𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐖𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐁𝐞 | 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 ✅

38 - The Interrupted Performance

Four Months Later,

31st January 1743

I sat down to listen to the musician at the front of the hall, the same as I did three times a week. Letitia was on one side of me, wee Hamish sitting in front of his mother and her husband at her side. Colum offered me a glass of his Rhenish but I declined - it was quite strong and I found myself becoming quite drunk from it after only two glasses. Instead, I accepted a small glass of port which was offered to me by one of the attendants. Letitia did the same, and we tipped our glasses as a silent toast to one another.

At Leoch, Letitia was my very best friend. She was a few years younger than Colum, but still twenty years or so my senior. Nevertheless, she understood what it was like to be a first time mother with very little help and I wondered, not for the first time, how her pregnancy of wee Hamish had been received at Leoch eight years before.

The musician played and everybody around me seemed to go into a trance. I tried to follow them - the music was indeed quite beautiful, the musician's voice was so smooth - but instead, I felt the baby inside of me moving quite frantically, kicking and squirming like it was in a hurry.

I hissed in pain, squeezing my eyes shut tightly. Letitia, as she was closest to me, noticed. "Is something wrong, Eira?" She asked me in a whisper as I put my glass down and instead pressed against my stomach. The baby kicked sharply where my hand was and I withdrew my hand on instinct.

"Nay, the bairn's just a wee bit - oomph!" Colum, this time, heard me. He looked at me.

"Do ye need some assistance, my lady Broch Tuarach?" He asked me in a tone that was quiet, but not as quiet as his wife had been.

The musician continued to play, but he shot me a glare as if he were silently chastising me for having my child move during his performance.

"Perhaps," I winced, "just to get to my room, if ye would, my Laird."

In public, the MacKenzies and the Frasers were supposed to be opposed, and so Colum and I were always quite formal when we were around others, Letitia and Dougal, of course, not withstanding. However, when we were alone, we had a tendency to laugh and get on quite jovially with each other.

He nodded and called over a young girl, "Laoghaire," he said, bowing his head briefly in greeting, "lady Broch Tuarach is feeling quite unsettled this evening. Would ye help her to her chamber?"

Laoghaire, who could not have been more than fourteen or fifteen, nodded and bobbed a quick curtsy to her laird. "Aye, milord." She came over to my chair and helped me up, putting one of her arms around my waist so she could support my waist. She helped me to stand up and take a few steps.

Letitia gasped. "Yer dress!" I turned my head over my shoulders and saw that the back of my dress was quite wet, as was the wooden chair in which I had been sitting.

I paled. "I think the bairn's coming."

The musician, by now, had stopped playing. At my omission, a wave of interest swept around the room. People whispered loudly, though I didn't much care for what they were saying, worried only about getting up to my bed chamber and lying down.

Colum stood up and turned to address the hall, "I apologise for the interruption," he said in a loud and clear tone, immediately hushing everybody and drawing their attention to him, "but nature calls, I suppose." Some people chuckled at his joke. Colum looked at his brother, who had been sitting beside him with two of his daughters, "brother, will ye ride for Cransmuir? Bring mistress Humphrey, dinna delay." Dougal nodded and all but ran from the hall, two of his men that I recognised as Rupert and Angus rushing after him. Colum turned to the musician, "and I apologise most to ye, Gwyllyn the bard."

The musician, obviously annoyed that my labour had interrupted his performance, did his best to hide his annoyance. He bowed his head to his laird, "it is no trouble, milord. Would ye have me start again?"
"Aye, if ye would." The musician started again and Colum limped the few steps over to Laoghaire and me, Letitia had hurried from the room to ready my bed for me, which I was most grateful to her for. "Laoghaire, ye'll be fetching whatever the midwife needs." The young girl nodded and then Colum looked at me, "I wish ye and the bairn health, my lady." I opened my mouth to thank him, but a half strangled groan of pain came out instead. "Get her upstairs. Now." Laoghaire nodded and rushed me out of the room as quickly as he could.

Three maids appeared behind Laoghaire and me to clean up the mess that I had left in the Great Hall.

1st February 1743

A sharp, shrill cry punctuated what had very quickly become silence after I had collapsed against my pillows, completely exhausted after the childbirth. It was the very early hours of the next morning, February 1st, and I had been in labour for hours. Letitia was at my side, holding my hand, and Laoghaire, as appointed, had been in and out of the room with linen and hot water, little pieces of food and drinks of varying strengths throughout the night.

Mistress Jenny washed my scrawling baby in some warm water and then wrapped it in a blanket before she turned back to me, bringing me my child to hold for the first time.

She laid it in my arms and I smiled before she excused herself.

It was a boy.

My heart swelled. I was in love with him, immediately.

Letitia looked over the top of the baby from my side, "he's bonnie," she said softly. I nodded, humming in reply as I stroked one of his cheeks with the back of my index finger. He was still crying, so I tried to gently hush him. He quieted some, but not a lot. "What will ye call him?"
I had hoped that Jamie would be at Leoch by the time that the child was born, but I had prepared myself for the possibility that he wouldn't be. He had been gone so long without word by this point that I wondered if he was even going to come to Leoch at all.

"James." I said softly, "after his daddy."
Letitia smiled, "aye, tis a good, strong name."

"James Brian Thomas MacCraig Fraser. Brian and Thomas for his two grandfathers, and Wallace because it was my name before I wed Jamie."

Letitia watched me with the baby and couldn't stop smiling. Neither of us could. "Yer wee Jamie looks just like his da."

"Aye," I said quietly, touching the top of his head softly and running the tips of my fingers through the red fur that covered it, "he does, doesna he?" And then I looked away from wee Jamie quickly, "I thought ye didna know my Jamie - he's never been to Leoch before?"

"When he was at Beannachd with Dougal, he came a few times. I dinna remember much but the red hair and strong fighting arm."

"Aye," I agreed with her, "well if wee Jamie's half as good with a dirk then he'll be one of the best fighters in Scotland."

Letitia put a hand on my arm, once again pulling my attention from the baby who was settling in for a sleep in his mother's arms. "His father will teach him all he needs to know."

"Aye, well he'll have his ears boxed first when I get my hands on him." Letitia chuckled.