Chapter 11
Avice
Avice burst into the dimly lit cottage, squinting through the gloom. The central hearth crackled, feeding on the logs within. The one-roomed dwelling warmed her chilled nose as she moved through it. On the wooden pallet, sprawled on the bedding, lay William Farmer’s wife, Matilda.
She was flat on her back, grasping the mid-sized bump of her belly. She made eye contact with Avice, streaks of her hair blocking parts of her desperate gaze. Another ghostly wail left her lips; so loud that for a moment it felt like it shook the ground beneath her boots.
“Midwife!” a woman exclaimed, getting up from her knees next to the pallet. “It is too early, is it not?”
Avice quickly assessed the situation. Goodwife Emma, who had just spoken, was Matilda’s sister and there for support – as she had always been in the past. Another, much younger, woman knelt beside the pallet.
She looked vaguely familiar to Avice, perhaps a cousin to the sisters and newer to Lamorna.
“Avice!” Matilda called, reaching her hand out to the midwife. “This is different than the others. Something is wrong.”
Avice helped Matilda survive the battlefield of birth before. In fact, the midwife considered the woman a remarkable mother and patient with five living children. This was unprecedented in Lamorna. All were healthy, the oldest having seen fifteen turns of seasons and the youngest seeing two.
Perhaps too close to the last, Avice theorised as she swept over to Matilda and clutched her reaching hand. “My friend,” she chided gently. “We both know the pallet is not where babies come into the world.”
“I know, I know,” Matilda replied through gritted teeth before letting out another groan.
The younger woman by the bedding flinched at the noise and balled her fists. Avice rolled her eyes, wondering whether she would be any use whatsoever in this difficult time.
“Where is the birthing chair?” Avice asked, casting her gaze across the dimly lit room, unable to spot it.
“Uh… at my home,” Emma replied with a squeak.
The midwife narrowed her gaze at the woman. “Why?”
“They are such a big family, with little room to spare. I offered to keep it there, seeing as there are only three of us, for the moment,” Emma babbled, brushing her hand over her own slight bump.
Avice rolled her eyes. She knew that already. She had accidentally caught Emma and her husband in passionate throes, against a tree, in the woods as she gathered mushrooms in the late Autumn.
“I am well aware of your condition, if you recall,” the midwife prompted her with a teasing smile.
Emma flushed at the reminder, before turning her face away.
“You…” Avice turned to the younger woman. “Outside, there is a hound. Black fur and red eyes. Ask him, politely, to take you to Goodwife Emma’s home, retrieve the birthing chair, and bring it back. Follow his trail. Do not wander from it.”
Her mouth dropped open. “But it is dark and cold outside. Surely, I will get lost, or catch my death, or the Nightly Neighbours may take me.”
“Lucille,” Emma snapped. “You wanted to be here; you wanted to help. This is how you do so. Tilly may die if she cannot be positioned correctly.”
Lucille, eyes wide and mouth round, looked back and forth between the sisters and Avice.
She let out a huff and stood. The young woman stomped past them, tugged on her cloak that hung on a hook, wrenched open the door, and flung herself into the icy night.
She slammed the door behind her, the force making the walls rattle.
Emma tutted and shook her head at her antics. She stepped over and kneeled beside her sister, right next to Avice. The midwife handed Matilda’s clammy hand to Emma and began to manoeuvre the labouring woman into a sitting position.
“God’s cock! It hurts!” Matilda shrieked as the midwife pushed her up.
“I know, but flat on your back will get you nowhere,” Avice replied firmly.
She rolled up the furs and blankets to help prop the labouring woman up; she lacked the strength to stay sitting otherwise. Matilda groaned and tried to flop back, making the midwife smirk as she thought of a fish flailing on the sand.
Not able to help herself, Avice repeated the vision she had to the two women. Despite the situation, Matilda burst into a fit of giggles, wiping away tears at the corner of her eyes. That was, until another contraction came that had her doubling over in pain again, grasping her middle.
“How long?” Avice asked.
Emma tore her concerned face from Matilda. “What?”
“How long?” she repeated the question.
“Oh!” Emma’s brow wrinkled for a moment. “Lunchtime, perhaps midday? By the church bells.”
Too long with no progress.
“Motherwort,” she murmured, naming the herb that made babies come more quickly.
