Before Ranulf had time to be relieved, the door to the hall banged open, sounding like a clap of thunder in the silence.
“What weather!” Bea cried as she hurried into the hall, alone and clad in a wet cloak. “I feared Myghal and I might get swept out to sea before we got to Wenna’s cottage.”
She threw back her dripping hood. “Oh, Ranulf! You’re back,” she exclaimed, as if he’d been the one who’d departed the castle without leave or a proper escort. “Then it must be time to eat.Thank the saints, because I have to tell you, I’m starving. I rushed off before I could finish the noon meal and poor Wenna doesn’t have much to spare, so I had only a taste of what she offered. She’s really a very generous woman, Wenna. I quite like her.”
Ranulf sent up a brief prayer of thanks as he walked swiftly toward Bea, while Maloren scuttled toward her darling and declared, “You’ve got to get out of those wet things, my lamb, before you catch your death.”
“I’m not so very wet—just my cloak,” Bea replied. She took off her soaking garment and handed it to Maloren.
Bea’s round cheeks were flushed from her exertions, and slightly damp tendrils of hair had escaped from her braid to coil about her face. As always during the day, she wore a simple woolen gown—this one of soft green—as well as a plain leather girdle, with her hair drawn back in one long braid and tied at the end with a leather thong.
Yet no queen in all her finery could look more vibrant, more luminous or more naturally beautiful.
“I have to talk to you, Ranulf,” she said, with unexpected determination. “Did you know there’s no midwife in the village?”
“I have recently been informed of that fact,” he replied, reminding himself that he was the castellan here, not a lover come a-wooing. “Now I suggest you do as Maloren proposes and get out of those wet clothes.”
And he wouldnotthink about her clad only in a damp shift, which would hide nothing.
“I’m not that wet,” Bea replied firmly, “and I won’t get sick. I need to talk to you.”
He wondered what she could possibly have to say to him that would warrant such resolve. “Village gossip is hardly a matter of urgency.”
The look she gave him then!
Perhaps the meal could keep a little and surely he could risk being alone with her for a short while. “If what you have to say to me is that important, my lady, we can go to the solar.”
The solar was a small, damp, musty room, but it had the virtue of privacy, and it wasn’t a bedchamber.
It was obvious Maloren wasn’t pleased with his proposal, but she could take her complaints to her mistress, Ranulf thought as he turned and headed for the stairs, with Bea following behind.
When they reached the solar, a quick survey revealed that this chamber had thus far been spared Bea’s zealous ministrations.
Even so, when he turned to face her, he found her looking around as if contemplating what she could accomplish with a bucket of water and some rags.
“Well, my lady, what is this matter of great importance?” he asked.
“The midwife here has died and no one has come to take her place,” Bea began, her bright blue eyes shining with eager interest. “The nearest one is in the next village, and that’s five miles away. It would take half a day to send for her and get her back to Penterwell. That’s why Wenna wanted Eseld—there’s really no one else.
“Fortunately, I’ve learned quite a bit from Aeda, and the apothecary at Tregellas taught me some things about medicine—”
“I remember,” Ranulf interjected.
She blushed, then continued staunchly. “So I went to see if I could be of help. There were other women in Wenna’s cottage, but they knew even less than I did. All they seemed to want to do was talk about their own experiences rather than trying to assist Wenna. I must say, some of those experiences sounded quite horrendous. It would be enough to make most women determined never to bear children if they could possibly help it. I thought Wenna was going to faint listening to them, so I shooedthem out as kindly as I could until it was only Wenna and me, and then I told her not to mind them. It’s like men after a battle, I said. They all want to compare wounds and brag about their own. That got her to smile a bit and she calmed down, and in a little while, the pains ceased completely. It was a false labor, you see. That happens sometimes.”
Bea grew even more intensely determined. “She’s frightened, Ranulf, and I don’t blame her. Something may go wrong and nobody here will know how to help her.”
Ranulf remembered what it was like to be in pain and alone. “I’ll write to Merrick after the evening meal. Perhaps Constance can find a midwife who’ll come here.”
“That’s a fine idea,” Bea replied with approval, yet her brows remained furrowed. “Unfortunately, that will take time, and since I didn’t know you would make that kind offer, I…”
She took another deep breath, planted her feet and spoke as if about to announce that she was, in fact, a goddess. “I told Wenna that while I was no midwife, I would stay until the baby arrived and help her if I could. I gave her my word, Ranulf.”
She hurried on as if he had ordered her to leave Penterwell that very moment. “I can’t abandon her and it should only be for another week, a fortnight at the most. I know I should have asked you first, but she was so upset and it seems such a little thing. Please say you’ll let me stay and keep my word.”
Her staying here was nolittle thing, yet to refuse any help to the young, grieving widow…that he couldn’t bring himself to do. And Bea was right. It might take Constance some time to find another midwife willing to live in Penterwell.
“All right,” he reluctantly agreed. “You can stay here until Wenna has her baby. I’ll inform Merrick of my decision when I write him tonight.”
