Perrin had said the Guarders were cruel to force their women to have so many children, but she was sure that deliberately killing the part of her body that made new life was crueler.
Now she was rethinking her decision to have Perrin, with his current attitude, accompany her instead of her mother.
Then again, while Hycymum had been most attentive and helpful during birthing, she also had a way of multiplying Mahrree’s anxiety. Being concerned about each pain was one thing, but gasping in worry and rushing to horrible conclusions was quite another. Hycymum meant well, but Mahrree was quite sure that the constant reassurance that everything was going to be all right was supposed to go from grandmother to birthing mother, not the other way around.
Maybe, Mahrree thought glumly as her heavy head nodded that night, she’d just go by herself to take The Drink. She already felt utterly alone.
Perrin hadn’t bothered to come to bed yet either, nor would he. They’d done too much fighting that night to consider anything like an argument.
As she drifted off to sleep, her infant tucked securely next to her, she didn’t know that a candle remained lit until the small hours of the night on their eating table until it eventually extinguished itself.
Nor did she know her copy of The Writings and old maps lay open next to several pages filled with dates, calculations, cross outs, notes, and more calculations.
Nor did she realize that Perrin snored peacefully with his head on the table, and a quill balanced in his fingers.
Early in the dark morning, Mahrree padded wearily down the stairs in search of clean changing cloths. Both children were in her bed, again. It was simply easier to keep Peto within arm’s reach during the night, and now Jaytsy was braving the dark to climb the stairs and scale the side of the massive bed to sleep with her parents. Now while the bed was big enough for eight soldiers, it somehow wasn’t large enough for two small children when they stretched and rolled, pushing their parents to the very edges.
That was likely the real reason Perrin hadn’t come to bed. Jaytsy had kicked him so hard a few weeks ago she actually bruised her father’s ribs. He felt safer on the small sofa.
In the light that poured into the side window from the full Greater moon, Mahrree saw him sprawled on the sofa, snoring softly. She made a mental note that they should buy something that could accommodate his long legs and broad shoulders.
As she turned by the table she saw The Writings and notes. Why all of those were out, she couldn’t imagine, and she didn’t really care right then. She had only a few minutes before her babies would be waking and . . .
She found herself stopping and turning back to the table. Noiselessly she shifted the papers and bent closer to make out the notations in the dim light. Something burned in her aching chest as she read Perrin’s writing and recognized the other pages.
References to The Writings.
Calculations of Guarder population growth in varying circumstances.
Minimum dimensions of land needed to house different population sizes.
Maps from his collection.
Calculations of the Idumean world population, before and after the Great War.
The words weathered gray and window boxes.
Mahrree looked over at Perrin. She was tempted to rush over and kiss him, but knew he needed the sleep almost as much as she did.
Her husband. That’s who he was right now. Captain Shin had been there the night before, growling at her like a rabid wolf, but he was gone now. She lived with two men, both too large to be contained in one body at the same time.
Captain Shin had stood on the podium shouting at her during the debates, but it was Perrin she fell in love with away from the platform.
Captain Shin was the man with the sword and the barely-controlled temper raging through the forests, but Perrin was the man who pulled his babies out of her arms the moment after he took off his uniform jacket.
Captain Shin was the one who declared her thoughts traitorous, Perrin was the one who tried to see if anything could be done about her dreams.
She could live with both of them, as long as Perrin was around more than the officer.
She pulled out her mental list and did her best to blot out Dreams are nonsense as she took the clean cloths back upstairs.
Nothing had changed, she knew. There was no more hope for her, for a bigger family, for any alternatives. The Drink was still in her near future. But she felt as if her husband had spent the night lifting off that crushing boulder and heaving it away as far as he could. Granted, he couldn’t send it far at all, but the point was, he had tried.
She got up again an hour later as the sun was rising, and carried both babies down the stairs balanced on each side. The pain in her chest had subsided to a dull ache, but she could live with that. Not surprisingly, the eating table was completely cleared and Perrin snored in a new position on the sofa.