(A/N) before you read this I have changed a bit in the last chapter so it would probably be in your interest to read that bit again before you read this. I hope you enjoy this chapter and have the tissues ready for the next chapter...! Heeheehee
(Caspian)
Even with a quick shave and a hooded cloak I knew they all recognised me. Nobody approached, they let me sit, sipping a pint of ale and wallow in my grief. The anger passed, it only fizzed, smouldering at the back of my mind. How could she? I knew she'd killed, I'd seen her kill people many times before but this, this was strange and odd and cold-hearted. She wasn't cold hearted she was a mother. A mother who could fathom destroying her own baby. It was sickening, she had killed a child, only the night before I'd been curling my hands around her growing belly, massaging her skin and making her sigh in appreciation and bliss. Then she'd killed it. I felt betrayed, I felt as though I didn't even know this wicked, wicked girl. If she had killed my child did I mean as much to her? Did she really love me? If she had expelled my creation from her body, going against the will of Aslan then had she done so before, had she lied when she took her vows? Was anything real? Or was she another Miraz, someone who pretended to care so they could get their own ways.
But no, she was always there, she cared and loved and kissed and copulated. If she had not loved me she would not have lain with me to become with child as often as she did. A simple kiss wouldn't have lead to the sighs and appreciative noises she made which had my skin buzzing. She wouldn't have wrapped her hand into me hair and kissed me in front of the whole country. She wouldn't have been delighted to announce her second pregnancy, she wouldn't have sat in my lap and let me the rub the expanse of her belly, she wouldn't have clung to my shirt in years, wouldn't have let me wash her womanhood and thighs of blood during her sickness after Guinevere. She loved me. So why?
I looked around the small tavern, a young woman snuggled into the side of an older male. She was dressed scantily, the tops of her breasts visible (though not as full as Susan's) her shoulders bare and her delicate collar bone clearly etched. She wasn't as thin as she maybe would have been. Even she didn't take to silphium. What life would that child have? That babe she bore would have no Father, no food to eat, nobody would comfort it when it cried alone at night.
Rowan had both of us for most of his life and before that the girls had had us both. For a short time when Susan was ill I was their sole carer they missed her and I struggled to do it alone. She had been so ill, her pelvis shattered by the labour that lasted days and unable to move for a good time afterwards. Would she have done all that if she didn't love me?
It crossed my mind how much she had suffered, how much pain that had caused. I remembered her screaming through day and night for three long days as she gave birth to Guinevere. I remembered the constant rush of medics and healers, the fear on the faces of our little girls. Susan suffered extreme agony, her pelvis had cracked and creaked and cordial had been needed once more but it didn't heal fully. She couldn't feel her legs at all, was unaware of her bladder or the bleeding that always followed a birth. To top it off our baby girl was dead, blue when she entered the world and swiftly became white. Susan had suffered all that pain she had been scared as Rowan became clear, crying as her belly grew to an extraordinary size. She hadn't wanted to do it again, she was too scared of another Guinevere. Maybe she was scared once more.
I knew that most women were beyond childbearing by Susan's age- their terms stopped coming she had told me- but in her world women could bear children for longer. She was getting tiered, she was scared and she had done something foolish as we all did from time to time. She was sorry and I had pushed her away. I had hurt her even if he had caused me pain, even if she had betrayed and failed to obey me as she should.
(Inara)
I knocked on the door before entering my mother's room and then turned on Diara,
"Di maybe you shouldn't come- I don't think now is the time to tell her she's a grandmother."
Diara nodded,
"I'll check on Rowan, make sure he's ok."
Mum didn't answer so I pushed the door open very slowly. She was sitting on the floor, her legs stretched out in front of her, the skirt of a light dressed was stained the awful brown of dried blood, the whole of the dress was drenched. Her fingers also caked in the fluid, metallic liquid sunk into her fingernails. Her cheeks were stained red and her eyes looked pained; they were lost, totally empty. She held a tiny thing in her arms wrapped in a course blanket. She bounced the thing in her arms even though it made no sound, no movement.
Another miscarriage?
"Mum?"
She laughed in an attempt to be normal, an attempt for everything to be alright.
"A girl again, it's always the girls."
Her voice made me feel very uneasy, this wasn't right, she should've been crying. She should've been with Dad.
"Mum?"
She burst into tears, biting her lip hard. She was trying so hard not to make a scene, to stay in control but she couldn't.
"Mum, where's Pater? What's wrong? Please speak to me."
She just shook her head, tears falling on the hideous creepy thing she held.
It was the tiniest baby I'd ever seen, it's face was perfect it had fused eyelids and it was totally hairless. It's skin was almost red and translucent, with a huge dark bruise covering its chest, it's cord was full, placenta and all still attached and wrapped in the blanket with her.
