Anne Stuart - Hidden Honor

“She may stay,” Elizabeth agreed. “And you, my lady. You seem to be possessed of calm good sense, as well.”

The faint smile on the woman’s beautiful mouth was faintly sorrowful. “You’d be the first to say so, Lady Elizabeth.”

“I don’t think my mother would approve….” Thomas began, but Elizabeth interrupted him, taking secret pleasure in her ability to order him about.

“Your mother’s wishes in the matter have nothing to do with it. Between Berta and this lady we may just save your wife and child. But if we’re to have any chance of it, the rest of you need to leave here. Immediately!”

They scampered away like mice, some clearly relieved, some disappointed at missing the high drama. Thomas was the last to leave, and he stood in the open door, lingering.

Elizabeth went up to him, putting her hands on his arm and pushing him gently out the door. “I’ll do my best, Thomas,” she said. “Go and pray.”

“Save her, Bethy,” he whispered. “If it’s a choice between her and the babe, save her. I can’t live without her.”

Elizabeth didn’t blink. “We won’t have to make such a choice, Thomas. Go.” She closed the heavy door behind him, turning to survey the scene.

The room was bigger than it had appeared with all those people in it, but Margery lay pale and still in the bed, too weary to even cry out at the pain that was lashing her body.

“Open the window a bit, Berta,” Elizabeth ordered, stripping off her cloak and rolling up the sleeves of her gown. “We need fresh air in this place. If she’s cold we’ll layer more covers on her.”

She half expected the nurse to object, but Berta did her bidding without comment as Elizabeth approached the bed. “How long has she been like this?”

“In labor?” the well-dressed woman asked. “Two days. She stopped crying out this morning. I’m afraid the baby’s dead.”

Elizabeth put her hands on Margery’s distended belly, and felt the flutter of life within. “It’s not dead. I’ve seen worse than this and both mother and child survived.” Not many, but she wasn’t going to admit that. Her tiny army needed courage going into the battle.

“Then let us pray you’ll work your magic this time, as well,” the woman said.

“Not my magic. God’s,” Elizabeth said.

“That’s right, you’re on your way to becoming a nun,” the woman said in a cool voice. “I’m Dame Joanna. I belong to Thomas’s uncle Owen.”

“He married?” Elizabeth murmured in surprise. Owen of Wakebryght was a rough, lecherous man in his fifties who’d shown no inclination to marry in all his years.

“I’m his leman, Lady Elizabeth,” Joanna said calmly. “His whore. Would you rather I found someone else to help you?”

Elizabeth took a closer look at her. The dress was cut too close to her body, and jewels glittered on her hands and throat. She was well kept, very beautiful, with a distant look in her fine blue eyes that Elizabeth couldn’t quite read. And couldn’t waste the time trying.

“Take off your rings,” she said, stripping her own modest ones off her hands. “We won’t want them getting in the way of our work.” She half expected the woman to blanch, but Joanna simply stripped off the heavy rings as if they were tin and dumped them in the small bag tied to her waist.

“Tell me what to do,” she said, some of her distance vanishing. “I have a fondness for Lady Margery, and I’d as soon save her.”

Elizabeth looked down at the still, wretched figure. Margery had taken everything that should have been hers, but it hadn’t been her choice, it had been Thomas’s. And Elizabeth could have fought, but instead she’d simply run away, back to her father’s wrath.

She might be too tall, too clever, too tactless, and have hair like the Devil, Elizabeth thought, but she could save lives. She’d seen five stepmothers give up their lives bringing sons into the world, and she was determined to learn what she could to save those she could. And she would save this one, and the child within her, if she had to die trying.

It was a long night. Endless, it seemed, after the day Elizabeth had already endured. Margery emerged from her exhausted torpor to scream in unrelenting pain, and the three women at her side fought grimly.

“You’ll have to cut the baby free,” Berta said at one point, her eyes dark with desperation. “She’ll die, anyway, if you don’t, and this way you might save the baby. Some women survive such an ordeal.”

“Not many,” Elizabeth said. “I’m saving them both.”

“You said it was God’s will, not yours, my lady,” Berta admonished her.

“His will is that we fight for their lives and not give in,” Elizabeth snapped back. “If you have nothing more to offer you may leave.”

Berta subsided in silence. Joanna looked up at Elizabeth from across Margery’s thrashing body, and her expression was faintly amused. “God explained that to you, did He?” she said.

Elizabeth was too weary to watch her tongue. “I assume that God has the good sense to think as I do in these matters.”

She heard Berta’s indrawn breath of shock at such blasphemy, but Joanna only smiled. “We can only pray that that is so, my lady. The God I know is capricious and cruel. He would not think twice of destroying the only happy marriage I’ve ever seen.”

Not even a twinge, Elizabeth thought, marveling. It no longer mattered that Margery and Thomas were happy in their marriage. In truth, it made her only more determined that she shouldn’t lose this battle.

She almost thought she’d lost. It was dawn, the early light spearing into the room, and she was so weary she could barely move. The babe was coming, face down, feet first, and there was nothing she could do to turn it. The movements were getting weaker, Lady Margery had barely life left in her, and there was no choice but to try.

“Push, Margery,” Elizabeth ordered, but Margery simply shook her head, dazed with pain and exhaustion, not listening.

Joanna was holding tightly to her hands, Berta was at her feet, trying to help the baby, but the last of Margery’s energy had left her, and if she didn’t push there was no chance for either.

Elizabeth moved up to the top of the bed, bent down and whispered in Margery’s ear. “If you don’t deliver this babe and live I’ll take Thomas back and make his life a living hell. I’m a vengeful woman, and I’ll make him sorry he ever chose you.”

Margery’s eyes fluttered open to focus on Elizabeth’s determined face. In her exhausted state she believed her, and she summoned her last ounce of strength, rising up in the bed, gripping Joanna’s hands and pushing.

The scream that rent the air was awe-inspiring. Almost as much as the sound of a strong baby’s cry that followed. Lady Margery was delivered of a healthy baby boy.

Elizabeth gave the babe a swift glance. He kicked his tiny legs, as strong a baby as she’d ever seen, even after such a hard, long labor. God willing, Margery would survive in as good condition. There was no way to tell if the baby had torn her inside, beyond repair, or whether she’d survive in the same miraculous manner her child had. They could only hope.

Joanna was busy cleaning her up with a calm efficiency that belied her beauty, and Berta was cooing at her new charge as she washed the blood from him. Elizabeth turned back to look at the new mother, and saw a faint blush of color had begun to tinge her deathly pale face. There were tears flowing from her closed eyes, another good sign, and her lips were moving in silent prayer.

Elizabeth leaned closer, to make certain she wasn’t making her last confession or offering her soul up to God or some such nonsense, and her thick braid brushed against Lady Margery’s face.