Chapter 59 Where is My baby?

  After Lady Margaret birthed her baby some of the women helped her get clean.  Her first inclination was to protest, but she was too weak to cleanse herself.  Then they helped her into a clean shift and helped her get up on the bed to rest.  They had brought her a nourishing soup to keep up her strength.  After this she wanted to be up.  So then they helped her into her dress.  She was told how well she looked and was generally fussed over.

  Lady Margaret had been worn out up until this point.  Now she wanted to know one thing.

  Where is my baby?
  She felt worried and scared, then ashamed.  What mother am I to only now think of my poor babe?  What if...did my baby die?  She glanced quickly 'round.  She did not see her baby, but did not see the princess either.  She went with the easy question.

  "Where is Princess Jean?"

  "I haven't seen her since the birthing," the midwife told her.  "Don't take it hard m'Lady.  A princess can't be expected to wash her subjects now can she?"

  My baby is dead.

  "Do you need to lay down again?"

  "No.  I just need to know."

  "Know what?"

  "About my baby."

  "Just a moment."

  The midwife hurried away while Lady Margaret blinked back tears.  She came back with a quiet bundle in her arms.  Lady Margaret began to tremble.  The midwife held him out, and Lady Margaret took him with surprise.

  She looked deep into his baby eyes,

...and fell in love.  She kissed his little face all over.  She lay him in the crook of her arm and peeked under his gown.  No growth!  He was not afflicted as Allan had worried.  Poor man.  I will have to send him a scroll.  Hopefully he will be home soon.

  "Is he healthy Widow Sanders?"

  "Yes m'Lady.  Ye have a sleepy healthy boy."

  Lady Margaret nestled him in the crook of her arm.

  "Did you see his eyes?  They are just like mine."

  "And so they are.  Have ye picked a name for 'im?"

  "Alisdair, my little Lord Alisdair."

  Alisdair made soft baby sounds.

  Lady Margaret rocked him in her arms.

  "Asleep again.  M'lady he must eat the next time he wakes."

  Lady Morse hadn't been able to get a wet nurse.  There was not a nursing mother to be had.  At the time that had upset her.

  Now she did not mind.  She did not mind at all.