by Aimee Gross
“Do you know birthing? Or can I take Virda down?” I was thinking fast, who to leave and who to take, and what to do about Gevarr if we had to be gone.
“I don’t think Virda’s recovered enough to be out. She can stay here with Morie and you and I will go.”
She was thinking fast, too, and did not mention Gevarr. “Gather what you need,” I told her, and, leaving Ticker standing at the door, went to Gevarr’s alcove with a length of rope.
“I’m going to hobble you, now.”
“Am I not hobbled enough already? What’s happened?”
“Put your hands out.” I bound his wrists, in front of him, though, so he could lie on the pallet. His fingers were swollen enough that I did not believe he could pick out the knots. His ankles likewise, I tied so that he could lie but not maneuver to stand. I set Wieser on guard. “If you need a trip to the privy, you’ll have to wait until I get back and take you—or not and you’ll deal with cleaning up later. Don’t ask the others for help.”
“Where are you off to?”
“Woman’s … work, gone ill in the village. I can’t let Annora go alone.”
“No, better you go with her. I won’t make trouble.”
I nodded, and set about putting on my heaviest winter gear. Tinker had brought their sleigh at least, so we would ride down to the village, but we would need everything we had to combat the cold. I brought along the sword and a lantern, thinking we may not return by dark. Morie chattered about a baby and wanted to come down and see it. Annora packed her herbs and some other mysterious things into a bag, under constant narration from Virda. It was a relief to shut the door and step into the freshening wind.
Ticker bundled us into the sleigh and set off, with a constant refrain of, “It’s my fault, it’s the ill-luck from the fox. Mum has to be alright, oh, we have to hurry,” in time to the muffled hoof beats of the stocky cob which pulled us along. I noted rags wrapped about the harness bells to silence them, and questioned him.
“It’s so the soldiers can’t hear. Ranks of them came through on the way to the harbour, but Mum thinks some may yet be about on patrol. They’d take the sleigh, they took so many wagons and such. Mum didn’t want to send me out, she waited overlong, but then she said I just had to go. We have to hurry!” He clucked to the horse, already trotting, and traveling as fast as was safe coming down the steep road on runners. I heard wing beats overhead, and Gargle settled on the back of the sleigh.
“Bad omen!” cried Ticker, lifting his whip to strike the bird.
I caught his wrist. “No, no omen. This crow has been living with us for months, sort of a watch dog.”
“But I saw you had a dog.”
“Yes, but I had to leave her for Virda and Morie. This crow will sound off if soldiers are about.”
“You can train a crow to do that? We need one, too,” Ticker decided, glancing aside at Gargle. The bird, for its part, seemed to relish the rush of cold air in its face without the work of flying. I suspected laziness.
“Ticker, how long has your mum been laboring?” Annora asked, voice hard to hear through the scarf she held to her face. “Is the baby early, or is it time?”
“Two days,” he said miserably. “It only took short hours overnight for my two younger brothers. I woke up and they were born already. I think it’s about her time, midwinter or so.”
Annora did not ask more, but met my eyes with worry in her own. Ticker took up his “we have to hurry” chorus again, while I wished I was on some other errand. Such as one I knew anything about.
Ticker unloaded us at the side door to the forge, and took the sleigh around back to hide it. Not a soul stirred in the village, and no candles glowed in the windows that faced the road. Annora and I went in and through to the living quarters attached to the smithy’s shop, and I called out, “Hullo, the house! We’ve come to help you.”
The miller’s wife, red-faced with wisps of gray hair escaping from her linen cap, reached out the door to pull us in. “Where’s Midwife Virda? What’s this?”
“I’ve attended my share of births. Virda is too ill herself to come tonight,” Annora said as she unwound her scarf.
“You’ll need all your skill with this one. Come with me,” she said, and left me standing just inside what proved to be the keeping room, while she took Annora’s bag and led her to the door opposite.
