The Love Knot (57 page)

With the news she had to give him, Catrin was not so sure of that, but she nodded and fetched her cloak.

The market place was heaving with people. As usual, the eel woman was crying her wares and, because it had become a kind of homecoming tradition, Oliver and Catrin bought a dozen while Rosamund looked on and pulled faces. Oliver went off to conduct his business leaving Catrin and Rosamund to browse among the stalls. Catrin bought some new needles and two wimple pins. For Rosamund there were some scarlet silk hair ribbons and a delicate little belt of silk braid woven with a traditional lozenge pattern. The sun beat down, but there was a fresh breeze off the river and everyone was in high good spirits. Rosamund danced from booth to booth with the eagle eye and indefatigable energy of a born bargain hunter. Catrin made a mental note to seek a man with a bottomless purse when the time came to find a mate for her daughter.

Oliver returned from his own excursion and bought Catrin a new cloak brooch of intricate Irish silver work, strong, but still delicate enough to be worn on a winter dress as well as a cloak. With much fluttering of her eyelashes, Rosamund managed to cozen a string of polished wooden beads out of him.

'I'm glad I won't be a languishing young man when you reach womanhood!' he said ruefully. 'You'd empty my pouch and cut my heartstrings in very short order!'

Rosamund gave him one of her grave, puzzled looks, but Catrin laughed and took his arm. 'I know exactly what you mean.'

The three of them wandered among the booths until they came to a cook stall that Ethel had always favoured. Here they bought spicy lamb pasties and little cakes made with honey and figs. To wash it down there was cider bought from a nearby stall and buttermilk for Rosamund.

Catrin was licking the last sticky crumbs from her fingers and sighing with satisfaction at the pleasure of the day thus far, when Geoffrey came thrusting through the crowd, his expression agitated.

'Found you at last,' he panted. 'Edon's in travail and calling for you. You must come quickly. The women say she's in much pain. There's a midwife with her, but it's you she wants.'

Catrin wiped her hands together and nodded. The idyll was at an end sooner than she had thought. She could not refuse Geoffrey. Indeed, he looked as much in need of a soothing tisane as his wife.

'Go,' Oliver said. 'I'll bring Rosamund home.'

Catrin kissed him, stooped to hug Rosamund and then hurried away with Geoffrey.

Rosamund gazed up at Oliver, her top lip beaded with cake crumbs. 'Can we go and look at the stalls over there?' she asked, pointing to the spice booths. 'Mama always lets me smell the things when we come to the market.'

Thankful that she had not asked him what 'travail' meant or why Edon was in pain, Oliver let her lead him like a lamb to the slaughter.

Catrin arrived at Edon's bedside to find her being comforted by two of Mabile's women while the midwife gently examined her.

'Edon, I'm here,' Catrin panted, out of breath from her dash. The women stood aside and Catrin stooped to take her friend's imploring outstretched hand. The fingers gripped with talon intensity. Edon's face was contorted with pain. She lay on a bed of birthing straw, her blond hair lank and wet, her belly a taut, distended mound.

The midwife already in attendance, Dame Sibell, was a thin, good-natured woman in early middle age with competent hands and humorous green eyes. Just now they were devoid of all sparkle. 'The afterbirth wants to come before the babe,' she said, wiping blood and oil from her hands.

Her gaze met Catrin's and she gave an infinitesimal shake of the head. When an afterbirth came first, the chances for mother and child were poor, and there was nothing that even the most skilled midwife could do.

'Send for the priest,' Catrin mouthed silently.

Dame Sibell signalled that it had already been done.

Catrin smoothed Edon's brow. Beneath her fingers the other woman's skin was clammy and grey.

'I'm glad you're here,' Edon whispered, trying to smile. 'I'll be all right now.'

'Yes, you'll be all right.' Catrin's voice almost cracked.

'There's something wrong, isn't there?'

Catrin swallowed. How could she tell Edon that her time was likely upon her? 'It is going to be a little difficult,' she said. 'The baby's lying awkwardly.'

