Our Son

Barthmore burst through the door to the royal bedchamber, fumbling the handle with unsteady hands. His room – which just this morning had been its usual, private haven – was now overtaken by a veritable army of women. There were at least half a dozen of the queen’s personal handmaidens dressed in the charcoal gray garments of slaves, all of them plumping pillows or fetching towels under the crisp orders of a woman with keenly wrinkled eyes. Her smock-like gown’s pale yellow fabric designated her occupation as a midwife, and the golden eagle crest stitched at the shoulder signified her service to the royal Harven family. There were several more midwives mixing tonics at a table that Barthmore very nearly swung the door into in his haste. The young king had eyes for only one woman.

Eleanor lay in the imposing four-poster bed, taking deep, shuddering breaths that caused her hugely rounded belly to rise and fall. Another contraction reached her before he did and her shoulders arched back against the mattress as she moaned.

Barthmore was an only child; he’d never witnessed this before. Already he could feel a cold sweat breaking out beneath his tunic. “I’m here, Eleanor. I came as soon as I heard.” He took his wife’s hand and at once she squeezed down on him with more strength than he’d ever thought she had. He grunted once but not for a moment did he consider letting go--even if he’d been able to.

As the contraction faded, Eleanor wilted against the pillows. Her eyes opened, round and trapped like a small animal’s at the end of a hunt. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she murmured.

“Do not even think such things,” commanded a voice whose authority reached to every corner of the room. Barthmore didn’t turn around. He knew well the sound of his mother’s voice just as he knew the sound of her approach--every step was a purposeful contact against the stone floor. “You can and you shall perform your duty, and in a few hours’ time my son shall at last have his heir.”

The Queen Mother laid a hand on Eleanor’s belly as if taking royal claim, her fingers trembling with anticipation. Eleanor’s fingers, hidden between Barthmore’s, trembled too--the barest shudder.

“Don’t let us detain you, Your Highness,” his mother told him. “I am sure there are more pressing matters of state that you wish to resume.”

Eleanor’s gaze was fixed passively on the overhead panel of their bed, but her fingers again tightened around the king’s.

“I can think of nowhere else that I have more need to be than here, Mother,” he answered solemnly. Still his attentions were only for his wife, his back to the rest of the room.

“Nonsense. A birthing is no place for a man. Witnessing the entire process would disturb you and Your Majesty would only be in the way. You wouldn’t want to be a hindrance to the operation, would you?”

“No . . . .” Slowly now, he rotated to face his mother. She was utilizing every increment of her imposing, womanly figure to gaze down her regal nose at him. Barthmore had been of a slight build ever since childhood.

“Of course not,” she stated. With a twirl of her wrist she signaled a handmaiden forward to attend to Eleanor; the young slave woman slipped between Barthmore and his wife. “These things must be done properly.”--His mother’s arm was hooking through his. He’d lost his hold on Eleanor --“Do not worry yourself over the queen. She and the heir are in the best hands and I will be here overseeing the midwives personally.”--She was walking with him to the door. --“It will be better for the both of you if you leave this to the individuals whose duty it is.”--He was standing alone in the sitting room outside of his bedchamber as the lock clicked into place behind him.

Barthmore stood as if paralyzed. He believed his mother that he was likely only to be a hindrance attending the birth; he knew he should return to the meeting he had adjourned when he’d heard Eleanor had begun labor. But he couldn’t make himself leave the doorway. After several minutes he managed to take a few steps away only to immediately come back. He repeated this cycle over and over, taking less time each time to stand before the door and gradually elongating his track until he fell into a rhythm of mindless pacing up and down the sitting room.

He was still doing this when Eleanor’s moans became screams.

Barthmore lurched to the bedroom door and was wrenching on its handle in moments. His mother held no power over him; he was a grown man now and if he wanted to stand at his wife’s side then by Harven he would! He’d break this door down if he had to, not caring if it was an original piece of his ancestor’s centuries-old castle. And why is it that a centuries-old door has yet to be broken down? logic reminded him as the handle refused to give. All entrances to the royal chambers had been imbued with layer upon layer of protective enchantments over the generations until it was nigh impossible to open them by force.

“Your Majesty?” murmured a voice.

