Captives by Emily Murdoch

intrigued.
    Catheryn forced herself to respond. She nodded. “My son.”
    There was silence between the two mothers, two women that suddenly had more in common than any two men could possibly imagine.
    Adeliza’s voice was almost a whisper. “I lost my first born son.”
    Catheryn’s hand reached out to the woman who was strangely both her captor and her sister.
    “Tell me about your boy,” she said gently.
    Adeliza smiled wanly. “He was never really mine to begin with,” she confessed. “We had him for such a short time. The Lord only blessed us with him for five days, and then he simply did not awaken.”
    She clasped Catheryn’s outstretched hand tightly.
    “It does not matter how long we have them for,” Catheryn said softly. “They are still precious to us.”
    Adeliza nodded. “And your son?”
    “He was much older,” Catheryn confessed. “And yet still very much my baby. He was but six years when… when he was taken.”
    “Taken?”
    Catheryn swallowed. She had never thought that she would discuss this with another woman, let alone a Norman woman. And what about her husband? As a Norman lord, it was almost certain that he had been one of the invaders, one of the fighters. It could easily be he who had taken her two most important men from her.
    “In the invasion,” she managed to say. “They… they came to our home, and they killed him.”
    The hands that were entwined were quickly dropped. The two women sat in silence, knowing exactly who ‘they’ were.
    “But then,” Adeliza said quietly, “is this not our lot? Is this not what it is to be a woman: to create life, and then to have it snatched away from us before our eyes?”
    “You speak truth,” said Catheryn, “and yet I wish it were not so.”
    “I thought, once,” Adeliza smiled ruefully at her companion, “that my daughters would live in a better world, and have a different life. But the longer I spend in it, the more I realise that it is exactly the same.”
    “Your two daughters – what are their ages?”
    “A month before your arrival they celebrated their fifteenth year.” Adeliza smiled at the thought of those happy memories. “And your daughter?”
    Catheryn sighed. “Annis is perhaps just a year older. She does not look much older, but she is.”
    “Where is she?” Adeliza said curiously.
    “She remained in England. I was taken during the Conquest, taken here to Normandy against my wishes. Annis stayed behind… and I do not know what fate I have left her to,” Catheryn said bitterly.
    Shock covered Adeliza’s face. “She is still there?”
    Catheryn nodded.
    “But – you are all that she has of her family left in this world! Should you not go to her?”
    Catheryn tried not to let the bitterness of her soul seep into her words, but she could not help it. “You are the one keeping me here, Adeliza. If I could will myself to her through sheer power of spirit, I tell you, I would be there. But I am not permitted to return to her.”
    “But… but…” Adeliza stammered, “but anything could happen to her!”
    “You think I do not know that?”
    A soft breeze floated through the field, and the grasses murmured their secrets. The sound of two girls laughing was carried by that same breeze, and the two women turned to see Emma and a girl Catheryn assumed was her twin sister, running and laughing around the castle walls.
    “Blossoming into womanhood,” remarked Catheryn.
    Adeliza laughed. “And yet the child remains!”
    Catheryn thought of Emma and her wailing tears, and joined in the laughter.
    After their giggles had subsided, Adeliza’s voice turned serious once more.
    “I must thank you,” she said formally, “for calming my daughter.”
    Catheryn smiled. “I would that some woman is doing the same for mine.”

 
    Chapter Eight
     
    Evening had drawn in faster than anyone had thought possible, and once more a feast was held in the castle of the family FitzOsbern. For the first time since she had