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Bergon, splendid in his General’s uniform, at the head of the column, issued final orders to Cazaril, before the Chancellor stepped back, clear from the path of horses. Iselle not far behind, surrounded by a troop from the Daughter’s Order, waved one last time to her children waiting on the steps by Betriz. There was a resounding blast on the trumpets, and then, with a great clatter of hooves, they were off!
(At last) Betriz thought it, but did not say it. After seven years in the Zangre she had finally developed the discretion not to say it. But there was no denying the business of government went on much more smoothly after the king and queen left for their summer campaign. In sleepy Valenda, Royesse Iselle’s liveliness had represented excitement and adventure. In Cardegoss, the Royina Iselle’s energy represented endless change – important to be sure, transforming a hitherto rundown, backwater and defeated kingdom into a prosperous, modern nation, but a lot of work. Iselle relied on Betriz to manage the fortress which housed the Court. Castillara she was by dint of marriage; but she managed not a minor seat of a small provincial holding but the foremost castle in the entire kingdom: frantically busy whenever the monarchs were in residence, and a much easier task when they were not.
The royal entourage had left the Zangre at dawn, their first planned stop a Daughter House where they would break their fast. Betriz’ first plan was her own meal. She had always enjoyed her food and had grown somewhat plump over the years. Though, at the moment, eating was a positive virtue as she was expecting again. Once in a while she felt a bit anxious lest Caz feel she had become too different from the slender woman he had married. He ate just as much as she did, but never seemed to gain a pound. But when she broached that to him after she struggled to lose the weight gained after her last pregnancy, he had dismissed her worries, saying it just gave him more of her to cuddle in bed, and since he loved every part of her, more was not a bad thing. Secure in his regard she ignored the Court nicknames for them: the fat and the thin of it.
Breakfast included her own two sons, Iselle’s daughter and son, and the royal menagerie. Not an impressive menagerie, like the one Orico had collected, rather a motley collection of three frogs, a frilled lizard, a pair of song birds, a tortoise, one rat (mercifully male so they did not have to worry about baby rats), and a flea circus. She had had to put her foot down and forbid the latter being brought to the breakfast table. But it was indeed a royal gift, presented by the Prince of Jokona to the royal heir at the start of last year’s visit, so it could not be got rid of. Not to mention young Royse Braden was fascinated by it and would undoubtedly search for the circus high and low if it happened to be…mislaid. Breakfast also attracted various castle cats, who sharpened their claws at the table legs while waiting patiently for choice tidbits of meat or cheese to drop from the table, not to mention several castle hounds who waited less patiently, heads heavy on the knees of those seated eating, and eyes liquid with yearning (plus the occasional whine). Caz was not above sneaking a morsel or two to them as he ate.
Betriz had an appointment after breakfast with the royal architect. Fonsa’s ruined tower was being rebuilt. The top floor would remain a haven for crows, the windows in its walls unglazed. Caz would hear of nothing else and his views held weight with Bergon and Iselle. The next floor down was being newly consecrated as a chapel. Where better to pray to the Bastard than underneath the special roost of his special birds, Caz had commented wryly. Those parts of the tower had already been finished, as had the ground floor, renovated as stables for visitors’ horses. The floors in between were to be equipped lavishly as guest quarters for visiting dignitaries. Given the legends surrounding the tower, Betriz wondered what message royal envoys from other kingdoms would take from being housed there during state visits. She had no doubt the impact had been carefully considered by Iselle before she gave the order for the tower’s refurbishment. Betriz was thankful the scope of her responsibility was just to see Iselle’s orders carried out. She discussed the layout of rooms, and the number of bathing and toilet facilities with the architect before meeting with an upholsterer to peruse swatches of fabric.
One final consultation with the housekeeper over plans to restock staples used up last winter, plus a quick glance over the week’s menus, left Betriz hungry and tired. She ordered a tray brought to her room, then had her maid loosen her tunic and help her to remove her skirt and crawled into bed for a nap, feeling quite guilty about all the tasks she ought to be doing . Though…she could always say she needed the rest because she was pregnant.
“What’s your excuse,” she murmured sleepily when Caz joined her.
“I’m Chancellor; I don’t need an excuse,” he answered, “except wanting to cuddle my wife.”
“Isn’t doing that in the middle of the day against the rules?”
“Then I’ll make a law requiring everyone to do it; I can do that as Chancellor.”
“But I don’t want to be cuddled by everyone; besides this bed isn’t big enough.”
“Then I’ll make a law they have to cuddle everyone else’s wives instead.”
Which silliness, to Betriz’ exhausted brain, made perfect sense and she fell asleep.
She was alone when she was woken in the early evening by her arm being shaken. One reluctant eye opened to Isara’s anxious face.
“Please Aunt Betriz,” the child begged, “you need to come now. I need you.”
One look at Isara’s anxious face put Betriz on high alert and she pulled on her slippers and followed the little girl out into the corridor.
“What’s wrong,” she asked as she belted her robe around her.
“Meggie the cat’s not well.” Isara tugged insistently, “You’ve got to come now.”
“Which one is Meggie?” asked Betriz as they turned down a particularly dusty corridor.
“The fat one,” explained Isara.
