Lois Bujold - Barrayar

Cordelia controlled her brows. That was the first time she’d heard the sergeant say word one about either of his parents.

The sergeant sighed, clearly realizing from their array of looks that he’d just put himself in charge. “Lend me your jacket, Kou.”

Koudelka divested the garment gallantly, and made to wrap it around the shaking Lady Vorpatril. He looked a little more dismayed when the sergeant put his own jacket around Lady Vorpatril’s shoulders, then made her lie down on the floor and spread Koudelka’s jacket under her hips. She looked less pale, lying down, less like she was about to pass out. But her breath stopped, then she cried out, as her abdominal muscles locked again.

“Stay with me, Lady Vorkosigan,” Bothari murmured to Cordelia. For what? Cordelia wondered, then realized why as he knelt and gently pushed up Alys Vorpatril’s nightgown. He wants me for a control mechanism. But the killing seemed to have bled off that horrifying wave of lust that had so distorted his face, back in the street. His gaze now was only normally interested. Fortunately, Alys Vorpatril was too self-absorbed to notice that Bothari’s attempt at an expression of medical coolness was not wholly successful.

“Baby’s head’s not showing yet,” he reported. “But soon.”

Another spasm, and he looked around vaguely and added, “I don’t think you’d better scream, Lady Vorpatril. They’ll be looking by now.”

She nodded understanding, and waved a desperate hand; Drou, catching on, rolled up a bit of cloth into a rag rope, and gave it to her to bite.

And so the tableau hung, for spasm after uterine spasm. Alys looked utterly wrung, crying very quietly, unable to stop her body’s repeated attempts to turn itself inside out long enough to catch either breath or balance. The baby’s head crowned, dark haired, but seemed unable to go further.

“How long is this supposed to take?” asked Kou, in a voice that tried to sound measured, but came out very worried.

“I think he likes it where he is,” said Bothari. “Doesn’t want to come out in the cold.” This joke actually got through to Alys; her sobbing breath didn’t change, but her eyes flashed in a moment of gratitude. Bothari crouched, frowned judiciously, hunkered around to her side, placed a big hand on her belly, and waited for the next spasm. Then he leaned.

The infant’s head popped out, between Lady Vorpatril’s bloody thighs, quick as that.

“There,” said the sergeant, sounding rather satisfied. Koudelka looked thoroughly impressed.

Cordelia caught the head between her hands, and eased the body out with the next contraction. The baby boy coughed twice, sneezed like a kitten in the awed silence, inhaled, grew pinker, and emitted a nerve—shattering wail. Cordelia nearly dropped him.

Bothari swore at the noise. “Give me your swordstick, Kou.”

Lady Vorpatril looked up wildly. “No! Give him back to me, I’ll make him be quiet!”

“Wasn’t what I had in mind,” said Bothari with some dignity. “Though it’s an idea,” he added as the wails went on. He pulled out the plasma arc and heated the sword briefly, on low power. Sterilizing it, Cordelia realized.

Placenta followed cord on the next contraction, a messy heap on Kou’s jacket. She stared with covert fascination at the spent version of the supportive organ that had been of so much concern in her own case. Time. This rescue’s taken so much time. What are Miles’s chances down to now? Had she just traded her son’s life for little Ivan’s? Not-so-little Ivan, actually, no wonder he’d given his mother so much trouble. Alys must be blessed with an unusually wide pelvic arch, or she’d never have made it though this nightmare night alive.

After the cord drained white, Bothari cut it with the sterilized blade, and Cordelia self-knotted the rubbery thing as best she could. She mopped off the baby and wrapped him in their spare clean shirt, and handed him at last into Alys’s outstretched arms.

Alys looked at the baby and began crying again muffled sobs. “Padma said … I’d have the best doctors’ Padma said … there’d be no pain. Padma said he’d stay with me … damn you, Padma!” She clutched Padma’s son to her. In an altered tone of mild surprise, she added “Ow!” Infant mouth had found her breast, and apparently had a grip like a barracuda.

“Good reflexes,” observed Bothari.

“For God’s sake, Bothari, we can’t take her in there,” hissed Koudelka.

They stood in an alley deep in the maze of the caravanserai. A thick-walled building bulked an unusual three stories high in the cold, wet darkness. High on its stuccoed face, scabrous with peeling paint, yellow light glinted through carved shutters. An oil lamp burned dimly above a wooden door, the only entrance Cordelia could see.

“Can’t leave her out here. She needs heat,” replied the sergeant. He carried Lady Vorpatril in his arms; she clung to him, wan and shivering. “It’s a slow night anyway. Late. They’re closing down.”

“What is this place?” asked Droushnakovi. Koudelka cleared his throat. “Back in the Time of Isolation, when this was the center of Vorbarr Sultana, it was a lord’s Residence. One of the minor Vorbarra princes, I think. That’s why it’s built like a fortress. Now it’s a … sort of inn.”

Oh, so this is your whorehouse, Kou, Cordelia managed not to blurt out. Instead she addressed Bothari, “Is it safe? Or is it likely to be stocked with informers like that last place?”

“Safe for a few hours,” Bothari judged. “A few hours is all we have anyway.” He set Lady Vorpatril down, handing her off to Droushnakovi, and slipped inside after a muffled conversation through the door with some guardian. Cordelia tucked little Ivan more firmly to her, tugging her jacket over him for all the warmth she could share. Fortunately, he had slept quietly through their several-minutes hike from the abandoned building to this place. In a few moments Bothari returned, and motioned them to follow.

They passed through an entryway, almost like a stone tunnel, with narrow slits in the walls and holes every half-meter above. “For defense, in the old days,” whispered Koudelka, and Droushnakovi nodded understanding. No arrows or boiling oil awaited them tonight, though. A man as tall as Bothari, but wider, locked the door again behind them.

They came out in a large, dim room that had been converted into some sort of bar/dining room. It was occupied only by two dispirited-looking women in robes and a man snoring with his head on the table. As usual, an extravagant fireplace glowed with coals of wood.

They had a guide, or hostess. A rangy woman beckoned them silently toward the stairs. Fifteen years ago, or even ten years ago, she might have achieved a leggy aquiline look; now she was bony and faded, misclad in a gaudy magenta robe with drooping ruffles that seemed to echo her inherent sadness. Bothari swept up Lady Vorpatril and carried her up the steep stairs. Koudelka stared around uneasily, and seemed to brighten slightly upon not finding someone.

The woman led them to a room off an upstairs hallway. “Change the sheets,” muttered Bothari, and the woman nodded and vanished. Bothari did not set the exhausted Lady Vorpatril down. The woman returned in a few minutes, and whisked off the bed’s rumpled coverings and replaced them with fresh linens. Bothari laid Lady Vorpatril in the bed and backed up. Cordelia tucked the sleeping infant in her arm, and Lady Vorpatril managed a grateful nod.

The—housewoman, Cordelia decided she would think of her—stared with a spark of interest at the baby. “That’s a new one. Big boy, eh?” her voice swung to a tentative coo.

“Two weeks old,” stated Bothari in a repelling tone.