Chapter 31: Ch 31: The Baby Problem

Ch 31: The Baby Problem

For two days, Abel watched Orion.

Something was wrong. It wasn’t the head-ouch anymore. That was getting better. Orion walked straighter now. He smiled more.

But it was a strange smile. A playing-smile. Like when they played knights and dragons, and Orion pretended to be scared of the pillow-monster. It didn’t always reach his eyes.

They would sit by the fire, and Orion would laugh at Abel’s stories about Angel trying to steal apples from the kitchen garden. His laugh sounded real. But then, if Abel got up to get more wood, he would see Orion’s face go still and quiet when he thought Abel wasn’t looking. His eyes would look out the window, not seeing the garden, seeing something far away and sad.

At night, Abel would pretend to be asleep. He was good at pretending. He’d breathe slow and deep. Then he’d crack one eye open.

Orion would be lying beside him, staring at the canopy above their bed. His hand would be resting on his own stomach. Not holding it like a tummy-ache. Just... resting there. And his face in the moonlight looked so tired. So worried.

Abel didn’t like it. The sad-worry was back, but different. It wasn’t about the fall. It was a new sad-worry, and Orion was hiding it.

On the morning of the third day, Abel decided to investigate.

His first suspect: the Ouch.

He cornered Master Arlen, the physician, in the hallway outside the dispensary. Abel planted his big body right in front of the small, wiry man.

"Is Orion sick?" Abel asked, his voice low and serious.

Master Arlen blinked. "Consort Valen? No, my lord. He is recovering very well. The stitches can come out soon."

"His head ouch hurts a lot?"

"Some residual pain is normal, but it should be fading. Is he complaining of pain?"

Abel shook his head fiercely. "No. But he’s sad. Does a head ouch make you sad inside?"

The physician gave him a kind, pitying look. "Sometimes, my lord. But his spirits should lift as he heals. Perhaps he just needs more rest."

That wasn’t it. Abel knew Orion’s tired-sad. This was different.

His next suspect: Ashford.

He lurked near the east wing. He saw Ashford through an open door, laughing with some of his friends from the town. They had wine and cards. Ashford didn’t look punished. He looked bored and smug. One of his friends clapped him on the back, laughing about something.

Abel’s hands clenched into fists. Did Ashford do something new? Did he say something to Orion?

But no. The guards at the main doors to Orion’s chambers were still there. Ashford wasn’t allowed in. Abel had checked every day.

So it wasn’t the Ouch. It wasn’t Ashford-right-now.

Then, he heard voices.

He was coming back from the stables, taking the long way through the portrait gallery that ran alongside his mother’s private solar. The door to the solar was slightly ajar.

He heard his mother’s voice. Sharp. Cold. Then Orion’s voice. Quiet, but firm. Like a stone you couldn’t move.

Abel stopped. He shouldn’t listen. Listening at doors was rude. But it was about Orion. And Orion was sad.

He edged closer, staying in the shadow of a large marble statue of some old ancestor.

"...understand your reluctance, but this is fantasy, not reality." His mother’s voice was like ice cracking.

"The reality is that he is my husband, not a stud animal." Orion’s voice. Tired but hard. "I will not force him. I will not let him be forced. I won’t do it."

A sharp intake of breath. "Your duty is not a matter of ’won’t.’ It is a matter of ’must.’ You are his consort. Your body is pledged to this family. You will carry his child. You will give us an heir."

"Not like this."

"There is no other way!" The Duchess’s voice rose, losing its perfect control for a flash. "He cannot rule! Ashford is... Ashford. A child, Abel’s direct blood, is the only hope for stability. Do you want this house to crumble? Do you want everything to fall to that petulant boy?"

"I want my husband to be treated like a person!"

"Then do your part and give him a son! Fulfill your function!"

The words were like slaps. Function. Carry. Heir.

Then Orion said something so quiet Abel almost missed it. "If the price of an heir is violating the trust of the only person here who sees me as human, then your line isn’t worth saving."

There was a terrible silence. Abel could feel the anger radiating from the room.

"You arrogant little fool," his mother hissed, her voice trembling with fury. "You will do as you are told. You will get with child. Or you will find your life here becomes very, very difficult. Think on that."

Abel heard the swift rustle of skirts. He scrambled back behind the statue just as the door to the solar was wrenched open and his mother stormed out, her face pale with rage. She didn’t see him.

The door to the solar remained open. Abel peeked. Orion was standing by the window, his back straight, his hands clenched at his sides. He was shaking. Not with fear, Abel thought. With anger. A hot, silent anger Abel had never seen on him before.

Then Orion’s shoulders slumped. The anger seemed to drain out, replaced by that heavy, hopeless sadness. He put a hand over his eyes for a moment, then turned and walked slowly out of the other door.

