Innocent's Champion

by Meriel Fuller

  ‘Her waters have broken, John. We need to carry her upstairs!’ Matilda’s voice was more urgent now. She bit down hard on her bottom lip, forcing herself to think logically, clearly, against the brimming tide of fear pushed around the edges of her consciousness, a push of bulging breath expanding her lungs. She couldn’t, wouldn’t panic!

  ‘Take her away, then!’ John hissed at her. ‘This is so mortifying! Get her out of here!’ He fluttered his hand at Matilda, in the manner of dismissing a servant. A dull red flooded his pouched cheeks.

  Aghast at his lack of assistance, Matilda gawped at him, her arm slung across Katherine’s back. Her sister was panting now, fingers fixed around the edge of the table, trying to subdue the cramping waves of pain.

  ‘John, you need to carry her!’ Matilda squeaked at the bullish back of his neck, hating him, horrified by his ignorance, his sheer stupidity. Did he truly mean for Katherine to deliver her baby here, in the great hall, in front of all these men? ‘There’s no way she can walk!’

  ‘With the state my leg’s in at the moment? You know I’m injured! Ask one of the servants to do it!’ John raised his eyebrows at Henry in mute apology, who was observing the whole proceedings with a bemused, drunken demeanour. ‘Women, eh?’ John burped loudly, shaking his head with a nonchalant, unconcerned air. ‘What can you do with them? Always some little problem to deal with!’

  ‘Let me help you.’ A low, velvety voice cut across Katherine’s stifled gasp. Gilan appeared at Matilda’s side, bending down over her sister, bright hair falling across his forehead, wayward. Katherine made no demur as he shifted her rounded body up into his arms, levering her easily out of her chair.

  ‘I…er…no, we have no need of your help,’ Matilda protested, agitated, her hands flapping towards him as if to ward him off. How had he managed to lift her pregnant sister so swiftly? Gilan shifted Katherine’s body so she rested easily against his chest, her head rolling back against his shoulder.

  ‘Why, were you intending to carry her yourself?’ His sparkling eyes swept over Matilda’s diminutive stature, the close-fitting sweep of her dress, immediately mocking. ‘Which way?’

  ‘Follow me, then,’ she replied, stalking off in front of him, her head held high. Her long hem trailed treacherously across his leather boots as she swept past him and she flicked the material away, huffily, annoyed that she had no choice in this matter. Despite her reluctance, she would have to accept his help, as Katherine’s husband was demonstrating, once again, the whole wretched expanse of his uselessness. John’s behaviour had forced her to accept a stranger’s help. At the door, she turned, fixing her sister’s husband with a cold, hard look. ‘Send someone to fetch a midwife, John, and do it now!’

  ‘Good luck, my lady Katherine!’ Henry called out, lifting his pewter goblet in a toast, his speech slurred and warbling.

  * * *

  Gilan followed Matilda’s neat figure through an arched doorway in the corner of the dais which lead directly on to the circular stair. Her hips swayed seductively beneath the twinkling gown, the whispering train of the overdress slipping across the floorboards. At once they were plunged into a dank shadowy space, lit only by one flaming torch slung into its iron holster on the cramped landing. Steps curved away from them, down as well as up.

  Seizing the torch from its holder, Matilda thrust the spitting flame aloft, bunching her skirts in the other hand. ‘This way,’ she murmured tersely, climbing up the narrow, curved steps. Behind her, Gilan carried her sister’s pregnant form effortlessly, and surprisingly gently, as if it were a manoeuvre he performed every day. They climbed steadily, with only Katherine’s moaning gasps breaking the silence; suddenly, she arched over, letting out a long, low howl of pain. Caught unawares, Gilan staggered forwards at the jerking violence of the movement. Instinctively, Matilda reached down and grabbed his upper arm, attempting to steady him.

  But he had no need of her bracing hand; his feet were already planted firmly again, one step below her. Beneath the dancing flame of the torch, his carved features were inches from her own, his eyes mineral dark.

