“Be silent!” Mary Douglas thundered in her deep voice. “ ’Tis you who are the witch in this village. Your mother-in-law is dead this winter past, and your man run off as soon as the snows were gone. You should go back from whence you came, wherever it was. We never have known where Callum Douglas found you.”
“Wouldn’t you be surprised if you knew.” Bethia chortled. “Perhaps one day you will, Mary Douglas, and ’twill be to your disadvantage, I promise you.”
Mary Douglas gave the woman a hard look, but then she turned back to Cicely. “My lady, what has made you weep so? Please tell us, so we may help you.”
Still sobbing, Cicely pointed to the grunting sow.
The women looked at the pig, confused, and then Mary Douglas began to chuckle. And when she did all the other women who had borne young understood, and began to giggle too. Soon they were all howling with laughter, and Cicely, her tears vanished, was laughing too at the absurdity of the situation. The clanswoman put an arm about her lady.
“The bairn is near to being born, my lady,” she said in a comforting voice. “And we have all felt as you do at some point or another in the months before,” Mary Douglas said with a kindly smile.
“He kicks all the time,” Cicely said wearily, yet feeling better for her laughter.
“He,is it now?” Mary said with a grin.
“Did I sayhe?” Cicely looked confused for a brief moment.
“Aye, you did,” Mary replied.
Cicely laughed weakly. “That is the first time I have referred to this child ashe,” she told Mary Douglas. “Kier insists that it is a lad, and certainly no lass of good breeding would kick so hard and so often. Johanna never kicked me like this.” Then a panicked look came into her eyes. “Oh, Mary! What if I am like the poor queen, andproduce only lasses? She has had three now, God help her. Glengorm needs an heir every bit as much as Scotland does.”
Mary Douglas tucked her hand into Cicely’s arm and began walking her back to the house as the other women returned to their own cottages. “If our Lord means for it to be a lad, it will be a lad,” she said. “You will give Glengorm an heir. If not this time, my sweet lady, then next. And so will the queen give Scotland a son. She comes from a family of more lads than lasses, I have heard.”
“She does! She does!” Cicely agreed. “But my poor mam died when I was born, and so we will never know if she would have given my father any sons. My stepmother, however, birthed three strong boys.”
“You are not to fret,” Mary said. “Not with the birthing being so close. Midsummer is only a few days away, and there will be a full moon too this year. Is everything in readiness for the birth?”
“Aye,” Cicely replied. “And, Mary, you will come with Agnes, won’t you?” They had now reached the house.
“If you want me, my lady, I will be by your side,” the clanswoman promised.
And the morning of Midsummer’s eve, Mary Douglas was awakened as the sky was growing light by a pounding on her cottage door. Her husband, Duncan, grunted and turned over in their bed, but Mary suspected she was being summoned. Getting up, she went to the door, peeping out the window near it, and saw Gabhan Douglas. Mary opened the door. “Am I needed at the house?” she asked him.
“Aye, and hurry!” he said.
“Have you wakened Agnes?”
“Went to her first,” Gabhan replied, and, turning ran off.
“What is it?” Duncan asked sleepily from the bed.
“The lady is having her child,” Mary said as she pulled on her skirt and blouse, slipping her feet into her boots and drawing her plaid shawl about her. “I’m needed.” Then she hurried out the door andup the hill, Agnes Douglas, the village midwife, coming to her side as she walked.
“She births easily, and this should be no different from when the wee lady Johanna was born,” Agnes remarked as they walked quickly along.
Mary crossed herself. “I pray you are right, Agnes.”
Reaching the house, they were greeted by Orva. “She’s in the new bedchamber,” Orva said. “She’s been having pains since just after midnight.”
“Where’s the laird?” Mary asked.
“By her side, although I think if it were me I should not like my man there,” Orva noted tartly.
“Some do, some don’t,” Agnes said sanguinely.
The three women entered the large bedchamber. Neither Agnes nor Mary had seen it since it had been built.
“Thank God you are here!” Kier Douglas said nervously.