Abel stood frozen in the gallery.

He didn’t understand all of it. The big words. Function. Violating. But he understood the important pieces.

Baby. His baby and Orion’s baby.

Orion was supposed to have a baby in his stomach.

Orion didn’t want to. Or... he didn’t want to make the baby the way Mother said.

Mother was angry. She scolded Orion. She said Orion had to.

If Orion didn’t have a baby... he would be scolded more. Punished. His life would become "difficult." Abel knew what that meant. It meant cold rooms and quiet voices and people being mean when they thought you couldn’t understand.

Orion would be sad forever. Because of the baby. Because he wouldn’t make one.

But... how do you make a baby?

This was the new problem. A big, confusing problem that made his head feel fuzzy. He had to solve it. For Orion.

Later that afternoon, Abel sat in the walled kitchen garden, legs crossed in the dirt between rows of thyme and rosemary. He had his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. He stared at a fat bumblebee buzzing around the lavender.

"Baby," he muttered to himself. "Baby, baby, baby. Where do you get a baby?"

You couldn’t buy one at the market. He knew that. Nannies brought babies with them sometimes, but they came from somewhere else.

Did you find them? Like kittens in the barn? No, that didn’t seem right.

Did they grow from seeds? Like carrots? He pictured a tiny baby growing on a vine and almost laughed, but it was a worried laugh.

A ball, made of old rags tied tightly with string, bounced off the side of his head and landed in the parsley.

"Hey! Brother Abel! You’re blocking the goal!" Toben’s cheerful voice called out.

Abel looked up. The children were there. Millie, hands on her hips. Willem adjusting his spectacles. Toben grinning, and little Lissy peeking from behind Millie’s skirt, clutching Lady Rag.

"You’re thinking so loud we could hear you from the courtyard," Millie stated, walking over. "What’s wrong now? Did you break another precious thing?"

Abel shook his head. He picked up the rag-ball and held it. "I need a baby," he said, utterly serious.

Four small faces stared at him in blank confusion.

"A... a what?" Willem asked.

"A baby. For Orion. So he won’t be scolded and get a difficult life."

Toben’s nose scrunched up. "You can’t just get a baby, dummy. Babies come from mamas’ stomachs." He patted his own round belly for demonstration.

Abel gasped. His eyes went wide. "From... from the inside?"

"Yes," Millie said, rolling her eyes as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "They grow in there. For ages. Then it hurts a lot, and the doctor takes it out."

Another, louder gasp from Abel. "The doctor... cuts it out?" He looked horrified, imagining Orion on a surgery table.

"Sometimes," Willem added helpfully, pushing his glasses up. "Or sometimes it comes out the... well. The usual exit. It’s a messy biological process."

Abel was reeling. Orion had to have a doctor cut a baby out of his stomach? This was terrible! No wonder he was sad!

Lissy, encouraged by the talk of babies, piped up in her soft voice, still half-hidden. "My mama has a baby in her tummy right now. She says it’s kicking."

All heads turned to her, then back to Abel, as if providing evidence.

"But," Abel said, the core of the mystery still unsolved. "But how does the baby get inside the stomach? Does... does the mama eat it?" He remembered a gruesome fairy tale about a witch eating children.

"No, you great idiot!" Millie exclaimed, exasperated. She put her hands on her hips. "Don’t you know anything?"

"Clearly not," Willem sighed.

Millie stepped forward, her face set in a look of profound patience. "When a mama and a papa love each other very much," she began, reciting what she’d overheard from a dozen kitchen-maid conversations, "they kiss. A lot. And they hug. Really close. And then an angel comes and puts a tiny baby seed in the mama’s stomach, and it grows."

She nodded firmly, sure of her facts. It was the official courtyard explanation, a blend of overheard romance, religious sentiment, and vague biology.

Abel’s mind went completely still. The buzzing bee, the smell of herbs, the children’s faces—all of it faded into a soft blur.

Kiss. A lot.

He and Orion kissed. Not a lot-lot, but they kissed. Goodnight kisses. Hello kisses. Comfort kisses. Did that count?

Hug really close.

They hugged close every night. Abel held Orion tight. Was that the hugging she meant?

An angel puts a baby seed...

His brain, which struggled with ledgers and politics, made a sudden, breathtakingly simple connection. A leap of pure, innocent logic.

He looked up at Millie, his golden eyes wide with dawning, earth-shattering understanding. "I... I kiss Orion," he said, his voice hushed with awe. "A lot. I hug him really close every night. We’re married. That’s like mama and papa."

He paused, letting the conclusion form. The children stared at him, caught in the gravity of his realization.

"Does that mean..." Abel’s voice dropped to a whisper, full of wonder and a sudden, terrifying hope. "Does that mean Orion already has a baby in his stomach? Right now?"