“I do apologise,” murmured the surgeon, “for all the coming and going.”

“You can let the whole fucking city in,” she snarled, “as long as you get the fucking baby out.” The spasms were coming so quickly now it was one continuous agony, and she clenched her teeth again, ground them so hard she thought they might crumble.

They all say, It’s the most painful thing there is, of course. In a slightly gloating way, with a knowing raised brow as they look down at your massive belly. They all say it, but you persuade yourself they are being overdramatic. Savine’s mother had held the pain of childbirth over her like a debt that could never possibly be paid, but then Savine’s mother was one of the most overdramatic people in the world. Now it seemed she had been understating the case all along. By the Fates, Savine wished her mother was there. No doubt she would have been at least half-drunk, but she always kept her head in a crisis.

Savine felt Zuri’s hand firm on her shoulder, rubbing at her aching back, and was pathetically grateful for it. She wanted to cry, but she was crying already.

“It might be easier if you were to lie on your back—” murmured the surgeon.

“Easier for fucking who?”

“That’s the spirit.”

She gave another ripping growl, panted and shuddered and twisted desperately but there was no wriggling free of it. She had wanted so many things. Beating everyone, and winning everything, and having it all, and being seen to have it all. Now all she cared about was getting this over.

How many women had she known who died giving birth?

She wondered if dying might be preferable to much more of this.

“One more push should do the trick—”

“Fuck yourself!”

“Good, good.”

She screamed again. She screamed her face off. She screamed her guts out. She screamed as if she was being murdered. She felt as if she was being murdered. A stinging, burning, ripping to add to all the rest and she ran out of breath, her scream dying off into a wheezing groan as she felt something slither out.

Zuri cradled her head. “Done,” she whispered. “Done.”

The best words Savine ever heard. She slumped onto her face, breath coming in shivering gasps.

Someone helped her to roll. Someone was wiping her thighs. Someone pulled a sheet over her. Cool linen, up to her chin.

The bed was wet. Wet and sticky and she didn’t care. She lay, eyes closed, breathing. The agony had faded. Just a dull after-ache in her back.

She was floating. Drifting on a cloud. Someone was dabbing her face with a flannel. She doubted it would help much but if it made them happy she let them get on with it.

She could hear singing in the distance. One of the Breakers’ marches, out on the Middleway. So long kept prisoner, they loved to march. So long kept silent, they loved to sing. To blurt their opinions from every street corner. Food and fuel might be in short supply, but of opinion there was a glut.