Preface:
The Elven Princess and other Tales is a direct continuation of my previous FF novel, Dark Ritual which is over 250k words long, a tad too long to summerise here, I think. That took me over a year to write, don't know how long this one will take, I'm also attempting to write some original fic and, err, poetry. Well...
Encouragement, constructive comments, queries even, always welcome.
Dragon 9:37 Eluviesta/Cloudreach Highever
"You know," Fergus Cousland said, "this could take some time."
They were having breakfast in front of the fireplace in a small parlour in Highever and Fergus had one of his Mabaris, at his feet. He stooped down to pat its head.
"Really?" asked Alistair, who only had the vaguest of notions.
"Oh yes," Fergus replied patting the Mabari some more. "Oriana was a day and a half. Started in the afternoon, went through the night, actually two nights and then gave birth the following morning."
They were eating a light breakfast of scrambled eggs with brown bread-and-butter. "If I were you, Alistair, I would find something to do, take your mind off it as it were, go hunting get some of that paperwork done, teach the little lass to fish, something like that." Fergus spooned up the last of his egg took a bite from the crusty bread and chewed enthusiastically.
Alistair who had eaten a few mouthfuls already but somehow found it virtually tasteless, scooped up some more, but then he paused holding the spoon in midair… and put it down disheartened.
"You have to eat, you know. Keep up your strength…" The Teyrn remarked.
"I really don't think I'm that hungry…" Alistair didn't like hunting, nor could he imagine himself sitting down to do paperwork or even playing with Niamh undistracted by what was going on just a few corridors down.
Fergus shrugged, "suit yourself. But I have work to do. My seneschal needs an urgent meeting with me… He scrunched up his eyes and glanced over Alistair, "something to do with some new land taxes, or something…"
Alistair set his spoon in his dish. "Amazing what Anora gets up to when I'm not around, isn't it?" He said in his sweetest voice. He poured himself some fresh milk from a jug on the table and downed it in one go.
"Hmm. Quite." Said Fergus averting his gaze and dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. "Anyway…"
"Don't worry about me," said Alistair.
"Believe me," said Fergus getting to his feet. The Mabari followed suit. "I won't. Rosy's the one giving birth."
Alistair side shoved his dish to one side, "see you later then."
"Of course." Said Fergus leaving the room followed by his dog.
They'd had a few false alarms before, of course, but the previous night Cosy had been more restless than usual and started whimpering.
"Are the pains regular?" Alistair had asked with his arms round her, vaguely recalling something about regular spasms.
"I don't know… I don't know… They're just… Painful." She thrashed a little in his embrace.
Maker forgive him, he must have been more tired than he knew because the next thing he became aware of was Cosy thumping his chest. "Alistair, Alistair, wake up you dolt!"
"Uh…"
"I wet myself! I…" She paused and sucked in air, "The baby's moving... Oh Maker I think it's coming… Alistair, go fetch Bregeth… Quickly."
The bedclothes were a little sticky. "Ah…"
"Alistair!" Her voice was so shrill that for a moment his ears rung. "Go fetch Bregeth, you lug…"
"Right." He said tumbling more that climbing out of the bed.
Cosy had the sense to put tinder to the lamp. Alistair started fumbling around on the floor for his smallclothes. Finding them eventually he hopped into them and headed for the door.
"Take a light." Cosy instructed.
"Yes, of course." He replied turning back to the bed and lighting another lamp from the wick of the first.
He looked down at her. Her face was tight and set. She had her arms wrapped around herself and her hair was limp and stuck to her scalp where she had perspired. He reached out a hand and touched her cheek. "It'll be alright, you'll see."
"Hurry!" Cosy said, moaning and turning on her side.
"On my way…"
He opened the door and barrelled into the corridor almost knocking down Lawler as he went. "Keep an ear out… I'm fetching Bregeth…"
It was only when he was half-way to the room Bregeth shared with Niamh that he realised he could have sent Lawler and stayed with Cosy himself.
He'd barely knocked on the door when the lanky Elven woman opened it. Wrapping a shawl around her shoulders, it was early spring and the corridors of Highever were very draughty, and quietly closing the chamber door behind her, she followed him without a word.
When they got back to his and Cosy's room, Bregeth put a cautionary hand in the middle of his chest and, approaching the bed alone, got down on her knees. There followed a murmured conversation between the two women. Bregeth eventually pulled up the covers to examine his lover and Alistair turned his back to give them both some privacy.
