Completed Mother of Pearl

[Amolina]

Timestamp: Day 4 of Spring 514 AV at around 10 bells in the morning
Location: Tarsin’s

The woman was obviously in a later phase of pregnancy. It was impossible to guess her age or her looks. Amolina could discern a dark and richly embroidered mask inside the hood of the woman’s dark green cloak, a gleam of copper and gold, small sparks of light reflected by beads of glass. It was like looking at the night sky and the stars, and the darkness beyond. There was somebody, something, but it stayed an unknown mystery and revealed nothing.

Amolina had gone to the address Bohir Adams in The Spot had given her when she had applied for the job to cure a young lady of good family from a “stomach disease”. It was Tarsin’s. There she had asked for somebody named 'Beatrice Leander', and after a while she had been shown to this room.

It was an ordinary, common room like all the other rooms at Tarsin’s. The masked and hooded woman didn’t seem to be at home there, not in the least. Amolina could see that the dark green cloak was made of expensive velvet, and beneath it was a dress with a bodice of green and gold brocade and multilayered, wide silk skirts of various green and blue hues fluttered and flowed like a waterfall from the high waistline.

When the woman stood still, the cut, elegance and beauty of her outfit concealed her condition totally. And when she started pacing the floor of the small room the waterfall of silk skirts moved and fluttered around her in a way that still concealed her pregnancy amazingly well. It was apparent that she had spent a fortune on hiding the truth. A young woman of good family seemed like an understatement.

Amolina had gone for nurse style. Her hair was put up and her makeup was discrete, but no matter how simple and artless it seemed, it had taken long time to get it perfect. She was wearing her white linen “nurse dress”, which she used to wear when she was working at the Nitrozian-Moletta project. In her own opinion it made her look like a professional nurse - though she was not. Truth to say, Amolina was an expert actress, but only an actress, with next to no insight in medicine, and mostly relied on her expertise in acting to fake it.

The woman went under the name “Beatrice” and Amolina asked no questions. The whole situation was unexpected. Amolina had guessed the customer would be somebody with a budding career to think of and with money enough to pay eighty gold mizas for the kind of service she was looking for. But this woman was rich and everything about her screamed “grand old family”, from the expensive clothes to the way she held herself and the exquisite fragrance of exotic flowers and spices that emanated from her.

Amolina had believed she could examine the patient and then decide if she was prepared to proceed and in which way. This wasn't an option anymore. She couldn’t back out - it would be too dangerous to disappoint a woman of a powerful family. But it would also be immensely dangerous if something went wrong with this patient.

If Amolina had known this on beforehand, she would have passed on the job.

She just hadn’t imagined somebody of this high social standing and wealth would have reason to want an abortion, with the risks it entailed. To her it seemed odd. If people were rich and well-connected they could do as they liked. If the woman was unmarried there could of course be people who would have opinions about her, but she wouldn’t need to care. The hooded and masked woman could simply leave the child it in the care of somebody else.

Or keep it, even.

Amolina wasn’t going to ask for the reason for the woman’s decision. It couldn’t be just plain and simple reasons like lack of money, or no time for a child right now and other similar reasons. But it was always bet to not know too much. She didn’t want to know the woman’s identity, not her reasons to want an abortion, nothing. But she was feeling uneasy. She wished she had never picked the ad from the board in The Spot.

“I wan’t to get rid of it” the woman said. Her voice didn’t tremble. She sounded firm and resolute and spoke in a well formulated, polite and self-assured way. “I want it to be taken away.”

[Amolina]

Amolina was of course curious why the masked woman seemed so utterly convinced she wanted to end the pregnancy, despite how obvious it was that she had the means to take care of child. What could it be? Basically there were only two options. Was the child a product of an unwanted liaison, forced on her by violence or other means ? Or was it an unwanted side-effect of a liason the woman had wanted?

