“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate some privacy, Joarr,” Jule added, her voice light. “Grimarr actually asked me to send you to him, if you’re free?”
Joarr’s glower deepened, and Gwyn could see his jaw flexing in his cheek as his gaze flicked back toward her. “Wait here for me, ach?” he said. “I bring you food, also.”
Gwyn replied with a silent nod, and Joarr nodded back before striding away. Leaving her alone with this unusual lady Jule, and her sleeping orc baby.
And Gwyn was here to work — to help — and with considerable effort, she shoved back the mess in her thoughts, and forced her focus to the baby. He was apparently named Tengil, he was almost six months old, and, Jule gratefully informed Gwyn, he’d already been sleeping better, thanks to the numbing herbs she’d sent.
Gwyn then proceeded with a quick examination of both Tengil and Jule, noting the baby’s differing orc features for later reference. And then she and Jule talked through some considerations around Jule’s desire to proceed with another pregnancy in the next year or two, and how it might differ from her first.
“Thank you for all this, Gwyn,” Jule said once they’d finished, and she was again standing with Tengil in her arms. “It’s so wonderful to finally have a supportive midwife here, and of course, we all hope you’ll stay with us as long as possible. However…”
Gwyn felt her body stilling again, her eyes fixed to Jule’s face. Waiting, frozen, as Jule’s gaze slid down to her sleeping son, and back up again.
“However,” she continued, with a sigh, “there are some things you should know first. Before you make any lasting decisions.”
The chaos was battering against the ice now, fighting to break out, to escape — Jule had sent Joarr away, she hadn’t wanted him to hear this — and Gwyn could feel her heart thumping, far too loud and erratic in her chest.
“About what?” she asked, as smoothly as she could. “About Joarr?”
Jule sighed again, her brow creased. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Do you know why Joarr first sought you out? And why he brought you here?”
Right. That. Gwyn swallowed, and attempted a careless smile at Jule’s face. “Yes, actually, I do,” she replied. “My father is Lord Anton of Dunburg, and together with his horrid lord cronies, he’s been working to create an abhorrent new law targeting women who are pregnant with orcs. And in retaliation” — she swallowed again — “Joarr tried to seduce me, and have me become pregnant with his son. Thereby obliging me to take action on the new law, whether to try to sway my father, or to — to testify, and publicly humiliate him.”
Gods, it sounded cruel, being spoken aloud like that — and Jule’s chagrined wince suggested she thought so too. And as Gwyn blinked at Jule’s face, her heart still thundering, it occurred to her that maybe there was… guilt there, too. Regret.
“I already know the captain — your mate — was aware of this plan,” Gwyn added, her voice not quite steady this time. “I presume you were aware of it, too? Perhaps you all planned it together?”
Jule winced again, and rubbed a hand over her suddenly tired-looking eyes. “I’m so sorry, Gwyn,” she said, with a sigh. “But yes, I knew. I strongly expressed my reservations, and was roundly overruled. It certainly didn’t help that those lords have allowed armed men to run rampant over our lands — or that they’ve already been targeting women, rather than orcs. Because that technically doesn’t break the treaty, right?”
She gave a wry, brittle laugh, at unnerving odds with the anger now flashing in her eyes. “Five orcs have lost mates this summer alone,” she continued, her voice clipped. “Two women were forcibly ‘rescued’ and returned to their families, and then essentially imprisoned. Another woman ran away out of fear, and then disappeared. And two more women died after being detained by men — one after suffering a miscarriage, the other by her own hand.”
More cold, vicious ice rippled up Gwyn’s back, but Jule was still talking, her voice now flat and dull. “Two of those women left small sons behind,” she said. “Both Bautul. The entire clan was ready to go on a rampage — in blatant defiance of the treaty, and Grimarr’s orders — when Joarr stepped up, and suggested this instead. Suggested…you. And when the Bautul didn’t believe him — didn’t trust him — he then made one of those unbreakable Bautul pledges, to confirm it.”
Oh.Oh. Gwyn’s thoughts were swirling again, spinning, clanging together, and she had to grip at the table for balance, and gulp for breaths. Fight for the awareness that yes, Joarr had told her this, the other night on the altar — but he surely hadn’t shared the breadth of it, the sheerhorrorof it. How women like Hannah were already being targeted. How women were alreadydying.
But gods, maybe Gwyn should have already known. She’d seen the men hunting Joarr in the forest. She’d heard Stella say it wasn’t safe to go outside. And sheknewher father, she knew men like Roy, she knew what they were capable of…
She felt her hands clutching at her hot face, her fingernails dragging down her cheeks. “So what now, then?” she heard her wavering voice ask, far too high-pitched. “Now that Joarr’s plan is — now that I’m —”
She flapped a shaking hand at the clinic around her, at her new personal workbench. At all the promises she’d made to help these women. At all her hope for a new life, a new way. Maybe even a… amate.
“I don’t know,” Jule replied, her voice heavy. “And I’m not sure Grimarr does, either. But” — she set her jaw, her eyes flinty on Gwyn’s — “we both trust Joarr, and what he sees. And he seems to have held off the Bautul for now — between gaining you their goddess’ blessing, and winning that brawl in their pit yesterday, and letting them back into his garden. Not to mention setting you up here, and spreading word that he’s brought a midwife to the mountain. Probably all the cleverest things he could have done, really.”
She gave a grim half-smile at that, as if Joarr had actually —plannedall those things. But surely he hadn’t, had he? Gwyn had been with him each time — gods, she’d evensuggestedmost of them, she’d seen it all with her own eyes…
But her heart was still thundering, and she had to fight for air, for clarity, press it down deep inside. Joarr was rolling with what the gods threw at him. He’d wanted her to be part of this, with him. And surely he hadn’t lied, not again, surely…
But he still hadn’t told her the full truth, either. And Gwyn should have known he was still keeping secrets, still making plans around all this, stupid,stupid…
She swallowed over the thick lump in her throat, and blinked again and again toward Jule’s watching face. “Hannah mentioned,” she somehow said, her voice someone else’s, “that she’s already being pursued by men. Are you able to” — she swallowed again — “keep her safe? And other women like her?”
Jule grimaced, and her silence felt like it was crawling, creeping yet more ice up Gwyn’s spine. “We’re doing our best,” she said finally. “But once this new law is sworn in, it will only give these men and mercenaries even more reason to harass us. To ‘rescue’ these women from us, and ‘help’ them. It’s already been getting worse since the lords publicly announced it, and now that they’ve also committed to a date…”
Her voice trailed off there, her eyes dark, her mouth tight. While Gwyn’s brain was shouting again, screeching, teetering on an edge…
“What do you mean, they’ve publiclyannouncedit,” she croaked. “And they’ve committed to adate? My father included?”
And it was like the room was crushing her, Jule was crushing her, with her regret, with the gods-damned sympathy in her dark eyes.
