Bearing and begetting

Read this story in Gaelic.

Aren't we coy, with the ways we have invented to talk of things that befall women in this world? So many words to avoid speaking the cold, hard facts. 'Her grandmother is visiting', when what we mean is 'she is menstruating'. 'Her belt is rising', not 'she is pregnant out of wedlock'. 'She was raped' – too hard to say, so we are told that 'an arrow has penetrated her thigh'.

Some beget, in this world, and some bear, and the business of the begetters can be spoken in clear words and much detail. Just look in the Bible, where the doings of the menfolk sprawl through chapter and verse, while the women's struggles are dismissed in a line. 'She became pregnant and bore a son'. Leah and Rachel, all of the danger and fear and discomfort they faced, all their agonies written off in that one sentence, never mind poor Bilhah and Zilpah, forced to bear their babes on their mistresses' knees as slaves.

We do not even speak clearly amongst ourselves. I had two mothers – the first who bore me, and the second who took me in fosterage, the better to strengthen the ties between our kindreds. And still, when I married, I had only the vaguest idea of what might transpire between a husband and wife in the marriage bed.

Perhaps this is why the songs we sing to our babies are so full of woe. In the dark quiet of the night, we can pour out our blood, our fear, our wounds, into an ear that does not understand and so cannot judge.

'Och och, mo sprochd, 's mo chìochan goirt… 
My woe is great, my breasts are sore
Missing my fragrant babe.
My fragrant babe, my nursling,
my fragrant babe, laid in the grave.'

I am a noblewoman, of course, and so I did not have the nursing of my own children.

It was a midwife, come to attend me after my last birth, who told me of the business with the priest. I was ill with an infection in my breast, something that was wont to happen to me when I had birthed an infant I would not feed myself. It was winter, and the midwife arrived with a pail of snow. She made me a hot drink that smelled like something from the gates of Hell, and after she had stood over me until I had drunk every drop, she put a hot cloth on me and pulled on my nipple until the milk was out, causing me no little agony in the process. Then she filled a bowl with snow and told me to put the sore breast in it.

I was half-sitting, half-lying like that, stripped to the waist, when she asked if I knew Iain Mòr up at the far end of the glen.

'I know who he is,' I said. 'The smith.'

'Yes,' she said. 'His wife is called Mòrag. She and I are cousins, on our mothers' side. They have three daughters. The eldest are married and gone but the youngest is more than ten years younger. They had two sons in between, you see, but they lost one to a fever when he was eight and the other fell through the ice on the loch above the clachan the next year. I think she had decided she was done with childbearing, after the boys, but when they lost them both, she thought they would be the better of a baby about the house again.'

'Bless her,' I said. It is a hard thing, to lose a child. I lost two when they were still in clouts. That was hard enough, but losing a big, strong lad when he had survived the riskiest years and a mother might think she could breathe more easily… It didn't bear thinking about. Let alone two in two years.

'She's fourteen now, their daughter,' the midwife said.

I closed my eyes, the better to picture her. 'A little, brown-haired thing,' I said.

'Yes,' said the midwife. 'She's expecting a child in the summer.'

'She is?' I shook my head. The girl was ages with my eldest girl, and much smaller. Far too young to be a mother herself. 'Who is the lad?' I asked.

'It was the priest,' the midwife said.

I sat up, the melted ice-water flooding down my front.

'My household priest?'

She nodded. 'He's always at it.'

I felt my gorge rise. The priest is a short, bald creature, at least two score years in age and of no great standard of cleanliness in his dress or person. I do not like him, and he does not like me.

'I must speak with my husband,' I said. 'There must be something to do. We could take her in here, or see that she is well married.'

'It is done,' the midwife said, flatly. 'She is to be married to Blind Calum the piper. He is a widower with no issue and he will be pleased to raise the child as his own. Your husband arranged it.'

'But… But he's an old man!' I said. 'Is there no one closer to her own age?'

'It seems she had a fondness for a young man,' the midwife said, 'and he would have married her, but he had not the wherewithal to keep her. My own fear is that she might not survive it. I will do my best, but she's so small, it's very risky.'

I began to dry myself and fasten my bodice.

'I will make him pay,' I said. 'I promise you that.'

'Good,' the midwife said. Then she said to me, quite calmly and matter of factly, that she thought I should try to avoid getting with child again, it became riskier the older a woman was, and I was no young sapling any longer. She gave me a bottle of oil, and a piece of sponge, and told me what to do to stop my husband's seed taking root in me.

'Does it work?' I asked.

'Nothing works with any certainty,' she said, 'except avoiding the business altogether, and I don't know many men willing to do that.'

She took her leave of me, then, and I sat in my chamber nursing my wrath against the priest. I am a woman of principle, and his actions reflected badly on us all. I was determined no girl or woman would go near him ever again. I would see to it that his reputation was ruined once and for all.

Gradually I saw how I might bring this about. I have certain skills and a certain style, though I say so myself. The hardest part was biding my time until I could humiliate him royally.

My opportunity came at last the next Christmas, when we were summonsed to spend the twelve nights with my husband's people at their castle to the south of Crieff, where the guest of honour would be the king. Four years on the throne, young and handsome, hosting James IV for the festive season was the greatest of honours. The Drummonds had managed it by building a great castle on his command and the rush to ready it was immense, the paint barely dry on the walls by the time Christmas Eve came around.

