by Stone, Lyn
“Nay,” came the answer. “I canna.”
“Do it or die,” Alan ordered quietly.
“My leg’s broke,” the raspy voice declared. “Put her down there.” The tip of the sword waved toward the darkened fire hole and a lumpy nest of furs beside it. From the look of the bedding, the old one had just scrambled out of it. He hoped the fleas went, too.
Alan knelt and laid Honor on her side. “There, sweeting. I’ll have a fire going afore ye know it.”
“No fire!” the ancient voice squeaked. “The soldiers!”
“Th’ war’s done,” Alan announced quietly as he straightened the bedding and reached in his sporran for flint. He made a quick search and located a stack of peat. As he set about coaxing a blaze, he continued to reassure their host or hostess. “Rob Bruce has set the English running south. There’s naught to fear hereabouts. I am Sir Alan of Strode, Lord of Byelough. I’d have your help if you know aught of birthing.”
The clink of metal against stone told him the sword had been laid aside for the moment.
“I know much of it but I canna move m’ leg to aid ye. Broke it just this morn when I fell from th’ roof.”
Alan fashioned a small torch from a broken stool’s leg and stuck it upright in the dirt floor. Honor lay quietly, panting and holding her middle. Her face looked pinched and colorless but she seemed to be between pains at the moment. He brushed a hand over her shoulder and gave her a soft pat. Then he duckwalked the few ells to the pallet in the corner.
The figure reached for the weapon and Alan scoffed. “Leave off, will ye? I’ll tend yer leg. I’ve set bones aplenty.”
At closer range he could see the figure was an old woman, frizzled gray hair all awry, rheumy eyes wild as a woods creature’s. He smiled to put her at ease. “Have ye a name, then, lassie?”
The crone cackled at the address, “Aye. I be Old May.”
“Fair as a day in May,” Alan sang in a low, suggestive voice as he examined the spindly limb he had uncovered. A simple break with no bones showing, he thought with relief. His hands fit completely around the appendage, grasping at either side of the break and neatly fitting the bone back together. The old dame screeched once and then settled into a regular breathing of grunts.
“I’ve done. Don’t ye move till I get it bound.” He found a few old rags for binding and used the broken seat of the stool for a brace. “There now. Ye owe me, May. What must we do for my lady there?”
“Two knives,” May declared. “Here, this’ll do fer one.” She offered the rusted sword. “Lay it under the furs.”
Alan lowered his brows and recoiled from the ruined weapon.
“T’ cut th’ pain!” May instructed. “Now, have ye another?”
Alan pulled his sgian dubh from his boot and held it up. Light reflected off the perfect blade. He looked at the woman.
“Fer th’ cord, lad. Ye must cut th’ cord.”
“Th’ noo? How?” Alan squeaked, his voice breaking much as it had when he was a lad.
“Nay, ye cork-brain, after the babe comes. Fer th’ noo, we wait. There’s herbs fer possets and a bit o’ brew for us when all’s done. There be some water in th’ pail, but ye mun be fetchin’ more from th’ burn. Get to it.”
“I canna leave her,” Alan said, holding his voice steady now. Steady and determined. “I will not.”
The crone sighed and flapped a hand. “Drag me over by her and I’ll stand watch for ye. No hurry, though. I expect she’ll do nothin’ much in the next wee while.”
Alan did as Old May demanded. When he returned, the sound emanating from the pallet of furs made him drop to his knees and scramble forward. “Honor? Honor, don’t ye die on me, lass,” he ordered brusquely.
“She isna dying, ye great toad! Get some water in that pot and heat it for her soothin’ drink.”
Alan leapt to do her bidding, amazed that taking orders in a terrifying situation came so much easier than giving them. For the first time, he understood the blind obedience of the men he had led into battle. This was a battle of sorts, he reasoned, one for which he had no training. Best let the old wart take charge. “Well?” he asked, awaiting his next task.
“Ye sit by yer lass and wait it out. Shouldna be long by my reckoning. Ye’ll have ta pull the bairn yerself, lad, for I’ve no’ th’ strength.”
