“She’s not dead yet.”
Not dead, but weak. Her face is a pale moon with blue-red smudges under her eyes and white around the mouth. She gasps and cries, and the midwives have long since stopped trying to tell her to be calm.
“Pray!” Touilt says, and no one is surprised to hear Roswitha invoke the name of the goddess. “You must push. With all your might.”
“I can’t. I’m done.”
“You can. You must.” Wilona climbs behind the sobbing woman and heaves her up until she’s in a squatting position. Roswitha is heavy and her muscled thighs are streaked red. “Think of Dunstan.”
It’s not the first time things have ended badly at a birth. Mothers died, babies died, and such things were part of the pattern of wyrd. She and Touilt have, over the years, attended other such births, two where the mothers died, one where both mother and child succumbed. But Roswitha is different. Roswitha of the creamy skin and round, laughing eyes is Wilona’s friend. She has to live. If she dies, how will Wilona face Dunstan? Roswitha strains and grunts. Drops of thick, dark blood blot the straw. She collapses against Wilona, and it’s all Wilona can do to hold her on the birthing-platform. The door opens and a gust of wind scatters embers from the fire. The monk, Egan, stands in the door, and behind him Dunstan paces back and forth in the yard, chewing on his knuckle.
“This is no place for you, priest,” Touilt says. “Have you no decency?”
“I’ve come to help, if I can.” His voice is as soft as calfskin.
“You cannot. The goddess claims this place.” Wilona holds Roswitha with one arm against her chest. The labouring woman is in so much distress she’s oblivious to modesty. Wilona holds her hand up and opens her palm, revealing the painted runes.
If she expected the monk to be struck down by the power of the goddess or frightened by her, she’s disappointed. His face merely shows concern.
“It seems the goddess doesn’t protest my presence, and the lady might need all the help we can give her.”
With that, Roswitha screams and throws her head back so violently Wilona only just manages to move aside and avoid having her nose broken. Roswitha breaks out of her embrace and lurches onto all fours. There is blood but there, yes, the baby is coming. The crown, blue and bloody, streaked with white, appears between her legs. Egan approaches, stumbling on his robe, and kneels by Roswitha’s head. He holds out a silver cross. He begins speaking, quickly, breathlessly, his eyes wide and his skin dripping sweat as though he were the one in such agony. “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus—” Roswitha moans, and it sounds like a dying animal.
“Get away from her! Keep your filthy spells to yourself, priest!” Touilt stands behind him, trembling with rage.
“I pray to the mother of God,” he says, his eyes never leaving Roswitha’s face. “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae.”
Wilona’s fingers work inside the birth canal, trying to ease the cord loose. In a loud voice she calls, “Frige, wife of Woden, Queen of the gods, friend of women in their time, hear me now, and take this harm from us.”
Their voices rise to different gods and mingle with the woman’s cries. The air shivers and shakes, and then Roswitha’s body goes rigid as bone and in her great effort even her breath stops.
“Push,” whispers Wilona.
“Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,” whispers Egan.
The baby slips out, blue and silent and still.
“Praise be to God,” Egan says.
Touilt pushes Egan aside and lunges for Roswitha, whose eyes roll back in her head. Wilona reaches for the baby an instant before Roswitha collapses onto it, but something is terribly wrong. The baby’s shape … the head is bulbous, the body … what is that! She pulls the child away. Roswitha struggles insensibly. Egan reaches for her, and to Wilona’s surprise, Touilt lets him, accepting his help to turn Roswitha on her back. Wilona snatches a blanket and wraps the child in it. What should be inside the child is outside, and there are no legs to speak of. Touilt’s and Wilona’s eyes meet. Touilt bows her head and closes her eyes.
“Why is there no cry?” Roswitha says.
“Be still, be still.”
Touilt cuts the cord and ties it, fingers working quickly. She points to the basket, and Egan hands it to her. She pulls out handfuls of soft moss. Roswitha must be packed.
“My child isn’t crying!”
Wilona checks. A mercy. It drew no breath. She takes Roswitha’s hand. Her friend’s face is alabaster. “You must be strong, Roswitha. There will be other babies, lots of other babies.”
