by Kris Tualla
“You must take care not to pull it too soon, or the mother can bleed to death,” Ingrid warned. “That is the worst feil to make!”
On the way back to Akershus Castle, Sydney wondered if her feet truly floated over the pavement. Everything she saw seemed to be brighter, more colorful, portending good fortune for all. She stopped in a cobbler’s shop and purchased a large leather bag with a broad shoulder strap. She planned to take a nap, and then shop for the other items later in the afternoon. She smiled up at the gracious midday sun, and hurried back to the fortress and her children.
August 27, 1820
Sydney was called out once more in the week that Nicolas was gone. She was surprised when she returned to find him in their room, hunched over the desk, working on his chart. He looked up when she opened the door.
“Min presang!” He stood to kiss her, his wheat-colored whiskers rough against her mouth. He smelled of smoke, road dust and pine. “I have so much to tell you!”
Sydney leaned into him. “And I want to hear everything, husband.”
Nicolas turned to his task. “I’ll tell you in a bit. It’s late in the day, and I need to finish this. What shall I wear to dinner?”
“Dinner?”
But he was already too absorbed to respond. Tomas was putting away Nicolas’s clothes and he held out a waistcoat and frockcoat for Sydney to approve. She nodded. Haldis laid out a gown for her and helped her dress. Maribeth came from the adjoining room with Kirstie and Stefan.
Stefan ran to his father. “Pappa! You’re back!”
Nicolas pulled his attention away from his project and faced his son. “That I am! And what have you been doing?”
“I made a friend. His name is Leif and he lives in the stable.”
“Does he? And does he speak English?”
Stefan shook his head. “I have to talk to him in Norse.”
“Og hvordan er det draen?” And how is that going?
Stefan giggled. “Det drar godt, Pappa!” It goes well, Pappa!
Sydney reached for Kirstie. “Is she eating?”
“Yes, and very well, madam. But I think she misses the breast.” Maribeth glanced at Tomas.
He watched her intently and blushed when their eyes met. He turned away.
“I’ll nurse her once again after dinner. I’m not ready to stop any more than she is!”
“Very good. I’ll not let her fall asleep too early, in that case. Come, Stefan!” Maribeth took the children.
Nicolas stood to change out of his traveling clothes. Tomas took away his soiled breeches and shirt, then handed him a clean towel.
Nicolas washed his face, neck and upper torso before donning a ruffled linen shirt and doeskin breeches. Tomas helped him into the waistcoat and stood aside with the frockcoat at ready.
Though excited to tell him about pursuing her new avocation, curiosity about his trip was still foremost in Sydney’s mind. As Haldis helped her wash and change into one of her new gowns, she wondered why Nicolas was so quiet. Twice she attempted to draw information from him, but he brushed her off. Warmly, to be sure, but brushed her off just the same.
She supposed he would tell her later; but first, she had to sit through dinner.
Sigrid, who had not spoken a word to Sydney the entire week, sidled up to Nicolas as soon as he appeared.
“Darling! Did you survive your journey with my father? It was not too tedious, was it?” she murmured and melted against him.
Nicolas tried to unobtrusively scrape her off his person. “On the contrary, Duchess, it was very productive.”
“I missed you at dinner. Conversation was not nearly as compelling without you!” she purred, sticking to him like cat hair.
Nicolas smiled and rubbed his knuckle under his nose. “After but a few days, you have become that accustomed to my repartee?”
“No.” Her voice dropped in pitch and volume. “After thirteen years, Nicolas, I learned well how to miss you.”
Sydney’s pleasant expression did not change, but her grip on her husband’s arm tightened. “Shall we go in?”
“Will you excuse us, Duchess?” Nicolas bowed to Sigrid, then led Sydney to their seats.
***
Sydney rocked and hummed as she nursed Kirstie. The baby girl’s blue-gray eyes were dark in firelight, just like her father’s. Her lids drooped as she fought sleep to nurse longer. Sydney stroked her dark golden curls and kissed her forehead. Finally she succumbed and let go of the breast with a soft pop.
