by Kris Tualla
She told Ingrid.
They laid hot cloths on the woman and prepared to deliver the child. It was her fifth birth and they expected it to go quickly. The woman began to strain and Sydney crouched at the foot of the bed while Ingrid held the clean rags. A dome of swirled red hair pressed and receded, pressed and receded.
Finally, it emerged.
Ingrid handed Sydney a rag and she wiped mucus from the squished nose and swept through the mouth.
“Do not push,” Ingrid instructed. “Let her help the baby out.”
Sydney worked one shoulder, then the other, and the tiny baby girl squeezed out. Sydney rubbed her with the rag until she gasped and cried.
The mother leaned up to see the child, then slumped back on the bed. “Enda et forbanner pike.” Another damn girl.
Ingrid swaddled the baby and handed her to the mother while Sydney waited for the afterbirth to expel. She tugged gently on the cut cord. “What is her name?”
The mother stared at her daughter. “Nora?”
“I like it.” Sydney smiled and looked at Ingrid. “Do you?”
“It is a beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” Ingrid stroked the drying red hair. The woman grimaced and grunted. “It is the afterbirth.”
“It hurts more than I remember.”
Sydney gave another tug and felt the organ release. She pulled it out and wrapped it in a rag. Water gushed from the woman.
Ingrid took the refuse from Sydney. “Check her again!” she demanded.
Sydney spread the woman’s legs and inserted her fingers. She felt a foot. “There is another baby!”
The woman’s eyes rounded. “There are two of them?” she squealed. “Twins?”
“Yes. But this one comes out wrong.” Knowledge of Nicolas’s experience sank like a hot stone in Sydney’s stomach. “What do we do, Ingrid?”
“We turn the baby. Can you push the foot back in?”
“I believe so…” Sydney pushed and the babe responded, withdrawing its appendage. “What now?”
Ingrid got the woman up on all fours on the bed, her belly hanging down.
“Reach inside and see if you can push the baby’s bottom away from the opening,” she instructed.
“Will you do it?”
Ingrid shook her head. “A midwife must know how to do this.”
Sydney forced her hand into the womb. The woman screamed her pain into a pillow while Ingrid rubbed her back and spoke encouraging words in her ear. Sydney felt the buttocks and pushed them toward the front of the woman’s body. The baby squirmed and resettled.
A powerful contraction squeezed Sydney’s hand with a strength that surprised her, cutting off her circulation. The woman began to cry in loud gasping sobs.
When her womb relaxed, Sydney pushed on the baby’s knees. It squirmed again. If Sydney had not had her hand there, it might have slid back into the upside down position. Sydney pushed yet again and the shoulder slipped into the opening.
Sydney sat back, wiped perspiration with her forearm, and shook out her hand. “Do not move. Almost.”
The woman wailed and Ingrid comforted.
Sydney leaned forward and put her hand inside the woman again. She closed her eyes and pushed the baby with as much force as she dared, in spite of the mother’s screams.
Her fingers walked along the shoulder, the neck and under the chin. She hooked her fingers under the chin and pulled the head toward her. The skull finally rested against the gateway to the canal.
“Push,” Sydney rasped.
The woman dropped to her side and strained. Ingrid held one leg in the air.
“Push, again.” She did. Again. Again. Again. Another swirled head of red appeared.
“The head is here. One more push.” Sydney wiped sweat again from her forehead.
“Can’t,” the woman gasped.
“One more push, the baby will come,” Sydney soothed.
The woman shook her head, “Can’t.” She began to sob.
Sydney looked to Ingrid, who only raised one eyebrow and waited. So she moved to the woman’s head and wiped her brow with a damp cloth.
“You have a beautiful daughter.” The woman’s irregular gasps punctuated Sydney’s words. “You have another child with red hair waiting to be born. Does your husband have red hair?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Is he handsome?”
“I think so.” She smiled a little.
“Do you think this one is a boy?”
Eyes underlined with blue quarter-moons snapped to hers. “Could it be?”