I tried to take the baby from her but her hands gripped like a vice and she shook her head. She didn't speak just shook her head.
" I want to name her first, she needs an identity, she needs to know I was wrong. I was so wrong."
"Mum?" She took a deep breath and looked up at me,
"There are some bad things in this world Nara and I don't think you should know about these things until you experience them. Know I did a bad thing, your Father has every right not to return."
I stood up and left the room, going in search of Di, I hadn't a clue what we could do for Mum, we needed someone else to help her.
Rowan was dressed in his night shirt, padding around his room and pointing his wooden sword at Diara pretending to kill her.
"Nara!" He ran to me, letting the toy clatter to the ground and jumping up. He pushed his legs around my waist, not caring that his bare bottom was on show to the world. He leaned into my ear and whispered,
"Diara's going to have a baby." I glared at my sister, why on earth would she tell Rowan?
"And Mummy is too," he began, speaking louder for Diara to hear,
"Pater told me that her tummy is getting bigger and she is going to start to get tired and a bit grumpy." Rowan hadn't know her to be that pregnant before. Pater must have felt the need to explain things to the youngest before they got too obvious. I thought back to Mum's stomach, it must have flattened a little since the baby was passed but she was still easily expectant to an outsider.
" Rowan?"
"Yes,"
" I need to speak to Diara, go and get in your bed and see how much of your book you can read before Pater comes home," he nodded, glad of a competition and practically shooed Diara from the room to get a good start.
"I didn't tell him, he guessed," Diara groaned as soon as we were out of earshot.
"Well I'm not surprised. Mum's had another baby. A miscarriage but she's holding it Di, she said that 'our father had every right not to return',"
"We need Uncle Peter."
"Agreed."
(Caspian)
I returned home as the rain began to lash down, praying that Susan would forgive me. I should have thought, but we all made mistakes, all did things we regretted and I begged she would see it that way.
I thought about how my Wife had changed, I thought of the times I had been forced to leave her and sort disagreements and how happy she had once been. Perhaps I had brought this on her but perhaps it was Aslan's will, he was testing us to prove out bond. The Cair was still lit brightly but I assumed Susan must have gone to sleep, crying with the pains a miscarriage brought- I'd heard them many a time. I heard hooves on the draw bridge and was met by Winternow's saddened expression, the hope gone from the Centaur's eyes.
"You look disappointed? Is something the matter, did the girls not return."
Venom slowly slithered up through my veins, infecting my resolved emotions and making my heart thump.
"No, my liege, that is not the issue that stands. I had expected her majesty instead your highness."
The venom spiked my heart,
"Susan? What happened?" I felt ice take effect numbing me, frosting my voice.
"Her Majesty went out for a walk before dusk. The girls returned on time. Her location was only brought to my attention when Brigna couldn't find her."
"Where did she head?" I asked already turning, in the forests alone having just bled profusely, this was not the sensible Susan I knew. She could do anything with a mind taken over my grief. I had heard stories, my
Father had almost destroyed himself after my Mother's death due to grief.
"We don't know sire."
I had Destrier tacked and found the forgotten elektrisity torch of King Edmund and headed out into the rain.
(Diara)
Oh Mum. What had happened to her? Inara had almost cried- and my little sister was not known for that- when she came into our bedroom. I was already wearing a nightdress that was too short around my belly.
"Well?" It jumped from my throat in an almost spiteful way,
"Pater came home. He's taken Destrier and gone to look for her.
"Did?"
"Yes, Uncle Pete told me. Mum,"
Inara paused and came to sit beside me on my bed.
"Mum killed the baby. She took a poison that would kill it, she didn't want to do it but she didn't want to risk burying another body. Once she started to get bigger she panicked and asked Brigna to help her."
"Because Tibberus wouldn't?" My twin nodded,
"Tibberus said if our Father's seed had planted then it was to be allowed to grow and that Mum would be messing with Aslan's work."
Silence slinked into the room.
"What did Pater do?"
"He was angry, he stormed off, she was upset. The baby was a baby Di, it had a full body and fingers and all. It was even a girl."
Inara hugged her knees and bit her lip- a habbit she picked up from Mum.
"She called her Penitence- a regret for the bad thing she did- and put her in the cradle. Peter left for just a second and then she had gone, out for a walk."
I looked around our room, it's big window and creamy walls. A tapestry hung on the wall. 'My girls' Pater had christened it.
"Mum will come back?"
"Of course, Pater will find her. She just needs to think, she walks when she thinks."
"Yes, your right, Pater will bring her home. "