Camelot & Vine

by Petrea Burchard

  Pawly giggled.

  “I don’t mean to take anyone’s place,” I said.

  “You’ve done right by my father.” Medraut patted my arm, a touch I endured with discomfort. “You saved his life. You deserve his recognition. Yet it must have been so terribly difficult for you to kill a fellow Saxon. Did you know the man? Was he a friend of yours? Or was he of a different tribe? Did that matter?”

  I didn’t like this twist of conversation. “It mattered.”

  “How did you know about the raid on my father’s party?”

  “You mean—”

  “When you saved his life. How did you know to find them near the Giant’s Ring?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Your magical perception. Of course. Well, here we are. Good night, mistress.”

  Medraut gave a deep, respectful bow. His companion did a clumsy imitation and off they went.

  I stood outside my hut holding my torch, wondering if I had time to wait until the coincidence of full moon, lightning and rain.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Birds chorused in the high branches above Myrddin’s dell. Bugs strafed the flowers, seeking. While squatting beside a basket to gather tinder at the edge of the pulsing woods, I heard giggling on the path.

  “Casey! I’m so glad you’re here,” Elaine called from beyond the huts. With the aid of Heulwen and Drostan, she hobbled along in high spirits. “I cannot see my feet!” she said, launching herself into more giggles. Her laughter continued until the next cramp.

  “The baby’s coming,” said Lynet, catching up at a trot and scaring the chickens off the path. She was taking the situation seriously. “We need to find Beatha.”

  “I saw her earlier,” I said, “she’s—”

  “Just here.” The female orderly called from where she stood in the doorway of the largest infirmary hut, opening her arms. She squinted her elfin face into a smile.

  “Is Guinevere coming?” I asked.

  “She’s putting the cart in Myrddin’s barn.” Lynet sighed. “The servants would’ve done it for her.”

  Heulwen helped Elaine to the threshold, where Beatha pulled the curtain aside.

  “Thank you, Drostan,” Elaine chirped, letting go of his arm. She and Heulwen disappeared into the hut, leaving me outside with Beatha and Lynet. Drostan lumbered off to the garden.

  I wanted to follow him. “I’ll go tell Lancelot.”

  “He knows,” said Lynet.

  “We’ll need a birthing spell,” said Beatha.

  “I’m not supposed to practice magic.”

  Beatha’s forehead wrinkled. “What kind of wizard doesn’t practice magic?”

  “King Arthur’s orders,” I said.

  She sighed, exasperated. “Then I’ll do it. Men know nothing about bringing babies. In any case, Mistress Casey, bring the herbs, if you will.” She tossed the curtain aside and marched into the hut, calling, “Heulwen, water from the barrel, please.” Within seconds Heulwen strong-armed the curtain, bustling out of the hut and across the garden.

  I didn’t know which herbs to bring. I leaned against the outside of the hut. With the exception of the business inside, the dell was quiet. It appeared to be empty, too.

  A long, low “owoooh” came from the hut. It filled the air then trailed off, leaving the dell empty of sound.

  “Oooh! Ow!”

  Couldn’t they give her something for the pain? Willow bark tea. Maybe that’s what Beatha meant. But she’d spoken of a spell, not a painkiller. How often did women die in childbirth in the Dark Ages? As often as not, was my guess. I’d better find Myrddin.

  I ran across the garden, disturbing the rosemary and rousing its pungence. Heulwen rushed past me on her return. I burst into Myrddin’s laboratory and found it empty. When I ran out I climbed onto the bench to search the dell for him. The garden, lush in summer fullness, simmered in the sun. No leaves rustled. No bee buzzed in the lavender. Even the rosemary I’d disturbed had settled into stillness. There was not an orderly in sight. I had no idea what herbs Beatha needed. Myrddin grew a hundred different ones for his medicines and experiments. The old man had vacated the dell. I was on my own.

  “Do you want to know about it?”

  Drostan squatted beside the bench, huge and squinting. I should have known he’d be there. He was a constant presence in the garden unless Myrddin needed him to move something large, like a wagon or a fallen tree. Drostan was like a bear—whether teddy or grizzly depended upon Myrddin’s needs of the moment.