After a few seconds he felt a light touch on his arm:
"Alistair, your child is on its way; send for Mrs Heath, in the meantime I will tend to Rosaura." Bregeth's voice was low and solemn.
Mrs Heath was Highever's most experienced midwife and she had been advised to await this call some two weeks ago.
"Is she alright?" asked Alistair looking towards the bed.
"Your Majesty, these things…" Bregeth's eyes drifted for a moment and then she blinked a few times and focussing directly on him, "So far so good, Alistair."
It was meant as reassurance and it worked.
Alistair went out to inform Lawler who departed for the village woman's house with the swiftness of a shadow. After hesitating a few moments Alistair returned to his bedchamber.
Bregeth was seated on the bed stroking Cosy's hand, talking to her quietly. He stopped in his tracks for a moment struck by how friendly the two suddenly appeared to be. They had had more than one argument since meeting but this now seemed to be behind them.
"Alistair..." Said Bregeth noticing him at last, "Take Niamh down to the kitchen, Cook said she would look after her..."
"I can look after her..." He asserted.
Bregeth shrugged her thin shoulders lightly under the shawl, "very well then..."
"I'll take her down to the kitchen and be right back..."
"Alistair, perhaps it would be for the best if you... Stayed away..."
Alistair glanced at Cosy; from under the covers she waved a dismissive hand in his general direction.
"Alright..."
So here he was staring at his uneaten scrambled eggs and bread and butter.
He poured himself another cup of milk and gulped it down. He should go and check on Niamh, he thought.
He found cook sitting upright at the long kitchen staff table with her eyes closed, snoring peacefully. Cook was seventy if she was a day and breakfast, he imagined was one of her busy times. Cosy had told him she'd retired shortly before Highever was attacked by Howe and once Fergus returned had insisted on coming back again.
One of the scullery maids who happened to be around a short comely girl with wispy flaxen hair roused her by whispering in her ear. Cook woke with a jolt.
"Oh, oh, Your Majesty... I'm so sorry..."
"I just come to look in on my little girl..."
"Bonny..." Said cook.
"I'll take him to her, don't worry..." Said the maid and she beckoned to Alistair to follow her. On tiptoe they entered the main kitchen which smelt of porridge, boiled milk and sweet fresh baked bread. At the foot of a great iron stove still glowing there was a rough brown blanket.
Niamh still in her linen nightdress, which by now was a bit grubby, lay fast asleep with a thumb in her mouth and a serious expression on her face. Her other hand clasped her dolly Poppy's tangled hair. Next to her lay a large brown dog with a scattering of white hairs on his long muzzle.
"Rufus belongs to Cook and is very gentle, except if you happen to be a rat." Bonny explained, "My little Nella plays with him too when I bring her in. But Niamh was calling him 'orsy' and trying to get on his back in the yard outside while we were making breakfast. They ended up chasing each other round and round the yard..." Bonny shrugged. "Of course she should be taken to her cot..."
Alistair looked at his little girl in silence for a while. Niamh had been excited by the journey to Highever and seemed keen to get a horse of her own. He'd hoped Poppy would bring out her gentler side but Niamh just seemed to view her new doll as a fellow companion in her rough and tumble adventures. He'd not been present at Niamh's birth, hadn't even known of her existence until she was handed to him in a rather bizarre fashion. He would always hold that against her mother, and his former lover and fellow Grey Warden, Neriya Surana.
Alistair turned towards the door he'd made up his mind. "I'm happy to leave her here for the time being."
Bonny seemed appalled, "but your child, she's a..."
"I grew up in a kitchen much like this one myself..."
"Really? ..."
"With dogs, too, as my best friends..."
"Oh..."
"That could fly..." He grinned.
Bonny laughed.
"Just keep an eye out for her, will you? And take her back to her room when she wakes up or if she gets in the way too much. I have somewhere to be..."
Mustering a great deal of his courage, Alistair tapped his knuckles on his bedroom door.
He could have sworn a voice from somewhere inside said "Go away!", but he knocked again.
Eventually the door opened a crack and a wide red face appeared, "Who..." the unknown woman ran her eyes grey/blue eyes over his face. "Hmmm... It doesn't matter even if it is you, you can't..."
Bregeth's long face appeared above the other face. "I think we are going to have to let the fool in, Mrs Heath, otherwise he'll just keep persisting."