Edon nodded. 'Like my first,' she said with a gritted smile. 'He came out feet first, remember? You and Ethel saved us both.' Her womb tightened and she arched with a cry of pain, her nails digging bloody little half moons into the back of Catrin's hand. Catrin bit her lip and prayed for God to be merciful and not let Edon suffer.

The contraction lessened, but Edon's womb remained hard. 'Thirsty,' she muttered.

Catrin gave Edon a sip of watered wine from the cup by the bedside and, as she helped to raise her, felt the racing, thready pulse against her palm.

'How long before it's born?' Edon asked.

'Not long.' Catrin compressed her lips, but still her chin wobbled.

Edon gave her a pain-glazed smile. 'Are you thinking that you have all this to endure when your own time comes?'

Catrin shook her head, too choked to speak. If the labour had been normal, she would have laughed and retorted that she had no intention of enduring any such thing, that Edon's labour was not hers. But how could she jest with a dying woman? She felt so helpless.

The priest arrived as another contraction shook Edon's body. Edon tried to scream as she saw him and realised what his presence meant, but she had no breath. Her blood gushed into the bedstraw. Dame Sibell exclaimed and grabbed a towel to stanch the flow, but it grew red and sodden in moments.

The priest flinched away in horror, but Catrin seized his wrist and dragged him forward to the bedside. 'Shrive her,' she commanded, her voice biting with anger and grief. 'Shrive her now while her soul is still in her body.'

His face contorted with shock and distaste, the priest set about his grim duty and, to his credit, did not linger over the rituals. 'Ego te absolvo ab omnibus censuris, et peccatis tuis, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti,' he gabbled, imprinting Edon's brow with holy oil. She rose against him, her teeth clenched, her eyes staring, and every muscle in her body rigid. There was another surge of blood from between her thighs and she shuddered violently in Catrin's arms. Then her body slumped. Her head fell against Catrin's shoulder and the slightest breath whispered past Catrin's ear. When Catrin lowered her gently to the bed, Edon's eyes were half-open and blind.

'The child,' Dame Sibell said. There was a sharp gutting knife in her hand.

Catrin glanced over her shoulder. 'Do what you must.' She had to swallow her gorge to speak. Edon, finicky, fussy Edon with her love of French romance tales and pretty fripperies, had died in her own blood and was now about to be opened up like an ox in the town shambles.

It was a midwife's obligation to save a child if she could, even after the mother had died. There was always the chance, albeit a remote one, that the infant was still alive. Catrin had seen Ethel do it twice. Both times the child had been dead and Catrin had a sure knowledge that Dame Sibell's efforts would be in vain too. She turned her head and looked at the wall as the woman made her incision.

'A little girl,' Dame Sibell announced, as she set aside the bloody knife and lifted the limp, bluish infant from Edon's torn body. 'There is no life in her.' She rubbed the baby clean in a towel and placed her beside her mother.

Catrin stared numbly at Edon's still, grey face and thought of their friendship. It had been sporadic and filled with flaws, but nonetheless genuine and she was going to miss her terribly. Earlier, Catrin had been on the verge of tears, but now they refused to flow, remaining behind her eyes as a hot and tingling pressure.

'What about the husband?' said Sibell. 'Who is going to tell him?'

Catrin swallowed. 'I will,' she said with a brief gesture.

'We'd best clean her up then. He can't see her like this.'

Catrin almost asked why not. In part it was Geoffrey's fault that she was dead. Appalled at the bitterness of the thought, she took herself to task. It was only Geoffrey's fault as much as it was Edon's. Blame nature; blame God. She had seen what the burden of guilt could do to a man whose wife had died in childbirth. Some husbands were unlikely to care less, but others were scarred for life. It was that very reason which had prevented her from telling Oliver about her own pregnancy. Now how much more difficult was it going to be?

Together, she and Dame Sibell disposed of the bloody bedstraw and washed and composed Edon's body. It wasn't just Geoffrey who had to be told, Catrin thought, a cold lump in the pit of her belly; it was their children too. She combed and braided Edon's hair. Once thick and heavy with a curl in its depth, it was like old straw and threaded with silver. Exhausted at eight-and-twenty. There but for the grace of God and Holy Saint Margaret.

