Pushing her way through the two men standing in the doorway was a tiny, monkeylike creature, an old woman with black eyes and hands like a bird’s claws. “My lady has given birth to a son,” she half yelled in heavily accented words. “They killed her to take the babe. He belongs to me. He is mine!”
At that Gilbert Rasher pushed his way into the room and smacked the little woman across the face, sending her reeling. “Out!” he commanded. “I don’t have to stand that ugly face of yours any longer.”
He lumbered his way into the room, pretending to be drunker than he was, pretending to be oblivious to what was going on in the room, but the truth was, he was a very, very shrewd man. In order to make a decent living a lazy man had to find ways other than actual work to keep furs on his back and beef on his table.
For the last two days he had chosen the plainest-faced maids and pretended gre
at lust at the mere sight of them. They were so pleased by his attentions that they each went to bed with him and when he asked to hear all the gossip of the castle, they were more than willing to tell it. He now knew in detail how much John wanted a son and how his wife had paid much gold to an old witch woman to try to help her to get that son.
Gilbert had paid the hideous little creature that his wife had brought with her from her foreign country to stay in the room, silent and unseen, and bring him news immediately when his son was born. Unlike Alida, who acted out of desperation, Gilbert planned things, and he correctly guessed that if Lady Alida’s time came during his wife’s, she would think of switching the children, for surely Hadley’s next child would also be a daughter.
It wasn’t that Gilbert especially wanted another son. The three he had ate enough for half an army and it cost to clothe them. He did not bother with education and was therefore spared that expense, but unfortunately that meant he was burdened with sons who knew no more than he did.
Now he knew that if he played his cards right he might be able to get John to pay him while still bearing the cost of raising a son who was not his.
“Let me see my son,” Gilbert said, his voice as full of love as he could make it sound as he went toward Meg, the babies cuddled in her arms. He meant to take the child, to display it like something won in a tournament, but he didn’t like babies at best and this one was covered with blood and grease and was unnaturally clinging to the tiny white girl. Right away, some sixth sense of self-preservation—the trait that was honed to its keenest edge in Gilbert—told him that there was something unusual about this child and he’d do best to get rid of it—with a profit of course. He should never have married that silent, big-eyed foreign girl that was the child’s mother. Even thinking of her, he had to resist the urge to cross himself.
John was still standing in the doorway, staring at his wife, and the hatred in his eyes was enough to set the room on fire. It was a while before he could find his voice. It didn’t matter to him that the words he said he’d said a thousand times before. With each daughter his rage was fresh.
“How can this worm of a girl breed a son and you cannot?” John asked, glaring at his wife. Gilbert Rasher’s tiny wife had now been covered with a blanket so the wound that split her body in half could not be seen, but her lifeless form barely made the blanket rise. Beside her, Alida was big and healthy, her skin glowing with life in spite of what she had just been through.
For several minutes John told his wife what he thought of her, humiliating her in front of her maids and Rasher, whose eyes gleamed with delight at the altercation.
Through all of this Meg clasped the children to her and they had not uttered a sound, still awake, still alert and looking into each other’s eyes.
For the first time John seemed to be fully aware of the children, or rather, the boy. With one stride, he went to stand in front of Meg and look down at the two babies she held. John was not a superstitious man and he did not have the cunning of Gilbert. When he saw the two children clinging to each other, no feelings of oddity occurred to him. Nor did any thoughts of fastidiousness cloud his mind. All he saw was a large, perfect son, a son such as he had always wanted.
With one great wrench, before Meg could protest, he pulled the two children apart and clasped the boy to him.
Never had such a howl been set up as when the children were pulled apart. If there had been any thought that the boy was weak from the birth, it was dispelled the moment he opened his mouth and began to bellow—as did the girl. The sheer volume of the cacophony was startling. It was as though a hundred banshees had been loosened into the old stone room and the sound reverberated off the walls.
The eyes of everyone in the room widened, one maid put her hands over her ears, Meg looked frantically at the boy squirming in John’s arms, while Gilbert, seated near his dead wife’s body, thought that by having to stay near this he had to work too hard for a living. Only John seemed oblivious to the noise.
“This is a son, madam,” he shouted to his wife. “This is what you should have given me. No twisted feet. No weak lungs. Do you not know how to make sons in that belly of yours?”
Gilbert saw that John was going to keep on in this way for some time and might never arrive at the bargain he had in mind so he took the initiative. “Oh, my beloved wife,” he wailed and had to raise his voice to the level that he used on the tournament field. What with those damned brats squalling and John’s bellowing, he could hardly hear himself.
“My beloved wife!” Gilbert yelled. “You of all the women did I love. And now I must try to raise yet another son alone, with no mother. I can hardly afford to feed those I have. How will I feed this one? And what about teaching him? When will I find time to teach him what a boy needs to know? Who will ride with him? Hunt with him? Who will celebrate with him when he brings down his first boar?”
John had at last stopped his tirade against his wife and was looking at Gilbert, blinking as, slowly, thoughts came to him.
“Give the brat to the woman to feed,” Gilbert said crossly. Was the man unnatural that he could not hear that din?
When John realized that he might be starving the precious child in his arms, he acted as though a fire had been lit under him. In one step he was across the room to Meg and tenderly handed her the baby. As soon as the boy and the girl were again touching each other, the crying stopped.
With satisfaction John watched as Meg pulled her rough gown open and revealed a pair of splendid, full breasts and within seconds both children had latched onto them and were hungrily sucking.
This bit of diversion had given John time to consider what he had heard—and in case he did not fully understand Gilbert’s meaning, the man started again.
“Oh Lord,” Gilbert loudly prayed, “give me strength in this my hour of need. You know that I am a poor man. I have been blessed with connections to the throne through the Stuart line but I have not been blessed with money. I do not know how I will afford to clothe this son as befits his rank. I do not—”
“You may leave us now,” Alida said coldly, knowing full well what Gilbert was trying to accomplish.
John was thinking so hard about what he wanted and the seed that Gilbert had planted in his head that for once he did not rage at his wife. He merely held up his hand to her for silence. It did not enter his head that Gilbert Rasher wanted to give his son away; to give away something as valuable as this was tantamount to giving away a mountain of gold. Hadn’t he worked for this all his life? But to Gilbert sons were easily made; gold was much more valuable.
“I…,” John said softly, praying he wouldn’t offend Gilbert, “I will undertake the care of your son. I will feed him, train him.”
Gilbert looked as though this were a startling idea. “You could not do such a kind thing for me,” he said. “No man is capable of such generosity.” As though weighed down by grief, Gilbert lumbered to his feet and started toward his hungrily nursing son.