“Lady de Wolfe?” he called. “Isobeau? May we enter? We have your cases.”
Still, no distinctive reply. But then he heard a gasp, and perhaps even a groan. Puzzled, Atticus lifted the latch and pushed the door open.
Isobeau was standing beside a small table in the room next to a toppled chair. Her fur cloak was across the table and she was clad in the pale blue traveling dress she had worn since leaving Alnwick. But Atticus immediately noticed that she had blood-stained hands and he dropped her two cases just inside the door, rushing to her side.
“What happened?” he demanded with concern. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Isobeau looked up at him, extremely pale and distressed. “I… I am not sure,” she said. “There is blood.”
He could see her hands but he didn’t see any blood on her body other than the hands. “Where?” he asked, growing increasingly apprehensive. “Where did the blood come from?”
It was then that she turned around and he saw it on the back of her dress. There was a big, dark, red stain right on her bottom and smears against the fabric where she had tried to pull her dress around to look at the mess. Atticus’ heart sank.
“Good Christ,” he hissed, putting his hands on her because she seemed to be weaving about unsteadily. He turned to Kenton, who was standing back by the door. “Find a physic immediately. Lady de Wolfe has injured herself badly.”
Kenton fled. He hadn’t really seen what Atticus had seen but it didn’t matter. What concerned him was that Atticus’ voice seemed to be tinged with fear Kenton had never heard from the man. It was alarming. As the big knight dashed off, Atticus began bellowing for servants. There was still no bed, and no food, or anything else of comfort, and Atticus snarled at the elderly servant who appeared, demanding a mattress for Lady de Wolfe. The old man explained that they were stuffing a fresh one for Lady de Wolfe, per Thetford’s orders, but Atticus bellowed at them to produce one immediately. When the fearful servant made it clear he could not comply, Atticus swung Isobeau into his arms and charged out of the chamber, straight into his father’s room next door.
Solomon’s chamber was a smelly, dirty mess, but at least it had a bed she could lay upon. Atticus ordered the elderly servant to strip his father’s bed and find something clean to lay atop it so Lady de Wolfe could have a relatively unsoiled surface upon which to lie. The only thing that was even remotely clean in Solomon’s pigsty of a chamber was an oiled cloak used to guard against the rain. It was a very big cloak, relatively clean, and the old servant laid it over the lumpy old mattress used by Solomon as Atticus deposited Isobeau gently atop it.
Isobeau’s eyes were closed, her face ghostly pale, as Atticus stood over her. He needed to at least make an attempt to stop the bleeding but he knew, in his heart of hearts, that there was nothing to be done. He suspected the bleeding was coming from her womb because of the location of the stain and he further suspected he was witnessing the death of his brother’s child. Horrendous, horrific guilt swept him.
“My lady?” he leaned over her, whispering. “Are you in pain?”
Isobeau’s eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him with her great eyes, dark as a hot summer sky. They seemed oddly bright within her ashen face.
“I am not any longer,” she said softly. “I was, but it went away.”
Atticus was feeling increasingly terrible about the circumstances, realizing the woman had been in great discomfort but had not mentioned it to him. Perhaps she didn’t think she should. For whatever reason, she had kept her agony to herself and hadn’t complained. He hadn’t noticed anything odd about her because he had been too preoccupied with his own troubles. He sighed heavily, distress on his features.
“How long were you in pain, Isobeau?” he asked her, unable to keep the sorrow from his voice. “Why did you not tell me?”
Isobeau’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer before closing her eyes, turning her head away. “It was not terrible pain,” she murmured. “My back ached all during our journey from Alnwick but I assumed it was the fact that I was on a horse from sunrise to sunset. It was nothing odd. But then… right after the earl brought me to rest, I had terrible pains in my stomach and then there was blood. I do not feel much pain anymore.”
Atticus didn’t know what else to say. He was utterly devastated, now because he had failed to protect Titus’ child. He had forced Isobeau into a difficult trip, knowing her delicate condition, and now he was seeing the results of his bad decision. He should have left her at Alnwick but he knew, in the same breath, that leaving her behind had never been an option.
The loss of the child was one more shattering incident in a string of days that had seen many such things. For a man who had known only success and fortune in his life, the series of setbacks had left him reeling. He felt as if he were no longer on solid ground, a very bad sensation when he planned to face off against the two skilled knights who had murdered his brother.He felt unsteady and unsure. But perhaps there was more to life than this vengeance he harbored; he was starting to see that there was. There was his father, his friends, and even Isobeau… but he would not go back on his vow. He had a promise to fulfill and he would see it through or die trying. There was no alternative.
Thoughts of vengeance faded, however, as he gazed down at Isobeau’s face. She was his priority at the moment and he was rather chagrinned that it had taken a health scare of this magnitude for him to realize that. For days, the woman had essentially been an afterthought. His priorities, his focus, had been elsewhere. But that situation was something he intended to change.
There was nothing more he could do until the physic arrived, so he pulled up a chair next to the bed where Isobeau lay dozing. He felt so utterly helpless and sad. Isobeau’s hand, limp and lifeless, was lingering by the end of the bed. Atticus stared at it for some time before reaching out to gently collect it. Perhaps it was to comfort her, or perhaps it was even to comfort himself. For whatever the reason, Atticus sat there, holding her hand, for the rest of the morning until a tall, skinny man with a satchel in his hand arrived under Kenton’s escort.
Atticus jumped up when the man entered the chamber, describing what the lady’s issue was. After checking the man to make sure he had no weapons on his body, and even rummaging through the satchel he was carrying to see what was inside, Atticus allowed the man access to Isobeau. When the physic went to work, Atticus moved away from the bed, standing over near the chamber door. He wanted to afford Isobeau some privacy. When the physic helped her to sit up so he could remove her clothing, he left the room completely.
Standing in the corridor outside his father’s room, the very room he had been born in those years ago, he thought it was arather fitting place for Titus’ son to know his end. So much life and death had happened in that chamber. Feeling depressed and hollow, he stood against the wall, just next to the door, straining to catch wind of what was going on inside. He couldn’t hear any sounds at all. Kenton was standing across from him, next to a small lancet window that allowed ventilation and light into the corridor, and he turned his attention to the man.
“Where did you find the physic?” Atticus asked.
Kenton drew in a long, deep breath, the sign of an exhausted man. “In Hawick,” he said. “He is the same physic that tends your father. The man’s wife and mother are following behind in a wagon; they should be here shortly. I thought you might feel more comfortable with womenfolk to tend Lady de Wolfe because, God knows, there are only men at this place.”
Atticus appreciated the foresight. “Indeed,” he replied. “Thank you for your consideration of Lady de Wolfe’s needs.”
Kenton eyed him. “What is the matter with her?”
Atticus looked up at him, an expression of sorrow on his face. He wasn’t sure how to delicately phrase the issue so he simply came out with the truth.
“I suspect the lady is no longer with child,” he said quietly, lowering his gaze.
Kenton simply nodded, averting his eyes and looking at his boots much as Atticus was. “If that is true, then I am very sorry for you,” he said quietly. “But I am sorrier for Lady de Wolfe. First Titus, now her child.”
