The Crown of blood

I

A haze of fine rain swathed the camp as bells rang out the start of High Watch. There were muffled calls from the walls as the guard companies changed. The clatter of hammer on metal, the shouts of the third captains drilling their men, the slap of canvas in the wind blurred with the constant patter and splish of raindrops.

Noran hurried across mud-spattered wooden walkways with his cloak drawn over his head, stopping when he reached the awning of his pavilion. Shaking the wet from his clothes, he turned inside. Neerita sat in a low chair wrapped in blankets, her pale face shivering among layers of blue and red wool.

"The Fifth's surgeon gave me this," said Noran, holding up a fistful of dried leaves. "He said I should boil them for half a watch, and then use the water to make you some porridge."

Neerita nodded hesitantly inside the hill of cloth. She flipped back the edge of a blanket and rubbed her swollen belly.

"I wish there was a loremother," she said. "It's coming soon."

"You mean he is coming soon," said Noran. He tossed the medicine onto a small table and knelt beside his wife, his hand on hers. Neerita chuckled.

"A little Noran, that would be perfect," she said. "Have you decided on a name yet?"

"I though perhaps my grandfather's — Noridan." "And if it is a girl?" Noran shrugged and stood up.

"If it is a girl, you can choose the name," he said. The herald stopped and listened for a moment, hearing nothing. "Where is Anriit? She should be here with you."

"My sister is asking Allenya if we could have one of Ullsaard's maids." Neerita struggled to get to her feet. Noran sprang to help her. "We'll need all the hands we can get once the baby is born."

"I should have thought of that," Noran muttered as he put an arm around Neerita's shoulders and helped her into the screenedoff bed area. He lowered his wife onto the bedding — more blankets piled atop each other — and kicked off his boots. Throwing his cloak over a stool, he settled beside her on the bed and smoothed her hair.

"You'll be a wonderful mother," he said quietly. Neerita reached out and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand.

"And you will be a fine father," she said. Noran snorted.

"A fine father it is that brings a child into this," he said, waving a hand to encompass the tent and, by extension, the camp beyond and everything else that had happened of late. "Our son should be born in Askh, with a loremother and a dozen servants to hand; not in a grubby field surrounded by soldiers."

"It was not your fault," Neerita said, not for the first time. "Things will settle down, you'll see. It will be a great story to tell him when he is older."

Noran kissed her lightly on the lips and pushed himself to his feet.

"I should get to work on that herbal porridge," he said.

"See? Who needs servants around when I have you? You are doing a wonderful job."

Noran snorted again, unconvinced.

"Making porridge is one thing; looking after a newborn is something else!"

"The common people manage it just fine without servants, we will as well," Neerita said sleepily.

Noran stayed at the doorway watching his wife until her eyes fluttered closed. He went back into the main compartment and snatched up the leaves.

"Right," he muttered. "Porridge. Where can I find a pot?"