Days of the Dead Book 2: The Beggar's Tomb

Chapter 2: Peace (for once)

Gideon
Snow settles on the rooftops. I can hear a dog barking in the distance, but here? Nothing. All is quiet. I close my eyes, tipping my face up to let snowflakes settle on my cheeks. It's a few days before Christmas. Harlech is just waking up for the day. I can smell the cold sea air as a soft breeze blows.
And a snowball smacks the back of my head.
I laugh, raising a hand to use magic to pelt a snowball at the offender, Lowri, who is hidden half behind a set of barrels, laughing.
"No fair using magic!"
"Completely fair, you're all ganging up on me, again!" I laugh, as two children pelt me with snowballs.
I laugh, ducking and forming my own, by hand this time, as the children giggle and scramble to make more. Noting more fun than pelting the local wizard with snowballs and occasionally he lets you hit him, or better yet you get to watch him stop them with magic. There's snow enough, and Lowri's small. No better way to pass a cold winter's morning.
We are now reinstated at a rebuilt Harlech castle. The memories of the siege are still fresh in all of our minds. But there's also new hope. A little girl with long black hair and bright blue eyes, tripping and slipping through the snow in a long leather coat. The people love their princess. In the summer she'll walk down with whatever palace guard is free, and visit the market. Play with the local children. It does them good to see her well, and healthy, endeared to them and ready to fight for them.
But that day is far off, we hope. For now I'm more than a competent chaperone into our little village, and Lowri gets a few playmates, something she sorely lacks at Harlech save us grown ups. She's quite fond of the village children, and visiting them does us all good, I think. It's something resembling normalcy, something we have sorely lacked here in Wales for the last seven odd years. I confess I enjoy it as well. There's the odd shenanigans with the English court. But I'm counting on on a few quiet weeks. We could all use the routine. A pleasant Christmas here at Harlech, our noble Welsh guests, nothing more.
Well, maybe the odd disorganized snowball fight.
I dart down an alley to avoid a pack of children bearing snowballs. Growing up in New York I know how to make a decent snowball, but I'm more adept at avoiding ice balls. I wasn't popular as a child. Let's face it I'm still not strictly popular.
I slip in the snow and nearly fall, then spot my own ally.
"Oisin, they're right behind me—really?" I say, the really, as my friend hits me directly in the face with a snowball.
"I'm sorry. They're very persuasive," he laughs, clearly not sorry at all. The Irish druid is one of my close friends, hasn't even personally tried to kill me. He's here in Wales on a social call for the holidays, as he has no real family to spend the holiday with, and so naturally I roped him into this. I did expect him to stay on my side though.
"Yay," Lowri leaps on my back, dropping snow down my neck.
"I surrender, you win again," I laugh, putting my hands up as a couple of red faced, snowy boys hold up snow balls threateningly.
"Don't trust him," Oisin says, just as I use magic to toss snow in their faces, including Lowri.
The boys collapse giggling.
"Now you win, again, time to get warmed up," I say, adjusting Lowri to just keep carrying her. The children wave, laughing.
"Ah that was good, should have seen your face," Oisin laughs. He had an odd childhood too, spent most of it as a deer actually (long story), so he's as happy as I am to enjoy some childhood pursuits we missed out on the first time around. And Lowri's a wonderful excuse for that. The Fae girl is somewhat bound to me since I asked the Fae for her, but she's equally attached to most everyone here at Harlech.
"Do you want to ride with Uncle Oisin, or with me?" I ask her, as we hike towards the edge of the village where the dragons are waiting. I've had my red welsh dragon for years now, but last year we had a run in with a rogue wizard who left behind an amulet that trapped a white dragon. I don't need two dragons and the only wizard powerful enough to summon it, we found, was Oisin, so it's his now, to protect Ireland with. About six months ago I estimate King Henry, Henry the Fifth, bane of my existence, supreme colonizer, hammer of the Gauls, voted most likely to invade any country at any given time, found out about that and got unreasonably pissed off at me despite having no proof I did it, and having done nothing at all to deserve me withholding said dragon. Anyway, King Henry is blessedly in Portugal presumably abusing Portuguese teenagers or something along those lines, and a blessed entire country away from us. Seriously it's been a running joke in certain circles (the Welsh court) that all we want for Christmas is a continent between us and King Henry.
"I want to ride with you, you're faster," Lowri says, resting her chin on my shoulder.
"Oh, I don't know about that," I say.
