Hearts of Fire

by Anita Mills

“From whence does it come?” he asked.

  “I know not,” she lied, fearing she’d not see it again.

  That she could read and he could not bothered him greatly, and he did not like to be reminded of it. But there was no telling how long it would take to find the old priest, nor how long it would take that ancient to climb the tower stairs. He handed it over and waited.

  “Nay, read it to me even as you read it to yourself,” he ordered.

  But she was already racing ahead, paling as she read. It was not until she realized that he meant to take it from her that she cleared her throat and began again, trying to keep her voice even and her hands from trembling.

  To Simon of Woodstock, lord of Beaumaule, greetings. Be it known now and from this day forward that Robert Fitzroy, Earl of Gloucester, has ceded to Richard of Rivaux, lord of Celesin, Ancennes, Ardwyck, and lesser possessions, the suzerainty of Beaumaule for the sum of two hundred pounds, transferring all rights of fees, aids, and guardship to him.

  Be it further known that Richard of Rivaux accepts homage for the manor of Beaumaule no later than Christmas Day, 1136, at Ardwyck.

  Attested to this day, 20 October 1136, by Bertrand de Geurlin, clerk to Richard, Rivaux of Celesin, witness his seal affixed.

  “Rivaux is overlord here? Nay, I’ll not believe it!” He snatched the parchment away from her, staring at it as though he could read, and then he left in haste to seek the priest. Gilliane sat still, too shaken to think. And then it slowly took on meaning. Richard of Rivaux sought revenge for what she had done. As suzerain to Beaumaule, he would still have power over her.

  His fears confirmed by the priest, Simon spent the better part of a day and a night considering what Rivaux could possibly want with Beaumaule, particularly what he could want enough to spend two hundred pounds to get. And over and over again, the only answer he had was Gilliane. It was not enough that the rich and powerful lord had had her first, it was not enough that he’d gotten his babe on her— nay, but he must want her still.

  And, as the second day wore on, his sense of ill-usage grew, redirected at his wife. Everything that he would have of her, he got after Rivaux—her body, the heir, Beaumaule. He drained the wineskin he’d been nursing steadily since morning and lurched to his feet. Weaving, he managed to climb the tower stairs to the solar.

  She was sewing again, another garment for her precious bastard, no doubt. With an effort, he walked across to where she sat and reached to take it from her. It was a beautifully worked christening gown made of softest cambric, bleached white as snow and trimmed at neck, sleeves, and hem with tiny gold leaves.

  “You waste gold thread on your bastard,” he muttered thickly, tossing the gown to the floor.

  “Your heir,” she reminded him firmly as she leaned to retrieve it. “ ’Twould be remarked if we did less.”

  “My heir,” he mimicked sarcastically. “Aye, a black-headed whelp that all will know cannot be mine.”

  “None will gainsay him if you do not.”

  “I’d have you sew for me instead, Gilliane—aye, I’d have you make me something half so fine. I’d not put my hands between Lord Richard’s at all, but if I must, I’d not go as a beggar.”

  “I have made you much, Simon. You’ve no cause—”

  “Aye, you have made me things fit for Beaumaule! Nay, I’d have something finer!” He ran his fingers through his hair as though he could clear his head, and stumbled toward one of the lacquered boxes that held what she’d brought with her. Strewing her plain gowns about the rushes on the floor, he dug until he found what he wanted. He lifted the one dress she’d been unable to part with, the gold-shot purple samite gown Richard had given her the Christmas before, and held it up to let the light catch the richness of the fabric. “Aye, you have no use for this now, Gilliane—’tis more befitting a countess than a whore.”

  She flinched and turned away, unable to look again at the gown. But he was not to be denied. Carrying it to fling it against her swollen belly, he stood over her. “When I place my hands between his, I’d wear this—d’ye hear? This!”

  “My gown? Sweet Jesu, but I think you mad!”

  “Mad? Nay, I’d have him see that I wear what he gave you—I’d have him know you are mine now! You will make me a tunic from this and naught else!” His hand caught in her hair, forcing her head back painfully. “Aye, I’d wear the finery he gave you, Gilliane!”

