Next to him, beside the barrel that served as his seat, Albriech and Baldor squatted on their hams, picking at the tattered blades of grass between their shoes. Their thick fingers shredded each scrap of leaf and stalk with methodical thoroughness before groping for the next. Sweat glistened on their foreheads, and their eyes were hard with anger and despair. Occasionally, they exchanged glances or looked across the lane at the tent where their mother was, but otherwise they stared at the ground and ignored their surroundings.
A few feet away, Roran sat on his own barrel, which lay on its side and wobbled whenever he moved. Clustered along the edge of the muddy lane were several dozen people from Carvahall, mostly men who were friends of Horst and his sons or whose wives were helping the healer Gertrude attend to Elain. And towering behind them was Saphira. Her neck was arched like a drawn bow, the tip of her tail twitched as if she were hunting, and she kept flicking her ruby-red tongue in and out of her mouth, tasting the air for any scents that might provide information about Elain or her unborn child.
Eragon rubbed a sore muscle in his left forearm. They had been waiting for several hours, and dusk was drawing near. Long black shadows stretched out from every object, reaching eastward as if striving to touch the horizon. The air had turned cool, and mosquitoes and lace-winged damselflies from the nearby Jiet River darted to and fro around them.
Another scream rent the silence.
The men stirred with unease, then made gestures to ward off bad luck and murmured to one another in voices intended only for those closest to them but which Eragon could hear with perfect clarity. They whispered about the difficulty of Elain’s pregnancy; some solemnly stated that if she did not give birth soon, it would be too late for both her and the child. Others said things like “Hard for a man to lose a wife even in the best of times, but ’specially here, ’specially now,” or “It’s a shame, it is. …” Several blamed Elain’s troubles on the Ra’zac or on events that had occurred during the villagers’ journey to the Varden. And more than one muttered a distrustful remark about Arya being allowed to assist with the birth. “She’s an elf, not a human,” said the carpenter Fisk. “She ought to stick with her own kind, she should, and not go around meddling where she’s not wanted. Who knows what it is she really wants, eh?”
All that and more Eragon heard, but he hid his reactions and kept his peace, for he knew it would only make the villagers uncomfortable if they were aware of how sharp his hearing had become.
The barrel underneath Roran creaked as he leaned forward. “Do you think we should—”
“No,” said Albriech.
Eragon tugged his cloak closer around him. The chill was beginning to sink into his bones. He would not leave, though, not until Elain’s ordeal was over.
“Look,” said Roran with sudden excitement.
Albriech and Baldor swiveled their heads in unison.
Across the lane, Katrina exited the tent, carrying a bundle of soiled rags. Before the entrance flap fell shut again, Eragon caught a glimpse of Horst and one of the women from Carvahall—he was not sure who—standing at the foot of the cot where Elain was lying.
Without so much as a single sideways glance at those watching, Katrina half ran and half walked toward the fire where Fisk’s wife, Isold, and Nolla were boiling rags for reuse.
The barrel creaked twice more as Roran shifted his position. Eragon half expected him to start after Katrina, but he remained where he was, as did Albriech and Baldor. They, and the rest of the villagers, followed Katrina’s movements with unblinking attentiveness.
Eragon grimaced as Elain’s latest scream pierced the air, the cry no less excruciating than those previous.
Then the entrance to the tent was swept aside for a second time, and Arya stormed out, bare-armed and disheveled. Her hair fluttered about her face as she trotted over to three of Eragon’s elven guards, who were standing in a pool of shadow behind a nearby pavilion. For a few moments, she spoke urgently with one of them, a thin-faced elf woman named Invidia, then hurried back the way she had come.
Eragon caught up with her before she had covered more than a few yards. “How goes it?” he asked.
“Badly.”
“Why is it taking so long? Can’t you help her give birth any faster?”
Arya’s expression, which was already strained, became even more severe. “I could. I could have sung the child out of her womb in the first half hour, but Gertrude and the other women will only let me use the simplest of spells.”
