Midwyf Liza

by Valerie Levy

  It was no different this time. Her eyes relaxed into light sleep as the herbs worked their magic. She floated out of the cot, high into the night sky, the branch grasped between her legs, and hurtled towards the squat tower of St. Stephen’s with a loud shriek of defiance at the God who had taken Tom and the children. Her gown billowed as she circled over the village, ecstatic in her freedom, screaming with joy as she skimmed the forest.

  She dived through a gap in the trees and landed with a gentle thump at the side of a small clearing, in the middle of which stood an ancient oak tree rumoured to be home to a swarm of the devil’s imps. Septimus Wilkins said he had spotted them scurrying back into the tree as he passed by one evening. Soon after, he added, one of his neighbour’s cows died from a murrain. Some villagers said it all had more to do with the ale he’d consumed than the imps. Even so, few would venture into this part of the forest, especially towards dusk.

  The celebrations were starting. In the flickering of a wood fire, burning towards the edge of the clearing, bodies moved to the first slow rhythms of music played somewhere within the trees; some forms robed, others naked. Liza threw off her gown, and looked around for Tom. She glimpsed him, tall and fair, leaning against the tree. She smiled towards him as she joined the circling figures. The dancers accelerated and the beat thrummed through her body. She was aware of Tom watching as she moved with them around the fire, stretching her naked body and running her hands through her hair. Soon, the dance would reach its climax in a paroxysm of threshing limbs and sexual frenzy. But just before this, Tom appeared at her side and took her hand - the first physical contact between them - and led her to a small patch of bracken in the wood.

  They lay on the soft bracken and loved each other, tender lovemaking that lasted days, weeks, or moments; time stretched and became distorted and unaccountable. Afterwards, they talked about their sons and Posie, they talked about their home, and the people they had known. Liza told Tom about Nicholas' visit and he comforted her. Then they made love again. Their tryst did not end until both were replete and Liza fell asleep, cherished and safe, snug in her husband’s arms.

  Almost immediately she awoke with a start to find herself once more upon her pallet. A tender smile softened the old woman's gaunt features as the faint early morning breeze stirred through the open window and soothed her back into dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 2

  Liza spent the morning working in her garden, mumbling happily to herself as she pottered amongst her herbs. Last night Tom had loved her, and all was well. She trimmed the broken branches from her savin bush and stepped back to admire the new shape of the plant, before nodding her satisfaction. “Can't have you wilting and dying on me,” she told it. “Old Liza can think of many round here who's had good cause to thank you down the years!” Liza had often used the herb to end unwanted pregnancies, and it was a plant most midwives grew. Indeed, to see a savin bush in a garden almost guaranteed that nearby lived a midwife.

  As Liza chased a stray chicken out of her cottage she heard a voice, high with excitement, calling her name. Nudging the chicken out of the door with her foot, she saw the slim figure of Bess Belling standing at her gate.

  “Judith's started at last, Liza, her waters have broke -” Bess's freckled face beamed and a curl of orange hair, escaped from her linen cap, dangled over a sandy eyebrow. “No pains yet though.”

  Liza shook her head. “Breaking of the waters before the throws, that means a long hard labour. 'Specially when it's so overdue. Go, go tend her, Mistress Belling, don’t wait for me. I have things to do, potions to prepare. But send Simon for the chair. Here, come in, come in, help me with it before you go.” The two women manoeuvred the heavy birthing chair outside the cot for Judith’s husband to collect later, and Bess hurried back down the woodland path to her daughter-in-law.

  Liza took her time to pack a bag with herbs and ointments; she knew there was no need to rush. If her experience was anything to go by, she thought, Judith's labour would not be quick. If a miracle happened and Judith birthed the child before her arrival, all well and good, all would have happened as normal without her help. She tied a pouch of small instruments to her waist and whistled through teeth that jutted like two brown talons from her lower jaw to summon Bonney, before setting off in the direction Bess had taken. Murrikin, dozing by the fire, yawned a lazy farewell before returning to his dreams of mice and bowls of warm milk.

