Elizabeth Chadwick - The Running Vixen

‘Adam!’ Heulwen gave a great gasp, ran into his arms and clung to him. He took her face between his hands, fingers laced in her loose hair, and kissed her wet eyes, her cheeks, her lips, tasting the salt of sweat and tears. The swell of the imminent baby intruded between them.

‘I cannot stay, sweetheart, but I’m here,’ he said with a catch in his voice. ‘Judith says that all is going well?’

She heard the anxiety in his voice. ‘So I’m told, but it’s no consolation.’ She rubbed her face on his cloak, and realised that it was damp and cold. ‘Is it snowing?’

‘Sleet.’

‘How did your wedding feast fare?’

He snorted. ‘The same as all wedding feasts. I’ve got a splitting headache for my indulgences and Renard’s got some rare bite marks that I hope his mother never sees!’

Heulwen actually laughed through her tears and hugged him. Her burden was suddenly lighter. ‘Oh Adam, what would I—’ She broke off and cried out, clutching him as the contraction gathered with savage speed and crashed over her, and for a moment she was lost in primordial pain. He bit his lip, utterly helpless as she clawed at him.

‘They’re coming closer and harder,’ Dame Agatha muttered to Judith. ‘He shouldn’t be in here now. It isn’t decent!’

The pain receded. Heulwen pressed her forehead against him, panting.

‘I think,’ Adam said against her ear, ‘that any man who objects to vinegar-soaked sponges should be made to spend some time in the birthing chamber.’

‘Wrong!’ she managed to jest shakily. ‘He should be made to bear the baby himself.’

‘I would take your place if I could.’

‘And I’d let you…Oh!’ She grasped him again with a cry that rose with the peak of the contraction towards a scream.

‘Heulwen!’

Dame Agatha was not to be thwarted any longer and thrust herself forward between them, taking Adam’s place. ‘My lord, you must leave!’ she said forcefully. ‘There is nothing you can do here except get in our way! We will send word out as often as you need it.’

Judith, seeing the anguish on his face, took his arm and drew him firmly to the door. ‘Adam, please!’ she hissed. ‘You have overstepped the bounds far enough already.’

The contraction was easing. Heulwen slumped with relief and raised her head to look with glazed eyes towards her distraught husband. ‘I’ll be all right,’ she said, her voice breathless but level. ‘Go…please.’

‘Are you sure?’ He turned, still resisting Judith’s pull.

Heulwen nodded and clenched her jaw, trying to hold off another surge as it gathered like an incoming wave. It was impossible and she dissolved into the cramping pure agony. Dame Agatha soothed and held her, massaging her back. ‘Come on, lass, let’s have you walking again, round to the flagon, that’s it, good girl.’

Judith dragged Adam out of the room. ‘You’ve gone green,’ she snapped. ‘The last thing I need on my hands just now is a sick or fainting grown man.’

‘Is she really all right? You’re not just saying it as a sop to keep me comforted?’

Judith’s features gentled from their exasperation. ‘No, I’m not just saying it. Heulwen’s a healthy mare and the pains are coming good and strong, just as they should. Now, get out from under my feet. Find yourself something to do. I promise you’ll be the first to know any news!’

‘My lord, you have a son,’ Dame Agatha said, placing a blanketed, bawling bundle in his arms, her expression censorious, for she had not yet forgiven him for trespassing on forbidden territory.

He looked down into the baby’s scarlet face. A tiny fist had found its way out of the blanket and was waved irately beneath his nose.

‘A healthy pair o’ lungs and no mistake,’ the midwife added with satisfaction as Renard came to peer over Adam’s shoulders at his new nephew.

‘He looks as though he’s been boiled,’ Renard commented unfavourably, then gave Adam’s shoulder a bruising thump. ‘I don’t suppose you want to celebrate in Welsh mead?’

Adam took no notice. ‘Heulwen, is she all right?’

Dame Agatha saw the fear in his face and relented, her mouth softening. ‘Your lady is exhausted and somewhat bruised, the child was big and strong, but she’s taken no lasting harm.’ Her smile deepened. ‘Do not for Jesu’s sake tell her what my own husband told me after our first — that the next one would be much easier, not unless you want a piss-pot emptying over your head!’ She stood aside and gestured towards the stairs like a sentinel indicating the throne room to a menial.

Heulwen slowly lifted her lids and rested heavy eyes on her husband and the bad-tempered bundle he was holding so awkwardly in his arms.

‘I’m sorry it isn’t a girl,’ she whispered, and easy tears of exhaustion filled her eyes. ‘It would not have mattered so much then, would it?’

