“They were too small—too weak.”
“My babywilllive! It may be born weak, but I will make it strong!”
“Of course you will, Brenna,” Heloise said to pacify her.
“Now please rest.”
“You doubt me!” Brenna became angry and tried to rise.
“I will—”
She could not finish and fell back on the bed. Dull knives seemed to be digging away at her insides. She closed her eyes to fight the pain, but not before she had seen her surroundings. When the ache subsided, she glared at both women accusingly.
“Why have you brought me here, tohishouse? Why?”
“We did not bring you here, Brenna.”
“Then who?”
“He found you in the woods. ’Twas closer to bring you here rather than take you home.”
At that moment Uda, the woman who had helped Cordella birth her baby, came into the room and immediately started poking around Brenna. “This is not good,” she clucked in her native tongue. “The bleeding is not much, but there should be none.”
Brenna ignored her completely. “Who found me?” she questioned Heloise. “Did he see the woman who tried to kill me? I know it was a woman. I heard her laugh.”
“Someone tried to kill you?”
“A woman. She came at me on a large black horse and knocked me down.”
“No one wishes you harm, Brenna. Surely you imagined this. So much pain can make you think things that are not so.”
“The pain did not start untilafterI fell!”
“But Garrick said no one was about when he found you,” Heloise said.
Brenna paled as she remembered the short dream she had of him carrying her. “Garrick is back?”
“He returned a week ago.”
All of the old fears returned twofold to Brenna. “You must take me home. I will not have my baby here!”
“We cannot move you now.”
“Then you must swear you will not let him near my baby!” Brenna cried.
“Now cease this foolishness, Brenna!” Heloise said sharply. “Garrick wants your baby to live as much as you do.”
“You lie!”
But then she was gripped by another stabbing pain more terrifying than the last, and there was no time left to plead as the pressure increased and demanded all her energy to propel her baby forward. And again, quickly, she felt the need to push with all her might.
Garrick stood in the open doorway to his room, feeling more helpless than he ever had in his life. He had heard all that Brenna had said, and her fears had cut into him like a steel blade. Still, he could not blame her for thinking him so cruel. When had he ever shown her differently?
Brenna’s anguished cry shook him to his very soul. To think he had wanted to get as far away from Brenna as he could, to sail to the Far East and never see her again. He had only gotten as far as Birka before he was ready to turn back. He assumed Brenna would already be with her own people, and he came home simply to tell his father that he was going to bring her back, that he had finally concluded that he could not live without her, regardless of how she felt about him.
He was greeted with the news that she was still here, and the reason for it amazed him. Though he could not go to her then, for fear of upsetting her in her condition, each day he rode through the woods near her house, hoping to see her. And today, hearing her scream, then finding her unconscious—he was devastated with fear.
“A male child,” Uda said, and held the infant in the air by its feet.