Ticker’s two younger brothers sat on a bench facing the hearth, eyes dark with fear. The older brother paced to and fro behind the bench without pause. There was a sister or two, as well, I remembered, but they would likely be aiding their mother. It was warm with a bright fire in the grate, so I began to take off my heavy clothes.
Ticker came in, stamping snow off his boots. “Has it come?” he asked immediately. All the heads shook in response.
“She’s not crying out any more,” the oldest boy said. He looked a couple of years older than me. I wondered if her silence was a good sign, or ill. I had never been to a birth, and avoided listening if ever Mum talked of any with Virda within my hearing. I gathered there were hazards for both mother and babe, and that some births were easier while others were made difficult by any number of problems. Virda once said what war was to men folk, birthing was for women. I did remember that, sitting there, and then wished I hadn’t.
We were comfortable by the hearth, until the daughter Gefretta, one of those who used to come up to trail about after Wils, came bustling in. She threw open the window and swung wide the door to the shop. She then took up the knife from the block—“To cut the pain,” she said—and hurried back toward the bedroom. One of the boys stood to close the window, and she snapped, “It’s to open the way for the baby!”
I did not see how this would help, since the baby would not come through window or door, but I had no experience in birth chambers and was not going to contradict. Instead, I handed my cloak and scarf and other gear around, so we didn’t freeze while waiting.
Annora came out to boil water and rummage in her herb bag, brows drawn down and lips pursed. She stirred herbs into the kettle, and lifted it by the bail with her hands wrapped in a fold of her skirt.
“How goes it?” I asked quietly.
“The baby’s turned sidelying, and her waters are gone. I must unclench her womb enough to shift the baby, if I can. Her strength is … challenged, working so long.” She looked at all the anxious faces. “Feed them something. It’s long since they have eaten, I gather.”
All said they were not hungry, but when I set Ticker and his elder brother, Tarn, to cooking porridge, the smaller ones found the butter and even a few dried apples to add in. Just as we settled close to the fire with our bowls, we heard their mother begin to groan and strain in the other room.
In between the pains, I could hear Annora calling to the baby, “Come down and meet us!” And to the mother, “Bring your baby to life!” The miller’s wife, and then the mother herself echoed the call, “Come out, baby, come!” And following one huge bear-like roar from the laboring mother, I heard a thin wail. There came a lot of sobbing and thanking of the gods, and then Gefretta reappeared, slammed the window and trilled, “It’s a girl!” I met her at the door, meaning to shut it since its magic was no longer needed, if indeed leaving us to shiver had magic at all, and the girl said to me, “Wils’s wife really is a witch, just like I heard.”
Irritated by the accusation in her voice, I said, “Maybe you’d like her to put the baby back, then.”
She huffed out a breath and turned on her heel to go back to her mother. Ticker brought me my bowl of porridge with an apologetic look, and I gave him a grin, to show it wasn’t he who rankled me.
Annora brought out a loaf-sized bundle with a tiny, pinched pink face, and showed it around to all the brothers. “Your mum is doing well. Take her in some porridge with honey. Put another log on the fire to warm the house for your sister.”
“She’s not very pretty,” said the youngest dubiously.
“Neither were you,” Ticker tol
d him.
The younger boys made a show of getting their mother’s bowl ready, while Annora took the baby back into the bedroom. The next bit of our errand of mercy involved carrying out a lot of bloody straw and the afterbirth, which we placed on the burn pile in the forge.
“It’s better to burn it now, so it doesn’t draw rats,” Annora told Tarn, so that became his contribution to the process.
The mother was so relieved by her safe delivery that she insisted on Ticker carrying us home in the sleigh, even though that would get him back home after full dark. I prepared one of their lanterns so I wouldn’t have to send him home with ours. Her largess grew with passing minutes as the babe latched and fed, and she insisted on giving us a sack of oats, a jug of milk, a basket of eggs—and would have kept going, I think, but she fell asleep when the baby did, both exhausted after their effort.
I heard the miller’s wife gushing over Annora’s knowledge and skill with such a harrowing birth, but I never did hear the daughter thank Annora at all. I felt very glad Wils hadn’t picked that one to wed. Imagine dragging her around to live in mountain caves.
