New Star Birthed
Brinn was doubled over on the bed and moaning when Mara and Mae entered the cottage. She managed to gasp through the pain, “Where have you been?” I’ve been waiting for hours! I thought you would be here right away!”
Mara rushed to her side, “Shhh…shh…breathe slowly…relax…the pain is almost over now…good…it’s over…good! She urged Brinn to lie back on the bed so she could check the progression of the birthing.
She removed her hands from Brinn’s swollen abdomen and straightened. She looked around the cottage for the first time.
Why isn’t water warming on the fire? Where are the cloths for cleaning and garb for the babe? Why isn’t the quilt on the floor where it belongs? She decided first things first. “Come, while the child is resting, we must ready. Let’s get water warming and cloths gathered for cleaning. Where is the garb for the babe?”
Brinn waved a hand in the general direction of the asked about stuff. “The cloths and the garb for the babe are in the corner.” Her voice was dismissive. “The water isn’t warming because I thought you did that work.”
Mara turned from looking around the room. Her voice, when she spoke, had a tone of haughtiness to it. “I’m your midwife, Brinn, not your servant. You should’ve had the water warming and this place in ready for birthing before we arrived.”
Brinn, no slouch at haughtiness herself, answered back. “Midwife…”
“Mara is my name. You may address me as Midwife Mara, as is my due.”
“Mara, it is then. You may address me as Lady Brinn, as is my due!”
The sarcasm was not lost on Mara. She straightened both her body and her mouth just a bit more.
Brinn turned to Mae. “Your name is?” Before Mae could speak, Mara spoke for her, “You may address her as Midwife Mae, as is her due.”
“Mae, it is then.”
Mae looked at Mara and then at Brinn. Good King Brugher! It’s going to be a long birthing.
Mara tugged at the quilt on the bed, “Let's move this to the floor while we have a chance. We don't want to soil this beautiful mattress,"
Brinn tugged back, “The quilt stays on the bed. I'm not planning to have this babe on the floor like a commoner!”
Still bristling from Brinn’s attitude and insults, Mara said, “We’re not your servants. You should’ve had the water warming before we got here and the quilt on the floor for the birthing. Using any bed for birthing, much less a shuula bed is not done.”
“Why?”
“Why? You’ll soil it with the birthing fluids!”
“It’s a mattress, it can be replaced. I’m birthing here, not on the floor!”
Though she said, “No, it can’t be easily replaced, do you have any idea how long it takes to make a bed like this?” Her thoughts were,
I can’t believe she’s using a shuula bed for birthing, not the floor! If I were her mother that’s where she’d be birthing this child! It took so long for a woman to work the fibers into a cloth, soiling the precious material with birthing fluids was unthinkable.
“There’s not much difference between the floor and this bed. Given a choice, which I do have, I pick the bed. Why are we arguing about this? Shouldn’t you be busy doing something?” Another contraction started and the hostilities ceased for a while.
Mara tried reasoning with Brinn between contractions, tried helping her with pain control, before they became stronger but Brinn chose to ignore her, using her screams to punctuate each contraction.
Mara tried to teach her pain management in the first hours of labor, but it hurt!
How the Plateau women were able to go through this without so much as a whimper was beyond her. She could see, between the waves of pain, Mara’s disapproval of her screaming but she didn’t care! She thought,
How dare That siiker treat me like a drudge! There was no way I would birth my babe on the floor! The attitude she showed me! No servant would have treated me that way at the palace! Midwife Mara, indeed! More like siiker Mara!
Hours of Brinn’s screaming and arguing between the two women created an air of tension in the room. Mae, having listened to Mara’s and Brinn’s constant arguing was glad when the birthing process reached its final stage.
“Push Brinn!” Mara commanded.
“I can’t,” Brinn whispered.
Mara looked at Brinn with a professional eye. The woman could barely hold herself up on her elbows. She wasn’t sure how much this young female could take in her weakened condition, yet she’d had mothers, much weaker, nursing their babes not long after birthing. She’d lost only a few women in the few years since her mother crossed over and made her the village midwife.
“You must push! We can only help so much! The child is in your body, not ours!” Mara’s patience had reached its limit. The relative quiet, calm atmosphere she’d grown to expect at a birthing was nothing like she and Mae were going through now. She’d tried reasoning with the woman, trying to help her with pain control.
It was scandalous, the lack of control Brinn had over her pain. No Plateau woman would permit so much as a whimper even if she were dying. Where was this woman’s mother? It was rare for a woman to birth alone. Mara had more than a few unkind words for that woman. She had no doubt, after watching and wincing, while Brinn screamed, her mother taught her daughter not even the most basic pain management.
Brinn screamed again as another contraction reached its apex but no sound emerged. Mara’s patience was gone.
Thank the King’s grace for small favors! One more scream out of her and I would have stuffed that mouth for her.
She peered between Brinn’s open legs, then looked at Mae. “Mae, get behind Brinn,” she said. “When I tell you to push, I want you to push above the bulge. Mae nodded and mounted the bed, sighing as she sat on the mattress. “I’ve yet to finish my mattress! This feels so soft. It’ll be wonderful to replace those limbs with a mattress.”
“Brinn! Look at me!” commanded Mara. “One more push. The child’s almost out. One more push will birth the child. You can do this. Mae will help you.”
Mara watched as another contraction seized Brinn’s body. She was sure Brinn was so tired she no longer felt it. “Push!” she commanded Brinn and Mae.
