The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series) (48 page)

"The damp cool? By the saints, you are going to give me an English child! Confess it, Elsbeth! You are conspiring to bring forth a child of fog and rain."

"I confess," she said as another pain began to slide its way over her belly. "I confess to having an English child, but he is not formed of fog and rain. Which is a pity."

"Perhaps now would be the time for another woman to attend; even little Denise," Hugh said, speaking to Winifred. He knew Elsbeth would not grant him leave. "I am ill-trained in such business as this."

"Leave Denise to Raymond, my lord. I want only you here with me now. Were you not with me at the start? And besides, what need have I for another woman when a knight from the Levant is near?"

"Have I just been insulted or flattered? I cannot discern," he said with a jaded grin.

"Oh, flattered, surely," she said as a pain built and washed over her like slow fire.

"Come, tell me," he said when the pain had passed, leaving her limp and drowsy. "We made this child that day in the wood, did we not?"

"What day in the wood? You have an appetite for woodland rompings, my lord. I lose count."

"You must remember. I know you must," he whispered as Winifred felt her belly and pressed to feel the babe's head. It was low and turned. All was well, to judge by her look. "It was May Day last, the only day that month without a cloud to mar the sun. You cannot have forgot."

"I remember it was cold," she gritted out, holding fast to his hand.

"I remember only the sun."

"You would. 'Twas I who was bared from nipple to knee."

"Ah, so you
do
remember!" he said on a chuckle. "I think that was the day this child began. You screamed loud and long upon your release. I remember a flock of birds flew up in terror at the sound."

"I remember that one of them left the white signs of its terror upon my head," she said, throwing the cloth at him.

It hit him in the face squarely. Still grinning, Hugh bent to freshen it and then placed it, damp and dripping, over his wife's mouth. She breathed in deeply, her nausea quieted.

"There is a chance, then, if this child be conceived in light and sun, that he be more of Outremer than England."

"I wish only that he be of smaller head," she said before the pain overtook her.

"Would you take some ale?" Winifred said, holding the cup to her mouth. "'Twill soothe."

"I would he were out of me. That would soothe better," she said, grasping the cup and drinking down a swallow before the next pain assaulted her.

"Not much longer, little one," he said, rubbing his hand down her thigh in a long caress. "He comes."

"He comes too slow and too hard," she said. "If I had the strength, I would..."

"Would what?" he asked.

Elsbeth smiled weakly and lay back on the mattress. "Sleep. Do you think I will sleep ever again?"

"Not for another year, at least."

"Oh, husband, you are cruel. A lie would have been sweeter."

Hugh shrugged and grinned and watched as Winifred spread Elsbeth's knees to feel of the babe between her legs. There was so much fear in this room; he bantered with her to keep the dark at bay. There was so much to fear. If he lost Elsbeth, the sun would die.

"I only repeat what my sister told me," he said. "She may have lied. But I do not think so; there was too much prideful anguish in the telling."

"Can you see the head?" Elsbeth asked.

"Yea, dark and wet and only just coming," Winifred said.

"What do you need of me?" Hugh asked the midwife.

"I need you to take my place on this bed," Elsbeth gritted out as another pain struck her fast and hard.

"That is a prayer I will pray God does not heed," he said, kissing her knee as he stroked her legs. They were trembling. She was trembling. And cold.

"What color is my skin?" she asked, suddenly deeply afraid. Why was she cold? Emma had been cold.

Hugh looked up from the progress of the babe and stared into her eyes, comforting her by his very calm. "The same color as when I first described it to you, little wife. The color of rising dough, warm and golden white, though now there is the flush of berries on your cheeks and chest. A repast for any man."

"I look of stout health?"

"You look robust," he said. "If you were not otherwise occupied, I would take you now."

"Not for another year, at least," she said, sinking back onto the bed. "I quote."

"Oh, wife, you are cruel. A lie would have been sweeter. And truer," he said, grinning. "I quote."

"You misquote," she said.

"He comes," Hugh said, bending down to watch, his head lost to her sight and only his shoulders visible.

"Hurry him, if you would," she said, and then she screamed. The pain was unlike any she had expected. Sharp. Deep. Long. And then done.

"The head is out," Winifred said. "I have him by the neck. Slippery, like an eel, he is."

"By the saints, he is all of England, this one. All wet and soggy," Hugh said.

She could feel something coming, coming, and then it was out and the child sliding with it.

"God above!" Hugh roared "A great spill of water has just come washing out of you, Elsbeth!"

"'Tis the water of the womb. 'Twas trapped behind him," Winifred said.