When Ticker, Annora and I bundled up again and headed out the side door of the forge, we saw a trio of soldiers in the square, in Keltane’s colors. We hung back and watched them erect a window-sized board held up by posts to either side, with a narrow roof jutting out above, and then nail a parchment onto it. Once they had mounted their horses and ridden away on the road toward the coast, I carried the lantern out to look at the notice.
In thick black lettering, in our language, the notice proclaimed that all the lands from the western mountain range to the sea were now a part of Keltane, and under the rule of the sovereign king. Our council was dissolved, and all our citizens owed allegiance and fealty to King Aerelon the Sixth. Signed with illegible flourishes, the parchment trailed scarlet ribbons from a saucer-sized purple wax seal.
I didn’t feel any different, now that I was Keltanese. We had a quiet ride back up to our house, each of us lost in our own thought, including Gargle, as far as I could tell.
CHAPTER 16
With relief I found all as we had left it. Annora bade Ticker farewell, and I hurried to loose Gevarr and help him to the privy. He had the good grace to be grateful for my service, and say so. I told him he had been right.
“We are conquered, as you said. I saw them post a notice in the village.”
“Ah. Was there much damage, did you see?”
“No, but folks’ goods have been taken, and all the villagers are keeping off the streets and out of sight.”
“Our forces would want to preserve the village and road, the better for uninterrupted trade. An occupying force needs food and shelter, so there’s little sense in destroying the services needed.”
“Or those who provide the services?”
“How did the mother fare?” he asked, instead of answering me.
“Well enough under Annora’s care. I think she and the babe would have died, else. Do you know anything about turned babies?”
“Do I look like a man who knows anything about women’s work?”
“No.”
“You’re lucky not to have to worry about getting a baby birthed of Annora up here on this mountainside. Lucky your brother went off and left her a kissless bride, though I doubt he’d agree.”
“He kissed her—I saw him!”
“That’s … not what that means.”
I felt my ears burn after I thought a moment. She really did share overmuch with the man. Or else he deduced overmuch. “Do you have any children?”
“Not as far as I know. A soldier’s general experience with women is camp followers, not ladies and wives.”
“Well, some of them have to be married.”
“The camp followers? Hardly.”
“No, the soldiers! My da was a soldier, and he married and had us.” And that is what comes of me letting my guard down.
Between one shuffling step and the next, I saw his expression change from a grimace of concentration and pain to one of avid interest. On the heels of my light-hearted remark, he wanted to know all about it.
“When was he a soldier? Does he have maps and gear here?”
My turn to be wooden-faced. “He went for a soldier when he was young.”
“Is he gone off soldiering now?”
“I told you, we were separated when we had to flee the invasion. Perhaps you should tell us what you know about the Keltanese plan, so we know if we should remain here or no. You will not be fit for travel for some time, Annora says. Bad to walk much on thawing feet. Hard to tell at first how much damage was done deep. Really bad if they freeze again. I wonder if we’ll have to get some bone-setter to cut your feet off?” I knew I babbled, and hoped I could think and talk at the same time. No luck.
He was laughing at me when Annora met us at the door. “I’m fixing some bread and cider for the others. Will you have some? What is funny?”
Gevarr only shook his head and tottered over to the pallet. After all my nagging of Annora to keep her tongue back of her teeth, I didn’t want to say I had blurted out news that Gevarr might use, or pass on, to our harm.
I said yes to bread and jam and hot cider, and helped her fix it. I first put the poker into the fire to heat, then I carried the pitcher down into the cellar to collect the cider. By lack of time during their raid, or oversight, the troops had not pulled up the trap door in the kitchen floor, and emptied the cellar of stored food. Our root crops, parsnips, turnips and the like, still rested in their baskets. A keg of dried beans, another of flour, some honeycombs in jars all remained on the dusty shelves or standing on the dirt floor. A lovely big barrel of cider stood on blocks in one corner. We always put by a large store of food for the winter, since commonly snowed in for considerable stretches. I poked about while I waited for the pitcher to fill, and was amazed to find some small baskets of soft fruit, raspberries and blueberries, sitting fresh as when picked on the shelves. I hadn’t noticed them before.