So - Why would I need to know, she thought. Well…actually…it was mostly best to not know too much about things, but sometimes it was best to be well informed. The masked woman’s life could hinge on Amolina’s knowledge about this case. The death of a member of a grand family, seemingly at Amolina’s hands…she didn’t even dare to think of what it could entail. She realized she would need to find out more about the background after all.

“I see” she said.

The situation seemed to require that special mix of ever-smiling diplomacy and vague subtle questions Amolina had learnt from the fortune teller Amelia Cross. The fortune teller, as far as Amolina had seen, was soft and pleasant and had finesse and social polish. Perhaps it would be useful to approach the masked woman this way, while maintaining the role as nurse.

Come to think of it, mentioning her own connection to Valerius Nitrozian could be something of a life insurance. The whole thing seemed utterly secretive and she was sure nobody would want to give the Nitrozian a reason to have a closer look at what had happened to his assistant, nurse and business partner…chances were nothing would happen to her, if she made it clear she was associated with the Nitrozian family. Valerius wouldn’t like it much if somebody important to his business and career goals was found floating in a canal …

Practice makes perfect. Amolina still had a long way to go when it came to her skill at impersonation. But she had gained some experience in taking on Amelia’s behavior, movements and way of speaking. She would now impersonate her model once again: she would speak in a soft and light voice, give her face an expression of always smiling even when she wasn’t smiling, move in a delicate and feminine way, and deliver an onslaught of vague and suggestive rethoric to the masked woman.

“We all have something we want to get rid of, and it can sometimes be necessary to free ourselves from burdens we don’t need to carry” she started, speaking softly, her voice light and tender and sweet. Soothing, even. Her face seemed to smile pleasantly, though she didn’t smile.

“It’s understandable that we can all sometimes simply feel that the great risk to our own lives is like nothing in comparison to the relief we would feel by quickly getting rid of something, without caring if we live or die. Many a brave and fearless woman has preferred to take great medical risks and perhaps die for the sake of getting her wish at all cost.”

Pleasant smile. She made a small fluttering and utterly feminine movement with her hand.

“Though there are also the ones that prefers the wisdom of calculated risks instead of rash actions. I am convinced we need to respect the decisions of the brave dead heroines and understand the decisions of the wise women who are still alive. Personally I am still alive, as I have many, many times taken the wise way instead of the path of the brave. Some would maybe think less of me for this, but some would think it smarter. At the end of the day, here I am, still alive, and associated with the Nitrozian family. My business partner, colleague and manager, doctor Valerius Nitrozian found it worth the while to associate his name with mine, in our project the Nitrozian-Moletta Sanitary Station. “

At end of this long speech she let her voice go even lighter, nearly like the cute voice of a child, the twitter of a bird, the sound of a small flute. She didn’t smile. But her facial expression was utterly pleasant.

[Amolina]

“I see”. The masked woman, ‘Beatrice’, looked back at Amolina. “I must admit I think it’s better to be a wise woman and alive than a dead brave one.” She paused a bit before she continued. “What is the best way to get rid of it?”

It was obvious that though the woman was a bit more cautious now, she hadn’t been deterred by the risks. And she wasn’t offering any more information. But Amolina wasn’t going to jump to doing things without finding out more first. It was time to use the intelligence skills she had learnt once upon a time. She was going to gather facts by doing observations. And then she would analyze the findings and draw conclusions. She hoped this would lead her on to reveal something of importance.

“I wouldn’t want to give advice without having done a professional medical examination. I take it you wanted to find somebody who takes responsibility for the medical care you get? In order to answer your question I will need to investigate your case in more detail. I’m not going to ask questions exactly, but there can be facts I need to know in order to avoid things that could be fatal…there can be a few things I need to know.”

She said this too in the very soft and pleasant style of the impersonation. But she managed to make it come off as the words of the competent nurse she was acting as.

“I don’t know what that could be”. Beatrice was clearly not interested in sharing facts about her case with Amolina- “Surely there must be some treatment that you know about, as you are aspiring to take on the job. Tell me now, or I will leave and find somebody else. I’m not here to listen to lots of girlish rubbish, I’m here to get this fixed.”

