'That's all. Then I wake up.' Elena watched the orange • flames running lightly over the branch on the fire. She could feel Gytha's eyes on her, but she was afraid to meet her gaze in case Gytha read something in her face, something Elena did not want to hear uttered aloud.
'So in this dream you hear a bairn cry and you pick it up.' She snorted in disbelief. 'If that really were all, lass, you'd not have come to me.'
Gytha laid aside the bowl of beans and crossed to where Elena sat and pulled her to her feet. Before Elena could stop her, she was pressing Elena's belly.
'Thought as much. Three or four moons gone, I reckon. Was well timed. Green mist babies are born small, but they thrive better. Does that lad of yours know his seed's sprouting?'
Elena bit her lip and nodded. 'But no else knows in case word gets back to the manor. Don't want to leave afore I have to; we'll need all the money we can get when the baby's born.'
Gytha looked down at her, her already hard eyes narrowing. 'So you've not come to me to get rid of the cub?'
'No!' Elena stumbled backwards in horror. 'No, I'd never want rid of Athan's baby. I love him. He's so proud that he's to be a father. He says he'll love me all the more for giving him a child and I want to make him glad he chose me. I want his child more than I've ever wanted anything, that's why . . .' she gazed wildly round, as if the words that eluded her were hiding somewhere among the crocks and bunches of herbs, '... that's why the dreams frighten me. The same one night after night, it must be an omen. Something must be wrong. . . the baby might be in danger.'
Gytha pulled a stained and patched old cloak from her mother's bed and laid it on the floor. 'Lie down and I'll see what I can see.'
She took a shallow bowl carved from yew wood from the shelf, poured water into it and, motioning for Elena to pull up her skirts, laid the bowl on her bare belly. Gytha's fingers briefly touched the silver rose scar on Elena's thigh.
'You still have the scar from when I tended you as a bairn. So many moons ago that was, yet gone in an owl's blink.' She glanced over at her mother, and the old woman's fingers quickened as they scurried among her bones.
'Hold the bowl still, lass.' Gytha broke an egg into the bowl and then, pulling down the front of her kirtle, took her knife and slashed a small cut in her left breast, letting a few drops of blood fall into the water.
She swirled the mixture with an ash twig and stared down into the bowl. Elena watched the furrows between Gytha's eyes deepen.
'No, that can't be . . . the spirits must be wrong,' she murmured softly to herself. 'Rowan will speak the truth.' She rose and fetched another twig from the shelf. Then she bent over the bowl again, squeezing the cut on her breast so that more drops of blood fell into the mixture as she stirred with the new twig. Finally, she rose and took the bowl from Elena's hands, pouring the contents - water, egg and blood — into the supper pot of woodcock and beans bubbling over the fire.
'Did you see anything?' Elena asked fearfully, pulling her skirts down.
'You'll be safely brought to bed, you and the child. You've no need to fret on that score. You can tell your Athan that he'll have a fine son to his name,' she said, still with her back to Elena. She turned, scrubbing her hands briskly on the coarse homespun of her kirtle, as if she was trying to rid herself of a stain. 'I'll take the dried apricots in payment, and you'd best get yourself back to the manor now, afore it gets too dark to find the track.'
'No . . . you saw something else, I know you did. I can see it in your face. Tell me what else you saw, I have to know.'
Gytha glanced over at her mother in the bed. She had turned her sightless eyes in their direction and seemed to be aware for the first time of their presence.
'Madron, have the spirits spoken to you?' Gytha asked.
The old crone extended a trembling hand towards them. On her