“Pull it?” Alan croaked.
The woman had the gall to laugh. “Catch it, then. It should come out by itself, small as it be.”
He breathed a heavy sigh of relief. It must be like lambing after all. “Aye, I ken.”
After what seemed hours of travail, Honor roused herself to speak finally. “I beg you bring Father Dennis.”
“Nay!” Alan denied her with a harsh frown and harsher words. “Ye’ll not be gettin’ rites this day, woman. If ye’re not shriven, ye can’t die. Hear me? Ye can’t die or ye’ll burn in hell, aye?”
He noted her spark of anger. Her grip on his hand grew tight. Good, ire made her stronger. He feared she’d given up the good fight. “Ye can do this, Honor,” he encouraged softly, “I know ye can. Ye need no priest.”
“For the babe,” she whispered, weakening her hold again. “Rites for the babe, sir. It will not live.”
“Aye, it will so!” he thundered. “It will live and grow strong!”
She tensed again and the pain encompassed him as well as he watched. Her low wail broke the silence. The sound prickled the skin on the back of his neck.
The old woman grunted and brushed Honor’s mounded middle with one gnarled hand. Then she raked up the woolen kirtle to beneath Honor’s breasts and began barking orders like the veriest commander. Alan hastened to obey like the lowliest soldier on the field.
In a matter of moments, he held a slick, wriggling handful of mewling life. “Ahh, Honor, look what ye’ve done here. Look!” He placed the baby on her breasts. “A lass. A wondrous wee lassie!” He felt tears streaking down his face and a fullness in his heart that threatened to unman him completely.
“Leave it there,” May instructed. “Get ready fer the rest.”
“Rest?” Alan hoped to God that meant surcease from this travail and not something further that he must deal with.
“Afterbirth,” she said succinctly.
Resigned, Alan abandoned his admiration of Honor’s tiny daughter and followed instructions to the letter. He waited for what remained inside her to expel itself and then carefully tied and sliced the cord where the old woman told him to.
Old May had scoffed when he’d washed his hands and knife in the hot water left over from the posset. A waste of time, she vowed, but Alan had sorely needed something to do whilst awaiting the birth. Evidenced by her surroundings at Byelough, he knew Honor liked everything clean. If he could but please her in that small way, he meant to do it. Following through with that thought, he now cut a spotless section of her chemise away, wet it, and dabbed the birth fluids off the babe.
For convenience, Alan slipped the child into the front of his shirt so that it rested against his stomach’s warmth, cradled slinglike against his body over the belting of his plaid. The babe stilled her flailing, but he could feel the soft squirming against his flesh that told him the wee one thrived.
Then he turned again to Honor. Her long lashes concealed the pain in the dove gray eyes. Eyes he had come to cherish in so short a time. “How proud I am of ye, my lady. Ye did fine. So fine.” He brushed the tangled hair off her forehead and laid a soft kiss there.
He had kissed her in Tav’s stead, Alan told himself. His poor dead friend would have wanted it so, would have wanted Honor comforted and praised for the birth of so fair a daughter. But in his heart he knew. That sweet taste of Honor on his lips had naught to do with Tavish or what his lady had just borne. The reason lay in who she was, what she was. The woman he adored beyond all reason.
Her breath warmed his neck as the soft words registered, “Take her to Father Dennis. She must be named and blessed.”
“She is ble
ssed already with you for a mother,” he assured her. “Believe it, this wee’un is in no danger, strong as she be. Do not think she will die. I wouldna let her.”
Honor’s eyes opened as she whispered, “Father Dennis would be shocked, sir. That is blasphemy.” He thought he detected the ghost of a smile in her words.
Alan grinned and tapped her chin with one finger. “Weel, wha’ more would th’ guid mon ken out of a theivin’, murderin’, fornicatin’ highlander?”
She did smile then and he saw the hope in her eyes he had worked to put there.
“Rest ye now, lass. Ye’ve done a good day’s work this morn. The bairn breathes steady and wriggles like a fish on a hook. Listen to her mew.” He caressed the small lump curled between his shirt and belly.
