Tortall by Tamora Pierce

laid underneath her. The midwife wiped Aly down with yet another oil. Once the afterbirth was placed in a bowl and set aside to be offered to the Great Mother, the assistants helped Aly to her feet and wrapped her in a sarong. One of them opened a door that had been closed the entire day. As the assistants helped Aly to the new door, the midwife held up a hand. The wet nurse, who cradled two of the infants, had not moved.
    “Take your children to the nursery, Master Crow,” ordered Mistress Penolong. A light seemed to come from her, a light as pale as the moon. “The cleansing bath is a matter for the mother, her attendants, and her goddesses. Men, even crow-men, are forbidden.”
    Aly looked back over her shoulder. “It’s all right, love,” she said. Her hair, spilling out of its pins, was not its normal reddish sun color, but tangled and black with sweat, her face pale with strain. Black shadows circled her hazel eyes. To Nawat she was still the beautiful creature who had called to his heart one morning as he followed the trickster Kyprioth because he was bored. “It’s all right,” she repeated, returning the smile that had come to his face. “It’s a human ceremony. I’m in good hands.”
    Nawat saw the assistants exchange smiles of their own. His Aly had a way of winning friends. He stepped back as the women passed through that open door. The midwife closed it behind them all, but not before Nawat had seen that pale light still around her, lighting up the hall beyond.
    “Lord Crow?” Terai asked as Nawat wondered which gods were abroad that night. “Where is your nursery? I would like to set these young ones down. And I will need to send for my own child, and some clothes.”
    Nawat blinked. The nursery—was it even ready for two additional nestlings and the servants the queen felt Aly’s household should have? “This way,” he told Terai, leading her through the door that all of them had used that weary day. He still carried Ochobai, who had fallen asleep at last, a frown on her tiny face. The wet nurse had Junim and Ulasu in her arms. Ulasu was getting her second meal since her birth, while her brother napped.
    Spotting a round shadow on the stairs, Nawat asked Terai, “What do you know of darkings?”
    The wet nurse frowned at him. “They are said to be black bug gods that serve the queen. The Great GodKyprioth gave them to Her Majesty to help her defeat the luarin masters.”
    The shadow halted and reared up on its bottom. “Not bugs!” it squeaked in outrage. “Bugs tasty snack! Darkings people!”
    Nawat thought that Terai must be a very accomplished wet nurse. Though she was clearly startled and even backed up a step, the infants in her arms remained calm.
    “They are still here,” Nawat explained. “We hope you can live with them. They report to Aly all of the time.”
    Terai looked at the darking. “It looks like a cupful of dark wine.”
    “Wine not think or talk or spy,” the darking replied. It looked up at Nawat with a head-knob it had shaped for itself. “Trick say nursery ready. Where Aly?”
    “Aly is taking a bath. Tell Trick we’re coming with babies, all right? And thank you,” Nawat said with a nod. The darking shrank back into a ball and continued along its way.
    “Are they all like that?” Terai asked uncomfortably.
    Nawat smiled at her. “That one was quiet as darkings go. Just be firm with them.”
    As they climbed the stairs to their third-floor rooms, Nawat turned his thoughts to practical matters. He and Aly had chosen only one cradle, because they had a large, round bed made like a nest. If Aly had laid eggs after all, she could have kept them warm in their bed. Now they would need two more cradles for these human nestlings. Perhaps he might be able to talk Aly into placing them in one large cradle, like proper little crows, or even bringing them into the nest-bed. But there should be two more nursemaids in additionto the one Aly had already hired. Sadly,