Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

“ H ow long…how long have I been asleep?” Still muddled in her head, Tira stared at the wiry, hazel-eyed Scotsman whom she vaguely remembered had told her that his name was Brody. Everything felt such a blur to her, and she started when he jumped up from his seat to offer her a cup of water.

“Easy, lass, I’m here tae help you. It’s nearing midday, so you’ve slept for hours—a good thing. You have a wee bit of color in your cheeks, which I’m glad tae see. Shall I lift your head for you so you can drink?”

Tira nodded, the gentleness in Brody’s voice making her accept his assistance, though her hands shook as she tried to hold the cup. Cool water sloshed down the front of her tunic, which made the man cluck his tongue and raise the cup himself to her lips, Tira gulping thirstily.

“Aye, another good sign. You cried yourself tae sleep last night before I could get a drop into you—och, not too much too fast. Mayhap if you roll onto your side and raise yourself on your elbow, it will be easier for you…”

Tira pushed aside the blankets covering her and obliged him, grimacing at how every bone and muscle in her body seemed to ache, a strange pressure in her bulging stomach. She felt a rolling motion inside her, too, which made her press her hand to her belly as Brody gave a low chuckle.

“Och, your bairn is awake now, too, aye?”

She nodded, her new position on the cot allowing her to take the cup from him and hold it herself this time as she took small sips, Brody clucking his tongue again with what sounded like approval. Yet no sooner had she finished drinking than she gasped and tried to sit up, the man catching her by the shoulders before she pitched forward.

“Stay here, I know what you need.”

At once, Brody fetched a bucket for her, Tira glancing gratefully at him as he set it near the cot. Then he went to stand near the wooden steps, his back to her, and she didn’t wait another moment.

With some difficulty, she rose and lifted her tunic to squat over the bucket, her stomach so big that she feared losing her balance as she tended to her needs—though Brody never once turned his head.

Sighing with relief, Tira sank back onto the cot and only then did the man return to her side to remove the bucket, but not too far away.

“Let’s try some oatcakes now, aye? You must eat, lass, if you’re tae have strength enough for the birth. I’m hoping the bairn will wait until we reach Laird MacLachlan’s?—”

“Laird MacLachlan?” Panicked confusion seized Tira and she glanced around her, realizing as if awaking from a dream that she was aboard a ship—aye, Brody had told her as much while he had encouraged her to weep.

Aye, lass, cry your heart out, I dinna blame you. It’s a terrible time you’ve endured, but you’re safe now, Tira Cheyne. Soon we’ll be sailing home tae Scotland…

She scarcely remembered anything else, her sense of shock and exhaustion so great that she had fallen into a deep sleep that was more a stupor…though now everything had suddenly grown so much clearer?—

“Errol!” Her hoarse outcry startling her, Tira stared at Brody while he stared wide-eyed back at her, clearly as surprised.

“You…you wish tae see Errol, lass?”

“No, no , I canna see him!” Her hands trembling, Tira reached for the blankets and grabbed them to her chest like a shield. “Dinna let him come down here, please!”

Brody nodded with evident consternation on his weathered face, which only heightened the panic threatening to overwhelm her.

“Dinna you understand?” she cried out. “ Look at what has become of me !”

Sobbing now, her eyes burning with tears, Tira fell back upon the cot and rolled onto her opposite side with her back to Brody.

She heard him heave a sigh, but he didn’t attempt to comfort her as he had done last night—ah, God, last night !

Clutching the blankets under her chin, Tira could almost feel again Brinda’s hand pressed tightly over her nose and mouth as the woman had tried to suffocate her at Thorgren’s order.

At Thorgren’s order! After everything he had done to her, he wanted her dead before anyone could rescue her, no matter his bairn growing inside her.

“Poor babe…p-poor wee babe,” Tira choked out, crying so hard now that she could barely breathe. Yet she was no better than him! She had told Brinda that she would rather die in childbirth and deny Thorgren his bairn than to marry him—and Tira had meant it at that moment. Heaven forgive her, what kind of heartless fiend had she become?

“Ease yourself, lass, if only for your child,” Brody’s plea came behind her, though Tira could not still her weeping as the memory of Errol’s stricken face flooded back to her.

The flames from the burning village illuminating the shock in his eyes when he had lifted her from the ground and realized that she wasn’t the same…aye, would never be the same—och, the pain !

Tira gripped her stomach as Brody swore aloud, and now she did stop sobbing and clenched her teeth at the cramping sensation that felt worse than anything she had ever experienced.

“Just as I feared—och, this is no place for a bairn tae be born, the dampness, the dirt, God help you, lass. Dinna move from the cot, do you hear me? I willna be gone long!”

