Dark Heart

Chapter 2

Running in from the sun-dappled walkways, Kit momentarily lost her bearings as she plunged into the cottage. It was midday, but almost no light penetrated through the shutters. Rosamun had managed to close them somehow, in the interest of modesty, when she went into labor.

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Kit heard more than saw her mother, who was breathing heavily. Rosamun was squatting on the floor to one side of the common room, next to the big bed. She looked up frantically when she heard Kit enter.

"Oh, Kitiara! I… I didn't want to keep Gilon from his day's work this morning, but-" Here Rosamun stopped. She fixed her eyes on a point somewhere over Kit's head, twisted the bedclothes in her hands, and started a low moan that built to an unholy screech. Kit was already backing up toward the door when the sound ebbed and Rosamun slumped against the side of the bed.

"Please, please, get Minna," Rosamun gasped.

Terrified, Kit bolted out the door and raced along the elevated walkways between the giant vallenwoods toward a local midwife's house, heedless of the people she jostled. Her encounter with the roguish stranger and thirst for adventure momentarily forgotten, Kit felt suddenly not a moment older than her eight years. Oh, if only Gilon hadn't gone off to chop wood today… If only Rosamun could manage on her own… If only there were someone else to help besides Minna!

Kit paused to catch her breath for a second before opening the gate to the midwife's front walk. Kit thought, as she always did when passing Minna's house, how the elaborate gingerbread cottage nestled between two giant vallenwood limbs resembled its owner-prim and haughty.

Kit knocked on the door. The moment Minna opened it, Kit grabbed her arm and started tugging her outside. The short, plump midwife was wearing her trademark muslin apron that, if it were not always so clean and starched, Kit would suspect she wore even to bed. Her wispy auburn hair was elaborately coiffed and beribboned.

"Hurry up! We have to hurry! It's my mother, she's gone into labor. You must come right away," Kit said as she pulled.

Minna tugged right back, easily freeing her arm from the child's grasp. The midwife paused and collected her dignity around her. As Kit stood by the front door, shifting impatiently from foot to foot, Minna busied herself around her home, gathering potions, herbs, and vials, which she placed carefully in a large leather sack while nattering away at Kit.

"My dear, you look flushed. Catch your breath. I must find my aspen leaves. Aspen leaf juice really makes the best clotting drink, you know. It's quite rare in these parts. I have Asa-you know Asa, that funny, black-haired kender who appears in town every now and then? — I have Asa collect the leaves for me specially whenever he is near Qualinesti or Silvanesti. Of course, he's not all that reliable as a gatherer. Although I'm sure if he says they are aspen-wood leaves, then they probably are…"

Glancing in a mirror as she patted her hair in place, Minna caught a tense look from Kitiara, who was barely able to keep from shouting at the midwife to shut up and get out the door.

"Is anything wrong dear?" Minna asked, peering at Kit concernedly with her small, olive eyes.

"Yes, yes!" Kit declared, stamping her foot. "I told you! My mother has started having her baby. She needs you!"

"Well, there's no need to be rude, I'm sure. There's enough of that in Krynn these days," Minna said with an injured air. "People have been having babies since the beginning of time. I'm sure your mother is doing just fine," she added, checking her leather rucksack full of whatnot one more time before pulling it closed. "Ah, here are the aspen leaves. I shouldn't worry. I suppose your father is home with Rosamun?"

The query seemed innocent enough, but Kit, always thin-skinned when it came to questions about fathers, mistrusted Minna's reasons for asking. The midwife made it her business to know all the gossip there was to know in Solace, and everything she discovered through her snooping she passed on to dozens of acquaintances at the morning market. Kit knew that Rosamun was one of her favorite topics.

Rosamun intermittently suffered strange trances and was chronically abed with fever and imagined ills. After Gregor had left her, things had only grown worse. Kitiara supposed Rosamun blamed herself for Gregor's going. Well, she should. She had practically driven him away with her homebody concerns.

It was difficult to understand what Gregor had seen in her mother in the first place. Maybe she had been pretty once, Kit admitted grudgingly. She was a good enough cook. Yet whatever Rosamun once was, more and more in recent months she had become the kind of sickly, indoors drudge that Kit planned never to be.

Rosamun didn't have very many friends or people sympathetic to her sick spells. That's where Minna came in. Kitiara had to admit that Minna tended to her mother as best she could. And she never pressured Gilon to pay her mounting bill.