Mrs Heath snorted and reluctantly tugged the door open. She was about half Alistair's size but about two-thirds of his bulk, solidly built. She looked a little like a frog. She wore a peasant's simple plain smock, darkly coloured. The contrast between her and the elf was rather striking...
Cosy was sitting propped up by a pile of pillows in the bed wearing a red robe, a birthing robe it was later explained to him. Alistair made a beeline for her but was intercepted almost forcibly by Bregeth.
"Alistair... Some ground rules..."
"Right..."
"One: You're here just for Rous..."
"Well of course..."
"This is a painful process; she may curse and swear at you, since you're at least partly to blame..."
"Uh..."
"Just grin and bear it, don't react... Battlefield stuff..."
"I can do..."
"I know. I know you can... But last and not least if she asks you to leave... Go... Sometimes women don't want their men to see them like this... Sometimes they just find them an annoyance... it won't last, if everything goes well... In a few days' time she'll forget all she's been through, it just blends in with the background, and she'll have hundreds of other things on her mind..." Bregeth's eyebrows gathered, "Well most women forget... Not all... But... You understand?"
Alistair took a deep breath. "Yes I do. Thank you for caring for her Bregeth..."
"Now go see her and help her." And Bregeth patted him on the back just above his backside, a strangely intimate gesture.
By the time he got to her Cosy was on all fours. Instinctively he reached for a flannel that had been placed in a basin at the side of her bed, wrung it out.
"How's it going, my love?"
Cosy sat back on her knees. "In between times it's fine, but when it hurts... Mrs Heath says I should use the in between times to take deep breaths, at least two, one for me and one for the baby, and collect myself... Ugh!" Alistair had just mopped her face.
"Sorry..."
"Please don't do that unless I ask you to... How's Niamh..."
So Alistair told her how he'd found his daughter Cosy laughed... and then grimaced when she had a spasm and reached out for his hand. Alistair felt her strong grip dig into the palm of his hand as she gritted her teeth. He found it strangely satisfying.
Once that had passed Alistair repeated to her what he had told Bonny about being brought up by flying dogs. Cosy reacted well, so he went on to tell her about the time he'd managed to lock himself in a cage and was trapped there all day...
From then on, he used his imagination. Told her they would one day visit Orlais and he would live on cheese and Cosy on cakes. Cosy liked cake. Or that they would take a silver ship to Antiva where the sun always shone to visit the vineyards and drink dark red wine to their heart's content.
Every now and then he would support her in a walk around the room, apparently that was good for her. When they were arm in arm Alistair pretended they were walking through some of the woods surrounding Highever, as they had been just a few weeks before and point out a squirrel to her or a pheasant and Cosy would pretend to see it and respond in kind.
On one such walk Cosy stopped at one point and placing her hands on his face looked Alistair in the eye and said, "You know I love you very much, don't you?" Pain seemed to have concentrated her features and given a feverish intensity to her gaze and for once, Alistair was at a loss for words and could only nod in response.
As for the hand squeezing, it evolved through scratching to pummelling with Alistair complementing Cosy on the strength behind her punches as she hit his chest. He feigned injury. Cosy called him a wimp and a craven and socked him even harder. So he rolled on the bed moaning in mock consternation while Cosy alternatively hiccoughed with laughter and grizzled in pain.
"Why is it hurting so much? Why doesn't it stop?" Cosy asked the midwife.
"Because your body is working right, it's readying itself..." Ms Heath replied.
Mrs Heath checked on Cosy and suggested tactfully that perhaps she should save her strength as she might need it later...
A little after that he had a head-to-head with Bregeth and Mrs Heath and it was suggested that Cosy could eat. Being assured by Mrs Heath that she did not think the birth was imminent Alistair agreed to go down to the kitchens to make some arrangements for food.
About three quarters of an hour later the kitchen provided some chicken, all nicely cut up, some clear chicken broth and some fruit, winter apples, pears and nuts.
Cosy took one look at the chicken and turned away. She took a sip of broth and so did Alistair but despite his encouragement she said she couldn't stomach more. Alistair peeled an apple and she did chew a bit of that.
Most of the afternoon was much the same, the walks, the tussles, the breathing and the contractions... At one point Alistair fell asleep kneeling by the bed and with his head on the covers and Cosy gently ran her hands through his hair until the pains started again...
