Page 2 of Highlander’s Claim

His brother rose. “Go, Aulay.” He squeezed his shoulder. “’Tis going to be all right.”

“God bless, Uncle,” Seoras said and clapped him on the back.

Beathan and the rest of them murmured their words of support. Encouragement. As Aulay marched with long strides out of the hall, he knew everyone wanted them to have a healthy baby.

He flew up the flight of stairs like the wind. His gut twisted in anticipation, in premonition as he opened the door to their bedchamber.

His stomach dropped. Dressed only in her undertunic, Leitis crouched over their bed, supported by a midwife on each side, as Bhatair pressed on her round stomach. Leitis half screamed and half roared. Dark hair misted her face like wet seaweed. She was pale, so pale. Blood bloomed on her undertunic below her large belly.

Aulay was rooted to the spot. The room reeked of an iron tang…it was all that blood. He remembered the day they met before the priest in front of the church for their wedding. He’d been a young man of twenty-four, and hopeful for a good match, which his father had arranged. And he’d been lightning struck by her beauty, by the unyielding pride in her eyes.

A few days into their marriage, he knew this woman had been made to be his wife…as he’d been born to be her husband and protector.

But in the years that followed, every time he’d raised a wee cross over the wee grave of one of his bairns, part of his soul had been buried with them. And now, twenty years later, the love of his life may be dying. Twenty Christmases together… Twenty summers… Countless mornings he’d woken up to her… The woman he’d thought he’d raise his children with. The woman he’d thought he’d die next to.

Only, he wasn’t going to.

Because she may be gone tonight.

“Aaaaaaaargh…” Her pained cry tore his own gut apart.

“Dinna push, lass!” yelled Bhatair. “Dinna push!”

“I canna stop…” Her cry was feral, like a wild lynx out of control. “My body…aaaarghhh…my body must!”

“Try nae to, lass,” said the midwife to her right. “Breathe through it.”

Leitis locked her eyes with Aulay’s. He thought that through the pain and agony of the birth, the feral animal in her had retreated, and for a few moments, his wife was back. His Leitis who could laugh like no one else. His Leitis who had built an orphanage in the clan. His Leitis who breathed one breath with him.

“Ye can do it, lass,” he said as he walked to her and took her hand in his. “Ye can. Breathe.”

She nodded and took a long breath with him. He breathed one breath with her once again.

“Good, Leitis,” Bhatair said. “Turn over. I’m going to try to turn the bairn again. Ye’re opened up. Its buttocks are at yer entrance. Can ye hold on and nae push for a wee bit longer?”

She never took her eyes from Aulay’s. Hope bloomed in his chest as he knew it bloomed in hers. “Aye,” she said. “I can.”

Aulay helped her climb onto the bed and she sat reclining against the pillows. They breathed together as Bhatair pressed on her round stomach and twisted it. He saw it happen, the moment she snapped. The moment breathing wasn’t enough, and the pain took over. The tranquility of the bubble around them tore. Her face wrinkled in a grimace of pain, she opened her mouth and screamed.

Aulay’s very bones hurt from the sound. Her mouth opened wide, black and round. Then her scream strained, as though she was tensing once again. Then blood gushed down her thighs, spreading across the sheets of the bed and soaking through her white undertunic like fire consuming kindling.

“Dinna push! Dinna push!”

The rest was a blur. Aulay wished he would remember the last few minutes of his wife’s life. The last few minutes of her breathing, of her eyes being able to see him. Of her skin being warm to the touch, her mouth moving. Of knowing she was still here, with him.

But it all sank into a haze, a fog.

When he could think again, cold morning light poured from the slit windows of the bedchamber onto her grayish, unmoving body in his arms.

The first thing he became aware of was the quiet. That scream of hers that hurt his ears and tore his soul apart was no more.

Then he wished for the scream to return. He’d do anything to hear her make a single sound.

Because the body in his arms was cold. Heavy. Silent.

As the cries of seagulls and the whisper of the sea reached his ears again through the slit windows, he felt numb. He wondered why he wasn’t hurting.

Somewhere through those moments he couldn’t remember, the moment his wife’s soul had left her body, his soul must have left, too.