Father Lorentz looked sternly at his serving girl. "You can never be sure of that. What about my reputation, my standing in the Church and in this community? If it ever got out that I have fathered a child, with a lowly peasant girl at that..."
The last remark stung Kaella the most, but she kept her head down. She couldn't argue he wasn't right, after all. She could only beg.
"Please, I'll..."
"Quiet. I'll arrange something suitable for you, but you can't stay here."
Kaella had hoped against all probability that Lorentz meant a marriage to some suitable young man. she wouldn't even have minded if he wasn't that young or if he was ugly, only if he would accept her and give her a family. But he priest had something else in mind.
She tried to tell herself the convent was not so bad. She had never asked for luxury and most of the nuns were nice to her, even if some showed their disapproval. But she couldn't help but wonder what would become of her future child.
Damien, meanwhile, was enjoying Anna's company with no thoughts of possible consequences. The snow had finally melted and it was as if the sun was making them both even more unwilling to spend time alone.
When Damien's cottage was becoming too small for them, they moved to the woods. Anna had found a natural hot springs just outside of Adrian's hunting camp and they spent hours there when the days were still too cold for them, laughing and splashing each other like children.
But it was when they grew tired of playing around and just sat there pressed against each other that Damien felt like he was in paradise.
The hunting camp itself was coming to life and sometimes it seemed to Damien they spent more time there than at home. But the tents were comfortable, wine was always flowing freely and it wasn't like anybody or anything was waiting for him in his cramped cabin.
Adrian was happy to have both of them there and why refuse his hospitality?
Damien didn't even care a single bit that Adrian and Anna were sometimes more than friendly with each other.
Over the time he had come to understand that the hunting grounds were Adrian's safe haven from his wife, providing everything he might need. If that included company, Damien wasn't going to be outraged, especially when his own relationship with Anna was easygoing and loose in itself.
Everything soon fell into a neat arrangement of whole days spent at this retreat. Dinners that were like feasts to Damien, with mead and conversation flowing freely, some exercise in the morning, bathing in the hot springs... the perfect image was only broken when Anna became ill one day.
Damien rushed to her.
"Are you all right? Was it the mead? You look really pale."
"I'm fine."
"Really?" Damien remembered too well how he had felt after the first time he had drank too much alcohol at the same place. Try as he might, he didn't remember ever seeing Anna suffer from the same malady and somehow her reply didn't convince him as much as she wanted it to.
"Yes. I'm fine. Or at least, I'm definitely not ill." Anna rolled her eyes at Damien's still unconvinced expression. "Fine. If you really must know, I'm having a baby."
"What? And you are certain?"
Until Adrian spoke, Damien didn't even know he was right behind him. The lord was staring at Anna, alarm written all over his face.
"Do you know whose child it is?" Adrian asked, visibly nervous. Damien thought of the way Anna had always been free to come and go here, of the way Adrian looked at her and of lady Ellara, Adrian's lawful wedded wife. Did the lord think...?
"How could I?" Anna replied. She looked more annoyed than nervous and even the annoyance might have been more about the sickness than anything else.
"It doesn't really matter, anyway." Adrian spoke again before Anna could continue. At first he sounded as if he mostly wanted to convince himself, but as he continued his voice grew surer. "You two should get married. As soon as possible, in fact. I will arrange everything and the whole thing will stay quiet."
At first it seemed too fast for Damien. He had not expected to have a family so soon, before he could just enjoy life for some time. But he had to admit he really did care for Anna. She was bright, she brought life with her everywhere she went, but there was more than that. He wanted her to be happy and if Adrian thought this was the best way, for her as well as for him, he would do it.
The few days before the rushed wedding passed faster than he would have ever imagined and then they stood together before a priest, his bride looking more beautiful than ever before.
Adrian was beaming with something that could have been joy but was more probably satisfaction, young Anselm looked simply happy and Damien's sister was probably mostly curious. Damien wasn't sure if he had ever even mentioned Anna to Alysanne.
None of that really mattered to him, though. He looked into Anna's bright eyes and found everything he needed right there. Even the vows he repeated didn't hold much meaning when Damien knew the would say their real, private vows much later in the evening. He simply said them for what they would allow him to do.
He had never thought it would feel any different to kiss Anna as his wife, but it did.
If the priest thought anything about how enthusiastic the newlyweds were getting in his church, he at least didn't say anything.
After the ceremony was over, Alysanne walked over to her new sister-in-law to introduce herself.
"Can I offer my congratulations to the lucky lady who managed to capture my brother? I'm Alysanne, by the way."
Anna smiled. "He would sill be running free if it wasn't for the baby. I can't imagine either of us climbing into a snare of our own will. But Adrian insisted..."
Alysanne bit her lip as Anna chattered on. Expecting a child during a wedding wasn't something terrible, after all, at least if it wasn't too obvious. It certainly wasn't anything unusual. It just felt strange to hear the bride admit it this casually, together with a preference for not getting married.
She managed to nod and say something appropriate before Damien rescued her from his new wife, all the time wondering if Anna never worried about breaking any rules.
Damien had thought he didn't want to speak with another nun for the rest of his life after growing up with them, and mostly hoped it was mutual. The girl who turned up outside his door however looked more scared than righteous and the loose robe couldn't hide that she was heavily pregnant.
"Running away?"
"I... not really, I just..." Kaella bit her lip, trying to remember why exactly she had come here. She had wanted company that wouldn't judge her and heard of the man who had left the convent some years ago, but what exactly she expected she had no idea.
"You should. You're too pretty for a nun." Damien smiled at the girl, his eyes twinkling. Teasing came naturally to him and her confusion was too cute to pass up.
So was the way her whole face lit up at the compliment, he found out.
"I just..." The girl tried hard to keep herself on track and remember the real reason she had come. Company. But something else as well. "You don't seem ashamed. At all. Are you happy? I mean, I want to..."
"You want to not be a mouse."
Kaella turned after the unexpected voice. The woman who had spoken was beautiful and almost radiating confidence, two things Kaella never considered herself to have.
"No, I want my baby to be happy. When it's born, I mean." Was the woman laughing at her? It felt like she was and she had every right to be. Kaella thought back to the way Father Lorentz had looked at her when he sent her away. Maybe she really did deserve the scorn.
"How can your baby be happy when you're not? If you don't want it to be a mouse, you need to stop being one yourself."
Damien took a step back and let Anna take care of the girl. Not that he was afraid his flirting would hurt his new wife, he was confident Anna could see when he was joking and when he wasn't. But he somehow felt the girl needed this lesson to survive the convent and that Anna was the better person to give it. If the girl chose to listen, of course.
The conversation soon turned to the dangers of living in the middle of the woods, so dark and dangerous to Kaella's eyes, and continued long after sunset. When Damien offered to walk the girl home to protect her from any predators lurking on the way, she seemed excited as well as frightened.
And Damien wondered, which life she would choose in the end.
He spared her a few fleeting thoughts during the next days, wondering if a mouse can really turn into a bird, but after a few days he had something else to think about.
When he woke up feeling bad he tried to think nothing of it. Most of all, he didn't want to appear weak or whiny. But when the illness refused to go away and hiding it grew more difficult with every day, he begun to grow worried.
What if he stopped being able to hunt or support Anna in any other way?
