Relieved when she eased her grip on his hand, Thayer asked a panting Gytha, “Are you in much pain?”
“You are asking a great many stupid questions this morning,” she grumbled, trying to catch her breath before the next contraction gripped her.
As Thayer opened his mouth to respond, William continued, “Now, about this marital—er, dilemma.”
“’Tis only a dilemma,” Gytha snapped, “to people who wish to throw away their wives.” She glared at Thayer.
“I did not say I wished to throw you away,” Thayer snapped back.
“Hold,” William yelled, drawing their attention. “Allow me to have my say. Ere I left you the last time, Gytha, I was more than content with the arrangement. Howbeit, matters have changed, and ’tis not merely because you lie here bearing Thayer’s child. Not at all. Now I feel it best if you stay with Thayer. I relinquish all claim.”
Gytha stared at him as she struggled through another contraction. William had just solved whatever conflict there might have been. She was still furious with Thayer for his apparent willingness to hand her to William, but she no longer needed to fear that some strange twist of law might take her from him. However, the ease with which William handed her back was hardly flattering.
“’Tis odd,” she murmured, “since I do not wish to change husbands, but I feel insulted.”
Although he kept silent, Thayer knew exactly what she meant. After the shock had begun to wear off, he knew he would fight giving her up with every ounce of will he possessed. William had neatly ended all possibility of conflict. Even so, he found himself wondering, a little angrily, why William was turning down the offered sacrifice. It had torn his heart in two to even suggest giving Gytha up, and William did not seem appropriately appreciative.
William laughed softly and lightly kissed Gytha’s cheek. “I was, at first, sorely disappointed to lose such a lovely bride to my cousin. But, being free, I soon found my heart held in other hands. I married the girl three months past.”
Before she had a chance to ask about that, Gytha found her mother and Janet at her bedside. Thayer and William were quickly shooed out of the room. She felt a twinge of disappointment over not being able to immediately satisfy her curiosity, but then the birth of her child took all her attention.
“Cease that cursed pacing,” Thayer bellowed and threw his tankard at Henry and John, who paused only briefly before starting to pace the hall again. “What is taking so long?” he grumbled to William, who sat next to him at the head table.
“Birthing is a slow affair.” William signaled a page to get Thayer another tankard of wine. “Do not worry so.”
“Not worry?” Thayer snatched up the tankard and downed half its contents. “Gytha is such a small, dainty woman, and you saw how large she had grown.”
“Aye, she was well rounded.” William glanced at Robert, who sat on the other side of Thayer. “Cousin, more wine?”
“Nay, I try to lessen my need for drink. I should not wish to drink up the profits at the inn. I swore to Henry and John that I would cease being such a sot. I will see if I can get them to settle somewhere,” he murmured as he stood and walked towards his two new friends.
Half smiling, William turned his attention back to Thayer. “I am glad you were not forced to kill him. It had been my thought to take him back to Saitun with me, but I doubt he should wish to do that.”
Trying desperately to keep his thoughts from clinging to what was happening to Gytha or from turning too dark, Thayer attempted to concentrate on discussing Robert. “Nay, he would rather stay here, if only because too many at Saitun recall the Robert that was Pickney’s whipping-boy for so many years. Keeping an inn may not be what a man of his birth should settle to, but he has taken to it. He mostly attends the accounts while those two rogues”—he nodded towards John and Henry—“see to the labor. I believe Robert may even have found a young woman winsome enough to turn his devotion from my wife. ’Tis good, for I may have need to leave her alone for a long while, even ask him to keep an eye on her.”
“Why? You are due to do your forty days’ service? The king has called upon you again?”
“Nay, but I am landless and titleless now.”
“Well, not landless. This is a fine keep.”
“But ’tis what Gytha brought to our union. I have now brought nothing. I must work to get what is due her. She was to have wed a lord with a fine manor. That is what she accepted. I must seek that, give her back what she needs and has lost.”
“Cousin, I always thought you a man of the keenest wits, yet it seems any thought of your fair wife scatters them.”
Before Thayer could respond to that, Lady Bertha entered the hall. He watched her approach with an intense stare, momentarily robbed of speech. The woman looked weary, but happy, yet he remained fearful, not daring to believe Gytha had escaped the ordeal of childbirth unscathed.
“You have a fine son, Thayer,” she announced, then sank into a seat next to her husband.
Thayer absently accepted and responded to the rounds of hearty congratulations. He wished them quickly done, however, for he needed to ask Lady Bertha something. She had not yet told him what was, at that moment, most important.
“And how is Gytha?” he was finally able to ask after several long moments.
“Fine. Tired but hale. She will give you many children with ease. Go on, she is waiting for you.”
He needed no further encouragement. Despite the eagerness to see her that sent him hurrying towards their chambers, he hesitated for a moment outside the door. He could not help but recall the last time he had gone to the birthing bed of a woman who had given him a son. Sternly reminding himself that Gytha was nothing like the cold, amoral Elizabeth, he entered. Nodding to Janet, who quickly left, he strode to Gytha’s bedside. She looked bruised with weariness, yet radiant, their swaddled child held in her arms.
“Are you well?” he asked, needing to hear the assurances from her own lips.