This was hard, but Amolina acted self-assured and stretched her skill at acting as far as she could when she told Beatrice that there were various treatments, ranging from rash things like cutting open the stomach with a knife, or other physical means, to special medicines and so on - but the methods needed to be chosen with care. And for this end she needed information. Otherwise the treatment could backfire. She put all her actress expertise into this statement.

“Well…” Beatrice sounded displeased. But she had been persuaded by Amolina’s reasoning and reluctantly accepted this. “If you say so. What is it that you need to know then? I can impossibly tell you the father’s name, if that’s what you are looking for.”

“I will not ask for the impossible. But I want to start by a basic medical examination. For your own best.”

There was an elegant hourglass on a small table nearby, and Amolina guessed it was Beatrice’s so she asked to borrow it. Beatrice agreed. Amolina took the hourglass and turned it, and while she watched the fine white sand inside it pour down into the lower part of the glass, she held her fingers on Beatrice’s wrist and counted the beats of her pulse. It seemed quite fast. Amolina’s knew this was a sign on the heart beating fast, so she concluded the woman wasn’t as fearless as she seemed.

After carrying out this first step of the medical examination, Amolina acted concerned and shook her head. “You need to calm down, your pulse is too high, it’s not good for you to be this upset. Calm down now, I will take care of this and everything will be just fine.”

[Amolina]

Amolina’s words didn’t make Beatrice calm down. The opposite. They seemed to trigger and unleash a panic the woman had so far been suppressing. She tore her wrist out of Amolina’s grip and hissed at her to stop it and just get the treatment done, for Rhysol’s sake, just get this done and over !

“The medical examination is the first step. We need to get this medically right. I don’t want to take any unnecessary risks with your life. I will examine you, and after this I will need to get the right things and medicines, and then we will go to a better place, where the risk for being disturbed and discovered is minimal. I will arrange all this. In due time. But first we will do a proper medical examination. Or else I must leave, alas.”

Amolina held her breath after saying this. She was gambling now, acting a competence she didn’t possess and pretending to have an authority she didn’t have. If Beatrice didn’t believe her, she would be in serious trouble. But the tension Amolina felt didn’t show on her face. She smiled sweetly without smiling, and her voice was pleasant as a dove’s cooing, while she acted, impersonated, persuaded and even subtly tried to order the other woman to obey.

A few totally silent ticks followed.

“No, no. Don’t leave nurse Moletta. Please go on. I understand that we need to follow the proper medical procedures. Of course.” Beatrice spoke in a slightly rushed way. “If you can arrange it all, that’s what I wanted to hear. In that case, just take lead and tell me what to do. I’m not used to deal with this kind of things.”

The woman had accepted to let Amolina take lead and do this her way, but the last part of what she had said had a somewhat insulting feel to it. It seemed to imply that Amolina surely had lots of experience of abortions…which she wanted Beatrice to believe of course, though it made her feel a bit angry that the other woman believed it so quickly.

She didn't know what to do, but deiced that the next step of the medical examination would be to examine Beatrice’s stomach. “I’m going to put my hands on your stomach to investigate that everything feels right” she said in a matter of fact tone. Beatrice nodded. Amolina put her hands on the woman’s stomach and started to move them carefully…

KICK!

The baby was alive and kicking in there, and what a kick it had been. It had been unexpectedly hard and forceful, and Beatrice had given a small sound. The two womens' gaze’s met. None of them said anything for a few ticks. Then Amolina put her hands back on Beatrice’s stomach and moved them carefully again.

KICK, KICK, KICK, KICK !!!

Beatrice moaned in discomfort. Amolina felt the baby beneath the other womans flesh connect with her over and over again, with kicks by far too forceful to be fully normal. Soundlessly, invisibly, the kicks spoke to her about a strength she didn’t normally associate with a small unborn baby.

