by Mark Noce
“You!”
“Ria?”
My voice quivers, recognizing the old lady as Gwen and the young boy as Art, his azure eyes more like Artagan’s than ever. Enid pushes herself between us.
“Why have you come?” she asks me. “Do you know this woman?”
“This woman is going to have a baby,” I say to Enid before turning toward Ria. “But something’s wrong. Why have you left your village?”
Gwen rises, half-shielding her daughter from me.
“We do not winter in the same place, better pastures here. But now the baby will not come.”
“May I?” I ask.
Gwen and Ria exchange looks before the grandmother nods. I kneel down beside Ria, placing my palms on her hot stomach. The child convulses inside her, its limbs bumping against the skin. My palms begin to sweat, my pulse quickening in my throat. A real child, a baby who cannot come into this world without my help. Padraig always said I would know when I was ready to deliver a human child. My temples start to throb. I wish the Abbot were here now.
Ria looks at me with an almost animal fear in her eyes, half-eager for help and half-furious that I of all people have come to her in this most vulnerable of moments. I frown, turning to Enid.
“Fetch water, hot water. A needle and thread, and some fresh towels.”
“Where’ll I find all that? I’m a warrior, not a midwife!”
“You’re a woman, aren’t you? Sooner or later all women must do battle in childbirth.”
Enid’s face colors before she nods and rushes back to the keep. Whether my words shame her or fill her with a sense of purpose, I cannot tell. Queen or no, I still know how to deepen my voice and add the sound of authority to it. Gwen draws me aside a moment.
“Births were always a difficulty for me. Of all my children, only Ria ever lived. You’ve delivered newborns before?”
I swallow, lowering my voice.
“Many times … with lambs and horses.”
Gwen’s eyes widen. She glances back at her daughter with concern. Thankfully, Ria hasn’t heard me as she groans again. My throat runs dry and I suddenly half-wish I hadn’t stuck my nose inside this hut this morning. But what I feel now has become irrelevant. There is a human soul in need, stuck on the threshold of life itself. I draw Gwen’s attention again with my steady gaze.
“I need your help, but we can do this. Together.”
Gwen looks me over and for an instant I fear she will take a switch to me. Instead, she slowly nods her assent. The old woman gently ushers her grandson outside. The boy would probably only be in the way and whatever happens, it does him no good to see his mother in pain.
Alone with Ria a moment, I continue prodding her while she groans between breaths. Even sweating and red in the face, she still looks a beauty with her yellow locks and robin-egg eyes. She grasps me by the wrist.
“What’s wrong?”
“The baby has not turned. Unless something is done, the child cannot be born.”
“What will you do?”
“Just keep breathing.”
I know I sound curt, but Enid and Gwen both soon return and we’ve much to do. More than half a year has passed since I last saw Ria, maybe longer. No one mentions who the father of the child might be.
Gwen holds her daughter, helping her breathe while Enid hands me the hot compresses I place upon Ria. Enid swallows, looking somewhat green, but she stays by my side. For someone who has gutted men, the sight and smell of blood now make her wince. I guess I’m not the only one who has never seen a woman in labor. Although I’ve never had to endure the trial myself, the monks and nuns at the Dyfed abbey still taught me some of the methods of helping women bring life into the world. Sweat runs down my temples as I try to recall the pieces of knowledge I’ve gleaned over the years. I begin to hum. Enid blinks.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s a hymn. The nuns say it helps tell the angels to bring the baby forth.”
Enid raises a skeptical eyebrow, but I continue chanting. Lowering my head close to Ria’s legs, I hope that the child will turn toward the sound of the song. Come, little one, come this way to life and love. Whomever’s child you are, please come safely into this world. Please.
Ria howls loud enough to shake dust off the thatched roof. She cannot help herself. The final push has begun. Was this what it was like for my mother? The pain and anguish, the fear and uncertainty? Gwen squeezes her daughter’s hand, urging Ria to keep going. Ria clenches her teeth, her legs trembling. Gwen and Enid both glance at me, but say nothing. In a few moments, we’ll find out whether the baby has turned or not. Ria and the child both hover along the precipice of life and death. We each take turns urging Ria on, first Gwen, then myself, and even Enid.
