The Tale of the English Templar

A sharp pain in her abdomen surprised her and she gasped. Dona Inez looked at her sideways, but Felice held her face rigid. The pain was fading. She did not know what it had been, but it was far too soon for delivery. It must... It came again, sharper, deeper. Her gasp now was half-cry, and she leaned forwards, trying to ease the pain. Instinctively, she cupped her belly in her hands.

“What is it?” Dom Pedro demanded harshly.

“I don’t know. A pain. A...” she drew in her breath sharply.

“You should not have been dancing,” Dona Inez told her self-righteously. “Any woman with any sense knows that!”

Felice couldn’t answer. The pains in her abdomen were so intense that she had no room for any other thoughts. Her face twisted, and she doubled over. Dom Pedro bent, lifted her in his powerful arms and carried her towards the approaching litter. He was not gentle as he set her down inside, but she was grateful to be sitting, thankful to be out of sight behind the curtains.

The pain seemed to ease, and Felice tried to sit up straighter. She saw Dona Inez sneering at her from the opposite seat, and she closed her eyes and dropped her head against the headrest. She held both her hands on her belly. This couldn’t be normal, could it? Was she making a fuss about something which happened to every pregnant woman? But surely it wasn’t the dancing? The dancing had not been strenuous. But what did she know about what was safe? Hadn’t Natalie danced when she was pregnant? She couldn’t remember any more. The pain was returning. She tried to remain calm, to relax, but her breathing became laboured. She clutched the side of the litter and sweat broke out on her brow and palms. She moaned, “Oh God! What is this?”

“Don’t you know, you silly goose? You are probably having a miscarriage!”

“No!” Felice protested, but the words sank into her unconsciousness, sending waves of panic to join the waves of pain. Christ! If she lost the baby — the heir Dom Pedro so desperately wanted — he would never forgive her. Never. Now she clutched at her belly with a possessive, protective grip.

They drew up in front of the family palace, and Dom Pedro shouted orders again. He flung open the door of the litter and extracted Felice. Flaring torches lit up the hall. A servant ran ahead of them with the torch, Dona Inez following. Voices were echoing in the corridors. Rosa appeared with a worried face. Dom Pedro dumped Felice on the great bed. His voice was angry as he spoke to his sister and the maid. Then he was gone.

Rosa and Dona Inez removed her hat and crispinette, her shoes, stockings, surcoat and gown. Rosa spoke soothing words to her which she could not understand. Dona Inez said nothing. Meanwhile, the pain was rising again. Felice felt as if her insides were cramping up, twisting in upon themselves. She cried out, grasping at the bedposts, clutching the covers. How could it go on? The pain didn’t stop. She had always heard that the pain of childbirth came in pulses. But this wasn’t childbirth. She screamed as much in terror and protest as from pain.

She felt fluid between her legs and struggled to leave the bed, to get to the garderobe. Rosa pulled Felice’s arm over her shoulders and tried to support her, but Rosa was small and thin. They staggered forward only a few steps before, with a scream, Felice crumpled to the floor. Her insides were knotted and tearing apart, shredding themselves. When she pressed her hands against the source of the pain, they turned bloody. Blood was everywhere, and the pain kept getting worse.

Rosa was trembling but trying to get her to lie back. The tone of her voice was comforting, gentle. With her bony hand, she tried to wipe Felice’s hair way from her face. She stroked her arms and forehead, murmuring to her soothingly. Felice tried to relax, but she was gasping for breath and writhing in agony. She needed to escape the pain, to find some way of stopping it or at least easing it. Only nothing she did brought any relief. The pain mounted and mounted. The child was tearing at her insides, pulling her intestines and her stomach with it as it struggled to escape her womb. It was dead, but it was killing her.

Felice knew intuitively that it was dead. She could sense that the soul had escaped. Yet the soulless foetus was doing all the damage it could before it was discarded, like the unbaptised half-human thing it was. It was scratching, cutting, biting — like a demon trapped inside her womb and determined to get out.

Her thoughts flitted back and forth between the terror of losing the child that Dom Pedro valued above all else and the sheer physical desperation to be freed of pain. The pain would only end when the dead baby was aborted. But if she aborted Dom Pedro’s son and heir, he would hate her.

In her heart, she already knew that he did not love her as he had before. She could sense that he was intensely disappointed with her. She kept trying to be the wife he expected her to be, but she kept making mistakes. She wore the wrong clothes, said the wrong things, did the wrong things. No matter what she did, she could not seem to please him anymore. If she lost his child — because she had danced — he would despise her.

She could see his harsh, unforgiving face. His black eyes were filled with contempt and hatred. His eyes called her murderess. She had murdered his son and heir by foolishly dancing with King Dinis. His voice came to her, calm and controlled and icy: “I married you out of remorse for killing your brother. Now you have killed my son. I think all debts are cleared. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

She could feel the rejection like an icy wind that made her tremble with cold. Her teeth started chattering. “Pedro, please! Don’t!” What was to become of her? Where could she go? She had no dower portion. She could not return to a drunken father and a ruthless brother. She would be a discarded wife. A social outcast. She had nothing to call her own, and she was a thousand miles from home. She was utterly alone.

Why was she worrying about what would become of her? Her dead baby was tearing her insides apart. He was killing her. He was going to take her soul with his to hell.

Maybe that was better than living as an unwanted wife. She had broken her vow to Umberto. Maybe God was punishing her for that. She had given herself to another man and enjoyed it. Umberto’s face was indistinct, but he looked upon her as if she were no better than a whore. She was a whore writhing on the floor, soiled with her own blood and the dead foetus of her aborted child. The look of aversion on his face was eloquent. He looked as if he were about to vomit in disgust.

Then, with a shock that made her body jerk, she felt Percy’s eyes upon her. They penetrated the bloody, agonised body and shook her soul. “You have no right to wish for death,” they told her sharply. “You would not let me die.”

“But that was different!” Felice protested.

“How?” Percy wanted to know, his eyes fixed upon her, pinning her down.

“Your life was worth something! Look what you have done! Rescued ten of your brothers, that I know of, and how many more since then?”

“I could have done nothing, if you had not saved my life. All that I have done is to your credit. You are only seventeen! Your whole life is ahead of you. You must go through the pain. Go through it and beyond it — as I did.”

“But I don’t know what is beyond.”

“Neither did I. I expected eternal imprisonment and was given your grandfather — and you — instead.”

“But you might have fallen into the hands of the Inquisition.”

“I still may.”

“Then you will curse me for having saved your life.”

“I will never curse you, Felicitas. Don’t give up. Not now. Not so soon. Not before we have seen one another again. Please.”

Felice clenched her teeth together. She was trembling and sweating, and the pain was still there — but it was easing. She heard voices — low male voices — and then the hissing of Dona Inez. Through her tears she made out a stranger in the black robes of a doctor. Then her eyes met Dom Pedro’s, and she knew that she had not been dreaming.