Epilogue
The Ides of March
Bric was feeling so much anxiety that his hands were actually hurting. So was his chest. He couldn’t sit for very long and when standing, he simply walked in circles.
That’s what he was doing at the moment.
He was pacing the edges of Narborough’s hall, hands behind his back, seemingly lost in thought.
But he had a shadow; right beside him, Royce was pacing as well, hands behind his back and mimicking every move Bric made.
When Bric would stop and look at the child, the child would stop and look up at him.
Bric would sigh heavily and resume his pacing with Royce right beside him.
Bric and his little shadow.
“You are going to pace a trench right into the floor, Bric,” Daveigh said from his seat at the feasting table. “Come and sit. Have some wine. Relax.”
But Bric shook his head. “I cannot,” he said as he continued his pacing. Then, he came to halt near the hearth. “Does it always take this long?”
Daveigh grinned, looking at Pearce and Manducor, who were sitting at the table with him. As he shrugged and took a drink of his wine, Manducor spoke up.
“It can take days or hours,” he said. “My children took hours.”
Bric sighed again, heavily, but it was a gesture of impatience as well as concern. “Her pains started this afternoon,” he said. “It is well into the night now. Surely something can be done to hurry it along.”
“I am sure Weetley is doing all he can, Bric,” Daveigh said. “You must be patient.”
But Bric didn’t want to be patient. He wanted to see his son and he wanted his wife to come through unharmed.
That was perhaps what was frightening him most – if his son did not survive the birth, he could bear it.
It would be devastating, but he would recover.
But if Eiselle did not survive, then his world would be ended.
There would be nothing more for him.
He glanced at Manducor as he resumed his pacing, thinking of the man’s dead family.
He didn’t want to become Manducor, a man who was still trying to find his place in the world after he lost everything.
But he knew he couldn’t go on without Eiselle, so what would be left for him?
But he shook himself, fighting off the morbid thoughts, praying to a God he didn’t speak to very much that his wife would survive childbirth.
As he made another round about the room with Royce beside him, Keeva suddenly appeared.
Having come down the spiral stairs from the chamber Bric and Eiselle shared, Keeva had on an apron and her hair was pulled back, tied behind her head. The front of the apron had faint bloodstains on it, indicative of the work she had been doing. When Bric saw her, he practically ran to her.
“Well?” he demanded. “Has my son arrived?”
Keeva shook her head, reaching out to take his hand. “You must come with me.”
Bric felt a stab of fear as he’d never felt in his life. “Why?” he breathed. “What is wrong?”
Keeva shooed Royce away when the boy tried to follow, sending him back to sit with Daveigh. She pulled Bric into the stairwell before speaking.
“We need your help,” she said quietly. “Your son is turned around in Eiselle’s womb and cannot be born without help.”
Bric felt lightheaded. “What does that mean?”
“It means that you must hold your wife steady while Weetley tries to turn the baby around, so that he comes head-first.”
They had reached the top of the stairs and Bric came to a halt. When Keeva turned to him, she could see the tears in his eyes. He was absolutely terrified.
“God, no,” he breathed. “My wife…”
Keeva tugged on his hand, pulling him along. It was like towing a barge. “Eiselle is in good spirits,” she said. “She is not in terrible distress, but the babe must be turned.”
Bric struggled to calm himself. “Will it hurt her?”
Keeva pulled him all the way to the door, pausing before she opened it.
“I am sure it will not be pleasant, which is why we need you to hold her steady.” She put a hand on Bric’s cheek to comfort him.
“You must be brave, MacRohan. Your wife needs your strength, not your fear. If you show any measure of it, I will throw you out of the window. Is this in any way unclear?”
He swallowed. “It is clear.”
“Good.”
With that, Keeva opened the door into the chamber Bric was so familiar with. It smelled strongly of peppermint, thought to ward off the evil tidings of childbirth, and as he stepped into the chamber, his gaze immediately found his wife.
Eiselle was sitting on a birthing chair near the hearth.
She looked weary, her face sweaty and her beautiful hair pulled away from her face, but her expression lightened when she saw her husband.
Bric went to her, choked up with emotion in spite of Keeva’s threat.
He went to his knees next to the chair, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her head to his lips for a tender kiss.
