For several hours Elizabeth’s pains came slowly. Then towards late afternoon they began to come with greater frequency, and they were harder, lingering longer, it seemed. It was the longest day of the year, and the servants were anxious to get outside to join the revelry of the summer’s night. The Midsummer fires were already springing up.
“Where is my husband?” Elizabeth demanded petulantly.
“Here, wife,” Baen answered her. He had come into the hall earlier, but had been wise enough to keep out of the way. “How may I help you, love?” He knelt by her side, and took her small hand in his.
“Stay with me,” Elizabeth said, to his surprise. Her mood had barely softened over the past weeks, even after her mother had come.
“I am here, and I shall go nowhere,” he replied.
“Put her on the birthing table,” Rosamund said to Baen. “It is time.”
“Is the bairn to be born now?” Elizabeth asked her mother.
“He will come in his own time,” Rosamund answered, “but I believe you have done all the walking and sitting by the fire that you should. Now you must encourage your child forth, Bessie.”
“Do not call me Bessie!” Elizabeth wailed. “Ohhhhh! That hurts, Mama.”
“Of course it hurts,” Rosamund said calmly. “You are about to push a bairn forth from your body. There must be pain if there is to be joy, daughter.”
The long summer’s twilight lingered until it was almost midnight, and then it grew briefly dark. The pains were coming faster and remaining longer, one barely fading away before the next. Elizabeth could feel a fierce pressure in her nether regions as her child struggled to be born. Droplets of sweat beaded her smooth forehead. Tendrils of blond hair, no longer fully constrained by her plait, hung limply about her face. A sharp pain, like a knife slicing into her vitals, tore through her. She screamed piteously with the hurt, her eyes like those of a trapped animal.
“Mama!” she cried.
“You are doing very well, Elizabeth,” her mother’s calm voice reassured her. But Rosamund was not as assured as she appeared. Her eyes met those of her son-in-law. She stood up. “I need to walk about a moment, dearest,” she said. “I will come right back,” she told her daughter. She patted Elizabeth’s cheek and moved away.
Baen was quickly by Rosamund’s side. “What is it?” he asked her.
“The child is very big,” Rosamund said, “and it is her first birth.”
“How can I help?” he wanted to know.
“Have you ever helped an animal to be birthed?” she queried him.
“Aye. One of my father’s prize heifers had difficulty with her first birthing. I put my hand up her to help the calf along.”
“Then you must, I think, do the same with Elizabeth’s bairn. If we could just get the head and shoulders free I believe she could do the rest,” Rosamund told him.
“The child is ready?” he wanted to be reassured.
“Aye, and growing tired with his efforts, I have no doubt,” she responded. “That is dangerous for them both, Baen.”
He nodded. “Then let us bring my laddie forth from his mother’s body,” he said.
They returned to Elizabeth, who was but half-conscious now. She opened her eyes. “What is the matter? Am I going to die, Mama? Is my bairn all right?”
“The lad is big,” Rosamund began.
“I knew that,” Elizabeth replied. “Did I not tell you he was big?”
“You need help in birthing him. You are growing weary with your efforts, and so is the bairn. Therefore his father must help him into the world, Elizabeth, and then you will complete the birth yourself,” Rosamund explained.
“No!” Elizabeth cried. “I can do this myself!”
“In God’s name, woman!” Baen roared at her. “I can take no more of this! I love you, Elizabeth. Do you understand what I am saying? I love you! I apologize to you for leaving you last October. I should have had the wit and the courage to ask my father if he would let me go. As it turned out he was more than willing, and my own foolishness cost me your love. I am sorry. But I will not allow your stubborn nature to cost you your life and that of our child! Now let me help you.”
Elizabeth was, for the first time in her life, rendered speechless. She collapsed back upon the hard bolster behind her back, watching as her husband washed his hands in the basin, and then covered one hand and part of his arm with olive oil.
“Tell me when you feel the next pain coming,” he said to her.