Tears fall in shining rivulets down Roswitha’s plump cheeks. “I want my child.”
“No, the child is gone. Let me care for …” She hesitates. What was it, boy or girl? “… her. I’ll see she’s buried with proper rites.”
Egan moves behind her, toward the motionless bundle in its blanket, the reddish-brown stains seeping through. “I’ll baptize the child and bury it as a Christian.”
She might have guessed. She bites back the words searing her throat. What good has the White Christ done? How has he proved himself more powerful than Frige? Perhaps that was what killed the child. Perhaps it was pulled apart by jealous gods.
“Is that what you wish, Roswitha?” Touilt asks.
She just cries and nods and cries some more. “Dunstan,” she says.
Yes, Dunstan must be told. “Come; let’s make you pretty for your husband.” Wilona brushes matted hair back from Roswitha’s clammy brow. She straightens the bedclothes as Egan bends over the tiny corpse and draws back the covering. He gasps, and then angles his body so Roswitha cannot see. Well, at least he has some compassion, if little sense. He says some sort of prayer and blesses the child, his hand shaking. When he is finished he looks at Wilona. His sharp-boned face is twisted with emotion, his lips skewed, the startlingly bright eyes blinking with something like astonishment. They beseech Wilona for something, but she doesn’t know what.
“Will you call the father, or shall I?” she says.
Under Touilt’s ministrations, the afterbirth has passed. She applies the moss. “The bleeding is slowing,” she says.
Egan rewraps the baby and recovers himself somewhat, passing a hand before his face. “I will bring Dunstan.” Yet he seems frozen, gazing down at the lump beneath the gore-marred cloth.
“Soon?” Touilt dips a cloth in water and wipes Roswitha’s face.
“He’ll be so disappointed in me,” says Roswitha.
As the priest exits, letting in a blast of wind, Wilona kneels by her. “No, he’ll be nothing of the sort. He loves you deeply, and you know it. Who knows why the gods take this one and leave that one? It’s a hard world and your baby will never know hunger or—”
“Roswitha!” Dunstan bursts through the door to his wife, his cloak flapping, his hair wild, his face mottled. He drops to his knees next to the bed and takes her face in his hands. “I love you. You must not die!”
“She won’t die,” says Touilt, wiping her bloody hands on a cleanish cloth. “She’ll be fine, in time.”
“The baby,” Roswitha begins, and then dissolves in tears.
Wilona stands in front of the baby’s corpse.
Dunstan hangs his head. “So that’s what I saw on Brother Egan’s face.”
“It’s for the best,” says Wilona, softly. Dunstan flinches. She need say no more.
Egan stands by the door. “The child is with Christ now. Safe in the arms of our heavenly Father. Free from all pain. Surrounded by the saints.”
“As you say, Brother.” Dunstan’s voice is thick.
“We’ll baptize the child, then.” He comes to Dunstan and puts his hand on his shoulder. They’re not that much different in age, Wilona realizes, although the monk looks older. “Will you tell me what you were to name her?”
“We hadn’t decided yet,” says Dunstan, his eyes never leaving his wife’s face.
“The n
ame comes in the days after the birth,” says Wilona. “It’s a message from the gods, and carries with it the child’s responsibilities and gifts.”
Egan turns to her and she’s surprised to see his expression contains no contempt.
“Perhaps if we pray for a while, the name might come to us now. Shall we try?” he says.
Dunstan nods and kneels next to Roswitha. Egan takes up the child’s body, kneels next to Dunstan and turns to Wilona and Touilt. “Will you not pray with us, Sisters?”
“We cannot pray to your god.” Touilt moves backwards, into the shadows.
“Pray to whom you will, and let love carry your heart’s intention to heaven’s ears.” His glittering eyes hold no sarcasm. He closes them and speaks in a soft murmur.
