Brill was waiting for her downstairs in the lobby, concealed behind a newspaper. She rustled it as she rose, to signal her presence. "Ready?" she asked.

"Let's get this over with." Miriam managed a brittle smile.

"As my lady wishes."

While Miriam had been held prisoner for a couple of months by Baron Henryk-held in the conditions of a most privileged prisoner, the troublesome heiress of a noble family who must needs be mewed up and married off before she embarrassed the elders enough to warrant strangling-the baron had arranged a most unpleasant medical examination for her by a doctor who specialized in making sure that the family tree always bore fruit in the right places. And seven weeks later, give or take a couple of days, her period was still late, and she was regularly skipping breakfast. Not to mention the other, terrifying symptom: the loss of her ability to world-walk. There was no room for doubt in her mind, even before the test stick had shown her the treacherous blue label. It's not like I haven't been pregnant before, she'd told herself. But dealing with it was another matter entirely, and if it was male, potentially heir to an explosive situation… this wasn't about her doubts and fears. It was about everybody else's. And Mom. Mustn't forget Mom.

"Your pardon, Miriam-aren't you a bit tense?"

"Put yourself in my shoes. How would you feel?"

"I'd be petrified! If it's a boy it's the heir-" Brill stopped, her hands gripping the steering wheel.

"That's what we're going to find out," Miriam agreed. With the free run of a fertility clinic, yen Hjalmar would have been able to put his sperm samples through a sex sorting protocol, and while that wasn't a surefire guarantee, she wasn't inclined to bet against it. "But what about me?"

Brill paused for a few seconds. "I'm sorry."

Miriam took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Don't be. What's done is not your fault." What happens next, though… "Just get me there and back. Then we'll talk."

This time there was no security cordon of bible-scholar bandits to penetrate, just a brilliant and vacuous smile from the receptionist followed by directions to a waiting room. "Dr. Price is waiting for you," she added as Miriam put one foot in front of the other and forced herself along the corridor. Brilliana, behind her, felt like the shadow of all her fears, come to escort her to the examination room. I've done this before, she reminded herself. Yes, but you were twenty-one and indecisive and Mom guilt-tripped you out of having an abortion-and there was a nasty thought, because how certain was she that Mom wasn't playing a riff on that same head game all over again?

Seven weeks along. All I have to do is ask. Huw said he'd sort everything out. She held the thought like the key to a prison cell as she paused on the threshold of the examination room, and the guy with curly brown hair sitting at the desk turned to look at her and then rose to greet her. "Hello? Are you Miriam? I'm Dr. Price, Alan Price." His eyes tracked past her. "And this is…"

"A friend." She practiced her smile again; she had a feeling that if she was going to go through with this she'd be needing it a lot over the next weeks and months. "Hi. I understand you're an OB/GYN." She shuffled sideways as he gestured towards a chair. "Have you ever worked with Dr. yen Hjalmar?"

Price frowned. "Van Hjelmar… no, doesn't ring a bell." He shook his head. "Were you seeing him?"

"A different practice." Miriam sat down heavily, as if her strings had been cut; a vast weight of dread that she hadn't even been aware of disappeared. "I really didn't like him. Hence this, uh…

"I understand." Price leaned over and dragged a third chair into position, then waved Brilliana towards it. His face assumed an expression of professional interest. "And your mother, I gather, suggested?…"

"Yes." Miriam took another deep breath. "My fiance is, uh-"

"-He died last month," Brill picked up without a pause. "Oh, I'm sorry!" Price sat up. "Well, that probably explains it.

"It was a shooting accident," Miriam said tonelessly, earning her a sharp look from Brill.

"Eh." Price glanced back at his computer screen. "Alright. So you were on his HMO plan, but now you've moved to-oh, I see. Well. I think my receptionist's got the new release forms through-if you can sign one and get your old practitioner's details to us we can take it from there."

"Okay." Miriam nodded.

"Meanwhile?…" Price raised an eyebrow.

"Well." Miriam managed to get a grip on her breathing: mustn't start hyperventilating. "I'm pregnant." It was funny how you could change your script and the person who you were talking to would fall into a new pattern of their own, she thought as she watched Price visibly tense as he tried to keep up with the conversation: from polite sympathy through to curiosity to a quickly suppressed wince. Brill glanced sidelong at her again: You're laying it on too thick, back oft? "It wasn't planned," she added, not backpedaling exactly but trying to fill in enough details to put Price back on ground he was comfortable with, that wouldn't raise any questions. "We were going to wait until after the wedding. But.." She shrugged helplessly.

"I see." Price was visibly trying to get a grip on the situation. "Well, then." He cleared his throat. "Have you used a pregnancy test kit?"

"Yes. I assume you'll want a urine sample so you can verify?…"

"Yes." Price opened his desk drawer and removed a collection jar. "If you wouldn't mind? The rest room is through there."

When Miriam returned she placed the collection jar on the desk as carefully as if it were full of nitroglycerin. "Here it is."

"Right." Price looked as if he was about to say something else, then changed his mind at the last moment. "I'll run it right now and then we can take it from there. Is that okay?"

Miriam didn't trust herself to reply. She nodded jerkily.

"Okay. I'll be right back." Price pulled on a blue disposable glove, then stood up and carried the sample jar out through a side door.

Miriam looked at Brill. "How discreet is he going to be?"

"Very. He's on salary. Our dime."

"Ah."

They sat in silence for five minutes; then, as Miriam was considering her conversational options, Dr. Price opened the door again. He was, she noticed, no longer wearing the glove. There was a brief, awkward silence as he sat down again, then: "It's positive," he confirmed. Then he picked up his pen and a notepad. "How long ago did you last have sex?"

The question threw Miriam for a moment, bringing back unwelcome memories of Roland. She was about to say "at least eight months ago," when suddenly she realized, that's not what he's asking. "Seven weeks," she said. A little white lie; sex had nothing to do with her current situation, except in the most abstract imaginable sense.

"Well. You've made it through the riskiest period-most spontaneous miscarriages occur in the first eight weeks. So the next question is-I'm assuming you're here because you want to continue with it?" He paused, prompting.

Miriam could feel the blood pounding in her ears. No matter how she unpacked the question it didn't quite make sense to her: It felt like the introduction to a much larger question, monstrously large, an iceberg of possibilities. 1 could say no, she thought. Get this over with right now. Quit the game. Mom might disapprove, the duke might object when he recovered, but they couldn't stop her if… Miriam opened her mouth. "Yes," she heard herself whisper hoarsely. She swallowed. "Yes," she said again, louder; thinking, I can change my mind later. There's still time. "I'm assuming you're going to want to schedule an amniocentesis appointment, for," she swallowed, "things like Down's syndrome and hydrocephalus? Will you be able to check on the-my baby's-sex?"