“Christiana,” Honor murmured softly. “Her name.”
“Aha, so Kit it is, then! Wee Kit.” He soothed the babe with gentle strokes across its tiny back while he watched Honor give way to sleep.
He had a family now. Never had he thought to take a wife, have a child, or a home for that matter. His older brother, whom he could hardly remember, manned the family estate in Gloucester. Their father had sent Nigel there as a lad of fifteen to learn management of it all. Then their mother had taken her youngest—Alan, himself—to her brother, Angus, in the Highlands. Instead of making Alan the heir as his father had hoped, Uncle Angus had tormented his half-English nephew and worked him within an inch of his life.
The harsh task of survival had been the making of him, Alan supposed. He had come far since leaving his uncle. He had served as a tracker and a pikeman with Alexander Bruce on two campaigns. When all the bands met near Stirling to fight the English, Robert Bruce had hand-picked several likely soldiers to train the local rabble to fight.
Alan had liked command. His “small men” had made a huge difference at Bannockburn. He led well and knew it. He also knew that event had given Bruce the impetus to knight him. That and the fact that he was to wed the Lady Honor.
A knighthood was nothing to take lightly, Alan reminded himself. No longer was he a rough-and-ready soldier, a footloose fighter with naught on his mind but the task at hand and the ale that followed. He must be worthy of his title. He must hold fast to the knightly code and all that entailed. Lusting after so grand a lady as Honor made mock of the trust Bruce had placed in him.
Sweet, gentle Honor. She looked an angel lying there so spent after her travail. He must always treat her as the virtuous paragon she was, Alan decided. It was no more than she deserved.
Chapter Six
If Sir Alan were too good to be true, he had yet to give evidence of it. In the three weeks following the birth, he remained the same patient, good-humored knight, kind to all.
Honor peeked through her lashes, pretending sleep, as she watched the sunlit scene by the window. Her husband cradled her child lengthwise on his lap, one huge hand cupping her head and the other supporting her backside. The babe issued small sucking noises, eliciting a tender smile from her temporary caretaker. The silly sounds he made in reply were just shy of real words.
And as to real words, her husband had begun speaking too carefully when he did talk to her. Though he had not yet rid himself of the highland lilt in his voice, he sounded so...well, formal now. Trying to be courtly, no doubt, but it did not suit him. Though she had taunted him about the roughness of his manner, it was that which had fascinated her. She wanted his fierceness, depended on it. And she had loved his rowdy humor.
Honor missed his bluster, his casual teasing and the roll of his rs. This new manner of his brought to mind the changes in her father when she was very young. When displeased with her, he had also adopted that precise and stilted sort of speech. It frightened Honor to hear it out of Alan’s mouth, whatever his reasons for it.
For three long weeks it had been thus. Had she done something to warrant this treatment? He did not ignore her exactly, but he never sought her company, either.
However, Christiana drew him like a lodestone. Why did he dote so on an infant not even his own? She supposed he might feel a proprietary interest since he had been present at the birth. And there was his longstanding friendship with Tavish. Still, no man she knew would spend hours of his time this way.
Honor turned her head to the opposite side of the room to avoid seeing the two together. She felt an odd sting of jealousy. Trouble was, she could not tell for certain whether she begrudged her child the man’s attention, or the other way round.
She had liked it when he hovered over her those first few days after Christiana’s birth, arranging the covers, ordering the women to tend her and praising her courage. Then, as she began to spend more time out of bed than in, he had subtly absented himself. Only for the hour while she rested and he spent with the child did he come to her chamber.
Not once had he insisted they share the bed since she had delivered of the babe. “Wee Kit,” he called the child. Or “our wee’un.” His fascination with the infant seemed unnatural to Honor, given her own experience of men.
“Bring her to me,” Honor said. She had meant to say it softly, but the demand was there. When she turned her head back to them, Sir Alan stood beside the bed and waited until she propped herself up to lay the child in her arms.
“There now,” he whispered. “I’ll be leavin’ ye to yer meal, wee’un.”
