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crisply. “You’d never forgive me if I allowed that.” Sliding her arm beneath the young woman’s shoulders, she encouraged Elayne to sit up. “You need to take a wee walk, then try some bread soaked in clarified butter. I have Cook making you some broth, as well, but we’ll proceed slowly.”
    “I’m too tired to walk.”
    “We won’t go far,” Ana said, helping the girl shift her feet to the floor. “Digestion is aided by movement. To have a hope of keeping food in your belly, you must take short walks, drink sweet wine, and eat frequent small portions. Lean on me, Your Ladyship. I’ll help you take a turn about the chamber.”
    Elayne looped her arm around Ana’s neck and pushed to her feet, cradling her rounded belly. Her entire body trembled, but with support, she was able to walk several steps toward the hearth. “Bébinn assures me nothing will work, that this illness is my cross to bear for being a daughter of Eve.”
    With a harsh scrape of wooden legs on stone, the handmaiden moved one of the high-backed chairs by the fire to allow them to pass. “Those are not my words,” she contested. “Brother Colban spake them. He says the amount a woman suffers bringing a child into the world is commensurate with her sins.”
    Ana wanted to ask how a proper young woman of ten and six, who’d regularly attended mass and confessed her sins, could possibly have accumulated eight months’ worth of sin, but she dared not. The friar had not given Ana his blessing yet. In his mind, she was a stranger and still unproven. Had Auld Mairi’s journeywoman not run off and wed a man from a neighboring town, he’d never have taken Ana’s oath to practice healing.
    “Even if He intends for you to endure this illness the whole of your term,” she said gently to Elayne, “you mustn’t forget that the Lord Almighty helps those who help themselves. If you’ve the means to ease the nausea, you should use it.”
    “I’m not convinced such means exist.”
    “Take each day as it comes,” Ana said. “Claim every bite swallowed as a victory.”
    Sensing the baroness’s legs were about to give out, she lowered Elayne onto the chair closest to the fire. The girl’s hands were cold and clammy. Ana beckoned to Bébinn, who quickly stepped forward and covered Elayne’s knees with a soft woolen blanket.
    The young woman’s symptoms suggested a weakness in her blood. Ana had seen a similar frailty in lasses who’d newly begun their menses, and also in women with child, but never so severe. “Did you sample the black pudding I had Cook send up yestereve?”
    Elayne grimaced. “Nay, the smell was unbearable.”
    Finding the heat of the fire excessive, Ana loosened the ties on her sark. She mentally ran through the list of foods she knew had served other weak-blooded women well. Lentils, which could be baked in a lightly spiced dish. Clams, but those were few and far between in these parts. Grains. “If you succeed in keeping the vegetable broth in your belly, we’ll try some oats with honey and cream.”
    “Oats and vegetables are for cattle.”
    “And for childbearing women.” She didn’t bother to mention that most villagers ate oats and vegetables—and little else—on a daily basis. The baroness lived a very different life from her husband’s tenants. “How are the bairn’s movements?”
    Smoothing her hands over her belly, Elayne smiled for the first time. “Strong and sure. He’s a brawny lad, constantly kicking.”
    “Good.” Ana bent to tuck the blanket around the baroness’s back. As she leaned forward, one of her pendants—a silver rod entwined with a bronze snake—slipped free of her sark and swung into view.
    Bébinn gasped. “Lord save us.” Stepping back, she crossed herself.
    Grabbing the swinging pendant, Ana straightened. Her stomach sank at the young woman’s wide-eyed expression. Holding the token up so the handmaiden could clearly see it, she said, “There’s naught to fear,