She let Eleanor control the conversation and they talked of the latest rumors to spill out of the queen’s restive homeland: that the Counts of Angouleme and La Marche were supposedly conspiring to disavow Henry and offer their allegiance to the French king. Maud was not surprised when Eleanor complained caustically about the difficulties she’d encountered as regent during Henry’s extended stay in England that past year. She did not doubt that Eleanor was genuinely concerned about the spreading discontent in her domains, but her political grievances were stoked now by private pain, and Maud could think of few fuels more combustible than a sense of humiliation and betrayal.
Eleanor was fuming about a petition recently circulated at the papal court by some of the more disaffected Poitevin barons. They’d actually dared to claim that their duchess’s marriage to the Angevin interloper was invalid because she and Henry were distant cousins, reminding His Holiness that these were the very grounds for dissolving her union with the French king. There was no chance that the Pope would heed their appeal, but Eleanor was infuriated by their effrontery, by the very suggestion that she was subservient to Henry’s will. Maud listened and murmured sympathetic agreement where appropriate, all the while wishing that the wronged wife could speak as candidly as the aggrieved queen.
It was then that they were interrupted by Eleanor’s daughter. Tilda was apologetic yet insistent, entreating her mother to help her write to her grandmother, the Empress Maude. She was being tutored in German, she explained to Maud, for that was the tongue of her husband-to-be, and it had occurred to her that the Empress might be pleased to receive a letter in the language of her long-gone youth. Maud understood what the girl was really seeking-some rare time alone with her mother-and excused herself.
This must have been a wretched Christmas for poor little Tilda. The child was probably anxious about her new life looming in Germany, and at ten, she was old enough to sense her mother’s profound unhappiness, old enough, too, to understand some of the gossip she’d inevitably overheard. Maud gave her a quick hug as she headed for the door, hoping that Tilda would find more happiness at the German court than her grandmother the empress had.
As soon as she stepped out into the stairwell, she was pounced upon by Petronilla. “At last! Well? Did Eleanor talk to you about Harry and his whore?”
“No, she did not.”
“Hellfire and all its furies! I was so sure she’d confide in you..” Giving Maud a look of unspoken yet unmistakable reproach, Petronilla slipped her arm through the other woman’s. “Let’s hope you have better luck later. Now we need to find a quiet place where you can tell me exactly what you said to her.”
“Are you sure you do not want to hide under Eleanor’s bed the next time we talk?”
Petronilla was too worried to feel resentment. “I know you think I’m meddling, but it tears at my soul to see Eleanor so stricken and to be unable to ease her heart. First she put her own life and the babe’s at risk with that foolhardy journey to Woodstock, and now she shuts me out, unwilling to share her hurt. Thank God Almighty that Harry did not follow her to England! In her present state of mind, who knows what she might have said to him. At least they’ll have this time apart so her rage can cool.”
Maud stopped so abruptly on the stairs that she nearly lost her balance. Jesus wept, was the woman serious? Nothing could be worse for the marriage than time apart. How could Petra be so blind? But she had no chance to respond, for a door banged above them and Tilda’s frightened cry froze both women in their tracks.
“Aunt Petra, hurry!”
Tilda was hovering in the doorway, staring in horror at the wet stain spreading rapidly across her mother’s skirt. One glance was enough for Maud. Giving the girl a gentle push, she said with quiet, compelling urgency, “You need not fear, lass. Her waters have broken, that’s all. You’d best fetch the midwife straightaway.” Tilda took off and Maud moved swiftly into the chamber, pausing only long enough to close the door. Petronilla was already kneeling at her sister’s side.
“Jesu, Eleanor! Why did you not tell us that your pains had begun?” Eleanor grimaced, her eyes meeting Maud’s over Petronilla’s bowed head. “They had not,” she said, sounding edgy and out of breath. “The waters have broken too soon.”
Although no one acknowledged it, fear was a palpable presence in the birthing chamber. Eleanor’s labor had begun the evening after the premature rupture of her membranes. A day later, the contractions were coming sharp and short, agonizing but ineffective, for she should have been almost fully dilated by now and she was not.
Beset by bouts of nausea, Eleanor could not swallow the honey and wine she needed to keep her strength up; even water sometimes made her gag. By turns, she shivered violently and then broke out in a cold sweat. They felt the sharp edge of her tongue as the hours dragged by, enduring her outbursts with a stoicism that could not completely camouflage their misgivings. They were all veterans of the birthing chamber, familiar with the instinctive panic that could overwhelm a woman who knew she must either deliver her babe or die.
It was, Maud thought grimly, the ultimate trap, and a woman in hard labor did not even have the option that a snared animal did, of chewing off its own foot to make a desperate escape. The Church’s position was unambiguous and immutable: if necessary, the mother must be sacrificed to spare the child. Fortunately for women, they were attended in the birthing chamber by midwives, not priests, and Maud had never known one who would not act first to save the mother.
Eleanor was vomiting again, tended by her sister with so much tenderness that Maud could almost forgive her. For one so given to posturing and frivolity, Petronilla was surprisingly capable in a crisis, showing flashes of tempered steel beneath the superficial surface gloss. Maud reminded herself that the self-indulgent Petra had endured more than her share of sorrows-the loss of an adored father, a beloved husband, and an only son, stricken with that most feared of all mortal ailments, leprosy. She was not about to lose a sister, too, not as long as she had breath in her body, and she was winning Maud’s grudging admiration, both for her demeanor and her gritty determination to banish the shadow of death from the birthing chamber.
Bertrade had taken a short break, was just emerging from the corner privy chamber. Her face was blank, for she was too experienced to reveal her own anxieties or dread. Her fatigue she could not hide, however, and she seemed to have aged years in these post-Christmas hours. Untidy black hair defied its pins, revealing a smattering of grey that Maud had never noticed before, and there was such a prominent slump to her shoulders that her body was conveying her distress more eloquently than words could have done. Eleanor was caught up in another contraction, and Maud took advantage of the moment to draw Bertrade aside.
“Why is the mouth of her womb not open by now?” she asked quietly, the low, even pitch of her voice belied by the fingers digging into Bertrade’s arm. “She has always delivered her babies more easily than this.”
“When a woman gives birth again and again, her womb can become weak and feeble. I’ve also seen this happen when the waters break too soon, but I do not know why.”
Maud had learned that midwives, like doctors, were usually loath to admit their lack of knowledge, and she would have given Bertrade credit for her candor if it were not Eleanor in travail. “In all the birthings I’ve witnessed, the waters were either clear or light reddish in color. Eleanor’s were dark, a murky greenish brown. What does that mean?”
Bertrade glanced across the chamber at the woman writhing on the birthing stool, then dropped her voice so her words barely reached Maud’s ear. “I am not sure, my lady. I’ve seen it but rarely. It can mean that the babe will be stillborn.”