Twilight of Avalon

by Anna Elliott

  Isolde saw a spasm, as of pain, pass over the other girl’s broad face, but before Hedda could reply, a quick, urgent knock sounded at the door. Isolde’s heart stopped, her whole body turned suddenly cold, and she saw Hedda freeze, too, her pale eyes turning blank, her face rigid as a wooden doll’s. Then the girl turned a questioning look to Isolde.

  Isolde pressed her eyes briefly shut. “Open it—please.” She kept her voice low. “If it’s Marche, or one of his men, any delay will only make them suspect something amiss.”

  Isolde had just time to jerk the traveling cloak from her shoulders and fling it in a crumpled pile beside the bed before the door opened. It was not Marche, though, nor even one of his guards, who stood outside, but Marcia, her thin, sharp-featured face resentful and sullen.

  “Well?” Hedda demanded fiercely. “What you want? You were told not to come here.”

  With the part of her mind not still paralyzed, Isolde thought that Hedda must have been more frightened than she’d shown, for her voice was unwontedly sharp, quicker and harder than her usual tones. Marcia flinched, then flushed angrily and turned to Isolde.

  “Forgive me, lady.” Her voice, already shrill with spite, added a sharp, ironic twist to the final words. “I’d not have troubled you tonight. Though I did see that my lord King Marche was already back in the great hall, so I thought—”

  She stopped, her face brightening with malice, the close-set eyes lingering, as Hedda’s had done, over Isolde’s face.

  So Marche had gone from her back to his drunken revels with his men-at-arms. And likely with the castle women, as well. A memory quivered behind the freshly constructed wall in Isolde’s mind, and the bile rose once more in her throat. She found that her fingers had snapped the fraying thread from the parcel she still held.

  “All right, Marcia,” she said with an effort. “What do you want?”

  The sullen look of resentment settled over Marcia’s face once more. “I don’t want anything. It’s one of the beggars who came for help yesterday. Your orders were whoever wanted to stay a night or two could bed down in the stables.”

  Isolde nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Well, one of the women—one of the breeding ones—says the babe’s on its way. It’ll come tonight, she says, for sure. She was asking for you. The guard on duty in the stables came to fetch me.” She stopped, her tone as resentful as her face. “Ordered me to go and give you the message that she begged you’d come. So here I am. Though maybe you’d rather wait for my lord Marche—”

  Marcia broke off. Isolde hadn’t spoken, but her eyes locked with Marcia’s, and the girl took an involuntary step back, looking suddenly frightened. With a bitter twist of something almost like amusement, Isolde saw the memory of her performance with the scrying bowl the night before pass across the other girl’s face. And then Marcia’s eyes fell. “I…I’m sorry. I’ll tell her you can’t come,” she muttered.

  But Isolde stopped Marcia before she could turn away. “No, wait. This woman. Is her name Dera?”

  “How would I know?” Marcia said. “Didn’t ask her name.”

  “Has she a mark on her cheek? Like a stain of wine?”

  Marcia looked surprised, then gave a grudging nod. “That’s her. All down one side of her face, it be. But what—?”

  “Then go back to her, now.” Isolde drew a steadying breath. “And tell her I’ll come.”

  DERA’S FACE LOOKED FLUSHED AND MOTTLED in the light of the lantern Isolde had brought, and her eyes were screwed tight shut as she lay in the grip of a pain. The refugees had been bedded in the open loft above the stalls, used for storing straw and hay, and big as the area was, the floor was still crowded for room, the air thick with the smell of the horses below, of hay, and of unwashed bodies packed close together in too tight a space. Dera’s hands were clasped tight over the swollen mound of her belly, and she breathed hard through her nose as the contraction tightened, reached its peak, and then finally eased.

  Watching, Isolde wondered whether she ought to have had her moved to one of the rooms in Tintagel’s guest hall. But that would need help—two strong men, at the least, to carry the laboring woman. And there was no one she could ask. The guards on duty tonight would be Marche’s men. The best she’d been able to do was hang sheets from the loft’s rafters, screening off this corner of the room.