Amolina withdrew her hands again. She didn’t know how she was able to do it, but she mustered all the acting expertise she had, and hoped she managed to come off as unmoved, calm and professional when she said : “It seems healthy and strong. VERY strong to say the least. And if I’m not wrong it’s ready to be born any day. It can’t be long time left. Have you not considered just giving birth to it in your home or in the Healing Hand? It would be the safest.”

[Amolina]

A short and very tense silence followed.

“All children weren’t meant to be born. This is one of those children.”

Beatrice's gaze darted to the windows as she spoke, and she seemed to look at something outside, far away. “This child wasn’t meant to be. It’s the result of a mistake. It would be better for all if it doesn’t need to be born at all. And I don’t want people to know it ever existed.“

Amolina thought of the facts she had gathered. The woman’s impatience. The quick pulse that spoke of fear. The strong kicks. A mistake. Impossible to name the father. Children that weren’t meant to be and the mother didn’t want people to know about. She analyzed this and found that everything pointed to the key words: children that weren’t "meant" to be.

All signs pointed to the conclusion that the child was maybe not fully human. There were stories about other cities, where people had no standards and were even down to relations with non-human beings. And from these relations came what was called mixed-bloods, half-humans of different kinds. Some of them so like humans that they could be mistaken for one, others more like …whatever other race they stemmed from. Monsters, some people said, spiders, snakes and ziths !

It was mind-boggling. How could this happen in Ravok? In other cities, degenerated and dirty places where all sorts of filth happened, yes, she could believe it could happen there…but not in Ravok. Yet it seemed to have happened now. Perhaps. She couldn’t know for sure, she needed more information. And her new theory changed everything. She was going to force and wrench the information she needed out of Beatrice if needed.

She looked at the other woman.

A spiderman, a snakeman or a zith? All sorts of pictures passed by in Amolina’s inner visions. Shocking indeed, but unstoppable, no matter she really put in effort to stop them coming. There’s things you ought to not think about, yet it can seem inevitable, sometimes.

It could definitely be called a “mistake”, if this was how it was. But perhaps it hadn’t been Beatrice’s fault, she thought. She thought of her own encounter with Barton’s thugs on the silent well maintained backstreet in the calm noble quarters and how they would have had their way with her if she hadn’t been saved by her colleague Nolan Parnell. Perhaps Beatrice had been assaulted too, and in her case with nobody nearby to help her?

Anyways. It went without saying that it was justified to want to get rid of a monster-spawn whether it’s conception had been caused by unvoluntary things or just by unbelievable human stupidity. It was right to get rid of it, wasn’t it? A thing like that - she didn’t even want to know how it could look - wasn’t entitled to live, was it? Couldn’t it even be called a good deed to help it leave this world ? The case was exceptional, wasn’t it? Rhysol wanted this child to die, didn’t he?

In her thoughts she asked the god and listened for his opionion. But as usual in Amolina’s god-forgotten life, Rhysol was silent and didn’t care to guide her at all. As usual, she suppressed this thought. Rhysol helps the ones that help themselves, she thought instead. This seemed to have a meaning.

“I can fully understand that you want to get rid of a child that is kicking this hard” she said. “It seems there can be something seriously wrong with it.” She made a short pause before she continued. “I believe it’s time to mention that I want to be paid in advance. The case will perhaps require more unusual and special arrangements than I expected.”

Beatrice had a purse with eighty gold mizas at ready. To her it had never been an option to let the ‘nurse’ leave without taking on the job. With a seemingly nonchalant gesture she handed the money to Amolina. “There’s nothing unusual or special with anything” she said. “I just don’t want this child. That’s all you need to know.” She paused. “Now, tell me what to do! “

Amolina took the purse, counted the money, and put them in her cloak pocket.

“I will treat you. But not here. We will go soon, and get a few things I need for the treatment. And then we will go by boat to another place, as I’m sure you don’t want anybody to discover this or interrupt anything.”

Beatrice nodded. This was right.

