Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [231]
"I think he likes it where he is," said Bothari. "Doesn't want to come out in the cold." This joke actually got through to Alys; her sobbing breath didn't change, but her eyes flashed in a moment of gratitude. Bothari crouched, frowned judiciously, hunkered around to her side, placed a big hand on her belly, and waited for the next spasm. Then he leaned.
The infant's head popped out, between Lady Vorpatril's bloody thighs, quick as that.
"There," said the sergeant, sounding rather satisfied. Koudelka looked thoroughly impressed.
Cordelia caught the head between her hands, and eased the body out with the next contraction. The baby boy coughed twice, sneezed like a kitten in the awed silence, inhaled, grew pinker, and emitted a nerve-shattering wail. Cordelia nearly dropped him.
Bothari swore at the noise. "Give me your swordstick, Kou."
Lady Vorpatril looked up wildly. "No! Give him back to me, I'll make him be quiet!"
"Wasn't what I had in mind," said Bothari with some dignity. "Though it's an idea," he added as the wails went on. He pulled out the plasma arc and heated the sword briefly, on low power. Sterilizing it, Cordelia realized.
Placenta followed cord on the next contraction, a messy heap on Kou's jacket. She stared with covert fascination at the spent version of the supportive organ that had been of so much concern in her own case. Time. This rescue's taken so much time. What are Miles's chances down to now? Had she just traded her son's life for little Ivan's? Not-so-little Ivan, actually, no wonder he'd given his mother so much trouble. Alys must be blessed with an unusually wide pelvic arch, or she'd never have made it though this nightmare night alive.
After the cord drained white, Bothari cut it with the sterilized blade, and Cordelia self-knotted the rubbery thing as best she could. She mopped off the baby and wrapped him in their spare clean shirt, and handed him at last into Alys's outstretched arms.
Alys looked at the baby and began crying again, muffled sobs. "Padma said . . . I'd have the best doctors. Padma said . . . there'd be no pain. Padma said he'd stay with me . . . damn you, Padma!" She clutched Padma's son to her. In an altered tone of mild surprise, she added, "Ow!" Infant mouth had found her breast, and apparently had a grip like a barracuda.
"Good reflexes," observed Bothari.
Chapter Seventeen
"For God's sake, Bothari, we can't take her in there," hissed Koudelka.
They stood in an alley deep in the maze of the caravanserai. A thick-walled building bulked an unusual three stories high in the cold, wet darkness. High on its stuccoed face, scabrous with peeling paint, yellow light glinted through carved shutters. An oil lamp burned dimly above a wooden door, the only entrance Cordelia could see.
"Can't leave her out here. She needs heat," replied the sergeant. He carried Lady Vorpatril in his arms; she clung to him, wan and shivering. "It's a slow night anyway. Late. They're closing down."
"What is this place?" asked Droushnakovi.
Koudelka cleared his throat. "Back in the Time of Isolation, when this was the center of Vorbarr Sultana, it was a lord's Residence. One of the minor Vorbarra princes, I think. That's why it's built like a fortress. Now it's a . . . sort of inn."
Oh, so this is your whorehouse, Kou, Cordelia managed not to blurt out. Instead she addressed Bothari, "Is it safe? Or is it likely to be stocked with informers like that last place?"
"Safe for a few hours," Bothari judged. "A few hours is all we have anyway." He set Lady Vorpatril down, handing her off to Droushnakovi, and slipped inside after a muffled conversation through the door with some guardian. Cordelia tucked little Ivan more firmly to her, tugging her jacket over him for all the warmth she could share. Fortunately, he had slept quietly through their several-minutes hike from the abandoned building to this place. In a few moments Bothari returned, and motioned them to follow.
They passed through an entryway, almost like a stone tunnel, with narrow slits in the walls and holes