Chilled, sick with horror, Rohana knew that Kindra spoke no more than simple truth. The men of the Ardais and Aillard Domains would have echoed her words: Jalak’s son must pay for Jalak’s crimes.
She felt the child move against her body, warm and strong. Melora’s child; and I took him up from her dead body. She looked at Jaelle, who was curled tight beside them, her eyes shut in rejection. She is Jalak’s child, too. Must she pay?
Kindra said earnestly, “Rohana, he will die, whatever you do now. There is no nurse for him, no food, no proper care. Don’t wring your heart for him; let him lie here beside his mother.”
Slowly, Rohana shook her head. She handed back the knife, meeting the Amazon’s eyes. She said, “Blood-feud and revenge are for men, Kindra. I am glad to be a woman, and bound by no such cruel law. Let this child’s life, not his death, pay for my foster-brother’s death; Ardais lost a son in Valentine, so this boy shall be called Valentine.” She laid her hands, as if in ritual, on the small squirming body, “And he shall be foster-son to Ardais, in place of the one who died at Jalak’s hands.”
Kindra put the knife away, raised her face with a grim smile. She said, “Well spoken, my Lady. An Amazon would say so, indeed; but I had not thought you were so free to discard the laws of your clan and caste.”
Rohana said violently, “I hope I will always feel free to ignore any law so cruel! It may be that he will die, as you say; but not at my hands, and not if I can save him!”
Kindra nodded. “So be it,” she said. “I will speak to Rima; she has fostered motherless babes before this. Our women sometimes die in bearing, too, and Rima is skilled in all the secrets of the Arilinn Guild-house.” She rose, saying, “There is another child of Melora’s who needs your care; look to her, Lady.”
She went off to join the other Amazons, who were burying Melora in the hill behind the water hole. Rohana turned to Jaelle and began to stroke her hair gently.
“Jaelle,” she coaxed, “don’t cry any more, darling. I know nothing can heal your grief, but you must not make yourself ill with crying. I swore that I would be a mother to you, always. Come, darling, look at me,” she pleaded. “Don’t you want to see your little brother? He needs someone to love and comfort him, too.” She added, “You had your mother for twelve years, Jaelle; this poor little mite lost his mother before she had ever looked into his face. He has none but his sister; will you not come and help me to comfort him?”
Jaelle pulled away with a shudder of violent revulsion, her sobs rising again to a frenzy, and Rohana, in despair, let her go. Jaelle had not spoken since Melora’s death; Rohana feared that in those last few moments of Melora’s life, spent in terror and dread, in the fear of death, the child’s mind had been roughly opened to the terrifying telepathic rapport, her latent Gift wakened in that dreadful instant of shock and agony.
No one could have blamed Melora for reaching out, with her last conscious thought, in the only way for which she still had strength-for one last, desperate attempt to touch her beloved child. But what had it done to Jaelle?
As if he sensed Rohana’s desperate unease, the baby began to stir and fret and whimper inside her tunic again. She stroked him, thinking of the long leagues that still lay between them and Carthon, where she might at least find a wet-nurse for the child. For him it was a simple matter of survival; handled, fed, carefully cared for, he would survive. But what of Jaelle? She would not die, but what had that shock done to her? Only time would tell.
Perhaps the Amazons can do more for her than I. I am, in her mind, still part of that moment of terror and death. But perhaps they can comfort Jaelle and help her.