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.
John blocked his way. “I must do something to help a man in need.” Frantically, he searched his mind for something he “owed” Gilbert. “Your wife died in my house. It is the fault of the midwife who works for me. To repay you I will toss her out and pay for the care of your son.”
At that Berta began to protest, but a look from Alida shut her up. Alida wanted to stop what she could see was going to happen but she knew of no way. She had given her husband many daughters and two sons but all that pain was now being thrown away. It would have been all right if she could have switched the children without the knowledge of her husband. He would have loved her for giving him a son. But now he would know that she had failed and he would hate her. And what is more, he would give everything—all land and property—to this child who was not his.
“No, no,” Gilbert said with a great sigh. “You cannot throw your midwife onto the streets. I’m sure she is good. It was not her fault, it was mine. I breed sons of such great size that the women cannot bear them. Had I any consideration I would give my women small, golden girls as you do.”
“The horse you admired yesterday,” John said. “It is yours.”
Gilbert looked offended. “You think I would trade my son for a horse?” he said righteously.
“No, no, of course not.” All the horses in the world would not have made John part with a large, strong, healthy son.
Slowly, to give John time to come up with a richer offer for the boy, Gilbert sauntered over to where Meg held the babies. When John could think of nothing else to say, Gilbert helped. “I cannot take a nursing child from its milk. I must wait.” With another dramatic sigh, he said, “I wish I could leave the boy with you.”
At that John’s eyes widened.
“If there were only a connection between our families. Perhaps a marriage bond. I need a new wife.”
“Take your choice of my daughters,” John said quickly. “You may have any of them you want. For yourself, for your sons. Whatever you want. They are yours.”
“I will take that red-haired one,” Gilbert said instantly.
At that Alida gasped, for her daughter Joanna was only ten years old. “You cannot.” She looked imploringly at her husband.
John did not so much as look at his wife. “She is yours.”
“And what of her dowry?” Now that the bargaining was under way, Gilbert was dropping his guise of grief.
“Peniman Manor,” John said quickly.
Alida’s hands tightened into knots at her side. Peniman Manor was hers, given to her in her own right by her father. It was where she went whenever she had a chance, a place where she could have a beautiful garden that she knew was not going to be trampled by the hooves of men’s horses. It was a place where no man was welcome and it was where anything that she had ever owned or made that was beautiful was
stored. Her husband hated the place, with its tapestries and books and great bowls of scented herbs on the polished tables.
When Alida opened her mouth to protest, John turned a face black with rage toward her. “You have taken from me what was mine by right and now I will take what is yours.” He looked back at Gilbert. “Peniman Manor is yours, as is the girl. And I will keep the boy.” He was at last beginning to realize that getting the boy was only a matter of money.
“I do not know if I should leave the boy. He is a fine lad, is he not? Look how strong he is. Already the girl has stopped sucking but the boy continues. I guarantee that he will grow into a fine, strong man.”
With his heart beating in his throat, John tried to make himself think of this as bargaining for a horse. Except that he had never wanted a horse as much as he wanted this boy.
“Children die,” John said with a shrug that fooled no one. “I am not sure I should agree to keep the boy. What do I get from raising your overlarge son? He will no doubt eat me out of house and home.”
“It would be an honor for you to raise a boy who is connected to the throne,” Gilbert said as though affronted.
“Ha! I will raise him, educate him and then you will take him away and marry him to some puny girl who is nothing to me.”
Gilbert did so love negotiating. It made his blood course through his body. “Mmmm,” he said, rubbing his chin. “You are right, of course.” He always liked to flatter the other dealer. Gilbert’s head came up. “We will betroth those two. What say you to that?”
John wanted to jump up and touch the sky in joy but he didn’t say anything at first. “I spend a lifetime feeding him, clothing him, educating him, then he marries my daughter and goes to live in the house I must provide them. I can get husbands for my daughters and I do not have to raise them.”
It took Gilbert a few moments to figure out what John was after. “You want an heir,” he said softly and he was astonished. John was a fool if he trusted anyone, especially to leave all his property to a boy who was not his blood relative. For a moment Gilbert looked John up and down. John was nearly forty years old, and for all that Gilbert had led a life of debauchery that made his look much older, he was only twenty-eight. If John made this boy his heir, after his death Gilbert could come in, claim the boy and take everything.
“Do not do it!” Alida shouted at her husband, for she read Rasher’s thoughts as though he had spoken aloud. “Do you not see what he is after? He has found a way to steal all that you have. If you die he will take all.”
John turned a furious face on her. “If I die, what do I care what happens to my property afterward? Should I work all my life and leave it to a woman who gives me only daughters? Should I give it to those two worthless boys you gave me? One can hardly walk and the other is too weak to live.” He glared at her. “All of you can live on a dung heap for all I care.”
He turned back to Gilbert. “Give me the boy, we will draw up contracts, and I will betroth him to a daughter—I have enough of those—and I will make him my heir. While I am alive, he will be mine.”
While I am alive, Gilbert thought. If John died before the boy reached age, Gilbert would have control of him. Truthfully, Gilbert would have control no matter how old the boy was when John died. Gilbert had always thought so but today had proved that John’s heart was too soft. He gave away everything for something that could never truly be his. Blood was everything; contracts on paper meant nothing. When the boy was a few years older, Gilbert could say that he was lonely and meant to take the boy back unless John paid him more money.