"Was that a challenge I heard?" Oisin grins, putting a gloved hand through his white hair to get it out of his face.
"Absolutely it was, race you back to Harlech," I say, staring to run.
"No cheating, you two," Oisin shouts, taking off as well.
"I'm hurt—we're cheating right?" I whisper the last bit to Lowri, who giggles.
"Absolutely we are," she says, as I swing her off my shoulders and we reach my red dragon. It rears its head happily eager for the ride,
"Let's go," I say, vaulting onto the beast's back and catching Lowri as she does the same. Being Fae she's unnaturally agile, charming, and of course is a magic user. Her magic is different from mine, and sorcery magic, it's something else all together, very cool, but point is she can't exactly do it in public. Bit of a shame when you're little, but I'm around enough for her to practice on it mostly works out. And Oisin knows fully well what she is and he's darn close to Fae himself, so she's got some company.
The dragons take off into the sky, needing little bidding to race. Total disclosure, they probably would have tried to race anyway. I don't actually know how to tell it where to go. I talk to it and hope. Yes, I'm a very experienced and cool dragon rider.
The dragons do two laps around the castle. Naturally, Lowri cheats by manipulating clouds in Oisin's way, which gives us a two second lead.
The cold wind whips my hair, and I hold an arm across Lowri's chest tightly, even though she has a better grip on the beast than I, eyes glowing purple with magic as her legs cling to the rough red scales.
We dip through the clouds and the dragon lands in more of a crash fashion, in Harlech's inner ward. I have not figured out how to not crash land. Yes, I'm a very experienced dragon rider. I've been busy okay? Read the last six books, like, I've been busy. And I get off the dragon so you know, mission accomplished.
Lowri slides off, laughing, as I roll through the snow.
"I think this is how you're supposed to do it, honestly," I say, sitting up.
"You cheated, again," Oisin says, hopping off his white dragon, nimbly. Yes, he's figured out how to not fall off, shut up.
"You have no proof," Lowri says.
"Yeah, maybe the clouds just did that," I say, innocently.
"I'm divorcing you both," Oisin says, not even upset, "Now, wasn't breakfast mentioned?"
"Yeah," I say, standing up and patting my arm. The dragon returns to my skin readily, reforming into a dragon shaped mark on my skin, and scurrying to curl up on the back of my neck.
"Bye," Lowri kisses Oisin's dragon's nose before he returns to the enchanted ring we got it out of. Don't know how that works. Did we try to find out? No. Does it truly matter in the grand scheme of Welsh independence? Also no.
"Okay, lovebug, you go get changed I'll see you at breakfast, purple dress, purple ribbons, the Duchess is coming and your dad wants you looking like the respectful girl you can pretend to be sometimes," I say, hugging Lowri around the neck to get her to listen.
"Ew, what's she doing here?"
"I mean she is your grandmother. Presumably she wants to make sure we're all still alive."
"Is Uncle Jac having to pretend to be a responsible human being?"
"Lord no I think we've told her he's dead, by now, now go on, we'll try to spar tonight, yeah?" I ask.
"Yeah, all right," she says, leaning against me lazily. She's three different kinds of chaos, I mean what do we expect given she's Fae and being raised by all of us? But still. For her own sake no one can find out she's Fae so no cursing nosy grandmothers.
"I'm soaked, someone threw snow in my face," Oisin says, tugging on his jacket, all wool. He's not into animal products. I may have mentioned for a significant portion of his life he was a deer.
"Sorry not sorry," I say, backing away, as Lowri runs off towards the nearest tower. She can slip in before her nurses are arriving to help her dress.
"No you're not sorry at all, see you at breakfast—? You're not going to your room?" He frowns.
"No," I say, innocently, "Bye."
"Trouble," he mutters, turning to go. He's staying with me in my room above the library. It's plenty big, and I'm like, almost never there for criminal mischief reasons. Just kidding, none of it is illegal. From my point of view.
I head back towards the northwest tower, Chapel tower as it has the chapel under it, but above it has some of the royal apartments. All the guests for Christmas are housed above the gate house, so we're nice and far from company.
