Kingmaker And The Scribe

Chapter 5

5

Chara’s time comes as the season of rains begins and the moon is fat. “Audax,” she says nudging me in the night. “Go with speed and get the old woman, the one who delivers women of their babies.” She moans softly and clutches her belly.

Quickly, I pull on my tunic and scurry through the wet maze of lanes to the house where the midwife lives. I rap beside the gate, “Come quick,” I shout, “my wife births a child.”

“Wait,” a rough voice answers and I hear grumbling too soft to distinguish the words. Finally, she exits into the dim light of the moon through the clouds. The midwife is stooped and her mouth sunken with the loss of teeth. Slowly, slowly she shuffles toward me. I practically dance with the need to return to my wife.

“This is your firstborn?” she croaks.

“Yes,” I say and point down the lane toward my home. It has begun to rain again, but still, that does not hurry the old woman.

Instead of following me, as I expect, she weaves in the opposite direction.

“This way,” I instruct her, but she pays me no mind. Chara and Eboni were the ones who arranged this matter and I wish they were here to make the woman listen.

“Awake,” she shouts into the courtyard of a neighboring house. “Another comes.”

This is good, I believe. I am not confident in the skill of this woman.

“And bring the oil,” she commands, again into the doorway.

“Coming,” another woman tells her and leaves the dark of her home.

At least this one appears healthier with a back still straight. She carries a jug, holding it up so the old woman can see.

We return, slowly, slowly. I take quick steps and then turn to watch as the women, the young supporting the old, coming behind me.

“His first?” asks the younger.

“First,” confirms the older.

“The first comes slow,” the younger tells me. “Not until the new day arrives, most likely.”

I grit my teeth. It is still dark, the moon behind the thinning clouds just leaving the zenith. Chara is alone. What if something happens? Unable to bear their slow pace any longer, I dart down a lane to Ibiaw’s house.

“Ibiaw, Eboni,” I hiss into their courtyard. “It is Chara’s time.”

I hear movement inside, but I am already rushing back to the two women, only a few paces further from where I had left them.

At last, we arrive. From inside I hear Chara praying to the god Bes. There is a likeness of the god in our home, a bearded and misshapen dwarf with big ears and bowed legs. There is a pause in the prayer, and she groans.

“Ah, perhaps before the sun arrives,” the young woman announces as they enter.

In fact, the sky is just lightening when Chara, squatting over the birthing bricks—with the younger midwife holding my wife on one side, Eboni supporting the other and the old woman kneeling before her spread legs—gives a final grunt and a slippery infant slides into the midwife’s waiting hands. There is a gush of liquid, and I am suddenly weak.

“Sit,” commands Eboni as I wobble left, then right.

I sink to the floor, but my eyes never leave the infant as the old woman wipes his body and face. I see arms flail and then a wail.

“My son,” I say breathlessly.

“Hah, a daughter,” they say in unison.

I shift my gaze from the infant to my wife, as Eboni and the other woman help her down to the mat. Chara’s face is flushed but her eyes glow.

“A daughter,” she tells me and smiles.

I start to go to her, but the women brush me aside as they deliver—another baby? No, it is only a sack such as a ewe passes. The old woman ties a cloth around the cord that once connected mother and child and quickly pulls a small dagger from her robe to sever the connection.

Now is the time of Chara’s confinement, and they usher me from my home to find other accommodations until the end of the two-week period of purification. My last look as they all but shove me out the door is of Chara, n***d babe at her breast and the younger midwife rubbing foul-smelling oil on her back to encourage the milk.