Camelot & Vine (20 page)

I took a whiff. It smelled of grass and
wood. I tucked the thyme into my fanny pack. “Thank you, that’s
sweet of—”

Drostan gasped and stood at attention,
instantly forgetting me.

A ghostly figure, dressed in white, emerged
from the woods. Without turning its head, it strode past the
birthing hut and floated across the garden to stand before us.
Drostan bowed in reverence.

Guinevere failed to notice. “I had to see to
the cart.”

“They’re all in the hut over there.”

“I don’t think I can go.” She shrank onto
the bench, expressionless.

I waved the sheaf of lavender like a sorry
excuse. “I have to—”

“—Mmhmm.”

Drostan folded and unfolded his hands in a
chaos of veneration. “If...if you’re not going to the birthing,
would your majesty like to see the garden?”

-----

The closest I’d ever been to a birth besides
my own (at which, I understand, there were enough drugs for
everyone) was playing Nurse #2 in the episode of the soap opera
“Blanche’s Family,” when Blanche’s daughter had her out-of-wedlock
baby. Every bit of it was fake including the baby, the blood and
the pain.

Heulwen had built a fire on the ground
outside the hut. She squatted to stir the embers under a pot of
water, unmindful of dirtying her tunic. A few yards away, Guinevere
strolled with Drostan in the herb garden, creating what I knew
would be the best day of Drostan’s life. We had the dell to
ourselves.

I hesitated at the threshold of the hut. “I
wonder where everyone is,” I said, not to Heulwen, but not to
anyone else, either.

“The men have gone.”

“They sure checked out fast.”

She shrugged her broad shoulders. “We don’t
need them for this part, mistress. Mind if I ask, do Saxon men
participate in the birthing?”

“No, they—”

A moan from Elaine momentarily relieved me
of the remainder of the lie. But Heulwen waited for my answer.

“...they wait. Outside.”

She nodded as if that reassured her that
Saxon men were normal.

“I guess I’ll go in.” If my friends believed
in the powers of lavender, they would have lavender.

Again Elaine yowled, then again, louder. I
touched the curtain over the entryway, its undyed threads coarse
against my fingers. This part of being a woman had never been part
of me. The sex I’d had in my life had been unrelated to
childbearing, at least in my mind. As fraught as it was with birth
control pills, lotion and self-loathing, how could sex have
anything to do with the life of someone else?

I pulled the curtain aside. With her back to
me, Elaine lay heaving on the floor on a pile of blankets, gasping
for a breath of what was mostly lamp smoke. Lynet purred at her
side. A muslin rag covered the only window, letting the tiniest bit
of daylight filter through.

“Good. You’ve brought the lavender,” said
Beatha, glancing up from her vantage point between Elaine’s
legs.

“Yes.” I thought I should whisper. Beads of
sweat trickled down my backbone. I took a seat on the bench by the
window to let my dizziness fade. Wiping sweat from my forehead with
my sleeve, I tried not to look at Elaine. Her breathing filled the
room.

“Could we open the curtain?” I asked.

“She’ll get cold.” Beatha didn’t look
up.

I waited, hoping it wouldn’t take long.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Heulwen, Lynet and I took turns helping
Elaine to sit up, which required one of us on either side of her.
She struggled to squat as Beatha wanted her to.

From that position Elaine would push and cry
herself to exhaustion then lie on her pillows, soaked in sweat and
the sticky liquids of herself. Sometimes she’d nod off. Then the
wrinkles in her forehead would smooth and her powdery pink cheek
would squish against the back of her hand. Those times were the
least overwrought, the times when Elaine didn’t hurt, or at least
wasn’t conscious of hurting. Heulwen would sleep then, too, snoring
softly on the bench. Beatha would nap if and when she could,
leaving Lynet and me to shoo away the tiny flies that hovered at
Elaine’s nostrils.

In the deep hours I stepped outside to a
moonless night. The forest appeared black, as though the stars had
decided it was too much trouble to light everything and had
therefore concentrated all their efforts on the garden.

“Casey.” In the shadow of the forest’s edge,
Guinevere beckoned from among the trees. I walked the path to her,
listening for sounds from the birthing hut. Guinevere had borrowed
a cloak, no doubt from Drostan or one of Myrddin’s helpers in the
settlement atop the stone steps. She shivered a little. “How is
she?”