Sydney smiled as she laid her in bed. Each time, delivering the babies took her back to the moment that Kirstie slid out of her own body, pink and perfect. She was such a miracle.
“Beautiful,” Nicolas whispered from the doorway to their room. Sydney looked up, her dress gaping open. “Come to me, wife. I have need of you.”
Sydney happily obliged.
Nicolas undressed her slowly and his mouth tasted each portion of skin as he revealed it. His beard’s roughness was a sensual counterpoint to the softness of his lips. Sydney trembled at his touch and her breath exhaled in small hums. She twisted her fingers in his hair, dislodging it from the leather tie and making him appear enticingly disreputable.
“Don’t delay too long, husband. I have need of you, as well.”
Nicolas lifted her and laid her, naked, on the bed. He stripped quickly. Climbing over her, urgent and ready, he took her with vigor. Sydney responded in kind, caught in a tumble of desire and need. She pushed against him, wreathed in his musky male scent. When she peaked, her eyes rolled back and, for a brief moment, she felt weightless. Nicolas’s post-pinnacle sag on top of her pushed her back down to earth.
They lay entwined and unmoving. He dozed, snoring breathily against her temple. Sydney knew he was exhausted by his travels, and satiated with ample food, drink and sex. But he awoke after an hour, and, to her pleasant surprise, took her again.
Chapter Thirteen
August 28, 1820
“Madam?” Haldis whispered.
Sydney opened her eyes; it was neither night nor day. “Yes?”
“Agnes is here for you.”
“What time is it?”
Haldis looked at the clock on the mantel. “Almost five.”
“Tell her, my husband, home, um, not talk...”
“What are you attempting to say?” Nicolas mumbled from the other side of the bed.
Sydney turned to him. “Tell Agnes that my husband just returned from a journey. Come back in four hours and get me. I shall come then.” Nicolas gave Haldis the message.
“Very good, madam.”
Nicolas opened one eye. “What do you mean ‘get’ you? For what?”
Sydney snuggled close to him. “I’ll explain later. When we rise at a decent hour.”
The sun was fully up when Haldis carried in a breakfast tray. Nicolas bounced from their tangled nest of blankets to relieve himself in the piss pot behind the screen. The clock chimed the half hour, and Sydney rolled over to make sure which hour it was half past.
Oh, good. Seven-thirty.
Tomas entered and prepared Nicolas’s toilette. Emerging from the screen, Nicolas sat in front of the mirror. Tomas sharpened the razor while Nicolas lathered the brush. Haldis laced Sydney into a simple gown.
“What was that about this morning?” Nicolas asked Sydney in English, looking at her in the mirror.
“Agnes, the girl who came to fetch me, works for Ingrid Olavsen. She’s the midwife whom I assisted on our first night here.”
“Oh, yes. With Eirik’s English wife. I remember. Why are you her concern?”
“She has agreed to take me on as an apprentice. I’m learning mid-wifery.”
Nicolas spun to look at her, seriously risking his neck in the process. “You are what?”
Sydney leveled her gaze at Nicolas while Tomas, wide-eyed, held the straight razor in midair. “I am learning to be a midwife.”
“Why?”
“So when we return to Cheltenham, women have a
second option. You, of all people, must understand that! And, besides—” Sydney faltered.
“And?”
Sydney chewed her lower lip, begging Nicolas with her eyes not to laugh or poke fun. Or be angry.
“Sydney? Tell me!” he rumbled.
She pulled a deep breath. “And because it is the most amazing experience in the world to, to, guide a brand new baby—a brand new life—from its mother’s body into a sudden and independent existence of its own!” Sydney’s voice lifted and she pantomimed the actions as she spoke. “Truly, Nicolas, there is absolutely nothing else on earth like it!”
Nicolas turned back to the mirror. “I see.”
“I have helped deliver two more babies since Lady Linnet.”
