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“What do you mean, my lawful wife, that it’s time to have a child?” George asked because Alanna looked miserable at the prospect. He asked because they had talked about this all the way back when she was sleeping in George’s bed for the first time after refusing to marry Jon.
“Well, my theaving husband, Trebond needs an heir and Olau needs to go to somebody.”
The refusal had been threefold: Alanna needed to be able to wander, not confined to a palace; Tortall could accept a lady knight, but could not accept a lady knight for a Queen; and the Queen needed to have children.
That night, an upset Alanna had also told him that when she thought of herself as a noblewoman she could mostly stomach the idea of being pregnant, if she was a noblewoman it was her duty. However, she refused to be only a noblewoman and the thought of being pregnant tore at her, feeling wrong. It wasn’t something knights had to do and she was a knight more than she was a noblewoman.
Alanna had told him she thought the process of being pregnant and giving birth might not only kill her as it had her mother, but it could also shatter her sense of selfhood. She wouldn’t do anything to threaten that and George was curious as to why she had suddenly changed her mind.
“I thought you didn’t want to be pregnant or raise kids, what changed?”
Alanna was facing the window, not looking at him. George looked at his partner, who sat ramrod straight with her jaw clenched. She looked tense. “Thom died. The title of rogue goes to the most capable, ours go by blood. Thom died and so it has become my duty to pass on our blood.”
George goes to her, leaning over Alanna’s shoulder as she sat. She’s reading a letter from Jonathon. George skimmed it and stopped at a line that read “it is good to have an heir, but joyful to have a son…” that must be what prompted this.
“Alanna, you don’t want a son. Or a daughter.”
She leaned into George, finally looking up at him, “no, but you want one. I do need an heir. It’s been three years, who knows how much longer this peace will last. The ladies at court are right sometimes. Trebond needs a child.”
His lover had struggled to be around Thayet when she was pregnant, or her child for the first few months. “You are not a King or a Queen. I think we have a choice. Myles gave you Olau. We can do the same.“
As soon as the words left his lips, he knew they weren’t quite right. Alanna knew that too. “Myles was the fourth son of the third in line to a middling fife who was granted a barony. Trebond is in the book of Gold, George. Our line goes on. It must, even if it kills me it must.“ Alanna sounded ever so slightly desperate as she continued, “twins run in our line. I can do it once.” That night, Alanna cries herself to sleep on George’s shoulder. He holds her and wishes for options.
They don’t talk about it again for weeks. Once again, they are almost retired for the night, George helping her out of that day's dress when she brings it up again. “I know neither of us are in love with the thought, but the next time I’m in Corus, I’m going to ask for a leave of a year after I become pregnant. I was thinking that with my age and good luck we could probably manage it within six months. A year and a half,” she pressed her lips together, “I can do a year and a half.”
He doesn’t think Alanna has spent that long in one place since she was a page. It’s been joyous to have her home with him in Trebond these past few weeks, but he can see the need to wander pulling at her and knows the plan departure to Persopolis, then to the Bloody Hawk and her mage school, then down to help with the expected rating at Pearl Mouth, and then back to Corus after picking up various letters for her King and intelligence reports for her husband is the only thing that will settle her again.
They will write, but he brings it up once before she leaves as he once more helps her out of the day's clothes. He still doesn’t like it and says as much. She protests, “for nobility marriage, and children are not for love. Getting lucky with one does not let me escape the other. I must have an heir, Trebond must have a child and I must give it one.
All the midwives say that children who are breastfeed do better. Three months. Three months of breastfeeding and getting back into fighting shape. I think I can do that for Trebond.
But George, I can’t raise a child. They will be mine by blood and name, but not affection. I don’t think I can love them. You want kids. I can give them to you and Trebond. We both know after a year and a half I will need to leave. Can you raise them here? For me?”
George knows right now he does not and cannot fully understand why his love must do this. Later, he will write to their friends who will help him get a better understanding of why they must have children, but Alanna will always be his priority. “Will raising our kids mean I lose you?”
He watches her think it through, clothes finally off he lays them over the desk chair as she pulls on a sleeping shirt and positions herself so he can tie it shut as if she couldn’t do it herself. “For a while, maybe, but not more than you will next week once I leave. When I do come back… I wouldn’t want to raise them then either. I would never want to stop being your wife.”
