please listen to Towards The Sun by Rihanna for this chapter.
any chance letting me know what you think?
- G.
Two Months Later
"There is no doubting it now your Grace, she is with child."
Liete sat on a chaise lounge as the maid began to tie the bodice of her gown back to cover her very softly rounded belly more prominent with just her shift bare, eyes still and hollow.
Just a week or so off from the end of her fourth month, at least four months from when her monthlies had stopped and she'd already known of her predicament, her body had betrayed her as the maids told the rapist of her widening shape.
She'd refused corsets, or stays from the day of the fire ship, and combined with this information, he'd called for a midwife.
Liete had tried to hide it, refusing baths and food, as a cold part of her mind wished it would simply come away in the night. So then, she would not have to bring it into a world of lost hope and pain.
Now the gargoyle which stood and watched her grinned with triumph.
A child with the heiress to one of the largest fortunes in the world was splendid for him and his career. Yes, she was his prisoner more for the Templars plans than anything, but if he were to claim partnership with her brother with the child in tow, then he'd be the most influential man in all of Great Britain and the Templar order would have a firm hold by blood in the enterprise.
With the death of his own son several years ago, if this girl gave him another, an heir for him to mold it seemed absolutely fortuitous.
"Excellent news! I will send word on to Kingston where your brother has taken up post as Speaker for the House of Assembly in Jamaica and England at once of our engagement. Once my wife sends me the agreement for divorce, we shall marry and my heir will be born with my name."
"I have not accepted a proposal. Neither has my brother been offered a bride price monsieur Rogers." Liete's tone was even, void of any emotion at all. Her gaze never went to him, simply staring a head as her palms rested against her newly covered stomach where any bump was hardly distinguishable once the gown had been done back up.
"You are with my child, of course you are my betrothed, as you have no choice. You are mine or no better than a whore." His words were said in such a sickly matter of fact manner that even the midwife, new from Havana, looked horrified.
But not Liete.
Her expression never changed, as the maid pulled away having finished with righting the woman's clothes as she retreated to the corner of the turret drawing room once more.
A houseman then moved forward from his own post near the door offering the midwife coin for her trouble showing her to the door where a guard took her on to leave the fort as Woodes Rogers moved towards a cabinet full of glass bottles before pouring himself a congratulatory drink.
"Yes, I shall have it all wont I? My son will be the heir to the Beckford estate and the world."
Liete motioned to the maid then to assist her in standing.
Her equilibrium had been off for the past week and she didn't trust herself to stand without falling. She didn't care for much, but she never ever wanted to falter in front of the louse in front of her now ever again.
The maid helped her to her feet as Liete arranged her petticoats and left the blathering idiot to his devices, leaving the day room for the prison quarters she'd been given, to rest. To sit. To let her aching soul die.
The next months were trying and bleak.
Kenway never came, and Liete had been told by the maids that him and his Jackdaw had been the leader in the fire ship escape.
He'd truly left her here to rot, he'd not even come to atleast tell her why. She knew he could have done it, for all the times she watched him infiltrate or fight his way into any area or ship he wanted.
The why was irrelevant in the end, even as the first months it had haunted her. She'd had nothing but time to think, and in it, she'd coldly come to the thought that she'd not told him that he'd meant anything to her. Never once.
Men were weak, needy and ever in need of confirmation. She'd had no time for it, and although her actions could have shown it to the man, it had not been enough.
Also, no word of Drew came, not if he had been found on his escape by Rogers scouts or otherwise.
She hadn't expected it after what had happened with the demon himself, all her hope and thoughts had ceased fairly quickly after then of saving or escape, under constant vigilance. She was but a shell now.
An ever expanding one.
Her pregnancy was not an easy one.
Blissfully upon the news, Woodes Rogers made himself scarce except when the midwife had been called to check on her progress but she had suffered from nearly constant sickness these past months.
Her balance was non existent and sleep had not been her bedfellow more than once or twice a week.
