The Love Knot (60 page)

The woman looked at the way Catrin's hand was pressed against her belly. 'God save you, mistress,' she said, 'of course I will.'

Catrin gave Rosamund a kiss and a swift hug. 'Go with Goda,' she commanded. 'I'll find you later.'

Rosamund's lower lip quivered, but she was an obedient child and had no reason to doubt her mother's word. Besides, Goda's daughter Alfreda was her best friend.

'You will be all right?' Goda asked, lingering but wanting to be gone.

Catrin made a small gesture and nodded. She could feel another contraction gathering and tightening. 'Yes, go. I'll follow you up.'

Goda told Rosamund to hold Alfreda's hand, and set off, tugging the children at a pace that was a half-run. Rosamund looked back over her shoulder and waved. Returning the wave, Catrin looked at the sweet oval of her daughter's face, the black hair curling round her cheeks where it had escaped its braid, and wondered if it was the last time she was ever going to see her.

Taking herself to task for such a negative thought, she forced her legs to move. When the contraction grew too fierce, she stopped to try and breathe through it. As the pain eased, she heard the first scream and, turning round, saw the plumes of smoke rising from the houses behind her.

There were more people running and screaming now. Those who had been in their homes, those who had not heard the warnings, now fled before the looters and the flames.

Catrin swallowed, tasting smoke as the wind drove the stink of burning thatch into her face. The castle was less than two furlongs away but unless she reached the safety of its walls, she would die. Terror drove her onwards step by staggering step, while behind her the sounds of destruction grew.

There was a sudden hot gush of liquid between her thighs as her waters broke, drenching her undergown and shoes. The contractions sharpened, growing hard and deep, doubling her over as she reached the outer ditch. As she screamed with the pain and dropped to her knees, the first soldiers rode up to the outerworks, their weapons red in their hands.

People scattered, wailing and screaming. Some fell beneath the chop of sword and mace. The contraction passed, but instead of struggling to her feet and trying to run, Catrin slumped to the ground and closed her eyes. It was freezing and wet, it was dangerous, but still safer than attempting to outrun the savagery of Eustace's troops. Her mind's eye filled with a vision of Penfoss burning under a lazy summer sky;

the rape and butchery; the stench of blood and eyes blank of mercy. Amice miscarrying. Oliver.

Another spasm hit her and she dug her fingernails into her palms and stifled her scream against the moist ground. The taste of mud was in her mouth, the crackle of flame and the brutal, metallic thud of warfare filled her ears. She was part of it, her body seared and torn by shattering pain. The roar of battle grew with the intensity of the contraction. A horse thundered past so close that mud sprayed from its hooves and spattered her face. She lifted her lids and saw feathered black hocks and heavy steel shoes. Swords clashed. There were grunts of effort, and then a dull thump followed by a gasp of pain. She raised her eyes and saw spurs dig into the black's flanks as the man astride wheeled him and rode out of her vision.

For a far too brief and grateful moment, Catrin was free of labour pains. She dared not move for fear of being struck down, so her vision was limited and what she saw confused her. The mounted soldiers had ceased to attack the fleeing townspeople and were fighting among themselves. She was so dazed that even when one of the men yelled 'Le Roi Henri!' at the top of his lungs, she did not understand at first.

It was only when she saw the distinctive brown and white patches of Richard FitzRoy's skewbald destrier and the red shield with its gold lion blazon that she realised their own troops had returned. Richard was staring round, his sword in his hand, his jaw with its edging of new black beard clenched and grim.

Catrin forced herself to her feet and screamed his name, but he didn't hear her. He was seeking Eustace's mercenaries, not a hysterical woman dripping with mud.

'Richard, for God's love help me!' she shrieked, but he was gone, spurring along the top of the ditch.

The next contraction hit, and an uncontrollable urge to push swelled down through Catrin's loins.

She lurched towards the outer wall, needing to brace herself. Another wave of mounted men ploughed into those already fighting amongst the outer works. There were more belligerent shouts of 'Le Roi Henri!' If she had not been in so much pain,

Catrin would have laughed. At least she had a guard while she gave birth.

Another red shield flashed, this one emblazoned with a gold cross. It was smaller and lighter than the great kite shields of his companions and he held it at a tilted angle as if his arm was tired. The horse was a steel grey, its coat made light silver by a thickening of winter hair.

'Oliver!' she screamed, putting the last of her voice and all of her will into the cry.

He turned his head. His eyes wandered as if he had heard something but was not sure what or from where. Then he saw her. His fist came up on the bridle and he tore the horse out of line. In one movement, scarcely before the animal had stopped, he was out of the saddle, shield and sword discarded as he gathered her in his arms.

'Christ, Catrin, what are you doing here?'

Her fingers dug into the cold, steel hauberk rivets. 'Bearing a child!' she panted.

'What!'

'No, that's a lie. Bearing two!' Grasping him for support, she rode out the next contraction. 'Oliver, I'm in travail!'

He stared frantically round. 'We'll get you inside the keep.' He started to lift her but she thrust him off.

'No time. Too late. Spread your horse blanket on the ground.'

'Christ, Catrin, you can't!' He gaped at her in sheer horror.

'Tell that to your offspring!' she gasped. 'Quickly, you'll have to help me, there's no one else!'

'I don't know what to do!' His voice rose and cracked.

'I'll show you.' She curled her fingers in his hauberk and pressed her forehead into his chest. The urge to push was unbearable.