  She could hear distant shouts and occasional bursts of laughter from the great hall across the courtyard, but the loft itself was quiet and still, the only sound the shiftings and mutterings of the sleepers around her, and sometimes a soft whicker from one of the animals in the stalls below. So far, Dera had not spoken nor even opened her eyes, but now, as the contraction passed, her eyelids flickered and lifted, and she licked her lips.

  “Here—drink this, if you can.” Isolde held one of the vials she’d brought with her to Dera’s lips—a distillation of skullcap and vervain to help the labor along.

  With Isolde supporting her shoulders, Dera swallowed the draft, then looked vaguely round. Instantly, she stiffened, dark eyes widening in alarm as she found the space beside her empty.

  “Jory?” she whispered. “My boy. Where—?”

  “He’s safe,” Isolde said quickly. “With Hedda, my serving maid.”

  Hedda and Isolde had found the boy crouched at his mother’s side, one filthy thumb thrust in his mouth, his face sullen but his eyes frightened and wide, uncertain whether the situation called for defiance or tears. Hedda had offered to stay, to help with the birth, but her face, as she looked down at the laboring woman, had held a look of taut, white fear that Isolde had never seen in her before. It might have been well for her to learn what she might about the birth of a child. But Isolde couldn’t have brought herself to make her stay.

  “Hedda’s taken him to the kitchens for some honey cakes.”

  Dera started to reply, but then bit her lip as another pain gripped her. When the pain had passed, Isolde wiped the sweat from the woman’s brow with a fold of her cloak.

  “How long since the pains came on?”

  Dera swallowed. “Since sunset. Not so strong as they are now, though. At first I thought maybe they’d stop. But now—”

  She broke off with a gasp, and Isolde saw the muscles of her stomach bunch and tighten as another contraction struck. This time, Dera drew her legs up, so that Isolde saw the smears of blood on her thighs, though her gown and the straw were both as yet dry. Her waters hadn’t yet gone, then.

  Isolde waited until the contraction had passed. Then she asked, “Will you let me see how far you are along?”

  ISOLDE SMOOTHED DERA’S GOWN, THEN TURNED away to wash her hands in the basin of water Marcia had brought. She’d felt the opening of the womb, thinned and softened, now, and open about half the area it must spread for the child’s head to be born. And she’d felt, too, just beyond the womb’s entrance, the hard, rounded shape of the baby’s skull. Head down, at least, and facing its mother’s spine. A small mercy, she thought.

  Very small.

  “My lady?” Dera’s voice made her look round. Do you think the child will come by morning, then?” She was between pains, but her tone was suddenly panicky, as though whatever she’d seen in Isolde’s look had made her afraid.

  Instantly, Isolde smoothed all expression from her face and said, with practiced, reassuring calm, “By morning at the latest. Likely even before. The second babe nearly always comes faster—though the pains may feel harder than with your little boy.”

  The fear ebbed out of Dera’s eyes and she nodded, her breath going out in a sigh. “By morning. That’s all right, then. Reckon I can stand anything that long.”

  Isolde started to speak, but stopped herself and asked instead, “Can you walk a bit, do you think? That will help bring the child’s head down.”

  ISOLDE HELD A CLAY JAR OF wine to the woman Dera’s lips, wiped the liquid that dribbled down her chin. They had walked an hour or more, circling the tiny space Isolde had managed to screen off
, Dera leaning heavily on her and stopping to pant and sometimes moan when one of the pains came on. Then, when the pains grew too strong for her to stand, Isolde had helped her to lie back on the straw.

  Hedda had sent Gwyn from the kitchens, a plump, red-haired serving girl with crooked front teeth and thickly lashed hazel eyes. Gwyn had offered to keep watch, as well, but Isolde had told her to get what rest she could.

  “I may have need of another pair of hands once the babe is born,” she had said. “But you can sleep until then. I’ll wake you if there’s need.”

  The girl was asleep now, curled in the straw a little distance away beyond the curtains beside a family of four. And Isolde sat, watching the laboring woman and occasionally wiping her brow, telling story after story in a low undertone. Whether Dera followed the tales, Isolde wasn’t sure, but she occasionally opened her eyes and smiled at the words. And so Isolde went on, remembering a time when she would have been glad of something to think on besides the ever-tightening clutch of pain.

