Grabbing a tree branch, she tightened her fingers against the slippery bark. The pain would stop just like it had the last seven days when it came. The pain had to stop. Aquilus hadn’t arrived yet.
If he didn’t arrive by the time she birthed their daughter, perhaps he didn’t intend to come at all.
A moment of relief and she gulped in air. Then it returned, a crushing feeling like someone had grabbed her abdomen and twisted it together so tight that it became harder than a plowshare.
Bending, she dug her fingers into her stomach. No relief. A few paces in front of her, the leaves rustled.
A bow slung around his shoulders, Cedric dangled a goose from his right hand as he circled ‘round the base of an evergreen. His plaid cloak whipped carelessly back in the wind and his gold hair, that kind of hair only Celts have, fell a little past his shoulders now.
Jerking her hand away from her midsection, Ness wished for the ground to open and swallow her or maybe to sprout eagle’s wings and fly away. Anything, rather than to stand here in front of Cedric with a stomach as large as a cow’s and no husband in sight.
The pain returned, this time like a stream, growing with each rivulet that joined it.
Cedric halted and his lips moved, but everything in front of her became vastly unimportant as the stream of pain met the ocean and swept her out into its overwhelming depths.
Her knees threatened to give way. She clenched her stomach with both hands.
“Are you going back this way?” Something that sounded like Cedric’s voice asked.
She shook her head. What had Mailmura said? Just breathe when your time comes. Breathe! Who could breathe through this pain? She bent her head as nausea swept over her. Pressing her tongue against the roof of her mouth, she tried not to scream.
“Good. I mean, I’m going the other way. Until later.” Cedric turned.
Her whole body contracted. Her feet slipped on the slick leaves of the forest bottom. She grabbed for the nearest branch.
Her hand closed on Cedric’s arm. He wrapped his arm behind her back. Her feet swayed unevenly as she tried to tug away. Head spinning, she stumbled again. Her fingers dug into his forearm and his cloak brushed her as Cedric pulled her to her feet, but all she could feel was agonizing constriction.
Finally, the pain left again. Wobbling on both feet now, she sucked in air as sweat dripped down her face. It probably pasted her hair to her forehead too, outlining skin blotched from carrying a child.
“I’ll help you home.” Cedric bent to circle his arm under her shoulders.
Her back went rigid, shifting the burden in her belly up. “No.”
“You need help. Even with help, some don’t survive.” His voice cut off in a choked noise, his gaze averted.
Oh, that was right. The Pict girl. Cedric’s babe. The pain crept back through her again, tightening each muscle. A surge of fear accompanied it as she sucked for breath.
Somewhere outside the cloud of pain, he spoke. “It’ll be all right, Nessite. Like when you distracted that bull that tried to gore Isobel. You made it up the tree in time.”
The pain immersed her, a haze of red surrounding her as she stumbled along the path to her house.
Then Mother grabbed her and someone yelled, “Mailmura.” There were a bed and clothes and there was something about walking. Who could walk when one’s entire body had turned into a torture device? She thought she heard her own voice screaming. She clenched her hands over the wool of the coverlet, legs gathered up to herself as her nails dug through the woven strands until thumb touched forefinger and the red cloud enveloped her again.
Sweat soaked everything, running over her in streams even as her throat became as dry as bonfire wood. Then she retched, again and again, even more than those first months.
Her sight blurred and next thing she knew the pain had shifted, moved lower as the urge to push out what was within overcame her. She made out the silhouette of Mother and Enni. The girl pressed a wet rag to Ness’ forehead. If she meant to relieve the pain, it was like expecting to grow a field from a single wheat grain.
“You’re moving along fast.” Mailmura’s voice blurred in and out, but she wore a pleased smile.
“That’s supposed to be a good thing?” Ness gasped.
A head crowned.
“Dark hair, that’s all I can see so far. Keep pushing,” Mailmura said.
Oh, for that woad that warriors claimed dulled the pain of battle.
She struggled for breath on top of breath, shoving as if to push a cart loaded with stones up over a precipice. Then it ended.