“That’s absurd! Why?”
“Because magic frightens them—and I frighten them.”
“Then tell them you mean no harm. Tell them in the ancient language, and they’ll have no choice but to believe you.”
She shook her head. “It would only make matters worse. They would think I was trying to charm them against their will, and they would send me away.”
“Surely Katrina—”
“She is the reason I was able to cast the spells I did.”
Again Elain screamed.
“Won’t they at least let you ease her pain?”
“No more than I already have.”
Eragon spun toward Horst’s tent. “Is that so,” he growled between clenched teeth.
A hand closed around his left arm and held him in place. Puzzled, he looked back at Arya for an explanation. She shook her head. “Don’t,” she said. “These are customs older than time itself. If you interfere, you will anger and embarrass Gertrude and turn many of the females from your village against you.”
“I don’t care about that!”
“I know, but trust me: right now the wisest thing you can do is to wait with the others.” As if to emphasize her point, she released his arm.
“I can’t just stand by and let her suffer!”
“Listen to me. It’s better if you stay. I will help Elain however I can, that I promise, but do not go in there. You will only cause strife and anger where none are needed. … Please.”
Eragon hesitated, then snarled with disgust and threw up his hands as Elain screamed yet again. “Fine,” he said, and leaned close to Arya, “but whatever happens, don’t let her or the child die. I don’t care what you have to do, but don’t let them die.”
Arya studied him with a serious gaze. “I would never allow a child to come to harm,” she said, and resumed walking.
As she disappeared inside Horst’s tent, Eragon returned to where Roran, Albriech, and Baldor were gathered and sank back down onto his barrel.
“Well?” Roran asked.
Eragon shrugged. “They’re doing all they can. We just have to be patient. … That’s all.”
“Seemed as if she had a fair bit more than that to say,” said Baldor.
“The meaning was the same.”
The color of the sun shifted, becoming orange and crimson as it approached the terminating line of the earth. The few tattered clouds that remained in the western sky, remnants of the storm that had blown past earlier, acquired similar hues. Flocks of swallows swooped overhead, making their supper out of the moths and flies and other insects flitting about.
Over time, Elain’s cries gradually decreased in strength, fading from her earlier, full-throated screams to low, broken moans that made Eragon’s hackles prickle. More than anything, he wanted to free her from her torments, but he could not bring himself to ignore Arya’s advice, so he stayed where he was and fidgeted and bit his bruised nails and engaged in short, stilted conversations with Saphira.
When the sun touched the earth, it spread out along the horizon, like a giant yolk oozing free of its skin. Bats began to mingle among the swallows, the flapping of their leathery wings faint and frantic, their high-pitched squeaks almost painfully sharp to Eragon.
Then Elain uttered a shriek that drowned out every other sound in the vicinity, a shriek the likes of which Eragon hoped he would never hear again.
A brief but profound silence followed.
It ended as the loud, hiccupping wail
of a newborn child emanated from within the tent—the age-old fanfare that announced the arrival of a new person into the world. At the sound, Albriech and Baldor broke out grinning, as did Eragon and Roran, and several of the waiting men cheered.
Their jubilation was short-lived. Even as the last of the cheers died out, the women in the tent began to keen, a shrill, heart-rending sound that made Eragon go cold with dread. He knew what their lamentations meant, what they had always meant: that tragedy of the worst kind had struck.
“No,” he said, disbelieving, as he hopped off the barrel. She can’t be dead. She can’t be. … Arya promised.
As if in response to his thought, Arya tore back the flap to the tent and ran toward him, bounding across the lane with impossibly long strides.
“What’s happened?” Baldor asked as she slowed to a halt.
Arya ignored him and said, “Eragon, come.”
“What’s happened?” Baldor exclaimed angrily, and reached for Arya’s shoulder. In a flash of seemingly instantaneous movement, she caught his wrist and twisted his arm behind his back, forcing him to stand hunched over, like a cripple. His face contorted with pain.