  “Art drunk with wine.”

  He hit her then, turning her head with the blow and leaving his palm print against her cheek. Both of them stared as she caught at the stone wall behind her bench for balance, and then he was on his knees before her.

  “Jesu, Gilliane, but I did not mean—”

  “I will make your tunic, Simon.”

  The flatness of her voice was not lost on him. He leaned forward awkwardly and tried to put his arms around her, pressing his head against the offending belly. And the babe within protested, shifting beneath his face. “If I could tear this child from you and you would live, I’d do it,” he mumbled into her stomach.

  “I said I would make the tunic.”

  She did not move beneath him, but sat very still. “You still love him.” It was a statement rather than a question.

  “Aye.”

  “And there’s naught you feel for me.”

  Despite his gibes and the fact he’d just struck her, Gilliane’s heart went out to this rough man she could not love. Her hands crept to clasp his head against her, holding him there, and her fingers caressed his graying hair as though they soothed a child.

  “It was wrong of me to wed you, Simon. I did but think Beaumaule a fair exchange for my babe, but now I can see ’tis not.”

  “I’d not lose you—art the only beauty in my life, Gilliane.”

  “When this babe is born, we have to look forward, Simon. You have to accept it and try to love it as yours, and I have to accept you are my husband and try to bear others for you.”

  “I know not if I can.”

  Her hand moved from his hair to the stubble of his beard. He turned his head into her palm and pressed a kiss there. “Art the only beauty in my life,” he repeated, whispering into her hand.

  “You’ve not slept since word came from Rivaux, Simon,” she murmured gently. “Let me undress you and put you to bed ere you are sick.”

  He sat back on his knees and nodded, suddenly embarrassed by his weakness. “Aye.”

  “And I will make you as fine a tunic as I have seen even at Stephen’s court.”

  “With gold embroidery and banded sleeves?”

  “With whatever you wish.”

  He lurched to his feet, using her shoulder to brace himself, and turned away, staggering for the bed. “I am too tired to undress,” he mumbled, falling within the curtains and lying across the mattress.

  Sighing, she picked up the purple gown and smoothed it lovingly over her rounded stomach, remembering when she’d gotten it. But that part of her life was over and gone, and she had no use for such a gown now. Brushing at the lone tear that dared trickle down her cheek, she reminded herself that she’d sworn to be Simon of Woodstock’s wife for good or ill. And the skilled seamstress in her looked critically at the material, seeing now how it could be cut to fit a man, how it could be embroidered to show the richness of the cloth to advantage.

  31

  With the lord gone to pay his homage to Richard of Rivaux, there was no Christmas chairing and very little gift-giving at Beaumaule. New robes made by Alwina and Gilliane were passed out among the household, two sets for each man and woman within the keep, and a dinner consisting of a roast boar, a stout mutton stew, roasted chickens, fish dumplings, peas and beans stewed with onions, and dried fruit was served to household and the invited villeins alike, and then the soaked bread trenchers were collected for distribution to those too aged or infirm to come. In the center courtyard, vats steamed with spiced wine and wassail, and people brought th
eir own cups to dip from them.

  Gilliane ate sparingly, her appetite dimmed by the room taken by the babe, and withdrew early, leaving the others to enjoy the traveling jongleur she’d hired to sing for them. But once in bed sleep did not come, and she felt slightly nauseous. It was the dumplings, she decided, for she felt the first stirrings of cramps.

  But as they intensified, she suddenly realized her time had come. She pulled herself up from the bed and walked, pacing before the fire in the brazier to ease the pains that crossed her abdomen and settled in her back. The babe within her ceased the almost incessant kicking that had plagued her for a week and more and grew still. She should be afraid, but she wasn’t. A sort of detached calm descended as she walked back and forth again and again, pressing against her mounded abdomen, rubbing it to ease it after each pain. Below, she could hear the music and revelry of Christmas.

  “My lady?”

  The old woman, breathless still from climbing the steep, narrow stairs, stopped at the entrance to the room. At that moment Gilliane felt the warm gush of waters pour forth, soaking her undershift and staining the rushes at her feet. “I think,” she gasped as a harder pain hit, “the babe comes.”

