Isaura was actually enjoying herself for a change. She had been feeling better in the last week, the exhaustion of the past months seemed to have partially departed and she had actually accepted the invitation to dine with the other members of her husband’s family. It had been a bit of a struggle to ready herself for the engagement, the mere act of pulling her dress over her head made her breathless. But Lochan had helped her, combing her long thinning hair in such a way as to hide the bald patches. With careful hands he had fastened the necklace he had given her when they first met, kissing her softly on the back of her neck.

And now she was having a lovely evening, conversing with her friends. She thought it was a shame that her husband obviously wasn’t. She stole a quick glance in his direction and saw his face wrinkled in distaste as he watched Garrick shoveling his food into his mouth. She thought the Baron was being a little less than polite this night, but it was probably due to the large amount of wine he had been consuming steadily since they had sat down.

Not that he was the only one, the King had been matching him drink for drink and she could hear him slurring his words slightly. Her husband had barely touched his drink, he had never been one to join in on the drunken revelry his friends often participated in. She was glad though, she thought it would be unpleasant to have a sozzled husband pawing his way into her bed after a long night drinking.

Garrick sat up straight his mouth full and his eyes glazed. She noticed small breadcrumbs clinging to his beard, and a red stain on his shirt where he had spilled his wine earlier. She felt a bit sorry that Cindra had to share a bed with him later the night. And every night for that matter, Lochan had told her that lately Garrick was drunk most evenings. Then again Cindra probably didn’t mind, half the time she was tipsy herself.

She daintily lifted the fork to her mouth to hide a smile when Garrick began to converse with her husband, his mouth still partly filled with food. She had to admit to herself she was slightly shocked at his behaviour, as far as she could remember he had always had good manners before. He really must have drunk a great deal, perhaps he had already been drinking before they arrived.

The door opened and Cindra waddled in, lowering herself ungraciously into the chair with a thump.

“What did I miss?”, she asked, pulling the chair towards the table. Isaura thought Garrick should have stood and helped her but she did not comment on it.

“I can’t stand the way this baby is always making me rush off and miss what’s happening”, she said grinning, “but he seems to think that putting his foot where he really shouldn’t is a rather good joke”.

Isaura thought it rude to discuss such things at the dinner table, especially when the men were around. But Cindra had always been gauche and that probably wasn’t gone to change now they were so far removed from the rigors of high society.

“Not much actually my dear”, Garrick slurred stifling a belch, “actually I was just going to ask her highness how her figure stays so fine while you’re starting to look like a little pudding?”

“So, Your Highness, whatsh your secret? Becaush you should really impart that knowledge to my wife I think. Perraps she’s just carrying a bigger baby than you”.

“Wouldn’t you agree my dear”, he said turning to Cindra with an unpleasant leer on his face.

Isaura was speechless. She did not know where to look. With that one stupid sentence the Baron had managed to not only insult his poor little wife, but also the Queen. Isaura thought it obvious that Madlenka was very concerned about the health of her baby. She had felt that way too in the beginning, now she was too tired to feel anything anymore.

She looked up to see Garrick and Cindra staring at each other. Cindra looked as though she had been struck, her lower lip quivering slightly, tears welling up in her eyes.

Isaura thought it was odd. Garrick had never been so tactless with his wife, as far as she could see he absolutely adored the little woman and it was often he who came to her aid when she had said something stupid. But you never knew how people were when they were alone, perhaps the two were having problems and only now they were coming out in the open.

“Steady on there Garrick”, Eallair said with a concerned look, that was suddenly very sober, “you know women don’t like to talk about these things with us silly old fools around”.

“What! Why are you all looking at me like I’ve kicked a puppy? I didn’t say anything wrong”, Garrick said his voice raising belligerently, as he struggled to defend himself, “I was just making a comment to my friends”.

“And one of those friends you are possibly forgetting Garrick, is the Queen”, she heard her husband hiss between his teeth, “and perhaps it isn’t so appropriate to be commenting on her figure, don’t you think?”

She looked over at Lochan’s face, and saw his jaw was tightly set, his eyes half closed. She knew this was the face he made when he was trying to reign in his anger. He had never used it against her but she had seen it often enough.