“If you want your baby sister to live, then stand aside and do not interfere!” She released him with a push, sending him sprawling into Albriech’s arms, then whirled about and strode back toward Horst’s tent.
“What has happened?” Eragon asked as he joined her.
Arya turned to face him, eyes burning. “The child is healthy, but she was born with a cat lip.”
Then Eragon understood the reason for the women’s outpouring of grief. Children cursed with a cat lip were rarely allowed to live; they were difficult to feed, and even if the parents could feed them, such children would suffer a miserable lot: shunned, ridiculed, and unable to make a suitable match for marriage. In most cases, it would have been better for all if the child had been stillborn.
“You have to heal her, Eragon,” said Arya.
“Me? But I’ve never … Why not you? You know more about healing than I do.”
“If I rework the child’s appearance, people will say I have stolen her and replaced her with a changeling. Well I know the stories your kind tells about my race, Eragon—too well. I will do it if I must, but the child will suffer for it ever after. You are the only one who can save her from such a fate.”
Panic clutched at him. He did not want to be responsible for the life of another person; he was already responsible for far too many.
“You have to heal her,” Arya said, her tone forceful. Eragon reminded himself how dearly elves treasured their children, as well as children of all races.
“Will you assist me if I need it?”
“Of course.”
As will I, said Saphira. Must you even ask?
“Right,” said Eragon, and gripped Brisingr’s pommel, his mind made up. “I’ll do it.”
With Arya trailing slightly behind, he marched over to the tent and pushed his way past the heavy woolen flaps. Candle smoke stung his eyes. Five women from Carvahall stood bunched together close to the wall. Their keening struck him like a physical blow. They swayed, trance-like, and tore at their clothes and hair as they wailed. Horst was by the end of the cot, arguing with Gertrude, his face red, puffy, and lined with exhaustion. For her part, the plump healer held a bundle of cloth against her bosom, a bundle that Eragon assumed contained the infant—although he could not see its face—for it wriggled and squalled, adding to the din. Gertrude’s round cheeks shone with perspiration, and her hair clung to her skin. Her bare forearms were streaked with various fluids. At the head of the cot, Katrina knelt on a round cushion, wiping Elain’s brow with a damp cloth.
Eragon hardly recognized Elain; her face was gaunt, and she had dark rings under her wandering eyes, which seemed incapable of focusing. A line of tears streamed from the outer corner of each eye, over her temples, and then vanished underneath the tangled locks of her hair. Her mouth opened and closed, and she moaned unintelligible words. A bloodstained sheet covered the rest of her.
Neither Horst nor Gertrude noticed Eragon until he approached them. Eragon had grown since he had left Carvahall, but Horst still stood a head taller. As they both looked at him, a flicker of hope brightened the smith’s bleak expression.
“Eragon!” He clapped a heavy hand on Eragon’s shoulder and leaned against him, as if events had left him barely able to stand. “You heard?” It was not really a question, but Eragon nodded anyway. Horst glanced at Gertrude—a quick, darting glance—then his large, shovel-like beard moved from side to side as his jaw worked, and his tongue appeared between his lips as he wet them. “Can you … can you do anything for her, do you think?”
“Maybe,” said Eragon. “I’ll try.”
He held out his arms. After a moment’s hesitation, Gertrude deposited the warm bundle in his hold, then backed away, her demeanor troubled.
Buried within the folds of fabric was the girl’s tiny, wrinkled face. Her skin was dark red, her eyes were swollen shut, and she appeared to be grimacing, as if she was angry at her recent mistreatment—a response that Eragon thought was perfectly reasonable. Her most striking feature, however, was the wide gap that extended from her left nostril to the middle of her upper lip. Through it, her small pink tongue was visible; it lay like a soft, moist slug, occasionally twitching.