A couple of months ago I made a bargain with the devil (Archbishop Courtenay) and taught him a spell that allows you and whoever you put the spell on, to speak without making any sound. I thought he'd enjoy it. He fully didn't believe it wasn't a trick till I did it to him and me and proved it to him. Anyway. In return he taught me an invisibility spell, so that I don't have to disincorporate anytime I want to spy. He was really miserable about teaching it to me too. I assured him I was going to spy on him and the King anyway. Anyway. Now I can just turn invisible and sneak about anytime I like. It uses magic, but not that much. It doesn't wear me out. And we're blessedly on low alert, at the moment. I'm getting used to summoning the dragon just to practice, and wasting energy sparring with Lowri, rather than constantly saving my strength if we're invaded any minute. King Henry is all the way in Portugal. I googled it. That's over 2,100 km away. There's three whole countries between him and us. England, then France, then Castile. That's so much space. It's beautiful.
Harlech is just rising and getting ready for the day. Servants have been up for hours, but now the guards are changing, the King's Guard are up and mostly being goaded into snow ball fights with the pages. It's the first big snow of the year so we're all quite enthusiastic about it, and the grown ups are easily pulled into the younger people's fun.
Nobility won't have breakfast for another good hour, the sun's barely up, and it'll be a cloudy day. Just how we like it, the Snowdonia mountains looming in the way of the rising sun and throwing long shadows across the ward.
I mount the stairs two at a time, quite invisible, dodging the odd servant about their morning chores. It's a good day, though. And there's a cheerfulness in the air. It's nearly Christmas. Elis, formerly King of Wales, now Lord Protector, has a feast on Christmas Eve, then dismisses anyone with families to go home for Christmas Day while we fend for ourselves with a skeleton crew. Anybody who has no where to go is welcome to stay of course. That would be me I have nowhere to go, and I am staff, even if I spend most of my time with the royals I do in all sincerity work here. Nobody's ever paid me. That I'm aware of. Maybe I should look into that? No, seriously I'm given money if I'm taking Lowri into town or something, but for the most part I'm just kept. I'm happy this way. Decidedly happy, in fact.
"It's me," I rap on the door, invisible of course, rapping twice, before stepping in.
"Come in—nobody's asleep," Rhiannon says. She's still in bed, white night dress, red hair in braids, lying half under the thick blankets, holding her baby.
I close the door softly and reappear, locking it with magic.
I come to sit on the bed. I realize I'm just smiling at them. There's a fire in the hearth, the drapes are open on the window and I can see fresh morning light shine in. I can genuinely say I never dreamed I'd be here. Or get to feel this way.
"Someone wanted to get up and play, I let the night nurse go back to sleep," Rhiannon says, kissing the baby's head as he bats at a soft toy with fat baby hands. The chubby thing is in a white dress, dark hair thick and messy on his head, eyes soft blue like his lovely mother, and skin decidedly and mercifully pale. And so he passes perfectly as the product of his royal parents. In looks anyway.
"Someone, you have to let us sleep, eh?" I ask, tickling the baby's foot. He grins but does not look up, instead snatching up his toy.
"Someone doesn't plan on it. It's fine," Rhiannon says, reaching out to put a hand through my hair, "Been playing in the snow?"
"Yes, Lowri is theoretically exercised," I say, shrugging a little.
"Oh god, thank you, the Duchess is coming, I nearly forgot," Rhiannon says.
"They can both behave for a day," I say, despite neither child having behaved for a full day ever, individually, let alone collectively.
"Well it's a week, so, you know, not worse than Saxon invaders," Rhiannon says, holding the baby as he nearly tips over tugging on another toy.
"Yes, but I really think at some point our Christmases should be better than that, like significantly," I say.
"Fine, better than going into labor on Christmas Eve," she says, grinning. Our Myrddin came early, at least four weeks by our count, and he was born tiny. Scared us all. Rhiannon had an easy labor, after a decidedly easy pregnancy. But Myrddin was tiny, didn't cry a lot. I was worried, zero medical care beyond basic magic and herbs? We took watches sitting up watching him breath for the first month or two of his life.
It's worth noting he was absolutely fine, just tiny, and now thinks people should play with him between the hours of one and three am. He's grown now but just to be generally a chubby baby. He doesn't want to walk or talk. But he's always eaten well and seems quite healthy. Little prince scorned the wetnurses, only wanting his mother to nurse him. Rhiannon has been fine with that, and other than that he's been quite amiable about nurses and the like caring for him.
"Been good?" I ask, "Oh, there's my answer." I wince as a toy tumbles closer to the little boy. Light blue magic drifting from his hands. Yes, wizard magic. Hereditary it seems. My son is quite talented. I was over here praying he didn't get my looks so he could remain in his mother's care. And it didn't occur to me at all the magic would be hereditary. Joke's on me. The kid is white and he can move things with his mind. In reality he's not quite as fair as his mother, or as Elis. But he's close enough to pass so long as we keep him out of the sun it should be fine. At the moment the occasional magic is so much worse.