“How do you feel, mo chroí?” he asked softly. “Keeva tells me that our son is being difficult.”
Eiselle put her hand on his face, chuckling. “Do not look so worried,” she said. “Weetley simply needs to turn him so that he is facing the right way.”
She was being incredibly brave, far braver than he was. Bric nodded, unable to speak because he was genuinely trying not to weep. He was as frightened as he had ever been in his life and trying very hard not to show it.
“Then I will help however I can,” he said, sounding surprisingly calm. “I am anxious to meet Conor.”
Eiselle smiled. “As am I,” she said. “He will be here soon, I am certain. You needn’t worry.”
“I won’t.”
That was as much of a greeting as Keeva would allow. Things needed to happen and they needed to happen quickly, and there was no time for sentiment, not if this baby was going to be born any time soon. She began waving her hands at Bric.
“Get in behind her and put your arms around her shoulders,” she said. “You must hold her as still as you can while we attempt to turn the baby.”
Bric summoned his courage. For the fearless warrior, this was something of a very new experience for him, but he did as he was told.
As he stood up and moved to the back of the chair, Weetley flipped up the bottom of Eiselle’s shift, revealing her enormous belly.
Truth be told, Bric was well-acquainted with that belly, for he had slept with it nightly for the past several months, and his lip prints were all over it as a result of speaking to his son on a regular basis.
All he could see was Eiselle’s belly and her legs as they rested on a chair that was made for childbirth.
He really couldn’t see anything else, which was fine with him.
He didn’t want to see the birthing process in the least, mysterious and terrifying thing that it was.
As he knelt down behind the chair and wrapped his arms around Eiselle, pulling her into his powerful embrace, Weetley began greasing up Eiselle’s belly.
From that point, Bric didn’t want to see anymore.
He held on to his wife as he felt her body jerked around by whatever Weetley was doing.
Eiselle grunted and gasped, but she never emitted anything more than that.
With all of the buffeting going on, it must have surely been excruciating, but she never cried out or wept.
She simply held on to Bric’s arms as he held tightly to her.
Bric’s face was pressed into her back, eyes closed as he held on and prayed.
More greasing and more turning. Bric could hear Weetley and Keeva as they worked in tandem to move the child.
Zara and a female servant stood behind them, ensuring they had enough pig fat to grease up Eiselle’s belly, and ensuring Weetley had everything he needed in order to ensure the safe and healthy delivery.
More grunting and groaning from his wife and Bric was ready to explode but, mercifully, it came to a halt before he could.
“The child is turned as much as we can move him, my lady,” Weetley said in his thin, high-pitched voice. “With your next pain, you must push as hard as you can.”
Eiselle was breathing heavily from the pain of trying to turn her child around. For Bric’s sake, she’d kept as quiet as she could because the pain was more than she had anticipated.
“I will,” she gasped. Turning her head, she whispered to her husband. “Do not let me go, Bric. Hold me tightly.”
It sounded like a plea to him, and a frightened one. Tears popped out of Bric’s eyes, wetting the back of her shift where he had his face pressed against her.
“I will not let you go, I swear it,” he said hoarsely. “I will not leave you.”
That seemed to give Eiselle a great deal of comfort. When her next pain came, as they were very close together now, she was able to bear down and push with all her might. With every pain she would push again, as hard as she could, as Weetley and Keeva encouraged her.
But it seemed to Bric that Eiselle had been pushing for quite some time with little results.
His arms were around her shoulders and he could feel her entire body tensing up every time she pushed.
It was agonizing to feel her work so hard for something that was very slow in happening.
But through it all, she maintained her composure, grunting and even growling as she pushed almost angrily sometimes.
Just when Bric thought he was surely going to lose his composure, Keeva gave a shout.
“I see him, Eiselle!” she cried. “Push very hard the next time, sweetheart. Push!”
Eiselle did. Summoning her dwindling strength one last time, she gave a big push when the next pain came and, suddenly, the baby dropped out right into Weetley’s waiting hands.
Relief was almost instant, and Eiselle collapsed against the back of the chair, against Bric, breathing heavily.
“Is he well?” she demanded. “Keeva, is he well? Why is he not crying?”