The Signs of the Mother

As she lay on her childbed, her eyes swimming with the pain that never eased no matter how often she went through it, Molly saw the midwife lift the baby up, and in the sunlight of early morning that streamed through the spring window of her east-facing house, he gleamed silver to her; covered with the blood and mucus of birth, he gleamed silver as the water from the hart's mouth.

She held him, she sang to him, she talked to him long before the infant could possibly understand. Silently she told him in every way she could, You are the son of the King, my son, you are born to be great. The words were never spoken, but the child still understood. He learned to walk when he was only eight months into the world, because it did not occur to him that he could not; he spoke boldly from the first word, expecting to be understood no matter what he tried to say. A bright one, all the neighbors said to Molly.

But for two reasons she was not pleased at what they said. For one, she knew that there were other things said as well, for the child did not look like her blond giant of a husband. For another, there were her own doubts and fears. Quickly she learned that when her seventh son was with her, all her subtle powers were gone. Her cooking spells were meaningless when he was in the house, no matter how many dead mice she bled into the hearth. Her loom magics made no pattern in the homespun cloth if he looked on at her labors. The household goms were free here, where once they had been held in the tightest rein of all High Waterswatch.

But the worst was when she made the signs that hid her path from mortal eyes as she wandered off into the wood. He could always follow her, could always see her despite the blood she pricked from her own finger. What have the Sweet Sisters given me? she asked herself in fear. But it was neither God nor the Sisters, she knew, for the Hart had also found her in her secret place, and Orem was the child of the Hart. These were the signs of the mother, and instead of love for her son, she soon felt fear, for he had made her weak, and she had once been strong in her small and vegetal way.