Chapter Forty-Three. Into Battle I Go.
Forty-Three
Into Battle I Go.
The beautiful woman on the bed is black of hair, dark of skin, and thin of limb.
Her face is drawn in pain, and she has braced herself into a sitting position, her upper body curved around her big belly.
A white shift is covering her, and she has sweated through it from her laboring.
White blankets and sheets drape her shoulders and waist, and I’ll bet she has bloodied what’s under her already.
Her weary eyes lift to meet mine, and the fear in them is something I sense, even though I do not look into them.
To make sure she can see me properly, I take the wet cloth from my face, and then I go to her. “Let me feel your belly—”
Her hand reaches out and grabs on to my own. “There’s something wrong—”
Though she has a deeper accent than her husband, I can understand her words.
“Let me check.”
With my free hand, I splay my palm over her distended stomach, and just as her husband appears in the doorway, I catch the ripple of the contraction that racks her. I go lower down, and am relieved to feel the baby’s head. At least it’s not a breech.
“How long like this?” I ask her as I kick off my shoes and move onto the bed on my knees. “Stalled, I mean—”
The woman’s head falls back and she flashes her white teeth as her body attempts to force out the bairn.
“Lena…”
Over in the doorway, the shopkeeper switches to what must be their native tongue, his words a river of syllables spoken in a pleading voice.
And then he just stands there, lingering on the periphery as they always do, scared and helpless.
Though men are most often the protectors, in this sacred time, we women are the warriors, fighting for the territory we take, for the lives that we must defend against death’s jealous grab.
I twist around to him. “How long has she been like this, at this frequency.”
“Two hours,” he mumbles. “At least. Before the storm started.”
“And when did the pains start.”
“Yesterday morning.”
Not good. “Has her water broken?”
“Yesterday noon.”
I close my eyes briefly. “We have to get the baby out now or they’re both going to die.”
As I go to move the blankets off of her, I already know what I’m going to find, and yes, the blood pool is tremendous. She doesn’t have much time, and I’m aware of this without looking into her eyes.
“You’re going to have to help,” I say to her husband. “You’re stronger than I am.”
When he stays where he is just inside the room, I snap, “Do you want her to die while you watch? Get over here. You put the seed in her, and now you’re going to have to help her with what you’ve both created.”
This casts him into movement, and he follows my instructions, setting up at his wife’s side in a kneel. As he stares in horror at the blood that’s come out from between her legs, I have no patience for his shock. It’s time to act. But first I must—
There’s a basin on a little table, and I have a feeling it’s exactly what I need. Sure enough, as I lean my nose down, I can smell the pungent bouquet rising up from the clear liquid. I plunge my hands in and scrub them vigorously.
They are dripping as I bring them out of the washing, and I leave them that way. To wipe them off, even on what appears to be a clean sheet, would compromise the cleansing.
Holding them away from everything, I position myself at the end of the bed and look up at my sister, focusing on her sweat-soaked throat. “I’m going to find the baby, okay?”
But she’s gone. Though she retains consciousness, she isn’t aware of anything except what’s going on inside her body.
Going between her bent knees, I am gentle, yet firm, as I find her birth canal—and I can feel the baby’s head. I shift my eyes to the husband.
“Let’s lay her back. We need her flat. Help her now, to lie back.”
As he just stares at me, like I address him in a language he can’t understand, the urge to scream at him is nearly irresistible. It’s just not helpful, though. The calmer I am, the calmer he’ll be, and the more he’ll listen to me.
“What’s your name,” I say, forcing my words to be slow and even.
“R-Ronl. This is my wife, Lena.”
“Ronl, I need you to please lay your wife back. Gently. Do this now.”
The fake patience unlocks him and he does as I ask—and though I’m easily frustrated in moments like this with the male proclivity for freezing at the birthing bed, I cannot fault the way he is with her at all.
The love is there, between them, in him, as his careful hands settle her flat and her face turns to his touch with trust and acceptance.