  ‘I have her.’ He glanced at Matilda’s hand clamped around his upper arm, not steadying now, but clinging to him, as if for support. Beneath his tunic sleeve, the roped muscle was hard, like an iron bar. She snatched her hand away, face flaming, speech stalled. Why couldn’t John have carried his own wife upstairs? She had no wish for this man, this stranger, to be involved with her family affairs. He seemed too close to her, too intimate in this confined, shadowed space, scattering her senses, befuddling her.

  ‘Hurry, this way!’ Matilda whisked away from him, climbing the circular steps two at a time, pushing through the planked door of Katherine’s chamber. In a moment, Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting were all around them, like colourful butterflies, clustering around Gilan as he carried Katherine to her bed.

  He laid her down with infinite gentleness.

  Stuck in the doorway, Matilda watched the scene with growing incredulity, still holding the sparking, spitting torch. The light arched over her, casting flickering shadows down across her cheeks. Who was this man, his body built for a life of fighting, of soldiering, to perform such an act of kindness? His tough, muscular frame looked out of place, all angles and hard lines in this lady’s bedchamber. He towered over Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting. He had helped, where John had not. She frowned, unable to untangle her reasoning.

  ‘Matilda!’ Katherine screeched, hunching over in a foetal position on the bed furs, clutching dramatically at her belly. ‘Matilda, come here! I need you!’

  Starting at the sound of her sister’s voice, Matilda shook her head: a quick movement, wanting to rid herself of these troubling thoughts. She moved towards Gilan as he straightened up from the side of Katherine’s bed. Against the blood-red of the velvet bedcurtains, his hair shone out like spun gold, glimmering fire.

  ‘Fetch linens, towels, hot water…now!’ she ordered the women fussing about the bed. They sprang away from their mistress at the sound of Matilda’s voice, following her commands without question. ‘And you,’ she said, tipping her chin towards Gilan, ‘you can go now.’ She thrust the flaming brand towards him, as if to emphasise her point. Her tone was brusque, dismissive.

  ‘Careful with that,’ he murmured, jerking his head back. ‘You’ll set my hair on fire.’

  ‘Have it,’ she said briskly. ‘You’ll need it to find your way back downstairs.’

  He took the torch from her hand, strong fingers grazing against her own, reading the fear behind the veneer of bravado in her manner. ‘I can stay, if you need me.’ His voice was a low rumble of reassurance; for one tiny, inconceivable moment, she considered the possibility of him staying, of helping, wanting that implacable strength beside her as she assisted her sister through this ordeal.

  She glared at him, astounded by her own thoughts, annoyed with such weakness, the weakness that would drive her to ask this man for support. When had she ever asked a man to help her? Her fingers moved swiftly along the row of pearl buttons that secured the fitted sleeve of her underdress, undoing them. ‘Are you mad? This is women’s business!’ She dropped her voice to a hush, so that Katherine wouldn’t hear. ‘Do you really want to stay—to witness all that blood and gore and screaming?’

  No, he didn’t. But he didn’t want to give the bossy little chit the satisfaction of knowing that.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s nothing that I haven’t seen before.’ Not childbirth, admittedly, but blood, and gore and screaming? He’d seen enough of that to last him a lifetime.

  She arched one dark eyebrow at him in disbelief, a perfect curve above her shimmering eyes, the soft blue of forget-me-nots. ‘Really? You do surprise me.’

  Her caustic tone made no apparent impact. ‘Call me, if you need any help.’ Gilan strode towards the door, leather boots covering the distance in three big stri
des.

  ‘We won’t,’ she replied rudely, pivoting away from him with what sounded like a snort.

  And she would make sure of that, he thought. The maid had done an excellent job of making him feel like he would be the very last man on earth to whom she would turn for help. As if she knew who he was; as if she had peeled back the vast wall of chest muscle and seen the dull, numb beat of his cold, black heart. As Gilan moved through into the stairwell, he glanced back through the open door. For all the chit’s bravado, for all her spurning, he knew she was scared. Her small hands trembled as she smoothed them down the front of her gown, delicate blue veins in her dainty wrists revealed by her loose flapping sleeves.