Mailmura held up a bloody bundle. “A boy.” Wrapping him in a cloth, she handed him to Ness.
Her hands trembled as she gripped the limp bundle. Foals come out walking; this babe covered in a sticky white substance seemed too weak to even yell. The tiny thing wiggled in her arms. She gazed at his little fingernails, baby toes, and tiny eyes, brown like the soil. The boy scrunched his eyes tight and curled his legs up toward himself.
The pain came back. She choked back a scream. Mother grabbed the babe. For what seemed like hours, her whole body felt like it would tear apart, and then the pain disappeared.
“You have twins,” Mailmura said.
She stared at the woman.
Mailmura held up the child, another boy with the same damp hair and same little fingers, but this one opened his eyes wide. He let out a mighty scream and threw out his arms. His head flew back and he sprayed wetness.
“Glad this one isn’t my son.” Mailmura thrust the boy at her and Mother returned the other babe.
She stared at the two lives in her arms. Were they really hers? Normally babies were someone else’s, someone else competent and responsible, who knew exactly what to do.
Her breath quickened as she ran her gaze over their hands, their round noses, and hair. It was Aquilus’ hair, not quite as dark, but surely brown, and wavy even when matted down. Her heart pounded against her chest. Where was Aquilus? Months had passed now. He’d had ample opportunity to come or send a letter, yet he’d chosen to miss his sons’ birth.
She clenched her arms around the bairns, almost suffocating them.
“What is it?” Mother moved closer.
She couldn’t do this alone. Couldn’t.
What choice did she have? She ran her gaze over and over the bairns’ little faces as they lay limp in her arms, entirely helpless. Lowering her voice to a breath, she spoke to them. “Sorry, babes, I’m all you’ve got.”
Would Aquilus truly abandon her and his sons? Apparently.
Mother touched her arm.
Ness looked up. “He’s Eric,” she glanced to the fighting babe, “and he’s Wryn,” she said to the peaceful one.
Enni said something about Roman naming ceremonies and wasn’t the father supposed to name the children for them to be Roman citizens.
As much as that idiotic naming ceremony had galled her when Bernice mentioned it, just now the idea sounded pleasant because it would have meant Aquilus was here. Turning away from Enni, Ness gazed at the lives in her arms—fatherless lives. She pressed her lips together.
Wishing for Aquilus accomplished nothing. She’d fix her life herself. She’d take care of her sons, work wool, bake bread, till the ground— whatever it took.
Ness detached Eric, whose sole goal in life seemed to be to out-eat his brother. The last eight weeks had passed in a blur. Even now the only part of her body that didn’t hurt was her nose, and getting sleep seemed about as impossible as flying. She was certain she’d lost her wits too.
These last weeks, she hadn’t passed the threshold of the house, but today she needed air. Wrapping the swaddling cloths around her chest, she bound Eric to herself. As she exited the lean-to, Father stood in the main house by the hearth fire, holding Wryn in the crook of his elbow. The babe had a hold on the graying hair of Father’s arm, his head resting on the scar Father had received as a youth. He held his grandson tight.
Moving
into the firelit room, she reached to take her babe from Father’s arm. As she slipped Wryn out of his hands, Father looked at her.
“How did you part with the tribune?” Voice grave, Father searched her face.
“I….” She glanced at the herbs hanging over the lintel, and then at the bit of straw on the floor sopping up the winter mud. Her tongue felt thick. Still no word from Aquilus and with each passing day she began to think that the village gossip had it right. He wasn’t coming. “I didn’t like Rome. I wanted to live in Britain. Aquilus and I fought about it. He left to work in Germania for months. I left for Britain and wrote him a letter telling him to meet me here. I told him,” she touched the wattle and daub wall behind her as if to gain strength from it as her voice faltered, “if he didn’t come, I wanted a divorce.” Why had she written that stulte letter?
“Did he divorce you?”