Barthmore jerked away from the door like a child caught in the act of disobedience. Then he composed himself, easing wide his shoulders and clasping his unsteady hands behind his back. “What is it, Wilnheim?”

His dining coordinator’s head had poked into the sitting room from the passage outside. It bobbed in a bow. “Pardon me, Your Majesty, but the two lords downstairs wish to know if Your Highness is to be present at supper?”

Barthmore inwardly balked at the idea of entertaining and placating guests at a time like this. “No, tell them I will not. But give them my apologies,” he added.

“Of course, Your Majesty. It shall be done.” The head retracted.

“Wait, Wilnheim?”

“Yes, Your Majesty?” he piped, reappearing at once.

“Find someone to fetch the spare key to my bedchamber.”

The wrinkles around Wilnheim’s tortoise-like mouth crumpled inward. “Your gracious pardon, Your Majesty, but I believe the Queen Mother requested the key herself as she was leaving the dining hall to join Your Majesty here.”

She really did do everything in her power to lock me out . . . . Was he truly that much of a hindrance in her eyes?

“Is there anything else that I could bring to Your Majesty?”

“No, thank you, Wilnheim, I--” He was cut off by another muffled scream beyond the locked door. Barthmore’s throat stuck then bobbed as he tried to loose it.

“Wilnheim?”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“You have children. How long--” He swallowed. “How long does this last?”

The rest of Wilnheim’s wizened frame became visible as he stepped inside the sitting room. “These things take their time, Your Majesty,” he said, his genteel manner turning gentle. “Don’t worry overmuch about the queen; you’ll both forget about this being so bad once it’s over. It’s worth it too in the end if I may be so bold to say.”

Barthmore nodded unevenly. “Thank you,” he mumbled. His gaze slid distracted to the floor, his thoughts and ears straining towards the adjacent room. When eventually he did glance up again Wilnheim was still there, patiently at attention. “You are dismissed,” the king apologized.

His slave bowed low. “Your Highness.” His footsteps backed slowly from the room and then padded away at full sprint to the dining hall.

Alone once again, Barthmore crossed the room to the deskside chair that stood in one corner and sank against its tall, rigid back. He would not leave until this was over. It’s worth it in the end, he repeated to himself.

But was it? Barthmore had always felt unprepared for the role of fatherhood, even more than he did for the role of king. His own father was the only example he’d had for these things, yet it was an example he often doubted he should follow. In the years before his father’s death, the late King Tyranthis had pressured Barthmore to produce an heir, and in the years since then his advisors and the Queen Mother had insisted upon it even more. Barthmore and Eleanor had both silently resented their marriage being placed under the weight of these expectations, but eventually even Eleanor had come to a time when she felt ready for a child--not for his kingdom but for a little family of her own. And now she was trapped in so much pain, suffering to deliver the child it had been his royal duty to give her.

From a drawer in the narrow desk, Barthmore pulled out ink, quill, and a bound journal. Items such as these were stored in every one of his rooms. It was how he coped with every pressure that refused to release him: he turned them all into words. It was not an uncommon occurrence for him to stay awake long into the night, hunched over one of his desks as he inked and analyzed his thoughts by candlelight.

Today he wrote as if to his wife. When he heard her cries from their bedchamber he wrote the things he would have, should have been telling her himself: It will be all right, Eleanor. It will pass; it will all be over soon. Breathe. I love you. You’ll be all right. Pretty words from a coward huddled over a desk. His hand began cramping from his grip on the quill. He wished instead that it was from the pressure of Eleanor’s fingers drawing strength from his presence. Why had he let go?

Barthmore remembered the day of their wedding. They had been strangers to one another then, two children betrothed by parents embroiled in a game of royal politics. That first kiss had felt like a violation. She had stood before him in front of the entire government Court, her face as pale and cold as if carved from stone--waiting for him to make the move that would seal them both in their assigned fates.

Barthmore smoothed over a new leaf. He wrote as if to his father, something he hadn’t done in years. You counseled me often on the importance of an heir but always for the sake of the kingdom and the ancestral line. I would now if only I could, sir, ask for the perspective of a father. What did you do on the day of my birth? What did you feel? Did you fear for my mother and for me inside of her, a maddening fear that something could go wrong and you could lose everything?