If she hadn't already been mad, she'd have most definitely been brought to it with the constant lack of sleep, nutrition as nothing seemed to settle well in her stomach, and her ability to simply be without constantly feeling like she was on deck of a ship in a hurricane.
The world had turned into a wasteland for her as her only companions remained the girl maid accompanied by a hardier one brought in upon news of her condition, and that was nothing at all as they scurried away from her at any moment they could. Scared and spooked by the woman who seemed to be nothing more than an icy statue.
The only time she had some reprieve had been in a bath or from the two excursions to the rock pools just outside the fort to the Nassau shore.
The two maids, and an entire squad of ten soldiers had circled her as they'd been allowed to do so after it had been suggested by the midwife when she'd told Rogers she lacked sunlight and fresh air.
Liete had struggled to walk, queasiness and clumsiness had threatened her at every step as they'd made their precession to the water, the people of Nassau watching her with critical and wondering eyes.
She'd been hidden away since the day she'd been seen being led to the fort when the Governor had come to town.
To see her now, stomach distended and very clearly with child, it had sent the townspeople into a ruckus as they chittered with gossip and thoughts.
Had she taken the Governor to her bed? Has she been the one to sell the pirates out to the British? Was the child truly the Governors or Kenway's who she'd been seen with the very morning of Roger's landing to Nassau?
The chattering unbeknownst to Liete had reached to the very original wetnurse that had aided Liete in her condition, who then mounted a campaign to clear Liete's name to anyone who made an unkind comment, because for all of the whispers of fear towards the girl, she had been nothing but kind and seemingly afraid to Faith.
Spreading the news that the woman had been pregnant well before the scarred man had come to their island, she'd been kidnapped for sure as much as she could.
As Liete had arrived to the water, and had waded in, the nausea dissipated and her equilibrium settled as she slid into the lapping water with a sigh of content.
As the older maid held her head up on top of the water, Liete drifted. The calm her body found in the water was intoxicating as she found the peace she'd needed, lulling to a calm sleep as she floated away into the water. When she'd been forced to stand and return to the fort, it had almost been too much as the pain and sickness hit her once more, nearly keeping her from being able to walk back on her own.
As the months wore own, and her sheer inability to move long distances or at all was prevalent, the guards at her door became lax, the maids returning to their own quarters waiting for a bell rather than standing watch all hours of the night.
As she came upon the end of her ninth month, or end of her seventh as they believed, Liete found herself completely alone. No maid to the door, no guards as they'd laughed to themselves and headed off to the kitchen for a quick nip. Why should they guard a whale that was beached?
It was true, she could not get far, and there was no distraction now to render the fort nearly empty, but Liete waddled none the less ever so slowly, until she came upon the turret day room only a few corridors away and yet it had her huffing softly as she as quietly as she could opened the door and moved into the dark room, lit from the open windows out towards the open sea.
The sky above was black and tumultuous.
It had been threatening rain all day, but only recently in the night had given way to its threats. With fat drops of rain, and lightening in the distance, it found Liete stood at the one of the openings ledges just above the Nassau port below.
A several hundred foot drop lay ahead, promising quiet; promising peace once and for all.
The way the waves rolled, angry and rough against the rocks, split only by the heavens tears seemed to beckon her forward. A dark call and promise.
One hand kept her still again the stone, her other rested against her monstrous distended belly.
She was nothing now but pure reaction rather than thought.
Leaning forward for a moment, the high winds swept the gauze like night dress behind her, the slip underneath pushed to its limit by her giant stomach that seemed to hover over the sea even as her feet remained on the stone.
A clash of lightning brought Liete back to reality for a moment, the wind whistling between the stones and her body leaving her mind numb and calm for just a single moment.
The life in her stomach was near due, she could feel it. Near coming to the world…
The midwife had looked at her in pity and with something of a knowing in her manner. How could she not? Maybe to a man or an untrained eye, Liete simply grew a large child within her stomach…
With the dose of reality the lightening had brought, it frightened her to her marrow.
How could she bring this child into such a place?
Better dead, than dead inside.
