“Well, look at you,” Edith said softly as Alexandra’s moans died down for a moment. I watched my wife’s eyes open wide as she stared at the woman who approached us.
“Edith!” she exclaimed. She reached out, and I forced myself to let this woman, a stranger to me, wrap my wife’s fingers in her own. At least it was obvious Alexandra knew her.
“I have heard so much of what became of you,” Edith told her. “I was not sure what to believe, but we will have to talk of that later. First, we need to see how soon this baby is going to be here.”
“Yes.” Alexandra choked out the word as her body shook with another spasm.
“Are there many minutes between pains?” Edith asked. After a moment of silence, I realized she was asking me.
“What?” I replied.
“How far apart are her pains?”
“Um…well…she’s been crying since I got here.”
“All the time, or does she stop for a while?”
“She stops.”
“For how long?”
“I have no idea!” I yelled.
The woman took a long deep breath, glared at me, and then turned to my wife.
“Alexandra?”
“A minute or two.” Alexandra moaned. The sweat was back on her brow again though I had just wiped it away. “No more than that.”
“Let’s see how you are doing, then.”
To my horror, the woman reached down and began to lift my wife’s skirts.
“What do you think you are doing?” I yelled at her as I slapped her hand away.
She backed off. Her eyes widened for a brief moment, and then they calmed and settled into…amusement? She pursed her lips and shook her head slightly.
“King Branford,” Edith said as she placed her hands on her hips, “do you think this child is going to come out through her dress?”
I looked at Alexandra on the ground, thought of where I had to be in order to put a child inside of her in the first place, and then considered how well that act would have worked if her clothing had remained in place. I felt my mouth open and close a couple of times, but no sound came out. Apparently, Edith took my lack of response for an answer.
“Then you realize we must remove her dress.”
I didn’t know what to say. At this point, Greysen had managed to follow Parnell’s lead and had disappeared from the room without my knowledge. I was left alone with my wife in labor and a woman who looked at me as if I were a fool.
Perhaps I was.
“King Branford,” Edith said, and I heard a strangely familiar quality to her tone of voice. “I know this will be…unusual for you, but I need you to promise me something.”
“Promise you?” I repeated, confused. “Promise you what?”
“You want to help Alexandra, do you not? You want to see your child come into this world alive and healthy?”
“Of course I do!” I yelled.
“Then promise me something,” she replied.
I could only nod slightly.
“You are going to listen to me,” she said, “and do everything I tell you to do without question. If you hesitate, it could be dangerous for Alexandra and the baby.”
Whether that was the case or not, I knew one thing for sure—my wife was in pain, and I had no idea how to help her. I was left with little choice and no time to ask for the advice of my companions or make other arrangements.
“Anything you say.” I agreed as I held Alexandra’s hand to my chest.
Edith looked me over before nodding, apparently satisfied with my answer. I realized then what felt so familiar—she sounded like Sunniva when I was young and being scolded. While I considered this, she removed Alexandra’s clothing almost entirely, leaving my wife in nothing but the loose underclothing that had been beneath her dress. Even that article was raised up to Alexandra’s waist and tucked into itself so it would stay in place.
Edith then coaxed Alexandra onto her back, and she gently pushed my wife’s legs apart and peered at her. I felt a little sick as she reached in with her hand, and I had to focus my attention on my wife’s face, pushing the loose strands of hair from her sweaty forehead and kissing her on her temple.
“She is close,” Edith said as Alexandra fought through another burst of pain. “I can feel the babe’s head.”
His head? Truly?
I tried to peer over Alexandra’s knee to see what there was to be seen, but Edith pushed at my shoulder and told me to rise. She also stood, and her hands reached for Alexandra’s. Edith then pulled Alexandra upright until she balanced on the balls of her feet with her legs spread apart.
Alexandra’s cries became louder almost immediately.
“She will need to hold on to you,” Edith said. Her voice remained quiet and certain, which was the exact opposite of how Alexandra sounded and how I felt.
“Why is she in more pain?” I asked, unsure if I really wanted the answer.
“The baby is close,” Edith told me. “When Alexandra was lying down, it kept the baby from pushing against the right place to come out. Getting her on her feet will help bring forth the child faster. Trust me.”
I was not sure I could, but I also had little choice in the matter. I nodded, and Edith gave me a half smile.
“And give me your shirt.”
I pulled off my shirt and quickly handed it to Edith before I knelt behind Alexandra. I wrapped my arms underneath hers and up around her shoulders, holding her upright as she leaned forward and listened to Edith’s instructions. Alexandra held my arms, and again her fingernails dug into my skin. I would have complained, but it was then Alexandra let out a long wail.
“Push!”
And another.
“Push!”
And another.
My back and chest were covered in sweat just from the act of holding my wife up on her feet. My arms ached as if I had engaged in battle for a day and a night. I could have sworn the whole ordeal lasted for hours though Edith assured me later it had not. Just as I was about to come to the conclusion that I was not strong enough for this, Alexandra let out a final, shuddering cry and went limp against me.
A moment later, I heard another, weaker cry.