“I don’t have the coin to write him. I can’t be sure.” Her heart beat erratically. Her fingers felt so cold. As she fed and rocked and cleaned up babes through the long stretches of night these last eight weeks, she’d prayed Aquilus would come. Did the Most High not answer prayer?
“What do you think?”
“We’ll talk about this another time.” Ness swiped Wryn from Father’s arms and stepped toward the door.
“Ness.” Father laid his hand on her arm. Touching underneath her chin, he forced her gaze up to his. “Tell me the truth.”
“I think he divorced me.” Ducking her head, she drew back and pressed her squirming babes closer to herself. There, she’d said it, and now all her family, and the village too, would know the shame of it.
“You need to divorce him too then.”
She stared at Father. “Why?”
“He’s a Roman. What if he returns and wants the children?” Father ground his hand into the pommel of his knife, a common gesture at the mention of Aquilus’ name.
She swept her eyelashes down over her eyes as she tried to take in the words. Aquilus wouldn’t want their sons. He didn’t even want her, otherwise, he’d have come. She ran her thumb over Wryn’s little face. He screwed up his nose. How could Aquilus not even want to meet his sons? Her chest heaved with a sob.
“I’ll bring your case before the meeting of the elders tomorrow and it’s done. I’ll brook no argument here. This is to protect you.”
He spoke as firmly as if she had the wits left to argue after eight weeks of sleepless nights. Besides, she’d foolishly spurned Father’s advice in marrying Aquilus and, as a result, she’d forced him and Mother to take on the encumbrance of three more mouths to feed. The least she could do is accept Father’s wisdom now.
“Thank you for holding Wryn. I’ll be back soon.” Moving past Father, she pushed open the door.
Snow sprinkled the ground outside, proving that autumn had disappeared. She clutched her slippery babes through the white wool of swaddling clothes.
Her boots sank in the slushy parts of the path and cold wetness penetrated to her toes as she headed to the warmth of the stables.
Hugging the babes tighter, she ducked her head and entered under the wood lintel. Inside, Enni stooped over a water trough, cracking the ice with the back end of a spade.
Turning, Enni dropped the spade and clapped her thin hands together. She skipped forward.
Ness widened her eyes. Enni never skipped.
Pulling Wryn from Ness’ hands, Enni squatted by a stump of wood underneath the overhang of the stable. “I love you best,” Enni crooned to the babe. “You’re good, and you do as you’re told, and you love me.”
“They’re only two months old. They can’t do as they’re told.” Ness wrapped her cloak tighter around Eric as he burrowed his red nose into her chest.
Outside, snow dripped off the roof and landed in splashes. All too soon the sun would go down and frost would supersede again. She needed to get the babes inside before then.
Enni patted Wryn’s head and hands. “Ignore her angel child. We both know the truth. Your brother, he screams, and stays up all night, and wets things on purpose.”
Ness laughed.
Enni wrapped her small hand over Wryn’s nose so that his steamy breath came back on his face. He cooed. She looked up. “Ness.”
Squatting down to where the mud and hay mixed together, Ness breathed in the earthy odor of horse. She picked up a handful of the lovely straw. How she’d missed Britain. “What?”
“Have you written the tribune about his sons?”
“You know I don’t have the coin for that.” If only she did. Ness threw the straw against the stable’s wall. Who was she fooling? A letter would make no difference. Aquilus had known good and well that she was with child. If he’d wanted to come, he could have.
“But they are his sons.”
Despite herself, Ness brushed her fingers over Eric’s brown hair. All she could see in that tiny face, both day and night, was the man she’d married. Yes, they were Aquilus’ sons, but he hadn’t come.
The lump in her throat threatened to choke her as the tears she forced herself to hold back became a physical pain. He hadn’t come.
“Marki and I could try to take out some kind of loan to give you money to write him.”
Ness pressed her lips together. Ever since that day she’d spotted Enni, malnourished and dirty in the Camulodunum slave market, and begged Father to pay the price to free her, she’d watched out for Enni. Now Enni offered resources to her? She’d taken up far too much of Father and Mother’s time and food stores too. “You haven’t even built your own stables yet or cleared fields. You and Marki need the money you have.”
