The priest shrugged and looked honestly bewildered.

Then Katherine, calling all her housefolk together and the reeve, had issued a command forbidding them to hold Ket's rite this May Eve. They had said nothing, merely listened to her and dispersed silently. But she had heard the reeve's mocking laugh and Milburga's high - pitched whinny in the courtyard.

"I told you, Milburga, that I forbid this thing tonight," said Katherine, trying to speak with dignity. "I expect to be obeyed."

The maid's lips twitched. "To be sure, lady. So I needn't warn Molly?"

"Certainly not!"

Thus it was that night, an hour after sundown, that Katherine felt her first pains and found herself alone, deserted by all the housefolk. They had fed her her supper, and Katherine, not dreaming that they would defy her and being still in a restless mood, had gone up to the solar and sitting by the window with her lute, strummed random chords while she tried to remember a song she had sung at Bolingbroke.

She took pleasure in her music, and though mostly self - taught, had become a fair player, so that at first she did not notice the growing sharpness of an ache in her back. But the pain grew more insistent, and she stood up, thinking to ease the cramp. Sure enough, it ebbed. She leaned out of the window, gazing idling into the dark forest beyond the moat and thinking of Hugh. She had had no news of him except that given her by the Duchess in January of his arrival overseas, but she had expected none. Even if he had found someone to write a letter for him, whom could he have sent to deliver it? Yet he had hoped to be home in May and perhaps he might be. It seemed to her that if he came she would be neither sorry nor glad, though she would feign gladness.

She sighed, then tensed, holding on to the rough stone of the embrasure and hearing her own startled breathing. The ache in her legs and back had returned more strongly, and this time before ebbing sent a stab of pain up through her loins.

She ran to the door and down the stairs calling "Milburga!" There was no answer; no lights in Hall or empty kitchen, where the embers had been raked under the curfew for the night. She went out into the quiet court and clenched her hands while another pain came and went. "Toby!" she shouted underneath the gatehouse windows. Though the bridge was down the keeper was not there.

She stumbled to Gibbon's hut, and flung the door open.

"God's wounds, what is it?" cried the man's slow voice in the darkness. "Is it you, my lady? Open the shutter." After a moment she obeyed, and he saw her in the gloaming light. She was crouching, her arms laced tight across her belly.

"Jesu - " whispered the sick man. "Poor creature, so your time has come - but lady, go up to bed, send for the midwife. Oh ay - I'd forgot - God blast them all - they've gone to Ket's hill." A spasm twisted his yellow face. "Is no one here?"

"No - one," she gasped, "and I dare not try to reach the village."

" 'Twould do no good, there'd be nobody there. I heard them go - they were laughing, shouting drunken songs." The veins corded on his forehead. "Devil take this stinking useless body of mine - "

"What shall I do, Gibbon?" she asked dully.

"Go to your bed." He spoke briskly to hearten her. "It can't be long before they come back. I'll listen and shout, send someone to you. Be brave for a little while, it won't be long." Though he knew well that last year they had stayed the night through at their wicked rites.

"Ay," she said, "I'll go to bed. That would be best." She could not think for herself, and Gibbon's words brought her relief. "The pains're not so bad," she added, trying to smile. "Not near so dreadful as I'd heard."

Not yet, poor lady, he thought, turning his head from her innocent face. She groped her way through the door. She crept up to the solar and throwing off her gown lay on the sheet in her shift. The night was warm, but had it not been, she would have needed no covering, for soon the sweat began to pour off her heaving body.

Towards midnight Gibbon, lying in the hut, heard the first scream shrill down across the courtyard, and slow tears oozed from beneath his shut lids. In her tower - room, the Lady Nichola too heard the scream, and raised her head, wondering. She had been dripping water from a flagon into a clay pot and carefully greeting the drops as they fell.

This mater for self, this water for elf,

Nixie, pixie, kelpie, sylph.

She was about her own May Eve rites. The cat, a full - grown tabby now, lay curled on the bed, purring lazily.

When Nichola heard the strange sound again, she put the flagon down on the hearth and spoke to the cat. "Are they calling me, sweeting, d'you think? Is it She Who Lives in the Holy Well?"