  Down the woodland path Liza strolled, enjoying the spring sunshine, sensing the thrum of rebirth sifting through the budding trees. Across the field she walked, right into the village lane and south across the water. Bonney accompanied her the first few hundred yards of her journey and then veered off into the forest to hunt his dinner. The river Holl chattered under the stone arched bridge, and young moorhens squawked from their nests hidden in the reeds. When she was a small girl, Liza had watched her father cut rushes from those same river banks to thatch the new great hall of the manor house.

  She paused for a few moments to watch as a group of children splashed upstream in a shallow part of the river, screaming with delight as the cold water wet their skin. Many years ago, Liza and Tom used to paddle with other village children in this same river shallow. When they were children no more, they played hide and seek in the forest and Tom found her where the ancient oak tree grew, and loved her for the first time. In the early years of their marriage they often returned to the clearing and she liked to think that she conceived Posie there one fine summer evening. Her old face creased into smiles as she thought of the previous night.

  The Belling’s smallholding stood between the bridge and the main road that led to London. They rented just over a firling of land, barely sufficient to feed them, and so the men supplemented the family’s income. Joseph carved wood; he had made Liza’s birthing chair, and decorated it with carvings of flowers and animals, and Simon, Judith’s husband, worked long hours on Lord Roger’s home farm. The men had been busy since dawn, sowing seeds for the summer crop of wheat. Today Simon and Joseph laboured on their own land but, for tomorrow, Lord Roger had demanded a spring boonwork and they, with other villagers, would have to tend the demesne lands.

  The two men were glad enough of an excuse to keep well clear of their cottage whilst the women's work was in progress. Six times Liza had made the same journey to deliver Bess of her babies. Two did not live past infancy but three daughters survived - married now and living in nearby villages - and a son, soon to become a father himself.

  As Liza hobbled into the cottage, Judith greeted her with a gap-toothed grin belied by the anxiety in her gentle brown eyes.

  “I thought the babe was coming, but seems I was wrong.” Judith lay on her straw pallet propped up by a bolster, covered with a coarse sheet and rough wool blankets. She wore an old kirtle of greyish homespun; pale brown hair tucked beneath a cap that tied under her chin; her normally rosy cheeks now shining red from the heat in the room.

  Liza took off her cloak and rolled up her sleeves. "Tis often so with the first, but don’t fret, child, he’ll be here soon enough. Old Liza will wake him and bring him out.” She glanced around. "Mistress Belling? Bess, where are you?"

  “Here Liza, just trying to put these things away," Bess appeared behind one of the sheets used to partition the already small room into three areas. “I thought there'd be more space for all of us if I took these down.”

  Since their wedding a few months ago, Simon and Judith had shared the cot with his parents. Simon planned to build another dwelling if Judith and the child survived the birth. In the meantime, by judiciously hanging hessian drapes, Bess had created two areas for sleeping and one, shared by the two couples, for cooking, eating and other daily activities.

  At that moment Simon, thin, fair skinned and freckled like his mother, arrived with the birthing chair and set it down beside the pallet, before disappearing as quickly as he had come.

  "Out of your bed now, sit on the chair and let Liza see what she can do." Judith sa
t on the horse-shoe seat of the birthing chair and lifted her kirtle above her waist. Liza took from her bag an earthenware jar containing almond oil. She sat on a stool to face Judith, dipped her fingers into the oil and passed them into Judith. Watery fluid dribbled onto the floor as she felt for the landmarks on the baby’s head that would tell her how the child was positioned.

  "Well, the head's coming first, but he’s facing the wrong way," she muttered, "Old Liza needs to go exploring some more.” Judith grimaced as the midwife poked and pummelled to stretch her birth canal and push the baby’s head up and out of her pelvic cavity. Liza hoped that when the baby descended again, it would turn to face towards Judith's back, and not her front. The child would then have room to bend its head forward, chin on its chest, so the smaller circle of the vertex would come first. But now, a large, unevenly shaped part of the baby's head had to force its way through the birth canal, and Liza thought the labour would be long and painful. After several minutes Judith cried out and Liza withdrew her fingers.

