Creating Chaos by Francesca Quarto

She suspected giving birth would be no easy matter.  There was after all, the matter of extreme pain, something she was loath to inflict upon herself.  Then, of course, the matter of stretching one's perfect body to accommodate the ever-growing offspring, was quite off-putting.  Squeezing an eight pound, twitching, jumping, kicking human inside a svelte figure, called for a momentary lapse in one's reasoning powers.

No, Queen Portia's method of conception, was far more civilized, eliminating the muss and fuss and most decidedly the downside of stretch marks on one's delicate midriffs.  But conceive she must!  The king was becoming agitated by her lack of providing him his heir.  And the Court was ever vigilant that she not take a younger man "to seed her garden" as her spy delicately reported. 

Though her royal husband was never quite up to the task in the royal bed, when they married two years ago, his age didn't appear a factor.  Considering the number of bastards he had scattered around the kingdom, all eyes were on her own procreation abilities. 

Portia knew she had to act, or be packed off to a dreary nunnery leaving her royal accouterments behind.  

Climbing the narrow, dank stairway, to the top of the Black Tower, Portia entered the roomy workshop occupying the entire floor and overlooking the castle and grounds far below.  This was the domain of the King's Wizard. 

She moved as soundlessly as a prowling castle cat, stepping carefully around clumps of floor pits, holding inky oils, burning with black fires.  She crouched down, avoiding the possibility of her gauzy headdress, touching the drying carcases of wingless birds and unrecognizable creatures. Finally, she smoothly negotiated a maze of racks full of preserved body parts and potions, leading to the magic user's room of secrets.

This was where the Wizard would be creating his most magnificent work, for his queen. A child to place in the arms of her dull husband after the appropriate nine months.  Until then, she's use pillows of varying sizes to promote her scheme of gestation.

Not wanting to disturb his work, Portia quietly watched him for a moment.  Suddenly he spun around, her soft breathing alerting him to a presence.

"Your Highness," he said making a deep, graceful bow.

"I am here to ask after your progress in the delicate task I've set for you, Wizard.  How goes it?"

"Ready for you immediately.  It but needs one more adjustment."

He stepped very close to Portia's upturned face.  This close to him, Portia saw how very handsome he was.  Broad of shoulder, dark hair, peppered lightly with silver strands.  But it was his heated gaze that bore through her like a hot poker.  

Portia became alarmed at her response to this virile man, hovering so close to her she could smell his musky maleness drift over her. 

"Your Highness must allow me a small interlude in my work.  Follow me my Lady to my inner sanctum and I shall complete the task as quickly as your lovely eyes would blink.

That moment was the last thing Portia recalled, when she came to herself, sitting in the gardens behind the Black Tower.  A tingly feeling of satisfaction and total exhaustion saturated her body.  She felt as if she was glowing from the inside-out.  She wrapped her heavy shawl around herself and returned to her chambers through her hidden passage way, avoiding the many courtiers milling about the main rooms.

Entering her chambers, she handed the shawl to her Head Lady, who immediately dropped the garment with a look of disbelief on her face.  Portia looked about.  All of her Ladies were staring at her.

"What's wrong with all of you?  Why are you looking at me so strangely, as if I've sprouted a second head!"

"But your Highness, you, you ..." her Head Lady sputtered like a tea kettle, until Portia grabbed her arms and shook her violently in her frustration.

Another girl stepped forward, saying, "Your Majesty has the look of a woman five months gone in pregnancy!"

Portia's face froze, her lovely mouth open in a silent scream, her bright blue eyes, smeared below, with dark circles of sleepless nights.  Her hand slowly rose to touch the rounded bump, where her flat stomach should have been.  Her breasts were tender and uncomfortably enlarged.  She paled like a fading moon at dawn.

"Your Majesty, you shall give the King his heir at last!" her Head Lady said enthusiastically, finding her voice again.

"Your worries are over at last.  We shall all pray that you have a son and that he looks exactly like his father."

"No!" Portia screamed out, or was that imagined too?