  “Do I want to know about what?”

  He pointed to where I’d been staring. A fuzzy plant. “Milfoil. For telling the future. And for healing wounds.” He frowned.

  “Oh. Would you know...? Beatha needs to make a birthing spell.”

  He pursed his lips and gave it serious thought, then stood and stomped away. I jumped down and followed him. He stopped to point at a plant with purple flowers and dark berries. “Belladonna.” His heavy brow furrowed. “Not for birthing. Don’t eat it. It can make you die.” He pointed at a leafy bush across the path. “That’s goose-foot,” he said with a soft lisp. “Cleans you out.” That made him giggle like a third grader.

  “This. Lavender.” Drostan picked a sprig. “When a baby comes, the women boil this. It smells good. If you chew it, you won’t fart.” He slashed off a thick bouquet with his knife, tied it with a stem and handed it to me. “Here,” he said. He stooped to yank a fistful of tiny leaves on springy stems. “For you. Thyme. Put your head on it when you lie down at night for sweet dreams.”

  I took a whiff. It smelled of grass and wood. I tucked the thyme into my fanny pack. “Thank you, that’s sweet of—”

  Drostan gasped and stood at attention, instantly forgetting me.

  A ghostly figure, dressed in white, emerged from the woods. Without turning its head, it strode past the birthing hut and floated across the garden to stand before us. Drostan bowed in reverence.

  Guinevere failed to notice. “I had to see to the cart.”

  “They’re all in the hut over there.”

  “I don’t think I can go.” She shrank onto the bench, expressionless.

  I waved the sheaf of lavender like a sorry excuse. “I have to—”

  “—Mmhmm.”

  Drostan folded and unfolded his hands in a chaos of veneration. “If...if you’re not going to the birthing, would your majesty like to see the garden?”

  -----

  The closest I’d ever been to a birth besides my own (at which, I understand, there were enough drugs for everyone) was playing Nurse #2 in the episode of the soap opera “Blanche’s Family,” when Blanche’s daughter had her out-of-wedlock baby. Every bit of it was fake including the baby, the blood and the pain.

  Heulwen had built a fire on the ground outside the hut. She squatted to stir the embers under a pot of water, unmindful of dirtying her tunic. A few yards away, Guinevere strolled with Drostan in the herb garden, creating what I knew would be the best day of Drostan’s life. We had the dell to ourselves.

  I hesitated at the threshold of the hut. “I wonder where everyone is,” I said, not to Heulwen, but not to anyone else, either.

  “The men have gone.”

  “They sure checked out fast.”

  She shrugged her broad shoulders. “We don’t need them for this part, mistress. Mind if I ask, do Saxon men participate in the birthing?”

  “No, they—”

  A moan from Elaine momentarily relieved me of the remainder of the lie. But Heulwen waited for my answer.

  “...they wait. Outside.”

  She nodded as if that reassured her that Saxon men were normal.

  “I guess I’ll go in.” If my friends believed in the powers of lavender, they would have lavender.

  Again Elaine yowled, then again, louder. I touched the curtain over the entryway, its undyed threads coarse against my fingers. This part of being a woman had never been part of me. The sex I’d had in my life had been unrelated to childbeari
ng, at least in my mind. As fraught as it was with birth control pills, lotion and self-loathing, how could sex have anything to do with the life of someone else?

  I pulled the curtain aside. With her back to me, Elaine lay heaving on the floor on a pile of blankets, gasping for a breath of what was mostly lamp smoke. Lynet purred at her side. A muslin rag covered the only window, letting the tiniest bit of daylight filter through.

  “Good. You’ve brought the lavender,” said Beatha, glancing up from her vantage point between Elaine’s legs.

  “Yes.” I thought I should whisper. Beads of sweat trickled down my backbone. I took a seat on the bench by the window to let my dizziness fade. Wiping sweat from my forehead with my sleeve, I tried not to look at Elaine. Her breathing filled the room.

  “Could we open the curtain?” I asked.

  “She’ll get cold.” Beatha didn’t look up.

