Gifted

Epilogue

September 21, 1216

Mairi threatened to use one of Alina's soporific sponges on Magnus if he didn't stop harassing them. She said childbirth was progressing as expected and his wife was the one who banished him from their bedchambers in the first place. That was two hours ago. He'd been pacing outside their chamber doors since.

Alec and Bean sat in the hallway watching him pace. Nothing they said could calm him. His wife had been in labor all night and he'd felt her pains as his own. He heard Alina cry out and could no longer restrain himself. He barged his way in.

Iona, Orla, Mairi, Morag and Elizabeth all turned in unison, a wall of matching frowns. He did not care. Alina said that it was alright, that it was nearly time for him to meet their daughter anyway. He rushed to her side, kissed her damp cheeks and took her hand between both of his.

"One last set," said Iona. "Be ready to push."

Alina nodded determinedly as the birthing pains returned. She gripped his hand and gritted her teeth through one then two long pushes. At the end of the third, Magnus was startled by a baby's cry behind him. He observed as if from a long way away as a squalling infant was laid on his wife's chest.

"Welcome to the world, Freya Alys Sinclair," Alina murmured to their daughter.

The babe quieted, especially after Alina stuck her pinky in their baby's mouth. She suckled happily for several moments but then seemed to become infuriated when nothing came out of the pinky. Alina laughed, delighting in their child, and all was right again in Magnus's world.

The women continued to move busily around them and the baby was soon taken away to be swaddled.

Magnus asked, "Are ye alright, love?"

"Aye," said Alina, smiling tearily up at him. "Hold yer daughter while I finish up."

Alarmed, he asked, "Ye're not done?"

"Twenty minutes more," she assured him. "I just have to expel this last bit."

He was ushered away by the women while Alina did whatever last mysterious thing she needed to do. The swaddled babe was given to him. He stared down into his daughter's dark gray eyes and, for the second time in his life, fell completely and irrevocably in love. He barely noticed as he was firmly pushed out the door.

Bean asked, "Is that my goddaughter?"

Alec asked Bean, "How do ye ken it's a girl?"

Bean shrugged, smiling.

Magnus sat dazedly on a bench while Bean and his brother cooed at his daughter. His daughter. He couldn't look away from her tiny face. She lay in the crook of his arm and took up his entire world.

The doors to their bedchamber were thrown open some time later and they were all allowed in to see Alina cleaned up and comfortably settled on fresh linens. Bean and Alec came in briefly to say give their congratulations. Then everyone filed out to leave Magnus and Alina alone with their baby daughter.

He watched Alina settle in to nurse Freya.

Out the windows, an autumn dawn was just lighting the skies above the castle walls. Their daughter's life was being heralded by a new day just as the growing season came to a close. And Magnus finally began to understand. He loved these two more than anything and he would die to protect them. But he wouldn't always be around for Freya. That's why Alina put so much into the people of this glen. She, and now he, would work to build a community where their daughter and her children can thrive in, even when the two of them were gone.

Alina cared about so many that he sometimes worried that there'd be nothing left of her. But he was starting to understand that, too. He loved Alina no less now that he found a second love of his life in their daughter. There was no reason to be miserly with his love. It was not something that diminished with more people. Indeed it seemed to grow the more he looked at these two together. He felt like his heart might burst.

"I've fallen for another woman, elskling," he murmured.

"Aye?" Alina said, smiling her half-smile at him. "Well, me too. I guess we'll have to share her."

He nodded, smiling back, deciding that the best thing to do with love was to share it.

*****

Father Francis baptized Freya Alys Sinclair in the castle's chapel a few days later. Ermengarde de Beaumont, the dowager Queen of Scotland herself, was at the ceremony. Lady Lillian pulled several strings to have the illustrious royal serve as Freya's godmother. Bean joked it was the only way to balance out him being the godfather. The queen had fond memories of Bean from his time at her husband's court. She agreed, though, that he was better placed here than at her son's court.

Alina was distracted through most of the baptism because Elizabeth looked ill all morning but insisted nothing was wrong. Everyone moved from the chapel to socialize in the great hall. Freya napped contentedly in the crook of Magnus's arm. Alina kissed her husband's cheek then made her excuses. She took her gloves off as she sought her stepsister out. She found her in the gardens being sick on the peppermint patch.

"Lizzie!" Alina exclaimed. "What at ye doing?"

Elizabeth gave her a wry look

"Aye, well, I ken what ye're doing," Alina admitted. "The question is, why wouldn't ye let me help ye earlier when I noticed ye looked green?"

Elizabeth opened her mouth to answer but her face crumpled and she burst into tears instead. Alina hugged her stepsister by the shoulders and led her to a bench. She took the still crying woman's hands and had a vision of helping Elizabeth give birth sometime in the spring.

"Ye're pregnant," said Alina. "Alec's?"

Elizabeth's violet-blue eyes grew even rounder than normal.

She hiccuped, "How did you know?"

Alina shrugged, "Ye've not been as discreet as ye think. I've noticed ye two sneaking off all summer."

"Since May Day, actually," said Elizabeth. "But he said he couldn't sire bairns."

Alina rolled her eyes, "Well, he was obviously wrong."

Elizabeth cried, "What am I going to do?"

"Ye'll marry me is what ye're going tae do," Alec said, striding up to them. "It's what I've been saying all along. Now ye have no choice."

Elizabeth surged up from the bench and warded him off with a hand.

She yelled, "Stay away from me, you... you liar!"

She ran off back into the keep.

Alec called after her, "Lilibet! I can explain!"

Alina held on to Alec's arm to keep him from chasing Elizabeth. He slumped against the parapet.

"Actually," he said. "I can't explain at all. I've never sired a child with any of the other women before. And there have been many. I've been careful but I also knew that it was not likely because -"

"I know about the fever in yer village when ye were a child," said Alina. "But I don't think it's done what ye think."

"But my sisters," Alec said. "Erica and now Mairi."

"Ye've all had a hard life up at Helmsdale," said Alina. "Now maybe the fever's made it so ye're less fertile or maybe it's the hard life. It's probably a little of both. But ye're obviously not infertile. Question is, what are ye gonna do about Lizzie?"

He straightened, "I'm going tae marry her. No matter what."

Alina nodded, suppressing another eye roll. Here we go again, she thought.