The Midwife and the Assassin

by Sam Thomas

  At that moment, a labor pang—the worst one yet—struck and Margaret’s face coiled in upon itself as she cried out in pain.

  “Be calm,” I said. “All will be well.” If Margaret had opened her eyes to see my face, she would have known that I believed no such thing.

  The sound of heavy footsteps climbing the stairs brought me to the edge of panic. I closed my eyes and sought refuge in prayer. Then, without warning, I found myself overtaken by a sense of peace. When I opened my eyes, the world around me had begun to move more slowly. Suddenly I knew everything that could be known, and nothing was beyond my power. I had no name for this extraordinary calm, but I had felt it a few times before, always in the midst of a difficult travail. One moment I would be up to my elbows in blood and sweat, terrified that I would lose both mother and child. The next it was as if I could see the child in the mother’s belly. I knew which medicines and ointments to use, and what secrets I must employ both to save the mother and to bring the child safely in to the world.

  By now the footsteps had reached the top of the stairs and approached our door. Katherine and Martha leaned against it, hoping to keep us safe. They braced themselves for a crash that would signal the start of Walker’s final assault.

  Instead, he knocked. “Margaret,” a voice called. “Are you in there? It is Bram. Open the door.”

  In an instant, I realized what this meant. I gestured wildly for Katherine and Martha to leave the door and join me in the far corner of the room. I turned to Margaret. “You are still some time from delivering your child. If you wish to live that long, you will have to do what I tell you.”

  The girl nodded.

  “Good. If you remain silent, we will keep you safe.” I crossed the room to Katherine and Martha. They stared at me in confusion and desperation. Why had I sent them away from the door when Walker was just on the other side?

  “We must be quiet,” I whispered. “Walker has no idea that Margaret is in travail, so he does not know we are here. He thinks that she is alone and will be easy prey.”

  The door handle rattled. “Open the door, my duck. I have come for you just as I promised.” I recognized Abraham Walker’s voice, but I could hear no trace of the murderous creature that lay behind it.

  “Where are the neighbors?” Katherine hissed. “He fired a bloody pistol, and nobody has come to help?”

  “I think I know what he did,” I whispered. I crossed to the window and pulled the curtain back so the three of us could see out. The street was alight with torches and a group of armed men stood in front of the Harrisons’ house. One man was talking to some of the neighbors who had braved the cold to find out what the trouble was.

  “Walker knew he risked rousing the neighbors,” I said. “So be brought his own men to keep the peace. They are disguised as members of the trained bands.”

  “Oh, God,” Martha said.

  “No doubt he told the neighbors that they’ve discovered a Royalist plot,” Katherine said. “That would excuse the pistol shots. Quite clever.”

  “They’ll kill us all and disappear into the city,” I said. “Nobody will even know where to look for them.”

  “Margaret!” Walker demanded from the hallway. “I know you are scared, but you must let me in.”

  “Well,” Martha said. “I’m glad we’ve got that sorted. But what do we do now?”

  Margaret spoke before I could answer. “Bram?” she called out. “Is it really you?”

  The horror in Martha’s eyes matched my own. How could the girl be so foolish?

  “It is, my love. I have come for you just as I promised that I would.” Walker’s voice was so loving that I knew he would win over poor Margaret.

  I raced to Margaret’s side and took her hand. “You must not do this,” I whispered. “He murdered your father and now has come to do the same to you.”

  Margaret’s eyes darted between mine and the door as she wondered who she should believe: her lover or a stranger. “What happened?” she called out. A sob caught in her throat. “What did you do to my father?”

  “Oh, God,” Walker cried out as if in pain. “It was the most terrible thing. It was an accident.”

  “Tell me what happened,” Margaret insisted. She then whispered, “My love.” She spoke so softly that none but I could have heard it. Tears filled her eyes.

  At that instant I knew that Margaret’s misguided affection for Walker had overcome her fear, and at any moment she would betray our presence in the room. If that happened, we would lose whatever slight advantage we still had.