  And the familiar cadence of the stories stopped her from thinking too much now, as well.

  “Lady?”

  Isolde looked down to find that Dera’s eyes were open.

  “I’m here. Do you want more wine?”

  Dera shook her head, teeth sunk in her lower lip as she fought for breath. Then: “Not called labor for nothing, is it?”

  Isolde was silent, as another memory—another one she’d never been able to lock away—rose in her. Of walking the floor through the night with the midwives, stopping to pant and bend double with the pain. Of the midwife’s hands on her belly, her voice in her ear. Push. Push with me, now.

  Isolde shook her head and wiped Dera’s face with a damp rag as another contraction struck. The pains were getting steadily longer, as well as closer together and increasingly strong.

  Dera groaned as the pain peaked, then lay back, gasping and panting. “It’s certain sure God must be a man. If ’e weren’t ’e’d have thought more on the way babes are born and come up wi’ a better way.”

  In spite of herself, Isolde smiled. “I know. And yet you’d never want to change—be born a man yourself.”

  Dera had slumped back in exhaustion, but at that she looked up, one eyebrow slightly raised. “So you say, my lady. There’s times when I’d give a good bit to be able to take a piss on the road wi’out getting my skirts all wet.”

  She sank back again, her eyes sliding closed. “But then it gives you patience to bear most things that come your way—and a mother needs enough of that, the good Lord knows.”

  Dera grimaced and shifted restlessly, trying to find a comfortable position in the straw. “There’s days when you’d give a king’s ransom to cram ’em back inside you again, just for the sake o’ knowing they’d not be causing trouble yet awhile. But then other times…”

  Dera’s mouth curved in fleeting echo of the smile Isolde had seen the day before, and, without opening her eyes, she lifted one hand gropingly to rest on the tightening mass that held the child. “Other times, you watch them while they’re sleeping and all of a sudden you’re crying like a babe yourself, though you don’t know just why.”

  Isolde’s own smile faded. “Dera—” she began. But Dera had caught her breath sharply, though not, this time, at the onset of a pain. Her eyes had flared wide, and she was staring over Isolde’s shoulder, her sweat-streaked face blanched. Isolde turned to follow the look, then froze, as well.

  The guardsman Hunno stood in the entrance to the blanketed-off square, his battle-scarred face stony, his eyes shadowed and dark in the lantern’s flare. Isolde stared at him a moment in silence. Later, she thought, later I’ll likely be frightened of him. If I let myself think about how and why he’s come here. Now, though, she was too angry for fear.

  “Get out,” she said. “This is no place for a man of your kind.”

  Hunno’s gaze didn’t falter, and he remained where he was, feet planted solidly, straddling the makeshift doorway. “Lord Marche’s orders. I’m to serve as your guard until you can attend my lord Marche in the king’s rooms.”

  Behind her, Dera whimpered briefly, though whether from fear or pain Isolde couldn’t tell. The next moment, though, Isolde heard the other woman give a low, urgent grunt she recognized at once.

  Isolde turned swiftly, and was in time to see Dera’s body convulse in a fierce spasm, her legs drawn up, her body curled tight around the child within. A sudden gush of fluid from between her legs soaked her gown and the straw on the floor and steamed in the loft’s chill air. Dera gave a wild, heaving cry, one hand flying out, palm up, the fingers splayed.

  “It’s all right.” Isolde held the groping hand tight. “Your water’s broken, that’s all. You must be nearly there.”

  She waited until the contraction had passed, then turned back to Hunno and said, her voice low and furious, “All right. If you’re to stay, you can lend us aid. Give me the sheep tallow from my scrip—there, on the floor. She’s going to need to push, soon, and her opening will have to be eased as the babe’s head crowns if she’s not to tear.”

  It might almost, Isolde thought, have been funny to watch Hunno’s face. Beside her, Dera gave another deep, urgent grunt, and then her body convulsed again, her mouth open and gasping, her face purpling with the strain. The guardsman had drawn back a pace, his blunt features rigid with distaste.

