XLVI
It was around this time that Ormana realised she was pregnant. She had in the preceding weeks been afflicted by feelings of weariness and discomfort, but it was not until the king was at Samnew that she fully noticed the emerging bump at her belly. After a few days spent worrying to herself, she went to Thalo.
‘Thalo,’ she said, ‘I am pregnant.’
This was quite the surprise—Ormana was not known to be frolicsome—so Thalo said, ‘Who is the father?’
He knew who it was, but he held some small hope that it might not be so.
‘You, Thalo.’
‘It cannot be.’
‘I know what I have done and where I have been. It can only be you.’
‘No. You are wrong. Here, someone may have visited surreptitiously in the night and done their work without waking you.’
‘Maybe so, or maybe it was the snail I found in my ear. You are a foolish man indeed, and certainly the father of my little tenant. I like it no more than you do.’
Thalo paused for a moment, and then he said, ‘Are you certain of the nature of your affliction? You do eat a lot. Perhaps you suffer some other sort of bloat.’
Ormana thumped him. ‘Foolish and wretched as well! I know what ails me.’
‘Then what of it?’
‘Nothing was to come of it, and this is quite something. We each swore not to speak of our moment of distaste, but I cannot conceal a pregnancy. You must tell Awldano what we have done.’
Thalo shook his head. ‘It is too late for that.’
‘I told you not to tarry, to toy with fate, but did you listen? No. Whenever have you? Try it now.’
Ormana was happy to end things there, but Thalo stepped forth and placed his hand upon her stomach.
He said, ‘All that is made can be unmade. What if we can be rid of this?’
Ormana placed her hand upon his. ‘How?’
‘I cannot say, but someone must know such a remedy.’
That someone turned out to be Foyva the Priest. The day after the king left, Ormana told her about her predicament, and her wish to end it, though she said nothing of the circumstances in which it had come about. When Foyva asked as much, Ormana said the father was a man named Oro, who had spent a few days in town before moving along. She said she had a brief affair with him, but she had not been able to speak of it, for he was an outlaw.
‘The shame I bear is immeasurable,’ she said. ‘I wish to bear nothing more.’
‘What a sorry tale,’ said Foyva. ‘Let me help you. I know a certain herbal remedy that will clear you out. Give me some time to gather what I need, and I shall prepare it for you. And have faith, Ormana—none will know of my work but me and you.’
Ormana thanked Foyva and left her to it.
A few days later, Foyva came to Ormana with a drink in a skin and said, ‘When you are ready to drink, drink it hot. It will take a day or two to work, so be sure to keep yourself well wrapped. There will be blood. Should weariness strike, lie down and rest. That will pass swiftly, as will your squatter.’
Ormana dithered a moment, but she took the skin and thanked Foyva. She drank it later that morning, wrapped herself up, and went about her day, though there was nothing to say of it. That night, however, proved long and restless. It was not until a new dawn drew near that she finally fell asleep, only to be swiftly reawoken with a dread weight hanging upon her every limb, her skin flushed hot and caked in sweat, her every breath laboured. So wretched was the illness that had festered within her that she lay bedfast for a week and a day.
During this time, Foyva came to her with further concoctions to ease her aches, though she declined them all.
‘Then tell me this at least,’ said Foyva, ‘have you had any bleeding?’
‘None,’ said Ormana, a tear in her eye.
‘Oh dear.’
Ormana’s illness passed with time, though not nearly as swiftly as Foyva had reckoned. When she was feeling rather haler of body, if not of mind, she brought the matter back to Thalo. He asked how she was feeling, and she said she was better.
‘But my womb,’ she said, ‘is none the lighter.’
Thalo sat down, shaking his head, and said, ‘Try again.’
‘After this dreadful spell? I could not bear it. I have no better option than to see the birth through, whatever should come of it.’
‘Then what will you say when people notice? They will ask questions.’
‘I will say the truth.’
Thalo stood again, and he stepped towards Ormana. ‘No.’
‘What other choice do we have?’
‘You told Foyva it was some other man’s child. Say it again.’
‘I told her that in secrecy, and it pained me twice over—once to lie, and once to call myself wanton, that she may now think less of me. I can suffer that once, but not again.’
‘Ormana, we swore ourselves to secrecy.’
‘And we swore nothing would come of it. Our oath is broken.’
‘No.’ Thalo took another step towards Ormana, and he seized her arm, a grim look upon his face. ‘Our oath yet stands. I will not let you sunder it.’ He pointed to her womb. ‘Unmake it, or all will be unmade.’
Ormana had never before seen Thalo quite like that, his eyes full of anger and fright alike, the last wolf of the pack, cornered and staring down its hunters, certain to lunge, and certain to bite. Never before had she feared him, but she knew him well. She knew the sorts of things he had done, the things he could do. She saw him then, alone in the room with her. That was Thennelo, many times over a killer.
‘Get out,’ she said.
Thalo did not move.
Ormana tore her arm from his hand and backed away. ‘I will not say what we have done, what you have done, but I can stay here no longer. I am going home.’
‘This is your home.’
‘No. I am going back to Pearmol. I wish I had never left at all. I wish a great many things were different, but too few can now be changed. This yet can be.’
Thalo stepped forth again, eager to dissuade her, to offer whatever comfort he could, but she pushed him back and left the room.
Ormana stayed at Samnew for only a week or so more. Thalo tried to make amends with her, to bridge the rift he had torn between them, but the time for that had passed. The day before she left, she told Awldano of her impending departure, and he first asked whether she was well enough for the walk.