Then she shook her head; into her staring dark eyes there came a look of anxiety, for dimly through the floating mists she felt the hard stab of human urgency. She smoothed down her rumpled widow's weeds and bound her greying hair into a must - stained coif. She picked up a twisted rush and lit it at the fire. "I must see what they want," she said, stroking the cat. "I'll not be long - - "

She wandered down the stone steps in the tower and across the guard - room to the outside stairs, when she heard the sound again. She knew it came from the solar and was puzzled. She pushed the door slowly open and stood holding the rush dip high, gazing into the dark room.

The sounds came from something on the bed where she had once slept herself with her lord. What was it on the bed that writhed and tossed, and ever and again gave forth a wailing cry?

She moved nearer and saw a mass of tangled hair and two wild eyes in a glistening face.

"Hugh's bride?" she whispered, unbelieving. She blinked, leaned over the bed and seeing red stains, cried, "What has been done to you, Hugh's bride?"

"For the love of God, lady!" cried Katherine, " 'tis my baby that will not be born." She grabbed at Nichola's hand, clenching it until the bones cracked, and with the pain from that desperate grip the shadows receded in Nichola's mind.

She had borne no child herself but she had seen birth once long ago on her father's manor. She sat on the bed and held Katherine's hands, nor winced when the girl pulled on them frantically; and between the pains she murmured soothing words and wiped the sweat - drenched face with a corner of the sheet.

Presently Katherine quietened a little, falling into an exhausted doze until the grey dawn light filtered into the solar and the larks and thrushes trilled beneath the forest window. Then the girl's labouring body renewed its struggle.

The sun had climbed above the forest top when she was delivered at last.

"Oh, what is it?" Katherine cried when she could speak again. "Does it live? Is it all right?" She tried to raise herself and fell back panting.

" 'Tis a baby girl," said Nichola slowly, staring down at the bed. "It seems all right, I think - but I remember - there is something needs to be done - " She fumbled at her girdle, where she kept the little knife she used for cutting herbs. She bound the cord tight with a strip torn from the sheet, then clipped sharply. The baby gasped and let out a wavering cry. Nichola started when she heard the cry. She pulled the linen coif from her head and wrapped the baby in it, then cradled the little bundle against her chest.

"Ah, let me see her," Katherine whispered, holding out her arms. "Give her to me - - "

Nichola drew back a step, uncertainty came into her face, which had been sure and intent before. "What do you want, Hugh's bride?" she asked in a high singing tone, shaking her head. "What is it that you want?"

"I want to see my baby, bring her here, lady - " The girl, all dazed and numb, could not understand why this woman, who had been her only comfort the night long, should back away and shake her head. Neither of them heard a commotion in the courtyard below, men's voices and the clop of horses' hooves.

The baby whimpered and Nichola, bending quickly, kissed its face. "Ah there, my dearling," she crooned, "my pretty one you want to see them, don't you? We'll go now by the river - "

Deadly fear smote Katherine. "Lady!" she cried. "Come here!" Nichola backed yet another step towards the door. She looked at Katherine slyly and said, "You'd take her from me but she's mine -"

"Jesu, Jesu - -" Katherine whispered; she lurched upright on the bed and would have leaped on to the floor, but she dared not, for she saw Nichola glance sideways at the door and that she strained the bundle ever tighter to her chest. Katherine mastered the chattering of her teeth. "And if she's yours lady," she said and forced a coaxing tone, while she tried to hold the black eyes with her own, "you must tend her carefully; she may be cold, you know, so put her down a moment and stir up the fire that you may warm her - "

Nichola stood hesitant, looking from Katherine to the dark fireplace, then she shook her head again. "Nay, I think not. They of the river want to see her first. I must hasten - " She put her hand on the door latch. Katherine stumbled from the bed - and screamed and lurched across the room. She screamed again, for Nichola ran through the door, while footsteps clattered up the stairs.

The woman shrank by the open door, cowering over the baby. A man stood on the landing staring at them with amazement.

"Oh, stop her, stop her!" Katherine sobbed. "She's stealing my baby!" Swift as light the man leaned down and took the bundle from Nichola, who let out a long, quivering moan. He put the baby on the bed, then turned to the panting girl who had fallen to her knees on the floor. "In God's name, Katherine!" he cried, and picking her up in his arms he laid her on the bed beside the baby. She stared up at him, seeing vivid blue eyes frowning with concern in a sun - bronzed face. "My Lord Duke," she whispered in feeble wonder, and then his eyes and the room and Nichola's moaning faded into greyness.