by Susan King
Michael glanced down at the pup and smiled weakly. “He wants his mother, I think.”
“Mungo said you had taken charge of a badly wounded seal,” Diarmid said. “He told me to bring your leather satchel, which I did—it is in the boat. But where is the wounded seal?”
Michael pulled slightly away to look up at him. “I only have one seal with me. He was wounded when he fell from a rock. His flipper was torn and bleeding, and a bone was broken inside.”
Diarmid frowned. Releasing her, he squatted down to grab the pup gently and firmly to examine the flipper.
Michael looked at the dark crown of his head, at the wide angle of his shoulders and back. Watching him, she felt love pour through her, banishing the fear, the uncertainties, the dark, awful memories that had haunted her for so long.
His mellow voice, murmuring silliness to the seal pup, soothed her like sweet music. She reached out and touched his hair, trailed her fingers down to rest on his shoulder. Love filled her silently, privately, glowing inside of her like a hearth while she waited for him to look at her.
He turned at last, his gray eyes shining in the greenish light. “This wound is partly healed. The edges are drawn together, and the clot is strong. I cannot feel a broken bone inside his flipper.”
“He is better,” she admitted softly.
Diarmid stood slowly, his gaze never leaving her face. “What did you do, Michael?”
She looked down at the seal, looked back at him. “I touched him,” she said. “I only touched him, and the power was there, suddenly, like—like lightning. The bleeding stopped, and the bone seemed to mend.”
Diarmid took her hands in his, pressing them between his palms as if he held something precious. “You have the power with you constantly. But you do not realize that. Brigit told me that the heat of your touch brought feeling and life back into her lame leg.”
“Brigit?” she stared at him in surprise, her hands caught in his. “But I only rubbed her legs, examined them—I never felt it pass through me into her.”
“When I went back last week, she told me that she had felt magic from you. She moves around quite well now, Michael. I want you to see how much stronger she has become.”
The words thrilled through her heart. He wanted her to go back to Dunsheen. She smiled up at him.
“Michael mine,” he said, “you have true magic within you.” His lips settled over hers as gently and purely as a dove coming down from the wing. Then he gathered her against him, slanting his mouth over hers, cupping the back of her head in his long fingers, plunging his tongue into the willing recess of her opened lips. She looped her arms around his neck and arched her body into his, gladly, lovingly.
The seal barked and shoved between them, stirring the wet hem of her gown. Michael hardly noticed. But Diarmid lifted his head. “Here’s Mungo,” he drawled, “and we are caught.” He placed his arm around her shoulders as they turned.
A second boat glided toward them, Mungo alternately pulling at the oars and waving. Diarmid waved back, and he and Michael waited until he pulled the boat nearer to the ledge.
“The seal is fine, and Diarmid is here,” Michael said. “You did not need to come down. Look how well the pup is now, Mungo.”
Mungo barely glanced at the seal. He looked up, his face pale and gaunt, devoid of humor. “Sorcha says she has begun her labor,” he said abruptly. “She sent me to find you both.”
Michael started in Diarmid’s arms. “Is she certain? She has had many alarms of late, but the labor has always stopped.”
“Not this time,” Mungo said. “Because you were out, she sent one of MacSween’s guardsmen to fetch the old midwife, who says the lady’s water has broken.”
Michael sent a rapid, concerned glance toward Diarmid. He frowned as he quickly and silently handed her into his own rowboat. He gave Mungo the little seal with an order to release it near the seal colony on the rocks, and then climbed in with Michael and took up the oars, pulling toward the narrow entrance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“She is nearing exhaustion,” Michael said quietly. “Hours of labor, and little progress.” She stood in the half-open doorway, leaning against the doorjamb as she spoke to Diarmid, who had been waiting in the passageway. He had come to her side as soon as she had opened the door.
She was grateful for his steadfast presence. Diarmid and Mungo had spent most of the past ten or so hours of Sorcha’s labor pacing the corridor. Mungo was not there; Michael assumed he rested, or had gone down to the great hall. “I wish I had better news for you,” she added, glancing over her shoulder toward the interior of the chamber.