“Push, daughter!”
“Push, Ria!”
“Come on, push!”
My fingertips feel the tiny head crowning. In a few moments, the baby spills into my hands, its wailing cry piercing the cool morning air. Gwen leans down and cuts the cord with her teeth. I cradle the infant in my arms, cooing at the pink newborn. I place the babe in Ria’s weary arms.
“Give thanks to the Virgin, Ria. It’s a baby girl.”
* * *
The child has fiercely blue eyes. Not pale blue like her mother’s, but an almost silvery sapphire. Only one man in Christendom has irises like these. I turn, holding the sleeping babe in my arms as Artagan approaches down the narrow corridors within the castle keep. He stops and nods, not taking another step toward me.
“My lady.”
“Ria is sleeping. She and her mother are outside.”
“I came to see you. The village women say you saved the baby and her mother’s life.”
I frown, but Artagan does not seem to notice my clenched jaw. I turn away, unable to look into his azure eyes.
“I merely did what any good Christian would do,” I reply. “Abbot Padraig taught me well.”
“It’s been a long time since a noblewoman here had such powers and knowledge.”
“I’m no enchantress.”
“To the people here you are. And to me.”
I scoff, turning away. How can he talk to me like this? I’m holding his child by another woman! He had me half-believing him the other night, saying he thought of no other woman since he first met me. Although his boldness took me aback, I cannot remember my husband or any other man looking at me with such longing. Now I see, he’s just like any other hedge knight. Brave, daring, handsome, oh yes, but more loyal to his hunting hounds than any woman born of Eve. I hand the slumbering child to him.
“This is yours, I believe.”
“Ria said this?”
“I can see the truth plain enough with my own eyes.”
He cradles the newborn girl in his broad arms, the child smaller than the length of his forearm. She even has his dark hair. God in heaven, he has two bastards here in his father’s keep alone. How many more babies with startling blue eyes have been born across the Free Cantrefs thanks to the Blacksword? I bite my lip, wanting to hit him hard enough to make his cheeks sting, but I’ll not lower myself to striking such a dog. It takes all my queenly bearing to keep my voice firm and cordial.
“You ought to stand with Ria before a priest. They’ve a name for children without fathers, and it’s not a good one.”
Before he can reply, I turn on my heel and walk back toward my chamber. Enid happens upon us, immediately trying to avoid me again when she sees Artagan following in my wake. He pauses and hands Enid the child before jogging after me. The Blacksword stops me just before the door to my room.
“I meant what I said before,” he begins. “I’ve known no one but you since we met.”
“If, if, that meant anything to me, I just delivered proof that you most certainly did.”
“Count the moons back, Branwen. That’s before I met you on the King’s Road last summer.”
Narrowing my eyes, I quickly tally the months in my head. Ria could’ve alrea
dy been with child when I first saw her last year, perhaps not yet showing. Maybe. I shake my head.
“You’d make your own children live with the same shame as you? They’d be…”
“Say it: bastards. Before the Romans and the Saxons, we Welsh had no such name. A woman’s child is hers, and that’s all that mattered in the Old Tribes. You know that. In Dyfed and South Wales, they may have adopted Roman ways, but among the Free Cantrefs, a mother’s blood is still all that counts.”
Ria said as much to me once. I thought she was merely being evasive when I asked her who fathered her firstborn. Enid stands behind us, holding the child awkwardly in her arms. She looks like she’d rather be in the heat of battle than playing nursemaid while Artagan and I stare one another down. I ball my fists at my sides.
“You saved my life twice, and gave me shelter under your father’s roof. For that, I’m grateful. But understand me, Artagan Blacksword, I gave up everything to escape my husband’s realm and never again will I be subject to any man, in the marriage bed or otherwise. Even someone of the Old Tribes should understand that!”