Even so, Kitiara detested the bossy busybody.

"Gilon," Kit emphasized the name, since he was not her father, "is cutting wood in the forest. I don't know where, probably miles away. Otherwise I'd run and get him. My mother has been feeling well enough lately, and I didn't want to ask him to stay home even though we knew it was close to her time. Can't you hurry?"

Kit looked out the window and wished she were anywhere but in this house, anywhere except perhaps her own cottage. She couldn't forget the anguished sounds that Rosamun had made, and the look of fear on her face.

"Well, who's in a hurry now, young lady? Do your best to keep up."

With that, Minna swept past Kitiara and out the door. Kit would have liked to kick her in the behind. But the thought of Rosamun at home, in the throes of childbirth, made her repress the impulse.

Indeed, Kit practically had to run to keep up with Minna, who moved along the walkways with quick strides.

When they reached the cottage, Kit saw that her mother had climbed back onto the bed, where the blanket and sheets were already soiled and bloodstained. As they rushed to her, Rosamun uttered a low groan and her breathing quickened with the beginning of another contraction. This time, she seemed nearly too exhausted to scream. Her long, pale blond hair was plastered against her skull with perspiration. Her delicately boned face was drawn. When Rosamun's lips parted, only a strangled moan escaped as her body curled forward. After the contraction crested, she collapsed back against the sheets.

Minna hurried up to feel her forehead. The contractions were speeding up. Rosamun's bed was almost soaked.

"Good, your water has broken," Minna declared. But the midwife frowned slightly when she noticed the greenish stain on the bedclothes.

Minna unceremoniously pulled up Rosamun's smock and checked on the labor's progress. "Put some water on to boil and get the clean cloths ready. The baby will be coming any time now. That green water means there might be trouble," she said meaningfully.

Never a deft hand with household chores, Kit awkwardly helped Minna slip clean sheets onto Rosamun's bed. She gathered what clean cloths she could find, then lugged in a bucket of water from outside and put it in a pot to boil on the fire.

By now Rosamun was so consumed by her struggle to give birth that she barely acknowledged the presence of either Kitiara or Minna. Her gray eyes were glassy, her body buffeted by the painful contractions that came relentlessly.

Minna pulled a small pouch out of her birthing bag and ordered Kit to bring a clean bowl filled with hot water to the bedside table. She poured the contents of the pouch into the bowl and wrung out a cloth in the brownish liquid. Minna used the cloth to wipe Rosamun's brow and, occasionally, pulling up the smock Rosamun wore, to bathe her swollen stomach.

"What is it?" Kit ventured to ask.

"Secret ingredients," responded Minna smugly. "Don't know myself, actually." She tittered. "Buy it off that kender I was telling you about, Asa. He calls it his 'Never Fail Balm.'"

Kit had to admit her mother breathed a bit more easily after these ablutions.

Minna kept Kit busy. She ordered her to bring a chair to the bedside, to find more blankets, to brew a pot of tea, to get some more wood for the fire. Kit knew Minna did not like her and had counseled Rosamun that her young daughter was too headstrong and should be reined in a bit. Now Kit chafed under the midwife's orders, realizing how much Minna gloried in her authority over Kit in this emergency.

Rosamun's groans and screams kept the two of them preoccupied, however. Her agony was terrible for the child to witness. At times Rosamun's eyes rolled up into her head and her body went rigid as she endured the repeated contractions.

As the labor dragged on, Kit secretly longed for Gilon's calming presence and wondered when her stepfather would return. But she realized forlornly that it was only about midday, and that, typically, Gilon did not return until dusk.

About an hour after Minna's arrival, Rosamun's breathing slowed dramatically. The midwife thrust her hand under Rosamun's smock and gave Kit a nod. "Push the baby out, Rosamun," she commanded.

Kit looked at Minna in surprise. Rosamun, pale, delirious, and drenched in sweat, seemed barely able to turn her head on the pillow, much less push anything. Nonetheless, at Minna's urging, Kit climbed onto the bed and helped Rosamun to sit up. She then placed her small back against her mother's sweat-stained one and braced her feet against the wooden headboard, thus propping up Rosamun while Minna again exhorted her mother to push.

"Push!" cried Minna, "if you want it over and done with, push!"