  “I came to him,” Walker called out. “I asked for his permission to marry you, just as I said I would.” He sounded as if he were fighting back tears of his own. “But he flew into a rage as soon as I told him of our plans. He said he would not have his daughter dishonored so horribly.”

  “But it would be no dishonor,” Margaret exclaimed.

  “I know, my sweet!” Walker cried. “But he was mad with fury. He attacked me before I could convince him. I did not mean to kill him. I only wanted for us to marry.”

  I leaned to Margaret. “We will open the door,” I whispered. “But only if you ensure that he is by himself. Tell him he must be alone.” I thought he would be, for he would not want a witness when he murdered Margaret.

  In her confusion, pain, and lovesickness Margaret did not argue. “Is anyone with you?”

  “I have some men downstairs,” Walker replied. “And they will take us from here to the river. I have a fast ship there that will carry us to France as soon as the sun rises.”

  The joy that filled Margaret’s eyes when she heard this lie broke my heart. The truth was that by the time the sun rose, either she or her lover would be dead. I squeezed the girl’s hand. “Tell him you will open the door, but you must dress first.”

  Margaret looked confused, but she did as I asked. I could tell that she would not obey many more of my commands.

  I crossed to the door and started dismantling the barricado that Martha and Katherine had built. Martha seized my arm but I shook her off.

  “Are you mad?” she whispered. “He will kill us all.”

  “These sticks of furniture will not stop him,” I said. “He is coming in whether we want him to or not. If we can surprise him we have a chance.” I handed Martha the fire poker and took a set of iron tongs for myself. Katherine picked up a brass candlestick. We finished clearing the door and stood around it in a half circle.

  Martha and Katherine gripped their makeshift weapons like swords, their faces hard as granite, ready for the battle to come.

  I said a prayer and reached for the door handle.

  Chapter 20

  Before I turned the handle, Margaret cried out in pain. A labor pang had struck.

  “Darling, what is it?” Walker called out. “Are you ill?”

  “I am fine,” she replied through clenched teeth. “I am in travail with our child.”

  Walker said nothing for a moment. While he could make his peace with killing both his lover and her father, perhaps even he scrupled at killing a woman when she was in travail with his child.

  “Then I will take you to a midwife,” he called out with forced lightness. “Open the door. We will go together. I know of one in the neighborhood.”

  I knew what Margaret’s reply would be and that the time had come for us to fight or die. I looked at Katherine and Martha. They understood the situation as well as I did.

  “There is no need for that…” Margaret called out.

  I wrenched the door open and stepped back so Walker would not see me. I didn’t know if he wondered who had opened the door, but he walked in without a moment’s hesitation. He stared at Margaret, so intent on his prey that he did not notice any of the rest of us until he had crossed the threshold.

  Martha swung the fire iron at Walker’s head with such force that I felt sure that the battle would be over with one blow. To my dismay, Walker sensed Martha’s presence and simultaneously ducked beneath the
blow and threw up his cloak as a sort of shield. The iron missed Walker entirely, and instead became tangled in the folds of his cloak. Martha cursed as she tried to free her weapon, but Walker was much stronger, and with a furious cry he wrested the iron out of Martha’s hands.

  I leaped into the affray, swinging the tongs at Walker’s back. But my blow had even less of an effect than Martha’s, for the handle snapped off as soon as I struck him.

  Walker ignored my feeble assault and stepped toward Katherine with a heavy cudgel in his right hand.

  Katherine raised the candlestick over her head and brought it down with all her strength. Walker skipped back, the blow missing him by mere inches. He darted forward, swinging his club at Katherine’s head in a short, vicious arc. Katherine ducked and raised her arm, but she had no chance at all. She cried out when the club struck her arm—we all heard the bone break—and she fell silent when a second blow hit her head. Katherine fell to the ground, lifeless, blood flowing in a river from her head onto the floor. By then Margaret had begun to scream, adding even more confusion to the chaotic scene before us.

  I stepped to Martha’s side and we stood shoulder to shoulder between Walker and Margaret. He turned from Katherine and looked into my eyes. He gave no sign that we knew each other. He was no longer Katherine’s friend, but an assassin bent on his work.