Actually perhaps she wasn’t feeling so well after all. Her head was begin to throb painfully, and a desperate urge to cough was building within her. Maybe she should just excuse herself from the room, so she could be alone in the dark and the quiet, away from the anger, away from the people.

She stole another glance at her husband and saw that his eyes were resting on his cousin. Cindra sat opposite him her little head bowed as she stared fixedly at her dinner plate, pushing a piece of meat around with her fork.

“And another thing!”, Lochan suddenly barked from beside her, “Do you think it’s right to upset your wife like this! She deserves better than that”.

Isaura was suprised at the severity of her husband’s reponse. She knew that Lochan had been very fond of his little cousin when they were children. But she had thought he now looked upon her as a silly, tactless girl who was always making trouble in their small court. Perhaps his feelings had changed. He had not mentioned that to her though.

“Come now Lochan”, Eallair said with a forced smile on his face, his tone congenial, “this is just a misunderstanding. Perhaps Garrick did not think about what he was saying before it left his mouth. That happens to all of us at times. Can we just settle down… there’s no need to get angry”.

Isaura really was not feeling well. Her head felt so heavy on her neck she could barely hold up the weight of it. Her stomach was restless and she wished she had not eaten so much food. The urge to cough was now becoming unbearable. If she could just sit through Eallair’s reconciliatory speech then she could leave.

“Isaura dear”, she heard Madlenka’s voice interrupting the King’s monologue.

She looked up at the Queen’s, concerned face, confused at this development.

“I think your nose is bleeding”.

She gasped, humiliated, the sharp intake of breath almost letting the cough forming in her lungs explode from her mouth. Her hand flew up to her face, where she felt a thick fluid coming from her nose. She drew back her hand staring at it and saw it was smeared with dark red blood.

She stumbled to her feet, so quickly she almost passed out her head spinning uncontrollably for a few seconds.

“I… I’m so sorry. I must leave. Sorry”, she croaked from behind the cough.

She heard her husbands chair scraping against the floor, as he leapt to her assistance. His strong arm was around her frail waist, and she leant heavily against him as he led her from the room.

She walked onwards placing one foot carefully in front of the other, fighting the exhaustion that had sunk deep into her bones. She felt as though she had been walking forever, down here in the dank depths below the earth, through the endless hallways.

The corset of her black mourning dress was hindering her pregnant belly uncomfortably, and the dark veil that fell around her face was making it difficult to see in the dim light. But still she continued her journey, not pausing to gaze at the multitudes of tombs lining the walls beside her. She could feel the oppressive weight of the dead crowding in on her, making it difficult to breath, difficult to lift her feet with each footstep.

Finally she saw the end of the caverns, her destination looming up out of the darkness. She paused for a moment to stare ahead of her and then boldly continued. She could not explain why she was here in these cold, dark tunnels, nor what it was she had found. All she knew was that some force was pulling her inexplicably towards the far end of the hall and she could not fight it.

When she finally reached her destination she gazed up at the tapestry that hung above the coffin. She peered at in the light of the two braziers burning brightly on either side of the wooden box. She should have been surprised that it bore her husband’s coat of arms but she was not. The symbol seemed more poignant to her now, the branches tentatively spreading upwards while the roots struggled desperately for firm ground. And now there was only one branch left, her husband’s reaching skyward, the others torn from the trunk and discarded. But there was still hope, the first new growth budding within her.

A feeling of unbearable sorrow descended on her and she fell to her knees, clasping her hands, her head bowed in submission. Tears began to roll down her face, dripping to disappear in the black folds of her dress as though they had never been cried.

She began to pray fervently for the one who lay in the coffin before her, her words coming out between sobs. She did not know who lay there but the grief was so overwhelming she thought she would die, her heart bursting inside her chest with the dreadful feeling.

As her weeping gradually became softer she began to notice a strange sound come from the coffin before her. She rose to her feet as quickly as her swollen figure would allow drawing back in horror as she realised it was the sound of fingernails scraping on the soft wood inside.