I slam the door to my bedchamber before he can reply. Alone on my cot, I wait until Enid and Artagan’s footsteps dissipate down the corridor. A wiser woman would flatter the son of the king who shelters me now, but I’ll not heed even my own advice. A wise woman would also probably never run from her kingly husband either, even if he did intend to ride me like a broodmare until old age or a dozen birthings did me in. But how different might my fate be with a man like Artagan? Look at Olwen and Ria, even Enid. He has an admirer in every village and castle. What wife could live like that, sleeping with one eye open on the nights her husband is away? Not me.
Part of me wishes to bury my face in the covers and never come out again. But spring blossoms fill the air with their sweet fragrance and greenery covers the trees once more. It is not in me to cocoon myself indoors. Morgan shut me up in my tower for enough winter moons to last a lifetime. And even I am not dim enough to presume that King Cadwallon will give me my liberty here forever, just to spite his rival in South Wales. No, I must make myself useful somehow if I am ever to have a life of mine own.
* * *
For the next few weeks, I spend more time outside the keep walls than within them. Word soon spreads about Ria’s recovery and her newborn. Within the month, I deliver a dozen more babies. For some reason, Cadwallon has no lady of the castle, no living wife or noble daughter. Without asking, I begin to direct the servants and villagers alike, making them pull water from the fresh mountain streams upriver rather than farther down by the bogs where the people dump out their chamber pots. Whatever wisdom and learning I gleaned over the years under Abbot Padraig’s tutelage seems like magic to these half-wild people.
Soon many ill elders recover their strength and every newborn lives past its first moon. I’ve done nothing but apply some basic knowledge to improve these people’s lives, but already the villagers stoop and bow each time I pass. Under their breath, they call me “Mab Ceridwen.” Something in the Old Tongue that I do not understand.
As I devour an apple for breakfast this morning, I exit the keep and nearly bump into Artagan. Unable to contain my curiosity any longer regarding the term Mab Ceridwen, I break my self-imposed silence toward him. I stop in order to ask him what the term means. He laughs.
“Mab Ceridwen? In the Old Tongue, it means ‘Fairy Queen.’”
Coloring from ear to ear, I suddenly doubt his sincerity. Perhaps he jests. He watches me go, but I do not glance back. After all, what kind of Fairy Queen would I be if I let him see how easily his words get to me?
Enid follows a few paces behind me as she often does now. Cadwallon made it her charge to look after me, but thankfully she no longer gives me suspicious sidelong glances. She raises a skeptical eyebrow each time I insist on a new task, whether cleaning up the village latrines or making the cooks boil water before using it, but she makes a point of not openly questioning me. Enid sometimes prods the villagers back when they reach out to touch me, but I do not mind, often finding myself clasping an old woman’s hand or a young boy’s cheek as the locals thank me for helping some ailing family member. There is a heartwarming honesty to these Free Cantref folk that charms me to the core.
The villagers say I have the gift of healing hands. Maybe they are right. A golden warmth fills my fingertips each time I touch an ailing elder or seek to relieve a child in pain. Father always said my mother had a way with healing when she laid her hands on the ill and infirm. Perhaps I have inherited some of her gifts.
Enid’s quiet loyalty reminds me much of Ahern, and if not for her presence, the loss of my half brother, the Abbot, and my serving girls would pain me beyond bearing. Oft times, I allow myself to think on them only a moment before burying myself in my work again. Some memories smart too much these days.
But I cannot afford the luxury of worry. Whomever haunted my steps at Caerwent, the traitor in our midst, might easily have done harm to one of my loved ones whilst trying to do harm to me. They are much safer without me around to endanger them. I still pray for them each night. What would Una and Rowena make of Enid and these rough Free Cantref women? The thought makes me smile.
After making my rounds this morning to the huts of several young mothers and their suckling babes, I take a stroll outside the village. Breathing in the fresh mountain air, I observe the crofters as they tend the green shoots of wheat and oats.
Just beyond the fields, a score of villagers treks eastward with their cattle and sheep in tow. Ria, Gwen, and her children number amongst them. I ask Enid to leave and return to the keep without me. I’ve something I need to do on my own.
