Oh. Of course. He must have just smelled them, perhaps, and even as Gwyn instantly nodded, she felt herself searching his eyes. Seeing something that surely looked like wariness, or regret… or maybe even guilt?
“I don’t mind,” Gwyn told him, and she meant it. “I’m truly happy to help. We’ll have time for more fun later, right?”
She flashed him what she hoped was a winning smile, and felt her stomach flip at his slow smile back, showing her all his sharp teeth. “Ach, witch,” he said, his voice soft, almost affectionate. “I shall always have time for this.”
Well. Gwyn felt her face heating, but she nodded, and accompanied him back through the corridor. Moving steadily downward now, surely toward the Ka-esh wing — and indeed, they soon stepped back into the little clinic where Gwyn had first examined Rosa. And where Rosa herself was already waiting, nearly bouncing up and down as she beamed toward them.
“We’ve cleared you a worktable, Gwyn,” Rosa said brightly, giving an excited flourish of her arm. “And asked Joarr to send down some herbs that might be helpful. And we’ve brought clean rags, and disinfectant, and water, and some tools, and your midwifery book, and your notes! Is there anything else you need?”
Gwyn stared numbly at her newly stocked workstation — it truly had everything she could have possibly requested — and she had to drag her gaze back to Rosa’s expectant face. “This is — wonderful,” she said, her voice choked. “Thank you, Rosa.”
Rosa immediately waved it away, and declared that she and the Ka-esh would arrange everything, if Gwyn would be kind enough to stay throughout the afternoon, and meet with anyone who needed it. To which Gwyn offered her earnest agreement, though she couldn’t help again glancing at Joarr, who’d been watching all this in silence, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I wait and help, ach?” he said, jerking his head toward the corridor. “You must only speak, woman, for what you need. Herbs, or food, or aught else?”
Gwyn nodded, and gave him a grateful smile, a quick squeeze at his arm. And then he strode out, and sent back her first client of the day — a pregnant woman named Hannah, who’d already been waiting outside the door with her orc, a tall, scarred, forbidding-looking Skai named Fulnir.
Gwyn launched into her list from the top, and proceeded through her usual consultation and examination. Discovering along the way that Hannah and Fulnir lived in a Skai camp to the west, and they already had one small son named Frothi. And that while Frothi’s birth had been difficult, the most difficult part had been… the midwife?
“I didn’t tell the midwife I was carrying an orc until I was in labour,” Hannah told Gwyn, her eyes dark. “I couldn’t risk it. But then, she refused to believe I wanted to keep my son, and tried to take him away. And when I wouldn’t allow it” — Hannah took a shaky breath — “she threatened to confine me, andreportme. And thank the gods Fulnir was hiding outside, because otherwise —”
She grimaced, and her body visibly shuddered, enough that Fulnir stepped closer, circling his arm around her waist. “This no happen again,sæta,” he said, his voice deep. “We only see midwife here at mountain, ach? Keep you safe.”
But Hannah was still twitching, her face buried in Fulnir’s chest. “But those men will keep following us,” she said, muffled. “They’re already searching for women like me. They want to capture me. Make a publicexampleof me.”
Gwyn felt something cold flash up her spine, her eyes frozen on Hannah’s bowed head — wait, she was talking about the lords’ awful new law? — and she couldn’t seem to move as Fulnir pulled Hannah closer, his clawed hands running firm up and down her back.
“You no fret over this,sæta,” Fulnir growled. “Our brothers seek to face this law, and call off these men. They soon fix this.”
His eyes had angled toward the corridor as he’d spoken — the corridor whereJoarrwas waiting — and he lifted Hannah off the table, and guided her toward the door. “More brothers wait to go home with us,” he added. “You no fret over this also, ach?”
Hannah nodded, and gave Gwyn a misty-eyed smile as they left. While Gwyn blinked blankly after them, her head tilting, something cold and jagged crackling up her back.
Hannah had… been at risk. Then,andnow. She’d been horribly betrayed by a professional who was supposed to have cared for her, to the point where she was afraid to seek care at all. And not only that, but Gwyn’s father’s new law was only making it worse. And was perhapsalreadymaking it worse?
The vision of those horrible men hunting Joarr was again swarming through Gwyn’s thoughts, and she frowned down at the wash-basin as she scrubbed her hands clean, and then wrote out some notes for Hannah’s file. And when she turned around again, it was to the sight of Joarr leaning in the doorway, his brows raised, his eyes flicking briefly toward the corridor beyond him.
Are you ready for another, it meant, and Gwyn drew in a bracing breath, and nodded. These women needed her. She had to help them. Shehadto.
Her next client was a tall, brown-skinned woman named Dania, who turned out to be only weeks away from giving birth. And she and her huge Bautul orc Rhon had apparently journeyed for two entire days from the south, leaving as soon as word had reached them of a midwife working in Orc Mountain.
“We’re thinking of staying here until our son is born,” Dania said to Gwyn, her eyes careful. “That is, if you think you’ll still be here, and available to attend the birth?”
Gwyn had darted a reflexive glance toward the door, toward where Joarr was currently nowhere to be seen — and then squared her shoulders, and fixed her eyes back on Dania’s. “I will do my absolute best to be here,” she said firmly. “I would be honoured to attend your birth, and be one of the first to meet your son.”
Dania’s relief was palpable, lighting up her eyes, and behind her Rhon actually laughed, and swept her into his massive embrace. “We thank you, woman,” he said to Gwyn, bowing his head toward her. “May the goddess pour out her blessing upon you.”
Gwyn waved it away, though there was an odd prickling behind her eyes as they left, more cold ice swarming her thoughts. All of which only seemed to intensify as she met with her next client — a soft-spoken, fair-haired woman named Inga, who turned out to be very near to giving birth to her second orc son. And whose two huge Bautul orcs paced and twitched throughout the consultation, their clawed hands gripped tightly to their scimitars.
“No, we cannot stay here until the birth,” one of them replied, with tangible regret, when Gwyn tentatively offered this as a suggestion. “Our other son waits for us at home, and we swore to him we should soon return safe. We do not dare linger, lest we are faced with more men, and more danger.”
More men. More danger. Gwyn’s stomach miserably plunged, but she gave Inga and her orcs detailed instructions on how best to manage a delivery on their own, should the need arise. She also gave them multiple packets of herbs — motherwort, yarrow, valerian — with more thorough instructions on when and how to use them.
And then, finally — and apparently the last client for the day — was the orc captain’s mate Jule. The former lady of Yarwood, cradling her tiny, sleeping orc son in her arms. And Jule’s broad smile toward Gwyn felt both genuine and reassuring, slicing through some of the shivering chaos churning through Gwyn’s thoughts.
“You know, you’re a very difficult woman to pin down, Gwyn,” Jule said cheerfully, with a conspiratorial wink. “Almost as though a certain orcwantsto keep you all to himself.”
Gwyn blinked at that — surely Joarr hadn’t been doing any such thing? — but an uncertain glance over her shoulder showed Joarr now standing in the doorway, his expression distinctly forbidding, his eyes glinting on Jule’s face.