“Lay her down,” Edith said quietly.
I complied immediately, laying Alexandra softly onto the straw of the cell floor. I felt as though I was being torn in two—trying to decide if I should check first on my wife or on my child. Kneeling on the straw, I could see Edith with the squirming thing in her arms, and it seemed to me like there was an awful lot of blood.
“Branford?” Alexandra croaked.
I dropped down next to her and held my wife close to me as I stared down at the child in Edith’s arms. As I took in the tiny form with my eyes, I felt my chest tighten and tears begin to well. For a moment I could not speak, but then my wife implored me for news of our child.
“You gave me a son, Alexandra,” I whispered against the side of her face, “a beautiful, strong son. Can you feel him?”
Edith rose up on her knees and held the baby out to me, already wrapped in my shirt. I took him in my arms, instantly frightened I would hold him too tightly or drop him but also unable to stop myself from holding him first to my chest and then to place him in Alexandra’s arms. My voice broke, and I looked into her eyes and saw that they were also shimmering with tears. Warm, wet skin touched my cheek as I held the baby to her.
“A boy?” she whispered, and her eyes opened to look into his face. Tears continued to pour from her eyes, but I was quite sure they were no longer from pain. I could finally breathe easily again as I watched my wife’s gaze take in our son.
My heir.
His tiny eyes screwed shut as he opened his mouth to cry out his protest of being removed from the warm, comfortable place he had spent the first part of his existence. Alexandra immediately brushed her fingertip over his cheek and told him not to worry—that his daddy had made it in time, and no one would take him away.
I closed my own e
yes at her words, afraid to learn what had befallen her since she had been taken from me on the road. I knew at some point I would have to hear her story though I was not sure if I could listen without losing whatever was left of my sanity.
“They cannot hurt you, little one,” I said, speaking to both my son and my wife. “They are all gone now.”
“Gone?” Alexandra whispered.
“All of them,” I assured her.
“Whitney….she is…?”
“Dead,” I replied softly. I heard Alexandra sigh in relief, and I saw her grip tighten on our son.
“Little Branford,” she whispered, and I could not stop my smile.
“Little Branford, yes.”
Edith found Alexandra a clean dress and a fresh blanket for the tiny prince. She held our son while I helped Alexandra change into the new clothes. Once Edith let Greysen know it was now “safe” to return, Parnell and Rylan came back into the room along with him, and Alexandra looked up at him and smiled.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice nearly reverent.
Greysen bowed slightly, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I looked between them both and wondered just what had transpired in the dark cell at the bottom level of Sterling Castle.
Alexandra must have noticed my tension, for she moved slightly closer to me and placed her hand on my arm. I moved my gaze back to her and raised a brow, questioning.
“If it had not been for him…” Her voice trailed off, and I felt my body tense again as I imagined everything that could have happened to her.
“Did Remy touch you?” I asked. I did not want to know, but I needed to know.
“Remy?” Alexandra’s eyes tightened in confusion. “Sir Remy? I have not seen him. Why did you ask that of me?”
“Never mind,” I said as I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and brought her against my chest. “It does not matter now.”
She touched the side of my face.
“You are hurt.” She traced her fingers just outside the cut near my temple.
“I am fine,” I told her.
“Remy?” she asked again, and I wondered how she could be so intuitive.
I shrugged and glanced off to the side.
“He will not have the opportunity to say such things again,” I said simply. “I am only glad the words he spoke were false.”
Alexandra tilted her head up and looked to my side to where Greysen and Parnell stood near the door.
“If it were not for Greysen, I do not know what would have happened,” she said softly. I nodded, imagining in my mind how Mother’s cousin must have placed himself between my wife and danger.
Then Alexandra began to speak again.
“When he hit me…”
For a moment, my mind went blank with fury. I heard nothing else she said, for the vision that had been in my head had just changed drastically. I turned to Greysen, my eyes narrowed and deadly.
“You laid a hand on my wife?” I growled through clenched teeth. I gripped the hilt of my sword as I turned and started to step toward him.
Greysen lowered his head and began to speak quickly.
“I had to do something, sire. They would have harmed her, and I could not give away my position and keep her safe! I did not harm her, I swear.”
“Silence!” I yelled. “I asked you a simple question. Did you or did you not lay a hand on my wife?”
“Branford…” I felt Alexandra’s warm hand against my cheek and immediately felt myself soften to her. “He had to…to save me.”
Our eyes met, and I felt once again the overwhelming sensations flow through my body. She was here with me again—really, truly here. I had not lost her, and through placing Greysen in Hadebrand as my spy, I did manage to protect her, even if it was not how I had originally imagined.
Greysen took another step back, and I saw Parnell move to stand between us, but his back was to me. I heard Alexandra’s plea again—that he only touched her in order to save her. I swallowed hard and gave in to the pressure from my wife’s hand as she turned me to face her.
“He saved me.” Her tone was definitive and final.
I nodded in response. Now that my focus was back on her, my thoughts followed, and Greysen was forgotten for now.
“How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” she said quietly.