Adam glanced quickly towards Judith, but she was busy in the far corner of the room, well out of hearing range.

‘As long as you are safe it does not matter at all,’ he said, and meant it. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so afraid, not even on a battle eve, as I have been these last few hours.’ He leaned down and kissed her, then with a grimace carefully placed the baby in her arms. ‘He sounds like a set of Hibernian pipes. Do you suppose he’s hungry?’

Heulwen slipped down the shoulder of her bedgown and dubiously offered the baby her breast. He screeched, bumping his face against her until by accident he found the security of her nipple and covered it with a desperate gulp. As if by magic the wails ceased, replaced by small, gratified snufflings.

‘Thank heaven for that,’ Judith said tartly, giving Heulwen a steaming cup. ‘Bugloss to promote the flow of milk. It looks as if you have a glutton on your hands. I haven’t heard such a noise since Renard was born, and he still hasn’t learned to be quiet. I’ll go and fetch you something to eat. You’ll need to keep up your strength: either that, or get a wet-nurse.’

It was an excuse to leave them alone for a time. Heulwen knew she would be quite unable to eat whatever was brought. She touched the baby’s hair. It was soft and dark. His eyes were closed now, the lids lined with brownish-gold lashes. The waving arm was still, fingers fanned on her breast as he sucked. She felt his vulnerability and it tugged at her heart as much as the doubts.

At the exact moment of his birth, when he had slipped from her body, she had only been able to think of the rape. Now, alongside that memory, others warmed her. Herself and Adam and some ink stains that wrote their own story; a dish of sugared plums; a stable in Angers and the straw prickling her naked thighs as the bedstraw had done while she laboured.

She looked from her son to her husband. Adam said that it did not matter, but he had been quick to put the baby into her arms. It could be a natural male response to something so feeble and tiny. She could not tell from his face and she could not ask him.

‘How would you have him named?’ she asked into his silence.

Adam watched the busily working small jaws drawing life and comfort from her. His son or a changeling, the child was still Heulwen’s, and as he had said, an innocent. He played with a strand of her hair. They had unbraided it, following the superstition that twists and knots of any kind could impede the smooth passage of a child into the world. ‘There is only one possible name,’ he murmured. ‘He has to be Miles.’

Heulwen’s throat closed on a sob. Her body jerked as she tried to control herself, and the baby, losing his grip on security, bawled his indignation, rooted frantically until he found it again, and settled, sucking at double-speed. ‘Yes,’ she managed huskily, ‘he has to be Miles.’

Ravenstow, Summer 1128

Elene de Mortimer, seven years old, stretched out her hand and considered with pensive pride the enamelled gold betrothal ring shining on her finger. Renard would one day place her proper wedding ring there when she was a woman and old enough to be married to him. As of now they were only betrothed — pledged to each other as in the tales of the romances that her nurse sometimes read to her. He had given her another ring too, to be worn when her hand grew, but too big now. It hung on a silk cord around her neck for today, but her father said that she must put it away in her coffer when they went home.

All the grown-ups were still eating and drinking in the hall and talking about another wedding. Someone called Matilda had got married to someone called Geoffrey, and there seemed to be some kind of disagreement about whether they should have got married at all. Elene had become restless, then bored, and used the need of the privy as her excuse to leave the high dais and climb the stairs to the apartments above. Then, although knowing that she should return the moment she had emptied her bladder, curiosity had overcome caution and she had begun to explore this stout border keep that would one day be her home.

One of the rooms contained a sewing bench and two looms. A dog was asleep in a pool of sunshine near the window, but it raised its head and growled when it sensed her presence. Startled, she hurried out and came to a small wall chamber which she knew was reserved for herself and her nurse tonight. It smelt musty and dried lavender was posied everywhere to combat the odour of the stone.

A short turn up another spiralling set of stairs brought her to the lord’s chamber that one day she would share with Renard, as Lady in her own right.

A small round gazing glass was propped up on a coffer and she stopped short with a small gasp that was half awe, half delight. She had heard of such objects of course, even seen a poor imitation of one at a fairing, but they were rare and vastly expensive. Picking it up and holding it this way and that, she studied the reflection of a child with hip-length, blue-black hair, wavy and strong, a crown of fresh flowers pinned grimly in place and still defying the pins. It showed her wide-set golden-green eyes, a milky skin, a smile made gappy by missing teeth, and a mischievous expression emphasised by a small snub nose. Her father had smiled sadly at her before the ceremony, and said in a voice rough with emotion, ‘Child, you look just like your mother.’