Barthmore’s hands were shaking now; he held them up to his face and watched his fingertips twitch uncontrollably.

I really am frightened, was his first thought.

He would have thought of such feelings as weakness, was his second.

Then: I really am frightened for her. It is more than duty after all. I really do need her. I need you, Eleanor. I love you so much. Why had he never told her this when he’d had the chance?

There was no use inking his thoughts into endless circles; he shoved away from the table. The young king collapsed unceremoniously across a couch and let the passing of time fray at his raw nerves. He was still sprawled there, an arm draped across dry, blurry eyes, when a new sound reached him through the door. An infant’s cries. Barthmore’s legs swung off the couch as he sat upright. Was it over? Mere minutes passed that were almost harder to endure than all the previous hours of labor. Then the door to the bedchamber was pulled inward by unseen hands and the Queen Mother swept through alone, a bundle of cloth in her arms.

“A son!” she announced. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips pressed together with bursting exuberance like a victor of battle. “Your Majesty has fathered an heir to one day take the throne as you took it after your own father before you. How long I have waited to see this day! He is a strong and healthy child, Barthmore.”

She stood before him, close enough now for him to see inside the bundle. The blankets were wrapped loosely around a tiny body, its face wrinkled and red as it screamed at the top of its lungs. Barthmore couldn’t take his eyes off of it. It’s a child, he thought dumbly. As if moving in a dream, he reached out and touched one of the infant’s hands. The child curled away from him, still squalling.

“Don’t look so shocked, Barthmore,” his mother scolded. “This birth is a celebratory occasion. You act as if you’ve never seen an infant before.”

Her words barely reached him. Barthmore’s gaze wandered out of focus before latching on the door beyond his mother’s shoulder. It was still open. He needed to see Eleanor. “Can . . . can I hold him?” he asked, feeling once again like his hesitating, boyhood self before her.

His mother beamed at him with doting approval and placed the screaming infant in his arms. Barthmore’s entire body tensed, terrified of in any way mishandling this precious bundle. With it, he slipped past his mother and into the bedchamber.

The midwives and handmaidens were still busying themselves around the queen. Eleanor lay propped up in the bed, her long raven hair fanned out over several pillows and sticking damply to her temples. One glimpse of her face amongst the army of servants passing to and fro was all Barthmore needed to confirm his suspicion. Her eyes were dull and hard like smoldering coals and her chin was trembling--the Queen Mother had whisked the newborn infant away before Eleanor could even hold her own child.

Barthmore returned to his wife’s side. “I believe this belongs to you,” he said as softly as he could and still be heard over the noise of the baby.

Eleanor raised her arms as he gently transferred the little bundle into her embrace. Her fingertips brushed over the crying child’s cheek and she cooed to him soothingly. Then she pressed his tiny body against her own between the folds of her nightgown wrap and melted back into the pillows, her eyes sinking closed. When she opened them again it was on Barthmore. “To us,” she whispered.

Something came over him in that moment. A rush of pure emotion that made his knees go weak beneath him and that swelled in his chest until he thought he might burst from the force of it. He blinked past welling tears so as not to lose a second of this precious sight: Eleanor radiant with an inner glow and a dreamy smile dancing across her lips as she nursed his son.

His son.

“Your Majesty should send missives to all the realms announcing the establishment of your heir.” His mother was at his elbow, her strong-fingered hands clasped primly in front her. “They shall know the royal line of Harven remains strong.”

“The king wishes to be alone.” Barthmore’s voice rang out through the room. He answered no argument and acknowledged no murmur of obedience. He simply waited until his peripheral vision had seen every handmaiden, midwife, and Queen Mother drop into a low curtsy and hurriedly vacate his presence.

“You pulled rank for me,” Eleanor noted, warm pleasure in her half-closed eyes.

“Not just for you.” Barthmore got into bed beside her. He put his arm around her shoulders and she laid her head in the hollow below his collarbone. “For us,” he murmured as he buried his lips in the hair on the top of her head.

Together they each placed a hand on their son’s head and stroked the tiny wisps of hair, the soft, pure skin. Barthmore forgot about any and every pressure of the world outside this room--all that mattered to him was right here in his arms.

I am a father.