The Black Lyon

this?” Ranulf demanded.
    “Your babe comes, my lord,” Maularde whispered.
    “It cannot. There is no woman here to tend to the birth.”
    Lyonene managed a bit of a laugh as an even stronger pain gripped her.
    “Lyonene, you cannot deliver now. You must wait until I fetch someone.”
    “Nay, Ranulf, do not leave me. Help me to lie down.”
    He pulled her to his arms gently and she felt his strong body begin to shake.
    “I fear I add to the blood on you, for birthing is messy work. Ranulf! I but meant to make a jest. Do not take on so. It is easy work.”
    He laid her carefully on the rushes. “I will fetch moss to make a bed for you.” His voice showed his strain. “There is time?”
    “Aye, a few moments.”
    Ranulf hurried from the cottage.
    Another pain gripped her, and as her hands clawed at the floor rushes, she felt a warm, solid hand in her own. Maularde’s strength and nearness reassured her.
    Ranulf returned quickly and spread the moss beneath her. He saw the hands held between his wife and his guardsman. He did not break the contact, but was glad for it. Lyonene drew her legs up, pushing downward at each pain.
    Ranulf took charge of himself and used his estoc to cut her underclothing away. He wiped her forehead and murmured encouragement to her as the pains shook her. They were quiet as they heard the sounds of a hundred horses nearby, knowing it could be but moments before Morell found them. They all sighed in relief when the riders passed.
    There was not long for stillness, for Lyonene’s water broke then and Ranulf, having helped with many foals, knew the babe was coming. Maularde dragged himself nearer her head and kept her from screaming as the baby’s head appeared. Ranulf did little more than catch the babe as Lyonene gave one last push.
    Quickly, he removed the cord from the child’s neck and the mucus from its tiny mouth. The child let out a great wail of protest at its new, cold environment and Ranulf hurriedly tended to cutting the cord and discarding the afterbirth.
    Maularde seemed to have been invigorated by the child’s birth, and it was he who wiped the squalling child with a square from a velvet tabard. He wrapped the infant warmly, gently touching the thick crop of black hair that covered the wrinkled head.
    He handed the child to the exhausted Lyonene, and she touched the little face, the tiny ears.
    “I would see this child of mine,” Ranulf said quietly and took it from her. It was night and they dared not strike a light, so Ranulf held the babe in the moonlit doorway and removed the swaddling cloths to study the small body.
    Lyonene could see his profile, the glow of the black eyes as he held his child; it was a private moment for the two of them that no one else could share. The enormous hand of the Black Lion was gentle when it touched the tiny fingers, and Ranulf smiled when the babe curled its fingers around its father’s dark, war-scarred finger.
    Ranulf replaced the clothes and returned the babe to Lyonene’s arm. He touched her cheek gently, his eyes liquid, showing the depth of his feelings. “I thank you for my son,” he whispered before he stretched out beside her and slept.
    The four slept peacefully, bound together by shared hardship and shared joy. The babe woke them, and they all joined in the pleasure of the child’s nursing, in his new delight in that age-old bliss. In the early dawn hours there was no separation between lord and vassal or even father and friend, but instead a union caused and blessed by a new life, an innocent being, whose wondrous presence transcended earthly bonds. The three adults smiled at one another and were as one.
    They slept some more, and the sun shone brightly on the new day when they awoke again. Ranulf helped his guardsman outside the cottage to relieve himself and then carried Lyonene outside, the baby left with Maularde.
    They sat together, Lyonene in Ranulf’s lap, for a few moments before returning. He kissed her mouth gently and sweetly.
    “I take it then that the boy pleases you?” she teased.
    “Aye, he is the most beautiful of babes. I am sure there has been no finer,” Ranulf said in all seriousness.
    “You do not think him ugly and red as most fathers do?”
    “Nay, he is not red. He has my skin color and my hair. Have you seen the way it already begins to curl about his neck? And he shall have green eyes like his mother. Already he shows a strength befitting a knight, and he has a headstart on