Nicolas did not respond.
“I wanted to tell you last night, but I did not have the opportunity.”
Nicolas’s eyes met Sydney’s in the mirror. “I’m not sure that I approve.”
“Approve?” Sydney was confused.
“In our position it might not be appropriate.”
“Our position? What do you mean, ‘our position’?” Sydney stepped behind her husband and frowned at his reflection. His eyes flickered to the desk.
Sydney crossed to it and stood over his chart of the royal family. There were three circles: one around Karl Fredericksen and the notation ‘54’, one around Espen Canutesen and ‘no heir’, and one around three initials, N.R.H.
Sydney spun to face him.
Nicolas regarded her with his unflinching blue gaze. Tomas glanced at Haldis and uncomfortably shifted his feet. Challenging what she saw, Sydney jutted her jaw.
“What is inappropriate about learning a skill that is needed in the Territory?”
“Sydney, you must discuss these things with me first. It’s of the utmost importance!” Nicolas scowled.
“That’s what I’m doing now, Nicolas.” She tipped her head toward the chart. “It’s a good policy for both of us, is it not?”
He turned in the chair to face her again. “But you have already set yourself on this course!”
“Are you set on a course?” Sydney glared at her husband.
“This discussion is not about me.” The scar on Nicolas’s cheek whitened in a face that was reddening but not from his shave.
“Are you forbidding me to continue?”
Nicolas ran his hand through his hair. “Yes! No. I don’t know!”
Tomas backed away from Nick’s chair. Haldis busied herself with straightening the bed and the room. Neither one of them looked at the couple.
Sydney narrowed her eyes and rested her hands on her hips. “Agnes will be back to fetch me at nine if the babe is not yet born. May I go with her?”
Nicolas regarded his wife darkly. “Are you expected?”
“I was expected at five this morning.”
Nicolas stared at Sydney for a silent minute, then waved to Tomas to continue his shave.
“You may go this day. But we will need to discuss this matter at more length before you continue.”
“Yes… Sir.”
Nicolas’s eyes jumped to hers. She smiled sweetly and went to check the supplies in her leather bag. “I’m going to feed Kirstie now. I’ll be in the next room if you need me.”
Nicolas’s eyes followed her out of the room.
***
“They argued this morning.”
“Oh? What about?”
“It was in English. But Tomas said it was about her becoming a midwife.”
A sharp hiss of inhaled breath. “She wants to be a midwife? Good Lord! She’s more colonial than we first thought!”
Another voice, “This will most certainly not do. Not at all.”
“Was it resolved?” the first man asked.
“I do not believe so.”
“Did he try at all to dissuade her?”
She shrugged. “Tomas didn’t tell me. But he had her look at a chart he made.”
“What’s on the chart?” the first voice asked.
“Names.”
“Whose?”
“The royal family—with lines and circles.”
“Was there anything else?”
Haldis nodded, unsure if they could see her. “She does not seem pleased that he may be king.”
“And him?”
She thought a moment. “I think he might like to be.”
“Interesting. Thank you, Haldis. You’ve done well today.”
***
Sydney sat on a bench in the garden and squinted at the overcast sky. Heavy, uneven clouds in mottles of gray and lavender obscured the sun, and a wet breeze redolent of both sea salt and rain water swirled around the manicured grounds. A few brave drops darkened the footpath.
“It’s an unusual day for a walk, husband.”
“It was important that we talk out here. The walls have ears, Sydney,” Nicolas said, his voice low.
“Ears?”
“And eyes. Nothing, not one single thing, that passes between us is private inside the castle.”
Sydney frowned. “Who is listening?”
“Everyone.”
“Are you sure?” Sydney glanced over her shoulder at the ancient castle walls behind them.
Nicolas shrugged and took her hand. “It’s always safest to assume so. If we need to talk privately, we must do so out in the open. Then no one can get close enough to eavesdrop.”
“All right.”
