A whisper of sound sent the cockerel’s head swivelling in the direction of the tower. Up there, riding on the soft morning breeze, so weak that it was almost inaudible, was the thin, reedy cry of a newborn infant. Another noise was adrift on the breeze...someone was sobbing, and a phrase was being repeated over and over again. ‘Don’t go, Mama! Don’t go! Mama!’ The voice faded. More exhausted sobbing. But the cockerel had stopped listening, the sounds had no meaning for him. All he knew was that someone else was awake. Early or not, his duty was plain. He flung back his head and crowed the new day in.
***
‘I’ll take the baby down. Papa must be...told,’ Gwenn said, as soon as they’d made her mother’s body decent.
‘Are you sure you want to do it?’ the midwife asked, handing the infant to the dead woman’s daughter with ill-concealed relief.
‘It will be best if he hears it from me.’ Gwenn read concern in Berthe’s eyes and tried to smile. ‘I’m well enough,’ she said. Didn’t duty decree it? ‘In any event, I can’t bear to bide here for another moment.’
‘I understand,’ the midwife said. The commingled smells of birth and death were overpowering for those not inured to them. ‘You tell Sir Jean. I’ll...tidy up.’
Do you understand? Do you really? Gwenn thought bleakly as she stumbled on legs made of wood towards the twisting turn of stairs. Her eyes were sore with the few tears she had shed, but aside from that she felt quite dead. She was cold inside, but it was a numb coldness – as though all the feeling had gone out of her, and she had truly turned to wood. It would have been a relief to have been able to indulge in a fit of shaking and sobbing and screaming.
At the bottom of the stairs, Gwenn snapped off the thread of her thoughts. Cradling the newest member of the family against her breast, she lifted the latch.
Outside, the cock was crowing. A solitary candle, burned to its last inch, guttered in the draught. Her eyes swept the room, seeking her father. Jean had borrowed a pallet and pulled it up to the fire. He was asleep, Katarin beside him. Gwenn’s heart went out to him – to both of them. She must tell him at once. She stepped into the hall.
‘Good morning, mistress!’ Ned said, moving towards Gwenn, smiling. ‘Mistress Gwenn?’ His smile disappeared. ‘What’s amiss? Is the child...?’
On hearing his sergeant’s voice, Jean sat up abruptly, dislodging Katarin. He was at Gwenn’s side before she had time to blink. Lightly, he touched at the bundle in Gwenn’s arm. ‘The child?’
Gwenn strove to keep her features in order. ‘Aye.’ Her windpipe closed up.
Her father plucked at the baby’s wrappings. ‘It looks small. Is it healthy?’ Almost afraid, he stared at his child. A boy, or a girl?
Around them everyone was surfacing. Raymond groaned and groped for a flagon. Waldin yawned and stretched. And all the while Ned’s blue eyes were nailed to Gwenn’s face. So much compassion flowed from him, it was almost her undoing. Ned had guessed. Gwenn felt tears prick behind her eyes and tried to gulp down the lump that was stuck in the base of throat. She must tell her father – and this instant. ‘Aye, the babe is healthy. Papa–’
‘Boy or girl?’ Raymond demanded, knuckling sleep from his eyes.
‘A boy. The boy Papa so wanted.’ Gwenn tried to infuse some joy into her voice, very much aware that it should be Yolande who was presenting the child to her family. Her mother had so wanted to give Jean his legitimate heir. ‘We have a brother, Raymond.’
‘A boy.’ Raymond looked appalled. He hawked and spat into the rushes. ‘Naturally, it would be.’ Twisting round on his heel, he stormed out, without waiting to hear the other, more dreadful part of Gwenn’s news.
Jean strode to the stair door and looked back with his hand on the latch. Gwenn flinched to see his face so wreathed with smiles. ‘I’m going upstairs,’ he spoke with quiet pride. ‘I’m going to see my wife.’
‘No! Blessed Mother, no!’
Her father tossed her an indulgent smile. ‘I know she’ll be tired, Gwenn. I won’t stay long. I won’t exhaust her.’
Thrusting her new brother at Ned, Gwenn launched herself at her father. ‘No. Papa!’ Warm tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. ‘Please don’t. Not yet.’
Jean’s smile faded painfully slowly. Stone-still, he drew in a harsh breath and stared at his daughter in a puzzled, uncomprehending way. ‘Gwenn?’ His voice came loud in the gruesome quiet. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’
Gwenn choked down a sob. It was a little like watching someone die from the inside out. ‘Mama has gone to God, Papa.’
Her father’s gaze lifted to the ceiling, halting at the place above which his bed should lie. He aged a hundred years in a moment. White-faced, he stared at the rafters as though his eyes would pierce solid oak and see through to where his wife’s body lay.
‘No. No.’ His voice broke. What evil curse hung over him that now, when his star was in the ascendant, his plans should turn to ashes? He had taken it for granted that Yolande would be at his side. Without her, there was...nothing. ‘How could you let her go?’ His accusation tore at Gwenn’s heartstrings.
‘It...it was a difficult birth. We did our best.’
‘Jesu, Gwenn,’ Jean said quickly, shocked by his hasty words, ‘you don’t have to tell me that. Accept my...my...I’m sorry.’ He waved at the heir who had cost him his beloved wife. ‘But how could it have happened? That puny child.... He’s so small, how could he...?’
‘Papa, your son came early. And with the heat, Mama was not well. He was in the breech position.’
‘A breech,’ Jean muttered, unable to accept what his daughter was telling him. This could not be happening.
Conscious that every eye in the hall was fastened on him, he squared his shoulders. He ought to say something which would demonstrate to the people in his hall that he remained in control of himself. A man who had not mastered his emotions was not, in his mind, fit to master others. He caught sight of Ned Fletcher awkwardly juggling his newborn son from arm to arm. ‘What are you doing here, Sergeant?’ he demanded. ‘It’s well past cockcrow. Don’t you have duties in Vannes?’
‘Sir?’ Ned responded, clearly startled. ‘Oh, the coat of mail. Aye, sir. Sorry, sir.’
Jean looked coldly at the bundle in Ned’s arms. ‘And while you’re about it, Fletcher, see if you can find a wet nurse for that.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Jean faced Gwenn. ‘I shall go up now,’ he said, and his tone brooked no argument.
Gwenn bent her head in acceptance. Her father had withdrawn behind a protective shield of authority while his dazed mind absorbed the shock. In time, she prayed, he would heal.
Ned deposited the babe in Gwenn’s arms and went to take his sword from the rack at the other end of the hall. The last thing he saw as he left was Katarin shoving her thumb into her mouth and Gwenn, head bowed to hide her tears, holding the babe in one arm and hugging her sister with the other.
Wondering miserably which of St Clair’s mounts would best suit a wet nurse, Ned blinked, wiped his nose with the back of his hand and went to choose a couple of horses.
***
His commission with the armourer completed, Ned found himself within a stone’s throw of La Rue de la Monnaie. Curiosity drove him on. He wanted to see what had happened to Mistress Gwenn’s old home, and he guided his horse towards St Peter’s Cathedral, which he knew was being rebuilt. He heard the mason’s hammers before he reached the square. Rounding a corner, he drew rein. There was not a trace of the old wooden building, instead the outline of a monumental stone cathedral met his eyes. Its contours were blurred beneath a mesh of scaffolding, and dozens of men were crawling and balancing all along the mesh, like fleas on a dog’s back. Wondering at the scale of the activity, he hailed a passer by. ‘When is the cathedral due to be completed?’