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We never discussed children, which was fine by me.
Of course, we'd never discussed marriage, either, but that ended up happening. Somehow Maree made me think I had proposed to her and she had grudgingly accepted. In hindsight, I believe it was the opposite way round, although neither of us were very grudging when it came down to it. I hadn't set out to marry her, but once I found myself in the register's office, I couldn't find it in myself to regret it one bit. Everyone else seemed to think it was inevitable. Simon laughed and Zinka insisted on acting at witness and Will brought the children, who nearly all drowned in the pond while we drank champagne indoors. Incidentally, they liked the quacks.
Which brings me back to the subject of children. As I said, we never discussed having them, and if I had been asked I suppose I would have said absolutely not. There was nothing I disliked more than the thought of a bunch of monsters tearing through the house getting their hands in my computer equipment and -- God forbid -- messing with our workings. Besides, Maree was quite busy enough with finishing her vet's degree and going what seemed like every other day to the Koryfonic Empire for her magid training. Whenever she got home from one of her lessons with Si we would invariably end up talking theory and clearing the dining room table and chairs to one side of the room so we could chalk up the floor. We still had my shed next door, but Maree scorned the shed. "Why go all the way out there when the floor will do just as well?" she would demand, and before I could respond I would find myself on hands and knees chalking up the varnish of the dining room floor.
I didn't mind, or else I would probably have either booted her out of the house or at least insisted that we use the shed for our workings. But I did mind children -- or at least I thought I did. When Maree woke me up at dawn one morning and told me, with the sob terribly prominent in her voice, that she was quite, quite sure she was pregnant and what were we to do about it, my first thought was that there had surely ought to be something to be done.
"The usual course of action is to wait nine months and see what sort of child it turns out to be," I said, and rolled over to go back to sleep.
"That's not at all what I meant," Maree wailed. "This will ruin everything! How am I supposed to get a vet's degree and learn to be a magid when I look like a hippopotamus?"
That did seem to be a problem. "Ask Zinka," I suggested, and rolled over again.
She rolled me back and sat on me so I couldn't move. I rather liked it when she sat on me, but I thought about her sitting on me with ten pounds of baby inside of her and I didn't like the idea of that half so much.
"I don't know how to be a mother," she was continuing. The sob appeared to be turning into real tears. "And you won't make any kind of decent father."
"Well, I like that!" I pushed her off me and sat up. "If Will can be a father, I don't see why the hell I shouldn't be one too."
"Oh." She pushed her glasses up her nose and stared at me for a moment. "Perhaps it will be a bit like an animal," she said gloomily. "I suppose I could put up with it if I could treat it like a kitten or something."
"Helpless baby creatures are all the same, aren't they?" I tried to sound encouraging.
"I suppose they are."
"All you have to do is feed them and so on. Of course with humans you have to change their nappies as well." A desperate edge crept into my voice. "And eventually they grow up and start talking and then you have to find good schools."
"You have to train animals just like humans," Maree said severely. "They're really no different at all."
"The schools," I repeated.
"Oh. Well. You said yourself there's nothing to be done about it now."
And that's how we got Ruby. Then we got Arthur because one day when Ruby was about three months old Maree looked up from feeding her and said fiercely, "We're having another one." So we did.
And then Nathaniel just sort of happened, and by that time we were so used to juggling proper jobs and magid business and dealing with the children all at once that we figured we might as well go ahead and have a fourth, so we had Pansy.
The funny thing is that even after Ruby came along, I wasn't at all convinced that I liked children. Of course I thought Ruby was a nearly perfect specimen of human life, and if I doted on her, it was no more than Maree did in her own way. But although I thought one was quite enough, when Maree looked and me and demanded I get into bed with her that very instant because she needed another one as soon as humanly possible, I couldn't find it in me to resist. Perhaps I wasn't thinking very clearly with Maree standing there with her blouse dripping off one shoulder and a bit spot of baby sick down her front and her hair bushing out in every direction. I thought she was the most sexy woman I had ever seen.
But after Arthur was born, I decided I had to face the fact that I was now a father of not just one but two whole children, so I went to visit Will. Of course I saw him quite frequently, and he was very fond of the children himself, but I had always avoided talking about them very much with him. So one day I made sure Maree was all right at home and I set out to Thule to visit Will.
After I had been attacked by the V. Venableses (there were eight of them by then) and said hello to Carina, I found myself out by the paddock visiting the horses. Will stood there scratching them on the nose one by one and feeding them sugar while neither of us spoke. Finally he said cheerfully, "Something's on your mind then, Rupe?"
I cleared my throat. "It's nothing really. Just that I think Maree may be having some trouble getting used to the new baby."
Will turned and looked at me for a moment. "Has she talked to Si about it?"
"Why on earth would she talk to Si about it?"
"He's her magid mentor. Emotions are often tied up with magic."
That was true, and I should have thought of it myself. "Perhaps I should recommend that to her."
Will fed another lump of sugar to an animal that looked like a cross between a giraffe and a donkey and said, "Maree the only one getting used to the baby?"
I gave him a Look through my eyeglasses. "What makes you think that?"
"I just wondered."
"Well, since you asked...I'm not sure I'm doing this right."
"The children thing?"
"Well, yes."
"It doesn't take a lot of doing," Will said thoughtfully. "Feed them, clothe them, make sure they don't tear each other's hair out. Magid business is a lot more difficult."
"No, it's not," I protested. "Even during that messy business with the Koryfos Empire, it was all clear-cut and quite simple as long as one was careful to unravel the confusing bits. There's a jolly lot more to children than feeding them and clothing them. I've discovered that."