  * * *

  Perched up beside her sister on the big bed, Matilda raised one arm, wiped the gathering perspiration from her forehead, holding on to Katherine as she let out a long, wavering moan, a cry of despair. At her sister’s feet, crouched on a wooden stool, an old lady sat, her face wizened, crumpled with age: the midwife.

  ‘Open that window, there!’ Matilda pointed over to a small single-paned window set into the west wall. ‘We need more air!’ Mary, one of Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting moved swiftly across the room, twisting the wrought-iron handle set into the glazing bars. Now all the windows were open, set out as far as they could go on their hinges, yet the chamber was still muggy, hot, full of the heavy scent of sweat, of blood. Exhausted by her fruitless labouring, Katherine lay on a linen sheet, the fabric creased and crumpled beneath her. Between her screams that accompanied each tightening contraction of her womb, her ladies had managed to remove her dress, easing her into a loose nightgown, which had provided her with some temporary relief. But the baby refused to come. Her belly was rigid, the skin pulled tight as a drum, distended.

  With every one of Katherine’s screams, the old midwife had nodded importantly, running her leathery hands across Katherine’s stomach, before plonking herself back down again.

  ‘What is happening?’ Matilda said. ‘Why does the baby not come?’

  From the shadows at the base of the bed, the midwife smiled her toothless smile. ‘It’s all happening the way it should, mistress, do not fret. Some babies like to take their time.’

  ‘But she’s been labouring for hours. She’s exhausted.’

  ‘Sometimes, babies take days to arrive,’ the midwife supplied unhelpfully.

  One hip hitched up on the bedclothes, Matilda leaned over her sister. Something was not right. She spread her palm across Katherine’s belly, feeling the various lumps and bumps of the baby beneath the distended skin. At the top of the high curve, pushing up into Katherine’s ribs, Matilda could feel a rounded shape. Was it the curve of the baby’s bottom, or, far worse, was it the baby’s head? Fear flowed through her instantly, like water. Leaping from the bed, she strode over to the midwife, eyebrows drawn into a worried frown.

  ‘Tell me, do you think the baby might be the wrong way around?’ Not wishing to alarm her sister, Matilda forced herself to keep her voice low, equable. ‘You might need to turn the child.’

  The midwife cackled up at her, waving her hands in the air. ‘Nay, mistress, I think he’s pointing the right way. Don’t fret, he’ll arrive when he’s good and ready, mark my words.’

  ‘Matilda, where are you?’ Katherine yelled out, her mouth gaping, contorted with fear as another contraction gripped her body, her head thrashing from side to side on the flock-filled pillow. Two thick candles set either side of the canopied bed sheened the sweat on her skin. Her hair straggled across the gauzy embroidered fabric of her nightdress, rippling strings of seaweed across a sea of white. ‘Why does he not arrive?’

  ‘I’m not certain, Katherine,’ Matilda said, moving back to her sister’s side. ‘The midwife says all is well, everything is happening as it should be.’

  ‘Something’s wrong, I can see it in your eyes!’ Katherine screeched at her. Her hand flung out in desperation, clutching at one of the bed curtains, half hauling her body into a sitting position. ‘Get rid of her!’ she pointed with one shaking finger at the midwife, ‘and fetch our mother. She’ll know what to do!’

  ‘But Katherine, our mother…’

  ‘I don’t care. She’ll come for me, she’ll come out for my baby. She knows how important this child is to me, for John.’ The words stuttered out of her, barely coherent. She gave Matilda a little shove. ‘Go, go now! Mary will stay with me.’

  * * *

  Racing down the circular stairs, one hand sliding down the cool, curving banister, Matilda burst through the door into the great hall. Dismay flooded through her as she skidded to a sharp stop at the edge of the dais. There were men everywhere: drunken men, soldiers, knights, their snoring bodies heaped over tables, or lying prone beneath them. The thick, heady smell of wine, of mead, filled the air with a soporific stupor. She needed to find just one, one lowly knight who she could trust not to say anything of their destination, but would be willing to escort her to Wolverhill, the priory where her mother now lived. Her eyes scanned the hall, seeking, searching the snoring bodies.

  But there appeared to be no one. Not one man visible who hadn’t drunk a vat full of John’s expensive French wine.

