by Tamara Leigh
“How soon, Margery?” Helene asked.
“We only done it the one time, so…” She whimpered. “…methinks two months too soon, mayhap a bit more.”
Feeling the press of nails in the soft flesh of her inner wrist, Helene shifted around to search out Jacob who had begun to pace. “Jacob, I have brought forth many babes, but if there is a chance of your grandchild surviving”—and she did not believe there was one outside of a miracle—“it would be better for you to summon a more experienced midwife.” Too, it would be better for Helene whose fate, if not already sealed, would surely be so when sorcery was blamed for the babe’s death.
Jacob halted before the fire pit. “What? And have all know my daughter’s sin? Nay, as the babe has wee chance of surviving, you shall bring it forth, and I will take it to the wood.”
Helene and Margery responded in kind such that Helene could not tell where her own startle began and ended. It was one thing that this man, whose departed wife had birthed three surviving children, should make the effort of childbirth sound simple. It was quite another that he should be so thoughtless and crude to speak of disposing of that frail life—a life through which his own blood ran.
Above the din of animals on the other side of the wall that increased when Margery’s misery moved from moaning to sobbing, Helene demanded, “What if her babe survives? What will you do then?”
Something like distress tugged at his brow and mouth and creased his chin, and Helene hoped it meant he would do what was right and godly regardless of how the birth of a misbegotten child might reflect upon him.
“Jacob?” she pressed.
The lines of his face deepening, he said, “You are mistaken if you think I answer to you, healer. Now do what you were brought to do and be quick about it.”
Quick… Holding back scornful laughter, Helene returned her attention to Margery whose eyes were wide with fear. Though the girl defended and proclaimed her father a good man, she did not believe it—at least, not where her unborn child was concerned. Hence, what hope was there for Helene? If Jacob intended to hide his daughter’s sin by taking her babe to the wood even if it survived birthing, he would ensure that the one who delivered the child did not live to bear witness. In that event, Helene would not go easy—would do whatever it took to alert those outside that it was no passing sickness from which Margery suffered. God willing, the babe and Helene would not fall victim to Jacob of Parsings.
“Make her stay in where she is safe,” the girl pleaded again. “No matter the disgrace, I would have her live.”
Helene felt strain in her throat from the effort to contain her emotions. “All we can do is make the delivery as easy as possible and pray the little one is healthy enough to breathe on its own and take your milk.” And, of course, that Margery would also survive, which had to be uppermost in the mind of Jacob who needed someone to run his household and raise his other children. Easing her wrist from Margery’s grip, she cupped the girl’s elbow. “Now come.”
Shuddering and moaning, Margery allowed herself to be guided to the nearest pallet and eased down upon it.
Helene peered at Jacob who had further distanced himself where he now stood before the door. “Ere you leave,” she said, “there are items I require—”
“Ha! You think I would leave you alone with my daughter?”
“Most men eschew the birthing chamber.”
“When ‘tis known to be a birthing chamber and the one tending the birth can be trusted.” He shook his head. “I shall remain.”
Though she longed to point out that his daughter’s labor cries would likely alert those outside that a child was forcing its way into the world, it was possible that, considering the diminutive size of the come-too-soon babe and the noise of the roused animals, that particular truth could be kept hidden.
“What is it you need?” Jacob asked.
“First, the drink you poured for me.”
He retrieved the cup and carried it to her.
Helene drank down the ale that, bitter though it was, could not have been more welcome. However, as much as she longed to ask for more, she knew she would need as much of her senses about her as possible, and more ale would only blur and further weary her. Thus, she thrust the cup at Jacob and told him the items needed to deliver the babe.
In the midst of his bustling, Margery cried out but quickly clamped her mouth closed and turned the sound of her pain into throaty moans.
“Can you not keep her quiet?” her father rasped.
Helene paused in wiping the perspiration from his daughter’s face. “’Tis not too much ale she has partaken of. She gives birth!”
Muttering foul words, he crossed to the kindling stacked near the fire pit, grabbed a piece, and tossed it at her. “Have her bite on that.”
Helene retrieved the stick, but no sooner did she dismiss it as being too rough and splintered than Margery snatched it from her. “He is right,” the young woman said. “If you cannot keep my babe from coming, she will not survive and ‘twill be better that none know she was ever born.” She clamped the wood between her teeth and, a few moments later, grunted around it when another labor pain struck.
The hour that followed was unlike any birthing Helene had attended. Though it was short compared to the birth of Lady Gaenor’s son whose entrance into the world had threatened to tear his mother apart, it was relatively quiet, for Margery proved as determined as her father to keep those outside unaware of the true nature of her need for a healer. By the time the tiny babe slipped into Helene’s hands, the stick that tumbled from Margery’s mouth was nearly bitten in two.
“Does she…live?” the girl whispered.
As Helene quickly examined the infant whose skin was so thin it appeared transparent despite the profusion of fine hair covering it, she thought her heart might break. It was not a girl as Margery obviously wished it to be, but there was no reason to correct her, even when, at Helene’s urging, the babe loosed a strangled, creaky cry.
Margery reached. “Pray, give her to me.”
