Hamza

The next hours passed in a blur. The midwives arrived with their basins and cloths, their stern faces and capable hands. They moved around me like conducting a ritual, speaking in low voices about progress and positioning and the proper way to breathe. I could hear other women gathering in the antechamber—ladies of the court who had come to wait, their voices a soft murmur of anticipation and prayer.

I followed their instructions without question, bore down when they told me to bear down, breathed when they told me to breathe. The pain was extraordinary—a tearing, consuming thing that should have brought me to my knees. Instead, I observed it from a distance, as if it were happening to someone else entirely.

"The head is crowning," one of the midwives announced. "One more push, Your Highness."

I pushed, and felt something give way inside me. A moment later, the room filled with the thin, demanding cry of a newborn child.

For a heartbeat, silence. Then the midwife's voice, trembling with relief and joy:

"A son! A healthy prince!"

The sound that erupted from the antechamber was like nothing I had ever heard—a collective exhale of relief so profound it seemed to shake the very walls. Through the slightly open door, I could hear women weeping and laughing, their voices rising in excitement and gratitude.

"A prince! The princess has given us a prince!"

"Allahu Akbar!"

"The kingdom is safe!"

The midwife held up the small, slick creature, and I saw him properly for the first time. He was red and wrinkled, covered in blood and birth matter, his tiny fists waving in the air as he announced his arrival to the world. But he was whole, he was breathing, and most importantly—he was male.

I had not failed. Not this time.

The thought should have brought me joy, but instead I felt only a distant satisfaction, like a merchant who had successfully completed a difficult transaction. I had delivered what was expected of me. The succession was secure. The whispers about my fitness as a wife and princess could finally cease.

They placed him on my chest, this warm, squirming life that had grown inside me for nine months. I looked down at him, waiting for the rush of maternal love I had heard other women describe. The fierce, protective instinct that was supposed to overwhelm new mothers. The transformation that would make all the pain worthwhile.

Nothing came.

He was beautiful, in the way that all babies were beautiful. Perfect in his miniature humanity, with Idris's dark hair and what might become my eyes. He would be a good king someday, I thought with clinical detachment. Strong and healthy, as everyone had hoped.

"He's perfect," Mira whispered, tears streaming down her face. "Oh, Your Highness, he's perfect. A prince! A beautiful, healthy prince!"

From the antechamber came the sound of someone—probably Lady Yasmin—sobbing with relief. "I must tell the king immediately," I heard her say. "He must know at once!"

"Yes," I agreed, because that was what was expected. "Perfect."

The midwives bustled around us, cleaning and swaddling, checking for any complications. Their faces were bright with accomplishment and relief. They had helped deliver a prince—not just any child, but the heir the kingdom needed. This would be a story they would tell for years.

"Such a strong cry," one of them said admiringly. "And look at the size of him! He'll be a warrior like his father."

"The kingdom will celebrate for days," another added. "A prince born in winter—it's a sign of strength, they say."

Through the walls, I could already hear the sound of running feet, voices calling the news through the corridors. By morning, the entire kingdom would know that Princess Amal had finally done her duty. Had finally proven she was worthy of the crown that would someday rest on her head.

When they finally left me alone with my son, I held him awkwardly, unsure of what to do with this small, dependent creature. He had stopped crying and was looking at me with that unfocused gaze of the newborn, his tiny mouth working as if he were trying to speak.

"Hello," I said softly, because it seemed like something I should say. "I'm your mother."

The words felt strange on my tongue, like a language I had once known but forgotten. Mother. Was that what I was now? This hollow woman who felt nothing, who had carried him for nine months without joy or anticipation?

He made a small sound, a soft mewling that might have been hunger or discomfort. I should know what he needed, I thought. Mothers were supposed to understand their children instinctively, to decode their cries and movements with some innate wisdom.

I felt nothing but confusion.

The door burst open, and Mira returned with warm water and fresh linens, her face glowing with vicarious joy. Behind her came a stream of ladies-in-waiting, their faces flushed with excitement and relief.

"Your Highness!" Lady Yasmin exclaimed, her voice bright with tears. "A prince! Oh, what a blessed day!"

"The king is beside himself with joy," Lady Fatima added, practically bouncing on her toes. "He's already ordering honey brought up from the cellars for the celebration."

