Page 65 of The Dragon Ring
“What’s this?” the older woman asked.
“My wife,” Theodoric said curtly. “She’s just had the babe. She needs your help, Ummidia.”
The two young women’s eyes widened with shock. As well they might. There was blood all over Morgawse’s clothing, just as there was over me.
“Bring her in,” Ummidia said, swiftly taking charge of the situation. “Albina, fetch Cutha. Cloelia, fetch hot water from the kitchens and bring it to the dolphin bedroom.” The two girls ran to do her bidding without a second asking. “This way, Theo.”
He followed her along the walkway, with me trailing in his wake. In the corner, she flung open a door, and we entered a large bedchamber with a mosaic of a leaping dolphin underfoot. She began to light the little clay oil lamps set in recesses in the walls.
“Set her on the bed.”
He did as he was told, laying his wife down gently. In her arms the baby awoke and began to whimper.
“Where are we?” Morgawse asked. Perhaps she, too, had been asleep.
Ummidia bent over her. “You’re with me, my dear, and you’re safe now. Nothing can hurt you here.” She soothed Morgawse’s brow with her hand. “We’ll soon have you feeling better. Give me the baby and get out of those filthy clothes.” She turned to Theodoric. “Well, you can go now. This is women’s work. Off with you.” And, baby in arms, she shooed him out of the room.
After only a few minutes, Albina, Ummidia’s elder daughter, returned with the promised Cutha, who turned out to be a proper midwife, thank goodness. Shortly after that, Cloelia arrived back with two maids carrying buckets of hot water, which Cutha used to clean Morgawse up. A fresh undershirt was supplied, her tangled hair brushed out and rebraided, and the baby wrapped in a clean shawl and returned to her to feed. Morgawse sat up in bed looking glowing and happy, as every new mother should.
To my surprise, instead of a nappy, they wrapped the baby’s bottom in a rabbit skin stuffed with dried moss, from a pile of them that Cutha had brought with her. Cozy, at least, though probably a bit of a nightmare to get the poop out of the fur.
This done, they turned their attentions to me. More hot water. A clean undershirt and dress, and exclamations over my walking boots and dagger, which Merlin had returned to me once he was sure I wasn’t going to use it on Arthur. My own hair, which was considerably more tangled than Morgawse’s, was also brushed out. Without protesting, I let them get on with it. I think I was in delayed shock, despite the euphoria of the triumphal march. So much had happened I was having difficulty processing it. Their conversation went over my head until I heard Arthur’s name mentioned, and then I pricked up my ears.
“Did you see Prince Arthur– I mean King Arthur, in the stable courtyard when you went for the water?” Albina, a tall girl with large, hazel eyes and a wide, friendly mouth, asked her younger sister, who was teasing through my hair with a bone comb.
Cloelia nodded and a flush crept up her round cheeks. She was smaller and chubbier than her sister, but otherwise very like her. A dusting of freckles covered her nose.
“What’s he like?” Albina asked, also coloring. She was tidying up my dirty blood-stained clothing into a pile.
“So handsome,” Cloelia breathed, “Oh, he’s so handsome. A dream.”
Goodness. They sounded like a pair of modern teenage girls talking about some pop star. How times don’t change. Maybe the idols do, but not the language in which they’re discussed. They made me feel old.
Cutha, a middle-aged woman with a long grey plait of hair, passed the dirty buckets of water to the maid. The bedchamber was getting pretty crowded. She tutted loudly, reminding me of Cottia. “They do say as ’e’s wed the Lady o’ the Ring.”
“No, really?” Albina’s voice rose in consternation. “The prophecy’s come true after all this time? Did you ever think it would?”
Cloelia shook her head and managed to give my hair a sharp pull.
“Ouch,” I complained, curling my fingers around the dragon ring so they wouldn’t see it.
“I’m sorry.” Cloelia said, with true feeling. “It’s just that all the girls I know wanted to get a look at him. We didn’t live in Viroconium when he was here before. Our father’s from Rheged. We are, too, I suppose, although we live here now. Father is the Seneschal.”
“I don’t suppose he’ll be that now,” Ummidia put in. “Not now he’s come down on the side of Arthur.” She sounded a little bitter. I supposed she had reason. It must have been good to be the wife of the Seneschal, the most important man after the king. “We’ll probably have to go back to Rheged.”
Cloelia began to braid my hair.
“I wonder if there’re nice boys in Rheged?” she mused.
I glanced across at Morgawse, but she’d nodded off, the baby sleeping at her breast.
It was time to leave the new mother to herself, with Cutha to take care of her.
Such a lot had happened, yet it all felt compressed into a rush of activity. Above the courtyard garden a myriad of stars sparkled in the blue-black sky, and the cold nipped at my nose and fingers. I was wearing one of Albina’s cloaks around my shoulders, as mine had been left behind in the audience chamber. With a shiver, I pulled it closer. The bedroom had been warm with the heat from the hypocaust and the number of people in it.
“I need to change for dinner,” Ummidia said. “Do you mind waiting a moment while I do so, Milady?”
Why would she think I’d mind? I was a guest in her house. But of course, she knew I was a queen even if her daughters didn’t. That thought was sobering. Embarrassed, I murmured my assent. The girls went skipping off down the walkway chattering excitedly about seeing Arthur at dinner, and we went into her bedroom.
