Sorrows of Adoration (35 page)

My poor son wept often
in my arms despite my attempts to keep him fed and warm. I had torn
more cloth to serve as his diaper but had nowhere to wash it when
it was soiled. So I tore smaller strips to line the diaper and cast
those aside as he fouled them. Soon there was almost nothing left
of my underclothes, and what remained was covered in my own
menstrual blood and filth.

The next morning I
caught sight of Endren in the distance, and had I not been so
pitifully weak and starved, I would have run the remainder of the
way. I whispered Kurit’s name under my breath in near madness for
him.

Yet as I approached, I
became filled with a terrible dread. What if he had gone in search
of me and stupidly killed himself in the process? Or worse, what if
he believed me dead and had taken his life in grief? I didn’t for a
moment fear that his heart would have strayed, for I knew his love
would last longer than my absence had been. I feared that he might
have done something foolish in desperation, and that thought
quickened my pace and returned some semblance of clarity to my
otherwise crazed mind.

By the time I reached
the north gates that afternoon, my fears and pains had turned into
a wrathful hatred for Sashken. I loathed her for doing this to
Kurit and my baby, not to mention myself. I whispered to my infant
son that I would see her hanged for her crime, promising him that I
would not allow her to escape. I had always been horrified by the
prospect of hangings, but in this case my maternal instinct
prevailed.

I waited near the gates
with the blanket hiding my face until I saw Graek making his
rounds. I approached him, but a guard caught my arm to stop me.
Despite my fear of being recognized, I called out Graek’s name.

He heard my call and
came to see what poor wretch had the gall to summon him by name and
without title. The guard held me back from him with a painfully
rough grip.

“Why did you call to
me?” Graek asked in a stern voice, no doubt suspecting me of being
some treacherous little fiend.

I snapped my arm out of
the guard’s grip and lifted the blanket enough that Graek could see
my face. For a moment he just stared, and then his eyes widened
with shocked recognition.

“Praise the Gods—” he
began, but I dropped the hood and held a hand to hush him. He
shooed the guard away and put a fast arm around me to lead me away
from the assorted people waiting entrance to Endren.

“Your Highness, can it
really be you?” he whispered hoarsely.

“Graek, I need to go
home,” was all I could manage to answer. I expected myself to begin
weeping, but my body just couldn’t produce the tears.

“Of course! I shall
summon a litter to carry you—” he began, but again I silenced him.
In the fast language of a madwoman, I stammered out the rough
details of what Sashken had done, naming her as guilty. His face
became as stone in anger.

“Graek, please, I am so
afraid to trust anyone. I trust you but I am so mad with fatigue
and hunger that my mind reels even against that. Please, take me to
the palace, but quietly. I am terrified she will be alerted to my
return and kill my son.”

He had been so
concerned and alarmed by my sudden arrival and shocking story of
Sashken that he had forgotten to even ask about a child. I lifted
the blanket so that he could see I had my boy cradled in my
arms.

“By all that’s sacred,
Your Highness, I am overwhelmed. How can this be? How can you have
returned like this, bearing a child in your arms?”

“Later. I shall tell
the whole tale to all who wish to hear it later. Now, please, I
want to be quietly taken home. No welcome, no cries of delight that
I have returned. I want to go into that Great Hall, seek out the
contemptible, murderous slut that caused this misery, and accuse
her there for all to see. Bring your guards so she cannot run. I
want her to hang for her crime.”

“Indeed, Your Highness,
I shall see to it personally if I must!” he replied angrily. “But
let me fetch you a litter. You must be almost faint with
fatigue.”

“No. I have walked this
far. A few more steps won’t cause me further harm, and my fury at
Sashken lends me more energy now than I’ve had since my child was
born.” I started into the city, and he followed quickly behind,
calling three guards to him as we walked. He kindly offered me an
arm to lean on, but I was fuelled by my refreshed wrath and did not
take it. I lifted my head high, though it was still hidden by the
blanket. I felt my face grow hard and my jaw clench with the
determination to see the harlot dragged away. So great did my fury
build that I even temporarily forgot the joy of coming home to my
beloved husband.