George smooth down the tied laces and goes to meet her eyes, taking her hands. “Good. I would never want you to my lady. I will delight in raising our children if you must bear them. Helping me raise them might finally convince Rispah to join us and leave the city. She won’t replace you, she’s my cousin after all, but raising a child with both of our genetics is too big a task for one man.”
She huffs a laugh and it is music to his ears. He doesn’t like any of her long faces.“That makes me glad I don’t have to help. Go ahead, we surely have enough space. You should write the other others too, Gary will explain why I need to do this better than I can.“
“I was planning on it lass, now, can we prove how much of a mind reader I am?“
She blushes his favourite shade of fire engine red, but hoists her shirt up, sitting on the edge of the bed and smirking as she tells him to go ahead.
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They hadn’t talked about it again before Alanna hit the road, with Coram and strict letter writing instructions in toe. And George would miss her, but he had known that this was the life he had agreed to with their marriage. And that he wouldn’t love Alanna quite so much if any part of her had to be stifled.
Missing someone was what letters were for anyways. He wrote Alanna most days, about his day or matters of their shared fife or friends or his work — something that always flourished without a distracting and often bored redhead around every corner.
During this absence George pondered over his partner's proposal and predicament. He wrote to Gary to help him understand the court, politics and importance of it. He wrote Rispah to help him work through his feelings on the matter. He wrote to Raoul to help him understand what made now a good time. He wrote to Myles for reassurance. He wrote to Jon to make them both more ready.
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Alanna had been gone for just over four months and she felt it had been a productive time and well earned a run around the country. First she had gone to Corus, just for the day to pick up various things (mostly papers) to be distributed along their journey, then to Persopolis to hand out the first load of Jon’s papers. Then she headed out to the Bloody Hawk to feel the wind on her face and win a turf war, then out to the mage school to pop in on her students. Finally she went down the coast to win some bloodier battles than would be found in a turf war. After that it was time to go all the way back to Corus — making sure to go through Persopolis to pick up whatever papers she needed to take back to Jon.
One of the perks to be in Kings Champion was that Jon insisted on paying for most of her supplies and travel costs. It wasn’t much; Atlanta preferred to sleep outside and hunt for her own food, but it did mean she had no regrets about going through reams of paper.
Alanna wrote George most days; Gary, Myles and Raoul most weeks; Jon on Mondays her King on Fridays. She sent them all out at prearranged city stops every few weeks, where there was always something waiting for her from her husband, a friend, and her King. It was through these letters that she and George worked out how they both felt about having kids and how they would go without it.
When Alanna arrived at the palace, only two days behind her estimated return, it was to George’s loving arms. They were at the palace for nine days. The pair had planned to be there for a week, the King's Champion had to make her court appearances every so often, or until she worked up the nerve to ask for an audience.
Her King and Queen knew it was coming, but asking for the leave was going to be hard on all of them. Alanna didn’t really want to be asking and no one, including Jon, wanted her to grant her leave. Regardless, they all knew that none of them had a choice in the matter. Trebond needed a child, no matter how hard it would be on Alanna. Jon and Thayet heard petitions for an hour or two most days and near the end of the hour Alanna found herself in front of her King.
“Your majesty, may I receive a private audience?“
“Rise, my champion. It will be granted.“ As the guards cleared the room she stood the way Mistress Cooper had taught her, but did not meet Jon’s eyes.
When the room was clear beyond guards and scribes, she continued. “My league, I asked for a year and six months leave from my role as Kings Champion and-“ her voice broke. She took a deep breath, willing her voice steady, “-and as an active night of the realm. My fife needs an heir.”
She kept her gaze stubbornly on the floor, blinking away any tears that wanted to escape. She was waiting for Jon’s response when Alanna registered the sound of cloth rustling and looked up. Jon had moved off the dais and was coming to her. Their eyes met and at his weak smile and warm embrace the tears, still unbidden, poured down her cheeks and all over his stately robes. She was giving up her life's work for this and they could only hope she would be able to return.
He whispered, “you aren’t allowed to be angry about this,” into her ear before stepping back to give his answer: “your leave is granted. My court and I will beseech Mithros and the Goddess for you and your unborn children’s safety. We will pray that the Black God continues to be patient. While your presence will be missed here and around the realm, I will not have another Champion in your absence. I will simply and only wait for your return.”
He looked to the head scribe and told him, “that will be all. Please draft a formal document announcing my Champion’s leave.” Then he looked to the guards, “tell the other petitioners to return another day. You,” Jon singled out a guard, “tell my next two meetings I’ll be in the Champions sitting room.”
