Dreams of Steel

Chapter Seventy-Four

Pregnant.

No doubt about it. Everything fell into place once the physician gave me that word. Everything made sense. And nonsense.

One time. One night. It never occurred to me that that could happen to me. But here I am swollen up like a gourd on toothpicks, sitting in my fortress south of Taglios, writing these Annals, watching the rains fall for the fifth month running, wishing it was possible to sleep on my stomach or side, or to be able to walk without waddling.

The Radisha has provided me with a whole crew of women. They find me amusing. I come back from trying to teach their menfolk something about soldiering and they point at me and tell me this is why women don't become generals and whatnot; it is hard to be light on your feet when you can't see them for your belly.

The baby is an active little thing, whatever it will be. Maybe it is practicing to be a long distance runner or a professional wrestler, the way it hops around in there.

My timing seems to be good. I have gotten almost everything I have to record written. If, as the women promise me, all my fears and doubts come to nothing and I survive this, I will have five or six weeks to get into shape before the rivers go down and the new campaign season begins.

Regular messages come from Croaker at Dejagore, thrown across the river by catapult. It is quiet down there. He wishes he could be here. I wish he could be here. That would make it easier. I know the day that the Main is down enough to cross I will be on the north bank and he will be there on the south.

I am feeling very positive these days, like not even my sister can ruin things now. She knows about this. Her crows have been watching. I have let them, hoping it irks the devil out of her.

Here is Ram, back from his bath. I swear, the closer I get to my date the worse he gets. You would think it was his child.

He is scared to death that what happened to his wife and baby will happen to me and mine. I think. He has grown a little strange, almost haunted. He is terrified of something. He jumps at every little sound. He searches the corners and shadows every time he enters a room.