The Captive Heart (39 page)

Several hours passed, and the midnight hour came and went. Alix’s labor, which had begun with a sharp pain and then subsided into bearable ones, now began to increase in ferocity as Fenella had made her walk back and forth. The young woman bit her lip until it bled. When Fenella asked her why she would not cry out Alix told her she didn’t want to awaken Fiona and frighten her.

“Jeannie is sleeping with your daughter,” Fenella said in practical tones. “If she awakens to your screams the lass will calm Fiona.”

The door opened to admit Bab. “Is the child not born yet? The laird has worn a groove in the floor of the hall with all his pacing.”

“She does not want to scream,” Fenella said.

“My lady! Screaming is part of the birthing,” Bab told her. “If you do not scream the child will think you do not want him.”

Alix screamed as a pain tore through her. “Oh God, it hurts!” she cried.

“Good! Good!” Bab approved.

“Help me get her onto the chair,” Fenella said, and together the two women lifted Alix into the large high-backed chair. It had a hole in its seat, and the arms of the chair were strong and wide. Bab spread cloths beneath the opening. Fenella peered beneath it. “You are almost ready, my lady,” she promised.

Alix screamed again and then again.

In the hall below Malcolm Scott heard his wife’s cries. He had gone through this process once before when Fiona had been born, but he had forgotten how heart-wrenching the cries of a woman giving birth could be. He remembered Robena’s screams as she birthed Fiona, and her screams afterwards learning her child was a daughter, for she had wanted a son, had wanted to never be with child again. What if Alix had another daughter? Would she be angry? At first they had referred to the child she carried as
it
but of late it had been
he
,
him
, or
the lad
. Alix had even asked if they might baptize a first son James for the late king and Alexander for her deceased father. They had no name for a daughter, but it could indeed be a daughter. And if it was, would Alix, like Robena, refuse to bear him another child? Would she take the chance that she might bear another daughter? He paced back and forth until finally Iver put a goblet of wine in his hand.

“Sit down, my lord. Sit down. You know these things evolve in their own time and not a moment before,” his steward said soothingly.

“What if it is a lass, Iver?” the laird asked. “What if it is like the last time?”

“My lord, all are certain it is a son, but should it be a daughter you and the lady will pray once more for a son,” Iver replied. “This wife is nothing like the other wife.”

The keep slept but for its laird, his wife, and her attendants. Malcolm Scott sat by his hearth with his steward. When the fire would burn low Iver would add more wood to it. The night deepened and began to move slowly toward a new day. And then as the skies outside of the great hall’s windows began to show gray both men sat up, startled, as a great shriek echoed throughout the keep. They looked at each other, and then the laird jumped to his feet and, taking the stairs two at a time, burst into his wife’s bedchamber.

Alix lay abed, soaking wet from her exertions, her honey-blond hair sticking to her face, but she had a smile upon her face. Fenella turned, and in her hands was a naked, red-faced infant who was howling at the top of its lungs. The child flailed its little arms and legs about as it roared. The housekeeper had all she could do to hold on to the baby, but she was smiling too.

Malcolm Scott stared at the newborn. Two arms. Two legs. A penis, and a sac beneath it containing two balls.
“A son!”
he breathed ecstatically.

“Aye, my lord, a son!” Fenella said. “Dunglais has an heir of your loins!”

The laird took the baby from her, holding him gently against his chest. The child was moist with his birthing and a slick of blood. Malcolm Scott looked down at him. “James Alexander Scott, welcome home!” he said quietly and, bending, he kissed the boy’s wet dark head.

“Give me the laddie,” Bab said, and she took the infant from its father, rolling her eyes towards Alix. “He must be cleaned and swaddled. Help me, Fenella.”

The laird turned to Alix and, going to her, helped her from the birthing chair. She was naked and obviously very tired. “Thank you,” he said softly to her. And, enfolding her in his arms, he kissed her tenderly.

Alix sagged against him, exhausted. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” she whispered, and then she collapsed against him, her eyes closing.

Malcolm Scott walked to the bed and tucked her into it. She was already sound asleep, and he smiled down at her. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but there would be time later. “I love you, lambkin,” he murmured as he bent to kiss her again.

