The instant Mr. Stoic Face departed the room, I waited exactly thirty seconds before tearing the bed curtains apart like a woman gone mad.
No one else occupied the room.
Good.
I waddled—gracefully, like a paranoid duck—to the showy vanity and flung open drawer after drawer, hoping against hope to find something that resembled a journal, a letter, a plot device—something that would inform me how the heck not to die in childbirth.
Because let's be real. Dying the first time was plenty.
"Ugh," I complained, slamming a drawer closed. "How does a woman this wealthy have so much gold jewelry but no books at all?"
Evidently, I'd need to dig deeper.
After pretending to be queasy for two consecutive days (which, bless my gullibility, wasn't difficult—pregnancy is a hoax), I was finally able to persuade the servants to bring in a reserved, no-nonsense herbalist known simply as Maester Rona.
She showed up with three scarves around her neck, an eye patch (for style, I guess), and had the faintest hint of licorice on her breath and unidentifiable herb combinations.
I immediately liked her.
"Lady Alexandra," she declared, bowing so low her necklace came forward and knocked a bowl off the table. "You summoned me?"
"I require something," I whispered, motioning for her to move closer. "Something. off the books."
Rona cocked her head like a questioning crow. "Something for the baby?"
"No. For me. I want to live through childbirth."
A silence.
She blinked her single visible eye. Grinned.
"Oh," she whispered in return. "You're one of the clever ones."
It seemed, in clandestine apothecary circles, aristocratic women dying in childbed wasn't merely a sad mistake—often, a convenient way out. No witnesses, no scandal, and a perfectly lawful widow's title for influential men.
"Figures," I grumbled. "And I'll bet you this body is weak and inherited a family curse to boot?"
"Bingo," replied Rona, passing me a parchment covered in what I hope was ancient ink and not actually blood. "But don't fret. I've gotten three duchesses, one baroness, and a hapless countess who had twins through worse. They don't nickname me 'Witch-Finger Rona' for nothing."
".They what?"
"Nothing.
She pressed a small leather pouch into my hand. Within it, bitter-tasting herbs, dried beetle remains (ugh), and something which resembled powdered moonlight. "Take this each full moon until you give birth. Don't mention it to the midwife. And under no circumstances drink the tea you're given in your ninth month. If you get 'funnily tired' after drinking anything, shriek. Ideally before passing out."
"Got it," I said, holding the pouch like a sacrament. "Moon herbs good. Midwife tea bad. Scream if sleepy."
"You're learning," she said with pride. "Oh, and don't forget this—"
Rona produced from beneath her many-layered cloak a neatly folded, sharply creased letter sealed in red wax.
"What is this?" I asked.
She whispered near my ear. "A list of individuals in your estate who would not mind if you didn't make it through the year."
"…Right. Casual. Thanks."
"Don't thank me yet, dear," she said with a smile. "We haven't even gotten to the part where you pretend to die. But that's later."