7th November 1102

“For God’s sake would you quit your racketing!”

She could not stand the wailing anymore, the shrill sound made her want to grind her teeth and join in the shrieking. She was so tired, so exhausted she thought she could have almost slept through anything. Anything but the dreadful sound that was emanating from the red, wrinkled figure writhing in her arms.

“You’re making your Mama very upset you are”, she grated, resisting the urge to shake his tiny body like a doll.

Her eyes began to blur with tears as she stared down at her son’s beetroot-coloured face. There were times, when he was sleeping or silent that she believed she could have gazed at that tiny, handsome face for days and not even noticed the passing of the hours. And there were times when she found herself wishing that he belonged to someone else so she could give him back.

Nyawe wondered if that made her a bad mother. It was just that she was so very, very tired. Rothdyn wanted to feed every few hours and so the snatches of sleep she managed were few and far between. She had taken to feeding him lying on the bed after she had nodded off and awoken only just in time to catch him as he slid towards the floor.

Now she usually drifted off to sleep as he sucked hungrily at her breast. At frst feeding him had been painful, an unpleasant dragging sensation as his hot, gummy mouth clamped around her nipple. But she had grown used to it and now she barely felt him as she dozed.

“Come on now lad, I just fed you. You can’t be wanting more can you?”

That was the problem. She did not know what he wanted. She found herself frequently dreaming of the days when he could speak and tell her why it was that he cried so much.

He gave a miserable hiccough, squirming weakly in her arms.

“What do you want my baby boy, what do you want?” she whispered softly.

With a sigh he closed his eyes, his hand rubbing sleepily against his nose. He began to droop in her tired arms.

Nyawe could have sobbed in relief.

“There’s a good boy now, hush now, you just go to sleep my love”

She gently hoisted him onto her shoulder, softly rubbing the warm skin on his back. His tiny hand clutched at her hair, his little face burrowing beneath the silky curls. Now that he was quiet again she felt an overwhelming rush of love that nearly made her gasp.

She swayed over to the crib, crooning to him as she went. An old lullaby her nurse had murmured to her in the darkness when the day had come to a close and it was time for sleep.

The door clicked as it opened, a hushed sound as it swung on newly made hinges. Garald tried to walk softly, first his heel hitting the floor with a thud followed by a creak as the rest of his boot made contact with the wooden floor.

She did not look up, entirely focused on disentangling the sleeping baby’s chubby fingers from her hair. She was not expecting it when his large, clumsy hands found her waist, even less so when they pulled her behind sharply against his hips. Most of all it was the shock of his stiff erection pressing against her thigh that caused her to cry out.

She spun around sharply, throwing him off balance. She knew that she should feel overjoyed at this new development, but all she felt was an exhaustion so utterly consuming she thought she could have fallen asleep standing up with her eyes wide open. Though she had desperately craved attention during the long months of her pregnancy it was the last thing she desired now. She had only just begun to heal where Rothydyn had torn his way free of her and the thought of Garald’s clumsy, hesitant thrusting made her frightened. She felt tightly bound inside the body of a new mother, the old Nyawe lying in a torpid slumber, a fine film of frost covering her blue-tinged skin.

She hastily yanked the corners of her tired mouth into a cheerful grin.

“Now what is it you are wanting my good steward?” she asked heartily, “you know Hepsie was saying we must wait a while”.

Garald’s face broke into a soft smile as one hand tentatively coiled its way around her shoulders.

“Well, yes I do remember”, he whispered, “and she said we must wait a month and today a month is done”.

His fingers were curling through her hair, almost as unwieldy as his tiny son’s had been mere moments before. They trailed down the wet locks to the swollen curve of her breast, peeping from the lace of her nightgown like rosebud half-hidden in its covering sepals.

She laughingly batted his hand away skittering from his grasp. She had not thought of this.

He grinned at her and began to clumsily unbuckle his belt.