The wind whistles through the thatch and smoke from the fire dances in the drafts, twirling round the rafters. The hut is dim now that the sun has slipped, in the short days of autumn, over the rounded hump of the mountain. The joking, weary voices of men drift into the hut as they return to their wives and children from their work in the fields, woods, or workshops. Roswitha lies on her back, her eyes closed. Her throat works with suppressed sobs and her fingers entwine with Dunstan’s as she clutches his hand to her breast. His head is bowed. His free hand covers his eyes, and his chin trembles. Egan holds the bloody bundle and rocks it while he prays, his face tilted toward the ceiling.
Wilona sees them as though through an open door, beyond a threshold she cannot cross. She feels her spirits around her, smells the wild, open-heath scent of them, feels the flutter of feather and wing, but she cannot deny there’s something else in the room. As thick as the air is with blood and afterbirth and grief, filled with the loss of all those things that might have been, there’s yet a sweet, strange comfort mantled across the shoulders of those three, encircling them as tangibly as the presence of her own Raedwyn, and bringing solace in the same way. The scene draws inward, becomes both clearer, more precisely visible, and at the same time more distant. She is separated from them by the thinnest but most effective of veils. They are claimed by Christ, surrounded by him. Egan’s face shimmers with tears, and he appears as consumed with grief as if the child were his own. He is completely enveloped in his communication with his god, as surely as if he were in a trance, and perhaps he is. An enchantment Wilona cannot name has overtaken this place. She should use every spell at her command to banish this White Christ from a place hallowed by the goddess, but oddly she feels neither the desire nor an urgent need to do so. Instead, she prays to Frige and to Eostre, and to the spirits who care for small, lost creatures. She asks that the child be found and guided safely to her ancestors. She asks for mercy in the midst of grief. For an instant she feels hands on her head, smoothing her hair, and then they’re gone.
Roswitha says, “I am naming her Leofrun.”
Whatever glamour surrounds them does not diminish, exactly, but it parts, as though made of wind and water, and Wilona is once again included, no longer outside, while around her, above her is the flutter of feather and wing. Raedwyn remains. But where is Touilt? Wilona spins round, and there she is, no more than a smudgy blur in the corner, drawn in, camouflaged by the spirits, cloaked with shadow. Touilt, too, then, has felt the presence of something other than the old gods, but protected herself with magic beyond Wilona’s ken.
Dunstan smiles at his wife through his tears. “It’s a good name,” he says.
Egan unwraps the blanket slightly and recoils involuntarily. Life’s cruelty seems to come as a shock. A tear trickles from his eye and falls on the baby’s twisted, inside-out form. He holds his charge in such a way that Roswitha and Dunstan still cannot see, and Wilona is grateful.
A movement beside her and Touilt speaks. “You have no further need for me.”
Wilona hasn’t noticed her gathering her belongings and wrapping her cloak about her. She sweeps from the room. Quickly, Wilona grabs for her things, and places a hasty kiss on Roswitha’s brow. “Do you want me to stay?” she says.
Roswitha looks at Egan and then back at Wilona. “You’ve done your work,” she says. “Brother Egan will care for us now.”
When she turns, Touilt is already gone. As she closes the door behind her, she finds Margawn waiting outside, as she hoped he would be. He puts his arms around her. “Touilt told me before she stalked off. I thought it best to leave her be. Sad news,” he says. “How are you?”
“It was hard on Roswitha. She’ll have to wait a while before having another. Luckily, Dunstan’s the sort of man who’ll give her time to heal.” She disentangles herself from his embrace and takes his arm. “I’m weary, Margawn. Take me home.”
When at last Roswitha falls asleep and there is no more Egan can do before the burial tomorrow, he creeps out of the hut and stumbles into the deeply shadowed snickets. He needs urgently to get away from people, and the hideous frailty of human life. He wants a high place, and he wants to be alone. His mind is scattered. He’d been praying for mother and child when something picked him up by the scruff of the neck and propelled him into the birthing room. It was against all reason, his invading the place of women’s mysteries, and yet he had been compelled. Why? There had been power in that room. He felt it like a heat blast when he entered. There would be talk in the village, questions about why the child had been born malformed. Someone would be held accountable. His heart told him the seithkonas were not to blame. And yet that power. It was thick, dark, disturbing. Only his most earnest invocation had brought the light of Christ into the room. If the Adversary found purchase there, he had to consider the women were involved, but surely as victims, not as witches. Surely. His pace quickens and soon he is running through the village, past the vegetable plots, the thatched workshops, past the pigsties, the silent halls, the byres, and then he forces his legs to slow so he doesn’t startle the guard at the village gate.
