Page 5 of His Stubborn Mate

Oh, sweet lad, I have done it far too often.

Luckily, I’d had the forethought to do most of the chopping earlier in the season, before my belly had grown to these gigantic proportions and I seemed to lose energy so easily. But today we needed to replenish our kindling stock, and I needed to make certain Ewan understood how ‘twas done.

“You see how I stand, honeybun?” I widened my stance theatrically. “If I miss the log, the ax will swing between my legs, instead of catching my knee.” I demonstrated. “I have seen a man die from such an injury.”

My son nodded with wide eyes.

“I don’t think I can lift that big one, Mama.”

“You do not have to.” Leaving the ax buried in the wood, I tweaked his nose. “You have the small hatchet we found? Good, let us see what you can manage with that.”

I never thought of myself as a patient person…until I bore Ewan. For this little person, I found reserves I didn’t realize I had, and that came in handy this morning.

Anyone who thought teaching a five-year-old how to split kindling was easy was mistaken. Of course, most would likely assume I was asking for trouble even teaching him…but we were fast approaching the point at which I would have to rely on Ewan for more than I wanted, and pray that the wee lad’s small shoulders were strong enough.

“I shall use this stick to hold the other upright, see?” I lowered myself to a squat beside the chopping block. “You do not have to swing the hatchet too hard, just connect—good!”

I cheered when he buried the blade into the piece of wood and removed my hold on it.

“See how the blade holds the wood, now? Knock the end of the piece against the block, to send it deeper…aye, like that. Once more—good!”

Ewan beamed as the wood split into two smaller pieces.

“Look, Mama! I did it!”

“You did, honeybun.” Smiling, I allowed myself to fall onto my arse then reached for one of the pieces to prop up again.

“Now you must split it again.”

“But it’s already small! Look!”

Ewan had inherited my way of looking at the world, which was to say, he needed to understand everything before he could begin a task. ‘Twas something I didn’t recognize in myself until I had to raise a copy of myself. Thank God he hadn’t also inherited my stubbornness, or we might never accomplish anything.

Gently, I took the piece of wood from him. “You have tended the fire in our hearth, aye? You know the size of our kindling. Is it this big?”

“No.” His new habit, when he was thinking, was to use his tongue to play with his loose tooth. “The pieces are smaller.”

I nodded. “Then let us make them smaller.”

As my son scrunched up his nose and took the hatchet in both hands, I smiled, beyond proud of his determination.

Mayhap he did have some of my stubbornness.

I spent the next hour sitting there in the cold dirt beside the chopping block, holding the pieces of wood for my son to split. Could I have done it faster? Aye, of course. But he would need to learn this skill to keep us both alive through the coming months.

Absentmindedly rubbing my belly where the babe sat on my bladder, I eyed the sky. The season’s first snow would hit us tonight, if I didn’t miss my guess, and the air smelled of salt water.

‘Twould be a bad storm, and I knew we would need all the kindling we could get.

Damn John and his stubbornness! If he hadn’t rallied the villagers against us, Ewan and I would still be living in town, surrounded by help when my time came. There would be a midwife there to help me through this birth, and others who could take care of Ewan if the worst happened⁠—

Nay. Do not think such thoughts. You are strong, and too pig-headed to die. You and the babe will survive to spit in John’s face.

Aye, the babe.

Even if he hadn’t turned our neighbors against us with whispers of whore and slut, the truth would be known soon enough. I cradled my stomach and winced from a particularly strong kick. The babe I grew would be born half-monster, the truth available to witness by any midwife.

Even if I survived the birth in the village, I would have been cast out for bearing such an abomination, and the babe killed.