She didn't want to leave her child, a child born from death and madness in the hands of evil or of men alone. How could she protect it, how could she save it from the fate she now suffered? She had no power here, had done nothing to improve or better her lot in life.
All the decisions she had made had brought her no where closer to happiness or freedom.
It brought you a piece of both, the small voice she hadn't heard for months cried to her, low and malnourished.
Yes, pieces. Pieces, that left her vastly more broken than if she'd simply been left on that damned island. She'd only had herself to lose then, no love, life. Just no one, the vast expanse of the West Indies, that upon dying there would have done nothing and been nothing.
The hand on her belly began to shake as her mind broke under the pressures and panic. Hot tears raced down her face as she sobbed.
"I can't protect you." She wept down to her belly, pleading to the child, trying to justify the reasoning she had for stepping out into the open air and the ocean below.
"I can't make sure you are okay, I can't even keep myself from harm." She lost herself in her tears for a moment as she closed her eyes for a moment against the fear that threatened to choke her again.
"Your father is the only one who could save you, and he doesn't even know you exist small one. There will be no one to care for you if they take you from me."
Liete lost the ability to speak once more as she wailed in the open, as she admitted to the reality that above all; all the pain of rape, abandonment, pain, that her biggest fear now was that her child wouldn't be safe and loved just like she hadn't.
With no one to truly care for it as she would. Care wasn't just safety, and for that she stood on the ledge of the fort window.
Releasing the stone she held to her side, Liete brought both hands to her stomach, where she felt the push of tiny feet against her hands as a silent hello.
Liete's heart quickened as hot tears continued to fall drenching the top of her slip and night dress.
For the first time since her own childhood, Mad Liete did not want to die.
She wanted to raise a child as wild as its father, and as calm as she all in one, with a heart and clear distinction. She wanted a raise a hero, a miracle as she knew it had the possibility to be, but only with her.
How could she? When she was ever a woman of her time, used and held to others pressures and wants.
Liete stilled herself then in her decision, and as if the tiny life in her knew what she meant to do kicked once more at her hands, following a quickening in herself.
The door behind her flew open as candle light filled the room, Woodes Rogers entering with a candelabra, his steps sure and full of triumph. He took in her presence and simply took it in stride, as he ignored her dangerous proximity to open air, ignored how her toes wriggled in the open space.
"How fortuitous I've found you here, I've some extremely good news." The prideful satisfaction of his words set Liete's sickness off once more, even as he moved to his liquor bottles to pour himself a rum tumbler, raising it towards her back and to the heavens before downing the entire glass.
Liete panted softly as her dress became heavier, the ledge and stone now sopping from more than the rain.
"Blackbeard had been snuffed out! Not a week ago he took his last breath. One of the largest threats to my eradication gone giving me freedom to leave this cesspit and turn to Kingston!" He practically giggled out the news, as he poured himself another drink.
Liete staggered back from the edge, her gown drenched, what little pieces had been left in her heart seeming to smash into dust.
How many times could a heart break before you died of it?
Blackbeard dead? One of her most cherished friends, that she had nary the chance to say goodbye too as he'd gone off in his hurt of her rejection. If she'd gone with him then when he'd asked it of her again, would he be alive now?
As her hands touched to her thighs, feeling the wet garment cold, the sea churned outside in response as Woodes moved forward to really look at her then.
Rogers gave another cheer, before striding to the door to find his own personal guards.
"Call for the widwife, my child comes to greet the world."
Never had a birthing room been so silent.
The midwife and the newly arrived to Nassau physician stood in attendance watching Liete, splayed out across the four post bed of Roger's chambers, writhing in silence.
He'd been insistent that his child come to the world in a proper bed, as it should always have the finer things in life from first breath on.
The only noise coming from the woman in labor was soft pants and harsh breaths of air as she took each contraction head on.
As per practice the shades had been drawn, leaving the room in darkness and only a few candles had been lit.
The girl maid stood at the side of the bed, a bowl of cool water and a rag she tended lying there as the contraction subsided leaving Liete immobile.
Other than the three of them, the room was clear, but it might as well have been completely empty.