The pain was a shifty receding memory, praise God above. "Is he out?" Elsbeth asked.

"Aye, she is," Winifred said, handing the babe to be clutched to Hugh's chest, the cord a twist of blue and red.

"A tiny English lass born in a crashing wave of bloody water," Hugh said, his eyes swimming in tears.

Elsbeth felt the pain of her afterbirth trying to break free. A dim pain when compared to the birthing of a child. She leaned up on her elbows, suddenly renewed in strength.

"A girl?" she said, smiling, her eyes tearing so that she could not see a thing.

"Aye," he said, laying the babe on her belly, the cord holding them together for just a few moments more, "A daughter."

She stared at her daughter for the length of time it took to deliver the afterbirth, whole and intact, for Winifred to cut the cord that bound them, for her to slide her child up her belly to find her breast. For an eternity. For an instant. She could not take her eyes off her miracle.

She was tiny and red and wrinkled and black of hair, which was curled and wet at the top of her head, bare and bald around the ears. She was perfect. Beautiful. She even smiled.

"She is certainly your daughter," Hugh said, coming to wrap an arm around her shoulders.

"She is that," Elsbeth said, grinning so hard that her cheeks hurt.

"See how she smiles? See that? That is pure English wickedness, my wife."

"Oh, she is not wicked. She is... perfect."

"Aye, perfectly wicked," he said, winking down at her. "That great rush of water? Ruined my boots. My new boots from my sister. All the way from Jerusalem. Ruined in a moment."

"My lord, must we discuss your boots? Can we not discuss the perfect daughter I have given you?"

"Well, of giving, I would say that
I
have given you a perfect daughter."

"Aye, I will not argue it," she said, nestling into his arms, her daughter finding the nipple and pulling hard to find her milk. "Her name?"

Hugh kissed the top of his wife's head and ran a fingertip down his daughter's cheek. "I think Ardeth would suit her well."

"Ardeth, aye, it suits," Elsbeth said, taking her husband's hand in hers and kissing the base of his thumb.

They watched Ardeth while she nursed, the nipple falling from her pink mouth as she fell suddenly into sleep. Winifred had cleared the room of all the blood and water of the birthing, leaving them alone. Leaving them together, a family.

Hugh took Ardeth from his wife's arms as she slid down into her bed, sleep pulling at her eyes. He bent to kiss her and pull the woolen blanket up over her shoulders. Through the wind hole, the wind rose and pushed before it the smell of rain.

"New boots, most definitely," he said as he left the chamber with their daughter.

In her sleep, Elsbeth smiled.

Excerpt from

The Holding

Book One

Medieval Knight Series

by

Claudia Dain

© 2001, 2011 by Claudia Welch

Chapter 1

England, Winter 1155

William le Brouillard, Greneforde's new lord, would not be pleased with his prize. That was Kendall's first thought upon beholding his overlord's lands. Kendall reined in and cast his eyes around him, letting his breath out slowly. Nineteen years of war had taken its toll on William's hard-won holding.

Fields that should have been cleared and turned were broken wastelands of scorched earth dotted with struggling seedlings of oak and hemlock. The forest was encroaching steadily on the cleared land; forest that had once been beaten back to the fringes and held there diligently by sweat-soaked effort was relentlessly advancing on what should have been Greneforde's prime food source. There would be no corn this winter. A wet gust of wind blew against his face, and his stomach rumbled in protest at the assault; it would be a hungry season.

Leading his squire on, Kendall was struck by the absence of huts. Where were the villeins? Was that why the land lay fallow? Was there no one left to work the land? His stomach rumbled again, this time in trepidation. He did not want to be the messenger who brought William the news that his holding was a name on the Domesday Book and nothing more.

As if to mock him, Greneforde appeared suddenly out of the gray gloom looking reassuringly solid. The battlements were sound and the roof intact; there was even rising smoke from within the enclosure. The curtain wall, although of wood, looked sturdy, and one tower had been constructed of stone. Kendall's stomach ceased its complaining: Greneforde Tower was sound, but what was a sound great tower with no food to sustain the inhabitants?

Just then a woman appeared on the battlements, a woman where there should have been only battle-ready men. Silently they studied each other. At this distance, he could not make out her features, and there was something in her manner that warned against riding any closer to the curtain. He could see that her hair was fair and that she held herself erect; her mantle went beyond ordinary to be indescribably plain. They watched each other as warily as prospective opponents, and he found himself unnerved by her silent regard. It was almost ghostly the way the tower had appeared out of the fog and she with it. His squire mumbled uncomfortably behind him, stirring him to action.