“They were in different sacks,” Sydney explained. “It is possible.”
The woman wiped her eyes. “I am so tired,” she sniffed. “It hurts so much.”
“I know. I’ve birthed children myself.” Sydney wiped her forehead again. The woman winced.
“Is it another pain?” Sydney asked.
The laboring mother nodded.
“If you work with it, your baby will come,” Sydney assured.
“All right,” the woman grabbed her knees. She drew three deep breaths and pushed, her face as scarlet and squished as the babe’s.
“Stop, now and rest.” Sydney wiped the nose and mouth. “Let me do it.” One shoulder, another shoulder, a red-headed boy. “You have a son!”
“Show me!” The woman looked over her belly.
Ingrid swaddled the infant and handed him to his mother. “What is his name?”
“Nils, I think. I shall have to ask my husband.”
“Nils and Nora. They go well together.” Sydney tugged at the afterbirth.
Thump-thump-thump.
“Gjertrud?”
Sydney pulled a sheet over the woman’s legs and nodded.
“Come in, Alfred.”
A red-bearded visage seeped around the door. His jaw dropped. “Is it the babe?”
“It’s twins, Alfred. A boy and a girl.” Gjertrud’s voice wavered, her expression unsure. “They’ve red hair.”
“Red-headed twins?” He crossed the room and stared at the babies. He slapped the top of his head. “Twins?”
“Are you angry?”
“No. Only surprised is all.”
Alfred stared at his children. “I suppose we shall need to name them.”
Gjertrud glanced at the women. “I had thought that the girl could be Nora.”
“I can bide by that. And the boy?”
“Nils. After my grandfather?”
Alfred nodded and sank to the edge of the bed beside his wife. “Nils and Nora,” he whispered. “Six children. How will we do?”
“We will do fine, Alfred. Somehow,” she said.
Sydney packed her leather bag and looked out the window. The world was white. “I need to go,” she said.
The woman turned to Sydney. “Thank you so much.”
Agnes waited at the table by the door. Sydney slid her sabots over her slippers and pulled her cloak around her.
“Lead me to the castle?” she asked and pulled her toque down over her ears.
Agnes nodded and they stepped into a world with no features.
Chapter Twenty Two
December 26, 1820
In good weather, the half-mile walk would take about ten minutes; Sydney thought they had been walking for almost half an hour. Her sabots were caked with packed snow becoming ice, and her slippers were soaked. Her toes had gone from aching cold to stinging burn to unfeeling. She had the back of Agnes’ cloak clenched in her gloved hand, though her stiff fingers grew numb as well. Snow caked her lashes as wind pelted them with icy confetti.
The women made their dogged way in the swirling snow that hid the world from them. They felt their way along buildings, then crossed empty space when they reached an intersection. They made two wrong turns and had to back-track when they discovered their errors.
Lacy, lethal, flakes blew past them, into them, around them, and under their skirts, carrying the storm’s frigid touch. Sydney pulled her toque as lo
w as she could over her ears. She tried to bury her stinging face in the collar of her cloak, but her breath froze on the fur. Agnes stopped and turned to her. They huddled close and rested, the steam of their breath warming their faces.
“Are we hopelessly l-lost?” Sydney’s voice spit past her chattering teeth.
Agnes shook her head. “This is the bakery that is in front of the fortress. We should be but ten yards from the gate.”
“Thank the Lord.”
Agnes stepped into the street. At least, Sydney assumed it was the street. She sunk into snow up to her knees, wetting her hose to her garters. The pretty white stuff was heavy and resisted her intrusion. She could not lift her knees high enough to take a clean step, so ended up kicking through the freezing banks.
The women pushed each other forward, arm in arm. Finally, the towering stone wall of Akershus Fortress appeared in front of them. But no gate.
“Which way is the gate?” Sydney shrieked over the wind.
Agnes looked one way, then the other. She pulled Sydney to the left. They stumbled next to the wall, and in its protection, until they reached the end.
