He stamped a foot, smiled. Not exactly here—indeed, quite a distance away—but it was good ground, and there was satisfaction in knowing all who came to pay homage to one undeserving of it would hold in high regard this place William built.
He breathed deep the air that belonged to him the same as all of England below, then proclaimed, “I am Le Bâtard, Duke of Normandy, King of England, William the Great. My claim staked, my sword swept wide, I made history go right when others heaved left. I changed all. Now I am history, never to be forgotten.”
He set his head back, eyed the heavens looking down upon him, and with wonder he ought not feel, shouted, “Never!”
Epilogue
Stavestone-on-Trent
Derbyshire, England, 1075
Four babes in four years. They ought to begin taking precautions, but his wife would have none of it. A dozen Anglo-Norman children, she had said she would give him even if a girl was never placed in her arms.
Might the one now pressing forth weeks earlier than expected be of that sex? More, why had Guy not eschewed all argument they journey from Boltstone?
Hand on her burgeoning belly, Vilda had protested when he said they must decline the invitation to renew their acquaintance with Lady Nicola and Vitalis who visited Guy’s cousin and overlord at Stavestone.
A short and easy ride, she had said. When he had remained firm in his decision, an argument had ensued that, the same as most, ended with compromise. This time it had swung in Vilda’s favor when she proposed they leave their children in the care of Guy’s sister who now lived with them, and they pass two nights at Stavestone rather than one to give her time to rest.
And so here they were the day after their arrival, Guy pacing the hall while Vilda labored abovestairs, all attempts to distract him with conversation abandoned by Dougray and his sire, Michel Roche, as well as Vitalis.
So little sounded from above Guy almost wished she who had grunted their first three children from her womb would shout this one into the world.
Minutes later, she screamed.
“Lord!” He ran for the stairs.
“It is natural!” Dougray called and Vitalis agreed.
“Not for my woman,” he barked lest any think to drag him back.
They let him go, doubtless certain the ladies assisting Vilda would keep him out of the chamber. They tried, Nicola attempting to close the door on him, Em commanding him to leave as she hastened from the bed to add her shoulder to the effort, and Lady Pilar calling that the mother was well and it would not be long now.
“Out!” Lady Nicola cried and kicked at Guy’s boot between door and frame.
“Out!” Lady Em commanded and gave his shoulder a shove.
“Let my husband in!” Vilda called.
They hesitated, then jumped back lest the door slam into them.
It did not, Guy having enough control to ease it open, but not enough to cross the chamber with measured steps. Halting alongside the bed where Vilda sat center propped on pillows, a blanket draping her lower body, he said, “You screamed.”
“Shouted, not screamed.” She reached to him. “Methinks…” She blew breath in and out. “…this babe bigger than…the others.”
Another boy, then, he thought as he closed her hand in his, and was glad for a son though he wanted for his wife a child ever at her side, learning all a mother could teach a girl until she became a woman and wed.
“The head!” Lady Pilar pronounced and, moments later, “Now a shoulder. Another push, Vilda. Two at most.”
Guy kissed his wife’s perspiring brow. “Should I go?”
She shook her head. “I do not know why men…ought not be in the…birthing chamber. I am so glad you are here.” Then she gripped his fingers as if to crush them, strained, and shouted again.
“One more!” Pilar urged.
Vilda fixed her eyes on Guy’s and pushed.
“Your babe is here! And—oh!—she is beautiful.”
“She?” mother and father gasped in unison.
“A girl, and most blessed she came early,” Pilar said ahead of a hearty wail that announced to all in the donjon the daughter of Vilda and Guy was here. In the space between that wail and another, the lady passed the babe to Em and added, “Such a sturdy girl child.”
Silence between husband and wife as their eyes met, then smiles.
“Sir Guy,” the lady said, “as the birthing is not quite finished—”
“Lord!” He snapped his head around. “Surely there is not another in there?”
The pretty woman at the far end of her middle years chuckled. “For this, men ought not be present. Non, this is what comes after and will make ready the womb for the next babe. Though I foresee no difficulties, it is best you return belowstairs.”
“Do not!” Vilda tightened her hold on him. “Stay my side.”
He did, stroking her face and soothing her with words of love throughout what followed and Nicola and Em’s cleansing of the babe whose cries had mostly subsided.
When all was done, Guy lifted his wife from the mattress to allow the sheet to be replaced, then resettled her on pillows Em stacked against the headboard and drew the coverlet over she whose every curve he adored as they grew a bit more round with each child.
Then Nicola stepped forward and placed the swaddled babe in its mother’s arms.
Peering at their wide-eyed daughter, Vilda breathed, “Oh, my my me.”
Guy lowered to the mattress. “Indeed,” he said. Though the babe’s head seemed no larger than had those of their newborn sons, as told, no frail being this. Sturdy.
While Vilda put the babe to her breast, the ladies cleaned the chamber and placed all evidence of the birth in a large basket.
“Methinks it time to deliver joyous tidings to our husbands,” said Pilar as the three moved toward the door, her own being Michel Roche, the former lord of Stavestone whom she had crossed the channel