He hugged her again, taking most of her weight. “Don’t worry. My next two meetings are with Gary and the spy masters.” Eventually he released her and they walked arm and arm to Alanna’s quarters.
Gary found them there 30 minutes later, leaning into each other with the stiffest layers of outerwear removed. It was Gary so he wouldn’t say anything, even if they were still having sex. To his credit he had brought two stacks of papers to their meeting. “Alanna, do you want to-”
“No.” Jon cut his prime minister off. She watched Gary shrug and move onto a conversation that was somehow about incentives for farmers, drama from the city of gods, a raid the Own had put a stop to, and how his father was doing. It was a conversation Alanna was far more happy to take part in than one about her leave.
She was only a bit embarrassed when her adopted father and husband entered, interrupting them. George saw her in less all the time, but Myles was her father. Alanna quickly went and put on a comfortable outer layer. When she emerged Jon, Gary, and George, were going over Gary’s first stack of papers.
Myles took her on a walk. He took her up to the ramparts so they would be able to speak in relative private. They were walking because her father knew she hated to sit still. He started their necessary conversation, “it's all right if you don’t have twins. Your child should be for Trebond, not Olau. Even if you have twins, they can both be for Trebond. I was given Olau for my work to the crown. I gave you Olau so you could have a place of your own and to be an equal standing to your friends. I gave you Olau because I saw how much you loved Trebond and because I wanted somebody else to love my home in that way when I was gone.
When I am gone, pick someone else who is worthy and give it to them. We are both from the Book of Gold, but there is no blood of Olau. She does not need children. I will not let you give her any; Trebond can have your children. All Olau needs is you.” Alanna very carefully does not cry again, instead leading some of her weight onto him. She tells him her fears and he does not dismiss them, but hears them out and helps her think through them.
The next morning Alanna and George leave Corus, with a stop at the Dancing Dove. While Alanna is now officially off work, George’s continues, and Alanna despises being idle. Their plan for the first few months might not be travel efficient, but the hope is that it will be fun. They plan to spend two months living, learning (Alanna), and working (George) in the City of the Gods, then in Olau, then back home in Trebond.
Alanna will simply run the fife from elsewhere if the plans they left fall through. In the end, Alanna is only entertained by the City of the Gods for a month and they head to Olau early. For all the two months she spends there are lovely Alanna leaves pregnant, both unhappy and glad for it. The waiting, hoping, hating the hoping was over, but she could already feel the child growing in her and hated that sensation in a different way. Alanna had built her life on being in control of her body, but now she wasn’t and couldn’t be.
No part of her pregnancy was easy. During the first month of her first trimester it was just her, George, Coram against her mood swings, nausea, heartburn, and cravings. Maude said Alanna was one of the sickest pregnant persons she had treated. To make matters worse, Alanna‘s breasts were growing with her abdomen. She wanted to rip her skin off. She wanted to have the tea she knew would stop all of this.
And, worst of all, she knew this was just the start. Alanna spent the first month rotating between the tasks she would occupy herself with for most of the pregnancy: improvements to Trebond’s fighting capabilities, doing George’s work for and with him, training, and planning various improvement projects for her fife. Alanna wanted to ignore the fact of her pregnancy, but its plethora of symptoms made it impossible. It felt like she was either throwing up or crying and doing both was something she became reluctantly familiar with.
Raoul and two of his squads came with their new recruits for the latter two months of her first trimester, and it was a blessing. With training the Own and sparring with Raoul, who was joyously unafraid to use live steel against her, her days became markedly better even if her pregnancy symptoms didn’t debate.
The second trimester starting meant that Raoul had to be on his way, leaving a squad of the Own to help with the upcoming raiding season. It made Alanna cry, but thankfully other visitors replaced him. Thayet came for two weeks with Duke Bard, who said everything was well, and Gary came for his own two week stint. Then, the day before Gary left, Eda Bell came knocking and stayed for a month. She was probably Alanna’s favourite visitor from the lot of them, unperturbed by her tears, and willing to help her retain both strength and skill guided by knowledge of her own pregnancies. Alanna loved her Queen, she really did, but Thayet could not understand the wrongness that filled Alanna as her nausea and cravings left, but her body continued to stretch outward while she bled from her nose and gums and patches of her skin darkened.
With every passing day, it felt as if her body was betraying her a little bit more, and it might continue until there would be nothing of her left. A week after the Wildcat left a delegation from the Bloody Hawk arrived: a midwife, her husband, two guards, and Kourrem.
