“I think we got here just in time,” Claire murmured, looking at her daughter with a practiced eye. “It isn’t going to be much longer.”
“I confess to some gratitude at your prompt arrival,” he said, letting her ease him back onto the pillows and smooth his bedding. “I have barely survived the experience of being your daughter’s nursemaid; I fear serving as her midwife would finish me completely.”
“Oh, I nearly forgot.” Claire reached into a nasty-looking leather pouch around her neck. “Brianna said to give this back to you—she won’t need it anymore.”
He held out his hand, and a tiny spark of brilliant blue fell into his palm.
“Jilted, by God!” he said, and grinned.
64
BOTTOM OF THE NINTH
It’s like baseball,” I assured her. “Long stretches of boredom, punctuated by short periods of intense activity.”
She laughed, then stopped abruptly, grimacing.
“Ugh. Intense, yeah. Whew.” She smiled, a little lopsidedly. “At least at baseball games you get to drink beer and eat hot dogs in the boring parts.”
Jamie, grasping at the only part of this conversation that made sense, leaned forward.
“There’s a crock of small beer, cool in the pantry,” he said, peering anxiously at Brianna. “Will I fetch it in?”
“No,” I said. “Not unless you want some; alcohol wouldn’t be good for the baby.”
“Ah. What about the hot dog?” He stood up and flexed his hands, obviously preparing to dash out and shoot one.
“It’s a sort of sausage in a roll,” I said, rubbing my upper lip in an effort not to laugh. I glanced at Brianna. “I don’t think she wants one.” Small beads of sweat had popped out quite suddenly on her wide brow, and she was looking white around the eye sockets.
“Oh, barf,” she said faintly.
Correctly interpreting this remark from the look on her face, Jamie hastily applied the damp cloth to her face and neck.
“Put your head between your knees, lass.”
She glared at him ferociously.
“I can’t get…my head…near my knees!” she said, teeth clenched. Then the spasm relaxed and she took a deep breath, the color coming back into her face.
Jamie glanced from her to me, frowning worriedly. He took a hesitant step toward the door.
“I expect I’d best go, then, if you—”
“Don’t leave me!”
“But it’s—I mean, you’ve your mother, and—”
“Don’t leave me!” she repeated. Agitated, she leaned over and grabbed his arm, shaking it for emphasis. “You can’t!”
“You said I wouldn’t die.” She was staring intently into his face. “If you stay, it will be all right. I won’t die.” She spoke with such intensity that I felt a sudden spasm of fear clutch my own innards, hard as the pain of labor.
She was a big girl, strong and healthy. She should have no great trouble delivering. But I was large enough, healthy as well—and twenty-five years before, I had lost a stillborn child at six months, and nearly died myself. I might be able to protect her from childbed fever, but there was no defense against a sudden hemorrhage; the best I could do under such circumstances would be to try to save her child via Caesarian section. I resolutely kept my eyes off the chest in which the sterile blade lay ready, just in case.
“You’re not going to die, Bree,” I said. I spoke as soothingly as I could, and put a hand on her shoulder, but she must have felt the fear under my professional facade. Her face twisted, and she grabbed my hand, clinging so tightly the bones rubbed together. She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose, but didn’t cry out.
She opened her eyes and looked straight at me, her pupils dilated so that she seemed to be looking past me, into a future that only she could see.
“If I do…” she said, putting a hand to her swollen belly. Her mouth worked, but whatever she’d been meaning to say couldn’t force its way out.
She struggled to her feet, then, and leaned heavily on Jamie, her face muffled in his shoulder, repeating, “Da, don’t leave me, don’t.”
“I willna leave ye, a leannan. Dinna be afraid, I’ll stay wi’ ye.” He put an arm around her, looking helplessly over her head at me.
“Walk her,” I said to Jamie, seeing her restlessness. “Like a horse with colic,” I added, as he looked blank.
That made her laugh. With the ginger air of a man approaching an armed bomb, he put an arm around her waist and towed her slowly around the room. Given their respective sizes, it sounded a lot like someone leading a horse, too.
“All right?” I heard him ask anxiously, on one circuit.
“I’ll tell you when I’m not,” she assured him.
It was warm for mid-May; I opened the windows wide, and the scents of phlox and columbine flowed in, mixed with cool, damp air from the river.
The house was filled with an air of expectation: eagerness, with a hint of fear beneath. Jocasta walked up and down the terrace below, too nervous to stay put. Betty put her head in every few minutes to ask if anything was needed; Phaedre came up from the pantry with a jug of fresh buttermilk, just in case. Brianna, her eyes focused inwardly, merely shook her head at it; I sipped a glass myself, mentally checking off the preparations.
The fact was that there wasn’t a hell of a lot you needed to do for a normal birth, and not the hell of a lot you could do if it wasn’t. The bed was stripped and old quilts laid to protect the mattress; there was a stack of clean cloths to hand, and a can of hot water, renewed every half hour or so from the kitchen copper. Cool water for sipping and brow-mopping, a small vial of oil for rubbing, my suture kit to hand, just in case—and beyond that, everything was up to Brianna.
After nearly an hour’s walking, she stopped dead in the middle of the floor, gripping Jamie’s arm and breathing through her nose like a horse at the end of a twenty-furlong race.
“I want to lie down,” she said.
Phaedre and I got her gown off, and got her safely onto the bed in her shift. I laid my hands on the huge mound of her belly, marveling at the sheer impossibility of what had happened already, and what was about to happen next.
The rigidity of the contraction passed off, and I could clearly feel the curves of the child below the thin rubbery covering of skin and muscle. It was large, I could tell that, but it seemed to be lying well, head down and fully engaged.
Normally, babies about to be born were fairly quiet, intimidated by the upheaval of their surroundings. This one was stirring; I felt a small, distinct surge against my hand as an elbow poked out.
“Daddy!” Brianna reached out blindly, flailing as a contraction took her unaware. Jamie lunged forward and caught her hand, squeezing tight.
“I’m here, a bheanachd, I’m here.”
She breathed heavily, face bright red, then relaxed, and swallowed.
“How long?” she asked. She was facing me but not looking at me; she wasn’t looking at anything outside.
“I don’t know. Not an awfully long time, I don’t think.” The contractions were roughly five minutes apart, but I knew they could continue like that for a long time, or speed up abruptly; there was simply no telling.