Song of the Highlands: The Cambels (The Medieval Highlanders) (32 page)

As Robert and Grímr spoke of manly things of
mutual interest, Morgana fought her own need to rest. She only
managed to nibble at her meal, and, later as they ascended the
stairs to their chamber, Robert asked her whether she was well,
whether he should call for the healer, but she felt sure all she
truly needed was a good night’s rest, so she shook her head and
pressed her lips to his cheek until she felt him relax. He nodded
his head and smiled down at her, settling his hand o’er her belly,
as he so oft wanted to do.

With a sigh of contentment that almost cured
her aches, she closed her eyes with a smile and settled her head on
his arm, climbing the stair from memory as she allowed him to
blindly lead her where e’er he would go.

* * *

“
Oh, God, oh, God!
”

“Wha—?” Robert jerked upright late that
night, jarred from sleep by his wife’s cry. His heart leapt into
his throat when he realized she was tossing from side to side with
both hands on her belly. “What is wrong? Is it the babe?”

She didn’t respond, but guttural moans burst
from her throat. Then he noticed a clammy dampness seeping o’er the
mattress under his thigh.
Christ’s Bones!
He leapt from the
bed and hurriedly lit a taper.

For several stunned moments, all he could do
was stand there, frozen with dread and disbelief, blinking rapidly
at the sight before him. There was a red stain, growing e’er
larger, under his wife, as more of the blood flowed from between
her thighs. With effort, he tore his eyes from the spot and settled
them on Morgana’s face. Tears ran in rivulets o’er her flushed
cheeks. “I must call for Wife Deirdre,” he told her numbly. Before
he turned, he bent down and placed a kiss on her heated brow. “I’m
sorry.”

Please
, he prayed,
do not take her
from me
.

M
AYHAP, THE BABE
was still in her belly. Robert prayed that ‘twas the case as he
paced by the hearthfire a while later. After learning that he would
not lose Morgana, he had turned his thoughts fully to his unborn
son. Modron and Wife Deirdre were bathing Morgana now and speaking
to her in hushed tones. Too hushed for him to understand. But what
e’er they said soothed her, for her whimpers lessened by a small
degree.

In the first minutes, as the healer examined
his wife, Modron had explained to him what she believed was
happening, assuring him that Morgana’s life was not likely in
danger. The older woman had even revealed to him then that she,
herself, had lost a few wee ones as a young wife; that, although it
wrenched at the heart, losing a babe this early in childing rarely
threatened the mother’s life. But, she also gave him a bit of hope,
saying that sometimes there could be bleeding, where the babe was
not lost.

There was a helplessness in him, a restless
need to take action,
do
something, but what he could
possibly do for his wife, he had no clear notion of. He crossed his
arms over his chest and paced toward the window. After staring
blankly out into the darkened courtyard a moment, he swerved around
and headed back to his place by the hearth. When his foot caught on
the leg of a stool, he flung it away with an angry kick. It skidded
across the wood planked floor and made a rather satisfying
crash!
against the stone wall, splintering the wood and
knocking off a leg.

* * *

Jarred by a clamorous clatter behind her,
Gwynlyan whipped her head around and saw Robert’s pained visage,
his tensed stance, his chest rise and fall with each harsh new
breath. Patting and soothing her distressed daughter’s hand, she
realized she’d best get her son-in-law out of here before she gave
him the news. He was already behaving like a caged animal, and
there was no telling what he would do once she told him the babe
had flushed from Morgana’s womb.

But when she tried to disengage from her
daughter’s grasp, Morgana tugged her back, refusing to release her.
Gwynlyan turned and looked at her then. Morgana was adamant. She
wanted to give her husband the sad tidings herself. She wanted the
two women to leave her and Robert alone for a time so that she
could do just that.

Gwynlyan looked to the healer to gauge her
stance on this notion. The aged woman nodded her head. Before
Gwynlyan realized what she was doing, she bent down and kissed
Morgana’s damp brow. The look of surprise on her daughter’s face
brought her up short. She must take more care in future, if she was
to continue on with the guise she’d been living under these past
moons. But then Morgana took her hand and gave it an affectionate
squeeze and Gwynlyan relaxed. Thankfully, she’d not been offended
by such an undue familiarity from one of her staff.