"And the people," Mira said, setting down her basin. "You should hear them in the courtyard, Your Highness. They're cheering your name. They're so happy, so relieved..."

I looked at their faces—these women who had served me, worried about me, probably whispered about my previous failures behind closed doors. Now they looked at me with something approaching reverence. I had done it. I had given the kingdom its heir.

"Prince Idris is waiting outside," Mira continued. "He's been pacing the corridors for hours. He keeps asking if he can come in, but I told him to wait until you were ready."

"Send him in," I said, arranging myself more properly in the bed, the baby cradled in my arms.

The ladies curtsied and filed out, their whispered congratulations trailing behind them. I practiced expressions in my mind—joy, exhaustion, maternal bliss. Which one would be most convincing?

The door burst open with such force that it struck the wall behind it, the sound echoing through the chamber like a thunderclap. Idris stood in the doorway for a heartbeat, his chest rising and falling rapidly, sweat beading at his temples despite the cool evening air. He had clearly been running—his usually immaculate appearance was in shambles. Gone were the formal robes of state, replaced by a simple white shirt that hung open at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows in haste. His dark hair, normally perfectly groomed, stuck up at odd angles where his fingers had raked through it countless times during the long hours of waiting.

His eyes found mine across the dimly lit room, wild with a question he was afraid to voice aloud. Then his gaze dropped to the bundle cradled against my chest, and I watched his entire body go still. For a moment, he seemed to forget how to breathe.

"Is he...?" The words came out as barely more than a whisper, rough with exhaustion and something deeper—fear, perhaps, or the kind of hope that had been disappointed too many times before.

"Healthy," I replied, adjusting my hold on the sleeping infant. The baby stirred slightly at the sound of my voice, his tiny fist curling and uncurling against the soft linen swaddling. "The midwives say he's perfect. A prince, as we hoped."

He approached the bed with measured steps, each footfall deliberate and careful, as if the floor might give way beneath him or I might vanish like smoke if he moved too quickly. His hands trembled slightly at his sides—barely perceptible, but I noticed. I had always been good at noticing the small tells that revealed what people truly felt beneath their carefully constructed facades.

When he reached the bedside, he stopped abruptly, his fingers gripping the edge of the mattress until his knuckles went white. His gaze moved between my face and the child's. I could see him cataloging every feature—the baby's button nose, the dark sweep of his lashes against pale cheeks, the way his mouth moved slightly in sleep.

"Amal," he said, my name falling from his lips like a prayer. His voice cracked slightly on the second syllable, and he cleared his throat, embarrassed. "You did it. You gave us a son."

There was something in the way he said it that made me study his face more carefully. Joy, yes—pure and radiant and transforming his features into something younger, more vulnerable than I had seen in months. But underneath that joy was relief so profound it seemed to drain the tension from his shoulders, making him sag slightly as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from him.

He had been carrying fear too, I realized with something approaching surprise. All these months, while I had retreated into my careful numbness, he had been bearing the weight of worry—about the succession, about the kingdom's stability, about what would happen if we failed again. About what it might do to me if we lost another child.

His right hand lifted from the bedside, hovering uncertainly in the space between us. I could see him warring with himself, wanting to reach out but afraid of overstepping some invisible boundary that had grown between us in recent months.

"May I?" he asked finally, extending both arms toward the bundle in my embrace. His voice was soft, reverent, as if he were asking permission to hold something sacred.

I nodded and carefully transferred the baby to his waiting arms. Idris received the small weight with practiced ease—he had held babies before, nephews and the children of courtiers, but this was different. This was his son, his heir, his legacy made flesh.

The moment the baby settled against his chest, Idris's entire demeanor shifted. His face, which had been tight with anxiety and exhaustion, relaxed into an expression of such tender wonder that it was almost painful to witness. A slow smile spread across his lips—not the polished, diplomatic smile he wore for courtiers and foreign dignitaries, but something genuine and unguarded and beautiful.

This was what love looked like.

Idris began to rock gently, the motion so natural it seemed unconscious. His thumb traced delicate patterns across the baby's cheek. Once, witnessing such an immediate bond might have stirred jealousy in me—resentment at how easily love came to him when it seemed so far from my own reach. Now I simply observed it with the same emotional distance I had cultivated like armor over the past months.