“Bit late for a stroll,” says the grizzled, barrel-chested man, eyeing him.
“A hard night …” Egan stammers, unsure of how to say it. “Forgive me, I …” He can’t recall the man’s name.
The man nods. “Dunstan’s wife, is it?”
Althred, yes, that’s it. “Indeed, bless her.”
“Aye,” says Althred. “Margawn told me on his way back from escorting the seithkona woman. Might not have been wise, ah, to leave that sort alone with the mother.”
“Sort?” Egan looks up to the sacred hill. He’ll go there, as soon as this man lets him pass. He’ll go up there and let the night winds cleanse his soul. The snow shines, glints, beneath the thick crescent moon.
“Well, I hardly need to tell you. People are none too pleased. Way things ended up. Considerable power those women got. Might shoulder a grudge or two, you catch my meaning.”
Egan’s head snaps round to face Althred. “No, no. They did all they could … everything. No one could have done more.”
Althred lays a finger beside his nose. “You say so. You say so. But some of us think it best they move on. Lord Caelin seems to think so. One way or t’other.”
For a moment Brother Egan isn’t quite sure what the man means, and then he does. “I have no intention of … chastisement. They’ve done nothing to be punished for, Brother Althred. We must be clear on that. We must not gossip.” He believes this; he is sure he does. And yet, there’s a small wedge of doubt, a niggle of fear.
“Gossip, is it? That’s an old woman’s game.” The guard looks insulted and spits on the ground. “You mind telling me where on Woden’s earth … pardon … where are you headed at this hour?”
“I’m going to pray.”
“Prayers are best said safe inside the village walls.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Suit yourself. I’ve no orders to stop you.” Althred mutters something under his breath and turns away.
It’s a hard, cold climb up the ice-slippery path to the hillside. The exertion keeps Egan warm, even in his thin robe and cape. His feet are wet, his fingers stiff. There�
��s no sound save for the wind and his laboured breathing. With every step he prays for the soul of the child and for the parents, and for forgiveness for his weakness, for questioning God’s will. How, Lord, how could you let such a thing come to pass? And if it was not God’s will, but that of the Enemy? He prays for Touilt and Wilona too.
At last he stops, too tired to go farther. He’s quivering. The moonlight is a steely blue-grey stain on the snow. He fears he may not be able to contain the howl growing inside him. He chews his knuckle, the misshapen child’s image branded inside his skull. To think the Blessed Mother suffered so to bring the Son of God into the world. He sobs. He had always pictured the Divine Birth as painless, bloodless, peaceful. Now he sees it as it must have been: child of God, made human in all ways, born to a human woman, on a bed of bloody straw, in writhing pain among the beasts of the barn. The smell of manure and Joseph’s fear mingling with the scent of heaven. Memories of misshapen calves, and lambs with two heads, and piglets born so malformed … all instantly put to death if they breathed at all, their bodies quickly burned. Whispers among the brothers of demons, speculation about what such horrors meant. Augury and omens.
Was Sister Roswitha prey to elves? To a curse? How can he protect these people in his care? How has he failed them? Every time he closes his eyes he sees the grotesque form of the dead child, more demon than infant. Perhaps it is true that the seithkona … No, he cannot think that, for he saw the grief on the women’s faces. He mustn’t be tempted into evil thoughts about anyone. He must see only the light of Christ in every person.
There are no trees this high. The village is but shadows and flickers far below. The world is silver and cold, full of mystery, the sky impossibly vast, impossibly deep. Lord, we cannot understand Thy ways. We can only trust Thee. Only love Thee. Only do Thy will. He longs to disappear, to meld completely into the body of God. He removes his cloak, his tunic, and then his undergarment, standing in only his brodekins, and then he kicks them off and stands barefoot. The wind makes his eyes tear.
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