Enni stood, dirt staining the plaid that swished around her ankles, and handed Wryn to her. “It’s getting dark. I should leave.”
Nodding a goodbye, Ness tried to keep a good grip on Wryn as Eric fought against her hold. She kicked a pile of hay away from the horses and laid Wryn down and then Eric.
A tortured squall exploded from Eric’s chest, tears pouring forth from squeezed-shut eyes as he pounded the hay with his heels. Wryn squirmed in the straw, nearly getting one of the shafts in his mouth.
Scooping Eric up, she swung a full grain bucket up from the ground with her other hand. Her teeth clenched against each other as the weight pulled at her back, sending twinges down places she hadn’t known existed before childbirth.
The grain rolled down like a rock slide into the horses’ trough as Eric strained the rest of her muscles with his flailing. Dropping the wooden bucket, she collapsed to the floor in the midst of Eric’s continuous screams. Hugging the babe close to herself, she rocked him back and forth on her knees until his eyelids sagged.
Her head pounded from lack of sleep and tears of frustration choked her voice, but a wistful smile rose to her lips as she looked at him. “I love you even if you are bad. When you’re older, you’re going to have marvelous times being bad— stir up mischief, race horses, probably make all the girls love you.”
Something made a noise outside. Her gaze flashed up as Cedric ducked under the stable roof. The snow clung to his shoulders. When he saw her, he jolted to a halt.
She gathered her knees to herself, pulling Eric closer. “Why are you here?”
“Marki had trouble with his mare.” Cedric pointed to a small roan. “Asked me to take a look at her leg.”
“Oh.” The tools of his trade lay in his hand—small iron forceps and a salve bag. Once Cedric had saved a pony’s life after a cart wheel cut its leg to the bone.
Moving toward the mare, Cedric ran one hand down its leg, his face guardedly blank. She stood, her boots raising chaff as she went to pick Wryn up and depart.
Cedric laid the salve bag down on the floor and walked closer to her. “So, these are the twins the village talks about?”
She nodded wordlessly.
He knelt by the hay Wryn lay on and stared into the little face. He wrapped his large hands around the babe. For just one moment, he flicked his gaze up to hers. “May I?”
Wryn almost disappeared into the crook of Cedric’s arm as his snow-dusted cloak fell over the babe. The look on Cedric’s face was more intense than she’d ever seen from him. He moved his gaze to her again, and his voice broke. “Mine was a son.”
With a gulp, she shifted her feet in the straw. “I’m sorry.”
“Did they tell you how she, how he died?”
She shook her head. Poor Elena. She shouldn’t have spent as much time hating the girl as she had.
His voice grated through his throat. “It was morning. She’d been struggling so long. I held her hand. One moment she was breathing, the next she was gone. Then—” His face contorted and he pulled Wryn under his cloak as if shielding the infant from what came next.
Despite herself, Ness riveted her gaze on Cedric.
“Mailmura said we had to try for the babe. She cut Elena, breast bone to naval and took out my son. I held him in my arms an hour before—” Cedric ran his tongue over his lips. Then his eyes clouded over, swimming in wetness.
She could only stare.
Cedric sat down and rested Wryn on his knees. The babe wriggled out an arm and grasped for Cedric’s thick fingers. Cedric looked at her. Slowly, he opened his mouth. “I’m glad you have your sons still.”
Ness rested her head against the chinked wood of the stable wall as she accepted his words. As if on cue, Eric started screaming again and Wryn joined in with whimpers. Cedric almost smiled.
Outside, the sun set fast and the slush would soon turn to ice, yet she would not deny Cedric this small comfort. She scooted back in the hay and looked at the brown mare he pointed to.
“How are your horses?” The words slipped out before she could think that perhaps horses were a trite matter to introduce after a man talks of losing wife and child, but Cedric always did have the best horses.
For Life or Until (Love and Warfare Series Book 1) Page 12