The City in the Lake by Rachel Neumeier Read Free Book Online Page A

“In serenity one finds the order that lies behind what appears random, the pattern that lies behind what appears to lack pattern.”
    “Yes,” said Timou, and sipped the tea, tasting mint and honey.

    The midwife hovered over Ness like a hen with one chick, as they say in the villages; the apothecary gave her teas and syrups and bitter decoctions, and shook his head when he met the midwife’s eyes because they could both feel that nothing they did would help, that it was already too late—that nothing could be done to stop the gradual cooling of the life Ness carried.
    Timou’s father examined Ness only once, looking searchingly into her eyes and even more searchingly into her shadow. His dark patient eyes held regret. “There is nothing I can do,” he said at last. “The child you carry gives up its life with every passing moment. I can do many things, Ness, but I cannot turn away this quiet death.”
    Ness tried to speak and could not. The breath she drew turned to a sob, which she turned her face away to try to hide. Timou, watching silently, found tears rising in her own throat and blinked hard.
    Tair, standing behind Ness, put his hands protectively on her shoulders and asked helplessly, “Why is this happening?”
    “I do not know. I will find out.” Timou’s father stood up. He looked at the apothecary and at the midwife and at Ness’s mother, and last of all he looked at his daughter.
    Timou looked back, her face smooth, trying to conceal her grief behind the enduring calm her father had taught her. She could not quite manage this, and she thought she saw a faint disappointment in his eyes: extravagant sorrow was perilous to the mage, as any strong emotion was always perilous. Timou knew that. She glanced down.
    “I will find out,” her father said, more to Ness and her mother than to Timou, and touched Ness’s cheek with patient tenderness. “Many women have borne the pain you will bear. It is a hard journey, but you are not alone. Have courage in their company.” He bowed his head and began to withdraw, and Timou obediently with him.
    “Please,” said Ness, not weeping, in too much grief for tears. “Please. Timou—will you stay with me?”
    Her father turned his dark eyes to her, and so Timou did not weep. But she did go to Ness and take her cold hand in both of hers, and seat herself quietly on a stool by the woman’s side.
    So when her father left, and the midwife and the apothecary and Tair and even Ness’s mother all left, Timou stayed. Sime came in, and a little later Jenne, with Manet and Taene—all the women who had been girls together so few years past. They were all married now, except for Timou and Taene, for Manet had married an earnestly self-important young man named Pol in earliest spring before the trouble had begun. But none of them had a child. In this, as in everything, Ness would have been first.
    “Your mother told us we should come,” Jenne said to Ness simply, “so we came.”
    “Yes,” Ness said, and wept, suddenly and violently, covering her face with her hands. And they all wept with her. Even Timou. Whose heart was not calm or still at all.

    Ness had her baby in her proper season, with little difficulty. But like the lambs and the calves, the child was born dead. On the day after the birth, after the infant had been laid in its tiny grave, Timou’s father left the village.
    “Stay,” he bade Timou.
    Timou bowed her head. “Where will you go?” she asked.
    Her father regarded her from dark secret eyes. “To the City.”
    “Ah,” Timou said.
    “I see nothing clearly,” he added after a moment. “This is . . .” He paused, uncharacteristically, but then continued, “I think it is with the heart of the Kingdom that this trouble lies. As the heart goes, so goes the Kingdom, and I think perhaps the heart has been . . .”
    “Broken?” Timou hazarded in that lengthening pause.
    “Lost,” said her father gently. “And its future lost with it. Or .