What a Lass Wants by Keats Rowan

Author:Keats, Rowan [Keats, Rowan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2015-05-04T22:00:00+00:00

* * *

Magda handed Marsailli a fresh pad of linen and moss. “Place the bloodied one in the bucket,” she said. “I’ll burn it in the fire later.”

“I’m grateful for your assistance,” Marsailli said to the midwife, blushing. “Before you arrived, dealing with my menses was a mortifying experience. Men have no knowledge of such things, and during my last monthly time the soldiers treated me as they would a leper.”

The older woman shrugged. “They believe what the priests tell them—that a woman’s flux is a punishment for her sins. That it is somehow wretched and filthy. But we know better. It is merely the body’s way of preparing you for motherhood.”

Marsailli adjusted her dress and then pushed aside the curtain to join Magda in the larger part of their tent. “Is it not a punishment? The nuns at the priory said Eve did not bleed before she was cast from the garden.”

The midwife grunted. “Believe what you will. I follow the old ways, not the new.”

“Are not midwives granted license by the village priests?”

Magda laughed, a deep, hearty chuckle. “Do you think our captor cares whether a priest has blessed my skills or not? Nay. All he bothered to verify was my ability to keep a newborn babe alive.”

The midwife snatched up the bucket and left the tent.

Marsailli studied the fluttering tent flap with longing. As autumn advanced, the days grew crisp and short, and the opportunities to enjoy fine weather were limited. Sir Giric refused to look upon her face while her monthly blood flowed, and he would not allow her to step outside. Indeed, he blamed her for the need to pack up and pitch this one small tent—all the others had been abandoned. With a grimace, she picked up her sewing and sat on a stool before the small brazier that kept the chill at bay. The hems and cuffs of her dresses were wearing thin and required constant mending. Best she keep herself busy until her time was ended.

She sighed heavily.

She missed Caitrina. After their mother had passed, they’d become closer than most sisters, sharing every thought, every laugh, every fear. It was Caitrina who had taught her a proper running stitch and how to use embroidery to strengthen a fraying edge. Marsailli studied her mending efforts with a frown. She hoped her sister was having an easier time than she.

Giric was a cruel man, and one day he would make good on the villainous threats he heaped upon her. He would either rape her or kill her, of that she was certain.

What had Caitrina been thinking to send her off with King Edward and his brutish henchman? She must have known it would be Giric who would be tasked with returning her to Scotland. How could she imagine Marsailli would be safe in his care? Had she believed, as Marsailli once had, that his disfigured face was deserving of sympathy rather than fear? If so, she’d been a fool. He was every bit as wicked as his scar suggested.

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