The Drummonds are greedy for power and seek at all times to be close to the throne. This was the reason for my own marriage, of course - my father was chief of Clan Campbell, the Earl of Argyll and one of the most powerful men in Scotland. They are happy to use womenfolk in this way – more than once has a Drummond woman married a Scots king. My father-in-law has served King James faithfully, and been rewarded for it, but he wants the tie to be closer still. His daughter Margaret is of age for marriage, and I know that Sir John seeks to wed her to James.

We rode to Drummond from a hunting lodge of my father's in the Ochil hills. I dressed carefully for the occasion. My green velvet overgown and rich creamy kirtle were cut in the latest fashion, as befitted the wife of a great man of the Lowlands, and I did not hide my hair, as most women do, but wore it under a golden net tied in a long tail, banded with rich golden braid. To emphasise my power, my heritage, my Gaelic otherness, I wore a billowing tartan cloak pinned with a great brooch of rock crystal, centuries old and mounted in gold, and on my arms I wore huge, barbaric bracelets made of the tusks of boars. When I was mounted on my white horse, I looked like a warrior queen.

The priest was not a good horseman. He toiled along behind us, struggling to handle his mare. I wished he had had a donkey.

The torches were lit as we rode up to the castle, and all were gathered outside to welcome us. My husband's parents looked askance at the sight of me, but James clearly enjoyed the spectacle. He armed me into the great hall – Margaret looked most put out, she clearly had her instructions to stay close – telling me in his halting Gaelic that my father had been a good and loyal servant to his own.

'Until he wasn't', I said, but I said it lightly. My father had cast his lot in with the rebels, in the end, betraying James's father in favour of James.

'He was sent to England to negotiate for a bride for me, did you know that?' James asked. 'The Princess Cecily, first, and later Anne de la Pole. But it came to nought. Peace never lasted long enough.'

'My father-in-law served your father likewise,' I said, thinking I owed a debt to my marriage family as well as my own. Turning the king's thoughts of marriage towards the Drummonds would do none of us any harm.

There was no more talk of politics, then, we sat with rich red wine and listened to the music of the harp. Then there was a great tale in Gaelic of a cattle raid and the seanchaidh said he would pause after each section to tell it again in English for those who did not speak the older tongue. The king stopped him, though, and said that he would make the translation, if I would aid him. He made a good fist of it, only he pretended to be in difficulties when the hero Fergus Mac Róig was described, and made me help with that part. I held his eye boldly and translated: 'His penis was seven fists long, his scrotum a bushel bag. It took seven women to satisfy him.' The king roared with laughter and Margaret Drummond blushed.

The meal was served, then, and a fine feast it was too, with a course of pasties, sausages and puddings, fish, fowl and roast meats, and then custards, tarts, nuts and marchpane to finish. The priest declaimed a grace as the pasties and puddings were served, and then drew up his seat and set to as greedily as any pig.

After the meal, there was more wine and song. The priest dozed off and the king threw a chicken bone at him.

'Might I recite a poem?' I asked. 'It is of my own composition.'

'Lady Isobel is a poet too!' the king said. 'By all means, we wish to hear it!'

And so I stood, and smiled sweetly, and recited.

Atá fleasgach ar mo thí,
a Rí na ríogh go rí leis!
a bheith sínte ré mo bhroinn
agus a choim ré mo chneis…

'There's a young man in pursuit of me, 
Oh King of Kings, may he have success!
Would he were stretched out by my side
his body pressed against my breast.

If all could be as I would wish,
no distance would cause us separation,
Yet there's little to be declared;
he understands not our situation.

It's hard for me to hold my peace
It truly is a wretched matter:
He is east and I am west
What we desire can never happen.'

It was a sweet thing, and I knew it; I was raised in a house that welcomed travelling artists from all across the world, and I was as well versed in the courtly verse of Europe as in the tradition of Gaelic bàrdachd. The king applauded most heartily, and demanded another. 'Less chaste, this time, I think,' he said, and he looked at Margaret, who blushed most prettily.

'Very well,' I said. 'I have one about a priest and his… proclivities.'

There was much cheering then – my father-in-law had not stinted with the wine and whisky and most of the company was well in their cups – and the priest began to look uncomfortable. I straightened my back, shot him a look, and began.

Éistibh a luchd an tighe-se 
re scél na mbod brioghmhar
do shanntaich mo chridhe-sa
cuid dana scéalaibh do sgriobhadh.

Listen, people of this house,
To the tale that I have written
Of the powerful penis
With which my heart is smitten.

Forget the beautiful, branching penises
So plentiful in times past
This man of holy orders
Has a cock every bit as hard and vast.

The penis of my household priest,
Is long and firm as a rock
You will not have heard in ages
Of such a very sturdy cock.

That thick drill of his, 
I promise this is not a lie,
You will never meet another penis
Remotely comparable in size.

Listen!

When I had finished, there was silence for a moment, and then the king began to clap, and cheer, and then there was no choice but to join in. I noticed that the women were glaring at the priest.

'It is what one does with a dog who has fouled in the house, is it not, Father?' the king said. 'You rub the beast's nose in his own doings. I have heard it said that an old dog cannot be taught new tricks, but I think it is not true. The Lady Isobel's instruction seems to me sound and I trust it will have the effect she intends.'

The priest stood up with as much dignity as he could muster, and stalked from the room. My father-in-law hastily signalled to the harper, who rushed to his seat and began to play.

I sat down myself, and took a deep draught of my wine. I was pleased, but tired. The midwife's oil had not worked, and there would be a new child by midsummer. Another season of discomfort and fear and pain to come – but for now I was well, and strong, and would enjoy my triumph in full measure.

Read this story in Gaelic.