Maud was expecting as much. “If she cannot deliver the child, what will you do?”
Bertrade could not repress a superstitious shiver. Why tempt fate? But she was not about to rebuke the Countess of Chester, the king’s cousin, and she said reluctantly, “There are herbs I can give her, dittany and hyssop and others. Or I can make a pessary with bull’s gall, iris juice, and oil, and that will usually expel a dead child. God Willing, it will not come to that.”
“God Willing,” Maud echoed dutifully, keeping to herself her blasphemous thought that the Almighty too often seemed deaf to prayers coming from the birthing chamber. Just then Eleanor cried out, an involuntary, choked sob that sounded as if it were torn from her throat. Maud had attended three of Eleanor’s birthings and never had she heard her scream like that. The Latin words came unbidden to her lips, so soft and slurred that only Bertrade heard.
“O infans, siue viuus, aut mortuus, exi foras, quia Christus te vocat ad lucem.”
The midwife looked at her intently. “What does that mean, Lady Maud?”
Maud swallowed with difficulty. “It is a prayer for a child whose birthing goes wrong. ‘O infant, whether living or dead, come forth because Christ calls you to the light.’ ”
Bertrade nodded slowly. “Amen,” she said succinctly, and moved in a swirl of skirts back to Eleanor’s side.
Eleanor had been clutching an eagle-stone amulet, most valued of all the talismans said to succor women in childbed. When her grip loosened, it slipped through her fingers onto the floor. With a dismayed gasp, Petronilla dropped to her knees and scrabbled about in the matted, sodden rushes until she’d recovered it. Pressing it back into her sister’s palm, she clasped Eleanor’s hand around the stone and hissed in her ear, “You must not die. You must hold on, you hear me? You cannot let that little whore of Harry’s win!”
Eleanor’s eyes were like sunken caverns, so tightly was the skin stretched across her cheekbones. To Petronilla’s horror, that familiar face had begun to resemble an alabaster death mask, and she warned hoarsely, “If you die, I swear I’ll kill you!”
The other women looked at her as if they feared her wits were wandering. But that was a childhood joke between them, and Eleanor’s cracked, bleeding lips twitched in acknowledgment of it. “I am not going to die, Petra… not today.”
Petronilla’s eyes blurred. “You promise?”
Eleanor nodded wordlessly, saving her strength for all that mattered now-survival. Bertrade was patting her face with a wet cloth, murmuring encouragements and reassurances that it would not be much longer and she must not lose heart. Eleanor knew that most childbed deaths occurred when the woman gave up, for there came a time when dying was easier than any of the alternatives. But she would not be one of them. She would rid her body of this alien intruder, this intimate enemy begotten by betrayal. She would not die so Harry’s child might live. And that the child was also hers seemed of small matter when measured against the desolation that had claimed every corner of her soul.
He was born as midnight drew nigh, bruised and blue, a small, feeble shadow of the brothers who’d come before him. They had squalled lustily, kicking and squirming as they were cleansed of their mother’s blood and mucus. He gave only a muted, querulous cry, as if to complain at his unceremonious, discordant entry into their world. The birth of a son was usually a cause for celebration. But this one was an afterthought, the fourth son, needed neither as heir nor spare.
After they’d assured themselves that he was whole and breathing, the women turned their attention to Eleanor, for she still had to expel the afterbirth, and that was often the most dangerous time of all. Bertrade had prepared a yarrow poultice and mixed a flagon of wine with boiled artemisia should Eleanor begin to hemorrhage; she also put aside a lancet and basin, in case the queen’s flooding must be stopped by bleeding her. She felt blessed, indeed, when none of these remedies were needed. After swallowing salted water, Eleanor groaned and twisted upon the birthing stool and the placenta splattered into Bertrade’s waiting hands. Hastily putting it aside for burial later lest it attract demons, the midwife rubbed her temples, leaving streaks of blood midst the sweat. “Well done, Madame,” she said proudly. “Well done!”
The baby balked at being bathed and then swaddled, but he was in practiced hands and was soon turned over to Rohese, the waiting wet-nurse. She, too, was experienced and had no difficulty in getting him to suckle. “How black his hair is,” she marveled. “Blacker than sin itself.” She had nursed several of Eleanor’s infants and could not help commenting upon the dramatic contrast between the other babies, sun-kissed and robust and golden, and this undersized, fretful, dark imp. None of the women responded to her chatter and she lapsed into a subdued silence, sensing tensions in the chamber that had naught to do with a difficult birth.
By the time Eleanor’s chaplain was allowed entry into this female sanctorum, she had been bathed and put to bed, although the women were hovering nearby to make sure she did not sleep yet, for all knew the danger that posed to new mothers. She accepted the priest’s congratulations with exhausted indifference, rousing herself to meet the minimum demands of courtesy and protocol, when all she wanted was to spiral down into a deep, dreamless sleep.
At the priest’s urging, the wet-nurse produced the infant for his inspection. “A fine lad,” he beamed. “If you wish, I will write to the king this very night. How pleased he will be to hear he has another son. Madame… the chapel is ready for the baptism. What name have you chosen for the babe?”
Eleanor did not seem to have heard his query and he cleared his throat, asked again. She regarded him in silence, and he fidgeted under the power of those slanting hazel eyes, bloodshot and swollen and utterly opaque.
It was Maud who came to his rescue. Taking the child from Rohese, she said briskly, “Since today is the saint’s day of John the Evangelist, let’s name him John.”
The priest looked relieved to have this settled. “Does that meet with your approval, Madame?”
Eleanor nodded and Maud handed the baby back to the wet-nurse. It occurred to Rohese then that the queen had yet to ask for the infant, and she moved, smiling, toward the bed. “Would you like to hold him, Madame?”
Eleanor turned her head away without answering.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
August 1167
Notre-Dame-du-Pre
Rouen, Normandy
Maude turned at the sound of the opening door. The woman who entered was her last link to the young bride she’d once been, consort and wife to Heinrich V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of the Germans. Heinrich had been dead for more than four decades, and in just a month’s time, it would be sixteen years since her unlamented second husband, Geoffrey of Anjou, had been called to account for his sins. She’d lost a crown and buried two of her three sons, and through it all, Minna had been with her, steadfast and unswerving in her devotion, loyal even by Maude’s stringent standards. Age had gnarled Minna’s limbs and stolen away her strength; she walked with a limp, panted for breath at the least exertion, and had asked Maude to send her heart back to Germany for burial. Maude had promised that it would be done, and quietly made the necessary arrangements, for she knew-if Minna did not-that death would find her first.
Minna was balancing a platter in an unsteady grip, scorning servants for the joy of waiting upon Maude’s son herself. Maude was amused to see it heaped with sugared wafers, as if England’s king was still a boy hungering after sweets. If her love for Henry was like a sword, gleaming and sharp and stark, Minna’s love was as expansive and comforting as the softest of goose-down pillows. Putting her finger to her lips, she signaled for quiet.