by Alisa Adams
With all her strength and one last heroic effort, Bettina screwed up her face and pushed her hardest. She was rewarded by the sound of a heart-rending wail that almost pierced her eardrums. The midwife caught the baby under the birthing chair as it emerged from her womb.
“Congratulations, milady,” she said, with a wide, joyful smile. “Ye have a wee lad.” She placed the baby in Bettina’s arms and cut the umbilical cord.
That was when they heard a loud thumping of feet along the passage and Nevin’s voice shouting, “Bettie! Bettie!” Then the door flew open and Nevin stumbled over the threshold, almost measuring his length on the floor. For a moment he stood looking at his wife and son as if rooted to the spot and then he ran forward to embrace them both.
“Bettie? Are you all right, my dove? Is it a boy or a girl? Are you both well? Tell me!” The words tumbled out in a rush and Nevin’s face looked almost comically anguished.
“We are both fine,” Bettina replied, laughing. “And you have a son, Nevin.”
“Thank you, Bettina, my dove,” he whispered, looking down at the little face and smiling tenderly. Then his expression changed to one of concern. “Mother, he is a bit... ugly. Do all babies look like this?”
Gwenda threw back her head and let out a peal of laughter. “Yes, they do, Nevin, and so did you,” she replied, “but do not worry. In a few days, he will be very handsome, wait and see.”
“Thank goodness for that!” Nevin said in a deeply heartfelt voice.
The midwife helped Bettina to bed and she put him to her breast for the first time. His mouth searched about until he found the nipple and then he began to eat his first meal as a new human child. Nevin was weeping quite openly. The sight of this ugly-beautiful creature that had been born of his seed had quite overwhelmed him with love. He smiled through his tears at Bettina who looked like a Madonna as she gazed down at her son.
“We should call him David,” she suggested, “after your father.”
Nevin reached out and touched the child’s head. “I think that would have made him very proud,” he murmured, “David it is.” Then he kissed them both.
“I wonder where Allana is,” Bettina mused. “I am sure she would have loved to meet her nephew.” Bettina yawned and the midwife took David away to put him in his crib.
Nevin reached out for Bettina’s hand. “Thank you,” he whispered. “My little dove, thank you for our son.”
“I would say it was a pleasure, Nevin,” she said, smiling tiredly. “But I cannot tell a lie.” Then she closed her eyes.
Nevin tiptoed out and Gwenda hugged him. “I wish Father had been here,’’ he said, sighing.
“He will be watching from Heaven,” Gwenda consoled him. “He will be as pleased with the name as I am. Come, let us announce the birth!”
The birth of young David was greeted with delight by the Dundas and Kirk households, and soon gifts were pouring in from everywhere including from the crofters and tenant farmers, many of whom had knitted blankets and little hats and boots. There were woolen toys too and soon, David had been given so many that some had to be given away to the church in Oban.
Nevin was as proud as a peacock and just as vain, not for himself, but for the beautiful new life that he and Bettina had created between them. Sometimes they could not bear to put David in his cot at night and would go to sleep with him between them until he woke up, seeking the nourishment of his mother’s breast.
Bettina could never have imagined such love and it overwhelmed her. She became a mother to every creature under the sun and had never been happier. David was a contented little soul. He asked for nothing but nourishment and love, both of which he received in abundance.
After three tortuous months of abstinence, Bettina was ready for love again. Her body was slightly changed, her breasts bigger, her waist slightly thicker, but to Nevin, she was more beautiful than ever.
He came in one evening to find that she had missed dinner and had gone straight to their room. Puzzled, he ran upstairs and opened the bedroom door. She was lying underneath the covers on the bed, smiling at him archly, and as he moved toward her, she whipped the bedcovers back and held out her arms.
Nevin was still dressed, but he tore his clothes off in such haste that he ripped his shirt. He scrambled into bed beside her and proceeded to devour her with his mouth, kissing her everywhere she loved to be kissed.
