Dream of Me/Believe in Me

not brought it yourself.”
    “Did you explain to him why I prefer not to travel just now?”
    Her brother nodded. He glanced down at the swell of her abdomen visible even through the loose cloak and sighed. His arm tightened around her gently. “I told him. We agreed to speak of it again in the spring.”
    In the spring, when the sea lanes would reopen. When the waiting would end. When she would discover whether the love she nurtured within her heart as she nurtured the child within her womb would ever again know the man to whom they both belonged.
    She mustered a smile and turned her face to the sun. Stray flakes of snow fluttered on the wind but there was no cloud to be seen. Over by the stables, where icicles hung from the eaves, a few sparkling droplets of water began to fall.

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

    T HE RED-BREASTED ROBIN LANDED ON THE edge of the nest to be greeted by the squawking of his hungry young. He darted food into their eager mouths before setting off at once in search of more.
    Cymbra watched him go, then she stood up slowly. The small of her back ached. She pressed a hand to it as she glanced around the solar. The windows were thrown open to admit air fragrant with the scent of damp, fertile earth.
    Below in the bailey, rays of sunlight cascaded through the mist still lingering from the night before. Although small piles of snow tarried in the most shaded parts of the keep, the grip of winter was broken. As swiftly as it had come, so had it gone.
    Daria and several of the other ladies, wives, and daughters of Hawk's lieutenants, were gathered at the far end of the spacious chamber. They were busy at their sewing—and their chattering. Cymbra had no wish to join them.
    Indeed, she had no wish to do anything save walkslowly to and fro, rubbing her back. The ache had begun the night before but she had paid it little mind even when it kept her from sleeping much. Now it seemed oddly persistent.
    “Does it hurt more?” Miriam asked. For several days, she had rarely strayed from Cymbra's side, even insisting on sleeping in the same room with her.
    “It's nothing,” Cymbra assured her. She rested her hands on the mound of her belly and looked down at herself ruefully. Somewhere under all that were her feet but she certainly couldn't see them. After carrying very small and high through most of her pregnancy, the last few weeks had seen a startling change.
    “You are near your time,” Miriam said with a smile.
    Cymbra looked surprised. “Oh, I don't think so. That would have to mean that I—” She broke off, flushing slightly, but reminded herself that as a healer she should entertain no such foolish modesty. “It would mean that I conceived right away and I don't think I did.”
    “You don't think,” Miriam repeated. “But you don't know either, do you?” Her brown eyes sparkled with amusement. “I'll warrant you weren't paying much attention.”
    “I suppose not,” Cymbra admitted. “I've never been exactly regular and I just thought …” She shrugged, still embarrassed by how surprised she had been to realize, shortly after reaching Hawkforte, that she was with child. A healer might be expected to know such a thing before other women but not, apparently, in her case.
    “You can sense the feelings of others so strongly,” Miriam said. “I wonder if it doesn't make it more difficult to sense your own.”
    “That's possible,” Cymbra admitted. It was as good an explanation as another. “But I really don't think this baby is coming anytime soon. It will be weeks yet.”
    Miriam nodded but her smile only deepened. She resumedsewing the tiny shirt she was making. The morning wore on. Beyond the high walls of Hawkforte, out toward the sea, the mist continued to lift. Cymbra saw gulls circling as they too, hunted food for their young on the incoming tide.
    She was distantly aware of Daria and the other ladies but paid them little mind. At least not until she suddenly became aware that one of them, a young girl Cymbra liked, was gazing open-mouthed out the window at something that had just caught her attention.
    “W-what is that?” the girl asked.
    Another of the women followed the direction of her gaze and frowned. “I don't know. It …” She gasped and pressed her hand to her mouth.
    “There are more of them,” the girl said even as her eyes widened in disbelief. “Many more … oh, my God …”
    Daria pushed her way between the women to get a better view. She froze, her dour