The group stayed for three months before Kourrem said she needed to get back on the road, something that made Alanna seethe with jealousy. It had been good to spend a stretch of time with one of her students again, and under the instruction of her new midwife Alanna had once again taken up weaving to pass the time. She had decided to make a decorative shield cover and had only had to start over six times so far.
During the last month of pregnancy Myles showed up as a surprise and said he wouldn’t be needed at court for at least another two months. Alanna could not fight against him like she could her friends, but that was begrudgingly becoming harder as the months were on and Myles wasn’t a friend anyways, but her father.
For the first few weeks after the child's kicking began Alanna had been inconsolable every time the baby kicked, now she just felt especially out of her body every time it happened. Myles got as good as George had become at dragging her back into it. He was working on a written history of Tortall similar to the one Jon had received from the Bizhir. Together they worked on and completed a couple chapters, but kept getting distracted by historical rabbit holes.
During the third trimester Alanna kept up with some exercise, but it was increasingly hard as blood pooled and her breath always seemed short. The heartburn had returned and sleep often felt close to impossible, making her more irate during the day. Alanna had false contractions as early as 35 weeks and each time she completely panicked.
This pregnancy had been the worst and hardest nine months of her life and birth would mean they were over, but the prospect of birth terrified her like little else. It was how her own mother had died, and Alanna had been asked to save more than one woman after they were too far gone because of blood loss, an early delivery, or the other uncountable dangers. She would have Maude and only Maude attend her, refusing Jon’s offer of sending Duke Baird over once more. He sent him anyway. She was going to send him away when George calmly and carefully suggested that Baird could look after the baby and Maude after Alanna if she didn’t want to be in the same room with her newborn. It was a good idea and so she let Baird stay.
Two nights later, the Goddess came to Alanna as she slept and told her to stop fretting, She would make sure it was an easy delivery. Alanna thanked her and asked why she couldn’t have done that for the pregnancy. The Goddess sighed and told her to “ask Kyprioth.” Alanna did not, she found the God infuriating. She was a woman, she was the Goddesses Champion, no matter if He said otherwise. The word of the Goddess proved true when she went into a 12 hour labour just three days later; a week before it would have been a full nine months. It was painful, it was excruciating, but then it was blissfully over.
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Alanna tried breastfeeding, she really did, but after a week George put his foot down and said if she wouldn’t quit it, he would make her. And he was right, breastfeeding was making her even more miserable than pregnancy had. The infant felt divorced and separate from her, and she desperately wanted to be able to ignore the change her breasts had undergone. It was harder to do that when they were constantly being sought after by grabbing hands and a needy mouth that left her nipples feeling raw.
She had been angry, but knew he was right. Her body had won the war of pregnancy, she could lose this battle. Then she asked where they were going to get a wet nurse, Jon had left for Trebond a day ago. When George admitted he had found a wet nurse through his contacts and they were on their way with Jon, Alanna had been relieved and frustrated.
When Jon arrived two days later, Alanna was only relieved to be done breastfeeding. After that she avoided the baby's rooms like it was a plague site. Jon had only been able to stay two nights, but it had been good to see him again. To her surprise, he not only brought a wet nurse, but a Shang warrior who went by the animal “Strider.” Apparently it was an insect. Apparently, she was also a student of Eda Bell, who had sent her Alanna‘s way.
It was Strider and Coram who primarily helped Alanna get back in shape the first month after birth. Although Coram was making noises about staying in Trebond, to help George with the fife as he balanced his day-to-day with fatherhood and spy work. She knew it would pain her to ride without him, but he was getting up there in years and deserved to retire. Her child deserved the best, even if he didn’t have a mother and she knew Coram loved any child born to Trebond.
It took a month for Maude to clear her for travel; Alanna packed her bags that same day. She spent the last two months of her leave in Olau. Strider had left the same day Alanna had, saying she knew why the Dragon and Wildcat liked her so much and heading for the Grimhold Mountains and Scanran.
Alanna had planned her last two months with her King and husband when it became clear the minute she could Alanna would need to go somewhere else. So, a month after giving birth she headed off to Olau where Buri was waiting with the Queen’s Riders newest recruits. After two months at Olau the recruits were Riders or headed home. Alanna feels just as fit as she was before the pregnancy. With Maude's blessing and Coram riding beside her “just one more time” Alanna is once again an active night and the King’s Champion. She is once again free.