The Wise Woman Read online

  Alys pulled Catherine's shift down and rested her hand on Catherine's round belly. 'You are being foolish,' she said firmly. 'Foolish and hysterical. Babies do not melt. I can see you are in pain and I can help you bear your pain; but there is no blood and your waters have not broken. Your baby is still inside you and he is well. Babies do not melt.'

  Catherine started up on the bed, half-supporting herself with her arms. She glared at Alys and her face was wild, her hair tossed around her face, her eyes bulging. 'I tell you he is melting!' she screamed. 'Why won't you listen to me, you fool! Why won't you do as I tell you! Do something to make the baby safe! He is melting. I feel him melting! He is melting inside me and slipping away!'

  Alys pushed Catherine back down on the pillows and held her hard by the shoulders. 'Hush,' she said roughly. 'Hush. That cannot be, Catherine. You are mistaken. You are gibbering nonsense.'

  She rested her hand on Catherine's rounded belly and then snatched it away again in instinctive horror. Catherine gave another groan. 'I told you,' she wept.

  Alys put her hand back, she could hardly believe what she had felt. Under the palm of her hand she distinctly felt the round fullness of Catherine's belly reduce and subside. Something under the thick layer of flesh shifted and bubbled. As it did so, Catherine groaned again.

  'The baby is going,' Catherine said despairingly. She was groaning deep in her throat, an animal growl, not like a woman at all. 'I cannot hold him. He is going,' she said.

  Alys pulled Catherine's shift up and looked again at the woman's parted legs. The pool of creamy white juice had spread over the sheets. Alys gagged and swallowed her saliva.

  'I don't know what this stuff is. I don't know what to do,' she muttered.

  Catherine did not even hear her. She was straining her body upwards, and as she thrust her belly towards the ceiling Alys could see the shape of the rounded bump flowing and changing like river slime.

  'Lie still, lie still,' Alys commanded helplessly. 'Lie still, Catherine, and nothing will happen!'

  'He's going!' Catherine cried. 'I cannot hold him in. I cannot hold him. Ohhh!'

  As she groaned, Alys saw the birth canal open, widen. She caught a glimpse of pale body and thought for a sudden moment of hope that the baby would be born whole, that she might even save it, that Catherine might have her dates all wrong and the baby was ready to be born.

  'I see him!' she said. 'Let him come, Catherine, let him come. You are ready to give birth to him. Let him come!'

  Catherine bore down, her stomach muscles fighting to push her baby out into the world. Alys slid her small skilled hands into the birth canal and gently gripped the tiny body inside. For a moment she felt the baby, small, well-formed; felt his rounded buttocks and a firm, muscled leg. Her hands slid over his perfect shoulder and felt his little arm, his hand clenched in a fist. He was slightly askew. Alys smiled through her concentration and felt upwards, along the warm, wet body to find the head, to guide him outwards, to bring him head outwards for his little journey. His shoulder was rounded and smooth to her touch. Alys' gentle hands went up to his rounded, hard skull and sensed the delicate shaping of his face.

  Catherine groaned again as her muscles contracted. Alys slipped her hands away from the clamp of the muscles and then slid in again to turn and guide the little body. He was turning, he was coming right, head first into the world. She took either side of his skull in a gentle firm grip and pulled him towards her, out of the slippery tight canal of Catherine's body. 'Yes,' she said. 'I have him safe.' Alys had forgotten that this was her rival, that this was Hugo's heir which would threaten her own safety, her own son. She was entranced by the desire to aid the birth. She was moving in the unconscious rhythm of all wise women who go deep into a mother to bring a baby out, safe, into the light. Alys pulsed with the baby, moved with Catherine, timed her touches and her tugs to the rhythm of the birth. 'He is coming!' she breathed excitedly. 'He is coming.'

  The little body turned again, Alys reached deep inside Catherine, gripped the skull and the little shoulder and steadily, carefully, pulled.

  With a sickening jolt her fingers broke through the soft crust of his skull and punctured his body, as soft as lye soap. An arm came away in her hand, a gout of liquid cascaded into her palm. Alys screamed with horror.

  As she screamed, Catherine pressed downwards again and there was an explosion of white slime into Alys' face, hot and wet, in lumps against her mouth, her lips, her eyes, sticking to her hands, her hair, her dress.

  'No! No! No!' Alys screamed, batting both hands against the horror of Catherine's bed. 'No!'

  Again and again Catherine pressed down and lump after lump of the white foam was voided from her body until the sheets were covered with the mess of it and the room stank of tallow.

  'It's wax!' Alys said in utter horror. 'Oh my God, it's candlewax!'

  She backed against the window, her hands caked with wax, hiding her face, where little blobs of wax were drying hard on her skin. 'Oh my God, oh my God,' she said over and over again. 'It's wax. It's candlewax.' Catherine gave one last groan and then lay still. 'My God! It's candlewax!' Alys repeated till the words lost their meaning and became nothing more than a howl of horror. 'Candlewax! Candlewax! Candlewax!'

  Alys picked at her face, scratching the drying spots off her skin, shuddering at the wax under her fingernails. She scratched at the backs of her hands, at her palms. She was coated in the stuff. 'I'll never be clean,' she said in the high sharp tones of uncontrollable hysteria. 'Candlewax! I'll never get it off!'

  Catherine lay on her back, deaf to Alys' insane whimperings. Her body had expelled its muck and she was exhausted and empty. It was long moments before she moved and then she put up her hand and patted her belly, disbelievingly. It had lost its shape. It was still fat, fleshy and loose; but it no longer jutted proud. Her baby was gone. She pushed herself slowly, laboriously, up the bed to rest on the pillows and looked down at the mess on the sheets and at Alys, backed against the wall, hair and face drenched in candlewax, her eyes black with horror, her hands feverishly picking, picking, picking – at her skin, her hair, her dress.

  'What is this?' Catherine asked, her voice thin with horror. 'What is this stuff? What has happened to me?'

  Alys swallowed and gagged, swallowed again. She looked down disbelievingly at her working hands and stilled them with an effort. She took a deep breath. 'You have no baby,' she finally croaked. 'Your baby has gone.'

  Catherine leaned forward and pushed a finger into one of the white gobbets. 'My baby was this?' she asked.

  Alys shook her head. 'It never was a baby, not a flesh and blood baby,' she said. 'This is wax from your body. There never was a real baby at all.' Her voice broke into a little shriek at the end, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to still the noise. 'Just a flux,' she said softly. 'Not a baby.'

  Catherine's face was gaunt. 'No baby?' she asked. 'No son for Hugo?' Alys shook her head, not trusting her voice. The two women stared at each other for a moment, silenced with horror.

  'Don't tell him,' Catherine said. Her voice was cracked, near madness. 'Don't tell him that it was like this.'

  Alys found she was rubbing her hands together. The wax clotted into strips as she rubbed, and dropped away like dried skin. 'Damn it,' she said. 'Damn the stuff!'

  'Don't tell anyone it was like this,' Catherine said again, with more urgency. 'Tell them it was a miscarriage. I don't want anyone to know about this. I don't want anyone to know of this… this horror!' Alys nodded slowly in silence.

  'If they know about this…' Catherine broke off. Her eyes searched Alys' downcast, horrified face. 'If they knew about this they would get rid of me,' she said, very low. 'They would say I am – unnatural.'

  Alys was wringing her hands, rubbing the foul wax away. It had clogged between her ringers. With quick, nervous movements she was picking at her fingernails.

  Catherine stared at her. 'How could such a thing be?' she demanded. 'Alys? You have seen many