An hour after that, nothing had changed except that Kit's legs felt like logs and Rosamun's head had lolled back against her daughter's as if she had lost consciousness. Minna had sat down, strands of hair falling over her sweat-beaded brow. Though exhausted, the midwife methodically urged Rosamun to keep pushing.

Then, finally, with one drawn-out moan, Rosamun gave birth.

To Kit, the baby looked like a reddish-purple monkey covered with blood and a white, cheeselike goo. A lusty cry that seemed to shake the windows in their frames immediately established the child's virility.

"A boy!" Minna crowed. "You have yourself a fine, healthy boy, Rosamun!" she said as she expertly wiped down the infant, diapered him, and swaddled him in a clean blanket. "Why he must weigh ten pounds! He's a giant!"

The information was lost on the baby's mother. Rosamun's eyes fluttered open, then closed as Kit slipped out from behind her, letting Rosamun sink back, exhausted, against the pillows.

Almost instantly, a sharp intake of breath wrenched Rosamun fully awake, her eyes huge and startled.

"Just the afterbirth," Minna muttered to herself, glancing at Rosamun. But the midwife quickly thrust the swaddled infant at Kit and turned back to the mother. Gazing at her intently, Minna reached for her birthing bag at the foot of the bed. She dug through its contents and pulled out another small pouch, this one with a double clasp. As the midwife carefully opened it, Kit, who stood near Minna, could have sworn that a light glowed from within!

Minna drew out a pinch of something. Turning her back on the bed, Minna tossed a sprinkling of particles into the air while chanting a few words Kit didn't understand. The light in the room seemed to shimmer. An instant later, Kit felt a sense of well-being descend on her. The infant in her arms even stopped bawling. More amazing still, Rosamun smiled, heaved a deep sigh, and sank back against the pillows. In that split second, Kit's mother seemed to fall serenely asleep! The girl could not believe the evidence of her eyes.

Then almost as quickly as it had come, the peaceful aura evaporated.

Rosamun's breathing quickened. Her eyelids flew up, but the eyes had rolled up into their sockets again. Minna leaned over Rosamun worriedly, patting her cheeks.

Only the baby seemed to have received some lasting benefit from Minna's hocus pocus. Kit held the infant stiffly away from herself as she edged over to the cradle Gilon had lovingly crafted. Luckily for everyone present, Kit's new brother forgot his initial irritation at being pushed out of the warm comfort of the womb. Immediately after Kit laid him in his new bed and set the cradle rocking, he fell asleep, cooing.

Minna yanked up Rosamun's smock and firmly placed two hands on her swollen stomach. She took what looked like a small drum out of her medicinal bag, only it was a drum whose bottom tapered to a narrow neck, then flared out into a flexible cup.

"A listening drum," Minna said to no one in particular- certainly not to Kitiara. She placed the cup end on Rosamun's bulging stomach and inclined her ear against the drum covering. As Rosamun began to whimper, Minna pulled her head away decisively. Sure enough, it was the start of another contraction.

"There's another baby in there," Minna declared with amazement.

A drawn out, guttural "No-o-o-o!" escaped from Rosamun's pursed lips.

"Another baby!" Kit exclaimed. "How can that be? Why didn't you know that before? What are we going to do? My mother can't survive another childbirth."

"Listen here, young lady. Don't you sass me." Minna whirled on Kit with surprising ferocity, her patience almost gone. Her beehive of hair was badly mussed, and her usually tidy uniform was disheveled. Her sharp eyes pinned Kit down.

"I don't need advice from a stripling. These things happen. I can't be expected to know everything, to fix everything-"

Whimpering from Rosamun sent them both scurrying.

Once again Minna began searching through her birthing bag. Practically shouting, the midwife directed Kit to put a fresh kettle of water on the fire and to fetch more clean blankets. Suddenly Kit, who had been up since sunrise and had missed eating lunch, was swept by fatigue. Her knees buckled, and she nearly swooned.

Minna reached over and grabbed the girl before she fell, shaking her violently by the shoulders. "You've got to bear up now, Kit," she said fiercely. "Don't go sissy on me. I need you. Rosamun needs you." She gave Kit a push toward her duties.

The girl could barely keep her eyes open as she trudged around the room, doing what Minna had asked. The afternoon had grown awfully warm, and with the fire that had been kept burning to heat the water, the inside of the cottage seemed hotter than a dwarven forge. Kitiara felt as if she were suffocating.