“But first I want more information.” Amolina had dropped the soft and sweet impersonation now, and made a good work of acting stern and resolute nurse. Now when she had the money it was time for a light interrogation . “And I want the truth, so I know what I will need to deal with here. I want to know this now : do I need to take a risk for potential claws, fangs, posions, wings or other monstrous things like that into consideration?”

As soon as she had said this she was overcome with squeamishness. The mere thought of what might be living inside Beatrice’s body and how it had come there in the first place made her feel nauseated. If there had been a way to bow out…but there wasn’t, not really. If she left now she would be a dead woman within bells. Forward was the only way, even if she would need to endure the sight of a cannibalistic spider being rising from Beatrice’s dead body, or a hairy winged abomination, or worst of all a slippery, hissing, icky half-snake !

[Amolina]

Beatrice stared at Amolina.

“What?” she said faintly. “What are you…are you implying … how DARE you …” She was trying to be aggressive, but her self-control was breaking as she spoke. “ It’s not like THAT” she spat out, her voice husky and strained now. “It’s not at all like that !”

Amolina wasn’t going to back down now. She wouldn’t get another chance to make the other woman speak if she didn’t use this moment of weakness. She pushed on: “It’s a mixed-blood child” she said in a tone like she was totally convinced. “I’m not asking you to tell me how it comes you are carrying it, if you don’t want to tell me. But I need to know what kind of…being… I am sorry but, I need to ask you this, so I can prepare.”

Beatrice shut her eyes. A chime or two passed. Amolin's words were sinking in, and finally the general pressure and the all-knowing tone and attitude of the false nurse made Beatrice think it best to give up and speak.

“So listen then. I will tell you.”

Beatrice started to speak and the story was different from what Amolina had guessed at. Beatrice, no need to mention her family name, was living in a home where much of the housework and other menial tasks, and also crafting, was carried out by slaves. Well, they were actually trading in slaves too, her family. And this meant they could pick out especially interesting and exclusive specimen that never reached the slave market.

And so it came there had been one of those rare horned beings, ethaefal they were called, working in the house for a while. This being had been aloof and seemed distracted, though too beautiful and graceful to not catch the eye no matter he was so silent. He had been assigned to water flower pots and other light work like this as her family saw him and his elegantly curved horns as a decoration, just like paintings and flowers. They kept the ehteafal as a living statue, you could say.

Anyway … long story … Beatrice didn’t see any reason at all to tell it all. Let it be enough said that once she ended up making reality of her ideas concerning the beautiful statue, she found out that he really was a statue - nearly. Because just like in those stories she hadn’t believed in much, the etheafal had shifted and become something else at night.

There she had been, making the beautiful decoration with the elegant horns kiss her, when they day turned to night and the object of her desire lost his adorning horns and turned hard as stone…literally… he turned into somebody else, shorter, looking like he was made of stone so pale and white it seemed nearly blue, with a pattern of silvery veins all over his body … and the arm she had told the etheafal to put around her seemed to have transformed into a metal tool of sorts, chushingly strong.

“Anyways, lets not dwell on this”, said Beatrice, her eyes still shut over memories only she could see. “I am just telling you the things you need to know, in order to prepare. At that point I wasn’t able to stop what I had started. The baby is a half-statue, nurse Moletta. This is definitely better than claws and poison, fangs and coils, but not by much. My family would never get over the shame if I give birth to an - item.”

Now when this confession had been made she seemed calmer, but also very tired.

Amolina studied the woman for a few chimes and knew, just knew, that there were more things, secrets she hadn’t been told, secrets she would never know, secrets hidden beneath the others closed eyelids. Beatrice’s facial expression was concealed by the beautiful mask she wore, unreadable, immovable like a face on a painting.

[Amolina]

A half-statue?

Amolina wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about weird unhuman races in faraway filthy places. She couldn’t even begin to understand what Beatrice meant there… but she understood that the whole story smacked of “blame yourself”. The whole problem was Beatrice’s own fault, that much was clear. And there was this feeling of huge unknown gaps like black holes in the story, important facts being withheld, and truths never to be told.