* * *

A time later, Robert sat on the edge of the
bed beside Morgana. When his wife’s grief had turned into silent
sobs, she’d rolled on her side, no longer facing him. And because
Robert didn’t know what else to do, he stroked the back of her
head, then patted her quaking shoulder and said, “Do not fret. ‘Tis
a common enough occurrence, I’m told, and there will be other
babes. I can give you another in not too many days’ time, so Wife
Deirdre said.”

Her frame quaked even harder as she grabbed
a fistful of her hair and covered her face with it, then rotated
even further away from him, causing his palm to fall to the
mattress behind her, and buried her nose against the pillow. The
dread and anguish that had been gripping his innards these past
hours, shot up through his center and lodged in his throat. His
vision blurred, and he blinked it away, then took a deep swallow
before saying, “Aye, rest. I’ll find a bed in the great hall.”

With that, he rose to his feet and strode to
the door. He knew—he could
feel
—that Morgana still wept, and
he would see that Modron and Wife Deirdre stayed with her the
remainder of the night to keep her from becoming ill and to give
his wife what e’er comfort she needed that he was clearly not
providing.

* * *

With yet another swing of the heavy,
long-handled axe, blade met surface, along with the gratifying
sound of splintering wood, followed closely by the creaking and
quivering of the old structure. Robert jogged back a few paces and
watched as the entire left side of the old fortress finally came
tumbling to the ground with an even more satisfying crash.

I should have called for Wife Deirdre
sooner.
Morgana had said she wasn’t feeling quite right after
their evening meal, but she had insisted there was naught amiss,
and that she would feel better after a night’s rest.

And he’d believed her.

He shouldn’t have.

Striding over to the now half-torn-down
keep, he lifted the axe again and slammed it down on the portion
that still stood. Several times more, he repeated the action, and
with each new cleave, another section fell.

With effort, he forced his mind on thoughts
less heartrending.

He’d questioned the apprentice who’d slipped
away from his duties the same day as Vika’s fall, but the man
admitted he’d been with his lover—a lass who served inside the
kitchen—and she’d affirmed his tale as truth. As the lass was
admitting to being lax in her own duties, which the cook, who was
working at the table while they spoke, quickly punished her for, he
felt sure she told the truth, and that the apprentice was not the
culprit.

Robert was beginning to wonder if there
had
been someone on the stair with Vika. Mayhap, he’d been
wrong. Mayhap, she
had
had an unusual moment of awkwardness,
and simply tripped and fallen. Mayhap, Vika’s pallid countenance,
the strange look that had flashed in her eyes, had only been a
reaction to the pain, or to the memory of the fall. He’d tried to
question her again about the incident, more than once now, and each
time, she’d been calm, had simply shrugged with indifference, and
told him she remembered not. And Grímr had found naught thus far in
his search either, so he’d told Robert last eve while they shared a
tankard of ale before supper and awaited Morgana’s arrival.

Well, no matter. He’d not have anything
inside this fortress that was a danger to the women under his
protection. And even tho’ Morgana had thought it well enough to
furbish and use, his master mason said not. So, ‘twas past time to
destroy it. And ‘twas an added boon that with each swing of the
axe, with each crack of the wood, with each boom and crash that
followed, the ache of grief in his chest, the twisting, acrid guilt
in his stomach, lessened.

Do I still name myself a father, if my babe
no longer lives?

Robert’s roar rent the air, the axe came
down, the wood splintered.

* * *

Morgana scrubbed at her puffy, tear-streaked
eyes and cheeks, and slid her feet o’er the edge of the bed until
they were flat on the floor. From the vociferous snore that met her
ear again, she knew Wife Deirdre’s daughter dozed by the hearth,
even tho’ she sat upright in the chair, and still held the needle
in one hand and her sampler in the other.