"Pour some over your head," advised Minna.

"What?"

"The water, over your head," the midwife repeated.

"Oh," said Kitiara, scooping cold water out of the bucket and splashing it over her head so that her face and clothes were soaked. It felt good. Refreshed, she dashed out to get another load.

"Idiot girl," Minna murmured under her breath.

Rosamun was likewise fevered, and Minna did the best she could to keep her cool, sponging her constantly with water. Looking limp and lifeless, Kit's mother faded in and out of consciousness, her store of energy all but exhausted. The contractions persisted. What should have been a short labor dragged on interminably.

"I don't understand. That baby should slip right out," Minna said in a low voice to Kit.

Feeling around underneath Rosamun's covering, Minna muttered an oath as she discovered the reason. She drew Kit aside.

"This baby is coming out feet first," she confided ominously, "not head first like most babies are born. It's a breech birth. No telling how long her labor will last. It's not normal."

Kit digested Minna's report numbly. She looked over at the first baby, who was still sleeping, eyes shut peacefully. "Can you do anything?" she asked hopefully.

"I can try," said Minna plainly, "but Paladine is going to have to help."

Hours passed as the birth dragged on, until it was almost sundown. At one point, Rosamun's eyes began to blink uncontrollably. Her face flushed a bright pink and her body writhed restlessly. When Kit touched her mother's hand, it was burning hot.

"She has a high temperature. You have to do something," cried Kit, almost accusingly.

Minna, clearly worried, ignored the girl, except to ask for more heated water to mix a new batch of "Never Fail Balm." She had been bathing Rosamun's stomach with it continuously since after the first birth.

Rosamun was unconscious most of the time now. Kitiara had to hold her mother up as best as she could from the back. Minna didn't even bother asking Rosamun to push.

Finally, there was some progress, and Minna perked up. "A toe, I see a toe. Now, if only I can get both feet coming out together, we might be able to see this stubborn twin born."

Eventually both feet did emerge, then the legs, then the hips-it was another boy. Still wedged against her mother's back, Kit listened to Minna's excited reports on the progress of the second birth. Over her shoulder she could see her mother's eyes were lidded. Rosamun's breathing came in weak spurts. At last, just past dusk, the baby's head started to slip out. Kit heard Minna curse.

"By the gods! He's not breathing, and blood is running out of your mother like a river."

Acting swiftly, Minna took a small knife from her bag and severed the umbilical cord, then lay the baby across the foot of the bed. Now her attention turned to the infant's mother, who was unconscious, drenched in sweat and blood. One hand massaged Rosamun's stomach to stimulate the afterbirth contractions that would help stem the bleeding. The other hand stirred crumbled aspen leaves into a cup of water to make the clotting drink.

"I've got my hands full with your mother now. You'd better try to help your second brother," Minna told Kit. "Rub his feet. Try to get some breath into his body. Do something!"

Kit slid out from behind Rosamun and climbed onto the bed next to the baby. Fighting panic, she grabbed several clean blankets and began rubbing his small body, as she had seen Minna do with the first baby. At last, a rasping noise came from this one's chest as he spit up a small amount of green liquid and drew in a few pitiful breaths. After a minute, his ragged breathing stopped.

"Minna, what should I do? He doesn't seem to be breathing very well," Kit asked the midwife urgently.

Minna was cradling Rosamun's head and, through a dropper, easing some of the aspen leaf liquid into her mouth. The midwife looked up only briefly before turning back to Rosamun, who herself was barely holding onto life.

"Take him over to the fire and just keep rubbing him, especially the bottoms of his feet. If that doesn't work try pinching his cheeks. Blow in his ears, softly. Anything. But mind you, the second twin is like an afterthought and often weak-spirited. Maybe he's a lost cause."

At that comment, Kit's head snapped up and she glared at the stupid midwife, but only for a second. Her thoughts quickly focused on saving her half-brother, and she rushed to the hearth. Using her foot to kick more logs onto the blaze, she threw herself into rubbing the frail baby with an intensity she usually reserved for practicing moves with her wooden sword. After a tense silence, the infant's breathing resumed.

Finally the baby let out a few mews of dissent at his rough treatment. His color began to look slightly more pinkish than bluish to Kit. But when she tried stopping his vigorous massage, the infant's breathing slowed again. So the therapeutic rubbing continued. Kitiara was as determined to prove Minna wrong as she was concerned for the welfare of her second-born half brother.