  I waited, hoping it wouldn’t take long.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Heulwen, Lynet and I took turns helping Elaine to sit up, which required one of us on either side of her. She struggled to squat as Beatha wanted her to.

  From that position Elaine would push and cry herself to exhaustion then lie on her pillows, soaked in sweat and the sticky liquids of herself. Sometimes she’d nod off. Then the wrinkles in her forehead would smooth and her powdery pink cheek would squish against the back of her hand. Those times were the least overwrought, the times when Elaine didn’t hurt, or at least wasn’t conscious of hurting. Heulwen would sleep then, too, snoring softly on the bench. Beatha would nap if and when she could, leaving Lynet and me to shoo away the tiny flies that hovered at Elaine’s nostrils.

  In the deep hours I stepped outside to a moonless night. The forest appeared black, as though the stars had decided it was too much trouble to light everything and had therefore concentrated all their efforts on the garden.

  “Casey.” In the shadow of the forest’s edge, Guinevere beckoned from among the trees. I walked the path to her, listening for sounds from the birthing hut. Guinevere had borrowed a cloak, no doubt from Drostan or one of Myrddin’s helpers in the settlement atop the stone steps. She shivered a little. “How is she?”

  No one had said it, but the baby was fighting to escape and Elaine hadn’t the strength to free it. “Things don’t seem right.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just...I think it’s taking too long and hurting too much. I guess Beatha knows what to do.”

  “She does.” Glancing toward the hut, Guinevere patted my arm as if to reassure us both. “Elaine is made for motherhood. I don’t believe I have any talent for it.”

  “Is that why you don’t go in?”

  “No.” She expelled a sharp sigh. “I’m afraid,” she said, smiling in spite of herself.

  “Childbirth scares me, too.” Not that there was a chance I’d ever bear a child.

  “Not of birth. Of mothering. And—” she blinked upward, deciding whether or not to tell me, “—and I’m jealous of my friend.”

  Her unexpected honesty warmed me to her at the same time it honored me. I had never enjoyed such confidences.

  “I’m sure you don’t mean that.”

  “She’s having his baby.” With her small fingers, Guinevere dabbed tears from the corners of her eyes.

  Arthur had ordered me not to speak of Guin’s affair with Lancelot. But Arthur wasn’t there.

  She gazed at me, bright-eyed, stricken by a sudden thought. “Casey,” she whispered, “can you help me get pregnant? I’ve got to conceive. I’ve tried,” her cheeks reddened, “with both of them.”

  “Shh! Guinevere, we can’t speak of it.”

  “It’s the one skill required of me, other than looking pretty and entertaining Arthur’s allies. That is challenging work,” she added with a wry smile, “but I find I’m able.” Her hands gripped mine in a plea. “There must be a potion. Something.”

  “The king has ordered me not to use magic,” I whispered.

  She sighed and let her hands drop, her eyes filling with tears. “Then I’m lost.”

  “That can’t be.”

  She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and waved me away. “I shouldn’t have asked. It was dangerous. Please don’t speak of it.”

  “Of course I won’t.”

  The air stilled, as though the leaves were listening. The silence of the forest floated to us from a windless distance. I wanted to help her, but I knew nothing of fertility. If there were a potion, however, Myrddin would know. “Though it might be possible.” I should have consulted with Myrddin before saying so, but I was never one to stop my mouth from moving when words were on their way out of it.

  “Oh, Casey!”

  “Guinevere. I can’t promise.”

  “Thank you for understanding.”

  She had a role to play and she was faking her ability to play it. Sure, I understood.

  “And it’s time you called me Guin, as the others do.”

  Permission to be her friend. I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted it.

  She sniffled, feeling better. “You?” she asked, after a pause. “No children for the wizard?”

  “No. I learned mothering from the worst.”

  “How so?”

  “I just wasn’t a priority for her.”

  “But you’re not like her, are you?”

  I stabbed a toe at the underbrush. “I try not to be.”

  Guinevere smiled and leaned back against the nearest trunk. I did the same. We faced each other, dwarfed by the giant trees, our skin blue in the starlight. Even there, at the edge of the woods, the underbrush was so thick I couldn’t see my shoes.