They stood on the cliff that overlooked the harbor.
“No!” Sydney sobbed. She turned and stumbled back in the other direction, crying openly. She was exhausted. Her feet were numb, her face frozen. Her lungs burned with the frigid air. Her fingers bled as she grabbed the stone wall and put one foot in front of the other. Agnes followed, her fingers now gripping Sydney’s cloak.
Step, grab the wall. Take a breath. Step, grab the wall. Take a breath. Step, grab the wall. Do it again. Sydney’s eyes were on the invisible ground, her legs moved only by strength of her will; they had no will of their own. She squinted against snow pellets that pushed past her lashes and picked at her eyes.
Pushed beyond her ability, she stumbled. With a desperate cry, and no strength to catch herself, she fell, face first into the burning cold.
Steel arms wrapped around her waist and lifted her. They cradled her and carried her through the indiscernible landscape into the castle. The warmth inside burned her cheeks.
“Sydney? Sydney!”
She felt Nicolas’s voice vibrate in his chest.
“C-cold,” she pressed her face against his bulk. “Ag-agnes?”
“She is being cared for.”
Haldis helped Nicolas undress her and wrap her in blankets. They sat her with her back to the fire and bathed her feet in cool water.
“That is too hot!” Sydney yelped and pulled her feet back.
“No, Sydney. It’s cold water. It only feels hot to you.” Nicolas pushed her feet back in. “It is good that you feel it. Might you wiggle your toes?”
Sydney obliged, though she could not tell if she succeeded. “Are they moving?” she whispered.
“They are.” Nicolas immersed his hands in the basin and massaged her. Needles jabbed her thawing feet. She shivered uncontrollably and whimpered, unaware.
Haldis left and returned with a bowl of beef stew and a mug of wine, heated with the fire poker. Sydney’s hands shook, but she spooned the warm stew nonetheless, grateful to have it. As she ate and drank, she warmed. Nicolas hovered around her, silent, touching.
“Is Agnes all right?” Sydney asked again.
“She is fine.”
“She will stay the night at the castle,” Haldis added.
“Good.”
“Det vil være all, takker du,” Nicolas instructed Haldis. That will be all, thank you. She curtsied and shut the door behind her.
“Sydney!” Nicolas switched to English. “What were you thinking?”
“We did not know how bad the storm was until we were out in it. Then we had no choice but to keep going and find our way back.”
Nicolas shook his head in denial of her words. “This is not Missouri! The winter storms here are much colder! And they kill more easily!”
“It was not intentional.” Sydney’s lip trembled. “I did not try to die!”
Nicolas ran fists through his hair and rested them on his hips. “I know that, min presang. But…” His voice caught and he rubbed his face, hard. When his hands came away, his cheeks were wet.
One of Sydney’s hands emerged from her blanket cocoon and reached for him. After a moment’s hesitation, he took it and knelt beside her. He turned it over and kissed her palm. She felt the smooth, damp skin of his jaw. Her chest constricted with the realization of what nearly happened to her, and what it would have meant to him.
“I am so sorry, Nicolas,” she whispered.
He nodded and pressed his forehead against her arm. She kissed his hair and rested against it. After a long silence, his voice startled her. “Did the birth go well?”
She had forgotten all about it. “It was twins. One was coming out wrong.”
Nicolas sat back and stared at Sydney, his eyes black and his expression fearful. “And?”
“And I turned the baby.”
“You did?”
Sydney nodded. “Ingrid made me. She said any midwife would need to know how.”
“Will the mother survive?”
“She was fine when we left, and nursing both babes.”
“Truly?”
Sydney smiled, and a shiver passed through her. “Truly.”
Later, Nicolas summoned Haldis back and ordered tea and biscuits for Sydney. He forced her to finish both, then tucked her in bed with a hot stone at her feet. He sat with her until she drifted off to sleep in the early gloom of the swirling winter night.
***
“Was she found?”
“Yes, they made their way back to the gate eventually.”
