Alys Clare - Blood of the South

‘Had she reported her mistress’s death,’ Jack said, ‘she wouldn’t have been able to carry out the deception.’ He looked at me steadily. ‘And it wouldn’t have altered the fact that the mistress was dead.’

‘She could have-’ I began. Then a new thought struck me; perhaps the most powerful consideration of all. ‘Leafric,’ I whispered. ‘No wonder Lady Rosaria wasn’t much of a mother to him – she wasn’t his mother.’

I realized I hadn’t told him what Edild and I had discovered. ‘Rosaria had never given birth,’ I said. ‘I’d wondered if Leafric had been adopted, but that’s not right, is it?’

I think Jack and I both had the same impulse at the same moment. As we started to run, winding through the fields and jumping the ditches, I was thinking, over and over again, There’s one way to prove it! There’s one way to prove it!

We arrived, hot and panting, in the churchyard. ‘What’s the priest’s name?’ Jack demanded.

‘Father Augustine.’

‘I’ll find him and explain – you go and check.’

Trying to calm my gasping breathing, I went into the cool, dark church. I approached the simple altar, pausing to bow my head. In common with so many of the people of our region, my family still remember the old gods. However, I had come to recognize much to love in the merciful, compassionate God of the Christian faith. He was, I had discovered, a good, true friend in times of severe trial. I whispered to him now, praying that what I was about to do was the right thing. That, somehow, it would help the innocent, helpless infant who had lost so much.

I went over to the low door that opens on to the steps down to the crypt. The sweet herbs and incense helped to disguise the smell, but only a little. I told myself to ignore it.

The body of the drowned woman lay in its winding sheets, ready for burial. There was no need to look at her upper body; I remembered what her face had been like when first she’d been brought to Lakehall, and didn’t want to see the damage done by the passage of another week. And there was no point in inspecting her breasts; what remained of them had indicated she had been full-chested.

Slowly I unwound the fabric covering her lower limbs, folding it back until the belly and pubis were revealed. Forcing myself on, I looked at what I had come to see.

Compared to my aunt, I was still a novice midwife. But I knew enough to judge. There were stretch marks over the lower belly, extending out towards the hips. And, when I further violated the dead woman’s privacy, there was no more room for doubt.

She had borne a child.

I covered her up again. I knew I should hasten away – Jack was waiting to hear what I’d found out – but I couldn’t tear myself away from her. I reached out my hand and laid it over hers, clasped on her breast.

This woman, I knew without any doubt, was Leafric’s mother. She had given birth to him, loved him, played with him, nursed him. I knew she had; it must have been her breasts he’d fed at, for Rosaria had been no wet-nurse. And there could be no doubt that this woman had cared constantly and devotedly for her baby son; why else would he have missed her so very much when she disappeared?

He’s sad , Mattie had said, back in Cambridge. He just lies there, staring around, for all the world as if he’s looking for something.

Not some thing ; some one . His mother. She had become ill, and she had died. Someone else had tried to take her place, but her poor little son hadn’t understood why that someone else didn’t smell right. Didn’t taste, feel or sound right. Didn’t hold him as he needed to be held.

He just wanted his mother.

Tears were splashing down on our hands; mine and the dead woman’s. I hadn’t realized I was weeping. Now, staring down at her long shape, wrapped all ready for burial, I wanted to gather her up and take her in my arms, devastated and ruined though her poor body was. I leaned down over her so that my lips were close to her ear.

‘I’ll see he’s all right,’ I whispered. ‘I promise.’

It was time to leave her. I kissed the smoothly wrapped forehead, and now there was no revulsion.

As I mounted the steps back up to the church and hurried outside, I wondered if I had just been touched with the great love which they say is the gift of the Christian lord. Kissing a body dead for well over a week wasn’t something I’d ever done before, yet it had been too strong an impulse to resist.

Love.

Yes, the gesture had been prompted by love.

I dried my eyes and hurried to find Jack.

Jack and Father Augustine were standing, deep in conversation, by the gate into the churchyard. Hearing my running footsteps, both turned towards me.

Father Augustine’s lean face was creased with concern. Bending his long, thin frame so that he could peer into my face, he said, ‘Are you all right, child?’

‘Yes!’ I was taken aback at the question.

‘It is hard to accept the death of a kinswoman, even one who you did not know in life,’ he went on.

‘But-’ I’d been about to protest that she was only a relative by marriage, but just then I experienced another surge of that strange, unearthly love for her, and somehow our exact relationship didn’t seem important.

‘Now that we know who she is,’ the priest went on, ‘I will make arrangements for her burial service, if you and your family are ready?’

He was treating me with such kindness. Until quite recently, I’d thought him a chilly, self-contained man without much compassion. I’d been wrong. ‘Thank you, Father,’ I said. ‘We will discuss it and let you know.’

He bowed. ‘Of course.’ Then, almost hesitantly, he added, ‘I shall pray for her, and for you all.’

As if his offer had embarrassed him, he dipped his head again, turned and hurried away towards his church.

Jack grabbed my hand and led me down on to the track, turning left towards Lakehall. ‘Come on,’ he urged, hastening the pace.

We were going back to find Edild, I surmised, to tell her what we had just discovered. I said breathlessly, ‘We must make it clear to Father Augustine that the drowned woman was Harald’s daughter-in-law, not his daughter.’

Jack glanced at me, slowing his pace and drawing to a halt. ‘Describe her,’ he commanded.

‘What? We can’t waste time on-’

‘ Yes we can. Describe the drowned woman.’

‘Strongly built, tall, blonde, blue eyed.’

‘Now describe her child, as you did when you first examined him.’

Responding to his urgency, frantically I tried to think back. ‘I said he had his mother’s olive skin, his hair was fair and his eyes light blue, and-’

‘And from that you concluded his father was a northerner,’ Jack interrupted. He was looking at me expectantly.

Then I understood. ‘It was his mother who was the northerner,’ I whispered. ‘Harald’s daughter?’ I couldn’t help making it a question.

‘I believe so,’ Jack agreed. ‘Remember how your great-uncle Sihtric told us Harald described his wife?’

‘“Her name was Gabriela de Valery, and she was tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, very beautiful and utterly perfect.”’ One of the benefits of being the family bard is learning how to memorize words after only one hearing.

‘Which could equally well describe the woman lying up there.’ Jack jerked his head in the direction of the church.

Slowly, inexorably – joyfully – the truth dawned. ‘She’s my kinswoman,’ I whispered. ‘My father’s cousin.’

I had felt love for her; perhaps it had been the link of our common blood, calling out as it recognized its own.