No one had said it, but the baby was
fighting to escape and Elaine hadn’t the strength to free it.
“Things don’t seem right.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just...I think it’s taking too long
and hurting too much. I guess Beatha knows what to do.”

“She does.” Glancing toward the hut,
Guinevere patted my arm as if to reassure us both. “Elaine is made
for motherhood. I don’t believe I have any talent for it.”

“Is that why you don’t go in?”

“No.” She expelled a sharp sigh. “I’m
afraid,” she said, smiling in spite of herself.

“Childbirth scares me, too.” Not that there
was a chance I’d ever bear a child.

“Not of birth. Of mothering. And—” she
blinked upward, deciding whether or not to tell me, “—and I’m
jealous of my friend.”

Her unexpected honesty warmed me to her at
the same time it honored me. I had never enjoyed such
confidences.

“I’m sure you don’t mean that.”

“She’s having his baby.” With her small
fingers, Guinevere dabbed tears from the corners of her eyes.

Arthur had ordered me not to speak of Guin’s
affair with Lancelot. But Arthur wasn’t there.

She gazed at me, bright-eyed, stricken by a
sudden thought. “Casey,” she whispered, “can you help me get
pregnant? I’ve got to conceive. I’ve tried,” her cheeks reddened,
“with both of them.”

“Shh! Guinevere, we can’t speak of it.”

“It’s the one skill required of me, other
than looking pretty and entertaining Arthur’s allies. That is
challenging work,” she added with a wry smile, “but I find I’m
able.” Her hands gripped mine in a plea. “There must be a potion.
Something.”

“The king has ordered me not to use magic,”
I whispered.

She sighed and let her hands drop, her eyes
filling with tears. “Then I’m lost.”

“That can’t be.”

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and waved
me away. “I shouldn’t have asked. It was dangerous. Please don’t
speak of it.”

“Of course I won’t.”

The air stilled, as though the leaves were
listening. The silence of the forest floated to us from a windless
distance. I wanted to help her, but I knew nothing of fertility. If
there were a potion, however, Myrddin would know. “Though it might
be possible.” I should have consulted with Myrddin before saying
so, but I was never one to stop my mouth from moving when words
were on their way out of it.

“Oh, Casey!”

“Guinevere. I can’t promise.”

“Thank you for understanding.”

She had a role to play and she was faking
her ability to play it. Sure, I understood.

“And it’s time you called me Guin, as the
others do.”

Permission to be her friend. I hadn’t
realized how much I’d wanted it.

She sniffled, feeling better. “You?” she
asked, after a pause. “No children for the wizard?”

“No. I learned mothering from the
worst.”

“How so?”

“I just wasn’t a priority for her.”

“But you’re not like her, are you?”

I stabbed a toe at the underbrush. “I try
not to be.”

Guinevere smiled and leaned back against the
nearest trunk. I did the same. We faced each other, dwarfed by the
giant trees, our skin blue in the starlight. Even there, at the
edge of the woods, the underbrush was so thick I couldn’t see my
shoes.

“My mother was good and gentle,” said Guin,
her eyes closed.

“You’re like her, then. You’ll be a good
mother.”

She opened her eyes. “With the help of your
potion, I will.”

“Casey!” Heulwen shouted from the hut. “We
need you!”

I ran, and Guin ran with me.

-----

Inside the hut, the stink of armpits and
breath struck us, as did the yeasty smell of the womb, the same
smells I’d stifled all my life with deodorants, mouthwash and
scented tampons. Elaine seemed to sleep while Lynet furiously
patted her cheeks and Beatha rushed to clear the floor of rags and
debris, throwing everything onto the bench. Guinevere, her skin
pearl-colored in twilight, set her shoulders and took her place,
dabbing Elaine’s brow with a cloth. Beatha shoved Lynet aside more
roughly than I would have thought possible for such a tiny woman.
Her movements betrayed her anxiety but her voice did not. “Prepare
the herbs, Mistress Casey.”

“But I’m not supposed to—”

“You must!” Beatha pressed on Elaine’s
breastbone with one hand and pumped her heart with the other.

Heulwen rushed in, holding the hot handle of
the pot with the folds of her tunic. “Here’s for the lavender,
Casey,” she said, placing the pot on the table.