“Bettie,” he whispered hoarsely, “my dove, my little bird. I love you so much.”
“I love you too, my angel,” she murmured as she welcomed him inside her again. It was so familiar and yet as thrilling as it had been the first time. When she looked into his eyes, she could see herself reflected in them and her face was flushed with passion, as his was. She wrapped her legs around him and squeezed, and he grunted with satisfaction. He loved to be drawn even further into her and sometimes, he wished that their bodies could be joined together forever because being with his Bettina was the most sublime experience of his life.
When they reached their climax, he covered her mouth with hers, stifling her cry of joy. He withdrew from her but held her tightly in his arms. “I thought after our baby it would be different,” he whispered. “I thought we would have grown apart a little, but everything is just the same, in fact, now that we have our child, it may even be better.”
She smiled and then said, “I could eat you, I am so hungry.”
He laughed. “There are different kinds of hunger, my dove.”
Just then, the baby cried and his nanny brought him in to be fed. “And here is another mouth to feed!” Bettina said, sighing as she put the baby to her breast. “I am being eaten alive!”
28
Kendrick’s Mistake
Kendrick had been on the road for many days. He was heading south and along the way, he had stopped at a tavern to drink a tankard of ale. As soon as he walked in, he saw her. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen and he sat down at a table beside her and smiled at her. In his disguise as a monk, he was usually not a threat to most men, but there were some very dubious looking types standing at the bar.
The woman inclined her dark head in greeting and went back to the Bible she had been reading. She had not given him any invitation to speak to her, so he assumed she was not a prostitute. He would have to look elsewhere for his pleasure that night. He noticed that she looked thin and pale, the bones of her hands clearly defined under the skin. She was obviously ill.
Presently, she began to cough and cough as though she could not stop. A man, presumably her husband, came to kneel down beside her. He gave her a handkerchief, which in a moment was stained with blood. Kendrick saw his opportunity at once; here was someone on whom he could use his miracle cure. He stood up and went over to the couple, just as the woman stopped coughing.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said to the man. “I could not help but notice that the mistress is in some distress. May I help? I am Father Bernard.”
The husband, a blue-eyed, dark-haired man, looked up at Kendrick with lowered brows. “My wife has consumption,” he replied. “We are going to the holy springs at Motherwell to bathe in the water and pray for a cure. She is very sick.”
“May I suggest something?” Kendrick asked.
The man nodded, looking back at his wife, and Kendrick pulled out a stoppered bottle of his noisome concoction. He handed it to the man who looked at it doubtfully. “What is this?” he asked.
“It is called Remedium Christi,” Kendrick replied. “The Cistercian monks make it and it is thought to cure many ailments—if you can stomach the taste!” He smiled. “I know it tastes foul and smells worse, but it is effective. I will not force you to take it, however. It is your own choice.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “The price?”
Kendrick shrugged. “A donation to the monastery,” he replied easily. “Whatever you think is fair.”
“I am Laird Munro Douglas of Glencoe. We have been to every holy site we know. After Motherwell, if there is no change,
my Catherine may be too sick to go on, so we will do anything. I can give you a Scots pound for the medicine. Will that suffice?”
Kendrick’s heart leaped. He usually only got a shilling. “Thank you, m’laird.” Kendrick bowed. “Would you like a blessing?”
“Yes, Father,” Catherine said as she tried to stop coughing. She steepled her hands and bowed her head then Munro did likewise. Kendrick got out his prayer book and read out a prayer for the sick then bowed and thanked them. He finished his ale and left.
Once outside, he looked at the coins in his palm and whooped gleefully. His store of gold and silver was growing daily. Soon, he would be able to buy another house and start another business. He was tired of being a merchant, and although being a priest was quite lucrative, it was a strain to be constantly pretending to be something he was not.