The infant will likely be too small, too weak to live long, if they are born alive at all. She took a deep breath, calming her racing heart. What Matilda needed now was a level-headed midwife. If you cannot save the child, make sure you save the mother.
The plan formed in her mind, and she burst into a flurry of quick efficiency.
“Cup,” Avice shouted.
Emma nodded and stood. She dashed to fetch one and handed it to Avice.
The midwife, now working more in her role as an apothecary, quickly tipped in the ground motherwort with a pinch of willow bark – added to aid with the pains.
After pouring a mouthful of healing waters into the cup, she tugged a glove off with her teeth and unceremoniously stirred the slurry with a finger.
Dropping the glove from her mouth, she handed the concoction to her patient. “Drink all this now, we need to get this baby out.” She did not add the rest of the words she thought. To save you.
Matilda nodded, sweat slicking her hair to her skin, and took it. She pressed the cup to her lips and knocked it back, even licking it clean. She grimaced before handing it over to Emma.
“That will help shortly,” Avice reassured. “Now, would you let me look at you?”
Matilda snorted and pulled up her skirts. “Of course, it is not like you have not seen it all before.”
Gentle as a lamb, the midwife carefully checked her patient and found that her labour was not far advanced for how long she had been doing the hard, painful work.
The night crawled by as the motherwort took effect. Avice and Emma helped shift Matilda around the pallet to aid her as the contractions increased in frequency and strength. The midwife wiped the labouring mother’s belly and legs with healing waters infused with sage oil, to help ease the strain.
Finally, Lucille burst back into the cottage just in time. Her cheeks were flushed, and there was a smattering of frost on her eyebrows. She dragged the birthing chair over to the pallet, where Matilda was doubled over in pain, wailing like a banshee lost on the moors.
“None of the Nightly Neighbours got you then?” Emma teased, rising to help her with it.
Lucille stuck her tongue out and opened her mouth to retort.
“Enough!” Avice growled.
The previous joviality had helped her patient, but now was the time for focus.
The midwife could practically feel the skeletal hand of death turn over the hourglass that held the sands of Matilda’s life.
She chewed on her dry lips, and with the aid of the two other women, heaved the labouring mother up into the birthing chair.
“Our Father, who art in heaven…” Avice began, rolling up her patient’s skirts as she pushed. She had no belief in the Lord’s prayer, but she knew it brought many birthing women comfort. “Lucille, fetch the cross from my satchel.” The young woman scrambled and fetched the object. “Give it to her.”
Matilda took the cross and pressed it to her chest.
“Hallowed be thy name,” Emma continued, “thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in—”
Matilda screamed, and with one final push, Avice caught the crowning baby. The smallest she had ever seen. Somehow, he lived. He opened his tiny mouth and gave a single, whispered mewl.
“Another son!” she exclaimed. Her heart caught in her throat as her eyes roved the infant. Too small to live.
“Show him to me, Avice, hand him over,” Matilda gasped, sitting forward and reaching for her tiny boy.
The midwife nodded. She reached to the pallet next to her for a blanket and wrapped the rapidly cooling, little body in the thick wool. She handed the boy to the shaking arms of his mother, before brushing away the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes.
Avice enjoyed these moments more than anything. The threshold of where women became mothers. Where they fought on the battleground against death’s grip, and despite everything, would win. Then there would be a baby. So precious. So perfect. Unstained by the evils of the world.
There was another side to this joyous coin.
The heart-shattering sensation Avice felt when she knew by looking at a child that they would not survive long: too weak to latch and suckle, too tiny to stay warm, and too little to cry out when hungry.
In the past, before Christendom, whispered rituals rippled through generations of women in Lamorna.
They would speak of leaving their newborns in the woods, to be claimed by the Faeries, so there would be a chance of their children living on amongst them – it was thought kinder than letting them die at home.
It was true of course; the Good Neighbours would take on the care of the babies left in the woods and even steal ones that they took a fancy to.
Avice shook her ruminations from her head.
There was work to do. Matilda would have to be prepared, and Avice was willing to offer her and her boy the same she had offered to Joan and Hope. To give him a chance to live.
Trewoofe will take him to the Piskies if I ask.
The thought of the savagely beautiful Knucker made her chest ache. Something within the core of her twisted with an unfamiliar, but pleasant, feeling. She craved his softness, his kindness, his patience.
It made her want more.
Concentrate.
Avice opened her mouth to speak, but Lucille piped up first. “He will not live long, will he?” she asked, peering over Matilda’s shoulder. “Too small, right?”