"He only wants to play. That's why I took him from the nurses," Rhiannon sighs.
"Myrddin, you mustn't when I'm not around, ugh, I know you don't understand. I'm sorry, I thought I wore him out," I say, holding up a hand and moving all the little stuffed toys so that they stand up. In this day and age stuffed toys like this are hand sewn, soft, bunnies and things, then a couple of wooden carved toys. Pretty standard baby stuff throughout the ages.
"He doesn't understand; it's not his fault, or yours," Rhiannon says, watching as he tries to use magic to tug the toys away from me. A few sessions of this he'll wear his little self out and in theory not be able to use magic until I or Lowri can play with him again. Theory. Hasn't fully worked in practice. Our other coping mechanism is begging/bribing his  big sister to use magic to stop his magic use during public events. This is mostly effective because I pointed out if the baby was outed as a wizard A) she wouldn't get to mess with him when they get bigger B) she might be found out too. The two of them are both blue eyed and dark haired, Elis is dark haired, so they both kind of look like him which is weird since neither of them are related to him.
"Well, kind of my fault," I smile a little.
"Yeah well, it's fine. He'll get bigger and understand he can't, just like Lowri," Rhiannon says, "Worst case scenario we just pass him off as a sorcerer."
"No, worst case scenario is I act like I did a ritual or something believable and gave him magic," I say.
"That's actually a great idea why are we not doing that?"
"I suggested it the other night and you said 'the baby is asleep go to sleep or go commit hate crimes against England or something'," I say.
"I don't remember that I was definitely asleep," she says.
"Okay yeah I'm gonna work on a believable way to do that then," I say, rubbing my face, "We tell no one though, so they don't talk us out of it."
"Yeah, fair, come here, you're freezing," she says, moving a bit so I can crawl to sit next to her at the head of the bed.
"I'm fine," I say, but I kick off my boots and crawl up to sit next to her, lifting Myrddin and a couple of toys onto my legs. Myrddin is pronounced Mer-Th-in. But it's said quickly, not slow. It's the welsh version of Merlin, so it's almost like slurring, or lysping, Merlin if that helps, because you have a 'th' which is the 'dd', so mer-th-in, very easy and quick to say. Rhiannon is pronounced how you think it is, Fleetwood Mac did you a solid, that is how it's said.
I slide an arm around Rhiannon's shoulders and let her lay against my chest.
"You okay?" I ask, using one hand to steady our son in my lap as he tries to use magic to make one of his toy bunnies dance like I made it. I do it again with a twitch of my finger, and the little boy grins, clapping his hands.
"Yeah, I just want to do this, on Christmas morning. A year ago I thought I might lose him," she says, quietly. Like I said, we were all worried he was so little and he just wanted to nap in whoever's arms. But he was really tiny and nobody in our friend group had held a baby that little so we were naturally concerned.
"I know," I say, quietly. And with all my magic I feared I couldn't save either one of them.
"It's weird all my life I've been supposed to have children, for everyone else. For Wales. I didn't think I'd really like him," she says, laughing a little.
"I promise you I never thought I'd be here," not merely in Wales that's kind of a given. I didn't think I would have a family. At all. Now I have a perfectly good one. I sat in doctor's offices getting told I wouldn't be able to live alone. I read article after article that said people like me didn't get to have families. I figured I would always be alone. Now I'm sitting here with my healthy son in my arms, watching him play and figure out the world. It's snowing outside but plenty warm in here.
"You feeling okay?" I ask, as Rhiannon keeps leaning against me. It's time to get up; we both know it. However tempting lying in bed all day cuddling the baby is.
"I feel fine, just like with him. Just weird," she says, taking my hand and curling it against her stomach. Me being aware of the zero healthcare and high infant and maternal mortality rate in this era was against rolling the dice on another child. Rhiannon wanted Myrddin to have a sibling. I figured that was her decision. She's maybe fourteen weeks gone now. Our immediate circle knows, no one else. Regular dresses hide the small roll around her middle. She's waiting till sixteen weeks, to announce it after the new year. They announced Myrddin earlier then she wasn't obviously showing till past five months so that looked weird. PR (Elis) is electing to wait till this one is more obvious. I mean, it is but she doesn't wear form fitting clothes.