In spite of my impatience, a welling of gratitude warms my sternum, especially as I think of dear Ellyne back in my village and everything she was forced to endure.
I’ve almost forgotten how it should be, for all the examples I’ve seen on how it isn’t.
“That’s good, that’s right.” As he looks in my direction, I nod down to her belly.
“Now I need you to put your strongest hand on the top of her swell, just under her heart and lungs.” I expect him to hesitate, and he does.
“Ronl, you’re going to put your palm flat, and then cover it with your other. Right under her breasts.”
He kisses her forehead and then moves into position, doing as I instruct.
“We’re waiting for the next contraction.” I get braced with my own hands. “I’m going to tell you what to do, and you must put all your effort into it. You will not hurt her, I promise you. But this is the time to get the baby out, and we will work together. On my command.”
I look at Lena’s long, dark braid, focusing on the curl at the end. I don’t trust myself in the moment to stay away from her eyes and I can’t know that this isn’t going to work.
Because I cannot bring her or the bairn back.
Not here. Not at the Outpost.
Having already been chased out of my village, it’s simply too dangerous with these strangers. The ban on magic most certainly extends to the Badlands, and I can’t think of a place to escape to if I have to leave here.
“Lena, I need you to push,” I tell her, even as I worry she can’t hear me. “I know—I know you’re tired, but we’re going to help you. When the next contraction comes, you’re going to push as hard as you can, every bit of you goes into it. Can you do that? For your baby?”
Abruptly, she seems to focus, as if the word unlocked something within her.
“Yes,” I continue, “for the bairn. Take a deep breath with me—that’s it. That’s right. You’re going to do this. You are going to—”
Just then, her womb contracts, and I feel her body tense.
“Now. Push, you must push the baby out—” I look at her husband’s hands. “Ronl, push with her. All your weight, all your strength. Drive it in and down. Push the baby out of her. Push. If you want them to live—push!”
He does, bearing into his palms, arching his shoulders into the effort. And Lena does the same, her legs shaking, an animal sound roiling up and out of her.
The baby’s position moves.
Closing my eyes so I can concentrate, I join the effort as well, but I am going in, not out.
More of my fingertips make contact with the tiny skull, and I know what has happened.
The baby is not face down. It’s oriented to the side.
So the shoulders are not passing through the wide part of the hips, but rather they are stuck on the pelvic bone.
“Harder!” I have to yell over Lena’s growling. “Harder—”
The woman lets out a horrible scream, but it’s not about pain. It’s anger. It’s a warrior’s howl of fight.
“That’s it, that’s what we need!”
Another round of growling from her starts up, low at first, growing in volume. And then she screams again as her husband abruptly repositions himself, straightens his arms, and tilts all of his body weight into the downward thrust of his palms.
And then nothing happens.
No matter the effort we all do, no matter the woman’s heroic straining or her husband’s determined force, the baby stays where it is. Even as a fresh wash of blood hits my hands, and I begin to shake from the force I am putting into trying to grab on to the slick head, nothing seems to help—
The infant explodes out of the blockage with such velocity that its warm, slippery little body skates up my arms. I catch it in time, and immediately drag some of the sheets over to cover the tiny thing.
There is no cry. There is only floppy limbs and a still body.
I am not gentle. I rub the sheeting over the fresh skin with vigor.
“My baby…” Lena says weakly, her head lolling to the side.
“What is wrong?” the husband begs. As if he’s confusing the question with a prayer. Or maybe for him, it’s both.
“My baby, my—”
The piercing cry of the bairn is so loud, my ears ring, and yet never, ever, have I heard such a beautiful sound in all my years.
Life has won. Death has lost. And neither were my doing.
Instantly, the gray flesh becomes flush with a pink, healthy glow.
Tears come to my eyes as I turn to the woman and her husband, and lay the gift upon her breast.
“Here she is,” I choke out. “Here … is your daughter.”