“Wait, wait my love”, she chided with a shaky laugh, “not tonight, I’m about tired enough to sleep for a week now. Perhaps we could save this for another time”.

His shy grin slid more rapidly from his face than a drop of milk, dribbling down the pale curve of her breast.

“Another time dear”, she tutted, edging away from him towards the bed feeling like the most dreadful kind of tease.

But then, hadn’t he ignored her all these past months. Why would he want her now? Hidden beneath her gown were flabby rolls of skin folding over her belly like an ice flow, breasts that were stretched and swollen with thin white fissures of radiating stretchmarks . If he hadn’t wanted her then, surely when he saw the way she looked now he would only react with disgust. She did not think she could bear it.

He was gazing at her with a stricken look and she could see from the distended bulge beneath his tunic that he was still hard.

“I’m going to bed now”, she laughed shakily, stumbling around to her side of the bed.

She yanked up the covers, planting herself amongst their warm safety. She lay her exhausted head on the pillow and felt her eyes begin to close immediately.

She heard scuffling noises, the rustle of material against bare skin as her husband hurriedly undressed. With a soft huff he blew out the candle and she felt the blankets jerk as he clambered into bed beside her.

She curled up drowsily, folding the blankets around her body and letting herself sink luxuriously towards sleep.

She awoke to the hesitant flutter of fingers on her thigh, the lace snagging as it was slowly sliding up her sprawled legs.

She remained still, keeping her breathing even so that he would think she was already asleep. His breath was blowing warm on the back of her neck like the first stirrings of spring. He pressed himself along her frozen body, his skin feverishly hot so that she wilted against him.

His hand hovered above her, flitting down to tentatively stroke the delicate skin of her hipbone, then floating away leaving her quivering at his touch.

Her body, lying dormant in the long cold was coming awake, thawing with the warmth of his hands. Icy tendrils began to unfurl, tiny crystals melting into tears that ran down her flushed cheeks.

The fingers drifted across her stomach, brushing timidly against the sensitive parts between her legs and then flickering down to pull softly at her nightgown, dragging it up to her waist. Her legs were trembling, rippling sinuously with the gentle caress of the breeze.

A low groan was humming in Garald’s throat, his mouth skimming the unbearably ticklish skin of her neck, his lips grazing the tiny, curling fronds of soft hair that grew only there.

She felt something hard nudging between her legs and with strangled cry he suddenly pushed inside her.

Nyawe’s back arched in agony. The pain she felt was the rending of ice, an almost silent creaking moan followed by a jagged crack as the pieces ground apart. Her fingers coiled into fists against her chest, her frigid body closing around them.

But the thaw was relentless and through the pain, the first flowers of pleasure began to emerge, pushing their way blindly through the undergrowth. She felt herself unfolding in the sultry heat, her body opening, one soft petal at a time to the endless warmth of his.

Their bodies swayed together rhymically like long stems bending in the breeze. Everywhere there was the sound of water, trickling, roaring, pulsating beneath the ground and gushing forth in great torrents.

His whole body was thrumming behind her, his breath coming out in strangled gasps. Wherever his hands grasped her the blood thundered through her veins, pouring like melt water through her limbs, overflowing into the hollow chasms of her body. She was growing turgid with it, swollen and heavy so she thought that she would burst. With a deep rumbling moan he suddenly twitched inside her and with a low cry she too began to shudder, until they were trembling together like new leaves in winter‘s last gasp.

She drooped against him, sweat beading her forehead like dewdrops, tendrils of hair clinging to the flushed pink of her face.

Her body flinched at the sudden cold as he withdrew, as though the sun had been hidden by an unwelcome dark cloud. She lay still trying to savour the memory of the warmth that was slowly slipping away in the shadow leaving goosebumps prickling her skin.

“Garald”, she murmured, her voice a hoarse whisper.

But he was already asleep. She carefully rolled her nightgown over her clammy thighs and wrapped her shivering arms around her waist. The low thrumming of his snores lulled her tired body to sleep.