Containers

"There is so much we don't know. About why things happen."

Silver hair shrouded her face as she spoke.

"As you say, milady." The bedridden woman stirred the air above her newborn with an exploratory finger. She did not regard her visitor.

"Cassandra. You must be tired." Silver hair fell away from her face as she shifted her gaze from the infant to the mother.

Cassandra did not look up. "You must please convey exactly that message to the King my husband, sister-in-law. Mother and son are tired both, but well, and resting."

"Well," the older woman repeated. It was an experiment.

"Dierdre," Cassandra said. Her voice might have been coming through walls. An attendant busied herself with the twin tasks of tidying the birthing room and hearing nothing. "This is not so much. There are things come out of wombs upon which even a mother quails to look. There is..."

Cassandra said no more. The Lady Dierdre had never married.

"His foot - "

Cassandra levered up the spavined limb with an extended finger.

"Sound," she pronounced. "It will even bear weight, I predict..."

As though startling herself with the last word, she stopped.

It was the habit of Castle Amber to allow Cassandra her silences. Dierdre said nothing for a time. The child, however, had not been informed.

"Hungry, are you?" Cassandra asked from wherever she was. She shifted herself to lift the child, looked expectantly around the room.

Looked again.

"Nurse?" she asked the attendant.

The attendant flustered.

"No, m'um! Dry I - no, Your Highness."

She searched the room for an escape as discreetly as possible.

"Get her then! Can't you hear the little thing?"

"I...shall try milady."

Deformity was catching. The attendant half-pivoted, searched the face of the Lady Dierdre, failed to find something, and half turned back toward Amber's Queen, rooted to the spot.

For the first time, Cassandra's voice sounded like it came from within the same room as Cassandra's body.

"Dierdre."

"Your Highness..."

"Get a nurse. Now!"

"Sister - "

Cassandra's grip tightened on the child.

"No!"

"You say it will be able to stand?" Dierdre began. "Will it be able to run? To fight? To do those things a prince must do?"

"You bitch."

Dierdre took the blow. The attendant gratefully resumed her task of hearing nothing.

"Dearest Cassandra," Dierdre beseeched. "We have to think this through dispassionately - "

Cassandra hunched forward, making a cave of her body in which the child sheltered. As she spoke she fumbled with the stays of her own gown.

"You have all the dispassion the family requires, Princess!" The baby squalled. Cassandra noted, idly, a stabbing pain from somewhere between her legs, but gave no sign of it.

Dierdre squirmed. Most people, pressed to describe her most of the time, would say, "composed." Cassandra watched the composition fray.

"Sister!" Dierdre said with something approaching horror. "This isn't done. Contain yourself!"

But Cassandra was already pulling her breast from inside her shift. It felt like an melon-sized bee sting. She persevered. She cried when her son bit the nipple, but by that point her sister-in-law had fled the room.

**********

"Bubs," Cassandra said. "Dugs. Boobs."

She chuckled. The babe drank.

"Melons. Jugs. Gourds. In my homeland, Calliope, do you know what a vulgar term is? Dromedaries!" She switched the baby from one side to the other.

"All those names make perfect sense to me now, you know that?"

Calliope smiled, a trifle anxiously.

"They're so HEAVY though, like this!" Cassandra went on. "How about bricks? Barrels? Anchors... No. What do you think, Calliope?"

Calliope did her best. The Queen was from Antioch, and her people were said to be witches. It was what you risked, serving in Castle Amber, and who knew what else? But Calliope's school friends in the City were already showing their first sags and creases, while her own skin remained that of a debutante. She looked forward to the eventual funerals of all her youthful rivals.

"Udders, milady?"

Cassandra considered.

"Too exact, I think. It's not so easy, coming up with new names for things! Hard to improve on the seasoned wisdom of the ancients, eh?"

Calliope laughed, glanced at her own decolletage.

"He's getting better at latching," the Queen said. "Really, I'm getting better. That's the other thing, Calliope - there's nothing natural about all this, no matter what they tell you. Where is the fairness in that? I made the attendant teach me. As I'm sure you'll realize, I didn't have to do any of this for Prince Gustav."

"I should think not, Milady!" Calliope agreed.

"Not that you've had occasion to find out for yourself yet!"

"Nay, Milady!" Calliope laughed.

"Yours haven't been put to work," Cassandra said, her voice was somewhat hoarse. "They're just playthings still!"

"Your Highness!" Calliope tittered.

"Now, Calliope," Cassandra continued, "I need you to call on Captain Leonidas - the one you're fucking... " Calliope swallowed "...and Captain Dorian, the other one you're fucking." Calliope could no longer swallow. "Tell them that any soldier touches my son his own issue shall wither worse than... " Cassandra had to pause where the name should go, still "...my babe's here. And tell their ladies too, hm?"

