*
“She is there.” Daniel pointed across to where Eleanor was crouching with her arms wrapped around her body, rocking back on her heels.
Eleanor looked round. “Who’ve you found?”
“This is Melissa,” Daniel said. “She has come to help you.”
“You?” Eleanor stared hard at her, then turned back to Daniel. “Is this the only woman you could find? Seriously? I asked you to find me someone who knows what’s what, and she’s about twelve!”
“I’m eighteen,” Melissa said, stiffening. “And I’ve done this before, so I know exactly how you’re feeling right now.”
“Oh, you do, do you?”
“It’s okay. It’s normal to be nervous, and of course it’s harder for you, without the Imperial midwives to show you what to do.”
“You made use of their services, did you?”
“Well, yes, I...”
“And gave your child to their schools?”
“I’m not proud of my mistakes.”
“I should think not.” Eleanor bit her lip to keep from screaming, then turned her attention back to the girl who was, evidently, no kind of revolutionary. “What kind of Imperial slave are you?”
“I didn’t come here to be insulted.” Melissa turned towards the door, but Daniel stopped her.
“She is not normally like this. Please, stay.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “Okay, but Eleanor, you need to calm down. Do you have a herbalist here, or something?”
“I am quite accomplished in apothecary,” Daniel said with uncharacteristic modesty. “What do you need?”
“I need to get some drugs in this woman so she’ll shut up and listen. Pain relief, if nothing else.”
“Come with me.”
“Don’t you dare leave me,” Eleanor said, grabbing Daniel’s wrist. “Don’t you dare. You did this to me, and you’ll see it through.”
He turned back to Melissa. “Down the stairs, and on your left. There is a small store room, everything is labelled. I would suggest maybe poppy for the pain.”
The moment they were alone in the room, Eleanor gripped Daniel’s arm even more tightly and pulled him close. “Daniel, I’m serious. She gave her child to the schools. Isn’t she even with the rebels? Where did you find her?”
“She is in the revolution, yes. But she is quite new.”
“She’s a child herself.”
“You wanted someone who has done this, and she has, not long since. She is the best you could hope to find at short notice.”
“Maybe I’ll wait. When were you expecting him to arrive? Maybe I can just... you know... hold him in.”
Daniel put his arm around her. “I know today has been hard,” he said. “But it will be over soon.”
Melissa returned with her arms full of jars and bottles, and arrayed them on the floor at the side of the room.
“Poppy extract,” she said, picking one up and offering it to Daniel. “And I brought a few others.”
“Poppy will do for now.” Daniel took the jar, opened Eleanor’s mouth, and placed a small, sticky brown ball onto her tongue. She spluttered at the bitter taste and struggled to force herself to swallow it without vomiting.
“Fetch some water,” Daniel said. “And prepare a tea with ginger root and camomile flowers.”
“Maybe you could do that while I find out what’s going on here,” Melissa said.
“We’re having a baby,” Eleanor said. “What in all the Empire do you think is going on?”
“How bad are the pains?”
“Nothing compared to some I’ve experienced, but bad enough that I want this to be over, preferably yesterday.”
“Has it been getting worse over the day?”
“It comes and goes.”
“Come and lie down for a moment, and let me have a look.”
Eleanor took off her trousers, lay back on the bed, and watched with strangely detached curiosity as Melissa poked about between her legs.
“I think you’ve got a while yet,” she said, wiping her hands clean. “Perhaps even a couple of days.”
“How can that be? I was so sure he was ready to come out this morning.”
“He may be ready, but you’re not. You’re still too tight.”
While Eleanor was still struggling to accept that she might have been wrong, Daniel returned with the ginger tea. After she’d swallowed a couple of mouthfuls she turned to him.
“What was that stuff you made for Donna?”
“Donna?”
“The princess. You made up something for her to drink, to make her baby come sooner.”
“I remember.”
“Can you make some for me?”
“We are not in any rush.”
“She says my body isn’t ready, but I don’t know how long I can just wait around. Please?”
“Wait until tomorrow. If you still want to hurry yourself, we can discuss it then.”
“You should try to get some sleep,” Melissa said. “You’ll need all your energy to push him out.”
“And you still won’t let me have a sleeping draught?” she asked Daniel.
“You definitely need to rest.” He looked to Melissa. “You believe it will be tomorrow before the birth begins?”
“Tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”
“Then I see no harm in a light sedative.” He untied the pouch he always kept at his waist, fished around inside it for a moment, and brought out a bottle of small tablets. “Here, this should do.”
“Just one?” Eleanor asked as he went to put the bottle away.
“One should be enough.”
“Okay, but if I’m not asleep by the time I count to ten, you’re giving me a second one.” Eleanor stuck the tablet under her tongue and started to count; she was asleep before her lips managed to form themselves around the five.
By the time she came round it was late the next morning, and she woke to find the cramps in her abdomen were even worse than before. Every couple of breaths she found herself struggling against a new pain that was stronger and more intense than the last.
“Where’s that girl?” she asked Daniel. “And why are you working in my room?”
He looked up from his pestle and mortar. “I thought you would want me to be here,” he said.
“Yes, but not with all your potions and poisons, not when we’re about to have a baby. Can’t you leave it just for a couple of days?”
“I was only preparing more tea for you.” He tilted the bowl so she could see inside, though she couldn’t have identified the half-crushed seeds. “It is nothing dangerous.”
“If that’s for the pain, I could really do with it sooner rather than later.”
“Here, eat this.”
He brought her another sticky ball of poppy extract, and insisted again that she follow it up with an infusion of ginger and camomile.
“So the poppy does not make you sick,” he explained as she sniffed uncertainly at the fragrant steam.
