5th February 1103

Harndall swung open the door in response to the faint knocking that was little more than the scratch of dead tree branches against the thatched roof. She stood there, heavily cloaked in thick, warm fur, a tiny baby wrapped snugly in hides tucked neatly into the crook of her arm. The chill breeze that struggled past her pierced through the scratchy folds of his robe to Harndall’s skin leaving a trail of goosebumps.

Her long illness had not been kind, dark hollows pooling beneath her sagging eyes, her once luscious, golden hair now fell straggly and strawlike around her drawn face. She was still the most beautiful creature Harndall had ever laid eyes on, her skin thin to the point of translucence, the only colour lent to her pallid face by the smattering of freckles that danced furtively across her nose and cheeks. He could not look at the baby.

He turned away from her as she followed him into the room, her feet shuffling on the doorstep as she kicked off excess snow.

“Come inside, it’s cold,” he called but his voice was chill too and inside the room was not much warmer.

He turned to face her as she stood, graceful as always, her head bowed slightly on her long, elegant neck.

They stood for a long moment, the only sound the hiss and crackle of the pathetic fire dying slowly in his stove and the muffled rustle of the baby’s limbs as they struggled softly against its wrapping. He was staring at her face, she would not meet his eyes and Harndall still refused to look at the murmuring baby.

“Why have you come here?” he finally asked when the silence became too much.

She carefully hoisted the squirming bundle to her shoulder, holding the snuffling baby close. Harndall noticed she held the baby tentatively with the lack of assurance of a new mother, as though if she gripped too hard the delicate thing would break into pieces.

“I thought you would want to meet your daughter,” she murmured, her soft lips brushing against the baby’s skin.

Something inside Harndall snapped. For weeks he had suffered condemnation for a crime he did not commit. He had shivered in a freezing, damp cell, been brought before the accusatory eyes of the court and now he had to face the constant scorn of the people. He had all but been removed from his position as a priest, the only thing stopping the King was the fact that there was no one else to tend to the people. But even now HIs Majesty was scrambling for a solution and it may not be long before Harndall was thrown out of the church altogether.

Not only that but this women he loved had lied to save him, had damned herself for him and that was the worst thing of all. Now she had come before him to throw it in his face, well it was too much.

“My daughter! That is not my daughter. How could it possibly be? Why did you do it Valeriya? Why did you lie for me? I didn’t need you to save me. Now you’ve all but damned yourself. Why did you do it?”

The baby wriggled and whined at the sound of his angry voice. Valeriya murmured something softly to it, stroking the rough skin of the hide until it was soothed.

“Did I lie? I thought it was the truth Harndall. Did you not come to me while I lay ill?”

It was the first time she had called him by only his name but he was so dismayed and sickened by her words his heart barely noticed the fact.

“You think I would do that, rape you while you were ill? I never touched you. I would never touch you. How could you think I did it?”

He imagined himself as she must have, coming to her while she lay deep in a fever. Stripping off his robe in the musty heat of the sickroom. Pressing her sweaty, struggling body down with his own, taking his pleasure while she whined and moaned and cried. He felt nauseated at the thought. And yet someone must have done so.

He glared at her, “I would never do that Valeriya. Never.”

She looked saddened, her sagging brow wrinkling as she sought comfort in the warmth of her baby.

“But you were there… or you were a dream. You told me that you loved me even though it was a sin and we lay down together like man and wife. There was nothing evil or horrible about it. It was the most beautiful thing,” she whispered, “Was it a lie?”

He stared at her. She had not lied. She had believed it to be the truth and it had been nothing more than a fever dream.

“I came to you Valeriya, and prayed beside your bed but I never did anything more than hold your hand, I swear it in the name of the holy father.”

“Then how can it be?” she held up the little baby, peering curiously at its face. Still he could not look, frightened by what he might see “she looks exactly like you.”

“Look at her Harndall, look. She is your daughter.”

He finally let his gaze wander down to the tiny face and he was transfixed by what he saw there. Blue eyes, the same somber hue as his own, his mother’s calm blue eyes and as she had told it the same blue of her dear father, his grandfather, gazing through the ages. These were the blue of his family, their history written in the swirling pools as clearly as ink on parchment. Not only that but the baby resembled him so closely it was unsettling.

“How can it be?” he whispered, his voice full of prayerful awe, “she looks exactly like me.”

He was terrified, every essence of his belief tested and tried, found wanting in the cool light of her blue, blue eyes. He had undergone every trial as Job, believing in the overlying strength of God’s plan for him. But how could this be. Unless… it was blasphemous to even think of.

“Would you like to hold her?” Valeriya murmured, holding the small girl out towards him.

“Yes,” he whispered, reaching trembling hands towards the warm bundle.

She felt reassuringly heavy in his grasp, and she stopped her struggling and gazed wonderingly up at him with his own eyes.

He held her up to look at her more closely.

“My daughter, can it really be so? Why would the Lord want such a thing?”

“It has happened before Harndall,” Valeriya voiced the idea that he could not, “a virgin birth. Could it not happen again?”

“But Valeriya, can it be. He was the messiah. She’s just a baby girl. Why would the Lord send this girl to us?What is her purpose?”

“I do not know,” Valeriya replied, her voice filled with wonder.

Harndall lifted the soft bundle to his shoulder, pressing her warm body to his chest. She was silent and still, the only sound her quiet breathing. She felt very much like a normal baby, though he was more accustomed to holding wasted, tiny things with open gasping mouths and precious few moments of life remaining. She was everything a healthy baby was supposed to be, nothing special. And yet he was almost sure she was his daughter. Could there be anything more special and less possible. It was so hard to believe.

“What is her name?” Harndall asked reverently.

“Hannah,” Valeriya breathed, her voice barely audible in the chill room.

“Hannah,” he repeated filled with awe, “the grace of god.”

Moraghdu, The Church