"Have you ever looked at it as another piece of magid business?"
"How so?"
"Well, children take a bit of unraveling. Something like the Empire when you were in charge there. Just be there when they need you and make sure they understand the power they have and you should be right as rain."
I left him soon after that, feeling slightly more cheerful. I didn't stop to consider what he had meant by make sure they understand the power they have.
After Pansy arrived, we had our life down to a bumpy sort of routine. Maree was working at a vet clinic and I was still programming computer games at home. Maree had finished her magid training by then, but she still went over to the Empire fairly often to visit Simon. We were both called away fairly frequently on magid business, but somehow we managed so one of us was always at home with the children. The children, for their part, appeared to be thriving. Considering how much of a racket they made and how many scrapes they got themselves into on an hourly basis, I trusted they were thriving.
Then one day Maree came home from a visit to the Empire and she was dragging Simon with her. One step behind her came Zinka, looking placid.
"Simon," Maree said in an awful voice, "had just told me something."
I was standing in the kitchen holding Pansy in one arm while I tried to untangle the telephone cord from Nathaniel's neck, where Arthur had put it before running off to find Ruby. I looked up to find Maree giving Simon one of her worst looks. She had her glasses pushed all the way up and was glowering. Zinka stood to one side, and Simon shuffled from foot to foot.
"I have been betrayed," Maree announced. "I have been used. I will not tolerate it." She thrust a finger at Pansy. "That child has been USED."
I clutched Pansy, becoming quite alarmed. "How has everyone been used?"
"Tell him," Maree instructed Simon.
He thrust his hands in his pockets and looked at the ceiling. "It's Intended for you to have lots of children," he said apologetically.
I looked at the ceiling to see what was so interesting. All I saw were a few cobwebs in the corners. "It is?"
"No one told us," Maree sobbed. "THEY made us think it was our own choice."
"But it wasn't?" I said, feeling light-headed. "It wasn't our own choice?"
"Well, not exactly." Simon was circling the kitchen table now. "Not completely, no, apparently not."
"But I thought we wanted them!" Maree wailed. "What do we do with them now?"
Simon was aghast. "You keep them, of course. If it's Intended, you must keep them. Besides -- er -- they are your children."
"And children are nice," Zinka added brightly.
An awful suspicion seized me. "Have you any children?" I asked.
Zinka looked shocked. "Good god, no. Do I look like I have children?"
"Well, you didn't look like you were married to Simon six years ago, either," I retorted.
"Oh, that." She waved it away. "We believe it was Intended. Just like your children."
"But why were they Intended?" I asked, bending down to stop Nathaniel from chewing on the telephone cord.
"No idea," Simon said cheerfully. "And I'm quite sorry you two didn't know. I thought you did. I didn't see any reason why you would have so many otherwise. It's not like you're like Will and Carina."
"What about them?" I asked.
"Well, you know -- the parental type."
"I'm not?" I felt peculiarly relieved and dismayed at the same time.
"Hardly," Zinka said. "But you make adorable parents all the same."
Maree had sat on the table and was jiggling Pansy to stop her from whimpering. "I don't feel adorable," she said crossly. "I feel betrayed."
"There's nothing to be done about it now," Simon pointed out.
"Except have more," Zinka added brightly.
"Hold on," I said. "Are we Intended to have more?"
"Oh, at least two more."
"Two more?" The mind boggled.
"At least."
"Why?" Maree demanded from the table.
"Perhaps because you're both such good magids," Simon said soothingly. "Perhaps they'll all grow up to be magids themselves."
I tried to imagine Ruby or Arthur as a magid and failed. As for Nathaniel, he was now trying to eat my shoelaces. I picked him up and said, "I feel sorry for any world stuck with these monsters as magids."
"Me, too," Maree said. "My heart bleeds." She stuck her little finger into Pansy's mouth for the baby to suck on and looked defiantly at Simon.
"I didn't make the decision," Simon protested. "I only broke the news."
He and Zinka went back to Iforion soon after, leaving me and Maree staring at each other over the kitchen table.
"I rather like them, even if they were all Intended," Maree said after a while.
"Yes. They are rather likable." Nathaniel had curled up in my arms exactly like a big puppy. "You weren't so wrong about them being like animals. And Will evidently wasn't so wrong about raising them being just like magid business."
"Did he say that?"
"Just after Arthur was born."
Another few minutes of silence. Finally Maree said, "I suppose we may as well get started on number five."
I cocked my head. "The house is quiet. Either Ruby and Arthur have killed each other or they're behaving for once."
"There's no need to find out yet," Maree said encouragingly. She stood up with Pansy in her arms. "These two are asleep. We ought to seize the moment. It would be positively wrong not to."
She was quite right, of course. Besides, her hair was coming loose from its clips and falling in little curls all over her face. I leaned forward and kissed her through the hair, above the babies' heads. "If it's Intended, there's nothing we can do it about it," I agreed gravely. "Obviously it's our duty as magids to make more small magids."
"Obviously." She carried Pansy the stairs and put her in her crib. I laid Nathaniel in there next to her. Maree turned to me and ran her fingers up through my hair. Somehow she managed to pull off my glasses and begin to unbutton my shirt at the same time. I had my hands around her waist and was pulling her into our own room.
"Perhaps we'll have twins this time," I said thoughtfully.
"Don't even joke about that," Maree said, and then she was kissing me and I was kissing her, and it didn't seem to matter whether we had twins or five more children or no more at all.