Kendrick had decided to retire to the inn along the way to sleep and relieve his other needs. Unfortunately, the inn with the married couple in it did not cater for those kinds of needs, so Kendrick would have to continue his journey after his drink. He was always careful to keep his money belt under his robes and so far, his precautions had paid off. He had not been robbed or even threatened on his journey.
However, throughout all his wanderings, he had been confident that his disguise as a priest had kept him safe. No-one had recognized him and no-one had ever challenged his authority. As far as he knew, no-one had ever become sick or died of his ‘medicine’, but then he never went back to the same place twice and peasants were too stupid to either protest or even associate a priest’s intervention with the death of a relative. However, his last ‘patient’ had not been a crofter, but an educated man, a man of means, and Kendrick was about to find out that he had just made a very big mistake.
The Lady and Laird Douglas were a very devout couple who devoted themselves entirely to their three children, their estate, and their people. When Lady Catherine became ill and needed care, they decided that they would seek a cure from God and began a journey that would take them around the sacred sites in Scotland in search of a cure. This was no small sacrifice since it involved being away from their children for a few months, the youngest of whom, Roy, was only six. However, Munro was determined that his lovely Catherine should be well again.
Accordingly, they set out from their home in Glencoe and made their way south, passing through every sacred site they could think of. When they arrived in the small village of Dallick, Catherine was almost falling off her mount with exhaustion. They had decided to pass the night in the wayside inn since Catherine could go no further. They had decided to go to the small church of St. Anne in the village in the morning to hear Mass in the hope that the Holy Eucharist would help Catherine continue her journey.
It had seemed like a blessing when they met the priest. They were so desperate that they accepted his ‘cure’ without a second thought. Munro opened the stopper on the jar and smelled the mixture which had the stench of rotten fish. “My God, that is foul!” He complained, shuddering. He looked at his wife who was smiling in amusement.
“I will think of it as a penance,” she declared and reached for the jar. She took a mouthful, swallowed it with a grimace, and then tried another one. She shuddered, and tears began to leak from her eyes, but she smiled. After she had finished the flask, she patted her chest.
“How do you feel?” Munro asked anxiously.
“Very strange,” she replied. “It burns like fire. Perhaps that is how it works, but I think I would prefer to have some relief!” She reached out for her mug of ale and knocked it over as she began to choke. Munro thumped her back and looked around for help.
“Water! Ale! Anything!” he cried in panic. “She is choking to death!”
The landlady hurried over, handed him a mug of ale, and tipped Catherine’s head back so that Munro could pour the liquid down his wife’s throat, but as soon as he did so it came straight back up again. Blood was streaming from her nose. She was trying to cough, but nothing came up. She had been holding on to Munro’s arms in a vice-like grip, but it loosened slowly and her arms fell limply to her sides. Even a last breath was denied her since her throat was completely closed and as her eyes looked into his for the last time, he saw the life go out of them before her head slumped forward. She was dead.
Munro clung to her, crushing her limp body into his arms. He let out a howl of pure agony. He could not put words to his grief and neither did he care that the staff and patrons of the tavern were standing around watching him. Eventually, the landlady came over to him and helped him to gently lay Catherine’s head down on the floor. She composed her hands across her breast and closed her still-open eyes.
“Shall we pray, sir?” she asked, looking at him with concern in her button brown eyes. Munro nodded and the rest of the patrons crowded around them, adding their voices to the De Profundis, the prayer for the dead.
Munro kissed his wife’s forehead. Her skin was cooling, and he realized that he would never be able to talk to her again. He would never be able to make love to her again, and she would never be able to cuddle her children. They would be heartbroken. The landlord covered her in a sheet and they carried her upstairs to their room where Munro made sure that they laid her very tenderly on the bed.
He sat watching over her for a while as her face whitened and her lips turned blue, but he consoled himself with the fact that she was in a better place now, resting with the angels by the side of God. He picked up one of her hands and kissed it, feeling that it was already cold, and then a thought came into his mind. Catherine had been tired before the medicine and she had been ill for years, but she had never before complained of burning in her throat or chest. Perhaps it had been a symptom of the disease or perhaps something else.
