“Dwale?” Janet stepped forward. “Cook saved all of Merdrid’s dwales in case another of her teeth went black and started paining her.”
Evie perked like a dog begging for scraps. “Did Merdrid use the dwale on Cook so she could pull a rotten tooth without it hurting her?”
“Aye.” Janet nodded. “Snored through the whole thing. Didna feel a bit of it.”
“Fetch it. Quick now. Run like the wind.” Evie scrubbed her hands together, acting giddy as a child about to get treats.
“Aye, m’lady!” Reah took off at a dead run. Janet barred the door behind her.
Evie rushed to her pack and snatched out all manner of things. She dipped the strange metal pieces in the whisky she had sloshed into a bowl, then lined them up on the table. During her preparations, she glanced over at Quinn. “I will need your help, and I need you to trust that I am doing my best to save your sister’s life and her babies. Can you do that?”
Even though he barely knew this woman, something in her tone and her eyes convinced him that if anyone could save Fernie, she could. Aye. He trusted her. With his sister’s life and his own. At least, for now. His sister’s life and the lives of her children hung in the balance.
Banging on the door interrupted them. “Let me in to say goodbye and grieve my wife and child! I command ye!”
Quinn nodded at Janet. “Take to the tunnels to lead Reah back to us. I dinna trust that fool bastard to let her through, and for Fern’s sake, I dinna wish to kill him. Yet.”
“Aye, m’lord.” The elderly maid disappeared behind a colorful tapestry of a unicorn in a field of flowers that hung beside the head of the bed. Quinn hated that tapestry, but it was Fern’s favorite.
Evie handed him a large cup of whisky and then the bottle. “Not for you. Get her to drink it. Then another. And another. Until she passes out. I’d bet my favorite scalpel that’s the chief ingredient in Merdrid’s dwale, anyway. We need to get a head start and get those babies born. Their heartbeats concern me.”
Quinn put the cup to Fern’s lips. “Drink, lass. ’Twill take the edge off.” Even if it didn’t save her, at least it would dull her pain. After she got that down, he refilled the cup and urged her to drink again, just as Evie instructed.
Fern turned her head aside at the second glass. “Nay, brother,” she slurred. “Ye know Da will thrash us for getting into his whisky.”
“I’ll take the thrashing for ye, Fernie. Drink away so ye might rest, aye?” Quinn lifted her head and turned her toward him, sloshing the golden liquid against her lips. “Please, Fernie. For me.” When she still refused, he switched tactics. “So ye meant to let me out do ye in this? Wait ’til I tell one and all that I bested Fernie at something.”
Fern smiled and swallowed a big gulp. “I’ll sh-show ye, brother.”
“I’m afraid to wait any longer.” Evie snapped on a pair of strange gloves. The things were pale and thin like an extra layer of skin. She picked up a deadly looking thin strip of metal. Its edge glinted in the candlelight. She gave him a fierce look, then nodded toward the pile of linens. “If you feel sure she won’t move, soak one of those in whisky and be ready.”
He did as she asked, but when he held it out to her, she shook her head. “Wait and use it to staunch the bleeding if I tell you to do so. For now, hand me the bottle.”
Reah and Janet appeared out from behind the tapestry just as Evie doused Fern’s bared stomach with whisky. Fern giggled. “That’s verra cold.”
“Make her drink,” Evie ordered.
He did as best he could, but doubted he got more than a few spoonfuls down her.
“We brought both bottles of dwale and another two of whisky,” Janet announced as she and Reah clunked them down on the table.
“Good,” Evie said without looking up from where she hovered over Fern’s stomach. “Let me smell the dwale.” She made a face and shook her head. “Pure whisky. Just as I thought.” As she leaned back over Fern’s stomach, she nodded at the maids. “One of you hold the candle closer. The other, help Quinn hold her in case she moves. She’s had enough whisky to numb her somewhat. Let’s do this. I’ve risked the babies long enough.”
“Do as she says,” Quinn ordered as he clamped hold of Fern’s arms. Reah laid across her legs, and Janet held the candlestick high, shining the golden light where Evie directed. He flinched as this woman who had promised to save his sister’s life took the thin strip of metal and ran it low across Fern’s stomach, reached inside, and lifted out a wriggling baby covered in its mother’s blood. She tied two strips of linen around the cord, then cut it.
“Well, hello, sweet miss,” she said as she held the baby in the crook of her arm. “Can you cry for me so I can hear your lovely voice?” Evie patted the bottoms of the wee bairn’s feet until the wee one squalled like a Highland storm. “Well done, you! Now, let’s meet your sibling, shall we?” She handed the howling mite to Reah, who had scrambled off Fern’s legs to help her.
A chill froze him to the bone as he glanced down at his sister’s lifeless features. “Evie, I dinna think she’s breathing.”
Evie pressed the disk of her strange black and silver necklace to Fern’s chest. When she smiled and nodded, his knotted muscles eased a notch. “She’s passed out. But we do need to hurry.”
He nodded, maintaining his hold on his sister’s arms just in case. His heart clenched again at Evie’s grim expression as she lifted the second bairn from the womb.
“Come now, my little man. You don’t want your sister outdoing you, now do you?” She held out a hand. “Dry linen. Now.”
Quinn slapped it into her hand.
She rubbed the wee laddie all over, then covered his nose and mouth with her mouth. Quinn couldn’t tell what she did. All he knew was that she massaged the mite’s chest while she held her mouth against his face, then turned and spit and started all over again.