I didn’t know what to do, only that I must
do something. With my heart pounding, I clawed through the rags and
stones and bits of animal skin Beatha had thrown on the bench until
I uncovered the bouquet of lavender.

Elaine woke, coughing though her sobs. I
hesitated by the window with my herbs until her coughing subsided
into whimpers. She’s all right, I thought. I don’t have to do
anything.

“Mistress Casey.” Beatha was squatting
between Elaine’s legs, staring at the girl’s vagina like a cat
waiting at a mouse-hole.
“Now.”

I dragged myself to the dark corner where
the pot sat steaming on the table. There, I turned my back to the
room. I considered telling them I had no magic so they’d give me a
real task, something meaningful to do. But my shame was too
great.

With a movement one might use to rip the
head off a doll one hates, I twisted and tore the tops off the
lavender and threw them into the pot. For a second of steam, the
earthy, sweet smell of hot lavender defeated the room’s miasma. I
sniffed and waved my arms in ways I hoped appeared mysterious. The
word “abracadabra” came to mind, but I kept my mouth shut. My
arm-waving and head-bobbing were disrespectful enough. I gripped
the rough edge of the table, hating myself for pretending when
Elaine’s life was at stake. Why didn’t I run into the woods, up the
mossy steps, shouting for Myrddin all the way? Running and shouting
would be more useful than cowering in the corner of the hut, even
if no answer came.

I’d been just as helpless at my father’s
deathbed, but no one expects magic from a thirteen-year-old. My
father and I were in his study when he collapsed. I ran for my mom,
whose reaction was, “Shut up, I’m on the phone.”

I told her he was dead but he wasn’t, yet.
He hung on in the hospital for a few days, white skin against white
sheets. I wanted to stay by his side every minute. I wanted to be
there when he woke up. I thought he needed me more than her; I
didn’t know my mother would grieve because he had never loved her
the way she wanted him to. While she waited for him to die, I
waited for him to live.

But a kid has no control over those things.
I went to the hospital when my mom had time to take me. While she
visited with the nurses I held my dad’s hand and waited. I had so
much more to say to him. I don’t remember where we were when the
call came—the grocery store, the beauty shop, nowhere important. He
died when I wasn’t there with him.

I would be there for Elaine.

I wiped my eyes. Elaine lay motionless on
her pillows, the rise and fall of her chest barely discernible.
Lynet kissed her hand and Guin stroked her hair. Then she dragged
in a breath and clutched Guin’s arm, willing herself up to a squat
where her friends let her use them for balance.

“Push now, dearie. Push hard,” Beatha
growled softly.

Elaine pushed. She strained, from dirty
toenails that gripped the soaked-but-not-bloody blankets, through
her fleshy, white thighs, naked from the waist down, where moisture
gleamed but where no babe emerged. She bit her lip and panted. Wet
trails, where tears had traveled, led from the corners of her eyes
to her ears.

“The baby’s coming,” said Beatha, “just a
bit more now, don’t stop.”

When Lynet let go for a second to wipe her
nose with her sleeve I grabbed a rag and squatted to dab Elaine’s
brow. I could do that much.

Elaine’s body convulsed. She moaned and
pushed again, flailing her arms. I reached out in time for her to
grab my arm. She squeezed my wrist so hard the blood couldn’t
travel to my hand. She had such a grip on me I had no choice but to
stay. I wouldn’t have left her.

“Give her the rag to bite on,” said
Beatha.

I did, and Elaine bit hard, arching her
back.

“Once more now, my girl!” said Beatha.

From deep inside Elaine came a groan so full
and determined it sounded like she channeled it from the ground.
“Nnnggghhaaaahh!” The rag fell from her lips to the floor. Beatha
reached forth her slime-covered arms. A pearly white bulb of baby’s
head appeared between Elaine’s legs.

“Here’s the little one, oh!” Beatha’s small
hands took gentle hold of the little head.

Elaine squeezed my wrist harder and bore
down. Heulwen supported from behind, peeking around Elaine’s head.
All of us held our breath to witness a life’s beginning in its mess
and odor and pain. Like a velvet curtain, Elaine’s womb opened.
Small shoulders emerged, slick with watery blood, and the baby
slipped onto the soaking blankets.