‘After all,’ he said, ‘you were only recently stricken by illness.’
Ormana said, ‘I am as well as I will be. When I lay sick upon my bench, it brought to mind the order of my life, a life which felt ever so close to its end. I need to go home now.’
‘Then let me offer my warmest wishes. You have been a valuable member of my household, a dear friend, and I am saddened that we must be parted.’
‘Say no more, Awldano. This is no time for sadness, and least of all yours.’
Then they parted.
Ormana left the next morning. Thalo came out to see her off, but when he wished her well, she said nothing in reply. She only bowed her head and went on her way. It was well into the evening when she came to Pearmol. Karvalo welcomed her into his hall, and he asked why she had returned.
‘My own willingness,’ said Ormana, ‘and nothing more.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Karvalo, and he agreed to put her up in the hall again.
But before she went away, Ormana asked where her mother was.
‘She has moved out into one of the houses,’ said Karvalo. ‘It was Kettelo’s, I believe, though I have heard little enough to have since forgotten. She was much too gloomy to stay in here. Know, Ormana, that I opposed it, but we hold our house with honour. We can tolerate only so many idle sighs.’
Ormana said she understood and left the hall. She went straight to Kettelo’s house.
Kettelo was one of Karvalo’s lesser thanes, and he was known as Kettelo Brows because he had a most extraordinary pair of eyebrows that stuck out from his forehead. He liked to stroke them at his every opportunity, particularly when deep in thought. He was also sometimes called Kettelo Egg, for he was said to resemble an egg. He had previously been a friend of Enyalo, Karvalo’s brother, and Fenlovo, Ormana’s uncle, but they had both died fighting for the king in Norlonn—that is, the elder Arkelo, rather than the younger. Kettelo had not been old enough to go with them, so of the three, he alone yet lived.
When Ormana came to Kettelo’s house, he happened to be spinning yarn in the doorway, and at once, he stood to welcome her. She greeted him amicably, but her eyes lingered instead upon Esleyna, sitting at the back of the room, her head down.
‘Kettelo,’ said Ormana, ‘could we have a moment?’
‘Of course,’ said Kettelo, and he left them.
Ormana approached her mother, and she said, ‘I have returned.’
Esleyna looked up to her, and for but the briefest of moments, she seemed to smile, but it faded quickly. She put her hand upon Ormana’s cheek and said, ‘My daughter is hurting. You have only yourself to blame.’
That was enough. Ormana threw Esleyna’s hand away and left the room. She had meant to tell her mother of her pregnancy, hoping it might renew their love for one another, but there was no need for that. Kettelo watched her stride back into the hall without a word, then went inside to resume his spinning.
* * *
Now a woman named Yondea comes into the story, though she has previously been mentioned. She was the daughter of Yarnaga, Lord of Syornes. Earlier that year, while Ormana was still at Samnew, Yondea had accompanied her mother on a trip to Pearmol to discuss lordly matters with Karvalo, and while she was walking through the cemetery one day, Sedweo the Poet fell out of a tree and landed in front of her. Yondea asked him who he was.
‘I am Sedweo,’ Sedweo said with a bow, ‘and a poet.’
‘If you are poet,’ said Yondea, ‘tell me why you were in that tree, but sing your reasons.’
So Sedweo composed a verse on the spot, and with a flappy little jig, he sang it thusly:
‘The wren, the lark, the chat, the tit—
each one a bard with all the wit
and all the smarts and all the tact
the poet’s art has always lacked.
But though his words are oft aswing,
the worthy wordsmith knows one thing:
there is no sounder spot to sing
than ‘neath the songbird’s soulful wing.’
Yondea applauded his composition, and not a day had passed before they knew each other very well indeed.
A few days later, when it was time to leave, Yondea told Yarnaga that she would not be going. She said she had fallen in love with Sedweo, and that she wished to stay at Pearmol with him.
‘He would make for a disappointing son-in-law,’ said Yarnaga, ‘but your pairing is not one to which I shall wholly object, at least not yet. That said, you must not stay here. You are the better bred; he must come with you.’
‘Respectfully,’ said Yondea, ‘no. I have also fallen in love with the cliffs, and like them, my heart stands unerring against the battering waves of your objection.’
Yarnaga shook her head and let it happen.
Thus, Yondea stayed at Pearmol, not that Karvalo ever agreed to it.
Being of reputable stock, Yondea ended up in a small bedroom alongside Thorreda, Amfredha, and also another woman named Srare. She was called Srare Well-ear, for she had rather large ears, but that did nothing to spare her a grisly death. While she was in the woods one day, she slipped on some wet leaves, fell into a ditch, and broke her leg. Unable to get out, she could only call for help, but none came. Then, when night fell and she remained stranded, she was eaten by wolves.
It was Srare’s bed that Ormana took upon her return to Pearmol, and she was thereby introduced to Yondea, her new roommate. When first they met, Yondea said, ‘You must be new here. Where are you from?’
‘I was born here,’ said Ormana.
‘Then you must be very good at hiding.’
‘No, I have been gone for a while. But I am back now, and back for good.’
It turned out that Ormana and Yondea got along very well, and a stout friendship soon blossomed. It was good, Ormana thought, to have someone who knew nothing of her, someone with no expectations, no preconceptions, someone with whom she could start afresh. It was good, Ormana thought, to no longer be alone.