“Please,” said Horst. “Is there any way you can …”
Eragon winced as the women’s keening struck a particularly shrill note. “I can’t work here,” he said.
As he turned to leave, Gertrude spoke up behind him, saying, “I’ll come with you. One of us who knows how to care for a child needs to stay with her.”
Eragon did not want Gertrude hovering about him while he tried to mend the girl’s face, and he was about to tell her just that when he remembered what Arya had said about changelings. Someone from Carvahall, someone the rest of the villagers trusted, ought to bear witness to the girl’s transformation, so that they could later assure people that the child was still the same person as she had been before.
“As you wish,” he said, stifling his objections.
The baby squirmed in his arms and uttered a plaintive cry as he exited the tent. Across the lane, the villagers stood and pointed, and Albriech and Baldor started toward him. Eragon shook his head, and they stopped where they were and gazed after him with helpless expressions.
Arya and Gertrude took up positions on either side of Eragon as he walked through the camp to his tent, and the ground trembled under their feet as Saphira followed. Warriors in the path quickly moved aside to let them pass.
Eragon strove to keep his steps as smooth as possible, in order to avoid jostling the child. A strong, musty aroma clung to the girl, like the smell of a forest floor on a warm summer day.
They had almost reached their destination when Eragon saw the witch-child, Elva, standing between two rows of tents next to the path, solemn-faced as she stared at him with her large violet eyes. She wore a black and purple dress with a long veil of lace that was folded back over her head, exposing the silvery, star-shaped mark, similar to his gedwëy ignasia, on her forehead.
Not a word did she say, nor did she attempt to slow or stop him. Nevertheless, Eragon understood her warning, for her very presence was a rebuke to him. Once before he had tampered with the fate of an infant, and with dire consequences. He could not allow himself to make such a mistake again, not only because of the harm it would cause, but because if he did, Elva would become his sworn enemy. Despite all his power, Eragon feared Elva. Her ability to peer into people’s souls and divine everything that pained and troubled them—and to foresee everything that was about to hurt them—made her one of the most dangerous beings in all of Alagaësia.
Whatever happens, Eragon thought as he entered his dark tent, I don’t want to hurt this child. And he felt a renewed determination to give her a chance to live the life that circumstances would have denied her.
A CRADLE SONG
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FAINT LIGHT FROM the dying sun seeped into Eragon’s tent. Everything within was gray, as if it were carved from granite. With his elf vision, Eragon could see the shape of objects easily enough, but he knew that Gertrude would have trouble, so for her sake he said, “Naina hvitr un böllr,” and set a small, glowing werelight floating in the air by the peak of the tent. The soft white orb produced no discernible heat but as much illumination as a bright lantern. He refrained from using the word brisingr in the spell, so as to avoid setting the blade of his sword on fire.
He heard Gertrude pause behind him, and he turned to see her staring at the werelight and clutching at the bag she had brought with her. Her familiar face reminded him of home and Carvahall, and he felt an unexpected lurch of homesickness.
She slowly lowered her gaze to his. “How you have changed,” she said. “The boy I once sat watch over as he fought off a fever is long gone, I think.”
“You know me still,” he replied.
“No, I don’t believe I do.”
Her statement troubled him, but he could not afford to dwell on it, so he pushed it out of his mind and went to his cot. Gently, ever so gently, he transferred the newborn from his arms onto the blankets, as carefully as if she were made of glass. The girl waved a clenched fist at him. He smiled and touched it with the tip of his right forefinger, and she burbled softly.
“What do you intend to do?” asked Gertrude as she sat on the lone stool near the tent wall. “How will you heal her?”
“I’m not sure.”
Just then, Eragon noticed that Arya had not accompanied them into the tent. He called her name, and a moment later, she answered from outside, her voice muffled by the thick fabric that separated them. “I am here,” she said. “And here I shall wait. If you have need of me, you have but to cast your thoughts in my direction and I shall come.”