“She’s had a difficult time, my lord, but she will be fine once she gets over the disappointment of losing her bairn. She needs you,” Elsbeth said.
Conal Bruce took the infant from Elsbeth. She was so terribly tiny and pale. She had a little tuft of black hair upon her small head. Her eyes were closed, the lidsshadowed purple. Her nose and mouth were miniatures of her mother’s. She was scarcely breathing, and he felt the tears welling up in his eyes. His daughter. This was his daughter. And she was dying.
“What is her name?” he asked Elsbeth.
“Adair has not yet named her. She is waiting for you, my lord,” the woman answered him. “Will you go to her?”
“Aye,” the laird said, and, the baby still in his arms, he crossed the hall, mounting the stairs to the corridor that led to their bedchamber.
Adair lay wan and listless in their bed. Her cheeks were wet with tears. The midwife had just finished tidying everything up. Seeing the laird, she bowed and murmured her regrets. Then she left the room. Conal sat down on the edge of the bed, and carefully tucked the baby into the crook of Adair’s arms.
“I am so sorry,” Adair whispered. “I wanted to give you a son, and ’tis naught but a daughter who is not even strong enough to live.”
“She is too beautiful,” the laird replied softly. “God sent us a perfect little angel, but he grew jealous and wants her back. We cannot argue, my honey love.” He ached with her sorrow and her disappointment. “What is her name?”
“May I call her Jane after my mother?” Adair asked.
“ ’Tis a good name. Jane Bruce. Aye.” He reached out and touched the infant’s cheek with the tip of his finger.
The child did not stir. “I’ve sent for the priest, Adair.”
She nodded. “Aye. We must baptize her at once.”
Adair looked down at the baby in her arms. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”
He reached out and took her hand in his. It was like ice. Bringing it to his lips, he kissed the little hand and kept it in his own. “Very beautiful,” he agreed. Then he sat holding the infant’s hand as she cradled their daughter.
The priest arrived bearing his oil, salt, and holy water.
Elsbeth and Murdoc stood as godparents for the baby.
The priest baptized Jane Bruce, who did not even let out the faintest cry as the water was laved over her tiny round head, and a cross signed in holy oil was sketched upon her forehead. She did make a small moue of distaste as the salt was smeared upon her tiny lips. The priest and godparents departed immediately after the deed was done, while Conal Bruce sat by his wife and daughter’s side the night long. By the time the spring sun arose over the hills the infant had breathed her last.
A grave was dug for her on the hillside, and Jane Bruce was buried in a little wood coffin that a carpenter in the village had quickly built when the midwife brought him word of the tragedy.
Adair grieved deeply for her daughter. “Better you had kept me as your mistress than wed me,” she said to Conal. “I have failed to give you a son, as my mother failed to give John Radcliffe one.”
Hearing her, Elsbeth spoke up. “The earl’s seed was not fruitful seed,” she said. “None of his three wives conceived of him. Not once. Your mother was not barren; nor was he who sired you.”
“We will have other children,” the laird added in an attempt to comfort her. “Sons and daughters too, my honey love. I will gladly give them to you.”
Adair wept at his words. She had wept a great deal in recent days. Her breasts ached with the milk she had readied for her child, until Flora mixed an herbal draft that helped to dry the milk up. It was some weeks before the sadness began to ease for Adair. The weather grew milder with each passing day. Easter came, and then several days afterward the beacon fires appeared upon the hillsides, calling the supporters of Prince James to gather at Loudon Hill, as had been previously arranged. Conal Bruce, his brothers, and their men departed the keep.
Adair had not wanted her husband to go. “You’ll be killed!” she told him. “The last time I sent a husband offto war he never returned. What will happen to us all if you die in battle? I beg you do not go!”
“I owe the prince my allegiance,” the laird of Cleit told his wife. “I am an honorable man. Clan Bruce is an honorable family. I must go.”
“You repaid the favor done you,” she cried. “You allowed the conspirators to meet here at Cleit. Do not go, Conal, I beg you!”
“I will come home to you, riding my own horse,” he told her.
Suddenly it didn’t matter that he couldn’t tell her that he loved her. Adair swallowed hard and brushed the tears from her cheek, nodding. “Godspeed, my lord,”she said. “Return to me safely. All of you.” She included her brothers-in-law in her blessing. “But please be careful. I need you, Conal.”
“To make another bairn,” he murmured low as he bent to kiss her lips.
“Aye,” Adair answered him. “To make another bairn, my lord.” Then she had stood on the keep’s hilltop watching as the men of Bruce and Armstrong had ridden off, banners flying. She was both relieved and surprised when they returned some ten days later. No battle had ensued, for the king, not comprehending that his heir was a willing party to this rebellion, had refused to fight. Instead he had treated with them diplomati-cally, much to the disgust of the Earl of Angus and the others. They didn’t want this James upon Scotland’s throne. They wanted his son. This king was useless, and what little prestige Scotland had was almost gone. But James III had promised the lords that he would consult with them more frequently. He would seek their advice and that of his son, Prince James. The rebel army faded away from Blackness on the Firth of Forth, where they had attempted to engage the king’s forces; but wisely it did not disband, for past experience had taught the earls that James III was not to be trusted.
Adair didn’t care which king sat on Scotland’s throne.
