I remembered Berrit, a boy I had not known, who died on Papa’s anniversary, and a single tear slid down my nose and fell onto the dusty earth as if I were watering a tiny seedling. I wiped the trace away before turning to Tanish, who was gazing about him, looking glum and a little bored. He had not seen.
I laid a fistful of wild kalla lilies on the grave next to Vestris’s tsuli flowers and set my face to meet the world, but as I half turned to Tanish, someone called.
“Anglet!”
I recognized the girl as one of those who did errands for Florihn, the midwife. “What?” I called back, though I knew what was coming.
“It’s started!” cried the girl.
*
I FOLLOWED HER TO Rahvey’s house, where Sinchon was sitting on the porch, scowling. As I approached, a roar of agony came from inside, a woman’s voice—though one so pressed to the limits of human endurance that I heard no sign of my sister in it. I didn’t speak to Sinchon, but yanked the door open and stepped inside.
It was even hotter than it had been earlier, and Florihn, crouching between my sister’s legs, shot me an irritated look when I entered, as she had the first time. At the far end of the bed, Rahvey’s red, glistening face was a rictus of pain.
As I set my things down, she began to scream again, an unearthly, animal sound like the weancats that prowled the edge of the Drowning when prey in the hinterlands was scarce. I winced, the hair on the back of my neck prickling, but Florihn just grinned.
“That’s right,” she said to Rahvey. “You cry it out.”
As soon as the contraction passed, I said, “I thought there would be no baby today.”
From her place between Rahvey’s legs, Florihn scowled at me, then refocused on Rahvey and said simply, “Now.”
It took no more than five minutes, and I kept my gaze locked on my sister’s face for as much of it as possible. When the baby emerged, I did as I was told, but I couldn’t stop staring at the child.
It was a girl. The fourth daughter.
For a long moment, no one moved or spoke. The baby wailed over Rahvey’s exhausted panting, and I just looked at it, registering the awful truth, so that for a few seconds, it seemed that time had stopped.
At last the midwife seemed to come back to herself. Her face was ashen, but she brought her fluttering hands together and pressed her fingertips, a gesture of composure and resolution, both hard won.
Then she stood up and took a deep, quavering breath. “Where’s my knife?” she asked.
“Wait,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“Cutting the cord,” said Florihn. “What did you think?”
Rahvey gaped, her eyes flicking to the midwife for guidance.
“Then what?” I asked.
There was a moment’s stillness, then the baby began to cry again. The midwife wrapped the child in a towel and set her on the floor before turning on me and speaking in a low whisper. “Fourth daughter,” she said. “You know what that means. Rahvey can’t keep it. It goes to a blood relative or we take it to Pancaris,” said Florihn.
Pancaris was an orphanage run by one of the Feldish religious orders—dour-habited, grim-faced white nuns who raised children to be domestic servants.
“Till she runs away and turns beggar or whore,” I said, looking at the brown, wriggling infant, so small and powerless.
“There’s no other choice,” said Florihn dismissively. “And they’ll teach her what she needs.”
“Like what?” I asked.
Florihn gave me a hard look for my temerity, but she answered. “They’ll teach her to scrub. To cook. To wield a pick or wheel a barrow. Anything else is just making promises you can’t keep. You of all people should know that.”
I looked to Rahvey, but she kept her eyes fixed on Florihn, the way Tanish stares at me to avoid looking down from the chimneys.
“Rahvey,” I said, dragging her gaze to my face. “Maybe there’s another way. Maybe this fourth-daughter business can—”
“Can what?” demanded Florihn.
“I don’t know,” I said, quailing under the woman’s authoritative stare.
My sister gaped some more, at me this time, then looked back to the midwife. She squeezed her eyes shut, and a tear coursed down her cheek. Her grief gave me the courage I needed.
“Maybe we could keep her,” I said, feeling the blood rise in my face.
Florihn blinked, but she maintained a rigid calm. Her eyes became two slits as she considered how to respond. “‘We’?” she said, staring me down. “What will your contribution be to raising an unseemly child? Where will you be when your sister has to raise more money to feed another mouth?” When I said nothing, she added, “Yes, that’s what I thought.”
“Sinchon could look for a different kind of job,” I said unsteadily, but Florihn, reading the panic in Rahvey’s face, cut me off.
“And you’ll tell him that, will you?” she demanded. “You have forgotten everything. This is our way. The Lani way.”
Then it’s a stupid way! I wanted to shout, an old rage spiking in my chest. You should change it.