A muffled moan came from inside. Dear Gods! she thought. Someone had been locked in there alive, brought down here into the crypts and left alone to die in the frigid depths.

She rushed forward fumbling with the fastenings, trying to drag open the lid with her trembling hands. But it was firmly shut and her fingers began to bleed as the splinters of wood tore shreds off them. She did not notice the pain in her desperation to free the inhabitant, clawing wildly at the box before her.

Without warning the lid flew open as though from a force within. A wave of stench hit her, so foul it caused her to cringe backwards retching. It was unmistakable, the scent of death. She had smelt it before, as a child, when she and Lochan had found a cat that had been dead for weeks trapped in a room beneath the castle. She remembered her disgust at the maggots writhing beneath the poor creatures skin, the dull, milky eyes looking up at her blindly, but most of all the smell of rotting flesh that had made her violently sick. She had been wrong, the body in the coffin could not have been living.

She groaned in dread, her eyes unable to look away from the pale figure lying in the coffin before her. She could not see the girl’s face, its features hiding behind a shock of red hair. She thought she could see a slight twitching in the limbs and wondered a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, if maggots had somehow found their way into the girl’s coffin.

It was not maggots, but the corpse’s fingers which Cindra now noticed were bloody, the fingernails ragged and torn, were moving slightly. She opened her mouth to scream but not sound came forth.

She gasped in her horror as the body slowly began to rise out of the coffin. Cindra gave a strangled sob as the face began turning towards her, the dark red hair began slipping away from it.

She awoke her heart thumping so hard in her chest she though it would break through her ribcage. The baby inside her was kicking at her desperately. She tried to calm herself for its sake, rubbing her belly gently but it was clearly distressed. Thank goodness it had just been a nightmare, she thought. A particularly realistic one though. She quickly checked her hands to make sure there was no blood. No, it had only been a dream. She carefully maneuvered her heavy body out of the bed trying not to wake Garrick. He had been sleeping a lot better these last few nights and she did not want to disturb him.

She paced back and forth in the small room trying to comfort her growing baby and to slow the beating of her heart.

“Cindra”, she heard a drowsy voice calling from the bed. Damn, she had woken him after all.

“Are you alright my love”, he asked pulling back the covers, “is that baby of ours giving you trouble?”.

He stood up and lit the candles then padded over to her.

“Just a little”, she replied, unhappy about the obvious waver in her voice, “We’re alright though. I didn’t want to wake you”.

“That’s alright, I don’t mind”, he said leaning down to rub her belly with his huge hands, “now listen you in there. Stop kicking your mother. She’s not very big remember and I know it is getting a bit crowded in there but it’s not too long now and there will be plenty of room to kick as much as you like when you get out here”.

Cindra couldn’t help but chuckle. Garrick was right, there wasn’t much room and it seemed like she was carrying a rather large baby. Not that it was surprising given the size of her husband. She sighed and rubbed her aching back.

“Here, let me do that for you”, Garrick began to knead her tired back with his strong hands. She could feel the tension melting away beneath his touch. She was so silly to have been upset by that dream. Even if it had been so real. She shuddered as she thought about the twitching figure, the pale face turning towards her.

She turned and threw her tiny body at her husband, desperate to be held in his strong arms where she knew she was safe. He caught her with a grunt, wrapping his muscular arms around her body as she pressed her little face against his warm, hairy chest.

“Well then”, he laughed, “seems someone needed a hug. You just have to ask you know”.

“Now let’s get you back to bed”, he gently untangled himself from her grasp and led her over to the bed.

Once he had settled her in, pulling the blankets over both of them and tucking them carefully around her belly.

“Come over her you silly thing”, he said, pulling he gently towards him and putting his arms around her.

“Do you think you can sleep again now”, he asked, kissing her softly on the tip of her upturned nose.

“I don’t know”, she replied, her voice still trembling slightly, “Garrick will you hold me”.

And so he did and she laid her head on his chest, burying her face in the wiry red hair that flowed down his shoulders. She stayed there listening to him whisper to her in the dark, his fingers gently stroking her arm, until sleep finally found her again in his warm embrace.