  "Brave girl, good girl," she shook her numbed hand and glanced at Bess, who hovered at Judith’s side. “All well and good. Now, physick to bring on the throws.” She wiped her hands on a bunch of straw and took from her bag seven bay tree berries that Judith swallowed with a little ale. “Good, good, now off the chair, walk around a bit. Mistress Belling, have you made sure to untie any knots heresabout?” Bess assured Liza she had checked that no length of thread or rope in the cot contained knots; these would slow labour and cause complications; likewise, she had opened the window shutter.

  Several village women visited during the morning and stood around the room, now crowded and ever more hot, gossiping and recounting to Judith stories about their own lyings-in. Liza crouched silently on a stool in a corner.

  “Chattering biddies," she muttered audibly, careless of whom would hear, "making all that noise, they'll scare the girl half to death with their yammerings …" She sidled up to Bess. "Still no pains," she said. "We’ll have to toss her. Fetch a strong sheet, Mistress, one of those sacking things you took down will do."

  Liza took Judith’s hand and led her towards the sheet spread onto the floor rushes, avoiding the smouldering fire. “Come now, child, lie on this - in the middle - arms at your side - lie still now." She returned to her corner and looked on, nodding her head and mumbling quietly. The women knew what they must do.

  As she lay on the sheet Judith glanced from one woman to another, but none would meet her eyes as they stooped to grasp a side of the rough hessian. Even with the partitions removed there was no room to spare in the cot. They crouched together, waiting for instructions.

  “All together,” Bess commanded. “Now!” The women straightened and tossed Judith into the air. She thumped back into the sheet. “Again!” Liza grinned approval from her stool in the corner.

  Judith screamed and begged them to stop, but they continued until their arms and backs were too tired to continue. At last the sheet and Judith were allowed to rest on the earthen floor.

  Judith stumbled to a pot, vomited, and raised a wan, tear-stained face. “I think I just felt something," she said. The women smiled, and rubbed their aching arms and backs with satisfaction as they settled in for the long wait. Judith’s labour pains had indeed started. Over the next few hours they grew stronger and more frequent and to ease the pain Liza gave Judith powd-ered motherwort, dissolved in ale.

  Late in the afternoon, Simon returned to see how his wife fared in birthing their child. He stood outside and called his mother's name.

  Bess went out to him. “Come along in, son, she does well, but the labour’s likely to be long - only to be expected with the first. Come along in?”

  Simon looked at the ground. "Nah, I'll leave well alone, got to get back to the field anyway." Bess laughed. “Don’t you worry, we’ll take good care of her.” Liza screeched a command from within the cot. "She says to bring us a newly killed hare - ‘tis likely we’ll need the skin later.” Simon hesitated only briefly. The fines for poaching from Lord Roger’s lands were heavy but Joseph and Simon, like most of the village men, were skilled at snaring the occasional rabbit or hare for the pot.

  Throughout the day women visited to regale Judith with their own experiences of childbirth. Some were less welcome than others. Goodwife Browning, the blacksmith’s wife, proved particularly difficult to dislodge.

  "Tis my right to be here," she protested as Bess led her towards the door. “It makes good telling how I birthed my first. And the more witnesses to a birth the better. Then none can say the stillborn child was in truth smothered, or the babe taken by fairies and a changeling left in its place - ‘tis a favour I’m doing you, staying …” Bess sighed with relief as she shut the door behind Goody Browning and listened as she stomped away, to ensure she had indeed departed.

  The village women came and went, but Bess and Liza stayed, one tied by kinship and the other by duty and hope of reward. Judith’s labour dragged on. Occasion-ally she lay on her pallet, but mattresses were precious and not to be soiled, so mostly she shuffled about the room or sat on the birthing chair. The heat of the fire percolated throughout the cot during the mild spring day. Judith panted, and perspiration trickled down her face. Bess stooped to wipe her forehead as another pain gathered strength.

  As it reached its height, Bess pressed upon the top of Judith’s uterus. “Push, push, harder now!” Judith’s face contorted as she pushed. After the contraction had ebbed away she clutched Bess’s hand.

