“This is no place for me,” Gaela said harshly.
Sorrow warmed Brona’s glinting brown eyes, but she nodded. “I know.”
Gaela was uninterested in reminiscing, or in regret. She would not discuss her mother or her mother’s death, not with anyone but her sister. She said, “I am here now because I need something from you.”
Brona nodded. The wind blew through the canopy overhead, tossing blotchy shadows over the garden, and tiny crystals and bells hanging from the branches chattered and sang together. Gaela missed the controlled sounds of the barracks, of the practice grounds in Astora.
“I’m engaged to marry the Duke Astore,” Gaela said.
The witch only lifted her eyebrows, not in surprise, but to indicate she continued to listen.
“I need…” Gaela hated how difficult it was to say what she’d come to say. It was a weakness to be afraid of the words, doubly so because her veryneedwas a weakness. But there was no alternative: only the witch of the White Forest could help her, even if Brona wouldn’t understand. Not even Regan understood, so how could a witch like Brona?
“He will want to touch me,” Gaela managed to say, quiet and low. A shudder coursed through her at the thought of it, of his hands on her waist, her breasts, and—memory triggered another sharp pain in her womb. Gaela could not hold back the gasp, and she pressed her hands to her belly, furious at her body’s betrayal.
“Sit, and let me make you a tincture,” Brona said gently.
“No medicine.” Gaela would not use any restorative herbs to face this regular battle. It was hers to suffer, and hers to defeat.
Brona frowned and slid her arm around Gaela’s waist, rubbing the heel of her hand against the layers of gambeson and mail, into the small of the princess’s back. “All this weight you carry. Your mother spent this difficulty naked as a babe, so she could be rubbed and soothed.”
“I remember,” Gaela panted. Dalat had withdrawn from court during these times to share the experience with her daughters and ladies, but that was not Gaela’s way. She crouched, alleviating the tightness in her back, but not the ache inside, not the viscous pain filling her hips like a cauldron of poison. The mail shirt dragged at her shoulders, shivering gently. It was a comfort to Gaela: her true, epicene skin.
In silence they waited together for Gaela’s pain to pass. She breathed deeply, forcing her body to relax as best she could, and the witch held her cool hand against Gaela’s neck, patient and maternal.
Gently, Brona said, “You need not marry if you find the thought of sexual congress so terrible, Gaela. If you cannot bring yourself to lie with a man, do not.”
Gaela snorted at a woman like Brona offering such advice. “You know my stars, and you know Innis Lear. I will never rule if I am not married,” she said, upset at the raw quality of her voice.
“I see,” Brona murmured. “Then what is it you need from me?”
“I won’t bear children.”
“I can help with that, yes.”
The princess shook her head. Her brow pinched with misery. “No, I do not mean I want your potions or skins or abortifacients. I want this inside me destroyed. Burned out or removed, or erased with your magic, Brona. I want you to make me a man.”
In the bright afternoon, against birds calling high and pretty from the edges of the forest, with the sounds of Hartfare warm and welcoming all around, Gaela’s voice was hard. Harsh, and determined as fire.
Brona said, “This is not what makes a woman, or the lack of which that makes a man.”
“Do not be pedantic or poetical with me, Brona. Do not philosophize or moralize. Only tell me if you can.”
“I can.”
Gaela said, “And you will?”
“You might die of it.”
“I am prepared to die in battle.”
Brona’s expression darkened. “Good, for that is what this shall be. A battle inside you, and all you will have is the strength of your heart. Your determination.”
“I can conquer my body,” Gaela whispered.
“Hm.” Brona frowned, nodding at the same time, studying the warrior in a thoughtful yet daunting manner. It relieved Gaela to be reminded that Brona was an authority in her chosen work, and yet it still brought a swift pinch of annoyance that anyone could still elicit such timidity in her at all. “You will need some weeks to recover, perhaps. Are you ready now, or shall I come to you?”
Gaela’s instinct was to insist on an immediate surgery. She was ready, had been ready; she needed this as she’d needed almost nothing in her life. But then she thought of Regan’s fury if Gaela were to go into this alone, were to leave without a word. Regan did not get to make this decision for Gaela, or even with her, but that did not mean she would not be there to squeeze their fingers together, to clench her jaw in shared pain, to hold Gaela through the worst of it.