Enid shrugs and heads back toward the keep. I walk down the road a ways and wait for Ria to pass. She sees me and stops, her growing babe suckling at the breast. Shading my eyes from the sun with my hand, I clear my throat.
“Returning to your village?”
“We’ve crops to plant, fields to tend, babes to raise. Sir Artagan gave me these.”
She points back toward a small herd of cows, healthy beasts with udders full of milk. Artagan must have obtained the livestock from his father. Even for a hedge knight, these cows represent a fortune in wealth and a steady food supply. Before I can ask why, Ria answers my unasked question.
“He did not want me or my children to go without. He’s not coming with us.”
“Typical.”
“Be not too hard on him, my Queen. He and I followed the Ancient Harmonies in innocence before he grew apart from me. The better woman has his heart now. Be gentle with it, m’lady.”
She pinches my shoulder before walking on, her touch both a caress and a subtle threat. Somehow I have difficulty believing the sincerity of her words. She doesn’t think I’m the better woman and I certainly know I’m not. Ria will probably bide her time, waiting for Artagan’s infatuation with me to run its course. To my surprise, Ria halts again and calls back to me over her shoulder.
“Thank you for coming into my hut that morning,” she adds, raising her newborn in one hand. “My children and I will always be in your debt.”
A dust cloud rises in their wake as Ria’s kin trek back toward the East Marches. My heart rises in my throat, proud of the life I helped her bring into the world. And yet, a pang of jealousy lances my chest too. Ria has such a clear purpose and a family to keep her going. In many ways, her life is much richer than mine. She is a mother, a daughter, a farmer, and a lover. She is happy and fulfilled in who and what she is.
Enid jogs back from the keep, her shadow lengthening beside me. What brings her back so soon? My shoulders sag, as I’m still lost in thought about Ria and the bliss of knowing one’s purpose in life. Enid pants, her chest heaving.
“The King summons you. A messenger has arrived.”
My heart freezes up. Something is wrong.
Following Enid back toward the fort, I cannot help but wonder. Perhaps King Cadwallon no longer intends to shelter me und
er his roof. For the past moon, I’ve hidden at his keep deep within the Free Cantrefs, blissfully cut off from the tumult of the outside world. What a fool I’ve been to think that the mountains that ring these lands could keep my past from catching up with me.
Cadwallon waits in his near-empty hall, mud-splattered boots on the dais of his oaken throne. The large man breathes heavily, a massive two-handed ax lying across his thighs. Artagan stands behind him, wiping his longsword clean with a rag. The cloth is stained crimson. Enid bows and retreats to the doorway of the throne room. My voice echoes off the wide rafters.
“You summoned me, my King?”
“This morn, my men and I sparred with some South Welshmen trespassing in the mountain passes. We fended them off, but they doubtlessly came with a single purpose.”
I swallow hard, exchanging looks with Artagan. A sortie of Morgan’s horsemen on our borders can only mean one thing. My husband must have sent a task force of mounted warriors to steal me back. Evidently, the sweaty Cadwallon had more than one pony thrown from under him, judging from his breeches and ax marred by dirt and grime. Artagan sheathes his great sword behind his back.
“There’s more. A herald arrived at midday. He waits outside. The man comes from Dyfed.”
Mention of my homeland makes my heart leap and then go still all at once. The herald must have come from Father. I inwardly shudder, imagining his wrath with me. The peace between his kingdom and Morgan’s hinges on my betrothal to unite their realms. Without me, their alliance remains tenuous at best.
Why did I have to be born the daughter of a king? Father will curse my name now that I have rejected the man he gave me to in holy wedlock. If only I could make Father understand. But the time for such understanding and compromise has passed.
Cadwallon gives permission for the herald to enter. A lanky warrior with thin brown wisps of hair falling along one side of his face, he bears a calfskin shield and long spear like most men of Dyfed. The color of his eyes and the set of his cheeks give me pause. Doubtlessly another one of Father’s bastards. If only it were Ahern instead. The messenger doesn’t even give me a glance as he addresses the King.