She stole a glance at the first twin, snug in Gilon's cradle. That baby boy, chubby and cherubic by comparison, slept soundly. How unalike they were! Yet as Kit continued to gaze at the older of her new brothers, she had the impression that he was breathing in unison with his weaker twin. She could pause in her rubbing now. The second baby was breathing more easily and had drifted off to sleep.

Across the room, the midwife relaxed. She, too, had succeeded. Rosamun's bleeding had stopped. Kit's mother lay in an exhausted slumber, looking like a wan corpse.

"Well," sighed Minna, pulling a sheet and blanket up around Rosamun, "about as close a call as I've ever had. Not that I was worried. When you're as experienced in these affairs as Minna, child…"

Kit, sitting on the hearth, cradling the baby, was hardly paying any attention. She looked up to see Minna standing over her, her face flushed, her stack of auburn hair now lopsided.

"Someone needs to rouse your mother every two hours and give her a generous sip of tea made from the aspen-wood leaves," said the midwife with crisp efficiency. "You or Gilon will have to go out tonight and find some goat's milk. Your mother is in no condition to nurse those babies, and goat's milk is the best thing for newborn humans. Goats have kids, too, you know."

Studying the look of obvious dislike on the girl's face, Minna decided Kitiara needed to learn some common courtesies. The girl glanced away, peering intently at the second-born twin, gauging the effects of her diligent massage. The baby made a congested sound. Kit went back to massaging him.

"I don't know that I'd get my hopes up," Minna said brusquely. "You'd be better off using that energy to take care of your mother. I told you, second twins are notoriously short-lived. We may have to dig a grave for that one come morning."

All the fear and helplessness and frustration of the past hours welled up in Kit with Minna's unfeeling remark. Anger surged through her small frame, pulling her to her feet. Without actually deciding to do it, Kit reached up and slapped the midwife across the face as hard as she could.

"Don't say that again!" Kit screamed.

Shocked and infuriated, Minna grabbed Kit roughly by the shoulder, almost jostling the infant from her arms. Distracted by a sound near the door, first Minna, then Kit turned to observe Gilon standing there, his face solemn. A slight gust of wind blew into their faces.

"Did you see that, Master Majere?" Minna let go of Kit's shoulder and hurried over to Gilon, bobbing with outrage. "Did you see that? She struck me! You can't allow her to get away with it. I demand an apology, and I claim the right to strike her in punishment. Unless that child is properly disciplined, she's going to end up just like her father-worthless!"

Gilon looked from the midwife to his stepdaughter. His weary brown eyes showed not fury, but sadness. He put his ax down inside the door and slowly took his jacket off. His big dog, Amber, who always accompanied Gilon on woodcutting forays, sensed something amiss and trotted away. The stolid Gilon ran his fingers through his thick, brown hair and took a long time before speaking.

Without saying a word in her own defense, Kit had resumed rubbing the baby. Bone-tired, she despised the tears pooling in her eyes. She bent her head close to the baby, refusing to look up.

"Talk about morning burials," the stocky woodcutter said at last, "isn't welcome at a birthing. I'd say you two are about even." His words carried a quiet authority. His face was impassive.

Kit kept her eyes on the baby, but inwardly she exulted.

"Well!" Grumbling to herself, Minna quickly moved around the cottage, throwing her belongings unceremoniously into her bag. She dangled a pouch of aspenwood leaves and threw it conspicuously on the bedside table. "I'll check back tomorrow!" she snapped, before flouncing out the door.

Kit looked up finally when she heard the latch click. She and Gilon exchanged a rare smile.

Gilon hastened over, peering anxiously first at Rosamun's bed, then at the cradle, then at the infant in Kit's arms. The look on his face blended pride with confusion.

'Twins, is it twins? How is Rosamun? How are they doing? What can I do to help?" Plaintively he gestured with his big, clumsy hands.

"You have to go out and get some goat's milk, right away," Kit advised. "Minna said it was the only thing the babies could drink, and I think we have to credit her on that one. Then we have to wake Mother-"

"Just a minute. Just a minute," Gilon interrupted, still anxious. "I don't even know about my children. Are there two?" he repeated. "Twins?"

"Yes, two boys." Kitiara surprised herself by saying it with as much satisfaction as if she were the mother.