  In an instant the calm that had served me so well mere moments before vanished. My heart raced, and I fought to contain the scream that clawed its way up my gullet. Walker took a deep breath as if to collect himself for these last few killings and stepped toward us. With no weapon to fight him and no hope of escape, I did the only thing I could. I lowered my head and charged him. To this day I don’t know what I hoped to achieve by this. But I knew I’d rather die fighting than cowering on my knees.

  Walker struck my back, but the pain seemed both distant and unimportant, something with which I could concern myself in the future. Perhaps I caught Walker by surprise, or my fear had given me some extranatural strength, but I drove him back several steps before he regained his balance. He recovered himself, and I found that my head was tucked neatly beneath his arm. As he continued to strike my back, I realized that I had found the one position where his cudgel could not kill me. Walker tried to push me away, but I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on with all my strength. I knew that if he escaped my grasp I’d be dead within seconds.

  My grip began to weaken and I choked back a cry of despair. The moment before Walker would have escaped, we both were knocked to the ground. Martha had hurled herself at Walker, and she now lay atop both of us, with Walker on the bottom of our pile. By now my head was wrapped in Walker’s cloak, leaving me a blind and ineffectual soldier in our deadly skirmish.

  Walker fought to escape from beneath us, rolling from one side to the other, pushing and cursing all the while. I grasped and bit whatever limbs I could find, desperate to hold him fast.

  I had nearly freed my head from Walker’s cloak—or so I thought—when his struggles became more frantic than ever. With one desperate heave, he threw Martha and me to the side and rolled away from us. I scrabbled to my feet and turned toward him. He was on his hands and knees facing away from us, but making no effort to rise. For a moment I wondered why he stayed in so vulnerable a position. Then I saw the blood running from his neck.

  He remained on his knees for a few seconds before his strength gave out and he collapsed. I circled his body until I could see his face. His eyes stared lifelessly into a distance that he would never see.

  It was only then that I became aware of the room around me. Margaret’s screams had turned to sobs, but I pushed them out of my mind. If she could weep, she was not yet in her final travail. I turned to Martha and found her still as a statue, staring at Walker’s body. Her hand held a short and bloody knife that I recognized instantly, for I had its twin in my own apron. It was the knife Martha used to cut a child’s navel string. The blade, which had been made to begin a child’s life, had just ended Abraham Walker’s.

  My eyes fell to Katherine, whose corpse lay just beyond Walker’s, and sorrow welled up in my heart. She lay exactly as she had fallen, entirely bereft of life or breath. I started across the room and saw that Margaret was crawling toward Walker’s body.

  Acting as one, Martha and I tried to take the poor girl by her arms and return her to the birthing stool. As soon as she felt my touch, Margaret lashed out, her fingers raking my arms like claws. I pulled back, staring in surprise at the trails of blood that welled up on the back of my hand. Even Martha thought better of interfering, and allowed the girl to take her lover in her arms one last time. I wrapped my hand in a handkerchief, and with a leaden heart crossed the room to Katherine.

  I knelt at her side and began to weep. “Oh, Katherine.”

  “What about the men downstairs?” Martha asked. Her voice remained calm and strong despite the bloody circumstances.

  “God help us,” I said. “I forgot them entirely.” I went to the window and looked outside. Walker’s men stood in a half circle around the door, ensuring that their master would be able to finish his bloody business undisturbed. So long as they remained outside we were safe, but how long would it be before they came in search of their master? While we had bested one man armed only with a cudgel, a squad of pistols would cut us down in moments.

  “How long will they wait?” Martha asked.

  “Not long enough,” I replied.

  “There must be pistols in Mr. Harrison’s office,” Martha said. “We could arm ourselves and hold them at bay until help comes.”

  “Do you know how to charge a pistol?” I asked.

  Martha’s silence answered my question.

  I went to the door, and with a deep sense of dread I began to rebuild the barricado. I had no expectation that it would protect us for long. Without a word, Martha joined in the work and all too soon we were done.