“What can console me now, this moment, for the loss of the son of this woman I loved so much?” Gilbert asked.
For a moment John was at a loss. What more could he give than everything he owned?
“There is a horse…,” Gilbert prompted. “And a few gold goblets. I need something to drink out of. But, alas, I have no wine in that old castle of mine. Perhaps a new roof might keep the rain out.”
With hatred boiling inside her, Alida listened for nearly an hour as her husband “bargained.” It could not rightfully be called bargaining, since John gave that contemptible man everything he asked for. He gave him wine and cattle and lead for his roof, as well as craftsmen to install the roof. He gave away the six gold goblets that Alida had brought to him upon their marriage. They were beautiful things, set with rubies, chased with designs of the lives of the saints, and her family had used them for generations. She had meant to give them to her eldest son’s family, but now they were going to this dirty man who she had no doubt would melt them down within hours of receiving them.
After a while she stopped looking at her husband and turned her attention to the sleeping children the wet nurse held. Here was the cause of all her problems.
Perhaps it was the years of misery, of the constant, ceaseless belittling from her husband. Maybe it was nineteen years of praying and not receiving what she begged for, but in that moment something inside Alida broke.
Alida could no longer believe she would ever win her husband’s favor. She had been a good wife to him, running his estates cleanly and efficiently. He never had any idea how things inside his houses got done, how food was properly cooked and put on the table. He left all of that to his wife, and Alida had done a brilliant job of it. She had managed servants while nearly constantly pregnant. When there were problems, and there were many, she took care of everything and her husband was never disturbed.
Now, after nineteen years of being an excellent wife to him, he was giving away everything that had been her family’s for centuries to a child who was of no relation to him. He was ignoring his own children, children who were intelligent as well as handsome, to bestow everything on that creature.
She looked at the black-haired child cradled in the fat arms of the wet nurse and a hatred such as she’d never before known existed came over her. And every fiber of her hatred was directed at the baby still sucking life from that farm woman. Already today the child had killed his mother and now he might as well have killed her too. He had robbed an entire family of its rightful inheritance, of its future.
15
I will name the boy,” John said and there was a new light in his eyes, a light that his wife had never seen before.
It was a full day since she had given birth and out of exhaustion she had been able to sleep, but not so John. He had insisted that a lawyer be brought to him straightaway and that documents be drawn up between him and Gilbert Rasher. He was afraid Gilbert would change his mind about the child and take him away.
After the papers were signed, John had gone to the wedding guests below and announced that he had been delivered of a son. For being able to give this lie without contradiction, he had agreed to pay Rasher three fields of grain every year for as long as the boy lived. This in addition to all the other riches he’d promised him.
There was much rejoicing when John told his news. To show off his new son, John snatched the boy away from the wet nurse and again the boy, as well as the girl, began to scream so loudly even the riotous laughter of the guests could not cover the noise.
Quietly, Meg went to John and handed him his daughter into the other arm and instantly the crying of both children stopped. For a moment John could not think what to do. He was terrified that the people would guess that the boy was not his and know that this girl was what his cursed wife had given him.
Gilbert, seeing the rage creeping up John’s neck, stepped forward and announced that since the children were born on the same day, they would be betrothed to each other.
At that there was more cheering and more drinking.
John glanced with disgust at the girl he held, looking as though he might drop her as he would any distasteful object.
“Hold my daughter up,” Gilbert said. “Let the people see how beautiful she is. None of you knew I could breed such beauty, did you?” Raucously, he winked at the crowd and they howled with laughter. Maybe Gilbert Rasher could have bee
n a handsome man, but he’d had a father who beat his nose flat and he’d been thrown from horses and hit with lances, and from the time he was ten, he’d fought every male and some females he came across. His face was now too distorted to know what he should have looked like.
“What are their names?” someone in the crowd called out.
“Yes, yes,” John answered, still annoyed at finding himself holding two children instead of the one he wanted.
“I will name him…” John looked up at the crowd and smiled. “I will name him after my father.” He smiled broader. “And myself, of course. I give you John Talis Hadley.” For a moment he was too overcome with emotion to speak but when he did, his voice trembled. “My son.”
The applause was thunderous as people were genuinely glad for him. Only one or two suspected the truth, but they were smart enough to keep their mouths shut.
“And, Gilbert,” someone yelled, “what of your daughter? What is her name?”
Since Gilbert had never in his life given a thought to something as mundane as naming his children, he was at a loss. For a moment he stood with his mouth opening and closing.
Greatly daring, Meg spoke up. “Callasandra,” she said loudly. “Do you not remember, my lord? You named the child Callasandra.” It was a name she had heard years before from some traveling players and she’d thought it was beautiful, almost as beautiful as the little girl.
The people around them toyed with this name for a while, then a woman said, “How very pretty,” and nodded her head in approval. Soon John was agreeing, as well as Gilbert, that this was the child’s name.
“Let me take them,” Meg said, slipping both the children from John. She could not bear to have them out of her arms for much longer.