Without another word, I bent to pick up Alexandra in my arms, stopping only long enough to have Edith place our son into his mother’s arms before I carried them both to the bedroom—the same place Alexandra and I spent the first night of our marriage.
With one arm wrapped around her shoulders and the other curved under her arm, I held my wife and my son close. The babe’s eyes were closed, and he seemed to sleep peacefully though every few minutes, his face would scrunch up as if in discomfort. It lasted but a moment, and his tiny eyelids would smooth out, and his mouth would move in quick sucking motions.
Every time he moved, made a sound, or even took a breath, I felt my heart reach out for him. He was so very tiny, and I knew he had come earlier than he was meant to. I feared for him though I would not mention it to Alexandra. It would only cause her to worry, and there would be nothing she could do. A fleeting memory of a messenger who came to tell me Bridgett had birthed a daughter crossed my mind, followed only two days later with another one to say the babe had perished. I had never seen the child though I did go to Bridgett and helped her as much as I could. I had been just barely a man myself and knew nothing more than to offer her gold for her troubles.
Now that I looked upon my son—a child created from both Alexandra and me—I realized how truly hard and calloused I must have seemed to the Duke’s daughter. I wondered if she had bestowed even a fraction of the love I wanted to give to this child on the daughter who did not live. It saddened me, and I vowed to myself to find Bridgett and do right by her even if it was far too late to truly make amends.
I kissed the top of Alexandra’s head, and she tilted her face to mine.
“He is so small,” she said.
“He is.”
“He seems so fragile in my arms.”
“No,” I said, disagreeing immediately, “he is strong. You can tell by how loud he cries.”
Alexandra held in a laugh so as not to wake him.
“I love him already,” she said softly. “I did before he was even born but especially now that I have seen him.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” she asked as she looked quizzically into my face. I responded with my eyes, and after a moment, she nodded. “Yes, you do.”
“I love you,” I told her. “How could I not love the child you bore me?”
“I love you, too,” she responded. She looked back to the babe who now slept peacefully in her arms. “I have two Branfords to love now.”
I tightened my grip on her again, both at the sound of her words and at the prospect of how differently it could have been if I had not been here in time or if our people had not left their farms to fight for their queen.
“I thought I might never see you again,” I said quietly. Alexandra turned her head up to look at me, and I could see tears forming in her eyes.
“She said…she said she would have me killed as soon as the baby was born.” Alexandra tightened her arms around little Branford, but she pushed her shoulder against my body, and I gripped her closer in response. “When I started feeling pains…I knew he was coming, and I was so afraid…”
Her tears flowed freely, and I held her as close as I dared. A moment later, the babe awoke and protested at the movement. Alexandra immediately began to coo at him, and I shifted a little and helped her lower one side of her gown and allow the babe to nurse. He calmed immediately, and as he did, I felt my wife relax in my grip as well.
“Never again,” I told her. “Hadebrand is no more. You are safe now.”
“What of those who live there?” Alexandra asked.
“What of them?”
Alexand
ra hesitated before she responded.
“Edgar was…unkind to the people of Wynton after their lands fell into his hands. What will now happen to the people of Hadebrand?”
“There are no more people of Hadebrand,” I replied. When Alexandra looked up at me with a shocked expression, I shook my head and clarified. “They are not all dead—they are now people of Silverhelm. I would not be cruel to those who were simply unfortunate enough to have their family’s farm in a certain location.”
She nodded and lay her head back down on my shoulder to watch our son as he squirmed slightly in her arms.
“He is beautiful,” she whispered as his eyes closed, and he continued to suck even though he appeared to have fallen back asleep. “He looks just like you.”
“Hmm.” I hummed as I looked him over. There were similarities that were obvious—his eyes and the shape of his lips, but his nose was the same as hers, and he did not have enough hair to determine what color it might be. “I see his mother in him as well.”
Alexandra’s eyelids fluttered closed as she lifted our son from her breast and placed him against the other. As the babe continued his meal, Alexandra’s eyelids grew heavier.
“Sleep, my wife,” I whispered as I pressed my lips against the skin below her ear. “I have you, and you are safe.”
She did not even remain awake long enough to respond.
*****
We spent several days in Sterling Castle and were joined by Sunniva and Ida on the third day. During that time, I returned to the ruins that were once Hadebrand to look over my new lands. Where there had once been a fine castle with its many surrounding buildings, there was now nothing but rubble, scorched earth, and six halberds thrust into the ground, each topped with the ghoulish head of Edgar and his family members.
There were still two questions that bothered me greatly. The first mystery had to do with the whereabouts of Sir Leland and the men who had participated in the killing of my parents. Of the four of them who taught me so much as a young child, one was not yet accounted for. Kolby was killed by Parnell. Dalton had been killed in the forests of Silverhelm by Dunstan, and Salik’s body was located near Gage—both apparently killed by stones from the castle walls as they fell. Yagmur was still nowhere to be found. The other question looming in my mind was the reason behind the almost complete destruction of the east tower of my ancestral home. No one seemed to know anything of it.