Helene tied off the umbilical cord, gently wrapped the tiny body in the clean blanket Jacob had provided, then leaned forward and settled him in his mother’s arms.
As Margery lifted her head to peer at her child, Helene glanced around. “The cord must needs be cut, Jacob.” And not by the Wulfrith dagger, for it would not do to reveal it—not now when so much danger lay ahead of her.
The big man pulled his blade from its sheath and crossed the room.
From where Helene knelt between Margery’s legs, she eased up her own skirts and laid a hand to the dagger lest Jacob determined to cut more than the cord. With her other hand, she parted the babe’s blanket and, when Jacob stood over her and his daughter, looked up and said, “Just a bit above the string.”
He raised his eyebrows. Understanding that he asked if the babe would live, she gave a slight shake of her head.
However, Margery immediately declared, “I know what is to come. Just let me hold her until…” She shook her head on the pillow. “Do not take her to the wood. Not yet, Papa.”
At his hesitation, Helene said, “There is still the afterbirth to deliver.” Which would give Margery and her babe—and Helene—that much more time.
Jacob cut the cord. To his credit, he said not a word when he saw it was a grandson his daughter had given him for so brief a time.
Over the next quarter hour, while Helene’s weary mind wove this way and that in search of escape that would not necessitate the use of the Wulfrith dagger, one of those outside knocked. Jacob wrenched open the door, harshly informed the men the healer yet tended his daughter’s stomach ailment, and slammed the door.
Shortly thereafter, Helene set aside the basin that held the afterbirth and Margery asked in a trembling voice, “Is it done?”
She met the girl’s moist gaze and inclined her head.
Lowering her chin onto her fleshy neck, Margery peered into the bundle pressed to her bosom. “As is my ba
be,” she whispered.
Jacob surely heard, for he quickly crossed the room. “‘Tis time I go to the wood, Margery.” He swept his gaze to Helene and, to her surprise, said, “I thank you.”
He sounded genuine, but there was yet darkness in his eyes, and she feared its cause was his determination that none would know of Margery’s true need for a healer. If so, ill would befall Helene such that when she left the cottage it would not be with the ability to reveal his secret.
“I am glad to have been of aid,” she said. “Still, you will not show your gratitude by allowing me to steal away, will you, Jacob?”
His lids flickered. “And have you reveal my daughter’s shame?”
“I would not, and even if you do not believe me, it cannot be revealed if I am gone from Parsings.”
He shifted his jaw side to side. “Unless you are captured, and with daylight yet upon us, ‘tis likely—”
“Papa,” Margery breathed, “she is not a witch—did not kill Amos. Pray, let her go.”
As much as Helene longed to thank the girl, she sensed Jacob’s wavering and knew time was better spent convincing him of the plan she had seamed together that might be all that kept him from murder.
“If you will permit it, Jacob,” she said, in as level a voice as she could manage, “I will take the babe to the wood and give it a proper burial.” Unlike what he surely intended, she would not abandon Margery’s child to the things of the wild. “Then I will leave Parsings and never return.”
“What of those outside?” he said without hesitation as if, with the moment upon him, he wished for a way out of what he had thought he could do.
Hope fluttered through Helene. “Your cottage has a rear door by which you bring your animals in and out.”
He frowned, but then his face slackened. “Ah. Aye.”
“And ‘tis bordered only by the wood on the backside. Thus, while you distract the others, I will steal outside and go to the trees. Give me an hour—more if it can be had—and I will be forever gone from here.” At least, she prayed it would be so, for it was possible the villagers would give chase despite the approaching storm that had begun to rattle the shutters.
After a palpable struggle, Jacob said, “It will be so, but you would do well not to be caught, for I have no choice but to make it known ‘twas by sorcery you escaped.”
Of course. And once she buried the babe, all evidence of what had truly transpired would be gone. “Then for both our sakes, Jacob, give me as much time as you can to put distance between myself and Parsings.”
He nodded curtly. “I shall.”
A quarter hour later, with Jacob wedged in the doorway where he assured those outside that Margery was much improved by the draught the healer had prepared, Helene accepted the babe Margery extended, assured the girl she would beseech God in His heavens to take her child to his bosom, then made her way amongst the stinking animals and their muck to the large door at the back of the house. Cautiously, she opened it, much to the delight of the wind that had been waiting on the other side for just such an opportunity to gain entrance. With its cool breath sweeping her face and lifting her hair as it hurried past her, Helene peered outside.
Though it was less likely she would be seen if it were dark, the good of the hours of gray light that remained was that she would be able to see her way through the wood—at least, until the heavens opened up and she was forced to find shelter.
With the bundled babe clasped to her chest beneath her mantle, Helene confirmed all was unmoving ahead, swept her hood over her hair, and slipped outside.
“God be with me,” she breathed as she eased the door closed. Then she hastened forward, assuring herself that once she reached the wood, the worst would be over. But before she set foot in it, rain began to fall.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Abel eyed the darkly billowing sky and ground his teeth in an attempt to keep his damp body from shaking itself out of the saddle.