Sorcha lay sunk in the soft feather mattress, her back and knees propped on pillows, her distended torso covered with a blanket. She slept fitfully; Michael had taken advantage of the respite to talk with Diarmid. She turned to him, resting wearily against the door.
Diarmid leaned a hand on the jamb beside her head. “You are exhausted too.” He reached out to brush at the strands of hair that slipped from beneath the clean white linen veil she wore; after returning from the sea cave, she had changed her stained, wet clothing to the other black gown and surcoat that she had brought with her. Freshened in clothing, she was not fresh in spirit, but she endeavored to hide that from Diarmid and Sorcha.
“I am fine,” she answered. His tender gesture was almost too much for her. Tired, discouraged, frightened, she needed to maintain her distance from him—or fall weeping into his arms. “The food Mungo brought up helped. Old Giorsal seemed to gain strength from it. And she has consumed most of the wine, so she is quite relaxed.” She pursed her lips tensely to avoid making a less kind remark about the midwife. Spending the day with the woman had proven to be a trial of patience and goodwill.
Diarmid lifted a brow. “What have you had to eat or drink?” She shrugged. “A little porridge, some ale, cider. Sorcha has had nothing but a hot herbal infusion and some honey, and she does not complain. Nor will I. Diarmid—” she stood straighter, remembering why she had come to the door. “Will you bring another infusion of the herbs I asked for earlier? Raspberry, columbine, chamomile, wormwood—”
He nodded. “I know the list. I will ask the cook to bring some more. She has kept it hot over the cookfire for you, along with kettles of broth and porridge and spiced wine. She is very concerned for her mistress, as are all the soldiers and servants in the castle. What else can I do for you?”
She hesitated, sighed. His presence outside the chamber did much for her, though he did not know that. “Only the infusion. And perhaps a little spiced wine,” she added, stepping back.
He caught her forearm with his long fingers. “Michael,” he said hoarsely, “let me help.”
She watched him, saw the pain in his eyes. “What can you do?” she asked. “What can any of us do? We have tried to turn the babe. Now we must wait and pray.”
He would not let her go. “The babe has still not turned?”
“Not yet.” A few hours ago, she had reported to him that the child’s poor position delayed the birth. “It lies sideways in Sorcha’s womb. Giorsal and I have tried to turn it from inside and outside. The child has shifted only a bit. They will both weaken if labor continues this slowly.”
“A breech can be delivered without harm to either mother or child,” Diarmid said. “Even if you can only get it to turn feet or buttocks first, it can be delivered safely.”
Michael nodded, and leaned forward so that her voice would not carry. “Giorsal is certain that neither one of them will survive,” she whispered miserably. She wanted his arms around her in that moment, so much. So much. Yet she remained still.
Diarmid sighed out harshly, but his fingers remained gentle on her skin. “I will get the infusion,” he said. “Then I am coming in there myself.”
“You cannot help,” she said. “Giorsal will protest.”
”Tcha,” he said in disgust. “Sorcha is my sister. I am a surgeon.” He paused. “I have attended a birth b
efore.”
As she looked at him, she saw his raw need, his determination, the awful depth of the hurt he felt. This difficult birthing brought back painful memories for him of the day Brigit was born.
“I will call you if I need you,” she said. “Thank you,” she added in a whisper, and pulled back, closing the door.
”Ach, I hope this lady has learned her lesson,” Giorsal muttered as Michael walked toward the bed.
She glanced at the woman in surprise. Giorsal sat on the window bench, her large, almost masculine form leaned against the wall. Past middle age, she was still tall and imposing, her physique large-boned and broad, her shoulders and arms as muscular as a man’s, her hips straight and her bosom large.
Her appetite was large, too. Giorsal had eaten all of the food Mungo had brought in earlier, but for a small portion of porridge, and had filled herself freely with wine and ale both. A little of the uisge beatha that Ranald kept in a sheep’s bladder in a wall cupboard had gone into the midwife, too. Michael saw the glint of its effect in the woman’s small blue eyes, saw the florid flush in her face.