"Little wizard babies I guess. Who knew it was hereditary? Clearly not us," I say, letting her press my hand against her belly. It's feeling round and firm. She hadn't fully lost all the weight from Myrddin, so she was still soft and puffy, so that's hiding the new one growing in there. As always, just as with Myrddin, I feel the soft spark of magic sorting beneath my hand. Like touching an enchanted object, except these are my children.
"Yeah, I did some reading we're right it's not; it's just your fault apparently," Rhiannon says, amused.
"What are you going to call it?" I ask.
"Don't know yet. I'll let you know before you have to kidnap it," she says, patting my hand, which is absent mindedly drumming her belly.
"Sorry," I say, going to move my hand.
"Don't, I find it relaxing at this point I'm sure your baby does too," she says. In private it's perfectly well known it's my kids. In public no, but that's what we get apparently, she is Queen. I am no one. Anyway, Lowri knows how we got her, we're trying to be honest with them. As Myddrin grows up he'll get the information in age appropriate secret keeping terms.
Anyway. I'm asking about the name because if this one comes out noticeably, you know, brown, then yeah she can't present that as her kid, so we say she had a still birth, I get to pretend it's my bastard (well...it is) and we keep it conveniently near and then present it as mine as soon as no one can match up the dates. Such a good plan. We're so good at this. Kidding, just pray it works.
The only people we're deeply trying to hide this from is the English Court, but we have a great thing going for us there, not a single one of King Henry's kids looks a thing like him. They all ACT like his dumb ass, petty bitchiness is hereditary as well it would seem. However. The fact remains they can't exactly point fingers about kids not looking like parents. It's slightly funnier in that, King Henry has dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, and his wife the presumed mother of said children, also has brown hair and brown eyes, and every one of those kids came out blonde. Now, genetics are funny sometimes case in point my son doesn't look reliably related to me at all. But, like I said, they can't actually point fingers. That probably won't stop them.
Like I said, our entire inner circle, for the most part, knows the truth. Elis is infertile, a fact he's been well aware of since his youth apparently. I'm not clear why or how he knows, but he's never intended on consummating his marriage as he's aware he can't father children. He told Rhiannon on their wedding night that heirs were her responsibility and the only stipulation was they could only keep ones that look reliably enough like him. That sounds really cold, but he apparently had a three hour speech he's very nice, I assure you, Reader, she was, age thirteen, completely cool with her eighteen year old husband having no interest in her.
Elis' brothers, Jac the Duke of Conwy, and Gareth who's one of our longbowmen, are both well aware their brother couldn't have children. Dancer and Sadie, my best friends and our fellow wizards, are aware as well. Ergo our entire inner circle knows. I'm closest in age to Rhiannon, just nine months her senior or something like that, of anyone in our circle of friends, and she couldn't have that secret with anyone she didn't trust implicitly. I've quite literally died for her, and we've been almost literally to hell and back together. No, this is a secret that goes with me to my grave. That's a lot of trust to put into someone. My looks are an issue in that I could father a child that looks little like its supposed parents, but we got lucky.
How often does stuff like this happen? Eh, we're never going to know see the aforementioned note about taking the secret to the grave. There are plenty of suspect pregnancies and marriages producing one convenient heir, so you know, it probably has happened. Rhiannon isn't stupid. An heir isn't just for the crown, it's her insurance. What's more a boy is. A boy is better than a husband, he can inherit whatever property or titles, and take care of you the rest of your life. A royal woman needs a boy who can inherit his father's titles when father dies in a completely avoidable jousting accident or the like. Lowri is all well and good for Wales, but for her own sake Rhiannon needed a boy. Preferably two. Hence the one in her belly. Infant mortality and childhood mortality what it is, plus something I heard her calling the 'stupid factor' (I'd just jumped off the castle walls I don't know if that's related), but there's a decent chance up to age ten, that the child will die. A couple of healthy boys is insurance for her and Lowri; she'll be protected if something happens to Elis.
Long way about saying, yes, Elis fully knows. And he's fine. Rhiannon didn't tell him until she was actually pregnant with Myrddin, because apparently she thought I told him or something? Because I talk all the time? Anyway, she was sure pretty early on, just knew she was pregnant. And so she told him that she suspected she was. I was there and generally expecting something other than "Oh thank GOD" when she said "Gideon's the father." Yeah, apparently he'd been afraid she'd have picked someone 'worse' who he didn't know, but I'm here all the time anyway and he's fond of me since that time I died in his arms. Terrible story, remind me to bring it up again later.
"We should get going I guess," Rhiannon says, sitting up reluctantly.
