The Wise Witch of Orkney

Chapter 1

Elspet Balfour

THE BAIRN DROPS DOWNWARD, a warm shifting under Elspet’s hands through the taut skin of its mother’s belly.

This is a good sign – a sign the child will be born soon.

But as she traces the outline of the small body with gentle, probing fingers, fear rises in her chest. This is not right.

Here is the unmistakable dome of the head, high up close to its mother’s breast, and here the back rounds downward.

No, no, no – it must have turned late. Its sete will be born first.

Even under ideal circumstances, Elspet would fear for the safety of a bairn in this position, not to mention its mother. She’s known women so injured by a sete-first birth that their bleeding can’t be stopped, and they never meet their peedie one. And these circumstances are far from ideal.

Martin Schoner, the Queen’s physician, is at her side, watching and frowning. She looks at him, panicked. ‘The bairn has turned – it will be born sete-first.’

‘What are you talking . . .’ Schoner begins but then he understands. ‘Oh, God help us – you mean the child is breech.’

His face is ashen; he’s under as much pressure as Elspet to deliver this bairn alive and well. The King has threatened him with banishment or even execution if the Queen doesn’t produce a hale and hearty heir this time.

Elspet submerges her hands once more in the bowl of water, still warm, on the floor by the bed, before placing them on the strained flesh and moving them in gentle repetitive downward strokes; the warmth stimulates the child, encourages the journey from the comfort of the womb out into the caal world.

The sleeves of Elspet’s silk gown are drenched; she sighs in frustration.

Clothing like this is unsuitable for birthing bairns.

She’d dressed quickly in the simplest gown she could find when Schoner came in the middle of the night to fetch her for the birth.

But her skirts are still wide and ungainly; she has to fight them to get close to the bed, and her sleeves are tight and won’t be rolled up.

It’s annoying but it can’t be helped. Her old, practical, plain woollen dress of Orkneyjar wadmell would have given her away immediately and they can’t risk that now.

Not with everything that’s at stake, and everything they’ve done to get here.

‘What is all this stroking?’ Schoner asks, sceptical about her methods even now. ‘Is the child well?’

‘I think so, and it is coming. We’ll have to do the best we can despite its position.’

‘Have you delivered a child breech-first before?’

Elspet nods quickly. ‘A few times – and it has not always ended well.’ She speaks in a whisper but she needn’t be concerned about frightening the bairn’s poor mother, who is oblivious to everything apart from the pain. Elspet’s words are interrupted by savage groans.

Even to Elspet, who’s birthed many in her time, this stage of labouring is shocking. During her throes, a woman is stripped to her most base, her most vulnerable; she becomes an animal.

Even when the child being born will be the next King of Scotland.

This birth is not about the mother. It is not even really about the bairn. It is about the King; about what bringing this child into the world will do for his power. This woman carries the weight of a kingdom in her belly.

Elspet pushes her hair back from her face as she moves down the prostrate figure on the bed and gently pushes the thighs, slick with sweat, apart.

She lowers her head to look; there is a gaping and a growing, a dome of skin beginning to emerge.

The bairn is coming – sete births are not easy but they are often quick.

‘It won’t be long.’

A pot of duck’s grease sits on the table next to the bed.

Elspet takes a generous amount in her fingers and smears it round the skin where the opening meets the emerging bairn.

She takes a deep breath to steady her nerves.

The last six months have all been leading up to this moment.

She must stay calm, trust her skill and trust their plans have been laid well; they cannot fail, and she mustn’t be daunted.

A bairn is a bairn and a birth is a birth.

All that matters is to help this child safely from its mother’s womb.

She kens only too well all that can go wrong, but she mustn’t be distracted.

‘Bring me the cushions,’ she instructs Schoner. ‘Help me lift up her back.’ If they can gently lift her pelvis, this will bring up the womb so the child can be born downward and help ease the awkward birth position.

Schoner frowns. He hates being instructed by someone who is not a qualified physician, and even worse, a woman. But he does as she asks, and together they carefully place the cushions under her back. That terrible sound comes again, guttural howls of pain. The throes are coming once more.

‘You’re ready,’ Elspet says. ‘Start to push the bairn out next time you feel the tightening.’

She masks her own fear and glances over to the wooden table where she’s placed an iron horseshoe and a Bible, to protect the child when it is born. Everything is ready. Elspet must think of nothing else.

The time they’ve all been waiting for is here – the bairn is coming.