Again Gilon walked over to the cradle, beaming down at his first born, who was beginning to stir. Then he came to Kit, who continued to rub and comfort the second infant.

"Shhhhh," she cautioned. "This is the weaker one."

Outside, it was dark. Inside, the only light came from the dying fire. Hurriedly, Gilon lit two oil lamps, which cast huge, dancing shadows on the cottage walls.

"We had a hard time of it," Kit confessed, covering up her relief that it was over with a matter-of-fact tone. "Mother lost a lot of blood. I think she'll be all right. The first baby, he's strong. But this one, he will have to be watched closely."

Gilon moved to Rosamun's bed and tenderly sat next to her, taking her hand. Her face was drained of all color. She lay still, breathing shallowly. When he brushed her forehead with his lips, she didn't stir. Baby sounds of grunts and snuffles drew Gilon away from his wife's side to the cradle.

"I'd better go get that milk before we have a rebellion on our hands." He pulled on his jacket, then came to stand next to Kit, putting his hand on her shoulder. Kit reacted hesitantly. She and her stepfather rarely touched. Gilon gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze before turning to leave on his errand.

He paused at the door. "Rosamun and I had decided on Caramon as the name if we had a boy," he told Kit, almost apologetically. "It means strength of the vallenwoods. It was my grandfather's name. A good name, don't you think?" After a pause, he smiled and added, "But we're going to need some ideas for the other boy. Why don't you see if you can think of a name to help us out?"

Pleased as a kender at a county fair with being asked to participate in the naming, Kit felt the color rise to her cheeks. She replied solemnly that she would give it some thought.

Gilon returned with the goat's milk to find Kit jiggling one infant in her arms and using her foot to rock the cradle, whose occupant had started issuing piercing, hungry-sounding cries. He made two bottles from slender jars fitted with the skin from the teat of a dead ewe. Picking up the squalling baby Caramon, the new father held him as he sucked at the bottle vigorously.

Kitiara wished her charge were half as energetic. She had to coax the second-born twin to take the nipple, and he had a difficult time keeping milk down. Breathing seemed to sap most of his energy. What with spitting up and fussing, Kitiara worried that he barely seemed to get any of the milk into his system at all.

Eventually, both infants drifted off to sleep. Kit was still holding the smaller one. "I have a name," she ventured.

"And what do you recommend?" Gilon asked, matching Kit's serious tone.

"Raistlin."

"Hmm. Raistlin," Gilon repeated. "I like the sound of it, Raistlin and Caramon. But what does it mean?"

"Oh, nothing really. I mean, I don't know for sure. I must have heard it somewhere."

Kit didn't tell Gilon that Raistlin was the name of the hero in the made-up stories Gregor sometimes told her at bedtime. Most of Gregor's stories were true ones about himself, or epic legends of the fabled figures of Krynn. But there was one tale he liked to tell that Kit believed her father had made up. Its installments went on and on, and Gregor had never finished telling it, probably because there was no ending. And because he had left.

The Raistlin of her father's stories was not the bravest or the strongest warrior, but he was clever and had a will of iron. Over and over he used his wits to best superior opponents.

If Caramon's name meant strength of the trees, Raistlin's would stand for cunning and will power, Kit thought.

Gilon pondered the choice. Once again he roamed to Rosamun's bedside. Kit's mother had yet to open her eyes. He realized that it might be some time before Rosamun could voice an opinion. Gilon smiled at Kit as he uttered his verdict.

"Raistlin… I think that will do nicely."

An hour or two later, Kit was still by the hearth, holding Raistlin, while Gilon was just finishing the long, involved job of giving Rosamun a sponge bath, then changing her bedding and clothes.

The town watch had called midnight long ago. Out the window, Lunitari, the red moon, had risen high in the sky. It shared the night canopy with Solinari, which was in its arc of descent. Sitting up with Raistlin by the fire, Kit must have dozed off. She woke with a start when the baby Raistlin drew a particularly harsh breath.

Time to give Mother her tea," Kit said, so tired she blurred the words.

Gilon, sitting on the edge of Rosamun's bed, looked over It the girl and suddenly realized how exhausted she was. Her stepfather took Raistlin and sent her off to bed. Kit's legs felt so heavy she could barely climb the ladder that led up to her bedroom above the rear of the common room. It was really just a small space she had fashioned for herself in the grain storage loft tucked under the roof of the cottage.

