“I can push no more,” Alienor confessed. Tears of desperation blurred her view of those around her.
“You must,” Iolande insisted gently, but Alienor could only shake her head.
“Tis too much.”
“’Tis very close, my lady,” the midwife asserted.
Alienor spared her a glance. “’Twas what you said at dawn.”
The woman smiled. “Oftentimes the first makes his way slowly into the world.”
Alienor would have made some comment about this being the arrival of her last child, but another contraction stole her breath away, leaving her trembling in its wake.
last“In truth, I can fight no more,” she said, wanting no more than to surrender the battle.
She barely noticed the ripple of agitation that passed through the assembly of women in the solar. Indeed, they were most welcome to deliver this child