When finally Graek
escorted me through the doors and into the Great Hall, my heart
raced with an insatiable desire for revenge. My eyes swept over
those who were present, stopping when they fell upon the hateful,
skinny whore.

“Sashken!” I cried out,
belting the word forth with venomous loathing. I saw her turn in my
direction and continued, “You should demand your blood money back,
because your thugs failed to carry out your request for my
execution!”

I threw back the
corners of the blanket, letting it fall to the floor and reveal my
ragged, filthy form. The infant in my arms cried out pitifully as I
shouted again. “You thought me dead, but here I stand to accuse you
of paying for my abduction and ordering me to be murdered while my
son still grew in my womb!”

Her face became sickly
pale, as though I were the dead risen before her. Noise buzzed
around me as those present reacted in great alarm at my presence
and my words. I felt my energy draining quickly as the guards
approached her. She appeared to be too stunned to consider running
or to speak in her own defence. The guards took her arms, but still
she stared at me in horror.

“The men you paid to
murder me sold me instead as a slave to the Wusul. I escaped and
have walked these last weeks alone, forced to bear Kurit’s son in
the wilderness, all because of your twisted lust for my husband. I
will not abide the sight of you further.” I turned weakly to Graek,
my fury waning, and muttered, “Get her away from me.”

He called out an order
to his guards and then put a steadying arm around my shoulders as
my legs began to give way. I remained standing only because of his
support until there beside me was King Tarken, a look of stunned
disbelief on his face. I wanted to speak to him, to say something
reassuring, to ask where Kurit was, but my head was filled with
madness and the return of the debilitating fatigue. I heard him
call out an instruction to someone as he took my baby from my
arms.

“Aenna, give me the
child before you fall. I shall care for my grandson,” he said,
continuing on with something about praise to the Gods that I had
returned, but his words floated around me without meaning.

Then I heard a great
cry from atop the staircase that led to the south wing. I focused
my eyes enough to see Kurit, who again shouted my name in dreadful
anguish. Someone must have run to fetch him, for he ran down the
steps with an unlaced shirt, hair a mess, as though he had been in
bed despite the late hour of the afternoon.

He was fast to my side,
embracing me wildly, crying out my name, though in delight or grief
I could not tell. Graek let me go into his arms, and he caught me
up, lifting me from the floor. The relief of his touch made my head
swim, and I happily let myself faint away as he covered my face in
kisses, cradling my drained body.

I regained
consciousness very suddenly and found myself being lowered into a
tub of what felt like scalding water. After being so cold for so
long, the water was searing, and I cried out. My poor raw and
blistered feet kicked away from the heat of their own accord.

“Hush, Aenna, you’re
safe now,” Kurit said. He was lowering me into the tub himself,
putting his arms in with me to do so with great care. His shirt
became soaked.

Oh, the stench that
arose when my filthy body polluted that water! I gagged at it
myself and felt awful, delirious shame. I tried to speak to Kurit
and Leiset, who was there as well, to tell them I was sorry and
ashamed of my condition, but all that came from my mouth was
incomprehensible gibberish.

“Don’t worry, Aenna,
we’ll clean you up. You’ll be in a warm bed soon,” cooed Leiset.
She tried to shoo Kurit away from the gruesome task, pleading the
impropriety of the Prince bathing any woman in this condition.

“She’s my wife!” he
bellowed so loudly that Leiset flinched away from him. “I’ll bathe
her. I’m not leaving her side. Now go and bring a second tub so she
won’t get cold waiting for a change of water. And in the Temple’s
name fetch her some food before she dies in my arms of
starvation!”

Leiset heeded his
orders and left. I tried again to speak, to beg him to not be so
angry, but again my mind failed to connect to my mouth in any
coherent fashion.