  “Aye.” Alwina turned back to the stairs and called out as loudly as her old voice could manage, “Annys! Annys!”

  Between them, the two women stripped Gilliane’s soaked shift and laid a thick padding of clean rags over the mattress before helping her to bed. Alwina poured water from a ewer into a basin and set it on a low table nearby, while Annys cleaned a knife and placed it on a stack of folded linen. More logs were dragged to the brazier to warm the drafts that stirred the tapestries Gilliane had made for the walls.

  The labor was neither swift nor hard. As Alwina sat beside her and cooled her face with wet cloths, Gilliane tried to concentrate on relieving herself of her burden. From time to time, Annys pressed hard on her distended abdomen, pronouncing that the time had not yet come. Gilliane’s back hurt worse than the pains, aching as though it would break, and she strained to push downward, ready to be done with this.

  “In time, lovey,” Alwina whispered, wringing out the cloth yet again.

  Annys washed her hands and felt for the babe’s head. “ ’Tis turned right, but the pains do not come quickly enough.”

  “So long as ’tis turned right, ’twill come,” Alwina promised. She went to the cabinet where she kept her simples and mixed dried pennyroyal with a little sour wine, carrying it back to the bed. “ ’Twill make the pains harder,” she offered, holding the cup to Gilliane’s lips.

  “Arghhhh.” It was bitter and sour at the same time, but somehow she managed to swallow it.

  The cock crowed ere Gilliane’s stomach tightened as the pains intensified. Beads of perspiration dampened her forehead and were patiently washed away by Alwina. And still they waited.

  “Sweet Mary, but I’d sleep,” Gilliane murmured. “I tire.”

  “Aye, but ’tis soon now.”

  An intense, searing pain racked Gilly then, followed closely by another, and Annys unfolded a sheet of linen and moved to crouch at the bottom of the bed. Biting her lip until it bled, Gilliane grasped at the bedpost and gave one final push, expelling her burden into Annys’ waiting hands, and then fell back, exhausted, listening to the indignant wail of new life. Annys picked up the knife and cut the cord carefully.

  “ ’Tis not over,” Alwina reminded her. “Nay, but we are not done.” Moving to knead at Gilliane’s stomach, she felt for the next few contractions, pressing down to force out the spongy afterbirth. Gathering it into a basin, she examined it. “ ’Tis all there—there should be no fever.”

  Gilliane’s eyes were closed and her breathing labored from exhaustion. She’d borne Richard’s babe, and it lived. God had given her that at least. She could hear Alwina and Annys washing the child, murmuring as they cleaned the eyes and mouth.

  “ ’Twas an easy birthing—I’ve seen none easier,” Annys murmured.

  “Aye, and God be praised, for ’tis, a daughter.”

  A daughter. But she’d striven so hard to bear a son. Swallowing hard to hide her disappointment, Gilliane tried to tell herself that it did not matter. The son she’d wanted so badly, Richard’s son, would only have made Simon more bitter.

  Alwina carried the crying babe back to the bed, placing it in the crook of Gilliane’s arm. “ ’Tis a pretty one. Look on her, for she is much as I remember you.”

  Already Annys was lifting Gilliane’s tired legs, pulling the soaked wadding from beneath her. “Aye, my lady, but she is as pretty as her mother.”

  “What do you name her?”

  Gilliane forced herself to look down into the face of the child she and Richard had made. The babe’s feet and hands waved wildly and its whole body shook as it cried loudly, its face almost purple with seeming rage. But it was whole. She reached a fingertip to touch the rosebud mouth and was rewarded by a noisy sucking.

  “ ’Twill be the morrow before there is milk, but I’d put her at your breast.”

  “Nay, I’d look at her.”

  She reached with her other hand to smooth the soft, faint reddish down over the small crown, both saddened and relieved that her daughter did not have Richard’s black hair. The babe stopped crying and blinked, its slate-colored eyes solemnly regarding her. And suddenly Gilliane did not care that it was a girl. It was her babe and that was all that mattered.

  “Her birth name,” Alwina persisted.

  “Amia. Aye—Amia, for love.”

