Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

Are these labor pains? she wondered as she walked around the flat. They didn’t keep her from walking, or from doing anything she needed to do. And they didn’t hurt. How could they be pains if they didn’t hurt?

She lay down beside Ealstan, wriggled till she found the least uncomfortable position-finding a comfortable one, with her belly so enormous, was impossible these days-and fell asleep. When she woke, right around dawn, it was to the sound of a snap. She also discovered she needed to use the pot, but she couldn’t stop herself before she got there, and dribbled on the floor.

“What is it?” Ealstan asked sleepily.

“I think… my bag of waters just broke,” Vanai answered. She hoped that was what it was. If it wasn’t that, it was something worse.

“Does that mean this is it-I mean, that you’ll have the baby pretty soon?” The mattress creaked as Ealstan sat up in bed.

“I don’t know,” Vanai said irritably. The truth was, she didn’t know much more about it than he did. But it was happening to her, not to him. It hardly seemed fair. He’d been there at the beginning. Why shouldn’t he be there at the end, too? She went on, “I think-oof”

“What’s the matter?” Ealstan could hear that something was.

“Now I know… why they’re called… labor pains.” Vanai got the words out in small bunches. This time, when her womb clenched, she really felt it. Maybe the water in there had shielded her from the worst of the squeezes. Nothing was shielding her any more. She’d been looking forward to having the baby. Now, all at once, she wasn’t so sure.

“Pybba won’t get his accounts cast today,” Ealstan said. “I expect he’ll figure out why I’m not there.”

“I expect so,” Vanai agreed-once the pang eased, she could speak freely. She also seemed to have stopped dribbling. She got up off the pot and waddled back to bed. She hadn’t been there long before her womb clamped down again. She grunted. This one was stronger than the last.

“Can I get you anything?” Ealstan asked anxiously.

Vanai shook her head. “I’m going to do this till I’m done,” she said. “I can tell. It’s real now.” She wanted to laugh at herself-she made it sound as if she were going into battle. But the laughter wouldn’t come. Thiswas a battle, and some women didn’t come back from it. She wished she hadn’t thought of that.

To keep from thinking, she got out of bed and started walking. It wasn’t so easy now, not with the pangs coming every few minutes. When the third or fourth one caught her in the middle of a step, she almost fell. That would not be a good thing to do, not now, she told herself. She stood there, waiting for the labor pain to end and her belly to ease back from rock hardness. That seemed to take a very long time. She was gasping by the time it finally happened. Moving slowly and with great care, she walked back to the bed and lay down.

“Are you all right?” Ealstan looked faintly green. But he stayed by the bed and clutched her hand, and she didn’t suppose he could do much more than that.

“I’m as well as I can be,” Vanai answered. “I don’t think I’ll do any more walking, though, thank you all the same.”

Before very long, her womb squeezed in on itself again. The baby didn’t like that, and kicked and wiggled as if in indignation. Because there was very little room in there and the walls of the womb were tight, that hurt, too, where it usually hadn’t before. Vanai hissed, which made Ealstan jump.

When the tension eased, she said, “This is all supposed to happen, I think.” Both of them had read as much as they could about what happened when a baby was born, but the Forthwegian books on the subject told less than Vanai would have liked. Back in Oyngestun, her grandfather had had classical Kaunian gynecological texts in his library, but they might as well have been a mile beyond the moon for all the good they did her now.

And the Kaunians of imperial times had known a lot less about medicine than modern folk did-even the Forthwegians whom the descendants of those Kaunians reckoned barbarians. A lot of what was in Brivibas’ texts was probably wrong.

Ealstan suddenly said, “You look like yourself again, not like a Forthwegian.”

Vanai started to laugh again, only to break off in the middle when another pang hit. She started to say something in spite of the labor pain, only to discover she couldn’t. What her body was doing took charge now, and her mind had to wait till her body gave it leave to work once more. In the time between pains, she said, “That’s the least of my worries.” Sweat ran down her face; her hair, newly re-dyed black, felt wet and matted. She might have been running for hours. People called giving birthlabor for a reason, too.

And it went on and on. The pangs came closer together, and each one seemed a little stronger, a little more painful, than the one just before. After what felt like forever, Vanai asked, “What time is it?”

“Midmorning,” Ealstan answered.

She almost shouted that he had to be lying to her, that it had to be mid-afternoon at the very least. But when she looked at the light through the windows, she realized he was right. In a small voice, she asked, “Would you get me a little wine?”

He frowned. “Should you have it?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I don’tthink I’ll puke it up if I drink it, and my mouth is dry as the Zuwayzi desert right now.”

“All right.” Ealstan brought it to her. He also brought in a wide-mouthed basin in case she proved mistaken. But the sweet red wine went down smoothly and stayed down, and she felt better for it. Her mouth no longer seemed caked with dust.

Another eternity that might have been an hour or two dragged by. Ealstan stayed by the side of the bed, squeezing her hand, running a cool, damp cloth over her forehead and neck every so often, occasionally holding up the wine-cup so she could take another sip. She was glad to have him there, gladder than she would have been to have a midwife, even if a midwife knew more.

And then, all at once, she wasn’t. “You-you-youman, you!” she said furiously, in between two pangs that hardly left her room to breathe, let alone talk. “If it weren’t for you and your lousy prick, I wouldn’t be in this mess now.”

Ealstan looked stricken. After a moment, though, his face cleared. “One of the books said that when you started calling me names, it was a sign the baby would come soon,” he told her.

Vanai called him more names then, all the names she could think of, in both Forthwegian and classical Kaunian. She hated to stop when the next labor pang took her, but had very little choice; just breathing through it was quite hard enough. But she resumed when it finally ebbed.

After a few more pangs, she felt the urge to use the pot again, as if her bowels badly needed to move. When she said so-her sudden storm of anger against Ealstan had passed away as fast as it blew up-he answered, “That means you’re ready to push the baby out.”

That wasn’t what it felt like. It felt as if she were straining to pass a stool the size of a football. She’d heard that a couple of times, from women talking back in Oyngestun before the war. She hadn’t imagined it could be true-how could having a baby be so crude? Now she found out for herself.

But, no matter how hard she bore down, the baby didn’t seem to want to move. “I’m trying to shit a boulder,” she panted as Ealstan ran that cloth across her face. “I’m trying to, but it’s stuck.”

“Keep trying,” he said. “It’s what you’re supposed to do.”

She had very little choice. Her body kept straining to force out the baby. It would have kept on doing that whether she wanted it to or not. The most she could do was concentrate, take a deep breath, and try to help it along. She pushed with all her might-and this time felt movement. That made her push harder than ever. She let out a noise half squeal, half groan, and all effort.