Towards evening, the spasms became more constant, with less space between them. Alistair caught Bregeth and Mrs Heath sharing a look, perhaps Cosy did too, and realised that something was happening. After about an hour of tossing and turning on the bed attempting to find a position that was comfortable for more than a few minutes and failing, Cosy said she needed to get up. Alistair supported her as before but she was very unsteady so Bregeth held her other arm, she took a few steps and then eyes fixed on the ceiling (Alistair following her gaze noticed it could do with some dusting) she took a deep, deep breath that filled her whole frame and let loose an unearthly ear-shattering yell.
"Good!" He heard Bregeth exclaim softly and she moved her hold from Cosy's arm to her shoulders and lower back. Stunned by the shout, Alistair automatically followed suit and not a moment too soon because Cosy began thrashing.
Mrs Heath moved quickly from the other side of the room as if sliding on grease and was standing in front of them.
"Deep regular breaths, my lady, and push when you get the urge..."
And Cosy was furiously gulping breaths bearing down on her belly and squatting lower and making very loud and unladylike ugggh, uggggggggggggggh sounds intersped with yelps and squeals... Mrs Heath dropped to her knees.
Alistair tore his eyes away from what Mrs Heath might be doing and looked over Cosy's shoulders at Bregeth. Her face under the turmoil of tattoos bore a stern serene expression that he had never seen before, as if it were cast in stone and she was whispering or chanting something he did not understand but which he suspected was Dalish under her breath.
"Good..." Mrs Heath was saying, "Good woman, not long now, not long, just a few more..."
Bregeth seemed then to snap to and gave Alistair a fleeting smile. He smiled weakly back and just then Cosy let loose an unearthly scream, there was a gush of liquid from her lower body and Mrs Heath had a bundle in her arms and started cooing.
She reached to the back of her smock and drew out a short glittering blade. Bregeth murmured a few words that Alistair did not quite catch and then he realised that Mrs Heath, still on her knees was offering him the blade handle first...
Things happened very quickly after that.
Apparently Alistair did cut what there was to cut and then standing very slowly allowed the knife to slip from his fingers... something he had never done, even in the midst of the fiercest battle...
His first conscious but garbled thought following that was whether he should head for Mrs Heath and the bundle in the corner or stay with Cosy whom Bregeth was assisting back onto the bed...
Bregeth shooed him away so the choice was actually made for him.
It was tiny and wrinkled and looked like a skinned nug... Except for a mass of red hair. It was also quiet. Mrs Heath was bathing it in a basin and then she pulled it out lay it across her left shoulder and rapped it brusquely on the back...
He hadn't realised that the room was so still until that silence was broken by a humungous burp from the little thing on Mrs Heath's shoulder. The sound was out of all proportion to its size. From the other side of the room, Cosy laughed. The burp was followed by a gulp and then some raucous crying.
Mrs Heath removed the thing from her shoulder wrapped it tightly in a woollen shawl and handed it to him.
"Sire, you have a son..." He looked down at it: Its little red face was contorted its mouth gaping and it was waving its tiny fists erratically as if in the throes of a mighty temper tantrum.
For the second time in just a few hours Alistair was speechless.
"Bryce." Said Cosy. It was the next day and they were naming the... His and Cosy's child, er... Son.
"I like Bryce," He replied, relieved it wasn't Fergus.
Cosy who was lying in bed handed him the precious bundle of new life. "You should give him a name too," She said, "Nobles always have more than one first name." she added when she saw him hesitate.
It was really no choice, no choice at all. "Duncan" he said, closing his eyes for an instant, recalling the gaunt tawny figure of Ferelden's Grey Warden Commander as he brought his son close to his face so he could feel the baby's faint, sweet breath on his chin.
"Duncan is good; he was from Highever, too. Always a plus." Said Cosy Alistair wondered whether she was relieved it wasn't Maric or Cailan. She held out her arms and Bryce Duncan was carefully placed in them.
"Perhaps he should have another name..." Alistair proposed cautiously. "One of his own... so he can be his own man..."
"What would you suggest? I mean 'Burp' would be strictly for the family..."
Alistair smiled, "A true Theirin..." He ran his hand gently over 'Burp' Bryce Duncan's mop of red hair, "Roan... Roan..." He said suddenly, "That means red doesn't it... Because apart from the burp... that was the first thing I saw of him..."
Cosy pulled the baby close to her breasts. "My little Roan, my lovely, my sweet, Highever's future..."
And so it was done.