“Where’s Melissa?”
“I told her she could rest,” he said. “We will need her soon enough.”
Another wave of pain hit her, knocking the breath from her lungs, and she gripped the mug so tightly she feared the pot might crack.
“Fetch her,” she said. “It’s getting worse.”
“This is faster than I thought,” Melissa said as Daniel ushered her into the room. She parted Eleanor’s legs, made a brief examination, and nodded. “You’re almost ready to push him out now. Come on, get up.”
“What?”
“Get up and walk around. It’ll help.”
It was the last thing she felt like doing but she wasn’t going to argue with anything that might get the whole experience over more quickly. She paced around the room, pausing at every contraction, almost enjoying the worsening pains. At least this meant something was happening.
She wasn’t sure how, but some ancient part of her seemed to know exactly what was supposed to happen ne
xt. She pulled a blanket from the bed to kneel on, and pushed with muscles she hadn’t known she possessed. Melissa crouched beside her and held out her hands to touch the crown of the child’s head.
“Great job,” she said. “Keep going like that, and he’ll be out in no time.”
Despite Melissa’s encouraging words, progress was slow and painful. In the moments between pushes, whenever she relaxed her efforts to try and catch her breath, Eleanor could feel only an overwhelming burning pain where the baby’s head was stretching her body in ways it had never been stretched before. She gripped Daniel’s hand and tried to blink back tears.
“I need more poppy,” she said. “It’s wearing off.”
Melissa reached for the jar, then hesitated and looked to Daniel for advice. “Can she have more? Is it wise?”
“I’m not a child, you don’t need to baby me – just give me that.”
“Two drops of poppy tea, in water,” Daniel said. Melissa set down the jar and picked up a small bottle instead. She dripped a little into a glass of water, and Eleanor gulped it down as though it was her first drink after weeks in some dryland desert.
She had a brief respite once the baby’s head was out, and then another spell of pushing and wanting to scream until his shoulders came through. After that it was all over quickly, and he fell into the sheet Melissa was holding ready.
The child’s head lolled as Melissa wrapped him up, and for a moment Eleanor was afraid he wasn’t breathing. Melissa handed her the bundle and she held it close, feeling the tiny body of her baby under the layers of thin fabric. She stroked his face but his eyes stayed closed.
“Is he okay?” she asked Daniel.
Daniel reached across and pressed one finger against the baby’s neck, feeling for a pulse. “He lives, do not fear. Shall I wake him?”
She nodded and he left, returning moments later with a bottle of clear liquid. He dipped his little finger into the bottle neck and placed it against the baby’s lips.
A moment later, the child opened his eyes and started to wail.
“Why is he crying?” Eleanor asked, suddenly feeling frantic. “What’s wrong?”
“Crying is normal,” Melissa said. “I’m sure you cried when you saw the enormity of the world. Remember he’s only known the inside of your belly until now.”
The cries intensified.
“But how will I know if he wants something?”
“Just hold him. If he needs more than that, you’ll know.”
They helped her back into bed and she wrapped herself and the child beneath layers of blankets, shivering from the stretch of time she’d spent half-naked in the chilly room. She wrapped herself protectively around the child and stroked his hair until he stopped crying. She’d almost dozed off when she was brought abruptly back to her senses by a pair of tiny lips clamping onto her left nipple.
“Melissa?” she asked, not wanting to disturb him by turning to see whether the girl was still there.
“What is it?”
“Look – I think he’s hungry. What am I supposed to do now?”
Melissa pulled back the blankets and peered over her shoulder. “I’m not sure,” she said, blushing. “They took my son away to the nursery before I got this far.”
“I think he’s trying to suck,” Eleanor said. “Maybe he’ll just get on with it.”
She shuffled into a sitting position, supporting his head, and watched as his mouth worked. One small hand clutched at the blanket near his head.
“You can go home if you want,” Eleanor said.
Melissa nodded. “I think you know as much as I do, now.”
“Thanks for coming. And I’m sorry if I was short with you earlier, I was struggling.”
“It’s okay, I understand.”
Daniel escorted her out, leaving Eleanor alone with a hungry child at her breast. She stroked his head and tried to talk to him, but it was hard to know what to say to someone who so plainly didn’t understand a word of it. When he eventually released her nipple, she held him up to get a better look at his face. He stared back at her with bright blue eyes that matched Daniel’s.
Daniel returned and settled himself in a corner with a pile of papers, and Eleanor thought she might finally get some sleep when she felt dampness seeping through the bundle of sheets. She laid the child on his back and started to unwrap him, but stopped short before she finished cleaning up the mess.
“Daniel?”
“What is it?”
“Our son... he’s a girl.”
He came across to see for himself, but there was no denying it. The baby boy they’d been expecting had, in fact, turned out to be entirely female. He reached out to take her tiny hand, and she started to cry again.
“Well, she cannot be named Martin,” he said. “That much is obvious. Do you have another idea?”
“Maybe we could call her Isabelle,” Eleanor said. “It turns out that’s my mother’s name.”
“You knew your mother?”
“I didn’t know she was my mother at the time, but she was the headmistress at my school.”
“How is that possible? It sounds like Venncastle sedition.”
“It really wasn’t anything like that. She never even told me.”
“Then how did you find out?”
“Can we please leave this for now? It’s a long story, and I need to sleep. We can talk about it tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“But what do you think of the name?”
“Isabelle. Yes, it is a pretty name.”
“That’s settled then.” Eleanor wrapped the baby in a clean sheet and held her tightly. “Hello, Isabelle.”
Isabelle just looked up with wide blue eyes and gurgled.