  “I can’t take no more, mother, make it end, please make it end, I never thought birthing would be so bad …”

  Bess smiled at her daughter-in-law. “'Tis the way of the world, child, babes are always birthed in pain, it's woman’s penance for our sin - the bible says so.” Bess recalled vividly her own labours. The first had lasted two days and nights, in this same cottage. She had bled badly then and had overheard Liza's mother telling her daughter that women of Bess' colouring often lost a lot of blood at childbirth. She knew the old woman had saved her from dying by making her swallow a nasty tasting mixture. Liza told her later this was a special sort of fungus that grew on rye. Soon after taking it she felt a violent pain in her womb that she could remember even now; she had never before, nor since, felt a pain like it, but the bleeding had stopped. She felt a tug on her sleeve and turned towards Liza.

  “Mistress, all’s well, but ‘twill take a while yet, I fear. The throws are strong but the womb's hard and needs to open, the mouth will not yield easy. Courage and strength will be needed. Oh yes.” Liza cackled. “But I can help.” Bess and the other women watched with interest as she took from her bag a bottle full of a yellow liquid.

  “Mistress, this is a compound of almond oil and beaten egg I made yesterday, to grease the child’s journey from the womb. The passages have long dried, this will help the head travel down.” Judith leant back in the birthing chair as Liza poured the lubricant into her vagina. Most of the mixture dribbled out and she massaged it into Judith’s perineum as Bess stood watching. Judith scowled and shrieked as another contraction gathered force.

  “Just let it end, let it end,” she sobbed as the pain receded. “Go away, all of you, leave me die, I don’t care no more, let me die.” She lurched from the chair to her pallet and lay unmoving until the next pain came, her face now white. “I’m all wet again, more of the waters coming away.” Her voice sank in despair as the women hoisted her off the mattress and back onto the chair, and once more Liza pummelled away, ignor-ing Judith's distress.

  "Time for the eaglestone, Mistress.” She fished in her bag and brought out a hollow stone that rattled when she shook it. Liza's mother had given her the stone - stolen from an eagle's nest in Africa many years ago, she told her. Its magic drew babies along the birth canal, she said, and any midwife would pay a lot of money to own one. Liza tied the red stone between Judith's legs. “Just for a while, child, ‘twill bring everything down nicely.”

  Afternoon merged into evening. The
village women departed as they had their families to feed and animals to care for before nightfall. Evening darkened into night. The fire spluttered and the candles glowed; these had been blessed at the last Candlemas, and their sacred light gave Bess comfort as she stroked and rubbed Judith’s belly, trying to lessen the pain of the travail.

  Liza gave Judith more motherwort and this helped a little, allowing the labouring woman to doze for a few minutes here and there. Judith took some sips of water and a few spoons of the thin porridge Bess had prepared. Several times during the night Bess and Liza supported Judith as she rose from the birthing chair to use the pisspot or to walk around the tiny room, leaning on the back of the chair as a contraction swept through her body, trying not to cry out as that would have disturbed Joseph and Simon sleeping behind one of the repositioned drapes.

  Bess did not sleep, but prayed instead to Saint Margaret, the patron saint of childbearing women. In between attending to Judith, Liza lay huddled in her corner. Now and then Bess heard a deep snore rumble from the old woman and this pleased her; soon, she thought, Liza would need to be alert and rested.

  Thus the long night passed.

  Dawn slanted over the fields and the men left for Lord Roger’s fields.

  “Time to look again, child,” Liza’s knees creaked as she rose to her feet. “Ah yes, not long now, the head’s turned and the womb’s soft and open. Not long now."

  A little later Judith made to get off the chair. “I need the privy!”

  “Stay put, child, it’s the babe coming, not your stools,” Bess restrained her as Judith’s face became swollen and red in an involuntary effort to push the baby out. Liza returned the precious eaglestone to her bag, sat in front of Judith and oiled her fingers before passing them in to clamp hold of the baby’s head, behind its ears.