“Make no mistake, Sydney. I am absolutely serious about this.” Nicolas leaned closer. “This may concern life and death matters.”
She nodded.
Nicolas pressed his lips to her ear, eyes lowered. “Do you truly understand me?”
Sydney rolled her eyes. “Yes, Nicolas. I do. Anything that we say or do in the castle will be public knowledge. I may be American, but I’m not unaware of royal intrigues.”
She smiled warmly up at him, then, looking for all the world like a contented, loving wife. “And might we use that to our advantage?” she whispered.
Nicolas ran his hand through his hair. “Oh, yes, indeed we shall. It will be our most powerful tool.”
“And we speak in English when we need to be private, then.”
“And Norse when we wish them to hear us? Perfect, min presang.” Nicolas laughed.
Sydney considered her husband. “Did you discover what they want from you?”
“I did.” Nicolas stood in front of her and rested his hands on his hips. “There are those that wish me to relinquish my holdings here and go back to America. They don’t consider me to have any rights at all in this land.”
“And?”
“And then there are those that wish me to support the favorite candidate in his quest for the crown.”
“Is the favorite Karl or Espen?”
Nicolas shrugged. “That’s not determined as yet. Karl is Frederick’s son, true. But by the mistress, not the wife. The fact that he has an heir helps him some.”
“And Espen?”
“Not married, no heir. And, he told me he has no intent to marry for the purpose of advancing his career. But he is a legitimate descendent of Frederick. And his father backs him strongly.”
Sydney nodded and waited, nervously spinning her garnet wedding ring around her cold finger, its deep color that of dried blood. In the dim day, the stone refused to flicker, as though it sensed her mood.
“And then there are some…” Nicolas ran his hand through his hair again, and squinted up at the lowering sky. “Some who want me to claim the throne.”
Her heart lurched, though the statement wasn’t a surprise. Why else would they be here? She kept her voice level. “On what basis?”
Nicolas held up fingers and marked them as he spoke. “I am a direct descendent of Christian the sixth. I am Norse. I have an heir.”
Sydney stared hard at her husband. “Do you wish to be the king of Norway, Nicolas?”
He didn’t answer. He stared at the gravel path.
“Nick?
” she prodded.
He jerked and fixed her with an intense stare. “I think not.”
She pulled a steadying breath. His eyes, dark as a midnight sky, didn’t move from hers. “Do you know why I insisted that we accompany you on this journey?” she murmured.
His expression softened. “You said that you could not live without me.”
“Well, there is that.” Sydney smiled and stood to face her husband.
“Is there aught else?”
Sydney pinched her lips between her teeth and nodded.
“What is it, Sydney?”
She lifted her chin. “I didn’t want to be left behind, should you choose to stay.”
“What!” Nicolas stepped back, hands flying out to the side. “How could you believe that I would do such a thing?”
“I never believed you intended that. But politics, royalty and ambition are a dangerous—and seductive—mixture.”
“And?” he barked.
Sydney grasped his arm. “And there was no way to anticipate what sort of pressures they might have put on you.”
“I’m not a weak man, Sydney!”
“No, Nicolas, you most certainly are not! But you are only one man; perhaps against many.” Sydney slid her arms around his waist, under his frock coat. “I believed it was safer for us to be here with you. Was I wrong?”
His jaw clenched, making the scar visible, and he stared down at her.
“No,” he finally whispered. He pulled her close against his large, warm, and very solid chest.
Chapter Sixteen
August 30, 1820
Nicolas waved his hand in concession and leaned on his thighs, panting and sweating.
Espen straightened, lowering his blade. He wiped his brow on his sleeve and retrieved a jug of water. After several gulps, he handed it to Nicolas.
“Is it the weather? Or the exertion?” Espen asked.
“Both!” Nicolas shook his head. “I fear the journey has sapped my stamina.” He finished the water in the jug.
“Your skills are still evident.” Espen’s tone held a touch of envy. “You always bested me as a youth.”