"He looks like you," I said, because it seemed like the sort of thing wives were expected to say about their newborn sons. In truth, the baby looked like most newborns—red and wrinkled and entirely himself—but husbands liked to hear such observations.

Idris's smile widened, and he shifted his hold on the baby to better examine his features. "He has your chin," he replied, his voice warm with affection. "And your hands. Look at these fingers."

He caught one of the baby's tiny hands in his own much larger one, marveling at the miniature perfection of it. The infant's fingers wrapped instinctively around Idris's thumb, and I watched my husband's breath catch at the simple contact.

I looked where he indicated, noting the baby's small, delicate hands with their long, tapered fingers that might someday be graceful. I should feel proud, I thought distantly. I should feel some sense of accomplishment or maternal connection, some stirring of the fierce protective love that was supposed to bloom the moment a mother held her child.

Instead, I felt only that distant satisfaction. I had not disappointed him this time. I had not failed the kingdom.

"Hamza," Idris said suddenly, the name emerging like a revelation. He spoke it softly, testing how it sounded with this living child.

The name settled between us like a bridge spanning a chasm of grief. Hamza. The name we had chosen for our first child, the son who had never drawn breath, who had taken part of my heart with him into whatever realm waited beyond life. For a moment, I waited for some emotional response—sadness, perhaps, or the bittersweet recognition of hope renewed after loss.

But there was only emptiness where those feelings should have been.

Idris seemed to sense my retreat, because his expression grew cautious, watchful. He had learned to read my moods in the months since our loss, had become an expert at navigating the careful distance I maintained.

"The wet nurse," I said, focusing on practical matters because they were safer, easier to discuss without revealing the void where maternal instinct should reside. "Have arrangements been made?"

"Yes," Idris said, his voice careful. "There's a woman from the village. Maryam is her name. She's healthy, clean—the royal physician examined her thoroughly. She's already nursing her own child, a daughter born three months ago, so her milk is good and plentiful."

"That sounds suitable," I said, and meant it. It was a relief, actually, to know that particular responsibility would be handled by someone else, someone who could provide what I wasn't certain I could give.

Idris was quiet for a long moment, his attention seemingly focused on the baby, but I could feel the weight of his gaze returning to my face repeatedly. The silence stretched between us, filled with unspoken words and careful observations. Finally, he cleared his throat softly.

"Amal," he said, and there was something almost tentative in how he spoke my name now, as if he wasn't certain of his welcome. "Are you... how do you feel?"

The question hung in the air like incense, heavy and lingering. How did I feel? The inquiry seemed almost absurd in its impossibility to answer honestly. I had just given birth to the heir to the kingdom, fulfilled my most fundamental duty as a wife and princess and woman. By all rights, I should feel triumphant, complete, transformed by the supposed miracle of motherhood.

I should feel something.

"Tired," I said, because it was true and safe.

Idris nodded slowly, but I could see in his eyes that he had hoped for more.

"Of course," he said gently. "You should rest. I'll have Maryam come in the morning, and I'll make sure you're not disturbed tonight. The servants have instructions to keep visitors away until you're ready."

"Thank you," I replied, and felt the familiar pang of guilt at his thoughtfulness, at how he continued to care for me even when I had so little to offer in return.

He bent down slowly, reverently, and pressed his lips to the baby's forehead with infinite tenderness. The kiss lingered for a long moment, and I could see his lips moving slightly—perhaps a prayer, perhaps simple words of love meant for his son's ears alone. When he straightened, his movements were reluctant, as if he could happily spend the entire night simply holding his child.

With obvious reluctance, he placed the baby back in my arms. 

"Sleep well," Idris said, and I thought I heard something like sadness in his voice. 

After he left, I lay in the darkness with my son sleeping against my chest, listening to his soft breathing and the distant sounds of celebration echoing through the palace. This was supposed to be the happiest moment of my life, the culmination of everything I had worked toward.

Instead, I felt like an actress who had forgotten her lines, holding a prop that belonged to someone else's story.

But at least, I thought with that same distant satisfaction, I had played my part correctly this time. I had not disappointed them. I had given them their prince.

The baby stirred, making small sounds of hunger or discomfort. I should comfort him, I thought. I should sing to him, or whisper words of love, or do any of the things that mothers did for their children.

But I had nothing to give him except the mechanical care of someone playing a role she didn't understand.

"Hamza," I whispered, testing the name. "Prince Hamza."