He rushed downstairs and opened the bottle, then put the tip of his finger in it. He looked at it for a moment but decided that it was too dangerous to try it. The only way to get the truth was to get hold of that damn priest—if priest he is, he thought grimly, and if he has taken away the life of my love, he shall forfeit his own! Munro asked the landlady to sit with Catherine and the kind-hearted woman promised to do so. He pressed a florin into her hand.
“She does not like to be alone.” His voice trailed off, and he would have begun to weep, but he spun on his heel and clattered downstairs. He called for his two-men-at-arms and they rode away in pursuit of the killer priest.
Having no knowledge of what had just happened, Kendrick was not in any particular hurry, although he was making good time. The evening was closing in but the sky was clear. He had his tent, his donkey, and enough blankets to keep him warm. When he heard the hoof beats behind him, he was not unduly alarmed, but as he turned around to see who it was, he recognized at once the face of the Laird he had seen at the tavern. With him were two heavily armed men, and they were closing in on him at great speed.
Kendrick was wearing a gray monk’s habit which gave him good camouflage, but it was not good enough to avoid the attention of the three heavily armed men on their big steeds. Kendrick’s donkey brayed and bolted, taking fright at the approach of the three huge battle horses. Kendrick tried to run into the forest, but it was a futile exercise. Although the trees hampered them, the men at arms were still able to box him in successfully and soon, he was standing in an impenetrable triangle of them.
“Good day again, m’laird.” Kendrick tried an ingratiating smile. “May I help you?”
“Only if you can bring my wife back to life, you slime!” The Laird got off his horse, drew his sword, and for an awful moment, Kendrick thought he was going to be run through, but the big man hit him in the stomach with the handle. It was enough to make Kendrick fall on the ground, however, clutching his stomach and moaning while Munro stood over him, breathing heavily. He looked as if he could cheerfully have done away with Kendrick right there and then, but he put his sword back in its scabbard and hauled him to his feet. He pulled Kendrick’s face up to his by the front of his robe so that the two me
n were standing eye to eye with Kendrick having to stand on his tiptoes.
“You have killed my Catherine,” Munro said in a low, threatening voice. “She is lying in the inn as cold and still as marble and it is your doing!”
“B–but m’laird, she was very ill anyway!” he protested. “Perhaps it was the consumption!”
“It was not.” Munro’s voice was a snarl and Kendrick began to tremble with fear. “She died from that disgusting foul mixture you gave her and if I were not a Christian man and had no regard for my immortal soul, I would strike you down where you stand. And by the way, FATHER, I do not believe that you are any more of a priest than I am. Tell me your name.”
“Bernard McAllister,” Kendrick replied, thinking fast as usual. He did not expect the blow he got on the side of his cheek from the mailed hand of the Laird.
“The truth,” he demanded, “or by God, you will feel the other end of this sword!”
Kendrick could feel blood welling from the scratches that the chain mail had made on his skin. “Kendrick Muir,” he said sullenly.
Munro Douglas looked at him in disbelief. “I have heard of you...” His voice was scornful and his expression even more so. “I have heard that you tried to bigamously marry Allana Dundas, daughter of Malcolm Dundas, who is a very good friend of mine. Yes, I have heard many things about you and not one of them good.” He looked Kendrick up and down in disgust. “I do not understand how any man can allow himself to sink as low as you.” He stared at the cowed figure in front of him for one more moment, feeling rage building up inside him again. He forced it down, although it took all the willpower he had, and turned to one of his men.
“James, there is another Laird here that I know well,” he said, “his name is Gavin Ingram. It is a matter of three miles only, so it should not take you long. I will stay with Catherine. I cannot allow her body to lie in a tavern, so ask him for a cart please.” He pointed to Kendrick and turned his head away as if he could not bear to look at him. “Take this creature with you. The Laird Ingram will know what to do with him.”