Cassandra went through much of life with something of a faraway look. It was said among the staff that that was for the best. Calliope jerked away from her mistress' glare and dashed for the door.

"Yes, Milady!"

"Wait!" Cassandra called. Her voice weak again.

"Yes, Milady?"

"Tell the older men that..." She frowned. Think quickly. "...that they don't even want to know what will happen to them. If they cross me in this matter."

Now let her leave before I faint.

"Yes, Milady!" Calliope said, shutting the door quickly behind her. Cassandra collapsed backward on her many pillows. The child squawked. The Queen lifted him to be burped.

"There there," she cooed. "I know. We have more worries than the Castle Guard. Think of it as getting the word out, child." Rubbing his back, she began to sing, composing as she went:

Bubs Dugs Boobs
Jugs Gourds Dromedaries
Drink Child Drink
Though the fare never varies
Teats Melons Bags
What a load mama carries
Call it what you will...

But the child fell asleep without burping. There must, Cassandra decided, be some trick to it.

**********

"We use it to scry," Cassandra said. Once again she tried, discreetly, to pry her finger from the child's grasp. Once again it failed. "Coil it into a loose ball and toss it lightly upward, in the same room as - "

"Cassandra..."

"How it lands tells you the course of his life. I did it for Gustav."

No response, then: "I suppose I prefer the cards."

"So where is it?"

Dierdre sat on her hands.

"I'm certain I couldn't say, Sister."

Cassandra tried lifting her hand. The child's arm stretched to its full extent. His fist tightened on her finger.

"It can't all have walked off," Cassandra said brightly, "the afterbirth alone is the size of a large - "

"You don't want to talk to me, do you."

"Not at all! It's just - we have another belief, you know. Whatever eats the discards determines the child's nature. A great cat? You have a champion! A swine? Well, it doesn't do to be careless."

The meal might have been set before Dierdre, on the evidence of her expression.

"Really Dierdre, we're all just bags of the stuff!"

"My family are expressions of the Pattern!" Dierdre shouted. Then: "I'm sorry. That was crass."

With her free hand, Cassandra waved off the offense. Calmly now, she said, "And if we prick you, do you not...?"

The sentence hung between them.

"Have you been sleeping well?"

"I have not slept, Sister," Cassandra replied meaningfully.

"I believe," Dierdre began after a moment, "that these folkways may be true for Antioch, and possibly other shadows too. But here in Amber..."

"And you know so much about Amber, you and my husband." Heating up again.

"More all the time," Dierdre insisted.

"Less than you've told your nieces and nephews, to be sure."

"When the time comes..."

"But still not much. And you put enough stock in the visions of a shadow witch, eh? My husband does anyway, the way he keeps after me about them!"

"I've tried to interpose - "

"Thank you. I know. I mean that.

"Dierdre..."

"Yes?"

"The child. Lives."

Dierdre rose to go.

"I shall convey your wish to my brother."

"Thank you." Cassandra was sure her finger was broken.

**********

You frighten him terribly. The One True King of the One True Realm in a cosmos of ephemera, the Lord of Perfection's Kingdom, and look at you. Tickle tickle. The color is good. Blood getting where it needs to get. You'll be a great horseman is what you'll be, or a scholar - like your aunt! Maybe a scary witch like your mother! He has to be thinking it must be me, that I bring the only defects to the mixing bowl. How could it be the Blood of Amber to blame? Queens get beheaded for this kind of thing in Memphis, you know. Thank the Unicorn we're not Memphis! But he has to worry that it is him in your little leg, that you are the outward portent of some truth his Pattern knows that he does not. Or some weakness in him. He's a shapechanger, you know. If he didn't like his leg, then, well, it would be something else. Maybe you'll be one too! Then, no matter - you'll pick the leg you like. Or maybe you have already? He has to consider that too, and wonder why. I'm poisoning you against your father and I mustn't. He is weak, but only in the ways men are weak. And he is strong in the ways men are strong. So strong! You will be weak too, you know, in many ways. Oh yes, your mama can see that. And you will have many years to make up for it, and need them all. All those questions inside him. And in his sister. Along with everything else. Let mama have her finger back and I promise to give you a name. Please? Oh cranky child. Hm, and not pleasant-smelling at all. Calliope! she called, come here! but Calliope did not, which was not surprising as Cassandra had been asleep now for quite some time.

**********

"They'd have come if you made them," Dierdre whispered.

Martin put up his hand. There were things soldiers would do that one was better not asking them to do. Two more silent steps and he stopped.

"It's mine," he said quietly. "It favors its mother, but you can tell."

"Get it and let's go."

Martin shook his head.

"You, please, sister. It's..."

"Oh don't y - "

"Shhh!"

The baby stirred. The mother did not.

"Look at his grip on her finger!" he whispered. "Strong!"

"A miracle if she retains the use of it," Dierdre replied.