  She sighed. On reflection, it might be safer if she went alone. She couldn’t risk John finding out that her mother had renounced her widow’s right to own and manage their family estate at Lilleshall, couldn’t risk one of his knights leaking the information back to him. John believed her mother still lived there, still believed that the strong bossy widow was in control.

  Matilda sought out John’s portly frame, slumped over the top table next to a snoring Henry, a thin, sparkling line of drool dropping from his gaping mouth on to the tablecloth. If he discovered that Matilda, in her mother and brother’s absence, had picked up the reins of running one of the largest and most profitable estates in the country, he would seize it, claim it as his own. In the eyes of the law, unmarried women were not allowed to hold property in their own right. They were not allowed to do anything without the consent of a male guardian, be that father, brother or husband.

  Pivoting sharply on her heel, she whisked away from the great hall in disgust. She would go alone. Wolverhill was not above four miles from here; she could walk it easily and still be back before the midnight bell rang out on the chapel in the village. But a horse would be faster.

  No guard at the main door to the castle stopped her. The entrance hall was empty. It seemed everyone had decided to take advantage of the celebrations, to take part in the welcome of John’s important guests. As she heaved open the door, thick oak planks fitted with iron rivets driven into the grey wood at intervals, no one asked her where she was going.

  The night air was cool, stirred by a faint breeze, a balm on her flushed face. The pale illumination from the moon, half risen in the dark blue nap of the sky, pooled down on the cobbles of the inner bailey. In the limpid sheen of the moon, she picked out the gable end of the stable block and sprang across the uneven yard towards it. No voice hailed her, no one shouted at her to stop, to halt; the whole place was deserted, cloaked in a deafening silence. Lord help John if someone decided to attack at this precise moment; the castle was completely defenceless. Her small feet covered the short distance quickly, and as she rounded the corner of the stable block, she glanced behind her, checking to see that no one was following.

  And collided with something. Someone.

  ‘Oooh!’ she squeaked out in shock, pressing her palms against the tall, solid bulk, pushing herself backwards, away, away from whoever it was. But she knew who it was. Her heart thumped dangerously, excitement slicing through her, rivulets of fire.

  In the moonlight, Gilan’s hair shone like silver thread. He stood before her, folding his arms across his massive chest, his head tilted to one side, assessing her quietly. His eyes gleamed out from the darkness, piercing, unreadable.

&nbs
p; ‘You!’ she breathed, clapping one hand over her mouth, trying to gather her scattered senses. ‘Why are you here?’ Her accusing tone echoed around the silent bailey; she frowned back at the lit windows of the castle, as if the power of her thought could place him back where he should be. Why wasn’t he in the great hall, snoring over the trestles with the rest of his companions?

  ‘You mean, why am I not drunk out of my skull?’ he replied drily.

  ‘Well…yes, I suppose. All the rest of your companions are,’ she said scathingly. His implacable regard bore into her, unnerved her. She toed the ground awkwardly with her soft leather slipper. ‘I mean…you can do what you like. I was surprised to see you here, that’s all.’ The brittleness of her own voice startled her, shamed her, but, in the face of his intimidating presence, her behaviour immediately became wary, aloof—her only defence.

  ‘I came to check on our horses,’ Gilan supplied by way of explanation. She had forgotten to button her sleeves again, he realised; the skin of her forearms was milk-white, like pouring cream. If he rubbed his thumb upwards, from her wrist to her elbow, would it feel like silk? Desire kicked him, sudden and unbidden, deep in his solar plexus.

  ‘Um, look, I’m sorry, would you excuse me?’ Matilda hopped anxiously from one foot to the other, tucking her fingers into her belt in a vague attempt to do something with her hands. The breadth of his body filled the entrance to the stables—would she have to push past him, or would he give way? ‘I have to fetch a horse…my sister…’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Not good…’ Tears gathered suddenly at the corners of her eyes. She jerked her head upwards, biting fretfully at her bottom lip, fighting the tremble of her mouth. ‘Not good at all…’ her voice wavered, emerging in a breathless rush ‘…and I have to fetch someone, someone who can help her.’

  ‘A midwife?’