red-faced morsel in her arms as it snuffled and wheezed and
whimpered.
Softly she crooned to it, her voice alive with the aching longing of the childless woman. But her eyes never left the white, grey-streaked, strained face on the pillow below.
She had stood there for half an hour now, in the tower-room of Tumberry Castle, waiting, a prey to so many and conflicting emotions. The physicians, midwives and other serving-women she had long since banished from the chamber. Only the Queen herself, her stepdaughter and the new-bora infant remained in the tapestry-hung, over-heated apartment, with the flickering firelight and the smell of sweat, blood and human extremity.
Marjory Bruces breathing was quick and shallow, her lips blue, her closed eyelids dark. For long she had lain so, unmoving save for the light uneven breathing. Since the afterbirth indeed. It was nearly three oclock of a wild March night, and the waves boomed hollowly beneath Turnberrys cliffs, seeming to shake the very castle.
The Queens patience was inexhaustible, her cradling and whispering continuous.
Without a flicker of warning the heavy eyelids opened and the dark eyes
stared up, deep, remote, expressionless, un winking
Elizabeth held the baby out, and so that those eyes could see it.
They changed neither in direction nor in their lack of expression.
All is well, the older woman said quietly.
The other closed her eyes again.
There was another long interval, silent save for the muted thunder of the waves, and the creak of the dying log-fire as the embers settled deeper in the glowing ash.
When the girl opened her eyes again, the Queen was still there, and in the same position and attitude. Once more she held out the child.
After a while, and without turning her glance on the infant, the blue lips moved, almost imperceptibly.
Elizabeth leant closer, to hear.
It is … complete? the faint words whispered.
Sound? No … monster?
It is a fine boy. Small, but perfect. See. A boy. An heir. And
well. You have done so very well, my dear.
There was the tiniest shake of her head.
It is true. All is well, Marjory. Looksee for yourself.
Still the girl did not look at the child.
Shall I put him here? Beside you. In your arm?
No. That was certain, at least. She turned her head away, and the eyelids closed again.
Elizabeth bit her lip, and sighed, but waited still.
Presently, seemingly out of great depths, the other spoke, her voice little more than a breath.
A boy. He … will be … glad. As am I. Now … I can die … in
peace.
The older woman gasped, with the shock Ah, no, child-no! she
Do not speak so. All is well, now. You will see. You will soon be well again. And so very happy.
There was no least response from the bed.
Hear me, Marjory, the Queen persisted, strangely uncertain for that assured and beautiful woman.
You should rejoice, not talk of dying. Now that you have something to live for. A child. A man-child. And as an afterthought, And a husband. This fine boy-he needs his mother.
Silence.
He is yours. All yours. An heir, yes-but also a part of yourself.
To cherish and nurture. To watch grow into a man. To love and guard and guide. A man-child … The older womans voice broke.
Oh, God! she said.
She might not have spoken.
The Queen began to pace up and down the room, still holding the baby. Every now and again she came to stare down at the ashen face, so still, so death-like. And each time it was with a stoun at the heart. For here was the shadow of death indeed, called for, besought, and approaching near. Elizabeth de Burgh could feel its chill hand, there in that over warm chamber.
Her fears were not all fancy, an overwrought imagination born of weariness, distress and the small hours of the morning-just as Marjory Bruces talk of death was not just the near-hysteria of a young woman new out of the ordeal of childbirth. For it had been a bad birth, a terrible birth, with the child six weeks premature added to a breach presentation. It had gone on for fourteen evil hours, and Marjory, never robust nor inspirited, had screamed and begged for death. Grievously torn and with internal haemorrhage, she had lost a great deal of blood-was probably still bleeding under all the physicians bindings, for they had been unable to staunch the flow, try as they would. Death was no figure of speech in that apartment. And the girl had no wish to live.
Bruce and Walter Stewart had been sent for immediately after Marjorys fall from the horse which had touched off this emergency.
She ought not to have been riding, of course; but she had all her familys stubbornness, and found a horses saddle one means of attaining the solitariness which she seemed to crave. If anything could be called fortunate about the entire unhappy business, it was that she had been thrown not far from the castle, and her fall seen from a cot-house; otherwise she might well have been dead by now.
The King and her husband, as it happened, were not so very far away as they might have been, since they were soldiering againbesieging Carlisle, some ninety miles away, at the request of James Douglas, who was finding its English garrison a thorn in the flesh for his campaigning over the Border. Carlisle and Berwick were now the only enemy-held fortresses north of Yorkshire.
Walter, if not the King, would almost certainly leave all and come hot-foot the moment the news reached him; but even the fastest and best-founded horses would take many hours to cover 180 miles across the Border hills and mosses. A galley would have been quicker-but not in these March equinoxial gales. Riding all through the night as they probably would, they could scarcely be at Turnberry before daylight.
Elizabeth was intensely weary, anxious and at a loss. She had never left that bedside since the younger woman had been carried to it, still in her disarranged riding attire. But she would not, could not, abandon her vigil. She would not even lay down the child.
Endlessly, patiently, she walked and watched, hushed and murmured.
The long desperate hours passed. On the bed, Marjory Bruce did not stir, scarcely seemed to breathe.
How many inspections of that slight, motionless figure the Queen had made she did not know, when she noticed the single gleaming tear-drop on the pallid cheek. The sight of it moved her almost intolerably. It was long since Marjory had been seen to weep. Hers had been a dry-eyed ordeal and agony. Elizabeth sank down on her knees beside the bed, child still in her arms, and sank her head on the soiled coverlet.
Almost she beat it there.
Oh, lassie, lassie! she cried brokenly.
How they have hurt you! Injured you. Men! Men, with their evil passions, their blind pride, their selfish folly! They have spared you nothing!
Nothing!
Long she crouched there, the baby part-supported by the bed.
Perhaps, in time, she dozed a little. For when she became aware again it was with a jerk. The tear-drop was gone, evaporated. But the eyes were open. So was the mouth, slightly.
She stared, as her mind grappled with what her eyes told her-the ashen pallor waxen now, the dark glance fixed, glazed, the parted lips stiff. And looking, she knew, and a great convulsive sob burst from her. She clutched the morsel of humanity in her arms almost to suffocation.
After the first onslaught had worn off, Elizabeths impulse was to run
for the others, the physicians, midwives, courtiers, anyone to take the
burden from her shoulders, the burden of what she alone now knew. But
she told herself that was folly. Marjory was dead, undoubtedly No one