  Then, abruptly, he turned to Isolde and said, his voice harsh, “I’ll be outside. If you want to waste your time on a whore’s bastard brat, go ahead. But you get your own salve. That’s women’s work, not mine.”

  He turned and was gone, letting the curtain fall behind him. Probably, Isolde thought, he would sooner face a battle line of enemy Saxons than watch a single woman birth her child.

  The flash of bitter amusement faded, though, almost at once as she looked down at Dera’s flushed, sweating face. Soon, she thought. Soon the child will be born, and then she’ll know. And I don’t know even now whether I did right in not telling her before.

  Isolde dipped the cloth into the water jar one more time, wrung it out, then laid it on Dera’s brow.

  “It’s all right,” she repeated. She took Dera’s hand. “Push when you need to. It won’t be long now.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE CHILD WAS BORN JUST as the loft was beginning to lighten with the first gleamings of the dawn. Born in a rush of brown fluid and blood and one final, straining groan of effort from Dera. Isolde lifted the hot little body, slippery with mucus and blood, turned the child over to thump its back with the heel of her hand, even put her own mouth over the child’s and breathed softly into its lungs. It was no use, though. She’d known that from the first. Through it all, the child lay utterly limp and still, tiny legs and arms dangling, and beneath the smears of blood and the muck of birth, the babe’s skin was neither blue nor red, but waxen pale.

  Dera was struggling to sit up, her eyes terrified beneath the strands of sweat-soaked dark hair. She’d given birth before. She’d know what it meant that she’d not heard a cry. Dera’s eyes moved from Isolde’s face to the child’s tiny, motionless form, and she gave a little whimpering moan.

  Isolde eased the afterbirth free, pressed on Dera’s belly to expel the last of the blood. She wiped Dera’s face, tucked the woolen shawl about her shoulders, and held another vial to her lips. Mistletoe and bayberry, this time, to help stop the bleeding and prevent the hemorrhaging that could end a woman’s life. Through it all, Dera lay unmoving, eyes fixed and dull.

  Isolde lifted the child again. It was like handling a flower, or a fledgling bird. The joints of legs and arms felt as light and fragile as a sparrow’s bones beneath the nearly transparent skin. With the same slow care, Isolde wiped the little body clean of the blood and mucus of birth, then swaddled the child tight, as though it had indeed been alive and crying for the warmth of the womb like other newborn babes.

  Dera had still neither spoken nor moved, but when Isolde made to lay the child on her breast, s
he jerked violently away, turning her face into the blankets. Gently, though, Isolde forced the little bundle into her arms.

  “Take her. You’ll be sorry afterwards if you don’t.”

  At first Dera kept her face averted, her lips pressed tight together. But then, slowly, she turned her head to look down at the child. Its eyes were closed, the faint fringe of lashes dark against the waxen cheeks, the small mouth curved like a bow. Slowly, almost unwillingly, Dera’s hand lifted, smoothing the wisps of damp hair from the small rounded skull.

  “I was right, then,” she said. “’T’were a girl.”

  And then her voice broke, her face twisted, and a great, shuddering sob tore free of her throat.

  Isolde held her while the racking sobs ran their course, and at last Dera stopped crying and lay with her eyes closed, her breath coming in wet, snuffling gulps.

  “Maybe…maybe it’s for the best, after all.” Her voice was unsteady, but she raised her free hand to scrub furiously at her dripping nose and swollen eyes. “Don’t know how I’d have managed with two young ’uns, living on the road as we do.”

  Isolde was silent a moment. Then she said, “I can give you something to make you sleep, if you like.”

  Wordlessly, Dera nodded, and Isolde drew the little vial of poppy syrup from her scrip. She waited until Dera had swallowed the dose and lain back in the straw once more.

  “When your milk comes in, in a day or two, put your little boy to the breast. He’s young enough to suckle, still—and it will help keep milk fever away.”

  Dera’s eyes had been closed, but at that she looked up, gulped, then nodded dumbly. Isolde was silent, eyes on the tiny bundle in Dera’s arms. Then: “And when you’re able, listen to the pain. It will never go away. But listen to it, and it dulls enough that you can keep living, after a time.”