“In that case … I think we are ready to go on and take action” Amolina said finally. “There’s medicines I need to buy so we must go to The Healing Hand. You will wait outside, in an outdoors tavern nearby, while I go in and get the things we need. After that I we will go on to a safe place where nobody will disturb us, or discover us. We can’t do this in Tarsin’s. But first…”

Beatrice had left the bunk and was standing by the door, eager to leave. But Amolina told her to wait. She was going to disguise herself, sort of, and make it look like she was the one that was pregnant, she explained. She took a pillow from the bunk and started to unbutton her white linen nurse dress.

After a while she managed to arrange the pillow on her stomach in a satisfactory way. She looked huge, the white cloth of the pillow showing in the opening of her white dress, seeming to be part of it when she pulled her cloak together. It was a good enough disguise, she decided.

“Let’s go.”

Again, Beatrice accepted that Amolina took lead and followed her silently out from Tarsin’s. They walked in silence to the nearest ravonsala stop, only chimes away. It was the solid and profound silence of people on a mission. They were two women on their way to do what must be done, their minds were set on the goal, and this wasn’t the time for chatter.

They took a ravonsala and Amolina told the driver she wanted to go to the Healing Hand. The man shot a glance at her big stomach, paled a bit at the thought of somebody giving birth in the boat, and started paddling as fast as he could. They passed by houses and people, under bridges and over open water, but neither Amolina nor Beatrice was paying heed to all this.

They were totally silent all the way, and when they reached the stop near the Healing Hand, Beatrice found a chair at a small street tavern with only a few small tables at the side of a walkway. They looked at each other, and none of them said a single word.

Amolina turned and walked toward the Healing Hand. She was going to get the medicine.

[Amolina]

Last time Amolina had been in The Healing Hand had been that day in winter when she and Parnell had discovered the falsified medicines and Barton’s smuggling operation. He had been there to investigate things related to it…. But Amolina had been there in order to investigate facts about medicines that could be used for the exactly the end she needed them for right now.

She had spent a long time speaking with a pale shop assistant about means to speed up childbirth. And the reason had been that she had realized people were advertising on the job board of The Spot for help with certain things. Medicine was free for citizens and the payment for this certain service was high.

It was pure profit, everything to win and nothing to lose.

And as it was only an unnatural being that hadn't been meant to exist in the first place, this could be seen as a good deed too, she was sure. The standards of Ravok were clear to her, she had been living in the city her whole life and like all other citizens she had been told about it from early age.

Mixed blood, no good. The good ravokian human blood needed to be kept clean and healthy, or else they would end up as a city taken over by filthy kelvics and other dubious riff-raff of tainted blood.

Rhysol didn't want that. Well, not that Amolina was blessed wih ever getting any kind of answers or signs of existence from the god, but she had been told by other people what the god's will was.

Amolina showed her citizen papers at the front desk and was quickly let in. Once inside, she went directly to the counter where she saw the same shop assistant she had spoken with in winter. This woman was already convinced that Amolina was expecting a child so it was a quick and easy thing to get the medicines. Amolina spoke about how she was feeling and what treatment she wanted.

Delaviv Tonic and Midwife Miracle Tincture. The shop assistant repeated some of the information and advice she had given at Amolina’s previous visit. "Delavive is very good when you want to ease and speed baby deliveries. But be careful. Because an overdose of delaviv tonic can make the birth be too quick too, and it can perhaps also hurt the baby. It's recommended to just start with a small dose and see if that's enought. Avoid overusing it."

About the The Midwife Miracle Tincture she was simply told it was good to grant relief for “many pregnancy related ailments”.

Amolina took the stylish black cloth bag she had bought in winter out of her cloak pocket, where she used to keep it, folded. She unfolded it and put the medicines in it, as she didn’t want other people to see them. This done she went out again. The stryfers in and around The Healing Hand paid no attention to her, they too had seen her before and been exposed to her acting pregnant.