“Lucy!” Emma bit, before bringing her hand down to cuff her cousin on the back of her head. “God’s blood! Let Tilly have this moment; there is no need to state what is obvious.”
Matilda shifted in the birthing chair; blood smeared down her legs. She looked up at Avice. The midwife studied her patient’s face. Her skin was sallow. Large, dark circles bagged her desperate eyes, and – heartbreakingly – tears ran rivers down her cheeks.
“Can anything be done?” Matilda asked, her voice raw.
“I heard you took Goodwife Joan’s baby,” Lucille blurted out. “Is that true? Did you take her to the Good Neighbours? What did they say?”
“Be quiet! In fact, get out,” Emma growled at the younger woman, pointing a finger at the door.
“But it is still dark outside!”
“I do not care; you cannot behave yourself and this time is not about you. May the Nightly Neighbours take you!”
Lucille scoffed and stomped away. She paused for a moment to tug on her gloves and left the cottage with another harsh slam of the door.
Avice said nothing over the squabble. Emma was right. Lucille had been mostly unhelpful, besides fetching the birthing chair, she had sat back and watched the difficult labour like a spectator. Avice could not help but wonder why exactly the young woman had attended.
As though she could read her thoughts, Emma looked apologetically at Avice. “She is engaged. The wedding is set for late Spring. She wanted to know what birth entailed.”
“The whims of a girl are hardly more important than the wellbeing of a sister,” Avice replied steadily before turning her attention to Matilda.
“My treatments can do nothing with a baby born so early. If I am honest…” She gnawed at her lip.
“…I am surprised he was born alive,” she admitted.
“If you wish it, I can ask the Well King to take him. It is true, Joan’s daughter still lives, and your son may have a chance too. ”
“There is really nothing you can do so I can keep him here with me?” Matilda asked, her voice thick with tears.
Avice shook her head sadly. “To save him? No.” She ran her fingers over her pendant. “But I could make him comfortable. Give you some time with him? Hold your hand and be here for you?”
Matilda used her free hand to wipe her cheeks. “I would rather him have a chance than none.” She smiled sadly down at the bundle in her arms and kissed her son’s small, downy head. “Your mother loves you,” she whispered before meeting the midwife’s face again. “Boarden, that is his name.”
“As strong as a boar? Good choice,” Avice complimented. “Before you give him to me, I need you to know. You may never see him again, and if you ever do, he will not be fully human anymore.”
“I know he does not have long, Avice.” Matilda’s voice cracked again, more tears silvering in the corners of her bloodshot eyes. “Please, take him from me, and give the King my thanks for giving my son a chance at life.”
A lump caught in Avice’s throat as she took the tiny baby from Matilda’s arms, he was so light, the midwife felt like she was only lifting the blanket and the space within was only occupied by air.
The fabric shifted slightly from the child, and as Avice went to tuck it back around him, she noticed a peculiar mark.
She used her thumb and wiped away the blood that marred it.
On his upper arm, she noticed a tiny leaf shape, dark green in colour and etched into his skin.
A Faerie’s mark? She wondered, narrowing her gaze at the spot. I will ask Trewoofe and Bramble what they think.
She continued to wrap the child, bundling him as much as she could. The night was bitter and cold, and Avice wanted to give Boarden the best chance she could for him to get to the well alive.
She handed the baby to Emma so she could tug on her cloak and gloves.
She hastily gathered her belongings, stuffing them into her medical satchel and strapping it across her body.
Avice nodded and extended her arms to Emma.
The woman pressed a kiss to her nephew’s head before relinquishing him to Avice.
“You will look after her?” the midwife asked, looking from Emma and nodding down at Matilda. “Start her lying in?”
“Absolutely, it certainly would not be the first time. Now please, do what you can for my nephew. May the Lord keep you.” Emma nodded and stepped over to her sister, who was already resolutely pushing herself up from the birthing chair with a sob. “Tilly!” she scolded. “Wait for me!”
Avice smiled wistfully at the sisters, the thrum of loneliness beating her heart for a moment.
They had lost a son and a nephew, but they had each other, and of course, the six other children between them.
The midwife tucked the baby under her cloak, hoping it would help him survive against the bitter cold.
Avice turned to the door with a deep breath, threw it open, grit her teeth at the heartbreaking weeping behind her, and stepped into the early dawn.