  “My mother was good and gentle,” said Guin, her eyes closed.

  “You’re like her, then. You’ll be a good mother.”

  She opened her eyes. “With the help of your potion, I will.”

  “Casey!” Heulwen shouted from the hut. “We need you!”

  I ran, and Guin ran with me.

  -----

  Inside the hut, the stink of armpits and breath struck us, as did the yeasty smell of the womb, the same smells I’d stifled all my life with deodorants, mouthwash and scented tampons. Elaine seemed to sleep while Lynet furiously patted her cheeks and Beatha rushed to clear the floor of rags and debris, throwing everything onto the bench. Guinevere, her skin pearl-colored in twilight, set her shoulders and took her place, dabbing Elaine’s brow with a cloth. Beatha shoved Lynet aside more roughly than I would have thought possible for such a tiny woman. Her movements betrayed her anxiety but her voice did not. “Prepare the herbs, Mistress Casey.”

  “But I’m not supposed to—”

  “You must!” Beatha pressed on Elaine’s breastbone with one hand and pumped her heart with the other.

  Heulwen rushed in, holding the hot handle of the pot with the folds of her tunic. “Here’s for the lavender, Casey,” she said, placing the pot on the table.

  I didn’t know what to do, only that I must do something. With my heart pounding, I clawed through the rags and stones and bits of animal skin Beatha had thrown on the bench until I uncovered the bouquet of lavender.

  Elaine woke, coughing though her sobs. I hesitated by the window with my herbs until her coughing subsided into whimpers. She’s all right, I thought. I don’t have to do anything.

  “Mistress Casey.” Beatha was squatting between Elaine’s legs, staring at the girl’s vagina like a cat waiting at a mouse-hole. “Now.”

  I dragged myself to the dark corner where the pot sat steaming on the table. There, I turned my back to the room. I considered telling them I had no magic so they’d give me a real task, something meaningful to do. But my shame was too great.

  With a movement one might use to rip the head off a doll one hates, I twisted and tore the tops off the lavender and threw them into the pot. For a second of steam, the earthy, sweet smell of hot lavender defeated the room’s miasma. I sniffed and waved my arms in ways I hoped appeared mysterious. The wor
d “abracadabra” came to mind, but I kept my mouth shut. My arm-waving and head-bobbing were disrespectful enough. I gripped the rough edge of the table, hating myself for pretending when Elaine’s life was at stake. Why didn’t I run into the woods, up the mossy steps, shouting for Myrddin all the way? Running and shouting would be more useful than cowering in the corner of the hut, even if no answer came.

  I’d been just as helpless at my father’s deathbed, but no one expects magic from a thirteen-year-old. My father and I were in his study when he collapsed. I ran for my mom, whose reaction was, “Shut up, I’m on the phone.”

  I told her he was dead but he wasn’t, yet. He hung on in the hospital for a few days, white skin against white sheets. I wanted to stay by his side every minute. I wanted to be there when he woke up. I thought he needed me more than her; I didn’t know my mother would grieve because he had never loved her the way she wanted him to. While she waited for him to die, I waited for him to live.

  But a kid has no control over those things. I went to the hospital when my mom had time to take me. While she visited with the nurses I held my dad’s hand and waited. I had so much more to say to him. I don’t remember where we were when the call came—the grocery store, the beauty shop, nowhere important. He died when I wasn’t there with him.

  I would be there for Elaine.

  I wiped my eyes. Elaine lay motionless on her pillows, the rise and fall of her chest barely discernible. Lynet kissed her hand and Guin stroked her hair. Then she dragged in a breath and clutched Guin’s arm, willing herself up to a squat where her friends let her use them for balance.

  “Push now, dearie. Push hard,” Beatha growled softly.

  Elaine pushed. She strained, from dirty toenails that gripped the soaked-but-not-bloody blankets, through her fleshy, white thighs, naked from the waist down, where moisture gleamed but where no babe emerged. She bit her lip and panted. Wet trails, where tears had traveled, led from the corners of her eyes to her ears.

  “The baby’s coming,” said Beatha, “just a bit more now, don’t stop.”