“Thank you, Haldis.”
She curtsied and left.
He shook his head, muttering, “This is unaccaeptable.”
“I agree. Acting as midwife for a common tailor’s assistant? For the love of God, acting as midwife at all!”
“And the way she rides. Astride! After she saved Eirik’s wife, she has ridden astride on every hunt.”
“It’s unseemly, even for a commoner.”
“If Nicolas intends to be king, he must be made to see these flaws!”
“So, then, what do we suggest? I mean, if she changes her ways, what then? Do we still try to make him send her away?”
“I think we must.”
The men were silent.
“Vegard. That was nice work.”
He sounded shocked. “You are of a mind that was my doing?”
A shrug. “It frees Sigrid. She is of the correct lineage.”
“But she is past the age to produce an heir!”
“True. But he has an heir.”
“We agreed on a younger woman.”
He paused and leaned forward. “We did. But I know you well.” He shook his head. “Perhaps, too well.”
“I would never be so foolish as to admit to murder.”
“Of course not.”
“Not even to you.”
“I would not expect you to.”
A sideways glance. “But, we do understand each other?”
He smiled.
January 8, 1821
Nicolas, Karl and Espen entered the front door of the Cathedral School of Christiania. Lacking a building of its own, the Storting met in a tiered lecture hall there. About a hundred men, representing towns, rural districts, and the military, stood around the room in this, their first gathering in months. They talked, laughed and argued with each other until one man stepped to the podium. Nicolas urged his companions in that direction.
“May I help you gentlemen?”
“We have come from Anders Fredericksen,” Karl began.
“Oh yes! Our three royal candidates!” The man stuck out his hand. “Welcome to the Storting! I am Lord Wilhelm Christie, Speaker.”
“Sir Karl Fredericksen, Baron of Moss.” Karl shook Wilhelm’s hand.
“My pleasure, Sir Karl.”
“Espen Christian Canutesen, Duke of Lillehammar.”
/> Wilhelm tipped his head. “My pleasure, your Grace.”
“Nicolas Reidar Hansen, Greve of Rollag.”
“Ah! The American. I have heard about you!” Wilhelm shook his finger at Nicolas. “It is most pleasurable to finally meet you, Lord Hansen!”
“I trust that what you have heard is complimentary?” Nicolas smiled.
“Most of it,” Wilhelm said, one side of his mouth lifting. “If you gentlemen would not mind taking a seat in the front row, I shall introduce you.”
The three candidates sat, and Wilhelm pounded his gavel on the podium. The men in the room walked up the steps and sat in seats that seemed to be assigned.
“Welcome, gentlemen, to today’s session. I trust your holiday celebrations were exemplary and you all have returned, prepared to do business!”
Mumbles and chuckles swirled around the walls and dissipated.
Lord Wilhelm Christie continued, “I am pleased to announce that our royal candidates have joined us. I shall ask each of them to introduce themselves, and give us all a brief exposition on their personal qualifications for ascending to the soon-to-be restored throne of Norway.”
Applause peppered the air as necks craned to get a clear view of the three royal strangers. Karl stood first and approached the podium.
“Good day, sirs. I am Sir Karl Fredericksen, Baron of Moss,” he began.
Karl told the assembly about his mother and his relationship with his father, King Frederick. He talked about his education, and his military experience. He smiled as he told them about his young wife and children.
And then he spoke of Norway.
He told of his love for the people, sturdy and strong. His love of the land: deep clear fjords clawed by God’s own fingers into the most magnificent mountains to be found anywhere. And the North Sea, the cold, turbulent and unforgiving source of so many of their citizens’ livelihoods. He spoke of his understanding of Norway’s past and his hopes for her future. His words silenced the men; a few wiped their eyes. He talked for more than half an hour and when he finished, they stood and thundered their approval.
“Shall we crown him today?” Espen said under his breath.
Nicolas wished to go last, so he spoke in his cousin’s ear, “It is your turn to impress them.”
