Mel Starr - Unhallowed Ground

“The babe is placed wrong,” Mistress Pecham whispered. “I have tried all I know to turn it, but have no success. I will make another attempt. If I fail the lass will likely perish. You must stand ready to take the babe does Jane die. I have felt the babe move. It lives, and may yet survive even if Jane does not.”

My study of surgery in Paris did not include instruction in childbirth. Such things are best left to women. Students were, however, taught to open the womb with a blade so as to take the babe when the mother was dead or it was sure she soon would be so. A doctor of surgery at the University of Paris told me that he knew of such a surgery where both mother and babe survived. If so, this was the only such occurrence I have heard of. I have doubts.

Mistress Pecham attended to Jane, pressing her swollen belly to see could she not shift the babe. The midwife was soon sweating as heavily as Jane, but to no effect which I could see. I felt much regret that I would likely soon be called upon to release the babe with a scalpel. Kate saw my black mood and gripped my arm as if to steady me for the sorry work to come.

Mistress Pecham peered up at me, ceased her struggle, and shook her head in wordless despair. Kate looked to me with a plea in her eyes. I bid Kate follow and went to help the midwife to her feet. She was weary, and wobbled unsteadily as she stood.

“You must take the child,” she whispered. “The lass is too young and small to allow the babe to pass, misplaced as it is.”

“If I open her womb Jane will surely die. Is there no other hope?”

“Nay,” the woman shook her head. “I have seen such misplaced babes before. If I cannot turn them, and the mother be so weakened as Jane, all is lost. I sent for Father Thomas at dawn. Jane has been shriven.”

I looked to Kate. She and the other God’s sibs stared back at me. I saw reproach in some eyes, as if I and my gender were responsible for the dread which infected the carpenter’s house.

“I am hesitant to do this. I have no experience in such surgery.”

“I know that if you open Jane’s womb she will die,” Mistress Pecham said softly, brushing a wisp of graying hair from her brow with the back of her wrist. “But if you will not, she and the babe will both perish.”

Kate again took my arm. “Mistress Pecham speaks true. You must balance a certainty with the possible.” She pressed my arm with both hands, as if to stiffen my courage.

I made no reply to these pleas for some minutes. Jane’s pale face occupied my attention and thoughts. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow. I knew the midwife spoke true; Jane was likely soon to see the Lord Christ, yet I could not move from my place. It was as if my heels had taken root in the soil beneath the rushes.

“How long has she, think you?” I asked Mistress Pecham.

The woman shrugged, pursed her lips, then replied softly so Jane, was she sensible, might not hear. “She will be gone by the ninth hour, I think.”

It was not yet the third hour of the day. “If, by the ninth hour,” I replied, “she is yet unable to deliver the child, I will take it with the blade. Keep close watch on her. If she perish before then I must take the babe instantly. Are you certain it lives?”

“I felt it move when I last tried to shift it. I cannot say if it lives now.”

A bed lay beside the birthing stool, and a small table stood near it. I laid upon this table the instruments I would need if called upon to open Jane’s womb.

Peter Carpenter, with his wife and other children, awaited birth or death in the other of the two chambers of his house. As I placed my instruments I saw his haggard face at the door. He looked from me to Kate to Mistress Pecham and the God’s sibs, saw despair writ on our faces, and disappeared.

Kate and the midwife sat upon a bench in a corner of the chamber to await the conclusion of the sad business. Once Jane cried out weakly as travail came again upon her. Both her agony and her cries soon ended.

When the lass lay still and silent again Mistress Pecham rose from the bench and approached the birthing stool. She stood silently, watching Jane. The midwife suddenly bent low over the lass. She studied her intently, then crossed herself, rose, and turned to me.

“Quickly, Master Hugh… Jane is gone.”

I leaped to her side and saw it was so; Jane’s shallow breathing had stopped. I picked up the lass from the birthing stool, set her upon the bed, drew the gown from her bloated belly, and with one hurried motion drew a blade from one side of her abdomen to the other. It was the work of but a few heartbeats to enlarge and deepen this opening until I saw beneath my scalpel the womb and the pattern of a tiny foot where it should not have been, pressed against the membrane. With less speed and more care I opened the womb. When I did so I saw the babe’s foot twitch, as if pleased to be freed of its fleshly embrace.

A moment later I drew the babe from the womb and turned to Katherine Pecham. The midwife stood ready with a clean linen cloth to receive the child. It was a lad. I severed the cord and turned back to Jane, although there was nothing to be done for her. As I looked upon her still, bloodied form I heard a weak wail, then gasps from the God’s sibs. The babe drew breath, and lived, at least for now.

I turned back to observe Mistress Pecham at her work. She first opened the babe’s nostrils and purged them of bile, then bathed the infant in warm water. When this was done she anointed the babe with oil of acorns and wrapped it in bands of soft linen.

The cobbler’s wife took the babe from her and with her husband, who had waited without all the while, hastened to the church. There Thomas de Bowlegh would unwrap the babe and immerse him in the font so that, should the infant perish, his soul would find its way to paradise. This is a shocking way to welcome a babe to the world, but perhaps, given the sorrows all men must endure, it is well to introduce the trials of life to the young, so to harden them for adversities sure to come.

Peter Carpenter and his wife sat together in the home’s other chamber, drained of life and emotion. Two younger children, a lad of twelve years or thereabouts, and a lass a few years younger, peered up wide-eyed at me and Kate as we entered the chamber. A few embers glowed upon the hearth. Peter stood and spoke as we entered.

“Will the babe live?”

“The Lord Christ only knows,” I replied. “Mistress Pecham believes him sound, if weak. She is practiced in such matters.”

“But Jane is gone, for the babe to live?”

“Aye. When Mistress Pecham saw that Jane was dead she called for me to take the babe.”

“Then for this, much thanks. Does he live, we may remember the mother by the son.”

The carpenter’s lips drew tightly together. He turned to his wife: “Sent her to an early grave, the wretch!”

I thought it was of the lad who had lain with his daughter that he spoke. “Who is that?” I asked.

“You’ll get no leirwite for Lord Gilbert from the knave.”

“Will you not name the lad?”

“Oh, I’ll name the rogue. Won’t do you nor me nor Jane any good.”

“Who, then?”

“Thomas atte Bridge… him as hanged hisself. An’ well he did, too.”

“Jane named him as the father of her child?” I said, somewhat incredulously. I searched my mind for some memory of Thomas atte Bridge and could summon no feature of the man likely to appeal to a comely maid.

“’E come on her sudden, like, last summer. She were in the forest beyond the Weald, pickin’ blackberries. She tried to cry out, but ’e beat her an’ throttled her an’ had ’is way with her. Knew somethin’ was amiss when she come home… eyes goin’ to black an’ weepin’ an’ no berries.”