“We’ll take care of her, my lord,” Fenella said as he turned back to see his son. “Sit down here in this chair while we get the laddie ready for you.”

He sat silently as they cleaned the infant free of all evidence of his birth and wrapped him in swaddling clothes. Then, smiling, they tucked him in the crook of the laird’s arm. He sat contentedly as they then set to work bathing his wife with a sponge and putting her into a night garment. Alix never woke up. The laird gazed down on his newborn son, who was now quiet and staring back at his father. The child had large round blue eyes and was very fair. Startled, Malcolm Scott realized it was like looking into a mirror of himself. There was no doubt who this child’s sire was, he chuckled.

“You’ve an older sister,” he said. “Her name is Fiona, and you’ll meet her tomorrow. And you’ll respect me, for I’m your father, and respect and be good to your mother who just birthed you. She’s the love of my life, lad. I hope you’ll find a love like ours one day. And about your name. You bear the name of two fine gentlemen. My friend, James Stewart, who was king of this land. And your mother’s father, a physician. You must never bring shame on your names, lad. Any of them. You’re of Clan Scott, a respected name here in the borders. We are honest men, and faithful to Scotland and to our king. I want you to remember that.”

James Alexander Scott yawned a mighty yawn and then, closing his eyes, fell asleep in his father’s arms.

The laird chuckled. “Bab,” he called. “Take the bairn and set him in his cradle. He’ll stay with his mam and me for now.”

Bab grinned, showing several missing teeth. “I’ll watch over him, my lord,” she said. She cradled the infant looking down at him. “And protect him with my life.”

“You’re a good woman for an Englisher,” Malcolm Scott said.

“And you’re a good man for a Scot,” Bab shot back.

Chuckling, the Laird of Dunglais left his wife and child and, going down to the hall where the sleepy servants were now arriving to begin a new day, he said, “Rejoice with me and praise God and his Blessed Mother! Dunglais has a healthy son and heir!”

And the servants, now awake with their delight, cheered lustily at the laird’s announcement.

It had taken Sir Udolf Watteson three days to be freed from his bonds. Finally one of his serving men, the only one who seemed left in his house, came into the hall and released his master. He was dying of thirst, and had pissed himself a dozen times over during his captivity. “Where the hell were you?” he demanded of his servant as the man untied the priest, who was in an equally unfortunate condition.

“My lord, we were all bound and then imprisoned in the pantry,” the man said. “When one of us finally managed to get free, the others were released.”

“And where are the others?” Sir Udolf wanted to know.

“Gone, my lord,” the serving man replied in a low voice.

“But you remained because of your loyalty to me,” Sir Udolf said.

“Aye, my lord!” the servant responded.

The master of Wulfborn Hall knocked the man before him to the floor. “Liar!” he shouted. “You returned to see if I was dead, and had I been you would have stolen what you could from my house!” He kicked the cringing servant, who was trying to inch away from the angry man.

The serving man scrambled to his feet. “Nay, my lord! Nay! I am loyal. Were I not I should not have freed you and the priest from your bonds.”

“He is being truthful, my lord,” Father Peter said in a raspy voice.

“Go and tell the others they had best return to the hall or I shall set the sheriff upon them. When they are caught they will be branded as runaways so they cannot run ever again,” Sir Udolf snarled. “Jesu! I stink of my own piss!” And his nose wrinkled in disgust. “I need to bathe. See the tub is set up in the kitchens and filled with hot water,” he directed the servant. “When that is done, you will go and fetch the others back.”

The serving man scuttled off to do his lord’s bidding.

“My lord,” the priest began, “I hope you realize how fortunate we are to be alive. The lady saved your life, although her husband would have been justified in taking it to serve honor. The other lords with him advised him not to heed her advice, but he did. We must thank God we were spared.”