She was a citizen above suspicion.

Beatrice looked up at her when she came back. The woman was still silent, but her she was looking tense now, like she was hardly able to keep up the appearance of being unmoved any more. She seemed to have spent the time thinking, and her thoughts seemed to have been dark and unpleasant.

Amolina just nodded to her to come, and silently took lead again, walking back to the ravonsala stop. Beatrice got to her feet and followed. They walked, wordless, composed, a sinister little troupe of resolute and very pregnant women on their way to a final showdown.

They took a boat again, this time going from the noble district to the docks. It was a pretty long trip but none of them talked. Finally they stepped up on a platform at the outer ring of the city, in the fisher folks part of the harbor. There were boats, fishing nets, boathouses, and beyond this the open water of the huge lake stretched out towards the faraway shore, not discernable from where they stood.

“This way”. Amolina motioned to Beatrice to follow and they walked on a narrow walkway and reached a locked boathouse. There was a single ravonsala moored outside - Amolina’s ravonsala, though she didn’t see any reason to tell Beatrice. Instead she found the key in it’s hiding place and unlocked the door. In daylight this was much easier than it had been that evening long ago when she had brought Nolan Parnell there, injured and about to pass out for the second time of that evening.

Beatrice looked around in the small room inside the boathouse. It was plain, simple, with a hearth but no fire, and a chest, some blanket, fishing nets hanging on one of the walls and other fishing gear on a table at the same wall. Beatrice didn’t look pleased. “What is this place?”

Amolina was busy spreading boat blankets on the floor. She was a bit worried about the floor : there were faint stains on in, stains she hadn’t been able to clean away fully as the blood had seeped into the planks. Parnell’s blood, or maybe the dead boatman’s . A memory of the poisoner passed by in her mind, injured, maybe bleeding, passing out on the boathouse floor. Last fall…but it was spring now, and she had the present to think of. When she was done she advised Beatrice to undress in order to protect her beautiful dress, and lay down on the blankets.

“A safe place” she said. "A safe place."

[Amolina]

Beatrice did as she was told, taking care to fold the dress in a way that would keep it from getting crinkled and looking unkempt. Amolina waited patiently during this lengthy procedure, as it was quite important. It was a very fashionable dress and she could well understand that it needed to be taken care of properly. In particular if it would become messy in here, it was good to have taken measures to protect the dress.

She changed clothes too. Her crisp white nurse dress was only cheap linen dress, but it was a good dress and there was no meaning with getting it ruined. She put both dresses inside the chest, to keep them safe, and after thinking twice of it she put their shoes there too. She was wearing her neat black shoes and she wasn’t keen on getting them smeared.

Beatrice was only wearing a sleeveless under gown now. Amolina noticed that it was a lovely garment of light green silk decorated with white lace. It was very stylish and elegant and looked more like a very seductive and daring dress than underwear. Amolina made a mental note to get something similar one day in the future.

She stood there in her own underwear, barefoot, feeling a bit cold. Her underwear was silk too, but dark violet just like the dress she mostly wore. It was so practical to have the underwear be the same color… but in her case it wasn’t a whole undergown, but just an armless sleeveless top and short panties, black ribbons thread through the lace at the hems of the legs, making them slightly puffy. They were made of fairly thin and cheap silk, but it was still silk.

For a few ticks she considered donning the ravonsala outfit she kept in the boathouse. But no, she didn’t need Beatrice to know about that. The less the other woman knew the better. Besides, both of them wearing underwear made her feel very equal. But enough of this now, it was time to go on. She took the medicines out of the black cloth bag and turned to Beatrice.

“Here are the medicines. I have been given proper instructions by the Healing Hand, so you don’t need to worry, I know which dose is needed to accomplish what we aim for, and I know that this won’t be deadly. Not to you, that is. So, I’m going to give you this now and then I’ll make a fire so we don’t need to freeze, and make some warm water too, in case we’ll need it.”

