A Flame Put Out (4 page)

His scowl deepened. She knew Hrefna had initiated a serious discussion with him about the unsuitability of Selia’s slender hips for childbearing. Unless Alrik wanted his wife to eventually die in childbed, they needed to ensure their first child would be their last. And so he had agreed to allow Selia to take Hrefna’s tea after the child was born, a drink that prevented a man’s seed from taking root in a woman’s body.

“Are you sure you want this?” He narrowed his eyes. “After you were so angry about Muirin, are you sure you now want me to claim the child?”

She lowered her gaze to the ground. “Yes. I am sure.” It would be awkward for a time, having Muirin around as a freedwoman. But after the child was weaned, his mother would leave the farmstead and the child would stay. Perhaps Muirin could go with Ulfrik. Wasn’t her child a fair trade for her freedom and her ability to be with the man she loved?

“If I do this, I cannot change it, Selia. You cannot change your mind.”

“I know,” she whispered.

Alrik shook his head in exasperation. “All right. I’ll claim the whelp.”

“Then you must hurry before Muirin has the child.” She took his hand, pulling him in the direction of the slave quarters.

“I’ll have to send for Bjorn first, to remove the collar.”

Selia held back a sigh of frustration. If they waited too long, Muirin would deliver the child and the entire proposition would be for naught.

She watched anxiously as Alrik went in search of one of the thralls to find Bjorn, and hoped they wouldn’t be too late.

Chapter 4

Later, Selia followed Alrik and Bjorn into the slave quarters. Muirin squatted over the straw with Hrefna and Keir on either side, supporting her under her arms. Hrefna looked up with a frown at Alrik and Bjorn. It was not fitting for men to be present at childbirth.

“Why are you here?” she asked her nephew.

He ignored her and strode over to Muirin, regarding her with what appeared to be indifference. The girl was too exhausted to even attempt to register surprise at the appearance of her master. Her head lolled to the side and her weary gaze fixed on his boots as he spoke to her.

“Muirin. You are no longer bound to me as thrall. I grant you your freedom so that my child will be freeborn. You may leave this household if you choose, but the child stays with me.” Alrik clenched his jaw as he spoke.

Was he simply annoyed at the necessity of setting free a valuable slave, or did he still have some residual feelings for the girl? Selia suppressed a flash of jealousy as she eyed them both.

Muirin’s face drained of color. She licked her parched lips as two tears trickled down her cheeks, landing in the straw below. Selia looked away and swallowed back the bile that threatened to rise in her throat. Even though the girl had agreed to this, it was still difficult to watch.

Muirin tried to kill your babe,
she reminded herself. This was better than she deserved.

Hrefna blinked at her nephew as though he had lost his mind. “What?” she sputtered, looking back and forth from Alrik to Selia. “What madness is this?”

“It’s none of your concern, woman,” Alrik replied. “The child is mine and I’m claiming it.”

Muirin’s belly seemed to ripple again, and she screamed as another pain hit her. She bore down, grunting and red-faced, and Keir leaned over to look between Muirin’s legs. “I see the head,” she whispered encouragingly to Muirin.

Alrik turned to the blacksmith. “Remove the collar before the child is born.”

Bjorn’s gaze had been averted since they had walked in the door, and he coughed uncomfortably into his hand now. “The woman will need to lie on a hard surface.” He scanned the room with uncertainty. “The table will probably do.”

The pain passed, and Muirin’s body again sagged to the floor. Alrik hoisted her to her feet. He dragged the naked girl to the table and bent her over it, face down. With Alrik’s large hand pinning her head to the table, Bjorn drew out a chisel and small sledgehammer from the bag he carried over his shoulder. He turned the collar around on the slave’s neck until he found the iron rivet that fastened it. He placed the chisel over it, eying the spot where he would need to strike.

The pains seemed to be coming faster, and Muirin’s body bucked as she was overcome with the next one. Alrik pressed her to the table. “Stop squirming,” he ordered, “or the blade will cut you.”

Choking back a sob, she stilled and closed her eyes. Bjorn held the sledgehammer up as he aimed, then brought it down with a swift, precise motion.

Selia flinched as the sledgehammer made contact with the chisel, just inches from Muirin’s head. The rivet snapped in two and Bjorn pulled the collar free from her neck. The girl’s hand snaked up to her throat, running her fingers over the area where the collar had been for a decade of her life. She sank to the floor with an audible sigh.

Alrik turned to address Hrefna. “Notify me when the child is born.” He walked over to where Selia stood in the corner, and took her arm as if to leave.

“Alrik,” she whispered, laying her hand over his. “I will stay here and help if I can.”

He frowned down at her. “Do as you wish, then. I have the ship to ready.” Ignoring Muirin and her pains, Alrik left, followed by a relieved-looking Bjorn.

