King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

“Well, surely, lass. Do you suppose you can bed with a man all winter and not become pregnant? Hadn’t you noticed that your courses had stopped?”

Liath just lay there. She felt Hanna’s warm hand come to rest on her hair. So comforting. Dear Hanna. “I’m so tired,” she said.

“You sleep, child,” said Mistress Birta. “Hanna will sit with you for a while.”

“Why did I never think of that?” Liath whispered. “Hugh’s child. I could not bear to have Hugh’s child.”

“Hush, Liath,” said Hanna. “I think you ought to sleep now. Lady and Lord, but he beat you. You’re all bruises. He must have gone mad.”

“I won’t be his slave,” whispered Liath.

When she woke again, much later, she felt a pleasant lassitude. The little attic room was dim, but some light leaked through the shutters. The old blanket draped over her was scratchy but warm. She was exhausted, but she was at least alone; Hugh was not here.

That counted for something.

Then she heard the pound of footsteps on the back stairs accompanied by raised voices.

“I will not let you wake her, Frater!”

“Let me by, Mistress, and this time I will ignore your impertinence.”

“Frater Hugh, it may not be my place to speak so to you, but I will, so help me God, send my husband with a message to the biscop at Freelas about this incident, if you do not listen to me now.”

“I am sure, Mistress, that the biscop has greater concerns than my taking a concubine.”

“I am sure she does,” replied Mistress Birta with astonishing curtness, “but I do not think she will look so mildly on your taking a concubine and then beating the young lass so brutally that she miscarries the child conceived of this illegal union.”

“It was no child. It had not yet quickened.”

“Nevertheless it would have become one—if the Lady willed—had you not beaten her.”

“I remind you that she is my slave, to do with as I please. You forget, or likely you do not know, Mistress, that the biscop of Freelas, though a noblewoman of good character, does not have powerful kin. But I do. Now stand aside.”

“But she is still a child of Our Lady and Lord, Frater Hugh. It is Her Will, and not yours, that chooses whether a child be lost before its time. For we women are the chosen vessel of Our Lady, and it is by Her Will that we have been granted the gift of giving birth, a gift accompanied by pain, for how else shall we know the truth of darkness in the world and the promise of the Chamber of Light? I have midwifed many a woman in these parts, and I have seen many a woman miscarry from illness or hunger or by the chance lifting of Her Hand, and I have watched women and their babes die in childbed. But I have never seen a woman beaten so badly that she lost her child, not until now. And I will testify so, before the biscop, if I must.”

There was a silence. Liath measured with her eyes the distance from the bed to the shutters, but she knew she hadn’t the strength to get there, to open them, to throw herself out in order to escape from him; and anyway, even now, she did not want to die. Light bled into the room and from the yard she heard the cock crow. It must be early morning. The silence made her skin crawl. She waited, shuddering, for the latch to lift.

Finally, Hugh spoke. His voice was stiff with controlled fury. Ai, Lady, she knew him so well, now, that she could see his expression in her mind’s eye. “You will return her to me when she can walk. We are leaving for Firsebarg in ten days.”

“I will return her to you when she has recovered.”

He was furious. She heard it in his voice. “How dare you presume to dictate to me?”

“She may yet die, Frater. Though she is not my kinswoman, I have a certain fondness for her. And she is a woman, and like myself and all women, under the special care of the Lady. For is it not written in the Holy Verses: ‘My Hearth, where burns the fire of wisdom, I grant to women to tend’? You may threaten me if you like. I do not doubt you could easily ruin me, for we all know your mother is a great noblewoman, but I will see Liath well before I let her travel such a difficult road.”

“Very well,” he said curtly. Then he laughed. “By Our Lord, but you’ve courage, Mistress. But I will see her before I go today.”

Liath shut her eyes and hoped against hope that Mistress Birta would send him away.

“That is your right,” said Birta finally, reluctantly. The door opened.

“Alone,” said Hugh.

Liath kept her eyes shut.

“I will wait outside,” said Birta. “Right out here.”

Hugh shut the door behind him and latched it. She heard the sounds he made, the slip of his boots on the plank flooring, his intake of breath, the creak of a loose plank under his weight, the door closing, tugged shut, the snick of the latch, sealing them in together. She did not open her eyes. He said nothing. She was so alive to him that she knew exactly how close he stood to her, how a bare turn would brush his robes against her blanket, how near his hands hovered by her face.