“Stay!” Honor said before she thought. Confused by her own request, she floundered for a reason. “It is not time for her to feed yet, and I... I would speak with you.”
He raised one thick brow and frowned down at her. “Is aught amiss, my lady?”
“No! Nothing. Could you...would you bring me a cup of milk? There is some just there.”
“It is left from this morn. I will send Mistress Nan for fresh.”
“No!” Honor shifted Kit in her arms and sighed. “Sir...Alan, have I done some thing, said some thing, to anger you?”
“Of course not! What makes you ask?” He settled himself on the edge of the bed and crossed his hands over one plaid-draped knee. “Do I seem angry to you, then?”
“Not really,” she admitted, “but you seldom sit and talk these days. Have you so many tasks that prevent you?”
He rotated his shoulders and leaned back his head, showing a length of strongly muscled neck. “Well, the men and I have hunted each morn. There is meat enough to last the winter months. We’ve seen the other stores put by as well. Mistress Nan must have told you all that. I have counted candles, shored up the weak spot in the north wall, and—”
“You make time for Christiana,” Honor said, trying hard to sound appreciative instead of petulant. She wondered what it would take to have him back the way he was before. He seemed easy enough in manner, but did not sound himself at all. “You like the babe, do you not?”
“Oh, aye,” he replied with a grin. “She’s a bonny one! I think she must be like you when you were small, though she does have Tav’s chin. Willful as he, too, I would wager.”
“Willful? Tavish?” Honor almost scoffed before she thought about it. “I saw none of that in him!”
Alan’s outright laugh made her jump. When he had calmed to a chuckle, he said, “I doubt me he would have cause to show you that side of himself. I’d bet my last groat he never crossed you once.” Then the tenderness he had expressed toward the child returned, this time directed at her. “And why should he? Tav loved you beyond all things and would have denied you nothing.”
She ducked her head and bit her lip. Guilt held her silent for a long while. Why couldn’t she have loved Tavish as she told him she did? Was there some lack inside her which held her from it? He had been a good man—the best. Had she not thought so when they first met? Had she not wished with all her heart she could wed him instead of the miscreant her father had promised her to?
Honor had wanted that so badly, she had done awful things to make it happen. She had played on Father Dennis’s sympathy and then lied to Tavish just to save her wretched life. Now she felt g
uilty, manipulative and downright sinful to have done such things as she had.
In her heart, Honor knew she would never have survived marriage to the man her father had chosen for her. Such a life would have, at best, proved a continuance of what she had endured at her father’s hand. She would have had to share the marriage bed as well, and she could not have borne lying with a murderer. With this blasted temper of hers, Trouville would have killed her, too. Then why this terrible guilt?
“Honor?” Alan said, dragging her back to the present. “You must try to put the grief aside now. Tavish would not wish you to suffer so.” He touched one finger to her chin and lifted it. “See how your wee lass tugs at you? She wants a happy mam. Come, smile,for us?”
Before she could refuse or comply, a frantic knocking interrupted. Nan shouted, “Sir Alan! Sir Alan, come quickly! There’s trouble at the gates! Hurry!”
Honor laid the baby down in the middle of the bed and tried to rise. Alan stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Stay here and tend wee Kit. I’ll see to it.”
“I am coming, too!” She shoved his hand away and shouted, “Nan? Come here and mind the babe.” With that, Honor slid her legs off the bed and found her slippers. Pulling her heaviest bedgown close around her, she made for the door.
“Honor, halt!” He planted himself in front of her, his voice harsh with warning. “Get ye back to th’ bed! I’ll not have ye catch yer death wandering cross the bailey.”
“This is my keep, sir, and I shall wander where I will! Stand away!”
His mouth tightened. Then he shook his head and threw up one hand in defeat. “Aye, well. Bundle yerself up, then.” He tugged at her robe until it covered her to the chin. “Mind ye dinna overdo it, aye?”
“Aye!” She snapped. At least he was the old Alan again and not that polite stranger he pretended to be. She swept past him through the door and into the busy hall. Father Dennis rushed in to block their exit. “My lady, he has come!”
“My father?” she moaned. “Ah, no!”