Hrefna stared at Selia in silence for a moment. “Was this his choice or yours?” she asked finally.

Selia felt her cheeks flame. “Mine,” she admitted. “And Muirin agreed. I . . . I do not know if I can give him a son.” Her eyes flickered over the exhausted mother-to-be. “Maybe she will.”

Despite the brief appearance of the child’s head, the labor continued well into the afternoon. Hrefna tried everything she knew to make the babe come, ranging from different labor positions to runes written on Muirin’s hands and body with a charred stick, to no avail. The child refused to be born.

Although Hrefna assured Muirin first labors typically lasted quite a while, and its length didn’t indicate something was wrong, Selia could tell from the look on Hrefna’s face that all was not well. And as Muirin became more and more drained and actually lost consciousness in between contractions, the woman would mutter to herself and shake her head.

This was no longer just an unborn slave, but the freeborn child of the master of the estate, Hrefna’s great-nephew or niece. The potential loss of the babe weighed heavily on her.

Muirin was asleep again, with her chin on her chest and her body supported by Selia and Keir as Hrefna knelt down to examine her once more. She came back up, looking worried. “The child is too large.”

“Pull it out . . .” Muirin mumbled, and the three women jumped. The girl’s eyes were still closed but obviously she was alert enough to have heard Hrefna. “Please, Mistress. I cannot do this any longer.”

Hrefna placed her hand on Muirin’s sweaty brow until she looked up at her. “I can try. But it will be painful, and it may not work.”

Her face pale and drawn, Muirin’s beautiful green eyes were dulled with pain. “Will the child live?”

Hrefna hesitated. “I don’t know. You have been pushing for a long time.”

Selia swallowed. There was a good possibility that the babe was dead already, then. But if it wasn’t dead it would be soon, and Muirin along with it. Something had to be done.

Muirin nodded again with a strangled sob, and Hrefna indicated to the women that they should lay her back on the straw. “You will have to hold her,” she instructed, “and do not let go.”

Selia put one hand on Muirin’s shoulder and gripped her hand with the other.

The girl glanced up at her. “I’m sorry, Mistress,” she faltered. “God is punishing me for what I did to you.”

“No, Muirin,” Selia protested, squeezing her hand.

Muirin stared with her green cat eyes. Then she gasped, overcome with another pain. “If I die,” she panted, “will you tell Ulfrik I loved him?”

“Of course,” Selia assured her, “but you will not die.”

Keir looked away uncomfortably. She truly thought this was the end for Muirin, then. Suddenly the poor girl let out a piercing shriek and fought against the women with unexpected strength, and it was all Selia could do to keep her from coming up off the floor. Hrefna, working between Muirin’s legs, had managed to slip one hand inside her and was pressing down on the top of her belly with the other.

The girl’s body bucked as she screamed. Her belly undulated with another contraction, Hrefna struggling to deliver the babe. The sound that Muirin made was inhuman, and Selia’s arms shook with the effort it took to restrain her.

There was a triumphant grunt from Hrefna, and Selia looked down to see what appeared to be a dark, bloody ball emerging from between Muirin’s legs.

“The head is out,” the woman informed Muirin. “One more push, and the child will be free.”

Muirin’s eyes rolled like a panicked animal. She bore down hard with the next pain, and Hrefna cursed in frustration as the babe didn’t move.

“The shoulders are stuck,” she declared grimly. “Hold her again. I will have to pull once more.”

Muirin’s scream was desperate as she pushed with the next pain that came over her. Hrefna tugged on the child’s head while using her other hand to adjust the shoulders which were still inside. There was a sickening sound that reminded Selia of fabric being ripped as the woman finally pulled the child free.

A final, awful cry burst from Muirin before the girl slumped in the straw, completely spent. Hrefna took a cloth and rubbed the child briskly with it for what seemed to be a very long time, until finally the babe emitted a weak mewl.

Selia let her breath out. The child’s cries escalated and Hrefna laughed in satisfaction. There was a faint smile on Muirin’s lips as she reached for her babe. “Is it a boy or a girl?” she whispered.

“A boy,” Hrefna replied. “He looks healthy.”

“Can I hold—” Muirin began, then her voice faded away. Selia stared as Muirin’s face drained of color and her eyes lost focus.

Hrefna thrust the babe at Keir. “Get him to suckle,” she ordered, as she put both hands on Muirin’s belly and pressed in with all her weight. Selia had a vague memory of the woman doing that to her the night she had nearly bled her child out, and she gasped as she watched the straw between Muirin’s legs stain with bright red blood.
No.
It was coming out of her at an alarming pace, and by the reaction of Hrefna and Keir this was not a normal part of childbirth.

She bit back a scream.

