Faithful Dead (33 page)

‘Leave them with me,’ Lora urged. ‘Can I not administer them?’

Tiphaine grinned. ‘Undoubtedly.’

‘But you want to stay,’ Lora finished for her. ‘Well, if you get locked out and have to shin up over the wall, it’s your own fault.’

‘I know.’

‘And I suppose you’ll tell them you got
lost
.’ There was heavy irony in the emphasis on the last word. ‘You who know the Forest’s secret paths and ways as well as the lines that cross your own palm.’

‘Aye, that I will.’

Joanna, listening, gave a brief laugh and said, ‘I’d better hurry up, then, and save your skin, Sister. I think––’ But then another contraction came, longer, stronger, and more agonising than any so far. Joanna’s smile faded to a grimace, then to a mask of pain, and, with one hand holding Tiphaine’s and one holding Lora’s, she flung back her head and screamed.

Then the contractions came so close together that they almost seemed to merge into one long pain. Tiphaine took Joanna’s head in her lap, stroking the sweat-soaked forehead, massaging light fingers through the long dark hair, while Lora knelt between Joanna’s spread legs and watched.

Suddenly Joanna cried, ‘She’s coming! I can feel something – it – I –
oh
!’

Lora took hold of her arms and pulled, while Tiphaine got round behind her, pushing her to a sitting position, then into a squat. Bracing herself, back to back with Joanna, she took the younger woman’s weight, supporting her in her exhaustion. Lora released her grip on Joanna’s wrists and, kneeling, bending low, cupped her hands beneath Joanna, fingers exploring, peering down to look.

She cried, ‘The head’s coming! Steady now, Joanna, slowly does it––’

Joanna gasped, moaned, then seemed to gather all her energy into another great push.

‘
Steady
!’ Lora cried. ‘You’ll tear yourself, pushing her out so fast!’

‘I can’t help it!’ Joanna shouted back.

There was a brief pause, during which Joanna slumped back, spent, against Tiphaine. Then she cried, ‘Oh, it’s happening again – oh –
OH
!’

‘Too fast! Too fast!’ Lora muttered, but then there was a squelching sound, a cry from Joanna, and one by one the baby’s shoulders emerged from out of its mother, swiftly followed by the rest of the tiny body.

Lora took hold of the infant in strong hands and held it up. The umbilicus pulsed, the child opened its mouth and screamed, almost as loudly as its mother had done, and its colour rapidly changed from newborn pallor to a healthy pink.

Joanna said, ‘Is she – is it all right?’

‘Aye, perfect, just perfect.’ Lora was wrapping a clean cloth tightly around the infant, carefully wiping around its eyes, nose and mouth. ‘And you were right the first time, my girl.’

With a grin, Lora tucked in the end of the swaddling clothes and handed Josse’s daughter to her mother.

Not very long afterwards, the herbalist collected her basket and set out back to Hawkenlye. It was now almost fully dark, but she knew the way. If she hurried, she would be back in time for Compline.

She had had no need of the medicines she had brought with her. Lora knew how to find her if she was needed; if, for example, Joanna were to fall sick with the terrible, killing fever that sometimes took new mothers.

But Tiphaine doubted whether she would be summoned. Lora was as skilled in her own way as the herbalist, and would manage whatever she might be faced with. They preferred it that way, Tiphaine knew. She was only allowed what minimal involvement she had with them because Joanna liked to know how things went in the outside world.

Liked to be assured, in truth, that all was well with Josse.

She may not want him, Tiphaine reflected, striding out hard for the Abbey, but she needs to know he is all right.

Ah, well. It was Joanna’s business.

She broke into a trot. Hawkenlye was in sight now, and it would be good to be home.

Back in the hut in the forest, Joanna was suckling her daughter. Lora had made her a drink, and was insisting that she finish it, every last drop. ‘Your milk will be in, after a day or two, so it’s best to get into good habits now and drink all you can take.’

Joanna, more grateful than she could say for Lora’s presence – and for Tiphaine’s – during the birth, now wished guiltily that Lora would go away and leave her alone.

She could manage. She had managed for the long months of her pregnancy, had got used to living on her own, depending on herself, coping. The little hut that was now her home was not really big enough for two.

For
three
, she corrected herself, staring down at the baby sleeping at her breast.

Margaret. My little Margaret.

She stroked a gentle finger across the baby’s brows, which were knitting briefly in some infant dream. The child’s skin was soft, downy, and the long, dark eyelashes curled and made shadows on the rounded, perfect cheeks.

Lora had earlier taken the baby outside. In a brief ceremony that Joanna knew about and accepted – even if she could not wholeheartedly approve it – the elder had briefly stripped the baby naked and laid her on the ground.

‘Child of the Earth, feel the Earth beneath you.’ Her quiet chanting tones had reached Joanna, inside the hut. ‘Mother Earth, feel your child who lies on your great breast.’

Margaret had squawked her protest at the sudden chill of the night air on her bare skin, and Lora had bundled her up and brought her inside again.

But before she had given her back to Joanna, she had knelt down in the firelight and studied the child. Margaret, eyes wide open, had stared back at her.

‘She will be one of the great ones,’ Lora murmured. ‘She will have the skill, Joanna. And, unless I am very much mistaken, she has the Sight.’

Joanna leaned over the edge of the platform. ‘But why? She is not of the blood, is she?’

Lora smiled. ‘Not at her conception, maybe. But you have spent the months that you have carried her learning new ways and new crafts, my lass. Do you not think that some of your acquired knowledge may have gone into her making, as she grew steadily in your belly?’

With wondering eyes, Joanna had stared down at her child.

Now, holding her once more, little body snug against her as the baby slept and dreamed, Joanna tried to work out how she felt. A daughter born safe and well was a joy, perhaps the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to her. Oh, there was Ninian, of course. There was always Ninian, even though he was now, and always would be, far away from her. Another son would have had to go the same way; living in a forest hut with his wiccan mother was no life for a boy, not once he grew towards manhood.

A daughter, now, was another matter. But a daughter who, only hours after her birth, was marked out as a great one . . . well, that was something else again.

After some time – Lora had gone to sleep, and Joanna at last had the illusion, if not the reality, of being alone with Margaret – she came to the sensible conclusion that it was no use worrying about what might or might not be to come in the future. The baby was here, she was sound and, if she really was what Lora said she was, then there was nothing whatsoever Joanna could do about it.

‘My job is to love you and keep you safe, my little Margaret,’ she crooned softly. ‘That, for now, is all.’ Settling herself – it took some time to find a comfortable position for her bruised, sore body – she cradled the baby in the crook of her arm and, like the tiny child and the old woman lying down by the fire, soon fell deeply asleep.

Outside, the moon rose up in the sky and the small clearing was bathed in pale light. The forest was dark and silent, the stars above like the tiny flames of candles an unimaginable distance away.

All seemed still.

Yet the folk of the forest knew that another soul had been born to them and, in secret, unknown dells and caverns, there were quiet celebrations. It was Samhain, after all, one of the forest people’s major festivals.

To have a Samhain child to welcome just made it even better.

 

The fifth novel in the acclaimed medieval crime series set around Hawkenlye Abbey in the Wealden Forest of Kent.