She would not lie abed another moment
longer, wallowing in her grief, and being reminded with every turn
of her head, with every slide of the blanket o’er thigh or breast,
that ‘twas on this very mattress, her son’s life had begun...and
ended.

She needed to move, to leave this chamber of
death, and to set her mind, at least for a small while, on
something other than her heartache and her chiding conscience that,
with every new breath, wondered again what she’d done that had
caused her to lose her babe. Or, if she’d done naught wrong, was
she flawed as a woman in some way? Or, mayhap, even cursed by the
devil, as the devout priest who’d flogged her when she’d refused to
wed Robert all those moons ago now, had oft repeated to her with
such surety.

Tho’ she doubted the woman would waken, even
were a band of ravening warriors to burst through the door, Morgana
still slipped out of the chamber with barely a sound made. She’d
thought she might visit the weavers’ chamber, to check on the
progress there, and to give her thanks to Modron once again for all
the kindness and support she’d provided these past moons, and
especially during the sennights she’d carried her son ‘neath her
heart, but now the thought of seeing all those women—all those
mothers—
sent a sharp spear of anger and, aye,
jealousy
straight through her center.
Why Lord? Why?
She felt a new wave of anguish, a new flood of tears gush forth,
and she pressed her palms to her face, crumpled against the cold,
stone wall of the stairwell.
What did I do? What did I do? What
more should I have done? Oh, God, oh, God...
NO!
Cease this
now.
Morgana slid her hands from her damp cheeks, gulped in
several deep, calming breaths, straightened her spine, and stood
tall on wobbly knees a moment before, with renewed purpose, she
made her way back up the stairs, and higher still, to the small
solar tucked away in the westside tower. There, she would sit and
sew on the large tapestry meant to be hung on the wall behind their
long table in the great hall. The smaller one, the one meant for
her son’s chamber, she would not think or look upon for many moons
to come...if ever.

* * *

As the gates shut behind Grímr, he heard yet
another crash of timber, and knew Robert was not yet done purging
his anger, his sorrow, and no doubt his unease of mind o’er the
blow of defeat he’d taken at the loss of his and Morgana’s
babe.

And now, Grímr could not give him another by
revealing that the babe Vika carried was not his own, but Grímr’s.
At least, not yet.

Vika! Damn her!
If she’d only honored
their bargain three years past, they’d not be here now, she’d not
be in some still unknown danger, their daughter would not cry
herself to sleep so oft asking for her mother,
and
he’d not
have to deliver a second blow to a man that he’d developed a bond
of friendship with from near to the moment of first meeting him.
Damn!
He kicked his steed into a faster pace, ran him o’er
the heath for long minutes until Grímr’s ire was spent, and his
horse was lathered.

Turning in the direction of a shaded copse
of trees where, he could see, the burn wandered through, he moved
toward it. After dismounting and stripping his steed’s back of its
burdens, he led it to the burn so that it might drink. As he did
so, he turned his mind again to Vika, and her fondness for taking
what e’er course was easiest at the moment, with little regard for
the lasting effect such action might have on her. Grímr grumbled.
Aye, on
her
. But, and more importantly, the effect it might,
and too often
did
, have on those around her.

Once she’d agreed to return with him to
Leòdhas
, she’d revealed to Grímr the depth of her deceit.
Not only had she allowed both Robert and her
mildr
,
dœll
cousin, Morgana, to believe Robert had sired a babe
with her, she’d also allowed them to believe she’d leave the babe
to be raised by them. Upon learning the last, he’d insisted they
not wait a moment longer, insisted they must go to Robert and
Morgana immediately and tell them the truth. But, she’d worked her
wiles on him, with her tears and pretense of a need to rest, for
the babe’s sake, so he’d agreed to let the revelation wait until
that eve, after supper. What a fool he’d been!
Again!

For, nay. She’d not come down, she’d not
honored even that bargain. Grinding his teeth, he yanked on a
cluster of bracken, slicing it through at its base, then using it
to groom the lather from his horse. For at least the hundredth time
since she’d insisted on abandoning them, he asked himself:
Why?
Why do I burn for her? What is it in me that craves such a selfish,
deceitful, faithless lady?