Lightning split the night, casting the
room in an eerie flash of brilliance.
Cleva moaned loudly, and with one last push, the infant slithered into Isolde’s waiting hands.
“Oh, God, oh, God,” Cleva whimpered, blood flowing from her in a warm rush.
“ ’Tis a girl, m’lady,” Isolde said as the child gave out a first, lusty cry, “and a beauty, she is …”
Cleva tried to rise up, but Isolde, still holding the baby, shoved her gently back on the sheets.
“Wait … ’tis not finished,” she said, as the baby was still attached to the afterbirth. She tied the cord with strong thread, then severed it with her knife.
Skillfully Isolde washed the infant, her bony fingers touching each joint as she watched eyes as blue as the sky blink up at her. Dark curls surrounded a perfect little face, and Isolde’s heart nearly stopped.
Wind shrieked over the battlements, and the prophecy she’d heard since childhood, the prediction of the old ones, swam in a wild current in Isolde’s mind.
She mouthed the words and could not help opening the towel.
Born during a tempest, with hair the color of a raven’s wing, eyes the blue of midnight, and the kiss of the moon upon skin like alabaster …
She let her gaze wander over the pale folds of newborn flesh until she spied it, the birthing mark at the base of the babe’s neck, a perfect crescent … the kiss of the moon. “By all the saints,” Isolde whispered, rewrapping the girl-child.
Her throat constricted in awe, for she knew she was looking upon the chosen one, the savior who would sacrifice herself for peace between her countrymen. She held the baby close, felt the infant’s warmth, and closed her eyes. Aye, she saw in her mind’s eye the future, filled with bloodshed and deceit, and somehow she knew this little one’s destiny was wrapped in the words of the old people.
Isolde had heard of the visions—aye, she’d had more than her share of the sight herself—but never had she expected to help bring into the lady’s house the chosen one who would become the savior of Prydd.
“A girl?” Cleva asked faintly, her voice filled with disappointment.
“Aye, and a fine one she is, m’lady. As beautiful as her mother.” She handed the swaddled baby to Cleva and worked to catch the blood still flowing from the lady’s womb.
“What I said,” Cleva whispered, guilt shadowing her eyes, “about the child—”
“What a woman says in the pain of birthing is between her and her God. No one else’s ears hear a thing.”
“But—”
“Shh.” She placed a hand on Cleva’s shoulder. “ ’Tis a glorious babe you’ve got, m’lady, a daughter who will someday make you proud.” She took the ring from Cleva’s hand and slid it back on her finger.
The door creaked open as Rowena, her eyes averted, her lips turned down in disapproval, returned. She said nothing as she helped the babe suckle at Cleva’s breast and washed the blood from her body.
With a thunder of boots, Baron Eaton burst into the room. His face was flushed, his smile stretched wide. “ ’Tis a son?” he asked, dropping on his knees at his wife’s bedside, kissing her sweat-soaked curls and gazing in awe at the newborn.
Cleva licked her lips nervously. Tears again filled her eyes. “A daughter.”
The baron tried to hide his disappointment, and his wife laid a thin hand over his. “We have Tadd,” she reminded him, her chin wobbling slightly as she cradled the baby. “You have your firstborn son.”
“Aye, and now I have a daughter.”
Cleva swallowed hard, started to say something, but glanced over her shoulder to Isolde and held her tongue.
“And a beauty she is. Like her mother.” Eaton placed a huge hand on the back of the baby’s head, but his smile disappeared. The tiny girl nursed hungrily, and he shook his great head. “I had hoped for another son,” he admitted, and thin lines appeared at the corners of Cleva’s mouth.
“One may yet come,” the priest interposed. He glanced at the chamber and frowned at the tapers burning slowly and giving off their herbed scent. He noticed the knotted cord around Cleva’s neck, and his gaze sharpened on Isolde. “I warned you, midwife—”
“This child is a gift,” Isolde said quickly.
The baron lifted a brow, encouraging her to speak. “A gift?”