The chance of reaching Parsings before late afternoon was no longer viable due to the storm they had ridden into. Under better circumstances, they would have sought temporary shelter when the rain began to slash at them and their mounts, but they had continued on, albeit at a greatly reduced speed. Fortunately, the skies had finally closed up, allowing them to resume their headlong flight. However, Abel remained keenly aware of the lost time which could mean the difference between saving Helene and losing her.
Lord, he beseeched, let us not come too late. Keep Helene safe for her, for John and, if she so desires, for me.
Had he ever so longed to be heard by the unseen One in whose hands his mother and siblings more readily placed their lives? As a warrior and a man wed to a mad woman, there had been many occasions to pray and pray hard, but too often it felt like duty—habit, even. Indeed, he had always been inclined to liken the act of prayer to throwing wishes over an unscalable wall with only the hope that the One on the other side was in the right place to catch them. After all, since it was easier to believe an unanswered prayer had simply not been heard, it followed that neither had an answered prayer been heard, meaning just as one did not take God to task for unanswered prayers, surely one ought not to glorify him for answered ones. Thus, on those occasions that Abel’s prayers were answered in accordance with his desires, it seemed right to assume life had merely come out right side up because that was how it had landed—like the roll of a die. And it followed, for how did one know if it was, indeed, by God’s actions or lack thereof that something resulted? Had not man free will? Was it not man who determined whether to turn to the right or the left as Abel had done when he—not God—had wronged Helene and for which she now suffered?
“Lord!” he rasped into the air that buffeted his face and made him long for the covering of his forsaken beard. He might drive himself mad with all this questioning and reasoning and writhing.
He glanced at Durand and Baron Lavonne who rode abreast with him, then bent lower over his destrier and, once more, silently conversed with the One on the other side of that formidable wall.
I am tested, Lord. I know it to my marrow. Pray, give Helene the strength to come out of this whole. And if You do not, help me keep my face turned to You no matter how bitter my words and thoughts and soul. Amen, amen, and amen.
“Amen.” Helene opened her eyes and stared at the grave she had dug into the wet ground with her bare hands and the Wulfrith dagger.
The hump of dirt that she hoped would not fall prey to the bellies of the beasts of the wood was the only evidence of the tiny babe who lay beneath a beautifully immense oak. It was not consecrated ground, but she did not believe God would mind that this was where the innocent one found its rest. After all, He had created these very grains of dirt just as he had created those in a Church yard.
As she smoothed the mound with her hands, she noted the abrasions she had inflicted upon them while digging. They would heal, as would the ones on her wrists from where they had been bound.
The cold of garments dampened by what had proved to be a short-lived rain threatening to wheedle past the warmth gained from her exertions, Helene straightened and, for the first time in what felt like more than an hour, looked up.
Though she guessed two hours of daylight remained, the sky was yet dark with clouds that, she hoped, would carry their rain elsewhere. True, if the villagers had discovered her escape and determined to come after her, worsening weather might cause them to turn back, but her journey through wind and rain could more easily mean the death of her.
“Pass over,” she whispered and lowered her lids. “Lord, if these clouds have not sufficiently unburdened themselves elsewhere, pray let them do so opposite where I go.”
Fatigue tempting her to lie down, she opened her eyes wide, deeply filled her lungs, and pressed her aching shoulders together to ease the hunch from her back. Then she lifted her muddied skirts and ran toward the road she would follow from the cover of the trees as she made her way to Broehne Castle where, she had to bel
ieve, she would be reunited with her son on the morrow.
Providing you survive the night, whispered a voice she dared not allow to accompany her on her journey.
Forcing herself to think ahead to the good so she would not lose hope, she told herself she would survive the night—and whatever else lay ahead.
How long she ran, she did not know, but she stopped only when she lost sight of the road. Cloud-darkened day yet upon her, throat and lungs burning, legs quaking, she leaned against a tree for fear she might not be able to rise again if she sat.
Searching out the wood that, for all the obstacles it presented, provided good cover, she found what she sought. There, visible between two trees, one darkened by rot though it yet stood, the other spreading a protective canopy of leaves over its departed companion, was the road.
Again, she ran, but it could have been no more than half an hour before she heard voices above the pound of her heart and wheezing of her lungs. She stumbled, righted herself, and lunged behind a thick hedge. Swallowing hard, she peered around it. There was nothing to see, and yet the voices were becoming clearer—voices that likely belonged to those of Parsings, for who else would be out in such great numbers now that night was near upon them and, with it, the possibility of what could be the most fierce thunderstorm of the season?
Stay out of sight and ahead, and they will soon turn back, for surely they will not much longer risk their own lives to take yours.
She dragged the hood over her hair that would otherwise be a waving banner amid the browns and greens of the wood, then gripped the excess material at her throat with raw fingers and resumed her course. Grateful her mantle was of an earthy color and her once bright skirt muddied, she ran opposite the voices and did not look back—until the voices became shouts.
Her pursuers, numbering at least half a dozen and including the unmistakably tall Irwyn, were yet distant. However, they surely saw her as easily as she saw them. And from the angle of their approach, she knew how they had overtaken her. Whereas the uncertain footing of the wood had slowed her, they had come by way of the beaten dirt road. And now that they had seen her and abandoned the road, it would not be long before they had her.