Tina Daniell: Dark Heart

Minna yanked up Rosamun's smock and firmly placed two hands on her swollen stomach. She took what looked like a small drum out of her medicinal bag, only it was a drum whose bottom tapered to a narrow neck, then flared out into a flexible cup.

"A listening drum," Minna said to no one in particular- certainly not to Kitiara. She placed the cup end on Rosamun's bulging stomach and inclined her ear against the drum covering. As Rosamun began to whimper, Minna pulled her head away decisively. Sure enough, it was the start of another contraction.

"There's another baby in there," Minna declared with amazement.

A drawn out, guttural "No-o-o-o!" escaped from Rosamun's pursed lips.

"Another baby!" Kit exclaimed. "How can that be? Why didn't you know that before? What are we going to do? My mother can't survive another childbirth."

"Listen here, young lady. Don't you sass me." Minna whirled on Kit with surprising ferocity, her patience almost gone. Her beehive of hair was badly mussed, and her usually tidy uniform was disheveled. Her sharp eyes pinned Kit down.

"I don't need advice from a stripling. These things happen. I can't be expected to know everything, to fix everything-"

Whimpering from Rosamun sent them both scurrying.

Once again Minna began searching through her birthing bag. Practically shouting, the midwife directed Kit to put a fresh kettle of water on the fire and to fetch more clean blankets. Suddenly Kit, who had been up since sunrise and had missed eating lunch, was swept by fatigue. Her knees buckled, and she nearly swooned.

Minna reached over and grabbed the girl before she fell, shaking her violently by the shoulders. "You've got to bear up now, Kit," she said fiercely. "Don't go sissy on me. I need you. Rosamun needs you." She gave Kit a push toward her duties.

The girl could barely keep her eyes open as she trudged around the room, doing what Minna had asked. The afternoon had grown awfully warm, and with the fire that had been kept burning to heat the water, the inside of the cottage seemed hotter than a dwarven forge. Kitiara felt as if she were suffocating.

"Pour some over your head," advised Minna.

"What?"

"The water, over your head," the midwife repeated.

"Oh," said Kitiara, scooping cold water out of the bucket and splashing it over her head so that her face and clothes were soaked. It felt good. Refreshed, she dashed out to get another load.

"Idiot girl," Minna murmured under her breath.

Rosamun was likewise fevered, and Minna did the best she could to keep her cool, sponging her constantly with water. Looking limp and lifeless, Kit's mother faded in and out of consciousness, her store of energy all but exhausted. The contractions persisted. What should have been a short labor dragged on interminably.

"I don't understand. That baby should slip right out," Minna said in a low voice to Kit.

Feeling around underneath Rosamun's covering, Minna muttered an oath as she discovered the reason. She drew Kit aside.

"This baby is coming out feet first," she confided ominously, "not head first like most babies are born. It's a breech birth. No telling how long her labor will last. It's not normal."

Kit digested Minna's report numbly. She looked over at the first baby, who was still sleeping, eyes shut peacefully. "Can you do anything?" she asked hopefully.

"I can try," said Minna plainly, "but Paladine is going to have to help."

Hours passed as the birth dragged on, until it was almost sundown. At one point, Rosamun's eyes began to blink uncontrollably. Her face flushed a bright pink and her body writhed restlessly. When Kit touched her mother's hand, it was burning hot.

"She has a high temperature. You have to do something," cried Kit, almost accusingly.

Minna, clearly worried, ignored the girl, except to ask for more heated water to mix a new batch of "Never Fail Balm." She had been bathing Rosamun's stomach with it continuously since after the first birth.

Rosamun was unconscious most of the time now. Kitiara had to hold her mother up as best as she could from the back. Minna didn't even bother asking Rosamun to push.

Finally, there was some progress, and Minna perked up. "A toe, I see a toe. Now, if only I can get both feet coming out together, we might be able to see this stubborn twin born."

Eventually both feet did emerge, then the legs, then the hips-it was another boy. Still wedged against her mother's back, Kit listened to Minna's excited reports on the progress of the second birth. Over her shoulder she could see her mother's eyes were lidded. Rosamun's breathing came in weak spurts. At last, just past dusk, the baby's head started to slip out. Kit heard Minna curse.

"By the gods! He's not breathing, and blood is running out of your mother like a river."

Acting swiftly, Minna took a small knife from her bag and severed the umbilical cord, then lay the baby across the foot of the bed. Now her attention turned to the infant's mother, who was unconscious, drenched in sweat and blood. One hand massaged Rosamun's stomach to stimulate the afterbirth contractions that would help stem the bleeding. The other hand stirred crumbled aspen leaves into a cup of water to make the clotting drink.

"I've got my hands full with your mother now. You'd better try to help your second brother," Minna told Kit. "Rub his feet. Try to get some breath into his body. Do something!"

Kit slid out from behind Rosamun and climbed onto the bed next to the baby. Fighting panic, she grabbed several clean blankets and began rubbing his small body, as she had seen Minna do with the first baby. At last, a rasping noise came from this one's chest as he spit up a small amount of green liquid and drew in a few pitiful breaths. After a minute, his ragged breathing stopped.

"Minna, what should I do? He doesn't seem to be breathing very well," Kit asked the midwife urgently.

Minna was cradling Rosamun's head and, through a dropper, easing some of the aspen leaf liquid into her mouth. The midwife looked up only briefly before turning back to Rosamun, who herself was barely holding onto life.

"Take him over to the fire and just keep rubbing him, especially the bottoms of his feet. If that doesn't work try pinching his cheeks. Blow in his ears, softly. Anything. But mind you, the second twin is like an afterthought and often weak-spirited. Maybe he's a lost cause."

At that comment, Kit's head snapped up and she glared at the stupid midwife, but only for a second. Her thoughts quickly focused on saving her half-brother, and she rushed to the hearth. Using her foot to kick more logs onto the blaze, she threw herself into rubbing the frail baby with an intensity she usually reserved for practicing moves with her wooden sword. After a tense silence, the infant's breathing resumed.

Finally the baby let out a few mews of dissent at his rough treatment. His color began to look slightly more pinkish than bluish to Kit. But when she tried stopping his vigorous massage, the infant's breathing slowed again. So the therapeutic rubbing continued. Kitiara was as determined to prove Minna wrong as she was concerned for the welfare of her second-born half brother.

She stole a glance at the first twin, snug in Gilon's cradle. That baby boy, chubby and cherubic by comparison, slept soundly. How unalike they were! Yet as Kit continued to gaze at the older of her new brothers, she had the impression that he was breathing in unison with his weaker twin. She could pause in her rubbing now. The second baby was breathing more easily and had drifted off to sleep.

Across the room, the midwife relaxed. She, too, had succeeded. Rosamun's bleeding had stopped. Kit's mother lay in an exhausted slumber, looking like a wan corpse.

"Well," sighed Minna, pulling a sheet and blanket up around Rosamun, "about as close a call as I've ever had. Not that I was worried. When you're as experienced in these affairs as Minna, child…"