Novels 03 The Wise Woman Read online

  “Now get out,” Alys said to them all. “I will call you if I need any of you.”

  She left them scrambling for the gallery door and stalked toward Catherine’s bedroom.

  Hugo was at the head of the bed, holding Catherine’s hands. Her women, Ruth, Mistress Allingham and Margery, were on the other side of the bed. Ruth was swinging a censer of silver which Alys recognized as part of Hugo’s haul from the nunnery. The air was thick with the throat-rasping smell of incense. Margery was sponging Catherine’s head. She was tossing on the pillow, with her eyes shut. Every now and then she gave a gasp of pain and strained her body upward as if some giant hand had gripped her in the middle and hauled her to the roof.

  “Stop that,” Alys said irritably to Ruth. “And open a window. The place stinks.”

  Hugo looked up, his scowl disappearing. “Thank God you’re back, Alys,” he said. “No one knew what to do, and the physician in Castleton is away all week. I was on the edge of sending for the wise woman from Richmond.”

  “When did the pains start?” Alys asked.

  Catherine opened her eyes at Alys’s voice. “This morning,” she said. “When I woke.”

  Alys nodded knowledgeably, though she knew nothing more. “I’ll have to look at her,” she said. “You’d better wait outside.”

  Hugo leaned over Catherine’s bed and pressed a kiss on her forehead. As he passed Alys he laid a hand on her shoulder. “Save my son,” he said in an undertone. “Nothing in the world is more important than that.”

  Alys did not even look at him. “Of course,” she said curtly.

  Hugo’s pat on her shoulder was that of a man to a trusted comrade. Alys, remembering his hands cupped on her breasts as he thrust her toward Catherine’s smothering embrace, shot him an angry glare, but he was looking at Catherine. He did not even see her.

  “Give her something to ease her pain,” he said softly. “She’s being very brave. I’ll be outside all the time. I’ll come in if she wants me.”

  “Certainly,” Alys said frigidly.

  Hugo led the way out of the room, the women scuttling after him.

  “Shall I stay?” Eliza asked.

  “What could you do?” Alys asked cruelly. “You know nothing. What use could you be? Tell them to bring the chest of my things from my room.”

  Catherine moaned again and Alys went swiftly to her side.

  “What sort of pain is it?” she asked.

  “Like opening,” Catherine gasped. “Like opening up and splitting. Alys, help me!”

  There was a tap at the door. Two serving-men came into the room carrying Alys’s chest of herbs and oils, put it gently on the floor, and went out. Alys opened the chest and took out a twist of powder in a piece of paper.

  “On the right side or on the left?” she asked.

  Catherine groaned again. “All over,” she said. “I feel strange, Alys. As if this were not me. I feel in the grip of something else.”

  “Open your mouth,” Alys said. Deftly she tipped the powder down Catherine’s throat and then held a glass of water for her to sip. At once Catherine’s color came back into her cheeks and she breathed a little more easily.

  “What can it be, Alys?” she asked. “It’s something wrong with the baby, isn’t it?”

  “It’s coming before its time,” Alys said. “Could you have been mistaken with the dates, Catherine? You are only nearing your seventh month. It should not come yet.”

  Catherine gasped as another pain seized her. “I could be, I could be,” she said. “But not two or three months wrong. There’s something wrong. I can feel it!”

  “What can you feel?” Alys asked urgently. Hidden away at the back of her mind was the thought that perhaps Catherine’s pregnancy was going wrong. That the child would not be born, or would not be a son. Or would be born dead. Or if Catherine were to die…

  “I feel strange,” Catherine said. Her voice sounded unreal, as if she were calling from a long way away. “Help me, Alys! You love me dearly I know! Help me, Alys! I feel as if the child is slipping out of me, melting and slipping away!”

  Alys stripped back the covers. Catherine’s plump, puffy legs were stained with veins of blue, flushed pink with heat. Alys pulled up Catherine’s shift with reluctance and peered at her. The lower sheet was stained with a pale, creamy juice.

  “Is this your waters? Have your waters broken?” Alys asked.

  Catherine shook her head, her body twisted as a spasm of pain took her. “I don’t know, I don’t think so,” she said. “I have had nothing but this oozing.”

  “No blood?” Alys asked.

  “No,” Catherine said. “Alys, keep the baby inside me. I can feel it melting.”

  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 pain 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 upward, and as she thrust her belly toward 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 upward, along the warm, wet body to find the head, to guide him outward, to bring him head outward for his little journey. His shoulder was rounded and smooth to her touch. Alys’s gentle hands went up to his rounded, hard skull and sensed the delicate shaping of his face.

  Catherine groaned again as her muscles contract