Sir Udolf Watteson glared at Father Peter. Had he not been a priest, the lord of Wulfborn would have struck him to the floor in his fury. “If God indeed spared us, Priest, it was so I might have my revenge upon that bold Scot and that whore he calls his wife. I will kill him! And then I will make that little bitch take her place by my side as she should. I will fuck her until she gives me a son. And then I will keep fucking her so she bears me more sons until she is worn with birthing and her tits are no longer firm and round, but slack from all the sucking my sons will do upon her. She is mine! I have a dispensation to wed her that says so. She will not continue to defy me or the church!”

The priest drew in a long breath. “My lord,” he said softly, “let this anger and lust that is so consuming you go. The lady is another’s wife.”

“Priest, do not try my patience,” Sir Udolf said grimly. “I will go to the king about this matter. I will have my justice!”

“My lord, what influence have you with this new king? Be reasonable,” Father Peter advised. “You sheltered a fleeing king while another was crowned in his place. If that were to get out, you could lose all you have. And you seek to marry the goddaughter of that disposed king’s queen. Think, my lord, think! Why would King Edward give you aid and comfort? He won’t, and you may endanger yourself in the process. Alix Givet does not want you as a husband. She made that patently clear when she ran away. She has wed another man. Is having his child. Why do you persist in embarrassing yourself over this woman? I can find you a good wife, my lord. A woman of childbearing years. A widow who has already proved fecund. A virgin if you prefer. Do not shame yourself over what has happened.”

“I will have my justice, and I will have my revenge,” Sir Udolf answered the priest. “She is responsible for my son’s death. If she had been a better wife to him he would have left the miller’s daughter and cared not if she died in childbed. His heart would have not been broken when Maida died. He would not have died. I offered Alix Givet a home, a place of honor within my house and my family. I sheltered her father in his last days and buried him honorably. And then she repays my kindness when I wish to make her my wife by whoring with another man, carrying his bastard!” The lord of Wulfborn Hall had begun to foam slightly at the mouth with his fury. “I will have my justice and my revenge, Priest!” he repeated.
“I will!”

The priest sighed unhappily. The madness that had afflicted his master over the matter of Alix Givet was not abating. Only the return of the servant announcing that Sir Udolf’s bath was ready caused him to cease his pleas. And he too needed to bathe himself, for he stank from their three-day captivity. “I will leave you, my lord, to refresh yourself,” Father Peter said. And he bowed himself from Sir Udolf’s presence to return to his own little cottage near his church. The fire was almost out, but the wood box was full. He soon had the flames in his hearth dancing merrily.

Heating some water, he stripped off his garments and scrubbed his scrawny frame free of odor. He did not allow himself the luxury of bathing too often, for it was a vanity he could ill afford, but the circumstances today warranted a thorough cleansing of his person. He hurried, however, through his ablutions for the air was icy. Then he redressed himself in a clean chemise and his only other robe. Clean and dry, he knelt down on the stone floor of his cottage and began to pray. Father Peter hoped his pride was not deceiving him, but he believed if he just had some more time he might convince Sir Udolf to let go of his anger and his disappointment so that he might find another to wed.

And it seemed as if God was answering Father Peter’s prayers. Sir Udolf grew ill with an ague the following day, taking to his bed for the next several weeks. Some of the servants, although not all of them, had returned. While Sir Udolf lay abed he knew little about the state of his household except there was a woman who came to care for him during the day and a young man who sat by his bedside at night. He was spoon fed soup and a gruel of porridge and heated wine into which an egg and some spices were beaten. By the time he had recovered enough to get out of his bed the hard winter had set into Northumbria, and travel of any kind was next to impossible. But with the coming of winter the remaining servants had returned to Wulfborn Hall, slipping quietly back into the roles they had previously held.

Father Peter pursued his campaign to get Sir Udolf to consider other candidates for his hand. “Sir David Sheffield has a much younger half sister from his father’s second marriage. She is no more than twenty, and has not yet had a husband,” he said to Sir Udolf. “Her dower is small, ’tis true, but her reputation is excellent, my lord.”

“I have seen her” came the answer. “She is a plain creature with mouse-brown hair and a long nose. And how could I be certain she was fertile?”

“Her mother had two sons as well as the daughter, my lord. And then her husband died. Who knows how many more children she would have born her lord had he not?”