Which could describe any one of the cats, Betriz thought, given the way every one of the children (not to mention Caz) fed them. But as she drew back a curtain pulled across an alcove just off one of the attics, she realised it meant the pregnant one. Who let out a piteous yowl as she strained; the ripples of her muscles could be seen along the cat’s abdomen. That will be me in about two months, Betriz realised.
“She’s having kittens,” Betriz told the worried child.
“But she’s hurting,” protested Isara.
“It does hurt,” Betriz reassured, “but she’ll be all right. I suggest we just leave her to get on with it.”
“But she’s in pain and she’ll be alone!” protested Isara. “You wouldn’t want to be alone.”
Remembering how Caz had hovered, visibly fretting and getting in the midwife’s way, during her first labour, and been even worse during her second (convinced as he had been that she was going to die), Betriz thought there was much to be said for being left alone. Not that saying that to Isara would help.
“Cats always go off on their own to find a quiet place,” Betriz explained, “we’re disturbing her by staying.”
“But she’s been like this for hours,” cried Isara, “and she looks frightened. She doesn’t need to be alone – she needs help!”
Betriz frowned; even allowing for childish exaggeration, the cat did look in distress; and if she had been straining for hours without any progress, perhaps she did need help.
“Run to the stable and ask them to fetch a horse doctor; and ask one of the maids for some cloths and a bowl of warm water,” she instructed. “I’ll stay here with Meggie.”
She remembered how Iselle, whose own confinement had been just a few weeks before her own, had sponged her forehead with cool water during her first labour. Cats don’t like water, she thought; but using the wall to steady herself, she carefully sat down on the wooden floor beside the cat, and gently stroked feline ears instead.
It was only a few minutes before Isara returned, followed by clatter and commotion that echoed through the corridor as various and sundry tailed her. The horse doctor had already been at the stable, she was told, but was busy with a mare whose foal was in breach positon; he had sent his apprentice to help. No less personage than the head housekeeper arrived, with housemaid, a can of water strewn with healing herbs, plus fine muslin cloths. (For a cat, Betriz thought, although she was the Royesse’s favourite cat who slept on the foot of her bed each night, which no doubt made a difference.)
The apprentice examined, then skilfully massaged, and within minutes the head of one very large kitten appeared. He slipped a hand between the little body and the mother’s birth canal and eased it all the way out. The bedraggled looking orange kit was passed to the housemaid who rubbed it with a damp cloth to clean it before handing the little creature, plus a dry muslin, to the Royesse to cuddle. The apprentice offered the opinion the first kitten had simply been too large and got stuck; but now he was born the others should arrive in due course.
“Twenty to thirty minute intervals is pretty normal,” he said, which would allow enough time in between for the mother cat to wash each kitten before the next was born. And in due course two much smaller black and white kittens appeared one after the other. But beyond twisting her head to watch, the mother cat made no effort to nurture any kitten. Isara kept hold of the tiger-striped kit, while the housemaid cuddled the other two on her lap. Betriz exchanged a worried glance with the horse doctor’s apprentice. Quietly, somberly, with a wary glance at Isara (who was known to be very fond of her pets), the apprentice speculated that perhaps something internal had gone wrong when she strained so hard with the first kitten, in which event, he said, there would be nothing he could do except pray.
Seated beside Betriz, he had tried to speak just loud enough for her to hear. He had reckoned without Isara’s perfect hearing. She cried out in protest, lifted the mother cat onto Betriz’s lap, tucked the orange kit in beside his mother and begged, “please Auntie, you must do something.”
Betriz looked at her sadly; she was so young to learn this lesson. “All we can do is pray, Isara.”
Isara turned to the rest, indubitably her mother’s daughter in her certainty and determination. “Then we must all pray,” the five-year old Royesse commanded, and as she spoke a heartfelt plea to the gods, after a few embarrassed glances to one another, the circle of staff around the child echoed her words.
Betriz stroked the cats and watched. Prayers…for a cat: a fat calico creature beloved of Isara. Not an important matter in the grand scheme of things. But important to a five year old child, who just wanted her beloved Meggie to live. Her heart ached for the little girl.
*And why would a cat be any less important in my eyes than any other mother?*
Betriz’ eyes widened and she twisted her head looking in to the shadowed corners of the room, searching for the speaker.
*Look to your hands, not for me.*
She glanced down to see a faint greenish glow around her fingers where they stroked the mother cat’s head and down along her side. After a few minutes, Meggie raised her head and reached a paw toward her kitten. Betriz’ breath caught in wonder.
“I think…” she could manage only an awed whisper, “I think she’s a little better, Isara.”
“Meggie!” Isara cried, then scooped up cat and kitten and ran back down the corridor, trailed by her entourage.
“Leaving me, who achieved this minor miracle for the Mother,” was Betriz’ disgruntled mutter, “sitting here like a beached whale, unable to get up, even if I could find the energy to try after that little excitement.”
“I didn’t have the energy to get up after my ‘little excitement’ either,” she heard, and looking up, saw Caz smiling down at her, holding out his hand. After a scramble (on her side) and a certain amount of pulling and heaving (his side), she stood.
He kissed her and said, “I arrived just in time to see. That was very well done my love; and if, having communed with your goddess you feel moved to composing an ode to my nose, I trust I will take it in good humour.
She just laughed as they walked back down the corridor, arm-in-arm.