“Hush, Aenna,” he said.
One of his arms remained hooked under my shoulders to keep me
upright in the tub, as I would have slipped weakly under the
surface otherwise. I felt him washing me with a cloth under the
water. “Don’t worry—everything is going to be better now, you’ll
see,” he said frantically, just as he had the day I took the arrow
in my shoulder. He had that same frightened tone as he spoke,
though the tears he shed in this instance seemed more the tears of
relief than of dread. He repeated my name over and over: his Aenna,
his sweet Aenna, dear Aenna, and endless other praises. Then he
prayed out loud to each of the Gods in turn, thanking them for
bringing me home to him.

I passed in and out of
consciousness as he went on with his litany. At some point he
lifted me from the tub and placed me in another, and I think that I
recall that happening at least one other time after that. Gently
and thoroughly he washed me, even my matted hair. When the bathing
was done, he cradled me in large, soft towels and dried my naked
skin, which thankfully no longer reeked of filth. As he did so,
Leiset stood behind me, rubbing towels in my hair and soon trying
to brush it for me.

I vaguely recall Tash’s
presence, though I cannot be sure when during these actions he
came. If he examined me, that I also do not recall, nor whether he
banished Kurit from the room as he did so. I suspect that would
have been impossible.

Eventually I opened my
eyes to find myself in bed, bundled with thick blankets. My feet
throbbed, and I realized they were bound in cloth, which I later
learned to be dressing for the raw skin and blisters. Leiset was
still working at my tangled mop, and I heard her snipping at the
hopelessly matted portions. I wondered how short it would be when
she was done and felt sad that the hair I had used to save my son
was being taken away.

Kurit saw my open eyes
and immediately began to feed me. “Eat, Aenna. Then you can sleep
again. You must eat. There’s almost nothing left to you, my poor
love.” It was warm soup, and instantly the most delicious food I
had ever tasted. It was rich and thick, a chicken broth with very
small bits of potato and corn. I could separately taste every
ingredient, and the fat of the broth was a delightful salve all the
way down my throat. It was paradise.

Kurit chopped the spoon
into the bowl to make the potatoes small enough that I hardly
needed to chew. I tried to reach out to take the bowl from him to
feed myself, but he pushed my hand down. “You mustn’t eat too much
too fast, Aenna. You’ll be sick, and your weak body can’t take
that. Let me do this for you.”

The soup’s hearty
warmth, the comfortable bed, Kurit and Leiset’s care, it was all
like a sweet dream. Wrapped in such warm comforts, I fell asleep
and remained asleep for a long time.

It was dark when I
awoke, though a lantern somewhere in the room provided enough light
that I saw Kurit watching me intently, so I did not panic and
wonder where I was.

“Where’s my baby?” I
managed to whisper.

Kurit reached a hand to
my head and lovingly stroked my hair. “He’s fine, Aenna. Tash has
seen him and says he is small but well. You need not worry for him
just now.” Kurit began putting food in my mouth immediately.

“I must feed him,” I
managed to say between mouthfuls.

Kurit shook his head.
“You’re too weak for that, and you’re so starved yourself that
you’re not giving him enough nutrients. Tash made him some mixture
or other and fed him this afternoon. He’s fine, Aenna. He’s in good
hands. Lyenta the nursemaid is watching over him. I shall bring him
to you myself in the morning if you like.”

“Keep your mother away
from him,” I said before I had the wit to censor the thought.

Kurit looked away, and
I could not tell if he was angry, saddened, or to whom such emotion
was aimed. He sighed and said quietly, “I know why you are
suspicious. I wonder too if she led Sashken’s vile hand in this.
But I can’t believe that she would kill her unborn grandson, Aenna.
I can’t imagine she could go so far. And I am certain she will not
harm him now. Whatever hatred she has for you, she bears me no ill
will, and she knows all too well that he is my son. Our child is
safe. But if you are going to fret about it, then I shall promise
to keep her away from him until you are well.” He set the food
aside, leaned to me, and kissed my forehead. “Though I would
understand if you doubt my promises of protection. I clearly failed
to protect my son and wife before. I shall die before I let anyone
harm either of you again.”

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t
be filled with guilt. That was my greatest fear, that I would come
home to find you had run off and destroyed yourself trying to find
me, or taken your life in guilt and grief.”