“Oh, that’s an easy-enough spell,” Annora said, when I carried some up to show her.
“You did this? You can work spell craft?”
“Yes, I’ll teach you. It’s easier than drying fruits or making preserves to put it by.”
I wondered if Wils knew all the sorts of magic she could do. My mum had not fed us summer fruit in the shortened days of winter; I would have remembered. I wanted to find out what all her gran had taught her, and learn it, too.
I plunged the hot poker into the cider and it hissed fragrant steam. A treat on a frigid night, and the cider was not too hard yet for Morie to drink. It would be stout by spring.
As according to my new rules, I took Gevarr’s to him, a generous portion as he had no supper. I determined to direct the conversation, not liking how it felt to be on the defensive after my blunder about Da.
“Do you think you might be able to walk on snow frames? Some call them snow shoes. We have some stored below, to keep the mice from eating the gut laces. So they weren’t lost in the barn fire.”
“I came from warmer climate down south. What are they for?”
“To keep a man from sinking into the snow. It is kind of a paddle strapped to your boot, and spreads out your weight.”
“I’ll try one in the morning.”
“You wear them two at a time. Or, one on each foot, I mean. We could have pulled you on the sled, but that did burn in the barn.”
“Where is it you’re taking me?”
“Remains to be seen,” I said, and backed out of the alcove with his empty cup. In truth, I suppose I only wanted to give him something to ponder besides my da the soldier. And my brother’s unkissed bride.
I chose to carry some of the supplies from the smithy’s wife down to the cellar. It wouldn’t do to have it all stolen if we were overrun again. The milk and eggs were welcome, and Annora stored them in the cool north corner of the larder. I longed for a bit of butter, and thought maybe we should ask for that i
f someone else needed a birth managed.
“Do you think his toes and fingers will be of full use in the end?” I asked Annora when I had finished stowing the goods.
She considered. “It is a good sign that the fluid in the blisters stays clear, and not bloody. Nothing blackens so far. It’s early days yet, after the injury. Frostbite takes its time showing the full extent of the damage. You say you don’t want to keep him until spring, but it may be spring before he’s sorted.”
I didn’t like to hear that. “If he is able, I’d like to have him help me put up some kind of shelter for Dink. I believe our horses must have been taken by the troops, and our goats and chickens are eaten or run wild. I’d like to haul some hay from the field for Dink and keep him close here. We might have sudden need of better transport than our feet alone.”
“If you can knock together some manner of sled, I can get the hay and drag it back.”
“I’ll look tomorrow for some barn wood with enough strength, and lash it together. Good that our store of rope was generous. And left for us. Nails are going to be hard to come by. Maybe the smith’s wife would spare us some, if I went to the village.”
“I should check on her within the week, to make sure she has no sign of childbed fever. Ticker will come fetch me. I think she’d give me whatever I asked,” Annora said with a smile. I thought so, too.
Come a morning clear for once, I lugged an armload of snow frames up from the cellar. I settled Gevarr on the back stoop, and strapped a pair on his feet. Since his single boot would not fit his swollen foot, and none of Da’s would fit him either, I had wrapped his rag-bound feet with leather and secured that with twine.
“This is how to walk in them,” I said, after I strapped on my own. I paced heel-toe lifting them high, and used the snow poles in either hand to aid my balance. “It is not a fast way to travel, but faster than sinking to the belly with each step.”
I pulled him upright and gave him poles. He proved no more able to walk in the frames than I would prove able to fly if I jumped off the roof. It takes time to get the way of it, and he could not keep on his feet. He ended in a tumble, with Gargle cackling so at him that the bird fell off the eaves and landed with a soft plop in the drifted bank below, scaly black feet uppermost.
