The Soldier's Cross by Abigail J. Hartman

Author:Abigail J. Hartman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Ambassador International
Published: 2011-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

17.

THE WORLD BEGAN TO CLEAR above her and she wondered how it had come to be so distorted in the first place. When at last everything had settled like dust into its proper place, she turned her head and found that she was lying, as she had fallen, on the hard wooden floor; it seemed that Francis and Pierre had merely pushed her limp form out of the way and continued with the birthing. She sat up dazedly, clutching her head, and looked around.

It was strangely quiet—the sort of quiet that was never welcome. Her thoughts skipped hastily from the cross and she remembered Leah and the baby, and she knew what the silence meant. The thudding in her chest stopped; she got slowly to her feet and came toward the bed. Oh God, oh God, I am cursed! Dead, everyone is dead. Oh God, oh God …

“Well, you might have told me you so disliked the sight of blood,” a harsh voice spoke in her ear.

She turned as if in a dream and saw Pierre, still in his torn shirt and with a bit of smeared blood on his face and hands, cradling a newborn in his arms. She opened her mouth to exclaim, but he replied, “Hsst! We only just got him to sleep. And let her alone,” he nodded toward the still form on the bed; “she sleeps as well, no thanks to you. The physician says she did far better than he had expected and we have no need to worry for her,” he added with the smallest hint of pride.

“And the child?” Fiona heard herself asking, trying to catch a glimpse of the infant.

“He is healthy enough, or so Francis says, but … you know how children are. There is always the possibility.” He did not seem as worried as he had before, though; something in the child’s rosy, healthy face and delicate body could ease anyone’s fears.

“I am sorry I fainted,” Fiona said at length, her eye catching sight of the cross lying on Pierre’s chest even as she spoke.

He nodded somewhat curtly. “Well, I suppose I should not have expected so much of you.”

Fiona was not sure what to say to that, so she held out her arms instead and offered, “Shall I take the child for you?”

Pierre looked loath to give up his son, obviously not seeing how ridiculous he looked coddling a baby, but at last he gave the child up. “He will be hungry when he wakes,” he commented. “I will arrange a wet-nurse for him.”

There came a moan from the bed at their backs and they turned. Leah was pulling herself up slightly against the headboard, shaking her head as vehemently as she could make her light, dizzy head move. She held out her arms for the baby and Fiona lowered him into them carefully. The new mother tucked the body close to her own and rocked him, her lips forming a silent word: mine.

It was clear that she wanted to nurse him herself, and Pierre did not raise the objections that Fiona expected.

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