“I think this will teach the lady,” Giorsal repeated.
Michael stopped. “Teach her what?”
“She should have banished her husband from her bed long ago,” Giorsal said. “A woman who suffers so with childbearing should go to a convent and live out her days in peace and content, never bearing another infant.”
“Hush yourself,” Michael hissed. “You should not say such things in her lying-in chamber. Has she asked for anything?”
“Only water,” Giorsal said, sighing hugely and leaning back. “I told her we cannot give that to her without she delivers a babe first. I told her last year not to bear another child, after the struggle I had to pull her through her last birth. That child was even earlier than this one, small and weak as a landed fish, a girl, hardly worth the trouble I spent trying to revive it.” She shook her head in a condemning way. “I told her not to do this again, on pain of her own life. She weakens each time, and suffers so after the babes die—”
“Be silent!” Michael whispered anxiously, glancing at the curtained bed. She heard only some panting, weary moans, and hoped Sorcha had not overheard the midwife’s cruel remarks. “You will be out of this chamber, and out of this castle, unless you speak with respect of the dead, and of this woman’s suffering!”
Giorsal hoisted her bulk to a standing position. “And who are you to tell me that, my lady?” she sneered. “I have attended all of Sorcha’s births. Ranald is my cousin, and I have done my best to save his weakling offspring and his whimpering wife. And now here you come, a green thing, to tell me midwifery!” She stepped toward her. “A physician? You? No woman would be allowed that office.” She turned away and shoved up her sleeves. “I will check the position of the babe. I know well how to do that,” she muttered, and walked over to yank back the curtains.
Giorsal leaned over Sorcha, patting her shoulder. “Time to wake up, my chick,” she said, not unkindly, and pulled down the covers to spread her large hands on Sorcha’s abdomen. She turned her hands this way and that, and frowned deeply. “No change,” she said. “I must check her inside.”
Sorcha half sat up. “Let Michael do that,” she protested.
Giorsal scowled and turned away abruptly. Michael nodded and turned to rinse her hands in a basin of warm water. Ibrahim, because of his Arabic training, had always taught the virtues of clean hands. Due to his gender, he had attended only serious, life-threatening births that often required surgery, but Michael had studied with him long before she spent time with midwives and discovered that most did not share her husband’s simple wisdom.
Slipping almond oil over her hands, Michael approached Sorcha. “I will be very gentle. I hope we can convince your child to turn.”
Sorcha nodded weakly and allowed Michael to probe her and place a hand on her belly. Michael felt the outline of a tiny head just under Sorcha’s left ribcage, felt shoulders, bumpy knees, the mound of the buttocks. Pushing gently, firmly, she tried to urge the child’s head downward, and felt a gentle patter of kicks below the heel of her outer hand as the child protested the disturbance. Sorcha cried out as a labor pain took her. Feeling the hard strength of the growing contraction, Michael withdrew her hands.
“Let me,” Giorsal said impatiently. She rubbed oil on her hands and placed them on Sorcha’s bare abdomen. “In the name of the Lord, I command you to turn, infant,” she called out in Latin. “Turn toward my voice!” She bent down then and spoke between Sorcha’s legs, this time in Gaelic. “Here, little child, come here. May God guide you and the devil be done with you.”
“The devil has nothing to do with my child!” Sorcha snapped. She tensed her face as a new contraction whipped through her. Michael bit back the angry retort she had for Giorsal, coaxing Sorcha patiently instead.
Just as Sorcha breathed out a long sigh that signalled her release from the grip of pain, Diarmid entered the room, carrying a tray with wooden bowls and a few cups. “Here is the infusion you asked for, and the spiced wine,” he told Michael.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Put it down there and leave,” Giorsal said haughtily.
Diarmid ignored her. “Sorcha,” he said gently, looking at his sister. “Shall I stay for a while, or shall I go?”
Sorcha reached for his hand as he approached the bed. “You should go, Diarmid,” she said in a low voice. “A man does not belong in a lying-in chamber.”
He leaned toward her. “I am a surgeon,” he said. “None of this disturbs me. If you need me to help, I will stay.”