Catrin gently kissed Edon's moist, cold brow and went to find Geoffrey.

It was worse than she could have imagined. At first he refused to believe her, as if denying her words would make them untrue. Then he insisted on seeing Edon.

'She's just asleep,' he said, his voice tight with precarious control as he looked at her on the bed, her hands clasped on her breast and her lids closed and smooth.

'I'm sorry, Geoffrey. The afterbirth came before the child. There was nothing we could do.' Catrin laid a tentative hand on his sleeve. Although she and Sibell had cleaned and composed Edon as best they could, no one in their right wits would have mistaken the grey-white tones of death for those of normal slumber. One of Mabile's other women had taken charge of the children, and she was glad for Geoffrey could not cope with himself at the moment, let alone five offspring.

'She's still warm.' He shook Edon's shoulder. 'Edon, wake up!'

Edon's head flopped on the bolster like a child's badly stuffed straw doll. One arm lost its position and dangled awry, sprawling across the dead baby. Appalled, Catrin tried to pull him away, but he thrust her aside and, when she renewed her efforts, he gave an almighty shove that flung her to the ground. 'Leave us alone!' he bellowed. 'What use is a midwife who doesn't know her trade!'

Catrin landed hard, but fortunately her hip and flank took the brunt of the fall. She was bruised and winded but otherwise uninjured.

Geoffrey shook his wife again and, when she did not respond, dragged her up against him, commanding her to rouse. 'Edon!' he howled.

'Geoffrey, for God's love she's dead!' Catrin wept from the floor.

He turned on her such a look of grief-torn loathing that she flinched. 'She trusted you and you betrayed her,' he said hoarsely. 'She thought no harm could come to her if you were at the birth.' His hand cupped the back of his wife's head; his other arm was banded around her limp spine.

'I cannot work miracles!' Catrin answered in a voice that shook with the effort of controlling her anger and grief. 'Her fate was sealed from the start; you're not being fair.'

'Fair? What has fairness got to do with anything!' he raged. 'Go away, leave us alone. We don't want you, we don't want anyone!' He buried his face in Edon's lank blond hair.

Catrin struggled to her feet. Her hip was numb and her ribs sore. She looked at Geoffrey. Silent tremors were ripping through him. His hands grasped and flexed on Edon's unresponsive flesh. He did not want anyone, but certainly he needed someone. And yet, for her own safety she feared to approach him. For one so gentle of nature, the violence in him was wild and unstable. One wrong touch or word and he would strike out again, perhaps with his sword.

Without a word, she left the room. The priest was waiting outside and some of Mabile's women, their eyes red and swollen. She warned everyone but the priest to keep their distance - after all, it was his duty to comfort the bereaved - and rubbing her hip, limped down to the hall to discover if Oliver had returned. He at least had weathered the storm once. The timing could not be worse to ask him to guide Geoffrey through the turbulence to calmer waters, but there was no help for it.

It was so late when Oliver came to bed that the castle folk who worked in the bakehouse and kitchens were stirring to begin the day's work and the summer dawn was paling the eastern sky.

'Christ in heaven, may I never spend such a night again,' Oliver murmured, as he sat down by the hearth and rubbed his face in his cupped hands. 'Is there any wine?'

Catrin had slept very little herself. The threat of one of her headaches probed the back of her eyes and her stomach was tied in knots. 'Just what's left in the jug.'

He reached across the hearth and picked up the small, glazed pitcher.

'How's Geoffrey?' Keeping her voice low, mindful of Rosamund asleep on the bed-bench, she wrapped her cloak over her shift and sat beside him.

'Asleep. No, that's not right. You can't call a wine-stupor sleep. I left him lying in the hall covered by his cloak - put him on his side so that he won't choke if he vomits. My brother did as much for me when Emma died.' He upended the pitcher to the dregs into a round-bellied cup and glanced at her in the dim dawn light. 'The only wisdom I had for him tonight was that of wine. What could I say? That after years of suffering it gradually eases? That he has their children? That I know how he feels? Where is the comfort in any of that?'