"Only one way to discover it," I said, and opened the book.
I sat in the chair beside her bed, the afternoon light slanting through the eastern windows in long gold bars that caught the dust motes and turned them into something almost beautiful. Elira watched me with the open, easy attention of a woman who had not yet learned to be suspicious of kindness, her hands cradling the great curve of her belly, her light dress pooled around her like spilled cream.
I cleared my throat with theatrical gravity.
"Once, in a forest that was not nearly as wise as it believed itself to be, there lived a fox who was convinced he was the cleverest creature under the sun. This was, as it happens, almost true — which is the most dangerous kind of true there is."
Elira's mouth quirked.
"The fox," I continued, "had a particular talent for convincing larger animals to do his work. He would approach a bear and say, 'Good sir, your arms are magnificent — truly the envy of the forest. Surely a creature of your strength would find it trivial to shake that apple tree so that we might both feast.' And the bear, flattered beyond reason, would shake the tree until the apples rained down, whereupon the fox would gather the best ones and leave the bruised remains with a gracious bow."
"That is terrible," Elira said, but she was smiling.
"It gets worse. One day the fox approached a great stag and said, 'Noble friend, your antlers are so splendid that the trees themselves must weep with envy. Surely you could part the brambles ahead so that we might both walk the path in comfort.' And the stag, who had never been complimented on anything except his speed, lowered his magnificent head and spent the afternoon clearing brambles while the fox napped in the shade."
She chuckled, the sound warm and low, and her belly shifted beneath her hands as if the child shared her amusement.
"But then," I said, lowering my voice to the register of impending consequence, "the fox met a crow. And the crow said nothing at all. She simply watched him from a branch with one black eye and one blacker, and when the fox began his compliments — 'Fair lady, your feathers put the night sky to shame' — the crow tilted her head and replied, 'I have heard you say the same about the bear's arms and the stag's antlers. Tell me, fox: when you have run out of animals to flatter, who will you convince to dig your grave?'"
Elira laughed outright at that — a bright, surprised burst that made her belly bounce gently beneath the linen. She pressed a hand to her mouth, eyes crinkling.
"Oh, that is wicked. Did your mother read you such stories, my lord?"
The question landed exactly where I needed it to. I let my smile fade — not abruptly, but the way a candle dims when a draft finds it. I closed the book on my thumb, marking the page, and looked at the window rather than at her.
"She did," I said quietly. "For a time."
Elira's laughter settled into silence. I could feel her attention sharpen, the way a kind person's attention always does when they sense unhappiness nearby. It was a reflex with people like her — an involuntary reaching toward pain with the desire to soothe it. Garrick had married a woman with a soft heart. That was his first mistake.
"She left when I was young," I continued, still watching the window, the grey line of the sea beyond the cliffs. "Before that… there were evenings. She would sit where you are sitting now, and I would lie where that pillow is, and she would read until my eyes closed." I paused. Let the silence breathe. "I used to press my ear to her side and imagine I could hear stories already waiting inside her for the next child. There was not a next child. There was a cup of wine that tasted wrong, and a morning when she did not wake, and a household that learned the word 'poison' before I learned the word 'goodbye.'"
I did not look at Elira. I did not need to. Her internal voice rose in my mind like water filling a basin — warm, aching, utterly unguarded.
'Oh… oh, the poor boy. He lost his mother to poison? Here, in this house? And he sits there telling me children's stories with that gentle voice as if the walls themselves do not haunt him. Garrick never told me. Garrick never tells me anything that matters.'
"My lord…" Her voice was thick. "I am so sorry. I did not know."
"There is no reason you should." I turned back to her and offered a small, brittle smile — the kind that said 'I am being brave about this and I need you to notice.' "It was a long time ago. I only mention it because… sitting here, with you, with the child waiting — it reminds me of something she used to say."
Elira leaned forward slightly, as much as the belly allowed. Her eyes were damp at the corners. The cream linen of her dress had slipped at one shoulder, revealing a collarbone still elegant despite the softening of pregnancy. I noted it and filed it away.
"What did she say?"
I set the book down on the side table. My hands rested on my knees, open, harmless.
"She said that a woman carrying a child carries the whole world's weight in her skin. And that the kindest thing anyone could do — the 'truest' thing — was to ease that weight with their hands. A massage, she called it. Not the rough pounding the washerwomen give their own shoulders, but something slower. Deeper. She said it opened the paths the child would travel when the time came. Made the body ready. Made the birth gentler."
Elira's lips parted. Interest and uncertainty flickered across her face in equal measure.
'A massage for the birth? I have never heard of such a thing from the midwife, but… his mother knew it. And he speaks of it with such certainty. Look at him — he is half a boy still, sitting there with his mother's ghost on his shoulders.'
"I did not know that," she said softly. "Is it… is it a practice among the nobility?"