No friend or confidant by her side now, and as the pain subsided for just a moment, she wept silently for Blackbeard.
She could just see him now in the dark corners of the room, hemp burning in his beard and a Cheshire grin. Stubborn nose and glittering dark eyes as he looked to her with trust.
Just as he faded from into the dark, wild wheat hair and crystal blue eyes filled it, a devilish smile and eyes just for her.
Liete couldn't find it in her at that moment to be angry at him, as just seeing his face calmed her as she turned her face further to the corner as the visage of Kenway nodded to her as his smile turned soft as he placed a hand to his chest right above where his heart was.
Pain straight through her spine erupted and Liete's body convulsed as she fought the urge to push, fighting to keep watch but slowly he faded too into the dark.
The dark ate at her then as she clenched the sheets in her hands, pulling them from the edges of the tick, teeth clenched as she held her breath with the pains.
Clenching her eyes shut, she rode the pain out refusing her own body's command to push. She couldn't.
Not yet.
Slowly it ebbed off, and she opened her eyes nearly blinded in the darkness with just the pale faces glittering in the shadows scarily.
It scared her further…
"Open the god damned curtains, now!" The guttural growl broke the spell everyone within the room had been under in silence.
Still no one moved, unsure to follow the barked instruction or what they believed to be right.
Liete struck out like a snake then, grasping with a vice grip on the arm of the maid.
"My child will not meet this world in the dark. Open the fucking curtains!" This time the maid didn't dare hesitate, rushing forward to the windows, drawing the curtains until the room was blinded with the wild weather making itself known.
The night had faded with the labor, now the sky held hints of sun through the clouds blocking most of the morning still, the whistling wind and torrential rain still present.
As she pulled the final two of the four curtains from the large windows, Liete grasped the sides of the bedspread once more in pain as the urge to push finally won against her drive to remain.
As her body took control, the hurricane within her began anew.
She'd held birth off so long, now that nature took its marching order it came upon her swiftly. The physician stood back as the midwife took position between her legs whispering soft words of encouragement that Liete could not understand in her pain.
There were no reprieves in the pain now, as it wracked her over and over again, as her nails bit through the sheets into her palm as she shook in the effort.
She was afraid, and as her body seized, she began to cry once more. No sound escaped her even then.
Whether she was ready or not, she'd lost her choice, and it was her time now.
"I can just about see the head, Miss Liete. Not long now."
Silently Liete pleaded in her mind, to stop. Everything to just stop.
But it wouldn't, and it didn't.
As the head crowned the widwife motioned to a maid for a linen to place between her legs to wrap the coming child. Liete had ben contracting for hours and now it all came so fast.
"Miss Liete, I need one final big push from you. This baby is ready to see the world, you can't wait any longer or you may hurt the baby."
Turning her head to look out across and out of the windows, a water spout out in the distance, the early sun shining through in spots as the sound of rain filled her.
With one final shaky breath, her vision never wavering from the ocean, she put all her remaining strength into bringing her child into the world. The pain was white hot, taking over her entire being, and finally she roared.
Everything, everything in her bled through as the fort felt as if it shook with the force of it until she'd felt an ebb, a giving as the head of the baby was born.
With only another breath, the shoulders were delivered, and Liete sobbed.
With all the emotions rushing through her with the cease of forcible pain, Liete finally let the ache within match what she'd just been through as it bled into the bed and off her in waves.
She hadn't even taken into account the first set of soft cries the child gave as the midwife wrapped him in the white sheet, the midwife took care not to bother the umbilical cord till attached to the placenta within Liete.
The midwife raised the child between her legs, up to rest on Liete's chest as the child stilled and calmed right away as her arms instinctively moved up to wrap around it.
Liete tore her eyes away from the storming weather, to fin the beauty of her child.
"A boy." The widwife whispered softly.
Perfect in every way, Liete thought in wonder as she looked into his tiny face, with eyes the color of Caribbean blue rimmed in silver looking up at her with curiosity. Small tufts of wheat colored hair and a stubborn chin completed the very miracle of Liete's life.