“A man in a birthing chamber only brings bad luck,” Giorsal muttered. “A surgeon would mean a poor outcome for this woman. Be gone.”
Sorcha smiled weakly. “Mungo needs you, I think. He seemed very nervous earlier.”
“He is concerned about you.” Diarmid kissed her hand, brushed damp strands of hair away from her forehead. “I will be just outside,” he said. He looked across the bed at Michael. “Call me if you need me.”
She nodded silently and watched him go, her heart sinking just a little. Her own faltering strength, both physical and mental, seemed fortified when he was near.
“A comfort to have a surgeon just outside the door,” Giorsal remarked when the door was closed. “But I will pray that you will not need his services, Sorcha. Rest now. You have a long night ahead of you. We should all rest, and pray this babe is born healthy and whole by dawn.”
“My child will be here by then,” Sorcha said. “I know it.”
Giorsal grunted. She looked at Michael. “We should not be lax with christening this one,” she said. “If it comes out head first—which I doubt—I’ll baptize it even before it is fully born, and put salt into its mouth to keep the demons and fair folk away. Now I mean to rest. Call me if there is any progress.” She turned away to pour out a cup of the spiced wine. She drank it quickly, her swallows loud and satisfied, then went to the window seat and sank down with a sigh. Leaning back against the wall, she was soon snoring.
Michael fetched a cup of the herbal infusion for Sorcha, and held it while she sipped slowly. Sorcha seemed to relax within minutes, leaning her head back against the pillows that Michael had plumped behind her. She rested, but began to pant heavily when another contraction drove through her body.
“Michael,” she whispered when it was done, reaching out. “I fear that I will die this time. Giorsal thinks—”
Michael gripped her hand. “Do not listen to her,” she said. “I am here this time. Diarmid is here. You will both be fine,” she said firmly. Sorcha nodded wearily and seemed to sleep.
Thinking of Diarmid, who waited outside, Michael went out into the corridor. He stepped out of the shadows and opened his arms. With a small moan, Michael leaned her head against his chest, suddenly so exhausted that she feared she would tumble over. “I only have a moment,” she said. “She sleeps briefly.”
“Is there any change?
” He wrapped his arms around her.
She shook her head, drinking in his fresh strength like clean water for her soul. “The child has not turned.”
“Michael,” he said against her hair. “Use your touch to turn the babe.”
“I will try,” she said wearily, ashamed that she had not thought of it before. He kissed her forehead, his lips dry, gentle. The kiss made her want to cry suddenly. She stepped away from him and ran into Sorcha’s room.
Sitting on the edge of the bed in the silent room, Michael spanned her hands over Sorcha’s belly and closed her eyes. Her spirit seemed to sink into peace, into quiet, as if into a soft bed. She felt herself relax for the first time that day.
When the heat began, images came with it, surprising, distinct, filled with a warm light, golden, rosy, loving. She saw the child as it lay curled—saw its little face, pinched but serene, saw the fisted hands, the large belly, the knobby knees. She watched the head shift between tightly drawn, tiny hands, saw it kick out—and felt the kick beneath her palm.
She sucked in a surprised breath. The heat built in her hands until drops of sweat beaded on her brow, until she thought the heat would wake Sorcha. Beneath her hand, another kick, a shift, a bumping ripple of movement—she saw it even as she felt it under her hand, like a vivid dream playing out behind her closed eyes. Then the womb hardened and tightened beneath her hands, and the child stilled, curled tight, seemed to sleep.
Sorcha moaned, awoke for a few moments, fell back again into a heavy, exhausted sleep. Michael did not lift her hands, but the image of the child faded. She drew in long breaths, felt the heat, and then saw the child in her mind again, glowing, golden, tucked like a rosebud.
Wondering briefly if she dreamed this, she knew that it was part of the touching gift. She watched, and prayed, and hoped as the wondrous sight remained. Time drew out, softened, extended. She felt the womb harden again, saw the child curl, then saw it stir, felt the motion beneath her palm like the graceful passing of a fish.
