Ragnhild opened her eyes, saw her daughter, and smiled feebly. 'Ragna, my heart,' she said, barely speaking above a whisper. 'Is the baby born?'

'Not yet, Mother,' the young woman answered. 'But soon -any day now. You must rest and get better so you can attend the birth.'

Lady Ragnhild nodded. She closed her eyes again. 'I am so tired… so very tired.'

Ragna waited until her mother was asleep, and then crept from the bedside. 'I think you are right,' she said to Niamh as she stepped from the room. 'The fever has gone. She is sleeping now.'

Lifting a hand to Ragna's face, Niamh touched her cheek. The skin was cool beneath her fingertips. 'How do you feel?'

'I feel as big as an ox,' she answered; her hands traced the outline of her bulging belly. 'Still,' she smiled wearily, 'I am well.'

'For the sake of the child, you should rest now.' Taking Ragna's elbow, she led the pregnant young woman away. 'I will have Tailtiu bring you something to eat, and then you must sleep.'

'What about you, Nia-when do you rest?'

'Do not worry about me,' Niamh replied. 'I am not the one having a baby. Go on and do as I say. I will stay with Ragni and wake you if she asks for you again.'

'Very well,' Ragna agreed, and allowed herself to be put to bed.

Returning to the sick woman's chamber, Niamh built up the fire to take the chill off the room and settled once more on the low stool. She closed her eyes, folded her hands, and began to pray softly to herself. Ragnhild murmured in her sleep, but did not wake, and after a moment gave out a little sigh.

Niamh broke off her prayers when she found that she was listening for Ragnhild to inhale again. 'Dear God in Heaven, please, no,' she gasped, but Lady Ragnhild was already dead.

The next day, Niamh and Ragna, and a score of Cnoc Carrach's vassals watched as the priest sprinkled holy water over the wooden box containing Lady Ragnhild's mortal remains. Taking up his censer, the priest swung it three times in the air above the coffin, before lowering it into the hole which had been dug beside the altar. He then began to chant, dipping the smoking orb each time he came to the Kyrie Eleison.

When he finished, he replaced the censer on the altar, and removed the stole from the coffin. He then summoned the four farmhands waiting at the side of the chapel to come forward with their ropes. They moved hesitantly to the altar, genuflected stiffly, and took their places, two at either end of the oblong box. Passing their ropes under the coffin, they lifted it and shuffled over to the hole in the floor, where they began paying out the rope.

The coffin slowly descended into the grave, and all went well until one of the men lost his grip and allowed the rope to slide through his hands. The coffin landed with a thump of such solid finality that Ragna, who had braved all to that moment, crumpled and began to weep. Niamh, standing beside her, gathered the young woman into her arms and held her, stroking her hair, while the priest began another round of prayers and his helpers began slowly shovelling dirt back into the hole.

Niamh clung to Ragna as if to stifle the sobs shaking her body, and breathed a last, silent farewell to her childhood friend as the dirt was tamped down and the floor slab replaced. The great flagstone slid home with a grating thud, and silence descended upon the chapel.

The priest departed, and the vassals filed out quietly, mumbling their respects to Ragna as they passed. The two women stood for a long time, clinging to one another, listening to the quiet hiss of the damp candles. Then, without either prompting the other, they turned and walked slowly from the little stone church.

Their grief was all but banished three days later when Ragna's birth pangs began. The first quivers started in the night, and by morning she was certain the baby was going to be born. Two of the estate's more experienced older women were summoned to help with the birth and, at Niamh's instruction, began to prepare the young woman for the ordeal ahead. They dressed her in a loose gown and took the bedclothes away, replacing them with rags and straw.

They filled four basins with water, two of which they warmed at the hearth; they made a potion of chamomile and lavender, which they gave Ragna to drink, and chafed the young woman's wrists and ankles. They prepared a salve of goosefat and rose oil which they rubbed on her back, legs, and thighs. All the while, they talked to Ragna about what to expect when the birthing began, and what they would do.

As the birth pains increased in frequency and severity, they held her hands, speaking soothing words and encouragements. They told her how beautiful the child would be, and how happy she would be when she saw the fruit of her body which God, in his boundless grace, had granted her. And, when the moment of birth came, they gathered close and held her upright, supporting her back and legs so that she should not injure herself straining too hard.

The baby, a boy, was born in the evening, and the whole estate gathered in the chapel to give thanks and celebrate the infant's safe arrival.

'He is beautiful,' Ragna sighed as she held the babe to her breast for the first time.

'He looks just like Murdo did the day he was born,' Niamh told her. 'He had long feet just like this one.' Taking a tiny hand in her own, she stretched out the little fingers with her fingertips. 'His fingers are long like his father's, too.'

'I wish Murdo could see him,' Ragna said. 'He would be so proud to know he had a son.' She paused, sadness creeping into her voice. 'One life is taken, and another given. Very strange, is it not?'

'Have you decided what he will be called?'

'I had thought to call him Murdo, after his father,' Ragna answered. 'But now that I see him, I think he should have a name he can make his own. Do you think Murdo would mind if his son had a different name?'

'I think men care less about such things than they let on.' Niamh brushed the tiny round head with its pale fluff of hair. 'A mother can be trusted to know what is best for her child.'

'Then I will call him Eirik,' declared Ragna.

'A good name,' mused Niamh. 'A name of strength and eminence. I like it!'

'It is the name of my great-grandfather-the first man of our people to be baptized a Christian.' Ragna cradled her baby, and whispered his name to him for the first time. 'Eirik,' she said. 'Do you like it, my darling?'

The two women sat for a time, cosy in one another's company, whereupon Ragna, exhausted from her labour, drifted off to sleep. Niamh pulled the bedclothes around the new mother and her infant, and then lay down beside them herself. Night folded itself around them and they slept soundly and peacefully, stirring only when the babe stirred.

It was Ragna who heard the commotion in the yard: voices raised, people shouting, the dogs barking, and the sound of horses stamping in the midwinter cold. She came awake with a start and saw Niamh resting beside her.

'Wake up, Nia.' She gently shook the older woman's shoulder. 'Someone is here.' Even as she spoke the words, her heart leapt in her breast. 'Wake up! The men! I think the men have returned!'

Niamh came awake at once. 'What? The men, you say?' She hastened to the single narrow window, rubbed the small square of glass with her hand, and peered out.

'Can you see?' Ragna sat up excitedly, waking the baby, who started and cried out, his tiny voice no bigger than a bird's cackle. 'Hush, my lovely,' soothed his mother. 'All is well.'

'It is still dark,' Niamh reported. 'I cannot see who it is. They have horses-three or four of them, I think…'

'Is it them? Is Murdo with them?'

'I cannot say.'

There came a crash as the bolted door burst open and the voices from outside spilled into the house. Then came the rapid thump of feet on the wooden stairs. 'They are coming up here!'