She wasn’t sure really, because she had never had reason to learn much about it, but she’d heard people speak about births and warm water seemed to always be in demand. So a fire and warm water it would be. Amolina kneeled beside Beatrice and administered an overdose of Delaviv Tincture. After that she gave Beatrice a generous amont of the Midwife thingy - the expected effects of the latter had been a bit unclear, but it couldn’t hurt to use it.

This piece of medical care done, she pulled a boatblanket over Beatrice and proceeded to take some of the fuel in the corner and lit a small fire in the heart. She put the iron three-fot and an old kettle over the fire, fetched water from the lake in one of the old buckets … And then she sat down and waited for something to happen.

The silence was complete, bar the soft sound of the fire.

[Amolina]

It didn’t seem to be so bad. Beatrice seemed calm and unmoved. A bit too calm and unmoved. For the first time it occurred to Amolina that these “pregnancy” medicines too might be part of Barton’s fraud. What if it turned out they too had been replaced with something cheaper? She started to worry. What if the effect would be zero?

All signs pointed to Beatrice being from the real jet set of the city. The mere thought of the cost for an exotic ethaefal slave … and they had kept it just for decoration. Rich people, powerful and dangerous. What would happen to Amolina Moletta if she didn’t succeed with this abortion ? Visions of her own dead body floating in a canal flashed up in her mind, oh and the Vitrax and a black hole, not to mention some people ended up in the pit for public entertainment.

She didn’t dare to increase the dose of Delaviv, but what about the Midwife thing ? She could give Beatrice a bit more of it, surely ?

“As it hasn’t started yet I believe we will use just a little bit more of the Midwife Miracle” she said. Her expertise in acting helped her now. It was also her last resort. And so she acted. She acted utterly confident when she told Beatrice this would all be just fine, and she gave her the extra Midwife medicine like it was nothing else than lemonade, completely harmless.

After this she took the first batch of boiling lake water and poured it into a big wooden through that had normally been used for fish, in the time when Amolina’s mother Ana was still around and used the boathouse the way it was intended to be used. She fetched more water and filled the kettle anew.

And they waited.

And then all of a sudden, the speeded up ending of Beatrice’s unwanted pregnancy started.Thinking back on it later Amolina had a difficulty to remember clearly what had happened. It had been process, but she remembered it in fragments.

Beatrice was writhing on the floor, her body out of control, bolting spasmodically. Amolina was trying to give her what medical support she was able, but it didn’t have much effect.She didn’t know if anybody had wanted to stop anything, she just knew that what had been started couldn’t be undone, the only thing they could do was try to live through it.

It was chaotic and out of hand and overwhelmed both of them, a process that went on and on, accompanied by Beatrice’s screams in the start and later by muffled sounds when she bit down on the cloth Amolina had given her to bite on.
And then the end, the silent and still…a glance at it’s small, very pale and fully human form had filled Amolina with sudden horror - had Beatrice lied to her, was her story about the mixed blood just a story, invented in order to make this easier to justify if needed ?

Amolina hadn’t known what to do, but it had felt like she ought to think first and not just throw it away like Beatrice was telling her. The woman lay there with closed eyes, so Amolina wrapped the small silent being in a blanket and put it away in an empty old basket under the table with the fishing gear.

Not a freak, not a freak, not a freak, not a freak … the child wasn’t a freak it had all been a fraud, she’d been had, cheated, betrayed by this rich woman who could as easily have waited a few weeks more and arranged for the baby to be taken care of. It had all been for no reason, no reason, no reason, no reason...just for a few mizas more.

There was blood on her hands.

She felt sick. But as she had no other meaningful options she took a bucket and gathered all the blood and other things after the …well, it had been late in the pregnancy and actually just like a normal birth, just speeded up and made to happen too early. She went to the door and outside, where she threw it into the water. The smell of blood spreading in the water would likely attract fish, she thought, and the evidence of what had happened would soon be swallowed and gone like it had never existed.