ALYX PUT HERhand on the small of her back and eased herself down in a grassy patch just off the road, giving a grateful little smile to Joss when he handed her a cup of cool water.
“We’ll rest here for tonight,” he said, his eyes studying the tired lines on her face.
“No, we must play tonight—we need the money.”
“You need rest more!” he snapped, then sat down beside her. “You win. You always do. Hungry?”
Alyx gave him a look that made him smile, and he glanced downward to her big belly as it pushed out the wool of her dress. The summer’s heat and their constant walking made Alyx miserable.
It had been just over four months since they’d left Raine’s camp, and in that time they’d barely stopped walking. At first it hadn’t been difficult. They were both strong and healthy and they were popular musicians. But after a month on the road, Alyx became ill. She vomited so often people refused to travel with them, fearing the boy had some disease. And Alyx became so weak she could hardly walk.
They stayed for a week in a little village while Jocelin sat by the city gates and sang for pennies. Once Alyx came to him carrying bread and cheese, and as he watched her he thought how she’d changed since the time in the forest. Perhaps it was because he’d grown to care about her lately that she seemed to have grown lovelier, softer, prettier. Her boyish swagger had turned into a gentle, rolling, definitely female walk. And even though she’d been ill, she was gaining weight.
All of a sudden, it had hit Joss what was “wrong” with Alyx: she was carrying Raine’s child. By the time she reached him he was laughing, and if they’d been alone, he’d have swirled her about in his arms.
“I will be a burden to you,” Alyx said, but her eyes were alight. Before Joss could reply, she began chattering. “Do you think he will look like Raine? Would it be wrong to pray for a child to have dimples?”
“Let’s save our prayers and wish for the means to dress you as a woman. If I travel with a pregnant boy I don’t think I will live long.”
“A dress,” Alyx smiled, something soft and nice to make her feel like a woman again.
Once Jocelin was relieved of his feeling that Alyx was dying of some dread disease, he was more confident about allowing her to journey from castle to castle. And Alyx, after finding she had not lost all of Raine, was in much better spirits. She talked constantly about the baby, what it would look like, how Raine’s features would look on a girl and if she did have a girl, she hoped the child would not grow to be quite as big as her father. Alyx also laughed over the fact that she never did anything properly. Instead of being ill the first three months, she was ill the second three.
Joss listened to everything over and over again. He was so pleased she was no longer silent and sullen as she’d been for months after they left the forest. At night, sleeping on pallets on the floor of whatever house they were performing at, he often heard her crying, but she did not mention her sorrow during the day.
Once they played and sang at a large manor house belonging to one of Raine’s cousins. Alyx had again become very silent, but he could almost feel her straining to hear any bit of news.
Jocelin had dropped a few hints to Montgomery’s wife and the woman had told him much. Raine was still in the forest and King Henry, in his grief over the death of his eldest son, had nearly forgotten the outlawed nobleman. The King was much more worried about what to do with his son’s wife, the Princess Katherine of Aragon, than what to do about a private feud. He ignored the petitions of the Montgomery family to punish Roger Chatworth. After all, Chatworth had not killed Mary Montgomery, only raped her. He had harmed her in no way. It was on the girl’s soul that she committed suicide.
There was news that in July Judith Montgomery had borne a son and later in August Bronwyn MacArran had also been delivered of a son. The Montgomery cousins were still incensed over Stephen’s adopting the Scot’s name and ways.
Alyx listened avidly to everything Jocelin reported to her.
“It’s good that I’m no longer with him,” she said quietly, strumming a lute. “His family is full of ladies while I am a lawyer’s daughter. If I had stayed with him I don’t believe I could have been docile or polite to his lady-wife and she wouldn’t have wanted me near, though some of these ladies I see are coldblooded wenches. Perhaps he could have used a little warmth.”
Jocelin tried to show her that what was different between her and the ladies could be solved with a silk dress, but Alyx wouldn’t see it. He knew she brooded not only over Raine but over the hatred of the people in the forest.
As Alyx’s pregnancy advanced she grew quieter, more thoughtful, and she seemed much more aware of the world than she had been when he first met her. Once in a while, not often, really, she’d stop practicing to help someone do something. On the road they always traveled with a group rather than risk the highway robbers alone, and Alyx sometimes took a few children for a walk to give the mothers some peace, and once she shared her food with a toothless old beggar. Another time she prepared a meal for a man whose wife was lying under some trees giving birth to her eighth child.
The people smiled in gratitude and as a result they’d made friends wherever they traveled. A child once gave Alyx a little bouquet of wildflowers, and there’d been tears in Alyx’s eyes.
“These mean a great deal to me,” she’d said, clutching them tightly.
“She was repaying you for helping her yesterday. The people here like you.” He motioned to the travelers beside them.
“And not music,” she whispered.
“Pardon?”
“They like me for something besides my music. And I have given them something besides music.”
“You have given of yourself.”
“Oh, yes, Joss,” she laughed. “I have tried to do things that were difficult for me. Singing is so very, very easy.”
Jocelin laughed with her. That anyone could say that music such as Alyx produced was easy was amazing.
Now, in August, when the burden of the heavy child was dragging on her, her steps were slower and slower and Joss wished they could afford to stay in one place for a length of time.
