Islaen knew that would bring her pain later. The exhaustion and pain that gripped her so firmly at the moment kept Wallace's soft, grim prediction from delivering much of a blow. She simply wanted to be done. To be finished with her labors and get some rest was all important to her.
The girl that emerged from her mother's womb was tiny, its cry but a mew. To the women's amazement, Wallace ordered them to see to Islaen as he took the baby. They had barely bathed Islaen and put a clean gown on her when Wallace scooped her up in his arms. He laid her down next to the washed, tightly swathed girl he had placed before the freshly stoked fire.
"Gie her the first suckle, lass. Then ye maun get a wet nurse for the bairn. She'll need milk aplenty if she is tae hae a chance and ye'll be sore tried tae feed her brithers. Grizel what married the blacksmith will do. She be clean and loving and heavy with milk for her bairn died but hours after it were born."
A little blindly, Islaen stared at the child Wallace had pressed into her hold. The little girl was very tiny and looked weak. Islaen felt grief stir beneath her exhaustion but it was unable to gain the strength needed to bother her much. Later she would face the loss of the babe she had nurtured within her body for so many months. She was glad of the protection her weariness gave her against that pain.
Wallace told her all he would do and have done to keep the child alive as Islaen let each boy know where nourishment was to be found. When her bed was clean and all signs of blood erased, he carried her to her bed. He was sent to fetch Grizel and a priest to baptize the babes. As he stepped out of the room he was nearly knocked down by Iain rushing to his wife.
Through exhaustion-glazed eyes, Islaen stared at her husband. He looked as bad as she felt and she almost smiled but then she remembered that she had to tell him about her lie. For the first time since uttering the lie she was not afraid of confessing it to him. She was simply too tired. Fearing her weariness would pull her into sleep's firm hold before she could speak she hurried to get the words out.
"Are ye weel?” he asked her as he sat on the bed and clasped her hands in his.
He thought she looked small and pale. Her eyes looked bruised, their color weakened. It looked as if whatever strength she had had been completely sapped. Her hands were limp in his.
Valiantly he struggled to still his fears. If things had not gone well or took a turn for the worse, she would need him calm and require his strength. With all his will, he dredged up what he could but was not sure it would be enough to keep him from crumbling if something was wrong.
"Aye, just weary. Look at your bairns, Iain."
"M'God,” he breathed, staring at the three bundles with as much shock as his brother and father. “Three?"
His mind refused to accept what his eyes told him. Living twins were a miracle in most people's eyes. He himself often considered them such. That a woman, especially one as small as Islaen, could bear three children at one throw was more than his frantic mind could comprehend. It helped little at all that his father, brother, Storm and Meg seemed to see it as fact. Deciding he would deal with that confusion later he turned his full attention back to a heavy-eyed Islaen. In truth, she was all that mattered to him at the moment.
"We fear the lass willnae live, Iain. I am sorry. Wallace is getting a wet nurse for her and a priest. I maun tell ye something,” she said with sleepy urgency.
"Ye can tell me later, sweeting."
"Nay, now. I lied to ye, Iain. I ne'er used those things. Forgive me?"
"Aye,” he said in a choked voice, “I forgive ye."
Her eyes closed as sleep conquered her. “Thank ye. I was tired of feeling wicked but I had to show you that I could do it."
"Oh, aye, ye showed me right enough,” he whispered and, unmindful of his audience, clasped his sleeping wife to his breast and wept into her hair with a mixture of joy and relief.