  I cast my eyes around the room again, wondering if this might be the place that I would die. Margaret lay next to Walker, crying softly. Soon enough her labor pangs would overcome her grief and I would have to deliver her, but for now the greater danger was the armed men in the street, bent on her murder.

  I heard a shout in the distance and then an answering cry from the men below our window. Martha and I pulled back the curtain. A squadron of the trained bands was racing toward us, and the men outside the Harrisons’ house had drawn their swords to meet the challenge. My heart leaped when I saw Tom leading the squad. He was racing toward us, pistol in one hand, and sword in the other.

  One of the men below us stepped forward, and I swallowed a cry when he raised his pistol and aimed it at Tom. I slammed my eyes shut, waiting for the shot that would shatter my heart, but unwilling to witness the death of the man I loved. In an instant I knew that losing Tom would be as heavy a blow as losing Martha or Elizabeth. I whispered a prayer, begging the Lord to have mercy on Tom and on me.

  After a moment passed with no blast, I dared to look. The two squadrons had met, each one shouting at the other. The air about them crackled with violence; if one man fired his pistol or even raised his sword, half a dozen men would die. I could not understand their words, but to my eternal relief, both Tom and his opponent lowered their pistols and exchanged words rather than blows. The man said something to Tom and gestured at the front door. Tom’s head whipped toward the house, and he sprinted inside as if the devil himself were on his heels.

  “We should move the furnishings,” Martha murmured.

  “Too late,” I said.

  Tom thundered up the stairs and hurled himself at the chamber door with all his might. The door ripped free from its hinges and split cleanly down the middle. Had it not been for the barricado, he would have flown across the room and into Margaret’s bed.

  “Bridget!” Tom shouted as he clambered through the wreckage of the door. In moments he found himself mired in the pile of furniture on the other side. “What is happening? Are you in here?”

&
nbsp; “We are fine.” I called out. My eyes returned to the corpses on the floor. My heart ached with my love for Tom and my grief for Katherine. “Martha and I are fine,” I said more softly.

  “Thank God. What the devil is going on?” He ceased his struggles and looked about the room, taking in the destroyed furnishings, the blood, and the bodies.

  Before I could answer I heard a retching sound behind me.

  “Oh, God, Margaret.” I turned to help the girl but found her as she had been: weeping softly at Abraham Walker’s side.

  It was Katherine Chidley. By some working of God, she was still alive. Martha and I dashed to her side. She was struggling to roll onto her stomach, hampered by a broken arm that lay by her side at a crazy angle. We helped her roll over, and she emptied her stomach onto the floor. When she’d finished, Martha and I carried her to the bed, taking especial care not to do any further damage to her arm. Katherine looked about the room dazedly, unaware of where she was or why she was covered in blood. She struggled to sit up, her eyes flitting between Martha and me, begging for an explanation.

  “Just rest,” I said. “You’ve been hurt, but you will be fine.” I prayed that this was true. She closed her eyes and lay back on the pillow.

  Behind us, Tom made his way through the wreckage of our defenses and joined us. I could only imagine what he made of the mad scene before him. “I’ll send for a physician and bonesetter.”

  “Thank you for coming in such a hurry.”

  “You seem to have held your own,” he replied. “I should go back downstairs. The neighbors are out, and all is bedlam.”

  “Tom.” I took his hand. He turned to face me. “Yes,” I said.

  When Tom realized that I’d agreed to marry him, a smile as wide as the sun spread across his face. “Good. But I should go.” He squeezed my hand and dashed downstairs.

  * * *

  The following hours passed in a fog, as men poured in and out of Margaret Harrison’s chamber. One of the trained bands led Margaret to another room and sent for a new midwife. Then the bonesetter came and saw to Katherine’s arm, while the physician peered at her head and suggested a poultice. Finally, four men arrived with a litter to carry Katherine home. Just after sunrise, Margaret gave birth to a baby boy. Mr. Marlowe arrived soon after, with Will at his side. They surveyed the scene as I explained what had happened.