"Can you pry him away without waking her?"

Dierdre glared.

"But he's seen you before. Maybe he's more comfortable with...? Never mind."

Martin took another step forward. He was a big man. A big shadow moved on the wall behind him. But his shadow was no quieter than his footfalls.

Tentatively, he pried at the infant's fingers with one much larger one.

"Hampf!"

Guns do not work in the Kingdom of Amber, making it the loudest noise anyone had heard in some time.

"Hnnnnnh!" Cassandra called in her sleep. The child's grip had not shifted.

"Could you cut his hand off?" Dierdre whispered. Now it was Martin's turn to glare.

"Not without waking her."

"She's going to wake sooner or later!"

"Shhh!"

"Are we going to do this or not?" Dierdre demanded. She now stood right next to her brother.

"Dammit, Dierdre!" Martin hissed. "Margaret was three years forgiving me for getting rid of her cat that time. If I take Cassandra's child..."

"Then why are we here??" Hissing too.

"I thought you could make her see reason."

"You don't marry into reason, brother!"

"Stop this!"

"There are other wives to be had."

Scandalized: "Dierdre!" Confused: "You two have been close."

Dierdre swatted the problem away with her hands, but it didn't take.

"Oh, Martin. We have been close. Don't you think she might be..."

"What?"

"You ride her, you know, about her visions. They tell on her."

"You think she'd be better not married to me??"

They were no longer whispering, though their voices were still just barely describable as "low."

"I'm sorry, brother. I shouldn't speak of things I don't understand." The hint of bitterness in her voice was not for him.

Martin glanced anxiously at the sleepers. They had not stirred again.

"Why do you think he..." Martin gestured at the infant.

"I don't know! It's an omen, though, I'm sure of it."

"Unless it's not."

"Unless it's not."

"Is there any chance whatsoever that she'll ever forgive me if we expose the child."

Dierdre was silent. Martin made to speak, but -

"No," she whispered. She lay her hands on her brother's shoulders. "None."

"I love her terribly," Martin whispered back.

"Every word you say is true," Dierdre said, one corner of her mouth rising.

"You - !"

"Come," his sister said, taking him by the hand and leading him toward the door. "Women are seldom in their right minds on giving birth. I have observed. There's still a chance she'll come around to our way of thinking."

"We have a way of thinking still?"

Dierdre shrugged.

"And Dierdre," Martin whispered, reaching for the doorknob.

"Yes?"

"Where did the umbilical cord get to?"

Dierdre dropped his hand and disappeared through the door. No one saw her after that for several days. Cassandra slipped her finger from her son's grasp and stroked his head. Her eyes were still closed but she couldn't get back to sleep.

**********

It was like the pull tab on some package, the blackened stub depending from the little Prince's bellybutton. She no longer found it disgusting, but fascinating. Lightly she gripped it between thumb and forefinger. The attendant had cautioned her to let it drop off in its own time.

"If it is your will to keep this child..." Her husband was all rectangles and buttresses before her. "...it will be your child. You will name it, see to its care and its upbringing."

"Yes, M'lord Husband."

"And it is to be a Prince of Amber, Cassandra. That means, when he is of age, he will be brought to the Pattern to walk it or die."

Martin nodded sternly at the baby's lame leg.

"Yes, M'lord Husband," Cassandra said, shrugging off the concern.

"Cassandra," he said, "Wife. If you think he will not be up to the task, better to realize that now."

She looked at him for a long time. Even she did not know everything a person kept within. Were some things truly closed to her, or did some part of her refuse to look?

"Do not worry, Husband. He shall not grieve you."

He started to speak twice, each time changing his mind.

"I shall give you a perfect child next time, M'lord."

He demurred. "Perhaps we had best consider."

"You say that because I am ugly," she twitted him, "but I won't stay that way. Y'star makes us that way after birth, so that our mates can stand to abandon us if they wish. It is the only favor she grants your sex, husband! and that only at the insistence of On'nu."

"Superstition," Martin replied. "Local folkways."

"Six weeks, Husband. I shall be beautiful for you when I am again fit for love. And I shall hate you less! And your son will be smiling by then." She frowned at the baby, for she knew that was a lie, and she followed it with another . "Perhaps he will have one for his father too!"

Martin scowled at the very thought.

"Let the servants know what to call him," he said, turning to go.

"His name shall be Carton."

"What!?"

Martin turned. She met his stare.

"It means something in the tongue of Antioch."

"It means what in the tongue of Antioch?" he demanded.

She shook the question off with a toss of her head.

"Superstitious things, of course," she said. "Not even known to most mundane folk." In the dream she had presented Martin with a beautifuly wrapped gift box, big and square. He ripped off ribbon and paper, tore up the flaps and tossed wad after wad of padding from inside. The box was empty. She kept the dream to herself all the years of their marriage.