The thrall held the child up to Muirin’s breast and was attempting to force it to suckle, which confused Selia even more. It seemed inappropriate to worry about feeding the child when its mother was obviously at the point of death. “What are you doing?” she hissed at Keir as the woman tried to pry open the protesting babe’s mouth with her finger. “You are going to hurt him!”

“It can stop the bleeding, Selia!” Hrefna snapped. She grabbed Selia’s hand and placed it on Muirin’s belly. “Push down as hard as you can, child. I need to try to pull out the afterbirth.”

She pushed down into Muirin’s soft, boggy flesh, gaping in horror as Hrefna put her hand inside the girl. After several long seconds, she drew back her arm—now slick with blood—and pulled out a large, purplish mass that resembled raw liver. It was attached to the babe’s navel by a ropy cord. Hrefna placed the bloody thing on the ground. A few wisps of hair had escaped from the woman’s fillet, and she swiped the hair from her eyes with the back of her arm, leaving a smear of Muirin’s blood on her forehead.

Hrefna swallowed as she looked at Muirin. The girl was fish-belly white, and although her eyes were still open, they stared back at her mistress sightlessly. The expression on her beautiful face was one of mild surprise. “It’s too late,” the woman said quietly. “She is gone.”

It took a moment for Hrefna’s words to sink in as Selia gazed down at the motionless girl.

Dead.

Muirin was dead. Selia had held her hand as the girl’s soul slipped from her body, and had been powerless to stop it. Covered in blood from the waist down, Muirin’s body looked as though it had been butchered.

She’d had only nineteen summers.

Selia felt the bile rise in her throat. She stood quickly, stumbling in her haste to get outside and into the fresh air. She slung open the door and breathed deeply, willing herself not to vomit. The early evening air felt soothing on her overheated skin.

This couldn’t be happening. Muirin had been strong and healthy, with hips made for childbearing. Selia had prayed the child would be born before Alrik left for his fall trip; prayed Muirin’s labor would start. If it did, the child growing inside the thrall’s belly was more than likely Alrik’s. And—if Muirin were to be granted her freedom—the future Hersir.

Had Selia’s prayers been answered, but at the cost of Muirin’s life?

Now, a new worry. Selia had gotten only a brief glimpse of the babe, but nevertheless had been struck by his size, especially the width of the shoulders. Both Alrik and Ulfrik had incredibly broad shoulders. If Muirin had been unable to survive childbirth, how could Selia expect to? Would she be dead as well, nothing more than a butchered body lying on a bed of straw?

Hrefna came out, wiping her hands on a rag, and approached Selia with caution. “Are you all right, child?” She drew her eyebrows together. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Selia sniffled and wiped at her eyes. She rubbed her belly, shielding the babe from the carnage inside the slave quarters, and it kicked back at her hand as though sensing her distress. Her gaze locked on the open doorway as she heard the muffled squalls of the child from inside. Alrik’s child. Her step-child. Keir made hushing sounds and the babe quieted.

Hrefna reached out to squeeze her arm. “It will be all right, my dear,” she assured her, but Selia sensed the uncertainty in her voice.

“It will
not
be all right, Hrefna!” she cried. “That child ripped Muirin apart. How can I hope to birth a babe that large?”

Hrefna avoided her gaze and didn’t answer. A loud wail arose from inside the slave quarters, and the woman snapped to attention. “Well. We must find Alrik in order for him to examine the child, so the poor thing can be fed. I will send Keir to find Hallveig. Her own child appears old enough to be weaned. And she seems rather intelligent as far as thralls go. We don’t want a stupid girl feeding the Hersir’s son.”

Selia nodded. The woman went inside to fetch the babe, emerging a moment later with the wriggling bundle in her arms. Hrefna had cleaned the blood off the child, and Selia looked down at him curiously. He had the broad cheekbones and wide mouth common to both the sons of Ragnarr.

But the child’s eyes appeared to be long and slightly slanted, like a cat.

Alrik and Olaf had finished readying the ship. The women found them back at the house, enjoying a freshly opened cask of ale. They were chuckling about something, but quieted as the women entered with the fussing babe.

Alrik noted their blood-covered gowns and Selia’s dazed expression. He pulled her close, and she buried her face in his neck for a moment. “Muirin is dead,” she whispered.

“And the child?” he asked over the top of Selia’s head.

“A boy. He appears healthy.” His aunt laid the babe on the floor carefully, then unwrapped the blanket so he was naked for inspection.

Selia stepped to one side as Alrik rose to his feet and studied the child. “He’s scrawny,” he said with a slight smirk. “No child of mine has ever been so small. Maybe he is Ulfrik’s.”

She blinked. Small? He thought this child was small?

“Thralls’ children are usually smaller,” Hrefna reminded him. “You can’t compare him to your girls.”

Alrik cocked his head at the babe. “Do you think he looks like me, or Ulfrik?”