  “Nonsense,” she heard the old woman mutter. “Born of sin, she should have a Christian name to guide her.”

  “One day, Alwina, you will speak too much,” Gilliane retorted. “If Simon does not care what I name her, you have no complaint.” Still awed by what had come from her body, she looked again at her babe. “Will she have blue eyes also, do you think?”

  “ ’Tis too early to tell, but I have hopes of it.”

  Owing to the ease of the birth, Gilliane healed quickly, rising from her bed on the second day despite Alwina’s dire warnings, refusing to give her daughter over to a wet nurse. Her milk came and the babe sucked noisily, easing the painful fullness. Gilliane sat for hours stroking the soft hair on the small head, singing softly, reveling in the newfound fulfillment of mothering her child, until Alwina chided her that she would make the babe too demanding.

  Finally, she did what she dreaded most—she wrote her husband of the birth, couching the news in the most positive words:

  To my lord husband, Simon of Woodstock, I recommend me to you, and tell you I am safely delivered of a daughter, born with little travail and named Amia in honor of our Lord Jesus, who loves us all. Should you wish to add to her birth name, I’d have you advise me of it.

  The child is well, and shows promise of fairness, my lord, although ’tis feared she will have hair as red as mine. And I think her eyes will be blue, even as are yours.

  I have given alms to our people in honor of my deliverance, and ten pence to the priest for his good blessing. We await your direction as to godparents and christening.

  God return you safely to your wife, Gilliane de Lacey.

  Dispatching the letter to Simon at Ardwyck, she gave instructions that it was to be delivered to none other, and she fervently prayed that her husband would not speak of the babe there. It would take too little for Richard to surmise from whence Amia of Beaumaule had come.

  Across the room, Annys moved about the solar listlessly, and for the first time Gilliane noted her pallor. She’d been so concerned with her advancing pregnancy and the birth of her child that she’d missed the girl’s sickness. Laying the sleeping Amia in her cradle, she rose to study the little maid as she dropped to a bench.

  “Art unwell?” she asked solicitously.

  The girl’s forehead was moist and her face ashen, but she shook her head. “Nay—’twill pass.” But she’d no sooner gotten the words out than she retc
hed violently, bringing up her supper onto the rushes at Gilliane’s feet. It was then that her mistress remembered ’twas not the first time the girl had been sick lately. Turning her head away, Annys stared miserably at the floor as Gilliane lifted her skirts and moved to sit on the other side.

  “Annys …”

  The girl swallowed visibly and kept her head averted. “Nay, but I’d not speak of it, my lady,” she mumbled.

  “How long since you have had your courses?” Gilliane persisted.

  “I know not—three months mayhap.”

  “And you are with child.” She slid her arm about the girl’s shoulders to comfort her. “I’d not have my women debauched here, Annys—you have but to name the father to gain a husband.”

  “I’d not have him,” the girl whispered, her voice so low that Gilliane had to strain to hear her.

  “If you liked him well enough to lie with him, you’ll like him well enough to wed,” Gilliane told her firmly. “You cannot wish to bring forth a bastard.

  “I have never liked him.”

  For a moment Gilliane thought she’d not heard right, that the girl’s anguish obscured her words. “You have never liked him? Sweet Mary, but—” She stopped guiltily, thinking that in her own troubles, she’d failed to protect her serving maid. “Annys,” she asked gently, “are you saying he took you against your will?”

  Silent tears welled and spilled from the girl’s eyes, trickling down her cheeks. Nodding, Annys stared again into the mess on the floor. “Aye.”

  Gilliane rose, pacing angrily at the thought that any would dare ravish a maid in her keep. “Why did you not come to me? Why did you not accuse him to me? I would have seen him punished! Sweet Jesu, but I’d have no maid forced at Beaumaule!”

  “Nay—”

  “How many times—how many times did he lie with you against your will?” Not waiting for the girl to answer, she continued to pace. “Aye, but he will answer for this! If you want him not, I’ll have him brought before my manor court—aye, he’ll appear at hall-mote and I’ll have him castrated for this! I’ll not have a ravisher at Beaumaule!”