Brinn rallied for another long, hard push with no breath or spare energy to even grunt. Just as she thought it would never end, she could feel as the child’s head slipped out. From there it was a matter of another small push and the girl child slipped into the world and took her first breaths.
What a beautiful baby! Mara thought,
properly quiet too, though it’s surprising, considering how much screaming her mother did, she ought to be screaming too. In her years of birthing, she’d not seen an infant so beautiful at birth.
So quiet! Brinn thought
I thought babes cried at birth because they were so disappointed at having left the others behind.
“Here, Mae! You clean the babe while I deliver the ghost child and clean her up so she can feed the babe. Thank the King’s grace the babe was small. There’s no tearing to repair.”
Mara’s commanding tone irritated Mae.
I’m not your servant either, Mara! Your attitude is getting the best of you.
Brinn laid there, her eyes closed, body limp with exhaustion, but she looked like she would be ok now. Mara thought of Keirn's warning to her.
Men don’t know anything about women and childbirth! She looks tired but she’ll be fine with some rest.
Hearing a strange sigh, Mara looked up from cleaning Brinn, just as she let out her last breath. Mara had heard of this happening, not to her birthing mothers, of course, and knew there was nothing she could do for her now.
Keirn’s warning words haunted her as she took the babe from her helper. While she had the child outside, Mae would prepare Brinn’s body for her formal entry into the life hereafter. It was all they could do for her now. Mara dreaded what was yet to come.
***
Rays from the setting sun momentarily blinded Mara as she emerged from the darkness of the cottage, Brinn’s infant in her arms. She almost dropped the child when she stumbled over kindling placed near the door. She clutched the infant to her chest trying to still the pounding she felt inside as Keirn came up behind her.
She jumped as Keirn asked, “Is it female?”
“You startled me!”
“Is the child female?” Keirn asked again.
Mara raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Female. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess. It would be one or the other, would it not?”
“I suppose you’re right.” She smiled a tight, polite smile at him and started the ritual.
For your inspection,” she intoned, “One female child, just birthed from Brinn. Ten fingers, ten toes, no extra limbs or other defects. May she be free from the mark!” She held the infant out to Keirn with outstretched arms.
Keirn took the infant from Mara and answered in turn. “I thank you for birthing this child from Brinn and pray for the King’s Grace she’ll be free from the mark.”
Every inch of the tiny body must be inspected for the mark. This had started many generations ago, with the appearance of the prophecy. No one knew who wrote it but they believed in it waiting for the first sign, the birth of the star child. They didn’t know what mark they were looking for, or what they were to do next should they find it, but they followed the rituals defined for them by their forbearers. No one knew what to look for. No one, that is, but Keirn. He knew what to look for and where to look for it.
Mara watched, as he slowly inspected the infant’s body, starting at her head, checking each limb and ending at her feet, looking for the mark he knew would be there. He paused slightly at her right palm but moved on with the rest of the inspection. He didn’t need to finish or even start the search but it was a ritual which must be done.
The infant’s aura, for someone so new to the world, was strong. The star in the lines of her right palm was what he’d expected to find. Fortunately, only those of the Craft could see it there.
Cradling the child in his arms again he asked Mara, “How fares Brinn?”
Mara flinched inside. She hadn’t had to say these words since the plague years ago and didn’t want to this time. If she hadn’t boasted to this man how she hadn’t lost any mothers in such a long time. If she hadn’t reassured him with what she perceived to be the truth. What was she thinking, bringing Mae along? Now it would be known around the area and beyond she had lost a patient. She would have to threaten Mae somehow. Hmm!
She looked up at Keirn unsure how he would react but steeled herself for the worse. “The life hereafter has called her,” she replied and waited for what was to come. Remembering what had happened in the cottage, how Brinn looked before she passed over, she added, “It was a peaceful passage. One second she was laying there quiet, the next she’d breathed her last. I’ve never had a mother do that before.”
She hoped that would soften the blow for him but knew it didn’t matter how she phrased it the woman had still passed.
“You haven’t lost a mother since the plague, you boasted; they all believe they won’t survive, you said; the fear is forgotten afterward, you said.”
Though the volume of his voice didn’t change, the inflection did. He’d already known she was gone. He didn’t need this Siiker in woman’s garb to tell him that but had hoped he was wrong, that his fears hadn’t been realized.
“The fear is forgotten,” he repeated, as if to himself, “You were right about that you Siiker!” Mara flinched at the curse. She could not look into the grief so deeply embedded in his soul.
“I warned you, did I not? I warned you of her sorrow thoughts, did I not? You boasted she would be fine. Said this was common, did you not? What say you for yourself now?” he asked. His broad shoulders slumped ever so slightly. Frown lines and eyebrows relaxed. The straight line his mouth had become relaxed. His voice softened as he continued. “It does not do her fair to be blaming you for that which was preordained.”
Mara gave him a quizzical look.
Preordained? That’s an odd thing to say at a time like this.
The child had quieted but had started squalling louder with each angry word from the man holding her. Her cries had grown softer now to the point of stopping all together. The infant looked up at him from the shelter of his arms. He looked down at her, then thrust her into Mara’s arms. “Here, see if you can keep her safe from harm while I do what must be done!”
Keirn turned and strode toward the cottage and the woman. He didn’t see the angry look Mara shot at him or the pinch she gave the child’s bottom. He was too far away to hear the infant's cry of pain.
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