Behind burlap sacks full of grains and other dry goods stood her cot and small dresser. The single window, low under the eaves, offered a splendid view of the crisscrossing vallenwood branches. In the summer, Kit could look out and feel like she was floating on a cloud of leaves. She endured the extra summer heat and the coldness under the eaves during the winter because of the luxury of privacy her loft space afforded her in the cramped cottage.

Once she got up to her room, Kit went to her dresser and pulled it away from the wall, then felt behind it for the hidden shelf.

Carefully, Kitiara drew out a worn piece of parchment. Unrolling it, she gazed at an ink drawing of what she knew to be the emblem of a Knight of Solamnia. In the pale stream of moonlight that came through her window, Kit saw hawk talons, an arrow, and an eye-shaped orb.

After some minutes, Kit re-rolled the parchment and put it away. She fell onto her cot, clothes and all, and collapsed into a deep sleep.

That first night, Caramon slept peacefully in his cradle. Gilon kept Raistlin on the bed, tucked in between him and Rosamun, hoping their body warmth would help the baby. Kit never heard the many times her stepfather rose in the night to care for his beloved wife and newborn twins.

The following day, Gilon was preparing a pot of porridge over the fire and Kit was holding Raistlin in one arm while attempting to give a bottle to Caramon in the cradle, when someone knocked on the door. Without waiting for an answer, Minna entered with her sister, Yarly.

Yarly was a younger variation of Minna-every bit as short, stout, and starchy. Both of them were wearing their aprons, and Yarly's hair was swept under a headpiece. Obviously she had been instructed by her sister to say little or nothing. They both looked cross, but Yarly had a thick, protruding lower lip that even in the best of circumstances made her look sullen.

Minna pointedly ignored Kit and bestowed only a cool nod on Gilon as she crossed the floor to Rosamun's bedside, with Yarly in tow.

Rosamun had yet to regain full consciousness, though today she slept more comfortably and breathed more easily.

"How are we doing?" Minna asked while feeling and prodding Rosamun's stomach.

"Not so well," Gilon responded with obvious concern. "She still has a fever, and she hasn't even really opened her eyes. She's too weak to eat."

"Mmmmm. The poor thing lost a lot of blood. She'll get better, I warrant, though it could be weeks before she's well enough to care for her new babies. Don't worry about the eating. Just be sure she drinks a lot of the medicinal tea I left with you. And be sure she's not disturbed by any wild playing," Minna added, with a meaningful glance in Kitiara's direction. "I would move her into that small room there, if I were you. Give her a little peace and quiet."

At that moment, Kit, trying to juggle the two infants, looked more like a harried homemaker than a potential troublemaker. She turned her back on Minna, shielding baby Raistlin from the midwife's prying eyes.

The room Minna pointed to was the only other room in the cottage besides the common living space. Branching off the north wall, it was a small space that had been used by Rosamun periodically over the years as a place to work on the sewing she sometimes took in to make extra money for the household. Gilon saw the wisdom of Minna's advice, and assented with a nod.

"You know my sister, Yarly, don't you? She'll be checking in on Rosamun for the next few days so I won't have to bother you with my opinions. After that I reckon you can get by on your own."

Minna had sidled over so that she could peek around Kitiara's shoulder at Raistlin. Kit turned so that she faced her, staring fiercely at the meddling midwife. Pointedly Minna looked down at the frail baby, sniffed sympathetically, then cast a glance over at the robust one contentedly sucking on his bottle in the cradle.

Raistlin's complexion was still pale, his grip on life hardly secure. All morning Kit had tried not to think of what Minna had said about weak-spirited second babies.

"Hmph," said Minna, turning away

Pulling Gilon aside, she brought something out of her bag. Briefly, she showed him how to fashion a leather sling that would hold one of the babies next to his body while freeing hands for another chore. After that, Minna said a brusque good-bye, and she and Yarly went away.

"Well, now," said Gilon, after an inconclusive moment of silence. "It was nice of her to stop by."

Kitiara muttered something under her breath in response.

"And this is a handy contraption," Gilon added good-naturedly, holding up the leather sling. "Let's see if we can fit it onto you."

For the next three weeks, Kit wore the sling constantly, using it to keep Raistlin near her at all times. The baby's breathing improved, but still it was not strong or steady. At any given moment, Kit might have to drop everything to rub the bottoms of his feet in order to stimulate his breathing and circulation.

