonnerre, Leon XIV.” He unveiled the portrait with a flourish.
The comte made a leg for the painting, “Your Majesty.” The midwife curtsied. The artifex made a sign of respect. Even the comtesse managed to bob her head at it.
Jean-Claude settled the painting on a long-backed chair. “His Majesty instructs me to inform you, from his lips to your ears, that as this portrait is his presence, so am I his eyes and ears in this matter.” He presented a letter affixed with the royal seal.
The comte looked vaguely ill, which put him more on par with his wife, but accepted the letter. The thought of a lesser man judging the fitness of his offspring would no doubt disrupt his humors for days.
The comtesse’s body convulsed weakly, and she groaned. The midwife ducked behind the privacy curtain. “One more push, Excellency.”
The comtesse gnashed her teeth and curled her clawlike fingers into the sweat-stained silk sheets. “Wretched … sow!” she spat between contractions.
So temperamental was her womb that the comtesse had been restricted to a peasant’s diet of boiled oats, beans, eggs, and garden vegetables for the whole duration of her gravidity. For the last few months she had been forbidden the slightest exercise. The physicians had even gone so far as to forbid her the use of her sorcery for fear of upsetting her delicate humors. Over the months, while her belly bloated, her limbs had withered. Now her carmine shadow looked thin and gray, almost ordinary.
Please let the bloodshadow wither and die. There was no greater terror for the Sanguinaire than to be blighted and lose their sacred sorcery. Such unfortunates were called unhallowed and were deprived of much of their status.
“One more push,” pleaded the midwife.
“I’ll … show you … push!” The comtesse groaned, bearing down on the bulge in her belly.
Jean-Claude assumed a parade rest and watched the comtesse’s struggle with as much outward dispassion as he could muster, even as he willed disaster and despair on her efforts.
“It’s coming!” the midwife cried.
The comtesse screamed and squeezed with a demonic strength.
“I have its head, Excellency, just one more push.”
“Curse your … damned pushes!” She grunt-pushed once more and then gasped, her flinty eyes open wide.
“It’s out. I’ve got it.”
The comte’s eyes lit up. “Is it a boy? A son?”
The midwife examined the child. Her face fell.
“What is the matter, you stupid cow?” the comtesse snapped. “Is it whole?”
The midwife’s voice was very small. “It … it is stillborn, Excellency.”
The comte’s expression hurried through a range of emotion from dismay to frustration. The comtesse sagged back in her pillow, limp and almost lifeless without the energy of her anger.
Jean-Claude’s antagonism proved bitter, for his heart twinged painfully at the announcement of the stillbirth. Rationally, logically, this was probably the best outcome for everyone. Even so, it seemed unjust that the comte’s and comtesse’s heartbreak and despair could only come at the cost of an innocent life. The child was not to blame for its parents.
The artifex produced a cloth sack from his satchel and stepped forward to take the child from the midwife. He rumbled, “Comte, Comtesse, you have my condolences. I will perform the rite of kind passing.”
As the midwife made to shroud the baby’s face, a thin brief mewl cut through the silence. The comte’s head snapped up. “What was that?”
“Nothing, Excellency,” said the midwife without looking up. “Just the death rattle.”
The comte subsided, but Jean-Claude lunged to the screen and peered over. The baby shouldn’t have had any breath to be its last. As a farmhand, he had witnessed the births of many animals, but never of a fellow person. This was definitely more alarming. Cows and sows didn’t have to distend like that. The midwife cradled the child in one arm and firmly pressed a cloth to its face with the other.
“Witch!” Jean-Claude darted around the blood-soaked end of the bed.
“No, monsieur!” the midwife cried.
Jean-Claude tore the newborn from the midwife’s grasp and planted his boot in the woman’s belly, sending her sprawling to the floor.
“Musketeer—!” the artifex bellowed, but Jean-Claude whipped the cloth from the little one’s face. It began to wail.
Alive after all, the newest des Zephyrs was clearly a girl, and there was nothing wrong with her lungs. This was not as good for the des Zephyrs as a son, but certainly no cause for despair. She’d be worth a lot in the marriage market. So why had the midwife tried to murder her? Had she been paid, or was this to have been revenge for some past injustice, or …
It took him a moment to see what the midwife’s trained eye must have noticed immediately. Under the ragged, slimy veils of birth, the child’s left hand was a pudgy fist, but her right wrist tapered off to a stunted hand with only one twisted finger. Poor thing.
Jean-Claude’s heart sagged in its rigging. The Almighty Builder’s devout followers believed deformities such as this marked unclean souls, abominations, the Breaker’s get. Just as Jean-Claude would have slit the throat of a two-headed calf, the pious midwife meant to dispatch this child, deny her a name and consign her to the sky. Jean-Claude could not imagine the des Zephyrs would do any different once they saw the facts for themselves. They would not want their name sullied with rumors of impurity. They would kill the girl and bemoan the loss of their chance at dynasty and then carry on as before, but with extra self-pity.
“By the Builder,” the artifex said, his posture and tone horror-struck. “Witch!”
The midwife’s face went pale. She looked back and forth between the cleric and the comte. “No! Master, you—”
“Silence!” roared the artifex.