That was something, I supposed.
“Maia brought you powders from Mother Nara, didn’t she?” His voice was all of a sudden gentle. “You’ve thought about being rid of this baby.”
I nodded. “I’m frightened. I saw Morgawse give birth. I’ve read books. I know what can go wrong.” I didn’t mention all theCall the Midwifeepisodes I’d seen.
He reached over and put his hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. Many women feel fear as you’re doing. And for most, the fear is groundless. Morgawse had her baby, didn’t she? The baby’s alive and well, and so is she. And so shall you be.”
I thought of the powders under the bed again. I’d throw them away. They weren’t worth the risk. I was a queen, and this child was going to be a prince.
Chapter Eight
When we returnedto Din Cadan, I took the little leather pouch out from the toe of my walking boot and threw it on the brazier before I could change my mind. Afterwards I regretted it and sat for a while on the edge of our bed, considering the frightening future.
Merlin had promised not to tell anyone about our conversation, especially not Arthur, so this meant it was possible to keep my condition to myself for a while longer. In fact, in the end I didn’t have to tell Arthur because he guessed. For the third morning on wakening I was unable to eat my breakfast and threw up in the bowl Maia had placed at the side of the bed.
Arthur, already in his braccae and calf-high leather boots, with his undershirt hanging untucked, came and patted me sympathetically on the back. “You’re with child, aren’t you?” His voice was gentle. Too gentle. I wanted some other kind of reaction, although I didn’t know what. He smiled. “I suspected you might be the first time you were sick, but now I’m certain.”
Feeling very sorry for myself, I looked up at him, having just spat what looked like diced carrots into the bowl. I nodded. No use denying it now, not if puking was going to be my lot for the next month or so.
His smile widened into a grin of what I considered inappropriate delight. “I’m going to be a father again. That feels good. When will our child be born?”
I glared at him. How could he be so cheerful about it? Typical man, thinking only of himself. It was all right for him. He’d done his bit, the fun part. It was me stuck with the grind of pregnancy and birth…and puking.
“In the autumn.” A pretty vague answer, but then, no one here seemed to follow an actual calendar. Not for the first time it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to get some sort of paper– vellum perhaps– so I could write myself a calendar. I’d been here for over three months now, but the only reason I knew that was because I’d been counting the days between my periods. I had a strong inner need for order, and to know the date, and I wanted to mark off the time in a physical way.
Arthur dropped to his knees in front of me, putting the bowl of sick to one side. He took my hands in his lean tanned ones. “This is wonderful news.” His dark eyes shone up at me, and my heart did the little flip it did every time he looked at me like that. I couldn’t be annoyed at him for long.
“I’m frightened,” I said in a small voice. “Childbirth is dangerous. And pregnancy is no walk in the park.”
He raised curious eyebrows, so I rephrased that sentence. “Being with child isn’t all that easy.”
He nodded. “Especially not at your age.”
What? Was he after a thick ear? My face resumed its previous glare. “You’d better mind what you say,” I retorted. “In my world, women often don’t start having babies until well over thirty.”
“Over thirty?” He sounded shocked. “They’re grandmothers here by that age.”
I sighed, managing a faint smile at the thought of all my as-yet childless modern-day female friends in their thirties who’d be horrified to discover they were thought of as over-the-hill grannies by men of Arthur’s time.
Seeing my smile, he smiled back, probably mistaking it for my pleasure at his pleasure. Leaning forward, he planted a kiss on my cheek. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. The younger you have your first baby, the easier it is. My own mother gave birth to my brother Cei when she was sixteen. Morgawse, at seventeen, was getting old for a first baby.”
Thank goodness Merlin hadn’t tried to snatch me when I was a teenager. That was one thing to be thankful for. At least now, at twenty-four, I felt strong enough to deal with what life here threw at me– from being abducted while spreading my father’s ashes to discovering my pregnancy in a world where childbearing was one of the most dangerous things a woman could do.
“Get up,” he said. “You need a hug.”
I got to my feet, and he took me in his arms, pressing me close, his hand in my hair on the back of my head. “You don’t need to be afraid. I’m here to take care of you. This baby will be a healthy, strong boy, a prince to follow in my footsteps. He can’t be anything but, with parents such as we.”
He lifted my chin and, bending, kissed me on the forehead.
Burying my face in his neck, a thought came to me. Maybe this prince would be a princess.
*
Apart from thefact that I threw up as regularly as clockwork every morning, and my breasts started to grow alarmingly and get very tender, my pregnancy seemed to be passing uneventfully. Mother Nara came to see me, on Arthur’s insistence, although I’d have rather not met her at all. At least she didn’t know who those powders had been for. Or so I thought.
“So, ye decided ter keep yer babby, did ye?” she said, as soon as she was alone with me in my bedchamber. She had a face as wrinkled as an old apple and skin the color of a nut, not only from exposure to the weather. Into the room with her came the unmistakable aroma of the unwashed. I was pretty used to smelly people by now, but, oddly, I rather fancied that a health worker should be clean.
My mouth fell open in shock.