“Run, little maid,” he whispered, and she did exactly that, her arms full, wanting to be away from him, but in three swift steps he closed the distance between them. With a firm shove to her slim back, he hastened her escape, and sent her tumbling down the unforgiving stone steps.
She didn’t even scream.
Banruud followed her down, taking each step with a measured tread. She lay in a broken heap at the bottom, the soiled sheets wrapped around her like a shroud, but she was not dead. She stared at him, her eyes wide, moaning in pain and fear. Her neck was broken, her left leg too, but he would relieve her suffering. He put his booted foot on her throat and pressed down with all his considerable weight, bidding her safe passage to the world beyond.
When it was done, he climbed the stone stairs with the same steady conviction with which he’d descended. If Agnes, the midwife, showed any inclination toward disbelief or disloyalty, he would silence her as well. He was counting on her devotion to her mistress and her belief in the gods to close her lips.
Banruud entered his wife’s chamber once more, walked to the bed, and looked down at Alannah’s slumbering form, her belly no longer bulging, her dead child wrapped tightly in a blanket, lying in the crook of her arm. Alannah insisted on holding them each time, and each time Banruud had to wrestle the small corpse away from her before it began to decay.
For a moment, he let himself feel the rage and loss he’d felt many times before. Four sons—five now—all buried in a straight row, four flat rocks above four tiny heads. And his wife lived on. He would have abandoned her—replaced her—long ago. But she was the daughter of his king, and he could not easily discard her.
But Odin had finally looked favorably upon him.
He unwrapped the dead child from the blanket Alannah had so carefully crafted and wrapped the live child in his place, tucking her against his wife’s inert form. Taking the plain, rough blanket the girl child had been wrapped in, he bundled a loose hearthstone and his dead son inside, knotting the blanket firmly around both. He walked to the window and stared out into the gathering darkness. If anyone saw the bundle drop, it wouldn’t matter. It would be gone before anyone could fish it out of the water, if they were even inclined to do so. He released it and watched as it fell, hit the moat with a barely audible plop, and disappeared almost immediately, the weight of the heavy stone pulling his son to a watery grave.
Satisfied that the worst was accomplished, he moved back to his sleeping wife and sat in a chair near the bed, waiting for her to wake, to find the gift he’d placed at her side. She’d been through two days of strenuous labor and the birth of yet another stillborn child, and she slept with the heaviness of post-hysteria. Agnes would have given her a tonic to take away her pain and suffering, if only for a time. She would have given her something to help her sleep, to forget. But he needed her to wake.
“Alannah,” he whispered, shaking her roughly. “Wake.”
She didn’t even stir. He persisted, pinching her arms until she moaned and raised shaking hands to push him away.
“Alannah.”
She moaned.
“Alannah.”
Her eyes fluttered, and wan awareness lit her gaze. She closed her eyes again and turned her face away. She thought he was there to rebuke her. To mourn and rage. And she didn’t want to face him.
He forced gentleness into his tone. “Alannah. We must celebrate.”
Her chin wobbled, and her mouth turned down. Tears escaped from under her closed lids and trailed down her pallid cheeks.
“Look what you have given me, wife. Look at our beautiful daughter.”
Her eyelids fluttered again, and blue eyes met his black gaze. She stared at him. Weary. Weak. Disoriented.
Good. Banruud needed her to be confused.
The babe at her side emitted a small cry.
Alannah looked down at the infant tucked against her ribs, wonder blooming across her devastated face.
“Look at your beautiful daughter,” he said, laying the babe across her shoulder so she could see the flush of warm skin and feel the sweet breath on her cheeks.
“My baby?” she whimpered. “No. I . . . my baby . . . he died.” Her face crumpled, and her hands fluttered to her eyes. She wiped at her tears, ignoring the wriggling baby lying against her.
“No, not this time. Your baby lives. Your daughter lives. You were in shock and Agnes gave you a tonic. It took away the pain. But it has made you forgetful.” Banruud pulled her hands from her eyes, his fingers encircling her narrow wrists. He forced her arms around the child.
“Look at her, Alannah. Hold your daughter. She is hungry. She needs you.”
He tugged at the front of her dressing gown, baring her engorged breasts. Her milk always came early, in anticipation of the babies who never survived. Her eyes, glazed and glassy, clung to the babe beside her.
“I don’t remember her,” she whimpered.
“I know. But you will. You will be so happy, just as I am.”
Alannah’s eyes left the child’s face and found his. “You are happy?” she whispered.
“I am happier than I have ever been.”
“She’s mine? Ours?” she pled, begging for reassurance.
“Yes.”
“A daughter?”
“A daughter.”
Alannah touched the baby’s cheek, astonishment infusing her tired face with hope. “I am dreaming,” she wailed. “It cannot be true. My babies are dead.”
“Yet she is alive.”
The girl child began to fuss in earnest, and Alannah wept with her.
“Help me sit, Banruud,” she cried, gathering the wailing infant in her arms. He did so, propping woman and child against the thick oak headboard of the enormous bed. Tentatively, with the instinct born of long suffering, Alannah guided the hungry babe to her breast. The baby latched on eagerly. Triumph surged in Banruud’s belly as Alannah winced and then whimpered in relief.
“We will call her Alba,” he insisted.
“Alba,” Alannah repeated, her voice dreamlike as she gazed down at the nursing infant.
Banruud heard the screaming and the boots in the hall outside the chamber door, but no one entered or even knocked, and his wife, wrapped in a fog of euphoria and exhaustion, did not even register the commotion. Someone would be looking for him to tell him the news. Or mayhaps not. He had a steward and a housekeeper. They would handle the terrible accident that had befallen the maid. He felt a flash of remorse. He hated to kill a young woman of Berne when they were in such short supply. And tonight, he would kill more than one.
The door opened softly, suddenly, and Agnes stepped inside, the only person in the keep who would enter Lady Alannah’s chamber thus. She saw Banruud first, sitting at his wife’s bedside, and her countenance fell as her shoulders stiffened, bracing for his wrath. Then her gaze slid to Alannah.
The midwife gasped and stumbled back, her eyes clinging to the child suckling her lady’s breast.
“Odin’s eyes!” she hissed, making the sign of the star over her heart.
“She is so beautiful, Agnes. Come look at her,” Alannah murmured, her voice still slurred and sleepy.
“W-what is this?” Agnes whispered, her hands fluttering around her throat, over her heart, and back again. For a moment, Banruud thought she would faint. She stumbled and steadied herself against the wall.