“No…no, Brody, dinna leave me,” was all Tira could muster through the pain as she heard footfalls running up the steps. “Dinna leave me…”

“She’s what, man?”

Gavin’s outburst sent Errol striding toward the stern, the wind whipping at his dark red hair and slapping the towering square sail overhead against the mast.

His heart pounded in his chest to have seen Brody lunge out of the cargo well and run straightaway to Gavin at the helm, Errol’s intuition filling him with dread.

He didn’t need to hear whatever Brody had said to know that Tira’s labor had begun, the helmsman’s and Gavin’s expressions tellingly somber as Errol reached them.

“I thought I told you tae stand lookout at the prow, Sutherland?—”

“It’s the bairn, aye?” Errol ignored Gavin’s frown and focused upon Brody, who nodded, sweat beading his forehead.

“I fear the pains have begun—och, it’s been years since I’ve helped bring a babe into the world, and only that one time. My own mother with my youngest brother when I was a lad of fourteen.”

“But you can manage it, aye?” Gavin demanded before Errol could utter the same thought, Brody looking at them with some uncertainty.

“Mayhap…I dinna know. If she has an easy time of it, aye—but if there’s any trouble…”

Brody didn’t finish, his usual ruddy complexion grown a bit pale. Now Gavin and Errol cursed in unison while Brody turned around to stare at the crew. To a man, every one of them suddenly became very intent upon their rowing.

“Have any of you ever helped at a birth?”

No one spoke up, the buffeting wind and the slap of the oars the only sound other than more curses filling the air from Gavin, Errol, and Brody…followed by a high-pitched scream that raised the hair on the back of Errol’s neck.

“God help us, her pains are getting worse already,” was all Brody muttered before making the sign of the Cross over himself and fixing his squinty gaze upon Gavin. “Even if all goes well, the lass looks as if she hasna eaten well enough in days tae have milk tae feed her bairn. She will need a wet nurse?—”

“Aye, then, we’ll make straight for Argyllshire rather than Dumbarton, a half day’s journey instead of two more. We should be there after nightfall.” Another piercing scream made Gavin wince, his gaze shifting to Errol. “Cora will know what tae do, and your lady is welcome tae stay at my home as long as she needs—och, Brody, will you go back tae the poor lass now?”

A brusque nod was the only answer, the helmsman seeming to square his shoulders as he headed toward the cargo well with Errol following close behind. That made Brody stop in his tracks and spin around to face him, his expression stern.

“She says she canna see you, Errol—och, who can say when that will change? If it’s any comfort tae you, she did call out your name not long after she awoke, but she’s stricken with shame.”

“ Shame ?” Errol echoed with frustration, trying to move past Brody only for the helmsman to grab him with a muscular arm. “If I canna see her, how can I tell her everything that’s happened tae her doesna matter tae me? How can I tell Tira I love her? I should be with her tae help her, comfort her—do something for her!” Growing incensed now when Brody wouldn’t release him, Errol moved his free hand to the hilt of his sword. “Get out of my way?—”

“By God, Sutherland, will you threaten my helmsman and friend?” came Gavin’s outraged query from where he stood with his fist clenched upon the helm. “Where are your wits, man? Think with your head and not your heart and let him return tae your lady. Will you have Tira give birth all alone in that stinking hole?”

Errol dropped his hand from his sword, the very sound of her name dousing his fury as if he had been thrown overboard into the cold sea.

“Forgive me,” he murmured, Brody acknowledging his apology with a slight nod of his head as he let go of Errol’s arm. The helmsman threw back the canvas and headed down the first few steps—the flap pointedly pulled back into place before Errol could catch a glimpse of Tira.

“You’re an impulsive fool, Sutherland—och, but what man isna when it comes tae the woman he loves? Get back tae the prow and keep watch for any English sails. We’re soon tae do battle with King Edward, remember?”

Errol gave no reply to Gavin, a choking lump in his throat at another scream that spurred him reluctantly across the deck.

Tira’s anguished cries making the crew pull harder on their oars as Gavin steered the ship closer to land while the two birlinns following in their wake changed course as well.

Errol shielded his eyes from the bright midday sun, grateful for a task that nonetheless could not keep his mind from Tira.

He had heard the throes of childbirth emanating from his three elder brothers’ homes over the past few years: Two of the wives shrieking to the heavens during their labor while the third one had whimpered and wept and prayed loudly for deliverance…but none of it sounded like what carried to him again from the cargo well.

Tira’s agony sounded almost animal-like, aye, as if she were being torn asunder. He had not seen a stomach so big upon any of his brothers’ wives, or any woman for that matter, and Errol wondered if mayhap there were two bairns vying to be born—one of them more vigorous than the other and fighting to be first.

