Mary Herbert: Legacy of Steel

The pain came again in the deep hours of the night. It began as a dull ache of despair in the center of her heart, where it found her own grief and joined with it, opening her old wounds and thrusting her back into that raw, quivering emptiness. She tossed and turned under her blankets; tears trickled down her sleeping face, but still she could not draw away from the bitter sadness.

The pain increased in the course of her dream and radiated outward toward her arm and back. The dull ache turned into a throbbing agony that burned like acid across her upper body.

Help me. An inhuman voice cried from a long distance away. Help me! The plea filled her mind with need. The voice struck a chord of familiarity, yet such as this creature had not spoken to her in years.

A persistent pounding suddenly filled her dream.

"Help me!" The words were repeated but the voice was different-human this time.

"Sara! Sara, please, I need your help!"

The dream voice dwindled into the darkness. The pain drained away, leaving only a residue of tension in her back muscles. Sara woke up and dragged herself upright. She was in her own bed, in her own cottage. Night lay thick and cold around her. The human voice without cried again, "Sara! Are you there?"

"Yes, yes, Jacobar. I'm coming," she answered. Through the haze of weariness and the sadness left behind by the dream, Sara stumbled across the dirt floor to the door. She flung the door open to greet her night visitor.

A young man, tall and brawny and very worried, rushed in. "Sara! Thanks be. You've got to come. It's Rose. She's delivering, and I think the babe is stuck."

Sara summoned a patient smile from somewhere within her. She was getting quite used to these nocturnal visits. Her reputation for skilled care was rapidly spreading through the countryside. While Jacobar paced by the door, Sara hastily threw on her work clothes: an old pair of men's pants, boots, and a clean but worn tunic. Grabbing her cloak and her healer's bag, she hurried out into the blustery night after the young farmer.

The cold air struck her like a blow. Although it was nearly spring, the past few days had been tempestuous and unseasonably chilly from a storm that moved in from the north. Sara pulled her cloak tighter and shivered. She just hoped the laboring mother was in a warm place.

Close on Jacobar's heels, she hurried with the man along the village road to a path that led east past the common pastures to a small cot and barn that sat huddled in a shallow dale. The house was small and neat and surrounded on two sides by a hedge of trees that grew as a windbreak. Pens and corrals clustered around the barn.

For a moment, Sara feared the farmer was leading her to one of the muddy pens-she had delivered more than one baby in the mud before-but Jacobar veered toward the barn and threw open the door. Lamplight spilled out into the windy darkness, and the sheltering walls of the barn welcomed her. Sara indulged in a small sigh of relief and stepped into the barn.

Her patient lay on her side in a bed of clean straw, her great flanks quivering with her effort. Rose was a plow horse of mixed breeding, thus not worth a great deal to anyone but a farmer. To Jacobar, she was priceless for her gentle disposition, her strength, her patience, and mostly for the fact that he could not afford to replace her. To him, she was everything.

"Can you help her?" he asked anxiously as Sara stripped off her cloak.

The woman nodded. "I think so. Bring me some hot water and soap if you have it."

Gladly Jacobar ran out to fetch what she needed.

Sara carefully laid her tools on a clean cloth, then methodically inspected the mare. She was pleased to see Jacobar had not waited too long to fetch her. Others had put off the call, not wanting to pay her fee, and finally ended by summoning her in a panic when it was often too late to save both the foal and the mare. This time Jcobar had recognized the mare's difficulties and acted swiftly. Sara gently patted the mare's brown head and murmured encouragement in her ear.

Jacobar soon returned, a lump of gray soap in one hand, a bucket of steaming water in the other. Sara went to work washing her hands, then lubricating her arms from a jar of sweet-smelling ointment. Fortunately the colt was not twisted or lodged in its foaling bed; it was simply trying to come forth backward. The mare, who had strained for a long while, was too tired to continue alone.

Sara carefully inserted her arm into the mare's birthing canal, found the foal's hind feet, and slipped a soft noose around the tiny hooves.

"Now," she told Jacobar, handing him the other end of the rope. "Pull gently only when she pushes. I'll help guide it out."

Perhaps encouraged by the human help, Rose made a new effort to push out her baby. As Jacobar pulled and Sara gently helped, a glistening wet bundle eased out of the mare and slid to the straw.

Sara swiftly cleared away the amniotic sac, cut the umbilical cord, and wiped out the baby's nostrils. "It's a fine colt," she announced. The young farmer grinned his delight.

Rose climbed to her feet and began to lick her baby from diminutive muzzle to fly-whisk tail.

Sara watched, feeling the glow of satisfaction spread through her. It helped dispel some of the vestiges of the dark dream that still clung to her mind. She stretched her aching muscles and slowly made her way to her feet.

"Are you all right, Sara?" Jacobar asked suddenly. He peered at her in the dim lamplight, concern on his plain face.

"Yes. I just didn't sleep well. Bad dreams."

"Then come to my house. I have no wife, but I can cook a fine breakfast," and without further persuasion, he led her to his cottage and made her a huge meal of corn cakes, sausages, eggs, and toast. Sara discovered she was ravenous and pleased Jacobar mightily by eating a large breakfast and complimenting him frequently on his cooking skills.

By the time she left for home with a basket of eggs for her fee, the sun had risen behind a ceiling of gray clouds, and Sara felt considerably better.

She hurried through the village-or tried to. Several people called her over for news about Jacobar's mare, and others waved and greeted her, pleased as always to see her.

Sara did not try to put them off. She liked the villagers. They had readily accepted her when she wandered into their village seven years ago, and after only a brief period of adjustment, they embraced her ability to treat animals. Life in Connersby was simple and hard, but it was also quiet and satisfying after her previous existence.

When Sara finally reached her own cottage, she closed the door behind her and took a deep breath. The morning had barely started and already she felt as if she had been working half the day. Her unmade bed looked very inviting, but there were too many other things to do. Instead of moving, though, Sara leaned back against the door and contemplated her house.

The cottage she called hers was a simple one of stone, timber, and thatch, with two rooms, a loft, and a single fireplace. The largest room served as her living space. She had a rope bed and a clothes chest on one side, a kitchen on the other, and a single table and chairs in the middle. The second room held her herbs and medical supplies and her loom. Many years ago, in another lifetime it seemed, she had been a weaver in a tiny farming community much like this one. Until a Dragon army officer named Kitiara erupted into her life and changed it forever.

Deep in thought, Sara walked to her clothes chest and opened it. She plunged her hand in amongst the clothes and linens and pulled out a sword scabbarded in leather and fleece. This morning, instead of closing the chest as usual, Sara knelt and began to dig through her clothes and belongings. At the very bottom of the chest, something hard wrapped in an old blanket met her fingers. She paused, her fingers still resting on the bundle. The Voice from her dreams came back to her, imploring, grief-stricken, frightened. She thought she knew the source of the voice, but how could it be possible she could hear it after all those years? And why now?