"I'll go," I say, moving Myrddin from my lap. He grunts but otherwise makes no real noise.
"No, just help me tie it up. He's happy with you," she says, going to her dress which is laid out over a screen. To bed she wears a white night dress, loose, soft, nothing out of the ordinary. Her hair is in braids, she'll undo them and have it loose if we've not got company. Normally a royal woman would have a couple of maids, and a lady in waiting, who would help her dress. At the very least. The English court would have more. However, we're not a full court as such, and we keep a skeleton crew here at Harlech. In general, Rhiannon will only have one lady help her dress and undress, or bath, but it's not uncommon for her to do it herself. She said she started the habit years ago for when she'd have someone over, and she didn't want to be dependent. Now it makes it easier if she's been holding or nursing the baby I can go back to holding the baby while she gets ready.
Medieval dress is fairly straight forward, shorts which are basically boxers, for men, and then a dress which is like a slip, for women, with appropriate underwear with layered cloth to serve as a pad. That's about all, obviously the wealthier the woman the nicer the garments. Bras did exist but not like we think of them, and they'd depend on the person. Rhiannon didn't wrap her chest until she got pregnant, when she finally needed to.
She slides off the night dress and puts on the slip, which is tight now over her little belly, and across her chest. She steps into the purple dress. It has gold stitching, and a white bodice. Styles of the day are loose and modest, while necklines can be lower this dress is high necked. Usually dresses are cut only tight below the bosom and loose around the belly. However, finer fashions are tighter across the entire midsection, with essentially a built in corset of wood or stiffer fabric meant to button tightly to create a slimmer finger. This is one of the latter, with a set of laces on an inner bodice to tighten it.
"Why are you wearing this?" I ask, quietly, sitting up a little as I adjust the thing over her shoulders. My point is it would have fit fine even a month ago. But now it's needlessly tight around her middle. Any of the looser fashions like usually wears more than disguise the pregnancy and if Myrddin is to be a gauge, will for another few months.
"Just—feel like I want to hide this one," she says, pressing a hand against her stomach.
"You think it'll look like me?" I ask, not really lacing it up. It's not going to go at all. I think maybe we should talk before I tell her that.
"Yes," she says, softly, "I don't want to lose it."
"Look, I will be here, every single day, with that baby tied to my chest, all right? And we will cuddle them in private. And we will be fine," I say, squeezing her shoulder.
"Okay," she laughs a little, wiping tears from her eyes.
"Okay? We'll be fine. You're not losing anyone. And anyways it'll probably be very pale like big brother," I say, ticking Myrddin who grins as he tries to move another toy doll over to himself.
"Yeah. You're right," She sighs, "Go on and lace it up, I know it'll be tight."
"Oh it's not going to go at all, baby is here like it or not," I say.
"Damn it, really?" She sight, feeling back to see that yes, the back of the dress is not at all meeting, "Could have led with that."
"I was trying to be sensitive."
"Well don't, all right, I guess you're right," she says, standing to go and get a different one from the wardrobe. She picks another purple one, this one is much more forgiving around the middle. Just flowing fabric, that is cut tight below the bosom.
"There, better?" She asks, coming over so I can do up the back. This one does fit, so that's you know, possible. "How do I look? Pregnant?"
"Yes, definitely," I say, as she spins around a little. The fabric is flowing but she's still obviously getting round around the middle, her cheeks are fuller and more flushed than normal, and her chest is swollen beneath the smooth fabric.
"Idiot," she laughs, smacking me with a pillow, "You had better be kidding."
"Not remotely, you definitely look pregnant. Your eyes and face are doing the glowing thing, you're getting chubby in the right spots, that's it," I shrug, not defending myself.
"Guess we're telling people sooner then," she says, smoothing a hand over her dress to try to move it from her belly but not really making it any better. She was always tiny and while the baby weight from Myrddin was helping us for a while there that ship has nearly sailed.
"Look, if announcing the baby a few weeks early is the worst thing to happen this Christmas, we're quite lucky eh?" I ask.
"We are. You're right. It's his first birthday in a few days, let's enjoy ourselves," she says, coming to pick up Myrddin.
"One year of chaos down, many more to go," I say, bopping him on the nose. He grins and sticks his fists in his mouth. Yes I know. Don't say a word, I know.
"You had to say chaos didn't you?"
"We personally made the King of England chase us around his house three times in the middle of the night chaos is in his blood," I say, putting back on my boots.
"I'm waiting for that incident to be funny in retrospect."
"Yeah, me too."