The thought made him grimace, Tira so thin and fragile that he feared mayhap she would not survive the battle—ah, God, no , he wouldn’t think of it!

His heart like a battering ram against his chest, Errol forced himself to stare instead out at the sunlit sea as he had been ordered.

Gavin MacLachlan was the commander of King Robert’s three ships after all, and with his own fleet of twenty more birlinns since he had been awarded the title of baron seven years ago. Gavin had told him that his home in Argyll wasn’t an ordinary one, but an impregnable castle built upon a hill overlooking the sea with a harbor large enough for all of his ships that protected the western coast of Scotland from English invasion.

Tira would be safe there with Gavin’s wife and family—och, the man had twins himself, a six-year-old boy and girl—and Errol surmised there were warriors enough to guard the castle when Gavin sailed onward to Dumbarton.

Would he insist Errol accompany him? He glanced over his shoulder at the formidable Highlander, wondering if Gavin might allow him to stay behind with Tira—if only for a week or so, aye, surely enough time for Errol to show her how much he loved her and wanted her to become his wife.

That much longed-for outcome set him to praying, hard, for all to go well with her during the birth.

Aye, that Brody would know how to help her, a more muffled scream carrying to Errol from the cargo well.

Was Tira biting upon a strip of leather as the pains grew worse? Or burying her face against a pillow?

Errol prayed, too, that the wind would continue to fill the billowing sail, no clouds marring the bright blue sky in sharp contrast to the foul weather during their journey north that had caused huge, white-foamed waves to break angrily over the prow.

Anything to ease the birth for Tira, whose screams had grown more guttural as if she pushed upon something with all her might—aye, the strongest bairn if there were two of them, Errol was certain of it.

Surely it would soon be over. How could any woman withstand such agony for long? He had never felt so powerless in his life, his hands clenched into fists and his heartbeat roaring in his ears—until suddenly, the lusty squall of a babe came from the cargo well and the entire crew erupted in a cheer.

Errol could not help himself, but rushed to the canvas covering still pulled so tight, only for Brody to throw it back and announce with a shout, “The lass has a son, aye, healthy and strong!”

Another cheer went up, but then a piercing scream rent the air and Brody ducked back inside, though this time he forgot to pull the canvas closed.

Errol peering down into the lamplit space to see Brody bent over between Tira’s upraised knees as she began to grunt and strain again, her breathing coming faster.

“Sutherland, dinna dare tae go down there!” came Gavin’s roar from the stern, and it was all Errol could do to obey him as another babe’s weaker cry made unexpected moisture blind his eyes.

“The lass has a wee daughter, too—now close that blasted canvas, man!”

Errol obliged Brody without hesitation as Gavin strode to the cargo well, leaving another crewman at the helm.

To Errol’s surprise, Gavin slapped him so hard upon that back that he was knocked forward, but caught himself from falling by grabbing some rigging.

“Twins, Sutherland—a lad and a lass, the same as my own! They’re a handful when newly born, aye, twice of everything, crying, eating, and soiling, but Cora has serving maids aplenty tae help Tira manage her new family. Your family if she will have you, and I pray she will once she grows strong and whole again. Are you up tae the task?”

His family , Errol echoed in his mind, nodding and summoning a grin as if he had sired the bairns himself.

Yet he quickly sobered at the thought of Thorgren—och, would Tira ever be able to forget her suffering? Would she ever be able to overcome her shame?

When he was finally able to speak to her, he would vow upon his life to raise her bairns as his own once they married—och, but what if she no longer loved him? Mayhap that was more the reason she refused to see him. Mayhap she blamed him for not finding her sooner?—

“Whatever your dark thoughts, Sutherland, thrust them away,” came Gavin’s stern voice, Errol meeting his gaze. “You should be rejoicing that the lass still lives and her childbirth is over. Look, here’s Brody now.”

The helmsman’s footfalls were plodding as he breached the last step, a doubtful glance over his shoulder filling Errol with dread.

“Your lady is resting, but the bairns have nothing tae suckle, just as I feared. The lad is stronger and will probably survive until we reach Argyll, but the wee lass…”

“Then we will row as hard as we can under full sail tae get there more swiftly!” Gavin shouted to his crewmen who began to heave at their oars with all their might. “Relieve that man, Sutherland, and I will take the place of this one.”

Errol rushed to the nearest bench where a weary-looking crewman relinquished his oar to rest for a while as all of them had done through the night.

Aye, anything to save the newborn that he already felt was his daughter, Errol refusing to believe that Tira’s heart had grown cold to him.

Please may it not be so !