With a gasp like a drowning man, Oliver left her to run to his horse and tug the blanket off the crupper. At the same time he yelled at the wide-eyed Richard to go and find some female help.

He spread the blanket against the palisade fence lining the ditch. Catrin propped herself against the stakes, her legs drawn high and wide and her skirts soaked with mud and birthing fluid.

'Jesu,' Oliver said hoarsely. His face was ashen.

'Tell me when the head is there. You will need to support it as it is born.'

Oliver swallowed. He felt sick. He wanted to run and hide. The nearest he had been to a birth was pacing up and down outside a closed bedchamber door while behind it Emma died. Now Catrin was demanding that he play midwife. He glanced over his shoulder in the forlorn hope that help might be at hand, but there were only more soldiers going brutally about the business of securing the keep's outerworks and driving Eustace's troops from the town. Smoke billowed and there was a sting of rain in the wind.

'Oliver!' she screamed, her spine rammed up against the wood of the palisade.

Her cry brought him reeling to his senses. With no one else to help them, he had no choice.

'It's all right, I'm here,' he said, in what he hoped was a reassuring voice, and knew that he would rather face heavy battle with his injured hand a hundred times over than crouch here now and watch Catrin suffer.

She grunted and strained, putting all her breath, all her will and effort, into pushing the baby into the world. Wet and dark, the head crowned at the birth entrance.

'It's here,' Oliver said and reached out. Catrin was biting her lip and her face was flushed with exertion, but her eyes were lucid and fierce on his, demanding his attention.

'Is the cord clear?'

'It's not around the neck. Sweet Christ, its eyes are open!'

'Wouldn't yours be?' Catrin panted. 'Now the shoulders, take the shoulders. Don't pull on the cord.'

Once the shoulders were out, the rest of the baby followed in a slippery rush and Oliver only just kept hold of his offspring. 'A boy,' he said, on a note full of stunned surprise at the swiftness with which matters had progressed. The baby regarded him, a similar, if more myopic, expression on its face, then yelled lustily and waved its tiny arms. Removing his cloak, he wrapped it around the infant and laid it beside

Catrin. The cord still pulsed between her thighs. Her belly looked little smaller than it had done before. Blood smeared her flesh and welled around the birth passage but the flow was not copious.

'You see, I promised you,' she said, with a tremulous smile.

'Jesu God, I don't want any more promises in this fashion!' Oliver retorted, a quiver in his voice. His eyes went from her to the crying baby. He could feel his limbs weakening. In a moment he was going to collapse.

'Wait, it's not finished yet,' she said sharply as she saw him waver. 'Did you not hear me say that there were two of them?'

Oliver licked his lips. 'Two?' he said hoarsely.

She nodded, unable to speak, and braced herself against the palisade. 'Pull gently on the cord, the first afterbirth's coming.'

By the time two women from the castle finally arrived, so had Oliver and Catrin's second son. He was a little smaller than his older brother but just as loud. Hands trembling with shock and relief, Oliver wrapped him with the first one and gazed at their two crumpled little faces side by side.

'Twins,' he said numbly. 'Jesu, Catrin. Even to deliver one would have been a baptism by fire.'

'So now you are thoroughly scoured.' Through the weariness, her voice held a note of triumph. 'You need never fear again.'

He rubbed his hands over his face. 'I wouldn't say that. I tell you, if men had to bear children the human race would quickly come to an end.' But there was a gleam of satisfaction in his grey eyes. The very fact that he had been able to do something, instead of standing helplessly outside a locked door, had been a catharsis.

Crying and exclaiming over Catrin's state, the women bundled her into warm blankets and gave her wine to drink. Richard had possessed the foresight to send out two men with a rope stretcher and, in no time, Catrin was lifted up and borne with her new sons into the keep.

Prince Henry, still in his mail, his red hair rumpled from wearing a coif, came striding across the hall to look as mother and babies were carried through. 'Born against the palisade wall in the pouring rain and delivered by their father; that marks them out as unusual from the beginning.' He smiled at Oliver. 'Name the eldest Henry, and I'll stand godfather to them both.'

It was not an offer that Oliver was about to refuse. A royal godfather was a giant step up fortune's ladder. 'I was going to do as much, sire,' he said gracefully, and bowed.

'Just as long as you don't name the second one Eustace.' Henry's smile became a grin, although there was a hint of a snarl at its edges. Eustace had almost seized Devizes. Although he had been thwarted and his mercenaries had taken a battering from Henry's troops, houses and livelihoods had been destroyed and Eustace had proved that he could strike right at the heart of Henry's defences.

'My wife has the gift of his naming, sire,' Oliver replied, with a tender look at Catrin.

'Then what say you, mistress?'

'Simon,' Catrin said immediately. 'For Oliver's brother, killed in the first years of the strife.'

Henry nodded and looked pleased. Across the hall Roger of Hereford beckoned his attention and, with a parting murmur of congratulation, he strode off.

Catrin was conducted to a small wall-chamber where she was cleaned, tended and left to rest with her new-born sons.

On his way out to find Rosamund and bring her to see her new brothers, Oliver paused on the threshold and gazed at Catrin and the babies, one either side of her on the pallet.

'What?' She raised heavy lids to look at him.

Oliver shook his head and smiled. 'I was just thinking that once I had nothing but dregs in my cup and now it's full to the brim.'

She smiled back at him. 'So is mine,' she said.