Most nights, Kit dropped fully dressed into bed, stone tired. Most mornings, she woke up still wearing Minna's sling and ready to take Raistlin out of Gilon's tired arms and begin the routine again.

On the morning of the first day of the fourth week, Kit woke up realizing she had overslept. Jumping out of bed, she climbed down the ladder and looked around. Caramon was kicking energetically in his cradle, but Raistlin was still sleeping, curled up in another wooden cradle that Gilon had hurriedly carved and assembled.

Kit glanced in the direction of the small adjoining room and saw that her mother, too, was still asleep. Rosamun had remained bedridden since her difficult childbirth, barely stirring on most days, unable to speak on many others. She had to be watched as conscientiously as Raistlin. Turn your head for a minute, and Kit's mother would be sitting straight up, eyes open, wailing in fright. She had begun pointing to things nobody could see and speaking absolute gibberish.

Next to her big bed was a straw pallet on which Gilon usually slept. It had become his job to make the cups of strong tea that sometimes helped calm Rosamun. Even with the soothing tea, however, there was no telling how long one of her wild trances might last. Kit's stepfather looked at his wife more and more sorrowfully these days, for the gentle woman he had once loved had been replaced by an unpredictable stranger.

Today his pallet was empty, and Gilon had already gone. In the weeks since the twins were born, he had been staying home from the forest too much. The household could ill afford the loss of his income as well as of the meager sums Rosamun earned from mending and sewing. Kit had insisted to Gilon that she was more than willing to devote herself to taking care of the twins if he went back to work.

With Caramon, the job was easy. As long as you didn't let his diaper get too wet, he was fine. Loud, restless, perpetually hungry, but fine.

Raistlin was a different story. Kit had to watch him closely, be alert to his breathing and coax him to eat. The young girl found that those tasks were not nearly so exhausting as the time she spent thinking of the infant, willing Raistlin with all her might to grow stronger.

As she began making breakfast this day, Kit heard a slight noise and looked around. To her amazement, Rosamun was standing-wobbly, but standing-in the doorway of her room. If Kit hadn't looked into her eyes, she would have thought her mother was fine. But Rosamun's gray eyes were eerie, out of focus.

When Gilon returned home well before dusk, Kitiara greeted him at the door. They had agreed that upon his return Kit would be allowed an immediate escape from the confines of the cottage. Rather than sitting down to eat supper right away, the eight-year-old girl played outside until total darkness descended, usually practicing her swordplay with a furious intensity, as if cramming her childhood into a few short hours.

"Mother wandered around the cottage a lot today," Kit informed Gilon this day as she got ready to leave. "I had to tie her to the bed at one point."

Gilon raised his eyebrows in surprise, then looked into the small adjoining room. Wearing stained bedclothes, Rosamun was sitting in the rocking chair in the corner, moving her hands as if she were knitting, only she had no needles or yarn.

"I don't know what the twins made of their mother, but she didn't pay any attention to them," Kit told Gilon with some satisfaction just before she shot out into the warm summer evening.

When the twins were six weeks old, Kitiara came home from her evening's play to find Rosamun seated at the kitchen table, holding Raistlin and cooing down at Caramon in his cradle. While Gilon must have helped her to bathe and dress herself, Kit's frail mother still looked like a wraith after weeks of illness. Yet her face was shining, as was that of Gilon, who stood nearby, observing the scene with proud pleasure.

Rosamun turned away from the twins when she heard Kit at the door and warmly beckoned her daughter toward her. She set Raistlin down in his cradle so that she could put her blue-veined hands on the girl's sturdy shoulders. Rosamun attempted to pull Kit toward her, but her daughter held back.

"I want to thank you for all that you have done. Gilon says you have been… indispensable," Rosamun said while gazing at the raven-haired young girl with a mixture of love and uncertain respect.

Kitiara looked down at the floor, confused by her own feelings of gratitude and resentment. As she started to pull away, Rosamun stood up and put her thin arms around her daughter in an awkward embrace. Kit held herself stiffly, then broke for the door the minute she felt her mother's grasp loosen.

Rosamun sank heavily back into her chair, while Gilon hovered nearby, not knowing what to say. Rosamun's eyes clouded with tears as she watched her daughter race back into the summer night.

"Your father would have been proud of you," Rosamun whispered after Kit's retreating figure.